Article contents
The middle Byzantine economy: growth or stagnation?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 January 2016
Extract
In recent years there have been significant advances in our understanding of the Byzantine rural economy. While work on such problems as the legal status of the peasantry, the fiscal procedures by which the state extracted revenues from the peasantry and the nature of the fiscal concessions which the state made to landowners remains central to our understanding of the Byzantine social structure, greater attention has been paid recently to the history of settlements, agricultural production and the influence of the climate and environment on the rural economy. Recent work has been greatly facilitated by two developments, the publication of more material from the archives of Mount Athos and the upsurge in intensive surveys and other archaeological work which is already providing us with information about regions for which our documentary material is either inadequate or non-existant. This paper will not attempt a comprehensive discussion of all recent work on the subject, but will focus on some of the most significant problems affecting our understanding of the Byzantine rural economy.
- Type
- Critical Study
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1995
References
1. Bryer, A.A.M., ‘Byzantine Agricultural Implements: the Evidence of Medieval Illustrations of Hesiod’s Works and Days’, ABSA 81 (1986)45–80 Google Scholar; Kaplan, M., Les hommes et la terre à Byzance du Vie au Xle siècle. Propriété et exploitation du sol (Paris 1992) 46f CrossRefGoogle Scholar.; Harvey, A., Economie Expansion in the Byzantine Empire 900-1200 (Cambridge 1990) 122–25 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an assessment of the Geoponika, see White, K.D., Roman Farming (London 1970) 32, 45–46 Google Scholar.
2. Kaplan, , Les hommes, 68-69, 85–87 Google Scholar.
3. Watson, A.M., Agricultural Innovation in the Early Islamic World. The Diffusion of Crops and Farming Techniques 700-1100 (Cambridge 1983) 103-11, 140 Google Scholar. See also Ashtor, E., A Social and Economic History of the Near East in the Middle Ages (London 1976) 45-48, 171 Google Scholar. For Byzantine irrigation projects, see Harvey, , Economic Expansion, 134–35 Google Scholar.
4. Harvey, , Economic Expansion, 122–23 Google Scholar. For a discussion of the social and economic reasons for the continued use of less efficient types of water-mill, ibid., 128-33.
5. Kaplan, , Les hommes, 544–49 Google Scholar.
6. Ibid., 500-20. One problem with Kaplan’s tables is his interpretation of the demosiarios as aparoikos of the state, ibid., 264-68. For the argument that the demosiarios was simply a peasant who owed the demosion (land-tax) to the state, see most recently Harvey, A., ‘Peasant Categories in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries’, BMGS 14 (1990) 250–56 Google Scholar. If this latter view is correct, then Kaplan’s calculations will need revision.
7. For this range of obligations, see Harvey, , Economic Expansion, 102–9 Google Scholar.
8. Ibid., 147, 158-59. Laiou-Thomadakis, A.E., Peasant Society in the Late Byzantine Empire. A Social and Demographic Study (Princeton 1977) 120–27 Google Scholar.
9. Dunn, A., ‘The Exploitation and Control of Woodland and Scrubland in the Byzantine World’, BMGS 16 (1992) 254–57 Google Scholar.
10. Harvey, , Economic Expansion, 64 Google Scholar; for instances where the paroikoi of landowners encroached on other properties, ibid. 62.
11. Kaplan, , Les hommes, 304-6, 493, 565–66 Google Scholar. See also Zivojinovic, M., ‘The Trade of Mount Athos Monasteries’, ZRV1 29-30 (1991) 101–15 Google Scholar.
12. Kaplan, , Les hommes, 86–87 Google Scholar.
13. Hendy, M.F., Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy c.300-1450 (Cambridge 1985) 570–90 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Byzantium, 1081-1204: an Economic Reappraisal’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series 20 (1970) 31-52; ‘“Byzantium, 1081-1204’: The Economy Revisited, Twenty Years On’, in The Economy, Fiscal Administration and Coinage of Byzantium (Northampton 1989) 1-48; A.P. Kazhdan, Epstein, A.W., Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (California 1985) 25–39 Google Scholar.
14. Lemerle, P., The Agrarian History of Byzantium from the Origins to the Twelfth Century (Galway 1979) 48-51, 188 Google Scholar; Kaplan, , Les hommes, 529–30 Google Scholar.
15. Haldon, J.F., Byzantium in the Seventh Century. The Transformation of a Culture (Cambridge 1990) 143–46 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
16. Kaplan, , Les hommes, 529–30 Google Scholar.
17. Runnels, C., Andel, T. van, ‘The Evolution of Settlement in the Southern Argolid, Greece: An Economic Explanation’, Hesperia 56 (1987) 304–9 Google Scholar. See also Bintliff, J.L., Snodgrass, A.M., ‘The Cambridge/Bradford Boeotian Expedition: The First Four Years’, Journal of Field Archaeology, 12 (1985) 123–61 Google Scholar; Wright, J.C., Cherry, J.F. et al, ‘The Nemea Valley Archaeological Project: A Preliminary Report’, Hesperia, 59 (1990) 617 Google Scholar; Blackman, D., Branagan, K., ‘An Archaeological Survey of the Lower Catchment of the Ayiofarango Valley’, ABSA 72 (1977) 13–84 Google Scholar.
18. Malamut, E., Les îles de l’empire byzantin (VlIIe-XIIe siècles) (Paris 1988) 128–40 Google Scholar; Tsougarakis, D., Byzantine Crete from the 5th Century to the Venetian Conquest (Athens 1988) 132–54 Google Scholar.
19. Kaplan, , Les hommes, 531–40 Google Scholar. Morris, R., ‘The Powerful and the Poor in Tenth-Century Byzantium: Law and Reality’, Past and Present 73 (1976) 27 Google Scholar.
20. Lefort, J., Oikonomides, N., Papachryssanthou, D., Metreveli, H., Actes d’lviron I: Des origines au milieu du Xle siècle (Archives de l’Athos 14) (Paris 1985) no. 10 Google Scholar.
21. Angold, M., ‘The Shaping of the Medieval Byzantine “City”’, BF 10 (1985) 1–37 Google Scholar; Harvey, , Economic Expansion, 198–243 Google Scholar; Foss, C., Byzantine and Turkish Sardis (Harvard, 1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, Ephesus after Antiquity. A Late Antique, Byzantine and Turkish City (Cambridge 1979); idem, ‘Archaeology and the “Twenty Cities” of Byzantine Asia’, American Journal of Archaeology, 81 (1977) 469-86. For evidence of peasant prosperity in western Asia Minor until the thirteenth century, see M. Angold, A Byzantine Government in Exile. Government and Society under the Laskarids of Nicaea (1204-61) (Oxford 1975) 103, 131.
22. Hendy, , Studies, 104 Google ScholarPubMed.
23. Lefort, J., ‘Population et peuplement en Macédoine orientale IXe-XVe siècle’, in Kravari, V., Lefort, J., Morrisson, C., eds., Hommes et richesses dans l’Empire byzantin II VHIe-XVe siècle (Paris 1991) 63–82 Google Scholar; idem, ‘Rural Economy and Social Relations in the Countryside’, DOP 47 (1993) 101-13; Harvey, , Economie Expansion, 47f Google Scholar.
24. In addition to the references cited above in n.17, see Dunn, , ‘The Exploitation and Control of Woodland’, 242–53 Google Scholar.
25. For a recent survey of Byzantine monetary history, see Morrisson, C., ‘Monnaie et finances dans l’empire byzantin, Xe-XIVe siècle’, in Kravari, Lefort, Morrisson, eds., Hommes et richesses, 291–315 Google Scholar.
26. Haldon, J.F., ‘Military Administration and Bureaucracy: State Demands and Private Interests’, BF 19 (1993) 52–54 Google Scholar; idem. ‘Military Service, Military Lands, and the Status of Soldiers: Current Problems and Interpretations’, DOP Al (1993) 63; Dunn, , ‘The Exploitation and Control of Woodland’, 266–72 Google Scholar.
27. Harvey, , Economic Expansion, 113 Google Scholar.
28. Jacoby, D., “The Venetian Presence in the Latin Empire of Constantinople (1204-1261): the Challenge of Feudalism and the Byzantine Inheritance’, JOB 43 (1993) 175 Google Scholar.
29. See Angold, , ‘The Shaping of the Medieval Byzantine “City”’, 1-37 and Harvey, Economic Expansion, 214–24 Google Scholar for further references.
30. Hendy, , Studies, 157 Google Scholar; Morrisson, , ‘Monnaie et finances’, 297–98 Google Scholar.
31. Although the upsurge in commerce in the eleventh and telfth centuries is generally accepted, there is disagreement about the importance of trade in the economy and of merchants in Byzantine society. For contrasting recent work, see Hendy, , Studies, 570–602 Google ScholarPubMed; idem. ‘Byzantium 1081-1204: The Economy Revisited’, 26; P. Magdalino, The Empire of Manuel 1 Komnenos 1143-1180 (Cambridge 1993) 142-50. Although Magdalino produces a good deal of evidence relating to commerce and lays great emphasis on the activities of western merchants, he does not directly confront Hendy’s discussion of the size of the western investment in Byzantium. Magdalino’s argument that the Theban silk industry was largely a response to Italian demand, ibid. 144-45, has been very persuasively challenged by Jacoby, D., ‘Silk in Western Byzantium Before the Fourth Crusade’, BZ 84/85 (1991-92) 452–500 Google Scholar, who argues that the shift from providing raw materials to manufacturing finished products occurred in Thebes, Corinth and other smaller centres during the later eleventh century at the initiative of the local landowning elite, largely in response to a growing internal market which resulted from a general economic expansion. He also stresses the advantage which Thebes had over Constantinople in access to raw silk and purple dye.
32. Haldon, , ‘Military Administration’, 57–59 Google Scholar.
33. Magdalino, P., The Empire of Manuel I. Komnenos 1143-1180, 164–70 Google Scholar.
34. Harvey, , Economic Expansion, 68 Google Scholar.
35. Harvey, A., ‘Financial Crisis and the Rural Economy’, in Mullett, M., Smythe, D., eds., Alexios I Komnenos (Belfast 1995) 167–84 Google Scholar; idem, ‘The Land and Taxation in the Reign of Alexios I Komnenos: the Evidence of Theophylakt of Ochrid’, REB 51 (1993) 139-54.
- 2
- Cited by