TRADE IN BYZANTIUM EDITORS SYMPOSIUM HONORARY CHAIRMAN

Paul Magdalino Ömer M. Koç

PAPERS FROM THE THIRD Nevra Necipoğlu
INTERNATIONAL SEVGİ GÖNÜL with the assistance of SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD
BYZANTINE STUDIES SYMPOSIUM Ivana Jevtić Prof. Dr. Engin Akyürek
ISTANBUL, 24-27 JUNE, 2013 Dr. Vera Bulgurlu
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© KOÇ UNIVERSITY’S RESEARCH CENTER Burak Şuşut, FİKA Prof. Dr. Sema Doğan
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Beste Miray Doğan, FİKA Prof. Dr. Nevra Necipoğlu

TRADE
HISTORY | ART HISTORY | Prof. Dr. Ayla Ödekan
ARCHAEOLOGY | PUBLICATION COORDINATION Prof. Dr. Scott Redford
BYZANTINE STUDIES Buket Coşkuner
Çiçek Öztek EXECUTIVE BOARD

IN BYZANTIUM
Koç University Suna Kıraç Library Prof. Dr. Nevra Necipoğlu
Cataloging-in-Publication Data PROJECT ASSISTANTS Prof. Dr. Ayla Ödekan
International Sevgi Gönül Byzantine Alican Kutlay Prof. Dr. Engin Akyürek
Studies Symposium (3rd : 2013 : İstanbul, M. Kemal Baran Assoc. Prof. Koray Durak
Turkey) Dr. Buket Coşkuner
Trade in Byzantium : papers from the PRODUCTION COORDINATION Hülya Bilgi
third international Sevgi Gönül Byzantine
PAPERS
E. Esra Satıcı Melih Fereli
Studies Symposium, İstanbul 24-27 June,
Seçil Kınay
2013 / edited by Paul Magdalino, Nevra
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SEVGİ GÖNÜL BYZANTINE STUDIES

Center for Anatolian Civilizations,2016.
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 CONTENTS

ix
Abbreviations

xv
Preface
ÖMER M. KOÇ

xvii
Editors’ Foreword
PAUL MAGDALINO and NEVRA NECİPOĞLU

xix
Opening Speech
ZEYNEP MERCANGÖZ

3
PAUL MAGDALINO and NEVRA NECİPOĞLU
Introduction

1. COMMERCE AND CONTROL

11
PETER SARRIS
Merchants, Trade, and Commerce in Byzantine Law from Justinian I to Basil II

25
JEAN-CLAUDE CHEYNET
Quelques nouveaux sceaux de commerciaires
(Some New Seals of Kommerkiarioi)

55
MICHEL KAPLAN
Monks and Trade in Byzantium from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century

65
KOSTIS SMYRLIS
Trade Regulation and Taxation in Byzantium, Eleventh–Twelfth Centuries
2. COMMODITIES AND CERAMICS 4. CENTERS AND NETWORKS IN ANATOLIA
91 257
JOHANNES KODER YAMAN DALANAY
Salt for Constantinople Communications and Trade in Western Asia Minor during the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine
Periods: The Case of Ephesos
105
CÉCILE MORRISSON
267
Trading in Wood in Byzantium: Exchange and Regulations
MEHMET KAHYAOĞLU
Portolan Charts and Harbor Towns in Western Asia Minor towards the End of the Byzantine
129 Empire
YOUVAL ROTMAN
Byzantium and the International Slave Trade in the Central Middle Ages
279
ANDREAS KÜLZER
143 Byzantine Lydia: Some Remarks on Communication Routes and Settlement Places
VÉRONIQUE FRANÇOIS
A Distribution Atlas of Byzantine Ceramics: A New Approach to the Pottery Trade in Byzantium
297
SCOTT REDFORD
157 Caravanserais and Commerce
JOANITA VROOM
Byzantine Sea Trade in Ceramics: Some Case Studies in the Eastern Mediterranean
(ca. Seventh–Fourteenth Centuries) 313
ECE TURNATOR
Trade and Textile Industry in the State of Nicaea through the Romance of Livistros and
Rodamne (Thirteenth Century)

3. MERCHANTS AND THE MARKET IN CONSTANTINOPLE

323
181 ASLIHAN AKIŞIK-KARAKULLUKÇU
PAUL MAGDALINO The Empire of Trebizond in the World-Trade System: Economy and Culture
The Merchant of Constantinople

337
193 MURAT KEÇIŞ
DAVID JACOBY Trabzon İmparatoru III. Aleksios’un Khrysoboulloslarına Göre Venediklilerin Trabzon
Constantinople as Commercial Transit Center, Tenth to Mid-Fifteenth Century Ticareti Hakkında Gözlemler
(Observations on the Trade of the Venetians with Trebizond, Based on the Chrysobulls
of Alexios III, the Emperor of Trebizond)
211
BRIGITTE PITARAKIS
The Byzantine Marketplace: A Window onto Daily Life and Material Culture

233
AYGÜL AĞIR
Bizans Başkentinde Müslüman Tacirler İçin Mimarlık: Mitaton
(Architecture for Muslim Merchants in the Byzantine Capital: The Mitaton)
 ABBREVIATIONS
5. SHIPS AND HARBORS: NEW ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE

AA Archäologischer Anzeiger [note: before 1962, part of JDAI; 1963–84, issued as

363 supplement to JDAI]
UFUK KOCABAŞ, IŞIL ÖZSAIT-KOCABAŞ,
EVREN TÜRKMENOĞLU, TANER GÜLER, and NAMIK KILIÇ AAA Athens Annals of Archaeology
The World’s Largest Collection of Medieval Shipwrecks: The Ships of the Theodosian Harbor
AASS Acta sanctorum (Paris, 1863–1940)
AB Analecta Bollandiana
379
ACO Acta conciliorum oecumenicorum, ed. E. Schwartz and J. Straub (Berlin, 1914– )
MEHMET ALI POLAT
Yenikapı’nın Yükleriyle Batmış Gemileri AF Archäologische Forschungen
(Yenikapı Shipwrecks Found With Their Cargoes) AIPHOS Annuaire de l’Institut de philologie et d’histoire orientales et slaves
AJA American Journal of Archaeology
399 AM Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung
NERGIS GÜNSENIN
Ganos Limanı’ndan Portus Theodosiacus’a Anat.Ant. Anatolia Antiqua
(From Ganos Harbor to Portus Theodosiacus) AnatSt Anatolian Studies
Annales H.S.S. Annales Histoire Sciences Sociales
403 ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt
VERA BULGURLU
Yenikapı’daki Theodosius Limanı Kazılarından Bizans Kurşun Mühürleri AnzWien Anzeiger der [Österreichischen] Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien,
(Byzantine Lead Seals from the Theodosian Harbor Excavations at Yenikapı) Philosophisch-historische Klasse
APF Archiv für Papyrusforschung

431 ArchIug Archaeologia iugoslavica

GÜLBAHAR BARAN ÇELIK Ἀρχ.Δελτ Ἀρχαιολογικὸν δελτίον
Yenikapı Theodosius Limanı Kazısı Zemberek Biçimli Fibulaları
(Crossbow Fibulas from the Yenikapı Theodosian Harbor Excavations) ArtB Art Bulletin
AST Araştırma Sonuçları Toplantısı

445
LALE DOĞER and HARUN ÖZDAŞ BCH Bulletin de correspondance hellénique
Adrasan: Ceramic Finds from a Byzantine Shipwreck
BDIA Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts
BHG Bibliotheca hagiographica graeca, 3rd ed., ed. F. Halkin, SubsHag 47
465 (Brussels, 1957; repr. 1969)
T. ENGIN AKYÜREK
BICS Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies
Andriake: The Port of Myra in Late Antiquity
BMGS Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies

489 BNJ Byzantinisch-Neugriechische Jahrbücher

B. YELDA OLCAY UÇKAN BNumRoma Bollettino di Numismatica
Olympos’ta Ticaret
BSA The Annual of the British School at Athens
(Trade in Olympos)
BSl Byzantinoslavica
Byzantine Constantinople, Byzantine Constantinople: Monuments, Topography and Everyday Life,
ed. Necipoğlu ed. N. Necipoğlu (Leiden-Boston-Cologne, 2001)
503
Indices
x TRADE IN BYZANTIUM ABBREVIATIONS xi

Iviron, 1 Actes d’Iviron. I. Des origines au milieu du XIe siècle, ed. J. Lefort, N. Oikonomidès,
ByzF Byzantinische Forschungen
D. Papachryssanthou, collab. H. Métrévéli (Paris, 1985)
BZ Byzantinische Zeitschrift
Iviron, 2 Actes d’Iviron. II. Du milieu du XIe siècle à 1204, ed. J. Lefort, N. Oikonomidès,
D. Papachryssanthou (Paris, 1990)

CahArch Cahiers archéologiques Ivirion, 3 Actes d’Iviron. III. De 1204 à 1328, ed. J. Lefort, N. Oikonomidès,
D. Papachryssanthou, V. Kravari, collab., H. Métrévéli (Paris, 1994)
CahCM Cahiers de civilisation médiévale
CCSG Corpus christianorum, Series graeca
JA Journal asiatique
CFHB Corpus fontium historiae byzantinae
JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society
Chemins d'outre mer, Chemins d'outre mer: études d'histoire sur la Méditerranée médiévale offertes à Michel
ed. Coulon et al. Balard, ed. D. Coulon, C. Otten-Froux, P. Pagès, D. Valérian, 2 vols. (Paris, 2014) JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History
JESHO Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
Chilandar, 1 Actes de Chilandar I. Des origines à 1319, ed. M. Živojinović, V. Kravari, Ch. Giros,
JFieldA Journal of Field Archaeology
(Paris, 1998)
JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies
CMRS Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique
JJP Journal of Juristic Papyrology
Constantinople and Constantinople and its Hinterland: Papers from the Twenty seventh Spring Symposium-
its Hinterland, ed. of Byzantine Studies, Oxford, April 1993, ed. C. Mango and G. Dagron (Aldershot, 1995) JOAS Journal of Oriental and African Studies
Mango and Dagron
JÖB Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik [note: before 1969, JÖBG]
CSHB Corpus scriptorum historiae byzantinae
JRGZM Jahrbuch des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums Mainz
JSav Journal des savants
DenkWien Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch historische Klasse,
Denkschriften JTuS Journal of Turkish Studies

ΔΧΑΕ Δελτίον τῆς Χριστιανικῆς ἀρχαιολογικῆς ἑταιρείας

DOP Dumbarton Oaks Papers Lavra, 1 Actes de Lavra. I. Des origines à 1204, ed. P. Lemerle, A. Guillou,
N. Svoronos (Paris, 1970)
DOS Dumbarton Oasks Studies
Lavra, 2 Actes de Lavra. II. De 1204 à 1328, ed. A. Guillou, P. Lemerle, D. Papachryssanthou,
N. Svoronos (Paris, 1977)
EHB The Economic History of Byzantium: From the Seventh through the Fifteenth Century, Lavra, 3 Actes de Lavra. III. De 1329 à 1500, ed. P. Lemerle, A. Guillou, N. Svoronos,
ed. A. E. Laiou, 3 vols. (Washington, D.C., 2002) D. Papachryssanthou (Paris, 1979)
EI2 Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (Leiden-London, 1960– ) LBG Lexikon zur byzantinischen Gräzität, ed. E. Trapp (Vienna, 1994– )
EpAnat Epigraphica Anatolica LexMA Lexikon des Mittelalters
LSJ H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, H. S. Jones et al., A Greek-English Lexicon
(Oxford, 1968)
Génois de Péra Actes des notaires Génois de Péra et de Caffa de la fin du treizième siècle (1281-1290),
et de Caffa ed. G. I. Bratianu (Bucharest, 1927)
GJ Geographical Journal McCormick, Origins M. McCormick, Origins of the European Economy. Communications and Commerce,
A.D. 300–900 (Cambridge-New York, 2001)
GRBS Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies
MélRome Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire, École française de Rome
MGH Monumenta Germaniae historica
HTS Harvard Theological Studies
MHR Mediterranean Historical Review
MLR The Modern Language Review
IJNA The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology
MM Acta et diplomata graeca medii aevi sacra et profana, ed. F. Miklosich and J. Müller,
IRAIK Izvestiia Russkogo arkheologicheskogo instituta v Konstantinople
6 vols. (Vienna, 1860–90)
IstMitt Istanbuler Mitteilungen
MÖNumGes Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Numismatischen Gesellschaft
xii TRADE IN BYZANTIUM ABBREVIATIONS xiii

NC The Numismatic Chronicle [and Journal of the Royal Numismatic Society] Trade and Markets, ed. Trade and Markets in Byzantium, ed. C. Morrisson (Washington, D.C., 2012)
Morrisson
NomKhron Nomismatika Chronika
Trav.Rech.Turquie Travaux et recherches en Turquie
TT Urkunden zur älteren Handels- und Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig, ed. G. L. F.
ODB The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, ed. A. Kazhdan et al., 3 vols. (New York-Oxford, Tafel and G. M. Thomas, 3 vols. (Vienna, 1856–57; repr. Amsterdam, 1964)
1991)
TürkArkDerg Türk Arkeoloji Dergisi
OHBS The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies, ed. E. Jeffreys, J. Haldon, and R. Cormack
(Oxford, 2008)
OJA Oxford Journal of Archaeology WBS Wiener byzantinistische Studien

ÖJh Jahreshefte des Österreichischen Archäologischen Instituts in Wien

ZpapEpig Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik

Πάτμου, 1 Βυζαντινὰ ἔγγραφα τῆς μονῆς Πάτμου, Α. Αυτοκρατορικά: διπλωματική έκδοσις, ZRVI Zbornik radova Vizantološkog instituta
Γενική εισαγωγή, Ευρετήρια, Πίνακες, ed. E. L. Vranousis (Athens, 1980)
Πάτμου, 2 Βυζαντινὰ ἔγγραφα τῆς μονῆς Πάτμου, Β. Δημοσίων λειτουργῶν, ed. M.
Nystazopoulou-Pelekidou (Athens, 1980)
PG Patrologiae cursus completus, Series graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne (Paris, 1857–66)
Protaton Actes du Prôtaton, ed. D. Papachryssanthou (Paris, 1975)

RAC Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum

RBPH Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire
RDAC Reports of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus
REArm Revue des études arméniennes
REB Revue des études byzantines
REG Revue des études grecques
REJ Revue des études juives
RESEE Revue des études sud-est européennes
RH Revue historique
RN Revue numismatique
RSH Revue suisse d’histoire

SBS Studies in Byzantine Sigillography

SC Sources chrétiennes
Settimane Settimane di studio del centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo
SOsl Symbolae Osloenses
StVen Studi veneziani

TIB Tabula imperii byzantini, ed. H. Hunger (Vienna, 1976– )

TLG Thesaurus Linguae Graecae
TM Travaux et mémoires
Constantinople as Commercial Transit Center,
Tenth to Mid-Fifteenth Century

David Jacoby
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The common emphasis in the study of Constantinople’s economy in the Byzantine period
is on the city as consumption center. Its function as transit station is recognized, yet has not
attracted the attention it deserves and has not been investigated so far. Constantinople’s
geographic location at the juncture of the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Balkans and
Asia Minor ensured the continuous transit of merchants, goods and ships. However, it is
the conjunction of political, demographic and economic developments that determined
the nature, origin, and destination of goods, as well as the evolving patterns, rhythm,
and volume of transit. As a result, the contribution of transit to the city’s economy varied
widely from the tenth to the mid-fifteenth century.
It is fitting to begin this brief discussion of transit with some macro-economic
considerations. Polybius, the Greek historian of the second century BCE, provides an
important insight into the function of the city of Byzantion around 220 BCE. The city
sought to control the movement of goods between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean
and to maximize its revenues from its functions as entrepôt and transit station. Honey,
wax, salt fish, grain, cattle and slaves were shipped from the Black Sea, which in turn
imported from the Mediterranean olive oil, wine, as well as grain in case of shortage.1
Polybius dealt with the Black Sea from a Mediterranean perspective and did not take into
account the exchange of goods between the borderlands of that region, the economies of
which were to some extent complementary, nor east-west trade across the Bosphoros.
The economic parameters of trade and transit recorded by Polybius remained more
or less unchanged until the fourth century CE. The foundation of Constantinople as capital
of the Roman Empire and the rapid increase in its population that followed generated
important developments. Despite a demographic slump beginning with the plague of 542

1 V. Gabrielsen, “Trade and Tribute: Byzantion and the Black Sea Straits,” in The Black Sea in Antiquity: Regional
and Interregional Economic Exchanges, ed. V. Gabrielsen and J. Lund (Aarhus, 2007), 287–324.
194 TRADE IN BYZANTIUM David Jacoby | Constantinople as Commercial Transit Center, Tenth to Mid-Fifteenth Century 195

and extending until the ninth century, the city remained a major consumption center. was the final destination of Venetian and Amalfitan merchants at that time. In the
Until 1204 the economy of the empire’s provinces was largely geared to its supply in eleventh century, though, some Rus and Georgian merchants traveled beyond the city to
foodstuffs, wine, raw materials, semi-finished and finished goods, as well as in private and Ephesos, and a small number of Italian merchants were operating in the Black Sea.7 In
state revenue. Basic supplies came from neighboring regions, yet the city’s provisioning the early 1160s Benjamin of Tudela noted the merchants “from the land of Babylon, (…)
also required medium and long-distance transportation by land and by sea from more the land of Egypt, (…) and the empire of Russia, from Hungaria, Patzinakia, Khazaria, and
remote Byzantine provinces, as well as from foreign lands.2 Benjamin of Tudela, who the land of Lombardy and Sepharad (…), and merchants come to it [= Constantinople]
visited Constantinople in the early 1160s, was told that “each year all the tribute from with goods from every country by sea or by land.”8 As a result, the goods they brought
the whole country of Greece [= the empire] is brought” to Constantinople “and towers changed hands before pursuing their journey beyond the city. The contribution of
are filled with it, with silk and purple garments and gold.”3 Between 1183 and 1185 the Byzantine merchants and ships to transit trade in Constantinople in the tenth to twelfth
metropolitan of Athens, Michael Choniates, reminded the citizens of Constantinople centuries is hardly documented, yet was undoubtedly far more decisive than the
that the provinces were feeding them and that “Theban and Corinthian fingers” wove involvement of foreigners. Among the merchants from Trebizond traveling in the early
their garments.4 We may safely assume that most goods reaching Constantinople were eleventh century to Constantinople some pursued their voyage to Syria and even resided
absorbed by the urban market, and only a relatively small portion of them pursued their there for extended periods.9
journey beyond the city. From the late tenth century a sizeable quantity of amphoras originally containing
To a large extent the Black Sea and the Mediterranean were separate commercial wine or oil traveled from the Black Sea northward as far as Novgorod and neighboring
spaces, distinguished by their particular commodities, trade system, and shipping rural communities.10 A vessel dated by Byzantine coins to around 1080, found in the Bay
networks. This feature was strengthened by imperial control stations at Hieron, located of Sudak in southeastern Crimea, carried two types of Günsenin amphoras originally
at the mouth of the Black Sea, and at Abydos in the Dardanelles.5 At their juncture containing Ganos wine from the Sea of Marmara.11 Ships transporting amphoras filled
Constantinople served as destination or point of departure for trade and shipping with wine from the region of the Sea of Marmara or the Mediterranean provinces of
ventures in one or the other region. This is well illustrated by the simultaneous trading of the empire or olive oil from the latter may have transited through Constantinople on
merchants from the Black Sea and the Mediterranean in Constantinople, both Byzantines their way to the Black Sea, yet at times must have sailed directly through the Bosphoros,
and foreigners. Rus bypassing intermediaries in the Crimea and Bulgars increasingly especially when loaded exclusively with these commodities. The transshipment and re-
traded in Constantinople in the course of the tenth century.6 Similarly, Constantinople stacking of ceramic vessels on board ships required a larger labor input and was more
expensive than for other containers.
2 Among the numerous studies dealing with the city’s supply, see J. Koder, Gemüse in Byzanz. Die Versorgung Beginning in the second half of the ninth century additional commodities joined
Konstantinopels mit Frischgemüse im Lichte der Geoponika (Vienna, 1993), esp. 67–73; idem, “Maritime those traditionally transiting through Constantinople. Trebizond, at the crossroads of
Trade and the Food Supply for Constantinople in the Middle Ages,” in Travel in the Byzantine World, ed. R.
Byzantine, Armenian and Muslim states and commercial routes, acted from that time
Macrides (Aldershot, 2002), 109–24; A. E. Laiou, “Regional Networks in the Balkans in the Middle and Late
Byzantine Period,” in Trade and Markets, ed. Morrisson, 127–35, on Thrace; M. Gerolymatou, “Le commerce,
VIIe-XVe siècle,” in La Bithynie au Moyen Âge, ed. B. Geyer and J. Lefort (Paris, 2003), 485–89; D. Jacoby, “Amalfitani in Bizanzio, nel Levante e in Egitto (secc. X-XIII),” in Interscambi socio-culturali ed economici fra
“Mediterranean Food and Wine for Constantinople: The Long-Distance Trade, Eleventh to Mid-Fifteenth le citta marinare d’Italia et l’Occidente dagli osservatori mediterranei, ed. B.Figliuoli and P. Simbula (Amalfi,
Century,” in Handelsgüter und Verkehrswege. Aspekte der Warenversorgung im östlichen Mittelmeerraum (4. bis 2014), 90-95.
15. Jahrhundert), ed. E. Kislinger, J. Koder, and A. Külzer (Vienna, 2010), 127–47. 7 On Rus and Georgian merchants in Ephesos: S. Vryonis Jr., The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor
3 The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, ed. M. N. Adler (London, 1907), Hebrew, 15; here my own translation. For and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century (Berkeley, 1971), 10; on Italian
the dating of Benjamin’s sojourn in Byzantium, see D. Jacoby, “Benjamin of Tudela and his ‘Book of Travels’,” trading in the Black sea before 1204, see below.
in Venezia incrocio di culture. Percezioni di viaggiatori europei e non europei a confronto. Atti del convegno Venezia, 8 The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, ed. Adler, Hebrew, 14, English trans., 12.
26-27 gennaio 2006, ed. K. Herbers and F. Schmieder (Rome, 2008), 145–47 [repr. in D. Jacoby, Travellers, 9 N. Oikonomides, “Le marchand byzantin des provinces (IXe-XIe s.),” in Mercati e mercanti nell’alto medioevo:
Merchants and Settlers across the Mediterranean, Eleventh-Fourteenth Centuries (Farnham, 2014), no. II]. l’area euroasiatica e l’area mediterranea (Spoleto, 1993), 653.
4 Michaelis Choniatae Epistulae, ed. F. Kolovou (Berlin-New York, 2001), 68–70, epist. 50. 10 See above, n. 6, the two studies by Shepard.
5 N. Oikonomides, “The Economic Region of Constantinople: From Directed Economy to Free Economy, 11 Some of them were found sealed with their original pine cork stoppers: S. Zelenko, “Shipwrecks of the 9th-
and the Role of the Italians,” in Europa medievale e mondo bizantino. Contatti effettivi e possibilità di studi 11th Centuries in the Black Sea near Soldaya,” in Actas del VIII Congreso Internacional de Cerámica Medieval en
comparati, ed. G. Arnaldi and G. Cavallo (Rome, 1997), 227–28. el Mediterráneo, Ciudad Real - Almagro 2006, ed. J. Zozaya, M. Retuerce, M. A. Hervás and A. de Juan (Ciudad
6 On the Rus: J. Shepard, “Constantinople - Gateway to the North: the Russians,” in Constantinople and its Real, 2009), 237–39. On Günsenin amphoras dated to the 11th–13th centuries at Cherson, see A. Rabinowitz,
Hinterland, ed. Mango and Dagron, 243–60; idem, “From the Bosporos to the British Isles: The Way from L. Sedikowa, and R. Henneberg, “Daily Life in a Provincial Late Byzantine City: Recent Multidisciplinary
the Greeks to the Varangians,” in Drevneishie Gosudarstva Vostochnoi Evropy 2009 god, ed. T. N. Jackson Research in the South Region of Tauric Chersonesos (Cherson),” in Byzanz, das Römerreich im Mittelalter, Teil
(Moscow, 2010), 15–22. On the Bulgars’ trade, see also McCormick, Origins, 605. On the Amalfitans: D. Jacoby, 2,1, Schauplätze, ed. F. Daim and J. Drauschke (Mainz, 2010), 450–51.
196 TRADE IN BYZANTIUM David Jacoby | Constantinople as Commercial Transit Center, Tenth to Mid-Fifteenth Century 197

as maritime outlet of oriental spices, a medieval generic term for food condiments, The skewed Eurocentric interpretation of the sparse documentation regarding
aromatics and dyestuffs mostly originating in southern and eastern Asia.12 However, Italian merchants and maritime carriers, primarily notary charters, and the absence
Trebizond lost its function as main supplier of spices to the empire in the first half of the of similar Byzantine sources has produced an inflated assessment of the Italian role in
eleventh century, as a result of a major shift in the westward flow of these costly goods. Byzantine trade before 1204. There has been much debate about whether the Italians were
Spices were increasingly diverted from the Persian Gulf, plagued by political instability, free to trade in the Black Sea in the twelfth century, or whether Byzantium imposed a
to the Red Sea, and Alexandria, with the support of its Fatimid rulers, became the main partial or complete ban on their operations in that region until the Fourth Crusade, in
Mediterranean outlet and market for these oriental commodities.13 order to ensure the supply of specific commodities to Constantinople. A closure would
The re-orientation of the spice trade had a profound impact upon the Black Sea have implied that the Latin conquest of the city in 1204 opened the Black Sea to the Italians.
and the Mediterranean trade systems. It limited the range, volume and value of goods There is no direct or indirect evidence of a closure. A few years ago I argued that
exported from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean via Constantinople. The empire became in 1169 emperor Manuel I did not ban Genoese merchants from trading in the Black Sea.
increasingly dependent upon Egypt for the supply of spices. Byzantine purchases, Rather, he apparently prohibited Genoese ships from loading grain in the region along the
some massive, are documented from 1035 onward.14 Rich Byzantine merchants from western and northern shore of the Black Sea as far as the Sea of Azov. These Genoese ships
Constantinople visited Cairo in 1102 in a way that implies continuous trading.15 Egyptian appear to have sailed directly to their home port without anchoring in Constantinople.
merchants operating in the Byzantine capital were presumably also involved in the The purpose of the imperial ban, then, was to enable control over grain exports and
supply of spices to the city. They must have resided in the mitaton or caravanserai situated prevent the Genoese from evading transshipment in the city and taxation on exports.
along the Golden Horn in which ‘Syrian’ traders were housed in the early tenth century The Byzantine ban could be implemented since the empire exercised some control over
or somewhat earlier, and which was destroyed by fire in 1203.16 Byzantine merchants navigation along the stretch of coast mentioned in 1169. Bulgaria, a major source of grain,
handled commodities imported from the Black Sea or manufactured from raw materials was under Byzantine rule following its conquest by emperor Basil II in 1018. No similar
imported from that region to Constantinople to finance their purchases in Egypt. Baltic ban was imposed on the Venetians, presumably because they did not export grain from
amber looms large among the jewelry of Jewish women in Egypt, especially from the the Black Sea.19 It would seem that the volume and variety of Black Sea goods the Italians
late eleventh century, and was apparently much in demand in that country.17 Byzantine wished to acquire did not warrant continuous trading and navigation in that region.
merchants also exported to Egypt silk textiles woven in Constantinople of fibers At best they operated there on a limited scale before 1204. In sum, western merchants
presumably originating in Asia Minor and possibly also in Georgia in the Caucasus.18 purchased most goods traded in that region from middlemen in Constantinople.20 We
may safely assume that until the late twelfth century maritime trade and shipping
12 Vryonis Jr., The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor, 15–16; Oikonomides, “Le marchand byzantin des supplying Constantinople were largely in the hands of Byzantine subjects, although the
provinces,” 653–54; B. Martin-Hisard, “Trébizonde et le culte de Saint Eugène (6e-11e s.),” REArm 14 (1980): Italians acquired a growing share in their Mediterranean networks.21
336–39; McCormick, Origins, 589.
Important macro-economic developments affecting Constantinople’s economy
13 D. Jacoby, “Byzantine Trade with Egypt from the Mid-Tenth Century to the Fourth Crusade,” Thesaurismata
30 (2000): 30–31 [repr. in D. Jacoby, Commercial Exchange across the Mediterranean: Byzantium, the Crusader and role in transit trade took place in the first half of the thirteenth century. A major shift
Levant, Egypt and Italy (Aldershot, 2005), no. I]; also in J. Shepard, The Expansion of Orthodox Europe: occurred in the urban economy following the Latin conquest of the city in 1204. It was
Byzantium, the Balkans and Russia (Aldershot, 2007), 107–59].
generated by several inter-related factors: the contraction of its population, economic
14 Jacoby, “Byzantine Trade with Egypt,” 42–45.
15 Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History, trans. M. Chibnall (Oxford, 1969–1980), 5:351–52. activity, local consumption and market demand, the absence of capital inflow in cash
16 S. W. Reinert, “The Muslim Presence in Constantinople, 9th-15th Centuries: Some Preliminary Observations,” and goods from the provinces, and the lack of investments in luxury manufacture, which
in Studies in the Internal Diaspora of the Byzantine Empire, ed. H. Ahrweiler and A. E. Laiou (Washington,
D.C., 1998), 112–13. See P. Magdalino, “Medieval Constantinople,” in P. Magdalino, Studies on the History and
Topography of Byzantine Constantinople (Aldershot, 2007), no. I, 98, for the dating of its establishment. the Istanbul University. International Byzantine and Ottoman Symposium (XVth century) (30-31 May 2003), ed. S.
17 S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society. The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents Atasoy (Istanbul, 2004), 135. For Georgia, by see below, 200.
of the Cairo Geniza (Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1967–1993), 4:207–8, 217–21. Baltic amber has been found in an 19 In 1171 the Genoese government instructed its envoy to the imperial court to obtain the right to sail to the
occupation layer of the first half of the 9th century at Amorium, in Phrygia: A. M. Shedrinsky and C. S. Sea of Azov, a right enjoyed by the Venetians: Codice diplomatico della Repubblica di Genova, ed. C. Imperiale
Lightfoot, “A Byzantine Amber Bead,” in Amorium Reports 3: The Lower City Enclosure. Finds Reports and di Sant’Angelo (Rome, 1936–1942), 2:115, n. 1, col. 2.
Technical Studies, ed. C. S. Lightfoot and E. A. Ivison (Istanbul, 2012), 451–53. My thanks to C. S. Lightfoot for 20 For the last two paragraphs, see D. Jacoby, “Byzantium, the Italian Maritime Powers, and the Black Sea
supplying that information. The amber must have transited through Constantinople. before 1204,” BZ 100 (2007): 677–99.
18 There is no record regarding the origin of the silk imported to Constantinople before 1204, yet we may 21 D. Jacoby, “Venetian Commercial Expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean, 8th-11th centuries,” in Byzantine
assume that it mainly came from western Asia Minor, a region in which extensive sericulture is attested Trade, 4th-12th Centuries. The Archaeology of Local, Regional and International Exchange, ed. M. Munell Mango
for the 13th century: D. Jacoby, “The Silk Trade of Late Byzantine Constantinople,” in 550th Anniversary of (Farnham, 2009), 376–80, 386–89; Jacoby, “Byzantine Trade with Egypt,” 47–61.
198 TRADE IN BYZANTIUM David Jacoby | Constantinople as Commercial Transit Center, Tenth to Mid-Fifteenth Century 199

prevented its revival after 1204. As a result, the exchange, transit and transshipment of Yet as maritime powers they refrained from engaging in political action beyond maritime
goods in the framework of medium and long-distance trade and transportation between regions, in accordance with their general policy overseas. The increasing number of
the Black Sea and the Mediterranean acquired growing importance and became the western settlers, the establishment of commercial outposts in Soldaia and Caffa in the
basic factor sustaining the operation of the city’s economy. The demographic contraction Crimea, Tana at the mouth of the Don river, Trebizond in northeastern Anatolia and
caused by the Black Death in 1347-1348 and recurrent bouts of plague that followed some other Black Sea ports, and the growing reliance on stationary agents, including
further diminished local consumption and boosted the city’s role in transit.22 in Constantinople, enabled a better monitoring of markets, the movement of goods,
The partial reconversion of the urban economy began soon after the Fourth Crusade. transportation means, monies and people, and of fluctuations in demand and supply. In
It was stimulated by economic growth initiated shortly after and accelerated from the sum, the conjunction of individual initiative and state intervention boosted the function
1240s, despite the worsening political, territorial and financial condition of the Latin of Constantinople as pivotal transit station and as information center. Already by 1260
Empire in the last two decades of its existence. The consolidation of Mongol rule over vast Marco Polo’s father Niccolò and uncle Matteo could rely on the advice of experienced
territories reaching the Black Sea, achieved by 1240, made an important contribution to Venetian merchants operating in Constantinople and the Black Sea. The Polo brothers sold
that process. 23 A convergence of interests linked Italian merchants to Mongol rulers eager in Constantinople the goods they had brought from Venice and purchased precious stones.
to increase their commercial profits and fiscal revenue and to purchase specific luxury They then sailed to Soldaia, where they stayed for some time and apparently obtained
commodities. Secure conditions stimulated the flow of goods and the trading of western further advice from local Latin merchants before proceeding into Mongol territory.26
merchants in their territories across Asia and Eastern Europe.24 The full integration of the Undue importance has been ascribed to the penetration of Western merchants
commercial networks of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea achieved in the second into Asia, in a skewed Eurocentric perspective. Merchants proceeding from the Black
half of the thirteenth century, the early Palaiologan period, was to last for about two Sea to China, as described around 1340 by the Florentine Francesco Balducci Pegolotti,
centuries. It had a strong impact upon the transit function of Constantinople. were clearly a minority.27 Trans-Asian trade was overwhelmingly conducted by Asian
Mongol rule was a major factor in the development of a "globalized" trading merchants and intermediaries who operated in a series of closely interlocked and partly
system, whose main features were an increase in the assortment of commodities traded overlapping regional networks, both before and after the political turmoil of the 1340s
over long distances, the intensification of exchanges, and a greater connectivity and put an end to the so-called Pax Mongolica.28 The operation of the ‘globalized’ economic
economic interdependence between remote regions. Yet the security offered by Mongol network was maintained after the 1340s, and in its framework Western merchants
states alone would not have enabled the development of the ‘globalized’ trading without continued to trade in Mongol territories, though in a more limited geographic range and
additional factors, namely a growing purchasing power and market demand, an increase volume than earlier. Constantinople’s function as transit station was even boosted after
in the volume and value of goods available for exchange, both in the West and in the East, western merchants left the Persian city of Tabriz in 1336 and Mamluk Egypt conquered
and the presence of western merchants and commercial agents settled in Constantinople Ayas in Cilician Armenia in the following year, developments that enhanced the flow of
and around the Black Sea or operating there over several years. goods from Persia via Trebizond to Constantinople and the West.29 Admittedly, after the
Genoa and Venice concluded treaties with Byzantine emperors and Mongol rulers 1340s the number of Venetian state galleys sailing to the Black Sea declined, yet remained
to further the trading of their nationals in a broad range of commodities and consolidate more or less stable from the 1380s until 1452.30
their outposts and colonies along the seashore of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.25

22 M.-H. Congourdeau, “La Peste Noire à Constantinople de 1348 à 1466,” Medicina nei Secoli, Arte e scienza. the early 14th century (see below), an important instrument of state policy in that region, carried various
Journal of History of Medicine 11.2 (1999): 377–89. commodities, yet no grain.
23 D. Jacoby, “The Economy of Latin Constantinople, 1204–1261,” in Urbs capta. The Fourth Crusade and its 26 Marco Polo, Il Milione, ed. L. F. Benedetto (Florence, 1928), 4, pars. II-III; D. Jacoby, “Marco Polo, His Close
Consequences. La IVe Croisade et ses conséquences, ed. A. E. Laiou (Paris, 2005), 195–214 [repr. in Jacoby, Relatives, and His Travel Account: Some New Insights,” MHR 21 (2006): 194–96.
Travellers, no. VII]. 27 F. B. Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, ed. A. Evans (Cambridge, Mass., 1936), 21–23.
24 T. T. Allsen, “Mongolian Princes and their Merchant Partners,” Asia Major, 3rd. series 2 (1989): 83–126; idem, 28 Di Cosmo (see above, n. 26) considers that the regional pattern of trade was a new development after the
Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia (Cambridge, 2001), 41–50. 1340s, yet it must have been a constant feature. Though later by a century, it is well illustrated by the trading
25 N. Di Cosmo, “Mongols and Merchants on the Black Sea Frontier in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: account of a Persian merchant from Shiraz who, after traveling to Urgench and Saray, returned home after
Convergences and Conflicts,” in Mongols, Turks, and Others: Eurasian Nomads and the Sedentary World, ed. R. two years: W. Hinz, “Ein orientalisches Handelsunternehmen im 15. Jahrhundert,” Die Welt des Orients 4
Amitai (Leiden-Boston, 2005), 391–424. Di Cosmo unduly focuses on grain supplies as the main motivation (1949): 313–40, see above n. 25.
of Genoa’s and Venice’s state intervention (ibid., 101), overlooking thereby the large range of commodities 29 L. Petech, “Les marchands italiens dans l’empire mongol,” JA 250 (1962): 569–70, on Tabriz and Trebizond.
traded by their nationals. Individual Venetians already traded in Black Sea grain before the famine of 1268 30 D. Stöckly, Le système de l’incanto des galées du marché à Venise (fin XIIe-milieu XVe siècle) (Leiden-New York-
(see below), which prompted state intervention, and Venetian state galleys sailing to the Black Sea from Köln, 1995), 101–19.
200 TRADE IN BYZANTIUM David Jacoby | Constantinople as Commercial Transit Center, Tenth to Mid-Fifteenth Century 201

As noted above, the growth in purchasing power and demand both in the West and the city’s increasing role in transit. Beginning in the 1260s the flow of Oriental silks to
and in the East was reflected by a broader variety and an increase in the volume of the West gained additional impetus and underwent a change marked by the appearance
commodities transiting through Constantinople from the first half of the thirteenth of new distinctive types of fabrics woven in the Mongol-ruled territories of Central Asia
century onward. The geographic range of imports was also more extensive. Some of and the Middle East. These silks were partly shipped from Black Sea ports. An anonymous
the commodities transiting via Constantinople originated in Asia, others in the West. commercial manual composed in Florence around 1320 mentions silks textiles and cloths
Among the former we find alum, a mineral used on a large scale in the expanding textile of gold arriving from Tana, Saray on the Volga river, capital of the Golden Horde and a major
industries of the West, which heavily depended on its supply for the fixing of dyestuffs market and consumption center, as well as from Urgench in Uzbekistan to Constantinople
on textile fibers. Alum was also used in the processing of animal skins, and marginally and Pera, the city’s Genoese suburb, and sailing in large consignments to the West. Other
in medicine. Much attention has been paid to the mining of alum in Phokaia, on the fabrics coming from Tabriz traveled via Trebizond. Pegolotti duly recorded the various
Aegean coast of Asia Minor, by the Genoese Zaccaria family from around 1264. However, types of oriental silks available in Constantinople around 1340.34
alum was already extracted by the 1240s at Koloneia, in northeastern Asia Minor. The A large variety of goods from the Mediterranean transited to the Black Sea. Oil
Seljuks built a large fortress nearby, and the remnants of at least five caravanserais have and wine produced in regions extending from the Peloponnese and Crete to the Iberian
been found between Koloneia and Kerasous, a port of the Black Sea some seventy-five peninsula, figs from Provence, nuts from southern Italy, and Cypriot sugar reached
km west of Trebizond included in the Greek state of that name, from where alum was Black Sea ports.35 From the fourteenth century onward Italian silks and woolens from
shipped. The alum of Koloneia, sometimes called ‘alum of Trebizond,’ was the best brand England, Flanders, Catalonia, and Italy, especially from Venice and Florence, were traded
of the mineral mined in Asia Minor. Pegolotti mentioned it around 1340 among the types in Constantinople and largely financed the purchase of oriental commodities. They were
of alum available in Constantinople, from where it sailed to the West.31 partly redistributed by ship from Constantinople around the Black Sea and by land
Silk fiber was another industrial commodity shipped from the Black Sea to the reached Bursa and Edirne, Ottoman capitals respectively from 1326 to 1402 and from that
West from the first half of the thirteenth century onward, yet contrary to alum it partly year to 1453.36 In 1437 the Venetian Giacomo Badoer, who resided in Constantinople from
originated in regions remote from the Black Sea. The silk from Georgia in the Caucasus 1436 to 1440, sent several boxes of Venetian silk veils to Bursa, Gallipoli/Gelibolu, and
recorded in the Italian city of Lucca in 1256 had presumably traveled via Constantinople.32 Edirne, and the following year two pieces of damask to that city. In the same year the
From the late thirteenth century onward an increasing amount of silk originating in the Spanish traveler Pero Tafur observed that men in Edirne were wearing long cloaks made
Crimea, the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea region and China sailed to Genoa from Black Sea of fine Italian woolens, silks, and brocades, obviously imported via Constantinople.37
ports. Marco Polo reports in his travel account that shortly before his return to the West There was also a transit of precious metal. Merchants intending to proceed to
in 1296 the Genoese transferred ships to the Caspian Sea, presumably from the Black Sea Mongol or Seljuk territories carried silver to bridge the negative balance of payment
upstream on the river Don, then by land and, finally, downstream on the Volga. Polo himself they faced. In 1281 an Armenian merchant who apparently came from Cilicia promised
considered that this arduous enterprise was aimed at reaching Ghilan, a silk producing a large sum to two individuals who undertook to retrieve his silver from the sea bottom
region along the Caspian Sea, in order to bypass intermediaries in the silk trade. By the late in the harbor of Constantinople.38 He was presumably planning to trade in the Black
fourteenth century between 40 to 50 percent of Venetian silk imports consisted of Caspian
34 Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, 35–36.
and Chinese silk.33 There is good reason to believe that the expanding Italian demand 35 Jacoby, “Mediterranean Food and Wine for Constantinople,” 130, 132, 135–39, 141.
stimulated the production of silk fibers around the Black and Caspian Seas. As late as the 36 M. Balard, La Romanie génoise (XIIe - début du XVe siècle) (Rome, 1978), 2:834–39; H. Hoshino, L’arte della
fifteenth century there was a strong economic interdependence between silk producers, lana in Firenze nel basso medioevo. Il commercio della lana e il mercato dei panni fiorentini nei secoli XIII-
XV (Florence, 1980), 273–74; K. Fleet, European and Islamic Trade in the Early Ottoman State. The Merchants
especially in Asia, and Italian workshops manufacturing high-grade silk textiles. of Genoa and Turkey (Cambridge, 1999), 95–96, 103; J.-C. Hocquet, “Giacomo Badoer, marchand-drapier à
A new phase in the trade of silk textiles illustrates an additional aspect of the Constantinople et les draps du Nord de l’Europe,” Atti dell’Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Classe di
integration of the Black Sea and Constantinople within the ‘globalized’ trading network scienze morali, lettere ed arti 160 (2001–2002): 71–88.
37 On silks in the last two paragraphs, see Jacoby, “The Silk Trade of Late Byzantine Constantinople,” 129–44;
also D. Jacoby, “Oriental Silks go West: a Declining Trade in the Later Middle Ages,” in Islamic Artefacts in the
31 Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, 43; D. Jacoby, “Production et commerce de l’alun oriental en Mediterranean World: Trade, Gift Exchange and Artistic Transfer, ed. C. Schmidt Arcangeli and G. Wolf (Venice,
Méditerranée, XIe-XVe siècles,” in L’alun de Méditerranée, ed. P. Borgard, J.-P. Brun and M. Picon (Naples-Aix- 2010), 76–77; D. Jacoby, “Late Byzantium between the Mediterranean and Asia: Trade and Material Culture,”
en-Provence, 2005), 231. in Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557). Perspectives on Late Byzantine Art and Culture. The Metropolitan
32 D. Jacoby, “Silk crosses the Mediterranean,” in Le vie del Mediterraneo. Idee, uomini, oggetti (secoli XI-XVI), ed. Museum of Art Symposia, ed. S. T. Brooks (New York-New Haven-London, 2006), 30–31; also J. Lefort, “Badoer
G. Airaldi (Genoa, 1997), 79 [repr. in D. Jacoby, Byzantium, Latin Romania and the Mediterranean (Aldershot, et la Bithynie,” in Mélanges Gilbert Dagron, TM 14 (2002): 373–84.
2001), no. X]. 38 Génois de Péra et de Caffa, 90–91, no. 29; L. Balletto, “Un carico d’argento in fondo al mare (Costantinopoli -
33 Jacoby, “The Silk Trade of Late Byzantine Constantinople,” 132, 137-138. 1281),” in Atti della Accademia Ligure di Scienze e Lettere, XXXIII, annata 1976 (Genoa, 1977): 197–202.
202 TRADE IN BYZANTIUM David Jacoby | Constantinople as Commercial Transit Center, Tenth to Mid-Fifteenth Century 203

Sea region. Thirteenth-century silver coins from Cilician Armenia have been excavated export would nevertheless be allowed, provided an imperial license was obtained.45
at Mavrocastro, situated at the mouth of the Dniester river.39 In 1284 a merchant passing The imperial authorities could control or limit exports via the Bosphoros in two ways:
through Pera carried silver ingots from Genoa on his way to Sivas.40 Pegolotti reported by preventing the re-export of grain already in Constantinople, or by inspecting ships
around 1340 that silver ingots are traded in Constantinople and Pera, transformed into returning from the Black Sea. In that case too the grain mostly transited through the city.
imitation sommi for trade in the Crimea and from there to China.41 In 1276 the Venetian Piero Grisoni brought grain from Bulgarian Varna to
We may now turn to the nature of transit. The movement of goods, ships or beasts of Constantinople to take advantage of a shortage. At first he was ordered to sell it at an
burden and merchants did not necessarily coincide. Merchants and carriers were distinct imposed price, and later suffered losses when he sold it on the open market. This case
categories of operators, and the movement of goods was partly ensured by stationary appears to have induced Venice to obtain two concessions in the treaty it concluded
agents. Some ships sailing through the Bosphoros bypassed Constantinople, yet for most with Byzantium in the following year. The sum above which Byzantine grain was to be
of them it was a port of call at which they obtained supplies or loaded and unloaded sold in the empire was raised to 100 hyperpyra per centenarium. The second concession,
goods. This was even the case of the Venetian state galleys sailing to the Black Sea, which overlooked so far, appears in an addition to the original clause: it allowed the Venetians
anchored in numerous ports along the way to their prescribed destination.42 Four patterns to ship foreign grain from the Black Sea region without any restriction. The same addition
of transit may be distinguished with regard to goods: first, those sent to specific markets was included in the treaty of 1285.46 Some Genoese ships carrying foreign grain stopped at
beyond Constantinople, yet remaining on board the same vessel; secondly, goods passing Constantinople to take additional cargo on board on the way to Genoa, or were compelled
through the city, yet without changing ownership; thirdly, goods traded and changing to stop by the imperial authorities, which imposed arbitrary taxes upon them.47 In 1304
hands in Constantinople before traveling to other destinations; finally, raw materials Genoa obtained that its ships carrying foreign grain, pitch, alum and other commodities
processed in Constantinople before pursuing their journey. The four transit patterns from the Black Sea would be allowed to sail tax free without hindrance, that no ships
illustrate the city’s multiple functions as major collection and distribution center, as well would be retained in Byzantine ports except for valid legal reasons.48 The agreements of
as transshipment and relay station with respect to a vast region extending from Caffa Venice and Genoa with the empire, respectively in 1277 and 1304, imply that vessels fully
and Tana to Alexandria, London and Bruges, as well as to the Balkans and Asia Minor. laden with foreign grain from the Black Sea bypassed Constantinople.
The nature of commodities, commercial or other considerations, as well as The transfer of slaves from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean also followed two
destinations determined the transit pattern. Trade in Black Sea grain intended for Italian different patterns. Western merchants generally bought a single slave or a small number
markets followed two different patterns. Fully loaded ships must have generally sailed of them in addition to other commodities, in order to diversify the cargo they shipped
directly to the Mediterranean without stopping at Constantinople to avoid loss of time, and maximize their chances of profit.49 Some merchants intended to sell the slaves in
expenses, and the payment of taxes. This was apparently the Genoese practice to which their home town, yet most of them appear to have done so along the way. Mongol, Bulgar,
emperor Manuel I objected and to which he put an end in 1169, in order to control and, if Cuman, Turkish, Rus and Alan slaves were sold in the Cretan port of Candia in 1301-1302,
necessary, to limit grain export to ensure sufficient supplies for Constantinople.43 obviously after passing through Constantinople.50 Numerous merchants buying slaves
Venice’s naval expedition of 1257 to Mesembria, an important outlet of Bulgarian in the Black Sea region in the first half of the fifteenth century fail to mention any port
grain, suggests that by that time the Venetians were exporting that commodity to Venice.44
Grain was an important issue in the negotiations of emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos
with Venice. The Byzantine-Venetian treaty of 1265, which was not ratified by Venice, 45 I trattati con Bisanzio, 1265–1285, ed. M. Pozza and G. Ravegnani (Venice, 1995), 39 and 42, no. 2, par. 11; 62, no.
prohibited the export of grain from the empire if its price in Constantinople exceeded 4, par. 11. See also J. Chrysostomides, “Venetian Commercial Privileges under the Palaeologi,” StVen 12 (1970):
312–16 [repr. in J. Chrysostomides, Byzantium and Venice, 1204–1453 (Farnham, 2011), no. III].
50 hyperpyra per centenarium. The treaty of 1268 introduced two changes. It reproduced
46 I trattati con Bisanzio, 1265-1285, ed. Pozza and Ravegnani, 96–99, no. 7, par. 15, and 160–61, no. 11, par. 14. The
the provision while extending it to all the territories of the empire, yet stipulated that empire is not mentioned in the addition to the clause which, therefore, refers to foreign lands.
47 M. Balard, “Le commerce du blé en mer Noire (XIIIe -XVe siècles),” in Aspetti della vita economica medievale.
39 G. I. Bratianu, Recherches sur le commerce génois dans la mer Noire au XIIIe siècle (Paris, 1929), 246. Atti del convegno di Studi nel X Anniversario della morte di Federigo Melis (Florence, 1985), 22–23, reference to
40 Génois de Péra et de Caffa, 169–70, no. 150. a document of 1290 [repr. in M. Balard, La mer Noire et la Romanie génoise (XIIIe - XVe siècles) (London, 1989),
41 Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, 40–41. On the coinage circulating in the Crimea: Balard, La Romanie no. VI].
génoise, 2 :658–59. On silver ingots excavated in the Crimea: M. G. Kramarovsky, “The Golden Horde and 48 I Libri iurium della Repubblica di Genova, I.8, ed. E. Pallavicino (Genoa, 2002), 69–74, esp. 73, no. 1266.
Levant in the Epoch of Fr. Petrarca: Trade, Culture, Handcrafts,” Rivista di Bizantinistica 3 (1993): 267–68. 49 Some thirty cases in M. Balard, Gênes et l’Outremer, I. Les actes de Caffa du notaire Lamberto di Sambuceto,
42 See above, n. 30. 1289–1290 (Paris-La Haye, 1973).
43 See above, n. 20. 50 C. Verlinden, L’esclavage dans l’Europe médiévale, II, Italie-Colonies italiennes du Levant-Levant latin-Empire
44 D. Jacoby, “The Economy of Latin Constantinople,” 210–11, 213–14. byzantin (Gent, 1977), 807, 809–11, 819–22, 837–71, 879–81.
204 TRADE IN BYZANTIUM David Jacoby | Constantinople as Commercial Transit Center, Tenth to Mid-Fifteenth Century 205

beyond Constantinople or Pera,51 where resale would have most likely taken place with transit circulated around 1340.59 The account book of Giacomo Badoer, which registers
profit.52 Giacomo Badoer bought single slaves from several merchants and sold them the origins and destinations of a broad variety of goods, offers further evidence in that
to several other traders.53 Slaves also arrived in Constantinople by land from Hungary, respect around a century later. Incidentally, some Venetian merchants unloaded in
Serbia, Wallachia and former Byzantine territories conquered by the Ottomans.54 Transit Constantinople goods from vessels sailing to Tana, claiming that since the goods are
through the city mostly involved change of ownership and transshipment. This was also about to leave for that port they would pay the taxes they owed at destination. However,
the case of large transports assembled in Constantinople by several merchants. In 1438 instead of sending the goods to Tana, they sold them in Constantinople and thereby
Zuan Mocenigo, Alesandro Zen, and Giacomo Badoer were among the partners in a joint evaded the payment of the sales tax. In 1412 Venice decided to put an end to that abuse.60
enterprise, sending respectively 150, 19, and 13 slaves on a ship sailing to Majorca. The Furs imported from the Black Sea were reaching Constantinople, and some of
following year Badoer was also partner in another joint enterprise to that island, the them were dressed in the city, as implied by the presence of furriers’ shops destroyed by
ship carrying 164 slaves and other cargo.55 In the late fourteenth and the first half of the fire in 931.61 Furs also sailed beyond Constantinople. In 1253 William of Rubruck met in
fifteenth century large transports of more than 30 slaves from Caffa were rare.56 On the Soldaia Latin merchants, among them from Constantinople, who were familiar with the
other hand, in 1427 the convoy of ships returning from Tana to Venice carried more than carts used for the overland transport of furs in Mongol territory.62 The dressing of furs in
400 slaves, an exceptionally large number, presumably belonging to several merchants.57 Constantinople continued in the fourteenth century, as implied by the ruga pelipariorum
The ships may have anchored at Constantinople to collect merchants and goods, yet the attested in 1313 in the Venetian quarter and by other sources.63 The Arab chronicler Ibn al-
slaves must have been kept on board. A different transit pattern prevailed with respect to Athir asserted that beaver and grey squirrel furs ceased to be imported into the Muslim
ships carrying slaves from Crimea to strengthen the military contingents of Mamluks in Near East, obviously via Constantinople, after the Mongol incursion of 1223 into Eastern
Egypt. The ships, the identity of which is not stated, were taxed when sailing through the Europe.64 The Venetian-Egyptian treaties of 1238 and 1254 contradict that statement, since
Bosphoros on their return journey.58 The massive purchase of these slaves was not made they imply a marked increase in the import of beaver, grey squirrel, otter and other furs
for commercial purposes and it is likely, therefore, that they bypassed Constantinople. to Egypt from the first half of the thirteenth century onward.65 Upper garments lined
Most goods transiting through Constantinople must have changed hands before with furs were very popular and much in demand among the upper ranks of society in
pursuing their journey beyond the city. The sections of Pegolotti’s trading manual dealing Mamluk Egypt.66 Toward the end of the fourteenth century Sultan Barquq introduced
with the relation of weights, measures and monies in Constantinople and its suburb Pera fur as an integral component of Mamluk costume, and its use spread among the affluent
with those of other ports illustrate the large geographic range in which commodities in elite.67 Like the Venetian- Egyptian treaties just mentioned, the Genoese-Egyptian treaty
of 1290 exempted the import of furs from taxes.68

51 A. Stello, Grenzerfahrung. Interaktion und Kooperation im spätmittelalterlichen Schwarzmeerraum

(Webpublished, 2012), 205. 59 Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, 48–54.
52 On average price differences in that period, see B. Doumerc, “Les Vénitiens à La Tana (Azov) au XVe siècle,” 60 C. Maltezou, Ο θεσμός του εν Κωνσταντινουπόλει Βενετού Βαΐλου (1268-1453) [= The institution of the Venetian
CMRS 28 (1987): 11. bailo in Constantinople (1268-1453)] (Athens, 1970), 158, par. 20, dating January 1412 (1411 Venetian style).
53 Il libro dei conti di Giacomo Badoer (Costantinopoli, 1436-1440), ed. U. Dorini and T. Bertelè (Rome, 1956) 61 J. D. Howard-Johnston, “Trading in Fur from Classical Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages,” in Leather and
[hereafter: Badoer], 27.46, 272.20, 288.27–28, 346.12–14, and many other cases. Fur. Aspects of Early Medieval Trade, ed. E. A. Cameron (London, 1998), 66–71; J. Shepard, “‘Mists and Portals’:
54 K.-P. Matschke, “Tore, Torwächter und Torzöllner von Konstantinopel in spätbyzantinischer Zeit,” in K.-P. the Black Sea North Coast,” in Byzantine Trade, 4th-12th Centuries, ed. M. Mundell Mango, 432–36; McCormick,
Matschke, Das byzantinische Konstantinopel. Alte und neue Beiträge zur Stadtgeschichte zwischen 1261 und 1453 Origins, 730.
(Hamburg, 2008), 206–7. 62 F. Guillelmus de Rubruc, “Itinerarium,” in Sinica franciscana, I, Itinera et relationes Fratrum Minorum saeculi
55 Badoer, 442, 524. XIII et XIV, ed. A. van den Wyngaert (Quaracchi-Florence, 1929), 164–65, 168–69, chap. I, pars. 1, 6 and 7.
56 Stello, Grenzerfahrung, 184. 63 D. Jacoby, “Les quartiers juifs de Constantinople à l’époque byzantine,” Byzantion 37 (1967): 200 [repr. in
57 Venice, Archivio di Stato, Senato, Misti, 120 v., 20 August 1427 (unpublished). The Senate’s decision mentions D. Jacoby, Société et démographie à Byzance et en Romanie latine (London, 1975), no. II]; N. Oikonomidès,
the number of slaves, yet does not authorize each convoy from Tana to bring up to 400 slaves, as stated by Hommes d’affaires grecs et latins à Constantinople (XIIIe-XVe siècles) (Montreal-Paris, 1979), 101.
S. P. Karpov, “Main Changes in the Black Sea Trade and Navigation, 12th-16th Centuries,” in Proceedings of the 64 Mentioned by E. Ashtor, “Quelques observations d’un orientaliste sur la thèse de Pirenne,” JESHO 13 (1970),
22nd International Congress of Byzantine Studies, Sofia, 22–27 August 2011 (Sofia, 2011), 1:426. 192, repr. in idem, Studies on the Levantine Trade in the Middle Ages (London, 1978), no. I.
58 P. M. Holt, Early Mamluk Diplomacy (1260-1290). Treaties of Baybars and Qalawun with Christian Rulers (Leiden- 65 TT 2:339, 487.
New York-Köln, 1995), 122–28; Georges Pachymérès, Relations historiques, ed. A. Failler (Paris, 1984–2000), 66 L. A. Mayer, Mamluk Costume: a Survey (Geneva, 1952), 25: the most important amirs used sable, lynx,
1:237–39; Nikephoros Gregoras, Byzantina historia, ed. L. Schopen (Bonn, 1829–1855), 1:101–2. See also R. hermine, marten, grey squirrel and castor furs.
Amitai, “Diplomacy and the Slave Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean: a Re-examination of the Mamluk- 67 D. Behrens-Abouseif, Practicing Diplomacy in the Mamluk Sultanate: Gifts and Material Culture in the Medieval
Byzantine-Genoese triangle in the Late Thirteenth Century in Light of the Existing Early Correspondence,” Islamic World (London, 2014), chap. 8, no. 20-23.
Oriente Moderno 88 (2008): 349–68, esp. 364–66. 68 I Libri iurium della Repubblica di Genova I.7, ed. E. Pallavicino (Genoa, 2001), 78–83, esp. 79.
206 TRADE IN BYZANTIUM David Jacoby | Constantinople as Commercial Transit Center, Tenth to Mid-Fifteenth Century 207

Goods in transit combining sea and land transport via Constantinople mostly have already been mentioned.76 Skins from the Black Sea, the Balkans and Asia Minor
changed hands in the city. In the tenth century commodities from the Black Sea were arrived in Constantinople. In 1155 the Venetian Enrico Zusto owned there two hundred
partly conveyed to Thessalonike by the Via Egnatia.69 The listing of provinces in Asia sheep skins, the origin of which is not stated.77 Judging by later evidence, these would
Minor in the imperial chrysobull of 1198 in favor of Venice also involved combined land presumably have been tanned in the city before being exported to Venice, where tanned
and sea trade for goods exported via Constantinople.70 Venetian exports along that skins were much in demand. Jewish tanners were practicing their craft in the suburb of
itinerary must have continued after 1204, as implied by the treaties Venice concluded Pera around that time, according to Benjamin of Tudela.78
with the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, the first one presumably in 1209, the second with Kay- Around 1320 Venetian entrepreneurs, exempt from Byzantine taxes, imported
Ka’us I (1211–1220), and the third treaty, the only preserved one, with Kay-Qubad I in 1220. skins, as well as valonia, the acorn-cups used in the tanning process, as attested by
Precious stones and pearls, mentioned in that treaty, were apparently in high demand the contemporary Venetian tax regulations of 1327 for Constantinople.79 The Venetians
in Constantinople. Western merchants conducting trade in Mongol territories took them employed local Jewish craftsmen settled in the Vlanga quarter to carry out the tanning
along as commodity or means of payment, as noted with respect to the Polo brothers.71 and shipped the processed skins to Venice with added value. In order to increase their
The range of trade and the nature of commodities changed following the Ottoman profit margin, they resorted to various devices. At their request, Venice granted Venetian
conquests in Asia Minor from the early fourteenth century onward. Combined land status to a number of Byzantine Jewish tanners, who as Venetian nationals also enjoyed
and sea transit through Constantinople was stimulated by the development of Bursa full exemption from imperial taxes. Moreover, the Venetian entrepreneurs devised
and Edirne, the successive Ottoman capitals. Both cities became major trading and cooperation between Venetian and Byzantine Jewish tanners. As a result, it was impossible
consumption centers by the second half of the fourteenth century. The sale of western to distinguish who had handled the skins, thus enabling the export, also free of tax, of
textiles in both cities in the first half of the fifteenth century has already been mentioned.72 those processed by Byzantine Jewish tanners. emperor Andronikos II strongly opposed
A change in the itinerary of silk from the Caspian Sea region to Constantinople took that cooperation and prohibited tanning by Venetian Jews, restricting their operations
place following the establishment of a new secure route crossing Asia Minor, apparently to the removal of animal hair from skins. Since they nevertheless pursued tanning, the
under Bayezid I (r. 1389-1402). Instead of traveling from Tabriz to Trebizond, the silk emperor compelled them in 1324 or shortly afterwards to resettle in the Venetian quarter
proceeded via Erzincan and Ankara to Bursa.73 Johann Schiltberger, who arrived in Bursa situated along the Golden Horn.80 In 1437–1438 Giacomo Badoer imported skins which,
in 1397, reports the export of silk from that city to Venice. It must have been shipped once the hair had been removed, were bleached, dyed or processed before being sent to
from Constantinople, the nearest major port regularly visited by Venetian merchants Venice.81 In 1450 Venice objected to newly imposed taxes, among them on the import or
and vessels. The Genoese and Florentine merchants trading in Bursa by 1432 obviously export of skins to Constantinople, which illustrates the importance it attached to their
passed through Constantinople.74 Combined land and sea trade in yet another direction transit.82
is illustrated by Badoer’s trading accounts. In 1436 he obtained some three metric tons In the early fifteenth century some processing of imported raw materials related
of raisins from a Turk of Nikomedia and sent them on board a ship sailing to the Black to the wine trade also took place in Constantinople. Wine producers in Crete faced then
Sea ports of Simisso (Samsun) and Trebizond. 75 As noted above, skins as well as slaves a shortage of wooden barrels. Cretan merchants involved in large-scale imports of wine
imported by land from the Balkans were re-exported by sea to the West. to the imperial capital stimulated there the production of barrel staves, made of timber
The fourth transit pattern mentioned earlier, namely the processing of raw
materials imported to Constantinople and re-exported as semi-finished or finished 76 See above, n. 18, 196.
products, applies to several commodities. Silk textiles woven in the city before 1204 77 Famiglia Zusto, ed. L. Lanfranchi (Venice, 1955), 50–52, esp. 51, no. 22.
78 The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, ed. Adler, Hebrew, 16–17, English trans., 14. See also D. Jacoby, “The Jews
in the Byzantine Economy (Seventh to Mid-Fifteenth Century),” in Jews in Byzantium: Dialectics of Minority
and Majority Cultures, ed. R. Bonfil, O. Irshai, G. Stroumsa, and R. Talgam (Leiden-Boston, 2012), 230–31.
69 Oikonomides, “Le marchand byzantin des provinces,” 649. 79 On valonia, see Maltezou, Ο θεσμός του εν Κωνσταντινουπόλει Βενετού Βαΐλου (1268-1453), 141, par. 6.
70 I trattati con Bisanzio, 992–1198, ed. M. Pozza and G. Ravegnani (Venice, 1993), 119–37, esp. 131; Gérolymatou, 80 On this whole affair, see Jacoby, “Les quartiers juifs de Constantinople,” 191–94, 196–207.
“Le commerce, VIIe-XVe siècle,” 488. 81 Matschke, “Tore, Torwächter und Torzöllner von Konstantinopel,” 204–6; D. Jacoby, “The Jews in Byzantium
71 Jacoby, “The Economy of Latin Constantinople,” 204–6. and the Eastern Mediterranean: Economic Activities from the Thirteenth to the Mid-Fifteenth Century,” in
72 See above, n. 14-15, 196. Wirtschaftsgeschichte der mittelalterlichen Juden: Fragen und Einschätzungen, ed. M. Toch unter Mitarbeit von
73 H. Inalcik, “Bursa and the Silk Trade,” in An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914, ed. E. Müller-Luckner (Munich, 2008), 33–34.
H. Inalcik with D. Quataert (Cambridge, 1994), 219–24. 82 Diplomatarium veneto-levantinum, ed. G. M. Thomas and R. Predelli (Venice, 1880–1899), 2:379–80. The
74 Jacoby, “The Silk Trade of Late Byzantine Constantinople, ” 136-137. revenue from the tax was either included in the salary of Loukas Notaras, who as mesazon was entrusted
75 On the deal, see Lefort, “Badoer et la Bithynie,” 375–76. with the administration of the empire, or he acted as farmer of the tax.
208 TRADE IN BYZANTIUM David Jacoby | Constantinople as Commercial Transit Center, Tenth to Mid-Fifteenth Century 209

from Thrace, and barrel hoops. From the 1420s at the latest Cretan ships returning home Transit trade also benefited inhabitants of lower social rank in Constantinople.
from Constantinople carried large amounts of them for the manufacture of casks by Little attention has been paid so far to the input of the urban infrastructure and the
the island’s coopers. In the years 1437-1439 Giacomo Badoer handled more than 30,000 servicing of merchants, carriers, ships and goods into the city’s economy. The services
barrel staves. Their manufacture and export to Crete was halted for some time after the included the transfer of goods by barks across the Bosphoros, the loading and unloading
Ottoman conquest of Constantinople.83 of ships required by transit and transshipment, transportation within the city to and
The transit pattern through Constantinople was not always determined by from warehouses or residences, storage for goods and accommodation for merchants,
merchants or carriers according to their interests. As noted above, it was sometimes the provisioning of ships, crew and passengers, as well as ship repairs. Weighing and
imposed by Byzantine state intervention for grain exports from the Black Sea. Some measuring goods, the tasting of wine to ascertain its quality, the sifting of spices to
commercial contracts or wills prescribed the geographic range of transit. In 1281 Niccolò remove impurities, as well as packing entailed the payment of fees. Moreover, often
de San Stefano undertook to sell fox furs entrusted to him by a furrier of Pera in the transit and transshipment also required the supply of sacks, ceramic containers, boxes,
empire, without sailing beyond Abydos in the Dardanelles.84 Some charters drafted in barrels, oil-cloth to protect goods from humidity during long maritime voyages, and
Black Sea ports include similar clauses limiting trade to the region extending as far as strings, all partly manufactured in the city.90 Late fifteenth-century sources regarding
Abydos.85 In 1389 the Jewish physician Baronus residing in Pera willed a quarter of his Ottoman Constantinople illustrate the survival of many practices and payments for
movable wealth to his son-in-law, on condition that his investments would be limited to services from the Byzantine period.91
trade from the island of Tenedos to Constantinople and in the Black Sea.86 Inter-lingual communication, vital in a multi-cultural trading milieu, called for the
The contribution of transit trade to Constantinople’s economy in the late Byzantine intervention of interpreters, agents and middlemen, often local ones, who took advantage
period is generally considered in a skewed fiscal perspective. To be sure, the tax of their function to maximize their income by commercial transactions of their own.
exemptions granted to those enjoying Venetian or Genoese nationality and the intensive Three years after arriving in Constantinople Giacomo Badoer was still not fluent in Greek
trading in Genoese Pera reduced the revenue of the imperial treasury. According to and, therefore, hired a local interpreter who would handle the passage of goods at the
Nikephoros Gregoras, around the mid-fourteenth century the imperial treasury collected imperial customs.92 Services often entailed bribes and gratuities appearing under various
annually 30,000 gold coins, debased at that time, from custom duties in Constantinople, names. Around 1340 Pegolotti advised merchants to bribe customs officers, their scribes
whereas the Genoese revenue in Pera amounted to 200,000.87 Yet Byzantine and other and their interpreters in order to reduce tax payments.93 Giacomo Badoer carefully
merchants engaging in transactions with privileged individuals were taxed, whether noted in his account book all the expenses incurred for services and gratuities, which
directly by the imperial administration or by tax farmers.88 The revenue yielded by these added up to sizeable sums.94 The recourse to credit and banking was an indispensable
taxes was partly redistributed in the city in the form of payments and salaries. Moreover, component of trade. Despite the prominent role of the Italians, there was room for the
the chronic impoverishment of the imperial treasury contrasts with the enrichment of operation of Byzantine bankers with fairly abundant capital engaging in both financial
a group of Byzantine individuals, who actively participated in the Black Sea trade and and commercial transactions.95 Byzantine merchants and carriers played an important
entered into joint ventures with Latin merchants, although they diverted some of their
profits to Genoese and Venetian state funds.89 90 Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, 34–36, 38–40, 45–47, on packing materials, costs of packing, and other
expenses; see also J. Lefort, “Le coût des transports à Constantinople, portefaix et bateliers au XVe siècle,” in
Ευψυχια. Mélanges offerts à H. Ahrweiler, ed. M. Balard et al. (Paris, 1998), 413–25, and next note. On oil-cloth,
83 Jacoby, “Mediterranean Food and Wine for Constantinople,” 142. see L. de Mas Latrie, Histoire de l’île de Chypre sous le règne des princes de la maison de Lusignan, 3 vols. (Paris,
84 Génois de Péra et de Caffa, 88–89, no. 26, 7 July 1281. 1852–1861), 2:451. Incidentally, C. Morrisson, “Weighing, Measuring, Paying Exchanges in the Market and
85 Oikonomidès, Hommes d’affaires, 39. the Marketplace,” in Trade and Markets, ed. Morrisson, 396, mistakenly considers garbellatura a control tax
86 M. Balard, “Péra au XIVe siècle: Documents notariés des archives de Gênes,” in Les Italiens à Byzance, ed. M. charged on spices; in fact, it was the sifting of spices: see Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, 34–35.
Balard, A. Laiou, C. Otten-Froux (Paris, 1987), 35, no. 75. 91 A. Sopracasa, “Les marchands vénitiens à Constantinople d’après une tariffa inédite de 1482,” StVen 63
87 Nikephoros Gregoras, Byzantina historia, 2:841–42. (2011): 100–6, on packing, and 185–99, 201–3, on services.
88 On the farming of state taxes from the 11th century onward, which reached a peak in the first half of the 15th 92 Badoer, 650.17.
century: see T. Ganchou, “Giacomo Badoer et Kyr Théodôros Batatzès, ‘comerchier di pesi’ à Constantinople 93 Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, 42.
(flor. 1401–1449),” REB 61 (2003): 92–95. 94 On bribes and tips: Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, 35: “E il comperatore dè dare per vino al fante del
89 For two especially well-documented cases of investments, see T. Ganchou, “Le rachat des Notaras après venditore carati 4 per fardello di seta.” See also 44, “fare cortesia.” On tips, see also Badoer, 248, 256, 472, 552,
la chute de Constantinople ou les relations ‘étrangères’ de l’élite byzantine au XVe siècle,” in Migrations et 554, and on cortexia, Sopracasa, “Les marchands vénitiens,” 202–3.
diasporas méditerranéennes (Xe-XVIe siècles), ed. M. Balard and A. Ducellier (Paris, 2002), 158–67, 171–74, 217, 95 Oikonomidès, Hommes d’affaires, 63–68; J. Lefort, “La brève histoire du jeune Bragadin,” in AETOS. Studies
and T. Ganchou, “L’ultime testament de Géôrgios Goudélès, homme d’affaires, mésazôn de Jean V et ktètôr in Honour of Cyril Mango, presented to him on April 14, 1998, ed. I. Ševčenko and I. Hutter (Stuttgart-Leipzig,
(Constantinople, 4 mars 1421),” in Mélanges Cécile Morrisson, TM 16 (2010): 291, 303, 305–6, 339–40. 1998), 213.
210 TRADE IN BYZANTIUM

role in local and regional operations in and around Constantinople, whether on their
own or in association with Italians, supplying the city and Italian traders in foodstuffs
The Byzantine Marketplace: A Window onto
and raw materials and contributing thereby to transit trade.96 Daily Life and Material Culture
The Italians, who dominated the transit trade of Constantinople from the early
fourteenth century onward, fully exploited their privileges and resources. They are
supposed to have exported their gains to Italy, contributing thereby to the city’s economic Brigitte Pitarakis
decline. This Eurocentric and ‘colonial’ perspective is clearly flawed. While some CNRS, Paris
Venetians returned home, like Giacomo Badoer after about four years in Constantinople,
others considered the city as their permanent residence. Some Genoese families settled
in Pera dominated the economic life of the suburb over several generations.97 Settled
Italians reinvested their gains in the operation of the local economy. Their ranks were
presumably reinforced to some extent in the first half of the fifteenth century, when
insecurity affecting the Genoese and Venetian outposts and colonies of the Black Sea
induced Italian merchants to resettle, some in Constantinople or Pera, and shift their
operations from long-distance to regional trading.98
Undoubtedly, the Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1394-1402 and the following
ones until 1453 affected the transit function of the city. It is unclear, though, to what
Protection against evil was a fundamental concern in the lives of the Byzantines. They
extent they also hindered transit through the Genoese suburb of Pera, which benefited
equated evil with demonic activity, and the marketplace was a privileged residence of
from better economic conditions than the Byzantine section of the city.99 In that section
demons. The Gospel narrative of the Cleansing of the Temple is evocative. The Byzantines
the sieges also resulted in general impoverishment, except for a small group of Byzantine
employed a range of conventional devices intended to ward off evil in protecting economic
dignitaries, high-ranking functionaries and wealthy citizens engaging in profiteering, and
activity. Various aspects of daily life in the marketplace of Constantinople, with a focus
in outbursts of social discontent among lower ranks of Byzantine society.100 Still, viewed
on the food and drink trade, illustrate this fear of evil and the variety of means used to
in a long-term perspective, transit trading, the related processing of raw materials re-
dispel and conquer it. This is done by contextualizing the nexus between supernatural
exported beyond Constantinople, as well as the supply of services provided employment
protection and official administrative regulations.
to numerous local residents and injected into the urban economy cash that trickled
down the social scale.
Protection and the Material Culture of Trade: State, Religion, and Magic

Fraud was the most obvious form of evil threatening the Byzantine marketplace. The
96 Oikonomidès, Hommes d’affaires, 74–77.
97 Balard, La Romanie génoise, 1:252–58, 262–64. fight against fraud thus emerged as an essential issue with which economic agents had
98 B. Doumerc, “La Tana au XVe siècle: comptoir ou colonie?” in État et colonisation au Moyen Age, ed. to cope. To facilitate orderly outcomes for transactions, the Byzantines employed a range
M. Balard (Lyon, 1989), 253–56, 261–64; Doumerc, “Les Vénitiens à La Tana,” 5–19; F. Thiriet, La Romanie
of public and private guarantees. God and the emperor served as the two poles around
vénitienne au Moyen Age. Le développement et l’exploitation du domaine colonial vénitien (XIIe-XVe siècles),
2nd ed. (Paris, 1975), 427–28. A Byzantine leaving Caffa for Constantinople after 1434: K.-P. Matschke, “Die which daily transactions at the marketplace were regulated.
Bedeutung des Schwarzmeerraumes für die Stadtwirtschaft und Stadtgesellschaft von Konstantinopel in The fear of moral punishment by God was complemented by a series of material
spätbyzantinischer Zeit: Das Chiogia-Ise-Puzzle (1994–2007),” in Das spätbyzantinische Konstantinopel, 491–
and corporal punishments stipulated by law, ranging from flogging, tonsuring, and
98, 527–31.
99 On Byzantines taking refuge in Genoese Pera in the 1390s: N. Necipoğlu, Byzantium between the Ottomans “burning in flames,” to the payment of fines, confiscation of property, and exile. God’s law
and the Latins. Politics and Society in the Late Empire (Cambridge, 2009), 150; on the contrast between Pera stipulated the use of proper weights and measures, but infringement of the law was not
and the Byzantine section of the city: ibid., 190–91, 195.
rare.1 Chapter 15 of Novel 128 of Justinian I, dated 545 and addressed to Peter Barsymes,
100 Ibid., 155–74, 186–99, 224–28. Additional evidence in K.-P. Matschke, “Nachträge und Vorschläge zur
wirtschaftgeschichtlichen Auswertung des Patriarchalsregister von Konstantinopel,” in The Register of
the Patriarchate of Constantinople. An Essential Source for the History and Church of Late Byzantium, ed. C. 1 Leviticus 19:36 and Deuteronomy 25:15 both dictate the use of honest, accurate scales, weights, and
Gastgeber, E. Mitsiou, and J. Preiser-Kapeller (Vienna, 2013), 59–77, and in the two studies by Ganchou measures. For the punishments stipulated by law, see discussion in C. Morrisson, “Weighing, Measuring,
mentioned above, n. 88. Paying: Exchanges in the Market and the Marketplace,” in Trade and Markets in Byzantium, ed. Morrisson