National and popular structure of the population

In the countryside, the majority of the population were local Greeks. In the city, thw majority were also Greeks, but one could also find a large number of European (Spanish, French, Italian, German and others) inhabitants: merchants, bankers, ship-owners, artisans, soldiers. “Isolated” in the eastern side of the city, lived about 500 Jews, mostly workers, merchants, craftsmen and doctors. There were also some Armenians and occasional groups of gypsies. There was no muslim community since these (Turks, Egyptians etc.) lived in Rhodos only as slaves.

Ideological groups

Inside this conglomerate of races and nations, there was a consequent social and ideological “stratification”. So, the Knights and the other West-europeans represented the Frankish ideology and scholastic philosophy as expressed by Catholicism.

The Greek-orthodox ideology of Rhodians stemmed from Greek tradition and the Orthodox faith, since until that time the main occupations of the local population had been agriculture and stock-raising and therefore their ideology appeared “hostile” against that of the Knights. This resulted in occasional fights, often bloody, mainly on religious affairs.

As the years passed, an important part of the Greeks, mainly of the urban class, found the new “western” atmosphere a chance to adapt to this novus ordo seclorum. This resulted, as also elsewhere in Greece, in the creation of a new, mixed ideology: the “franco-hellenic”.