Agios Thomas, Boeotia

Agios Thomas is a village in Boeotia, Greece. Municipal Department of Oinofyta municipality. This is at Viotia county, near the capital of Greece: Athens.

Name
The name: Mavromati is mentioned in the book of Colonel William Martin Leake: Travels in Northern Greece, during his visit to the region in 1806. Also the prefect of Thebes, N. Karoris at his report: 'Ekthesis incident, raising the month of April during the 1830' on the conflict with the Turks to lands on 19 June 1833, records the name or Liatani or Mavromati village of Livadia. (Liatani was under the jurisdiction of the province Livadias). Source: ''Unpublished Documents relating to the final deliberation of the land in eastern Greece. Elias Papathanassopoulos''.
 * Liatani was the previous place-name. Without being documented, it is said that the first resident of the district was a wealth land owner, named Liatis.
 * A 2nd approach is that the name came from the arbanetic expression: " leaita nie" (kill someone), which was used by the soldiers at the revolution of 1821.
 * The period that Hellas was under Ottoman occupation, arbanitic liapedes went out the district, the village took the name: Liatani.(Liapedes-Liapani-Liatani).
 * Mavromati is another name, that George Syrmas(90 years old) in 1967 insist on, due to plethora of olive trees, around the village. Source: Folklore Collection of Athens University. (Eftihea Syrma 1967).

Byzantine Era
By the 8th century AD the Eastern Roman Empire, based at Constantinople, had reconquered the Greek countryside from the Slavs, including Boeotia, and this ushered in a period of steady growth of rural population and at the major regional towns (such as Thebes in Central Boeotia). We can match this picture from Byzantine sources with the results of our rural survey around Tanagra  a whole series of small villages or hamlets was established at regular intervals of every few kilometres, datable by characteristic Middle Byzantine ceramics found on their surface to foundations in the 10th-11th centuries AD. These continue to flourish into the next period of Crusader feudal conquest of our region (13th-14th century). The advantageous location of ancient Tanagra City explains the fact that one such village is founded only a kilometre from the ancient town, by the rural church still standing from that village of Agios Thomas. The church is Middle Byzantine of 12th century AD date, whilst the associated village which we discovered from widespread surface pottery in the fields left of the church, was occupied from the 11th-14th centuries AD (A. Vionis, Leiden). All the Byzantine villages disappear in the 14th century, and this can be related to the return of the Bubonic Plague and to the devastating wars between the Franks, the Byzantines and the Turks which left most of the southern Mainland of Greece cleared of population, which either retreated to upland villages in each region or was carried off into slavery.

Ottoman Era
The first village tax records for Boeotia, in 1466, shortly after the Ottoman Turkish conquest of Greece, show vividly this absence of Greek settlements in the Lowlands and a small number of enlarged refuge villages in the hills of Boeotia. Eastern Boeotia with the large plains and plateaux around Tanagra is especially empty. To recolonise this landscape between 1400-1500 AD the final Frankish Dukes of Athens and then the Ottoman rulers invited large numbers of new settlers, from Albania, with the specific direction to locate new villages near abandoned ones from the previous settlement system. This is the origin of our modern villages at Tanagra (former Bratsi) and at Kleidi (Kleideti). Adter some 100 years of Ottoman rule, the peaceful conditions of the Pax Ottomanic saw population rise for both Greek and Albanian villages, as well as new village foundations. The Ottoman village tax record for 1570 shows this well. Modern Ayios Thomas has a more complex history; it is rather recent, and was founded by villagers moving out of the mountains between Boeotia and Attica at the end of the Turkish era and after the War of Greek Independence, in the early 19th century AD. Before Thomas though a village existed at its own site, called Kelmendi or Liatani, and further south a small linked pair of hamlets called Kinos or Ginosati, now deserted.

Liatani in Ottoman Occupation Era
As all Greek villages, Liatani fought against occupiers on the side of Captain Athanasios Skourtaniotis. He was born in 1793 at Skourta village (Dervenohoria). Dervenohoria enjoyed little autonomy and retained a small body of men combatants led by Skourtaniotis. He managed many defeats against the Ottomans of the area. His real name was Gatsis, but known as Captain Thanases. Officer Ioannis Kiokes from Liatani fought on the side of Skourtnaniotis. He honored by medal of cross and generosity from our country. He participated also, at the battle of Arahova, under chief George Karaiskakis. He died in Liatani. He was granted the rank of 2nd lieutenant by Royal Decree of 20 May 1838, as a reward for the struggle of independence and his offer during the plague in Poros island. Ioannis Koubitsas is another officer of Skourtaniotis from Liatani. He was renowned for wisdom and courage. He served under the command of Gardikiotis at Jamalas Papakostas's insurgency in 1848, at Palaiokastro of Fthiotitha and killed in a clash between government troops and rebels.