The Economic History of Byzantium From

a total of 107 very valuable pieces, plus “ten kerchiefs with images.”91 The caliph sent a comparable countergift.92

The cost of such presents is not easy to calculate. The same book discusses two gifts sent by Leo VI to the governor of Azerbaijan and Armenia: “Rumi garments of furfur (purple) brocade woven with gold,” each of which was worth 2,000 dinars (the dinar was of somewhat lesser weight than the nomisma); a girdle was decorated with 2,000 mithqals of gold “inlaid with enamel,” and cost 10,000 dinars. Obviously, in the case of the girdle, the decoration holds the secret of the value. But is 2,000 dinars a totally fictional order of magnitude for the value of a gold-and-purple garment? It is certainly higher than the figures we have for silks on the market, but these were, after all, imperial gifts.93 In any case, it is not so much the economic outlay that interests us here, since, if countergifts were important, the “balance of payments” of this gift-exchange cannot have been negative for Byzantium even in economic terms, let alone political ones.94 What is of greater interest is the question of the role of this noneconomic exchange in the broader economy; that is, how much of the production of the empire was “decommodified” by being in the realm of noneconomic exchange? In this period of political expansion, I think that the information we have does not suggest that gifts to foreigners, by their nature occasional, implicated much of the production of luxuries, especially silk cloth. On the other hand, internal gifts,95 to the church and above all to dignitaries, which are described in such detail by the Book of Ceremonies and Liutprand of Cremona, undoubtedly meant that a substantial part of the silk production of the imperial workshops did not enter the circuit of commercial exchange. Together with the prohibition of the export of purple silks, this surely meant that noneconomic

91A. Muthesius and D. Jacoby both say that the silks sent abroad (to the West?) were used, or of second quality. One should, however, take into account the fact that silks that had been worn by the emperor had an added political and ideological value.

92Cf. also the arrival of a Byzantine envoy at the court of the Fatimid caliph al-Mu’izz to bring the annual tribute for Calabria and negotiate a truce: “he brought with him many presents, vessels of gold and silver inlaid with jewels, embroidery, silk, nard and other precious articles of theirs.” A. Tibi, “Byzantine-Fatimid Relations in the Reign of Al-Mu’izz Li-Din Allah (R. 953–975 A.D.) as Reflected in Primary Arabic Sources,” Graeco-Arabica 4 (1991): 191.

93For the price of Byzantine silks on the Egyptian market, see A. Muthesius, “Essential Processes, Looms, and Technical Aspects of the Production of Silk Textiles,” EHB 166.

94Cf. also the Byzantine embassy to Baghdad in 917, which brought enormous “gifts”—involuntary ones, to be sure—for the ransom of 1,586 people. Even in this case, countergifts were considered de rigueur; they went to the ambassadors: Qaddu¯mı¯, Gifts, accounts 161–64. Vasiliev-Canard, Byzance et les Arabes, 2.2:169–71, 239–43: the Byzantine ambassadors received as a gift “veˆtements d’honneur”

and 50,000 dirhams each. There was an exchange of embassies, resulting in the ransom of 5,500 Muslims. The Muslim ambassadors received from the caliph a global sum of 170,000 coins “for the voyage.”

95 Among numerous other possible examples, see the gifts of Michael Rangabe to the church: 75 pounds of gold to the patriarch and 125 pounds to the clergy, as well as golden vessels studded with stones, and cloth of gold and purple, i.e., the same kind of items used for gifts to foreign dignitaries and rulers: Theophanes, 1:493–94. Constantine VII also, on the occasion of his Broumalia, made gifts of money, purple cloth, and aromatic woods: Theophanes Continuatus, 457. See also the gifts of Nikephoros II to Mount Athos, Noret, Vitae duae, A, para. 70, 71, 104; B, para. 22, 23, 34, 39.

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exchange played an important role. One must, nevertheless, remember that in the tenth century the emperor who went on campaign was advised to purchase in the marketplace (ejx ajgora'" ajpo` tou' fo´rou) silk cloth for gifts to noble foreigners—a sure mark of the commercialization of silk production.96

Economic Exchange

Silk Noneconomic exchange did not play a dominant role, even for silk. Alongside the noneconomic exchange there was trade, heavily controlled by the government, to be sure, but nevertheless solidly within the realm of economic exchange. Best-quality silk was among the items whose export outside the frontiers of the empire was forbidden: these kekolymena include wheat, iron, arms, wine, olive oil, salt, and gold. The production of best-quality purple silk outside the imperial workshops was also forbidden.97 The purchase and sale of silk cloth and garments were severely controlled, with separate guilds handling Syrian and non-Syrian trade.98 The distinction was strictly maintained between manufacturing silk cloth and buying or selling silk.99 The purchase of silk imported into Constantinople and the purchase of Syrian silks were carried out by the merchants of the appropriate guild (the prandiopratai and the metaxopra- tai—merchants in raw silk), acting in tandem, and in the form of a trade association, each member contributing what he could.100 The raw silk merchants could buy the raw silk bought from outside Constantinople, but did not themselves have the authority to travel outside the city to get it—possibly in order not to jeopardize the activities of the provincial merchants and landlords who were selling the silk. The guild structure of Constantinople and of the silk industry has already been discussed.101 We are here concerned only with the trade aspects.

In Constantinople, this is a regulated world, certainly in intent, unsurprisingly less so in practice: Liutprand of Cremona, in a statement that certainly smacks of bravado but is nevertheless possibly true, says that one could buy forbidden silks on the markets of western Europe (from the Venetians) easily enough.102 Besides, Leo VI had already

96Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Three Treatises on Imperial Military Expeditions, ed. J. F. Haldon (Vienna, 1990), 112.

97Das Eparchenbuch Leons des Weisen, ed. J. Koder (Vienna, 1991), 4.1, 4.8, 18.2, 8. 5. On silk, cf. Dagron, “Urban Economy,” 438–44.

98Koder, Eparchenbuch, 4 and 5, and cf. below, foreign trade, 723–25.

99Koder, Eparchenbuch, 6.14. Jewish merchants, who were engaged in long-distance trade between the Far East and western Europe, through the Byzantine Empire, are forbidden to buy raw silk in Constantinople, although they may sell it: ibid., 6.16; D. Jacoby, “Les juifs `a Byzance: Une communaute´ marginalise´e,” in Oi Periqwriakoi´ sto Buza´ ntio (Athens, 1993), 135–36.

100Koder, Eparchenbuch, 5.3, 6. 8. Cf. also ibid., 7.4, asserting that the katartarioi, those who process silk, should not buy it on their own but in association with the metaxopratai, basically so that the price will not rise or fall as a result of their actions.

101Ibid., 6. 5. See the contributions by Dagron, “Urban Economy,” and Muthesius, “Essential Processes.”

102Liutprand of Cremona, Legatio, in A. Bauer and P. Rau, Quellen zur Geschichte der sa¨chsischen Kaiserstadt (Darmstadt, 1977), 572–74.

allowed the sale of small pieces of purple (imperial, normally forbidden) silk to his own subjects, so that they could enjoy some of the luxury involved.103 This statement, although it may simply mean that the emperor gave official permission to something that was already happening, nevertheless underlines the political importance of certain types of silk. In any case, if one excludes for the moment the provincial manufacturing of silk,104 one must admit to a trade that took place in Constantinople and that was highly controlled. What was controlled, interestingly enough, was not the price of either the raw silk imports or the silk cloth. Silk cloth worth above 10 nomismata was supposed to be reported to the city eparch, undoubtedly so that it would not be sold to the wrong people—so we may take this figure as indicating a certain threshold above which silk becomes very valuable. But nothing regulated the price of garments or of raw silk imports; what was regulated was the mechanism of trade, that is, the collective bargaining that obliterates competition both between guild members and between different guilds. Thus it is stated that if an individual raw silk merchant had managed to buy silk from outsiders (i.e., those who bring it into Constantinople), he was supposed then to sell it to poorer members of the guild (presumably at their request); his commission, that is, his profit, was set at one ounce per nomisma, that is, one miliaresion, or 8.33%. So this was a controlled trade where prices were not set by the state, but the process of arriving at prices was governed by the state. As far as I can see, the answer to the crucial question of the mechanism through which the price of (nonpolitical) silk is set must be a controlled market mechanism—where a number of the conditions in which a market took place was established by the government, and where ultimately prices were determined between buyers and sellers with government control of the rate of profit on resale.

Such is the case with silk. What about other commodities? Grain is, of course, the other major commodity, which has some similarities and some differences with silk: grain is a staple, whereas silk is a luxury; but both are considered important by the state, one because of the political cost of having large urban populations (primarily that of Constantinople) starving or rioting if bread prices are high, and the other because of its prestige and its political as well as economic function.

Grain In the case of grain, there seems to be a complex relationship between economic and noneconomic distribution, which works in ways different from those affecting silk. For one thing, one must distinguish between the Constantinopolitan market and that of other cities and towns. Constantinople is a special case because it had by far the highest demand and could least afford bread riots. It is also the city where there was concentrated buying power, by the state and by individuals, and where one

103Les Novelles de Le´on VI le Sage, ed. P. Noailles and A. Dain (Paris, 1944), Nov. 80.

104See below, 722, on Danelis; there was also, in the second half of the 10th century, the production of textiles (silks) in Sparta: The Life of St. Nikon, ed. D. F. Sullivan (Brookline, Mass., 1987), 118–20. For the very considerable production of silk in Byzantine Italy, see A. Guillou, “La soie du kate´panat d’Italie,” TM 6 (1976): 69–84, reprinted in idem, Culture et socie´te´ en Italie byzantine, VIe–XIe s. (London, 1978), art. 12.

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might find some grain not subject to market forces. It is, finally, the city for which we have the most information. Certainly, as the population increased in the ninth and tenth centuries, the demand for grain also increased. Some grain was, probably, collected in the warehouses of monasteries or churches, and some must have been distributed to the poor as alms.105 A great deal of grain was kept in the imperial warehouses, from which it could be and was sold to the population, although the one mention we have of that operation is at a time of famine; and it is possible that great landowners who lived in Constantinople (and, respectively, in other urban centers) had their own production, and therefore that their own provisioning in grain was outside the market. There was also, however, grain trade. Mention of “wheat-bearing ships” is frequent,106 although the sources do not tell us whether the grain was tax grain, requisitioned or bought by the state, or bought and sold by merchants.

Surprisingly, perhaps, especially for those who see Byzantium as a completely controlled economy, the grain trade in this period does not seem to have been organized by the state, nor was the price of grain ostensibly regulated. Perhaps the demand was powerful enough to ensure that merchants (or others, selling both their own estate production and the production of others)107 would bring grain to the city; but that in itself presupposes a relatively active trade. There was a functioning market for grain in Constantinople, as can be seen by the fluctuations of the price of grain depending on weather and other factors affecting supply, and also by the fact that bakers were allowed to respond to the price of grain: not by changing the price on a loaf of bread, but rather by adjusting its weight.108 Such measures could accommodate only minor or temporary fluctuations in grain prices, however. So there was a market, but it was not an entirely self-regulating one. The state, individual emperors, highly placed individuals could and did all play a role in the availability of grain and the formation of prices.

105Cf. A. Harvey, Economic Expansion in the Byzantine Empire, 900–1200 (Cambridge, 1989), 206; M. Kaplan, “Maisons impe´riales,” Byzantion 61 (1991): 340–64. Despite all that has been written on the subject, the question of the grain supply of Constantinople and its distribution remains an open one. See, for example, two articles in Mango and Dagron, Constantinople and Its Hinterland, that reach quite different conclusions. J. Durliat (“L’approvisionnement de Constantinople,” 19–34) thinks that both supply and distribution were controlled by the state, while P. Magdalino (“The Grain Supply of Constantinople, 9th–12th Centuries,” 35–48) thinks that 60% of the grain of Constantinople went through commercial channels. The difference may be due in part to the fact that one scholar sees the 10th century through the looking glass of the 6th, and the other through that of the 11th–12th centuries. On the provisioning of cities in this period and through the 12th century, see Dagron, “Urban Economy,” 445–53ff.

106See Theophanes Continuatus, 55, during the rebellion of Thomas the Slav. The large ship of Empress Theodora, wife of Theophilos, is considered by some to have been carrying grain: see Kaplan,

Les hommes et la terre, 469.

107See the case of Lavra: Kaplan, Les hommes et la terre, 302–4. The monks of Lavra were not, of course, professional traders, and they functioned under better conditions than traders, since some of their ships were tax exempt up to a point.

108Koder, Eparchenbuch, 18.1 and 4. When the price of grain rises or falls, the bakers go to the authorities, who decide on the weight of the loaf. The price of the bread is not regulated by the state, but the profit of the baker is (1 keration to the gold coin over the price of the grain and expenses, i.e., a pure profit of 4%).

Imperial grain, presumably produced on imperial estates and stockpiled in Constantinople, could be brought into service to alleviate famine, as happened during the reign of Basil I, who sold imperial grain to the population at normal prices, although the supply had been temporarily cut off.109 In the period just before and during the reign of Nikephoros Phokas, state intervention in the grain supply was particularly active. The parakoimomenos Joseph Bringas, trying to rouse the people against Nikephoros Phokas, is said to have ordered the bakers not to make or sell bread.110 A little earlier, in 960, the same Joseph Bringas, faced with a dearth of grain that had tripled its price, “sent agents to East and West, to ‘drive out’ the collectors of the synone and the commercial ships, and to stop the merchants from stockpiling.”111 The price then fell to 7–8 modioi of wheat per nomisma. Nikephoros Phokas is accused of stockpiling grain in the imperial warehouses and selling it exceedingly dearly at a time of famine; but the anecdote of the old soldier who complained that he could now carry on his own shoulders the grain bought for 2 nomismata, while in times past he needed two mules to carry what he had bought with one gold coin, suggests a more general price rise.112 Wheat could also be commandeered: a Trapezuntine source, a collection of the miracles of St. Eugenios, claims that, during the civil war with Bardas Phokas, Basil II ordered grain to be sent to the capital from all of the Black Sea towns, up to Trebizond.113 Thus the Constantinopolitan grain market was, in that period, influenced by government action.

As for what went on in the provinces—how grain was marketed—that is fairly unclear. The case of Thessalonike in the early tenth century suggests the obvious fact that the city depended for its provisioning to a considerable extent on the surrounding countryside.114 Some of this trade may well have been what has been called “tied” trade, that is, the products may have been marketed by landowners, lay and ecclesiastical, through agents. The large estates that proliferated in the latter part of this period undoubtedly had a surplus that was thrown on the market. A few indications suggest that at least part of the surplus was marketed by the producers or their agents. The monks of Lavra had tax-exempt ships, on which they engaged in trade of their own production and resale of the production of others.115 In the early part of the period, Patriarch Methodios (843–847) complained that monks frequented the marketplace,

109Ioannis Scylitzae Synopsis historiarum, ed. H. Thurn (Berlin–New York, 1973), 277–78 (hereafter Skylitzes).

110De cerimoniis aulae byzantinae, ed. J. J. Reiske, 2 vols. (Bonn, 1929–30), 1:96 (1:435–36) (hereafter De cer.); cf. Skylitzes, 257.

111Theophanes Continuatus, 479: “ejxela´ sai sunwna` " kai´ ejmporeutika` ploi'a”. I would happily emend sunwna` " to sitw´ na". Symeon Magistros, in Theophanes Continuatus, 759. Cf. other measures by Romanos I: Skylitzes, 225, and Theophanes Continuatus, 417–18, 431.

112Skylitzes, 273–74, 277–78. Cf. Ioannis Zonaras Epitome historiarum, ed. M. L. Dindorf and M. Bu¨tt- ner-Wobst, 6 vols. (Leipzig, 1968–97), 4:81–83, 87ff; 504–8, 513ff.

113A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Fontes Historiae Imperii Trapezuntini (St. Petersburg, 1897), 81–82.

114Ioannis Cameniataes De excidio Thessalonicensi, ed. I. Bekker (Bonn, 1838), 494–96, 562 (hereafter Kaminiates).

115Kaplan, Les hommes et la terre, 302–4.

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buying and selling the products of their lands.116 Liutprand of Cremona, in one of his sour moods, noted that the bishops “in all of Greece” (he actually was on the island of Leukas) themselves bought and sold (the products of their estates): he was trying to make a point about the lack of stature and the inappropriate behavior of these bishops, but if his comments mean anything they perhaps mean that the secular church of the provinces as well as monasteries were involved in the direct sale of agricultural products.117

The case of the widow Danelis is well known, but may be exceptional in the sense that she seems to have controlled so much territory that few other Byzantine aristocrats of the mid-ninth century could compete with her.118 On her estate she produced not only agricultural products. She must have had a veritable textile industry, making carpets as well as linen and silk cloth, of fine quality and, if we are to judge from her presents to Basil I, in considerable quantity.119 The question is, of course, what happened to all of this. She cannot have simply accumulated it; she must have sold it. But did she sell it through her own agents, in a form of tied trade, or did she sell it to intermediaries, that is, true merchants, who then resold it on the market? The answer to that question is not clear, nor is the extent of direct marketing of grain and other agricultural products by estate owners. It is, however, quite clear that only part of the production was marketed directly and that the presence of professional merchants was ubiquitous. In Thessalonike, Kameniates speaks of merchants in connection with the provisioning of the city.

Other Items of Exchange The other commodities that were traded, in Constantinople and elsewhere, are numerous; they include oil, wine, salt fish, meat, vegetables, other alimentary products, salt, timber, and wax.120 Ceramics, linen, and woolen cloth were also items of trade. The sale of such commodities does not seem to have been regulated, that is, it must have functioned according to market laws, although perhaps with

116 I. Doens and C. Hannick, “Das Periorismos-Dekret des Patriarchen Methodios I. gegen die

¨

Studiten Naukratios und Athanasios,” JOB 22 (1973): 98. I owe this reference to A. Kazhdan.

117Legatio, chap. 63, p. 584.

118The argument has been made many times: see Kazhdan, “One More Agrarian History of Byzantium,” BSl 55 (1994): 82; Theophanes Continuatus, 318–20; cf. Skylitzes, 161. One wonders, however, if she really was as exceptional as all that. The properties of the Maleinoi, for example, just about forty years after Danelis’ visit to Constantinople (which had taken place in 880), were immense. What happened to their production?

119She brought to Basil I 100 pieces of sendes (sido´nia), 300 pieces of very thin linen cloth, 100 pieces of wool/linen blend, and she eventually sent large and beautiful rugs to cover the floor of the Nea Ekklesia. She also gave Basil 100 skilled female textile workers. On the silk, cf. Jacoby, “Silk Trade,” 458–59.

120The sale of a large quantity of salt by the bishop of Helenopolis to a church, in Nicaea or Constantinople, is attested by a letter of Ignatios the Deacon. See Kazhdan, “Ignatios the Deacon’s Letters,” 198–99 (ep. 13). On vegetables, see J. Koder, “Fresh Vegetables for the Capital,” in Mango and Dagron, Constantinople and Its Hinterland (as above, note 34), 49–56, and on fish, G. Dagron, “Poissons, peˆcheurs et poissoniers de Constantinople,” in ibid., 57–73. On wine and oil in the Peloponnese, see M. Kordoses, “To´ empo´rio sth´ Buzantinh´ Lakwni´a (Q ai.–1204),” Praktika´ tou' A Topikou' Sunedri´ou Lakwnikw'n Meletw'n(Athens, 1983), 108–10.

a state-imposed rate of profit, at least in Constantinople. Slaves continued to be an item of trade well into the eleventh century.121 Luxury items such as silks, perfumes, and spices were important.

Foreign Trade International trade was practiced not only in Constantinople, which was, in that period and until the late twelfth century, an important entrepoˆt of the eastern luxury trade, but also in the other cities that functioned as centers of interregional and international trade.122 The importation of merchandise into and the activity of foreign merchants in Constantinople were strictly controlled, as was the travel of some merchants (for example, the raw silk merchants) outside the city to buy the merchandise.123 Foreign trade in general was rather closely controlled, certainly in intent, to a considerable degree also in practice. The places of entry of merchandise were controlled. The commodities to be exported were controlled to some extent: the kekolymena could not be exported, and Leo VI forbade trade with Syria and Egypt.124 Byzantine merchants, however, did trade with the enemy, except in times of crisis. Indeed, the Byzantine government, in the person of its generals on campaign, specifically encouraged merchants to travel into Muslim territories to collect intelligence.125 The reference is, of course, to frontier areas such as Cilicia, Antioch, and the region of Aleppo. Less well known is the routine trade in necessities that took place along the eastern frontiers. The Taktika of Nikephoros Ouranos speaks of Byzantines, great and small, who “covet profit” (ajgapw'nte" ta` ke´rdh), and who sent to besieged Syrian fortresses much grain, sheep, and other victuals.126 The export of timber to the Muslims was forbidden, in order to impede their shipbuilding industry, a prohibition that the Venetians flouted, to their economic advantage. The Byzantines occasionally took issue with this, and in 971 they burned three Venetian ships loaded with wood, which were about to sail off to Mahdiyya and Tripoli.127 As for the export of forbidden silks, that too seems to have been occurring toward the end of the tenth century. In a sense, the easing of

121Saints’ lives of the 9th and 10th centuries frequently mention slaves, often as war captives. See also the many slaves of Danelis: Theophanes Continuatus, 318–20. For the 11th century, see the vita of St. Lazaros of Mount Galesion, AASS, Nov. 3: chaps. 8–9. On the slave trade in that period, see the classic work by C. Verlinden, L’esclavage dans l’Europe me´die´vale, vol. 2, Italie: Colonies italiennes du Levant, Levant latin. Empire byzantin (Bruges, 1977), and “La traite des esclaves: Un grand commerce international au Xe sie`cle,” in Etudes des civilisations me´die´vales, IXe–XIIe sie`cles: Me´langes offert `a EdmondRene´ Labande . . . (Poitiers, 1975), 721–30; cf. Patlagean, “Byzance et les marche´s,” 596–98, 615–66. On trade in Constantinople, see Dagron, “Urban Economy,” passim.

122See below, 726–28.

123Koder, Eparchenbuch, 6.12.

124Novel 63; De re Strategica, 42.7, ed. Ko¨chly-Ru¨stow, 190; G. Dagron and H. Miha˘escu, Le traite´ sur le guerilla (Paris, 1986), chap. 7, commentary on p. 249 and n. 40. J.-A. de Foucault, “Douze chapitres ine´dits de la Tactique de N. Ouranos,” TM 5 (1973): 296–99.

125Similar information is given by Ibn Hawqal, who says that Byzantine merchants were spying even in the interior of the Muslim territories; he claims that they made little profit from trade, but did much harm with their spying: Vasiliev and Canard, Byzance et les Arabs, 2.2:416.

126De Foucault, “Douze chapitres,” 297, 299.

127Tibi, “Byzantine-Fatimid Relations,” 96.

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the prohibitions was developing even at the time the Book of the Eparch was issued. For, although this text explicitly forbids the sale of such cloth to foreigners or to anyone who might then resell it to a foreigner, after Leo VI relaxed the prohibition on the sale of small pieces of forbidden cloth to the citizens of Constantinople it could not have taken very long for private merchants to engage in the sale of such cloth to the West.

Nevertheless, foreign trade was highly controlled, at least into Constantinople itself and at least in the intent of the state.128 It was regulated by treaties, such as the treaties with the Rus or with the Arabs. In the case of the Russians, what was controlled was the Byzantine exports, at least of important commodities such as silk. In 907 the Byzantines gave—or confirmed from an earlier treaty—to the inhabitants of a number of Russian towns, some grouped around Kiev, the right to enter Constantinople from a single gate, with an official escort, without arms and in groups of fewer than fifty men at a time; they were allowed to trade without paying any duty. In 944 these clauses were completed: the Russians were to live near St. Mamas, but not to winter there; they were not to export silk above 50 nomismata each, and if they bought silk, they were to have it sealed by an imperial official; both in 907 and 944, the emperor provided sustenance to traders and ambassadors. Merchants should have letters of accreditation. The treaty of 944 is the most interesting, but none of them tell us what the Russians brought. Arab sources and Constantine VII mention furs, honey, and slaves.129 In general, the activities of the foreign merchants (and Byzantine merchants from outside the city) in Constantinople, their place of residence, and the merchants with whom they were in contact, were controlled and regulated.

In the border ports of entry, the situation may have been different. The Byzantine treaty with Aleppo, in 969–970, at a time, to be sure, when Aleppo had a special relationship with Byzantium, regulated only the duties for the importation of Byzantine merchandise into Aleppo (and from there, one assumes, into the Syrian market).130 Interestingly, the imperial officials were to collect the duties on merchandise of high value that might also involve “forbidden” merchandise: gold, silver, brocade, raw silk, precious stones, jewels, pearls, fine silk cloth (sundus). The other imports, bulky or of lesser value, were to be taxed by the representatives of the emir; this included ordinary textiles, linen, silk cloth of different colors (buzyun), animals, and other merchandise. The issue was, I suspect, less one of the size of the revenues and more a matter of political control over sensitive commodities. This can be taken as a general statement for state control over foreign trade: political concerns, that is, the control of strategic commodities (silk cloth among them), was a paramount concern. Control of foreign trade was a prerogative of the government; it was exercised by decisions regarding the

128On the distinction between what obtained in Constantinople and what obtained in the provinces, see Oikonomides, “Le marchand byzantin,” and idem, “The Economic Region of Constantinople: From Directed Economy to Free Economy, and the Role of the Italians,” in Europa medievale e mondo bizantino (as above, note 66), 221–38.

129I. Sorlin, “Les traite´s de Byzance avec la Russie au Xe sie`cle,” Cahiers du monde russe et sovie´tique 3 (1961): 330–31, 346–50, 458, 448–49, 457, 475.

130M. Canard, Histoire de la dynastie des H’amdanides de Jazira et de Syrie (Algiers 1951), 1:831–36, clause 20.

location of ports of entry, by decisions on how the movement of foreign merchants into Constantinople was to take place, by the levying of the import duties and the control of sensitive commodities. It did not extend to matters such as price and only sometimes affected the quantity of merchandise.

As for the items of foreign trade, the import items have already been discussed. The treaty with Aleppo gives an inkling of the items exported by the Byzantines, which certainly included (nonforbidden) silks, other textiles, jewelry, and bulk commodities such as animals. Textiles must have been by far the most important items of export. Byzantine silks were certainly imported into Egypt, as the Geniza documents show, and their price was relatively high.131 An Arab treatise mentions (along with silk, gold, silver, and red-leather utensils), pure gold coins, horses, locks, lyres, experts in hydraulic engineering, agronomists, marble workers, slaves, and eunuchs.132 Silks, whether from Byzantium or reexported from the Muslim Near East, appear also in Bulgaria and the West.133

Trade Networks

We can distinguish various types of trade networks. Constantinople functioned as a local, regional, and interregional trade center. The local trade that reached the city consisted primarily of alimentary products—grain, fish, and cattle—from Asia Minor and Thrace. Regional trade brought in the products of an extended hinterland, including Bulgaria and the entire western Black Sea coast; Bulgarian and Russian merchants brought wax, honey, furs, and linen to Constantinople and exported luxury items. Interregional trade included the entire empire as well as international trade: from the murex of the Peloponnese to the linen cloth of the Pontos to the pork of Paphlagonia to the spices and silk cloth of the eastern trade, which came to Constantinople from Syria through Seleukia or, in the case of spices, through Trebizond.134 The longer Mediterranean sea route is also mentioned in the ninth and tenth centuries by Arab sources: the route linking Peluse (al-Farama, in Egypt) to Constantinople and Tripoli to Constantinople, and a coastal route linking the shores of Syria and Asia Minor with Constantinople.135

Regional trade networks begin to emerge with some clarity. The case of Thessalonike is by far the best documented, after Constantinople. Its immediate hinterland provided it with grain, wine, fish, and meat.136 But it was also a focus of the regional trade of Macedonia. This must be the meaning of Kaminiates’ statement that since the time of the Christianization of the Bulgarians “there was no war anywhere, peace ruled in the surrounding areas, there was abundance of goods from agriculture and wealth

135 T. Lewicki, “Les voies maritimes de la Me´diterrane´e dans le Haut Moyen Age d’apre`s les sources arabes,” in La navigazione mediterranea nell’ alto medioevo (as above, note 3), 1:450–53.

136 Kaminiates, 490ff.

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from trade.”137 But there are some indications of interregional networks as well, where Thessalonike is the center of trade coming from the south, that is, from Greece, and, for a while, from Bulgaria. The Serbian trade cannot have been important in this period, but nevertheless the De administrando imperio shows that the route was open to Belgrade, and that there were at least gift exchanges in the early tenth century.138 However, it was really at the time of Basil II, and connected not only with his conquests but also with the Christianization of Hungary in the year 1000, that the land routes into central Europe through Belgrade opened up and that Thessalonike developed into an important outlet for that trade.139

As for trade with Bulgaria, there was an effort, in the late ninth century (893), to divert some of it from Constantinople into Thessalonike. The effort was spearheaded by two merchants from Greece proper, “men who loved profit,” acting with the agreement, and therefore the high patronage, of Stylianos Zaoutzes. The merchants were also given the right to collect the customs duties levied on the Bulgarian traders, and it was the increase on these duties that led to the rebellion of Tsar Symeon.140 But the Bulgarian trade with Thessalonike, coming down the Nestos-Strymon-Axios Rivers, seems to have increased ever since the peace with the Bulgarians in 815; indications from the seals of kommerkiarioi, of the second half of the ninth century, attest to this importance. The new customs officials of Thessalonike had jurisdiction over Thessaly, Kephalonia, the theme of Thessalonike, and the west of Greece, a sign of the role of the city as a factor of economic integration of these regions.141

Thessalonike seems to have profited greatly from the opening of the hinterland in the course of the ninth century, but also from sea trade, for Kaminiates insists on the importance of the port of Thessalonike and mentions grain as well as merchandise coming in by sea, from Thessaly and Greece, perhaps, and possibly also from the Arab lands. In what may be a rhetorical flourish, he talks of the rich agricultural hinterland, which feeds the city well, but also says that the land and the sea complement each other, for what the land cannot provide, the sea does. He talks of travel by land, along the Via Egnatia, through which merchants pass. He speaks of a permanent market, full of both native and foreign merchants; from trade the inhabitants acquired gold, silver, and silk cloth as abundant as wool was elsewhere. He also speaks of the city’s own manufacture, glass objects for example. When the Arabs captured it in 904, they did not even bother with woolen cloth or vessels of copper and iron, so rich was the rest of the booty.142 This state of commercial prosperity was interrupted by the Bulgarian wars of the tenth century, that is, for about one hundred years, until the Balkan conquests of Basil II, which opened up the entire peninsula to trading activity.

Other trade centers are also evident in the sources. In the West, Venice was already,

137Kaminiates, 499–500, 496.

138DAI, chap. 42.1.

139Ferluga, “Mercati e mercanti,” 485–86.

140Theophanes Continuatus, 357; Skylitzes, 175–76.

141N. Oikonomides, “Le kommerkion d’Abydos, Thessalonique et le commerce bulgare au IXe sie`cle,” in Hommes et richesses (as above, note 1), 2:241–48.

142Kaminiates, 491–94, 500, 561, 562, 567–69, 578–80.