“As rural people try and access resources they do so through engaging in relationships with other actors who are both present but more often than not usually absent from the day-to-day activities of rural people,” writes Anthony Bebbington on contemporary Latin American rural communities and their livelihood.1 This multiplicity of actors, all active in the rural landscape and all interacting with each other, was already introduced at the beginning of this book with the dispute between the Kondylis family and Lavra Monastery in which a variety of individuals, monks, imperial officials, local elites, and villagers were involved in its resolution.2