page_title: Kythira
section_title: Medieval and modern
hierarchical_section_title: Kythira / History / Medieval and modern
caption_attribution_description: English: View on Hora, Island of Kythira
context_page_description: Kythira is an island in Greece lying opposite the south-eastern tip of the Peloponnese peninsula. It is traditionally listed as one of the seven main Ionian Islands, although it is distant from the main group. Administratively, it belongs to the Islands regional unit, which is part of the Attica region, despite its distance from the Saronic Islands, around which the rest of Attica is centered.
  The island is strategically located between the Greek mainland and Crete, and from ancient times until the mid 19th century was a crossroads of merchants, sailors, and conquerors. As such, it has had a long and varied history and has been influenced by many civilisations and cultures. This is reflected in its architecture, as well as the traditions and customs, influenced by centuries of coexistence of the Greek, and Venetian cultures.
context_section_description: Kythira is not mentioned in the literary sources for centuries after its conversion; in the period of Byzantine weakness at the end of the seventh century, it might have been exposed to attacks from both the Slavic tribes who raided the mainland and from Arab pirates from the sea. Archaeological evidence suggests the island was abandoned about 700 AD.
  When Saint Theodore of Cythera led a resettlement after the Byzantine reconquest of Crete in 962, he found the island occupied only by wandering bands of hunters. He established a great monastery at Paliochora; a town grew up around it, largely populated from Laconia.
  When the Byzantine Empire was divided among the conquerors of the Fourth Crusade, the Republic of Venice took her share, three eighths of the whole, as the Greek islands, Kythira among them. She established a coast patrol on Kythira and Antikythera to protect her trade route to Constantinople; Kythira was one of the islands Venice continued to hold despite the Greek reconquest of Constantinople and the Turkish presence all over the Near East. During the Venetian domination the island was known as Cerigo.
  Kythirans still talk about the destruction and looting of Paliochora by Barbarossa; it has become an intrinsic part of the Kytherian folklore. One can easily accept the stories of locals by noticing the number of monasteries embedded in the rocky hillsides to avoid destruction by the pirates.
  Barbary pirates ranged across the Mediterranean waters, raiding ships, coasts and islands, taking booty and slaves for the Barbary slave trade. Kythira was at the mercy of Barbary pirates due to its strategic location in the Mediterrean. In order to intercept merchant vessels, islands along the trade routes were of course more interesting for pirates. In the 17th century the small islands like Sapientza (Kalamatas) south of Messinia (district in south-western part of the Peloponnese), Cergio (Kythira) south of the south-eastern tip of the Peloponnese, and along the coast of Asia minor, the then deserted islands of Fourni southwest of Samos, and the island of Psara, west of Chios, all functioned as pirates nests.
  When Napoleon put an end to the Venetian Republic in 1797, Kythira was among the islands incorporated in that most distant départment of France, called Mer-Égée. Kythira shared a common destiny with the other Ionian islands during the turbulent Napoleonic era, and is still regarded as one of them; it was counted as one of the Cyclades in antiquity.
  In 1799, the Ionian islands became the Septinsular Republic, nominally under Ottoman suzerainty, but in practice dominated by Russia. In 1807, France took them back only to have the British seize the islands in 1809 and set up one of their first protectorates, the United States of the Ionian Islands. The British held them for nearly half a century; under the British, they were governed by a High Commissioner who could act with both legislative and executive powers. After a long history of turbulence, never settled even by such eminent Commissioners as William Ewart Gladstone for three weeks in the winter of 1859, the British discussion whether they were a waste of money or a vital Imperial possession ended with the cession of  the Ionian Islands, including Kythira, to the new King George I of Greece, who was brother-in-law to the Prince of Wales. Under the British, Kythira was known as Carigo or Cerigo, as was its chief town, the name it had under the Venetian Republic.
  The chief town of the island, Kythira (or Chora, "village") has the Historical Archives of Kythira, the second largest in the Ionian islands, after Corfu.
caption: View of Kythira Castle
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