The Economic History of Byzantium From

here is not so much the conclusions, as the concept of “tied trade,” which has relevance to Byzantium as it does to other societies.

This type of circulation of goods, from producer to consumer, or the circulation of commodities within the estates of the same great landlord, has been used to explain puzzling phenomena of the movement of goods in the late Roman Empire. For example, the large quantity of pottery from Africa that has been found in Italy and southern Gaul, as well as the presence of garum and oil from Africa in Gaul and Spain, perfectly capable of producing their own, has been explained as the result of internal exchange between estates, whether these belonged to the emperor or to other great landlords.15 That idea, which makes social exchange and noneconomic profit a principal motive factor in the economy of exchange, is less persuasive than Chris Wickham’s alternative explanation of the rise and decline of the African amphora. His interpretation ingeniously connects state enterprise and private profit. He argues that the ships involved in the transportation of the annona reduced the marginal costs of transport for other commodities not controlled by the state, such as oil and pottery. Such products were pushed into interregional trade as a by-product of the needs of the state and gave Africa a commercial advantage; hence the rise of the African amphora. Its decline would be due to the Vandal conquest of Africa, which pushed Rome toward alternative grain-supplying areas, while at the same time lower demand for grain caused marginal costs to rise.16 In other words, the annona and other state requisitions permitted profitable private transactions, with economies effected precisely through the organization of state transports. This interpretation brings us back to economic profit as an important factor in the late Roman economy of exchange.

Market exchange, or market trade, is the type of exchange most familiar to modern societies, and it is the one that modern economic analysis was in the first instance developed to investigate and interpret. The market is the place where buyers and sellers meet and prices are formed through impersonal mechanisms: the lowest priced supply and the highest priced demand. Historians who believe in the importance of the market, and of commerce, in ancient, medieval, or early modern societies (i.e., the “modernists”) willingly acknowledge the fact that there may be price regulation by nonmarket authorities, without, however, accepting that this eliminates the effects of supply and demand and of competition.17 They also recognize the role of the state,

15Whittaker, “Late Roman Trade,” 176–78.

16C. Wickham, “Marx, Sherlock Holmes and Late Roman Commerce,” in Land and Power (London, 1994), 92ff. Cf. Carandini, “Il mondo,” 15, 18.

17F. Braudel, Civilisation mate´rielle, ´economie et capitalisme, XVe–XVIIIe sie`cle, vol. 2, Les jeux de l’e´change

(Paris, 1979), 194–95, quoted by Carandini, “Il mondo,” 11–13; for what follows, see also Wickham, “Marx.” It is a rare economist these days who believes in a “perfect” market, where the prices are formed purely and solely by untrammeled economic processes, without the intervention of the state or international agencies or monopolists. Once again, then, the question of degree becomes important, as do historical complexities that have always defied pure theory. Some scholars would argue that political interference in demand, costs, and prices destroys the self-regulating market. See, e.g., W. Neale, “The Market in Theory and History,” in Polanyi, Arensberg, and Pearson, Trade and Market, 357ff.

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whether in price fixing or in taking a portion of production outside the market, as well as the role of autoconsumption, which may affect a lesser or greater part of the economy. At the same time, unlike the “primitivists,” they believe that a market economy, and commerce with it, existed since antiquity and that commercial exchange is the most important aspect of exchange, even if it forms a relatively small part of what today we would call the gross national product.18 That is to say, in my view, that commerce, although it may be a relatively thin layer of the economy, is dynamic enough to influence other developments, namely, productivity, production, and urbanization.

Thus an eminent school of students of the late Roman economy would explain the diffusion of products throughout the Mediterranean, especially during the period from the third century to the first half of the fifth century, not by exchange between estates of the same landlord, and not by the role of the state as tax collector and redistributor of goods, but rather by commercialization of production and the existence of a trade system in the Mediterranean and to some degree in the hinterland of the Roman Empire. The prevalence of products and pottery from North Africa in this period is explained by modernists in the same way. It is, in fact, argued that only market relationships can explain the diffusion of commodities in the countryside and the cities and the trade in mass-produced items or in commodities for mass consumption.19

The few examples from the economic history of the Roman Empire, used above, have been chosen to illustrate the very real differences between the modernists who believe in the functioning of a market economy in preindustrial societies and the primitivists who do not. Given the fact that virtually all scholars agree that there are segments of the economy that escape market mechanisms, the differences nevertheless are not simply a matter of degree (whether that segment is 90% or 70% or whatever of the economy), but rather a matter of the very nature of the economy. The first question is whether there exists a sector of the economy that is affected primarily by market mechanisms and economic incentives as opposed to political, social, or administrative concerns. The subsequent question is the extent and significance of such a sector. The third question is whether such a sector can play an integrating role in the economy and the society.

Similar issues arise regarding the existence and role of merchants, since different kinds of exchange call for different personnel, if one may put it that way. A merchant may be defined as a professional middleman, who makes his living primarily from trade. Markets can certainly exist without merchants of any kind. In exchange between states, or within aristocratic estates, professionals may exist whose job is to carry out this trade, but they need not be middlemen; they can be agents, “factores” in Polanyi’s terminology, and their rewards can indeed lie outside market profit, being closer to

18See Giardina, Societa` romana, esp. the articles by Carandini “Il Mondo,” and C. Panella, “Per lo studio dei contesti e delle merci tardoantiche.” Unfortunately, R. W. Goldsmith (“An Estimate of the Size and Structure of the National Product of the Early Roman Empire,” Review of Income and Wealth 18 [1984]: 263–88) does not take a position on the question of the percentage of commercial exchange in the national product.

19See Giardina, Societa` romana, esp. Carandini, “Il mondo,” 13ff.

salaries. Where the exchange is based on barter, the role of the middleman is limited, since such exchanges are often, though not always, carried out between producers. The merchant as middleman can exist in circumstances where trade is highly regulated, where his activities are strictly supervised and the rate of his profit mandated. The merchant-entrepreneur is linked to commercial exchange, that is, to an exchange economy based on supply and demand, and where his profits are made through the mechanism of buying cheap and selling dear. To that extent, the question regarding the commercialization of an economy is also a question of the existence of merchants and the conditions under which they function.

The Byzantine Economy of Exchange

This general discussion is meant as an introduction to some of the historiographical and conceptual problems regarding the Byzantine economy of exchange. The relevance lies not only in the self-evident fact that the Byzantine economy was, indeed, a preindustrial one, which by definition invites the large question of whether one may speak of a truly commercialized sector. Put differently, this is the question of how much importance one may assign to self-sufficiency. Besides this trite statement, there are the realities and specificities of the Byzantine state and its social and economic structures. On the one hand, there is the reality of the state that, much more and for a longer time than in medieval Europe (although with different effect at different times), collected revenues through taxes and customs dues and “mobilized” some of them to collective, that is, political purpose. It maintained an army, which drew salaries and (depending on the period) obtained most or some of its sustenance through the cultivation of land tied to military service. It also maintained an expensive bureaucracy. The state had control of coinage, a factor of major importance in an economy that certainly knew credit, but equally certainly not to a degree parallel to that of, for example, late thirteenthor fourteenth-century Italy; whether coinage was issued to respond to economic necessities or for essentially political reasons has been a matter of debate. The state also legislated interest rates, although again it may be argued that at certain times (in the 11th century and after) these fluctuated according to demand for capital or for consumption credit. The state requisitioned services for the army and in return gave (at least in theory) protection for its subjects to carry out their productive activities. While the state did not regulate most prices, it did legislate the rate of profit, at least in Constantinople of the ninth to tenth centuries, and had a whole set of prohibitions on the trade of certain items pertinent to its security or prestige. The state, finally, had its own domains, the production of which was arguably (but debatably) outside the market. There is thus an important element of state intervention, which is inescapable and must be taken into account in any discussion of the economy of exchange.

Similarly, there were large estates in the period through the sixth century and again after the ninth; we have spectacular cases of estate production, for example, the production of carpets and fine textiles on the estates of the ninth-century potentate, the

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widow Danelis.20 The question must arise whether estate production was for the market or for internal consumption and redistribution. If the market was involved at any stage, how were the products marketed—through agents or middlemen?

On the other hand, there are phenomena that argue for the existence of a commercial sector and a market economy in the Byzantine Empire. There is, after all, an urban life, dim in the period from the seventh through the ninth century, more active later. There is evidence of transactions in cash, continuously since at least the ninth century.21 Money was always issued, although the number of coins, as well as their circulation, fluctuated. Lending at interest remained legal except for a brief period of time, and merchants, in the true sense of middlemen, are visible throughout the period, complete with trade associations, markets, and fairs.22 Besides, since the land tax was paid in cash after 769,23 small-scale, local exchanges must necessarily be assumed. At the other end of the spectrum, trade treaties testify to the existence of long-distance, foreign trade of some kind. Some of it was closely controlled by the state, but not all of it was, nor were prices controlled.

In grappling with these issues, historians of the Byzantine economy have given divergent answers, broadly divisible into two categories: those who ascribe a preponderant role to nonmarket factors, and those who stress the existence of markets, merchants, and, generally speaking, economic factors in exchange or in the segment of the economy connected with exchange. While it is not pertinent to rehearse here all of the debates, a few salient examples may be given; it should be kept in mind, in what follows, that there are significant differences and subtleties in the argumentation of scholars who share a similar viewpoint, but these necessarily are suppressed here, so that the general lines may emerge.

According to one school of thought, the Byzantine economy was for a very long period dominated by factors that can be termed noneconomic, in the sense that the primary agent was the state, which collected the surplus in the form of taxes and redistributed it to the army and the civil administration. In this schema, trade was very limited.24 The cities are considered to have been centers of consumption rather than of production, the economy was marked by a very low degree of monetization, and money fulfilled the needs of the state, being distributed in a “noneconomic” pattern.25

20Theophanes Continuatus, ed. I. Bekker (Bonn, 1838), 318–19.

21N. Oikonomides, “Se´ poio´ baqmo´ h´ tan ekcrhmatisme´ nh h buzantinh´ oikonomi´a…” Rodwnia´ (Rethymnon, 1994): 363–70.

22For the middle Byzantine period, see A. E. Laiou, “Ha¨ndler und Kaufleute auf dem Jahrmarkt,” in Fest und Alltag in Byzanz, ed. G. Prinzing and D. Simon (Munich, 1990), 53–70; and eadem, “God and Mammon: Credit, Trade, Profit, and the Canonists,” in Byzantium in the Twelfth Century, ed. N. Oikonomides (Athens, 1991), 261–300.

23See N. Oikonomides, “The Role of the Byzantine State in the Economy,” EHB 981.

24An early proponent of that view was A. H. M. Jones (The Later Roman Empire, 284–602: A Social and Administrative Survey, 2 vols. [Norman, Okla., 1964]), who gave a very low estimate of the yield of duties on trade. Ibid., 1:464–65, 2:872. For a critique of the basis of his estimates, see C. Morrisson, “Monnaie et finance dans l’Empire byzantin, Xe, XIVe sie`cle,” in Hommes et richesses dans l’Empire byzantin, 2 vols. (Paris, 1989–91), 2:297–98 and addendum to 297.

25Among the most important proponents of these views are M. F. Hendy (see, e.g., his Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy c. 300–1450 [Cambridge, 1985], 4ff and passim; “From Antiquity to the

In this perspective, which accepts politics as the integrative factor and gives it a role of virtual monopoly, the Byzantine economy, specifically the sector connected with exchange, is considered to be different in kind from modern economies, so that the analytical tools that have been developed to study the workings of the latter may not and must not be applied to the former.

Other historians see things differently and ascribe to trade, commerce, the market, and the activities of merchants considerable importance, even in the period of profound military and political troubles and economic decline, that is, the seventh to eighth centuries. In the period of expansion (10th–12th centuries) it has been suggested that the nonagricultural sector produced at least 15–20% of the monetized national product, perhaps more. I think it may be argued that in the twelfth century this proportion was greater, perhaps over 40%.26 This view accommodates a commercialized sector of the economy, a relatively high ratio of monetization (ca. 46% in the areas and periods of greatest monetization)27 and an economic use of money, all, of course, varying in aspect and importance during the long history of the Byzantine Empire. Most importantly, scholars who espouse this view of the economy of exchange accept that basic economic factors present in modern economies—supply and demand, market mechanisms, the profit motive, even Fisher’s equation—are indeed useful in understanding the articulation of the Byzantine economy of exchange, that is, that the difference between it and modern commercial economies was one of degree rather than of kind.28 The argument, it should be stressed, is that economic laws apply specifically to the monetized sectors of the economy.

Given such differences of opinion, it is a matter of some importance to distinguish between noneconomic exchange and commercial exchange, and not to confuse the indicators of one for evidence of the other. That is not in the least meant to negate the

Middle Ages: Economic and Monetary Aspects of the Transition,” in De la Antigu¨edad al medievo (Siglos IV–VIII), III Congreso de Estudios Medievales [Leo´n, 1991], 323–60, and “Economy and State in Late Rome and Early Byzantium: An Introduction,” in The Economy, Fiscal Administration and Coinage of Byzantium [Northampton, 1989], art. 1), and J. Haldon (see, e.g., his Byzantium in the Seventh Century [Cambridge, 1990], 117ff). Recently, the discussion has been presented with explicit connection to the theories of Polanyi, in particular the distinction he drew between long-distance, foreign trade and domestic trade, the former being administered trade, carried out through the institution of port of trade, and chronologically preceding the latter: Patlagean, “Byzance et les marche´s du grand commerce.”

26Morrisson, “Monnaie et finances,” 297–98. Cf. A. E. Laiou, “Exchange and Trade, Seventh– Twelfth Centuries,” EHB 745–46.

27See the simple national accounting model in A. E. Laiou, “The Byzantine Economy: An Overview,” EHB 1154–55.

28In this category one may include R. S. Lopez (“The Role of Trade in the Economic Readjustment of Byzantium in the Seventh Century,” DOP 13 [1959]: 67–85); N. Oikonomides (“Silk Trade and Production in Byzantium from the Sixth to the Ninth Century: The Seals of Kommerkiarioi,” DOP 40 [1986]: 33–53; idem, “Le marchand byzantin des provinces [IXe–XIe s.], in Mercati e mercanti [as above, note 1], 633–60); Laiou (“Ha¨ndler und Kaufleute” and “Byzantium and the Commercial Revolution,” in Europa medievale e mondo bizantino, ed. G. Arnaldi and G. Cavallo [Rome, 1995]); and Morrisson (“Monnaie et finances,” and “La de´valuation de la monnaie byzantin au XIe sie`cle: Essai d’interpre´tation,” art. 9 in Monnaie et finances `a Byzance: Analyses, techniques [Aldershot, 1994]), among others. It remains true here also that significant differences in detail exist in the work of scholars who share this general viewpoint.

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possibility of the existence of market mechanisms in the Byzantine economy; it does point up the necessity of clear definitions and differentiations. This aspect of the history of medieval economies generally was powerfully brought forth in an article by Philip Grierson published in 1959.29 In this work, Grierson cautioned generally and negatively against confusing trade and distribution, especially against treating the evidence of the distribution of luxury goods and money as necessarily evidence of commercial activity. He argued specifically and positively that goods and money change hands not only through commerce but also through other means, such as “theft” (e.g., plunder) and gifts, whether voluntary or coerced (e.g., for the ransom of captives). This distinction remains basic and is certainly relevant to the Byzantine Empire. The sums involved, whether for political payments (e.g., to achieve peace) or for gifts, were sometimes large enough to have economic significance. On the other side, on the side of revenues, war booty could be enormous and, again, have economic significance.30

Political payments, ransom, and gifts occurred throughout the Byzantine period. For example, in 768, Constantine V sent 2,500 silk garments to the Slavs to ransom prisoners taken on the Greek islands, while some years later his daughter-in-law, Empress Irene, paid Harun al-Rashid almost 140,000 gold coins a year for seven years.31 In the eleventh century, the Rus’ bargained with Constantine IX, offering peace against a price of 3 pounds of gold per head for their entire army.32 Gifts and coerced gifts are sometimes hard to distinguish. When Krum offered peace against “large sums of gold and garments, and a certain quantity of choice maidens,” no one could confuse this with a gift.33 On the other hand, the relatively large number of gifts exchanged between the Byzantine emperors and Muslim rulers bears every trait of the ritualized gift and countergift envisioned by Mauss, while at the same time it clearly serves to buy or preserve peace, and is therefore to be considered as a free gift only with that qualification in mind.34 The philosophy behind gift and countergift, which was certainly political rather than economic, is stated by the Arabic source, describing alMamun’s reaction to a gift sent him by Emperor Theophilos: “Send him a gift a hundred times as much as his, so that he recognizes the glory of Islam and the grace which

29Grierson, “Commerce in the Dark Ages.”

30With regard to political payments and gifts, Grierson gives some figures, primarily from the early Byzantine period, among which one may note the annual tribute to the Huns, from ca. 430 to the accession of Marcian in 450, which added up to 350 pounds of gold in 430, doubled in 435, a lump sum payment of 6,000 lbs. in 443, and a subsequent annual payment of 2,100 pounds. He also mentions Justinian’s total payments to a Persian ambassador (1,000 lbs. of gold), and Constantine VII’s gift of more than 1,000,000 silver miliaresia to Princess Olga. Ransom payments could be equally large. On gifts and political payments, see also the more complete list given by Hendy, Studies, 264–72. Cf. Laiou, “Exchange and Trade.”

31W. T. Treadgold, The Byzantine State Finances in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries (New York, 1982),

84:part of the first installment was paid in goats’ wool.

32Ioannis Scylitzae, Synopsis historiarum, ed. H. Thurn (Berlin–New York, 1973), 431.

33F. Iadevaia, Scriptor incertus (Messina, 1987), 50–51.

34On these gift exchanges, see Ghada al-H. ijja¯wı¯ al-Qaddu¯mı¯, Book of Gifts and Rarities: Kita¯b alHada¯ya¯ wa al-Tuhaf (Cambridge, Mass., 1996), paras. 31, 73–74, 82, and the analysis by O. Grabar, “The Shared Culture of Objects,” in Byzantine Court Culture from 829 to 1204, ed. H. Maguire (Washington, D.C., 1997), 115–29.

Allah bestowed on us through it.” This was done, and then al-Mamun asked: “What do they value most?” They answered: “Musk and sable.” Al-Mamun said, “Send them additionally 200 ratl of musk and 200 sable furs.” Similarly, when Romanos Lekapenos sent to the caliph an embassy to discuss peace and ransom of captives, he also sent a large number of gifts consisting primarily of bejeweled gold and silver vessels, cups and caskets, and many varieties of silk cloth. The Commander of the Faithful responded that “he has provided the envoy with what has poured out of your provisions, so as to safeguard you from shyness and to prove yourself to be above opportunism.” Every important element of Mauss’ typology of gift exchange is here: gift and countergift, the obligation to give, take, and respond, the honor accruing to both gift giver and gift taker—truly a noneconomic exchange.

It was not, however, without economic implications. Some gifts were very valuable indeed. Constantine IX, credited with surpassing generosity by this source (and, less approvingly, also by Byzantine ones), sent the caliph in 1046 (on the occasion of a treaty) 216,000 gold coins and 300,000 dinars (somewhat lighter than the Byzantine nomisma). This is a total of 2.23 tons of gold. The gifts sent by Romanos Lekapenos were said to be “enormous.” Quite apart from the intrinsic value of the gifts, one may argue that some of the production of high-quality silk cloth was meant for state needs, for an exchange that had important political, but very limited commercial value. Such differentiations must certainly be kept in mind when the economy of exchange is discussed. It must also be kept in mind that gifts or tribute are of interest in this connection only when they consist of goods, for example, silks, perfumes, jewelry, which thus circulate without going through the market. Gifts or tribute paid in cash may indeed be of economic importance because of their size,35 but do not affect the way goods circulate.

It must also be kept in mind that chronology is important. Noncommercial exchange undoubtedly played a different role in different periods, because of both political and economic factors. As an example, one may adduce an event that took place in 1192. Venetian ships, carrying Byzantine ambassadors to Saladin and Egyptian ambassadors to Byzantium, as well as Saladin’s gifts to Isaac II and the goods of some Byzantine merchants, were attacked by Genoese and Pisan pirates. At least two relevant points may be raised here: first, merchants took advantage of political missions, thus reducing their costs (a phenomenon that may not be limited to this period); and second, although undoubtedly Isaac II sent gifts to Saladin, what reached Cairo was a combination of imperial gifts, the wares of merchants, and possibly wares belonging to the emperor’s brother, the large sum of money belonging to whom cannot have been gifts but must have come from the sale of items belonging to him. Thus gift exchange could also facilitate trade, in a process where noneconomic exchange opened the way to economic exchange.36

Barter, I would argue, played an analogous role. Generally speaking, the exchange

35See, for example, the gifts of 4,320,000 nomismata said to have been made by Theophilos to private individuals: Theophanes Continuatus, 255–56; Treadgold, Finances, 83–86.

36On this, see Laiou, “Exchange and Trade,” 750, and the discussion in A. E. Laiou, “Byzantine Trade with Christians and Muslims and the Crusades,” in The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World, ed. A. E. Laiou and R. P. Mottahedeh (Washington, D.C., 2001).

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of goods (or services) for goods (or services) can take place in many different circumstances and play different economic roles, depending on the society and on the needs such exchange fulfills. Barter can flourish in rather sophisticated exchange systems, such as the trade between western Europe and the Levant in the late Middle Ages, not to mention the role of similar economic arrangements in modern societies.37 In premodern societies, it may signal an undeveloped system of exchange, or an undeveloped segment of the system of economic exchange. Although barter can certainly be an economic exchange, it lies between market and nonmarket exchange. It can involve negotiation, so that some aspects of the market are present. It also involves an implied standard of value, though this may not always be freely arrived at. Polanyi spoke of equivalencies as being necessary for trade in kind, and such equivalencies may be created by an authority outside the marketplace. It seems to me that barter is a cumbersome way of doing business, which is most successful either in small, local exchanges, or in controlled exchanges, where important goods might be exchanged, but at prices or equivalencies already set through administrative means. It is, in any case, a type of exchange that admits markets, at least those of a somewhat controlled kind; it also admits the function of the middleman, the merchant, but not easily. Much has been made of the importance of barter in the Byzantine Empire, but I think that its role was often of a transitional nature.

Kosmas Indikopleustes, the first merchant-writer known to us, gives an interesting account of pure barter. He is the sole Byzantine source to speak of silent barter, as practiced, in his report, by the peoples of “Sasou.”38 The region, he says, is rich in gold. Every two years, the king of the Axumites, through an intermediary, sends his people there to exchange goods (oxen, salt, and iron) for gold (e”neken pragmatei´a" crusi´ou). When they arrive at what is presumably a traditional place, they stop, they make a fenced enclosure with thorny bushes, and inside it they display the carcasses of oxen, as well as salt and iron. The natives come and place one or two small pieces of gold on whichever of these goods they desire, and then they retire. If the owner of the ox, salt, and so on, is satisfied, he takes the gold, and in turn the native takes the object he bid for. If he is not satisfied, he leaves the gold where it is, and the native then either adds to it until the sale is made or goes away—no bargain. “Such,” says the author, “is the nature of their exchange, for they speak different languages and, above all, they lack interpreters.”

This passage has some similarities with the much better known one of Herodotos, where the Carthaginians trade in the following way at a place in Libya: they unload their cargo, lay it down on the beach, and go aboard their ships and light a fire. The natives come, inspect the cargo, put down some gold, and retire. If the Carthaginians

37J. Day, “A Note on Monetary Mechanisms, East and West,” EHB 968. The intricacies of modern economic arrangements are far beyond the scope of this discussion (and of my competence), and will not be taken into account in the generalizations that follow.

38W. Wolska-Conus, Cosmas Indicopleuste`s, Topographie chre´tienne (Paris, 1968), 1:361–63 (book II, 51); cf. n. 51 on p. 360: Sasou is situated southwest of Axum, in the valley of the Blue Nile and in the zone that extends south.

think the gold is “worth their merchandise,” they take it and go away. Otherwise, they return to their ships and wait until the gold matches the (perceived) value of the cargo.39

Herodotos’ silent trade has been seen as the origin of prehistoric coastal Mediterranean emporia,40 but that is of no interest to us here. What is of interest is the narration of Kosmas (to the extent that it is independent of Herodotos) for the following reasons. First, we have here a case of relatively pure barter, carried out, to be sure, not between producers and consumers, but, rather, between the agents of producers (of oxen, salt, etc.) and the producers or agents of the producers of gold. Thus barter does involve agents (merchants in the case of Herodotos) and not only direct producers. Second, we see the process of price formation, which in Kosmas is, surely, an economic process: “if [the owner of the ox] likes [the amount of gold] he takes the gold,” and the exchange proceeds. Price is formed in the marketplace, through the satisfaction of perceived value. But, although the process as described overcomes the linguistic barrier, it is cumbersome, good only for limited exchanges. This I consider to be true of all barter, unless the political power intervenes and fixes equivalencies; in tenth-century Constantinople, however, the equivalencies appear to have been fixed by Byzantine merchants, when they traded with Bulgarians.41 Finally, it is to be noted that Kosmas reports this as a curiosity, to be explained away. Barter in a relatively pure form is, to him, very strange. This is not to say that barter did not exist in the sixth century, for it did, in local markets and fairs; but to a merchant it seemed peculiar.

Indeed, barter in Byzantium was the first stage in transactions that eventually became monetized. So it was with the monasteries of Mount Athos, which started exchanging their products by barter and soon began selling them for cash.42 So also it was with the Bulgarians, who bartered their linen and honey in Constantinople in the tenth century, and paid their taxes in kind, until they were forced into a money economy and money transactions. So it may have been with the Pechenegs, although we see only the first stage of the process, by which they bartered their services to the inhabitants of Kherson in exchange for luxury products, in an equivalency that was arrived at through bargaining.43 It is, then, important, to see the economy of exchange as a dynamic process, in which trade can arise out of, or in the wake of, noneconomic exchange, and limited transactions such as those involved in barter can develop into monetized market dealings.44

39Herodotos 4.196. The differences between the two passages, discussed by Giardina, Societa` romana, 525–26, do not seem substantive to me, with the exception of the last one, which is that Herodotos passes moral judgment (“Herein neither party . . . defrauds the other”), while Kosmas makes a practical statement about the difficulties of communication.

40Polanyi, “Ports of Trade,” 33–34.

41Laiou, “Exchange and Trade,” 733.

42Cf. Vita Athanasii, 38.9–30, in Vitae duae antiquae Sancti Athanasii Athonitae, ed. J. Noret (Turnhout, 1982), and Actes du Proˆtaton, ed. D. Papachryssanthou (Paris, 1975), nos. 7, 8.

43De Administrando Imperio, ed. G. Moravesik and R. J. H. Jenkins (London–Washington, D.C., 1962–67), chap. 6.

44The reverse, of course, can also happen.

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This dynamic process can best be understood by the use of tools from a variety of workshops. The contribution of the science of economics to economic history, including the history of exchange, is of paramount importance. The tools of economic analysis are essential for understanding specific sectors of the economy, but they must be used sensitively. The work of anthropologists and sociologists, and of historians after them, has alerted us to the fact that there is noneconomic exchange; that exchange and commerce are not coterminous; that the economic function of local markets and long-distance markets may be very different; that not all exchange is carried out by merchants. The historian who analyses the Byzantine economy of exchange should examine the sources with an eye to specificities and, above all, to differences among chronological periods. Both noneconomic and economic exchange existed at all times in Byzantium, as they do in all societies, including our own. The task should be to identify the phenomena that belong to either sphere, to examine their relative weight, to the extent possible, and then to try to determine the dominant trends, which means to identify the factors of articulation at specific historical moments.