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Economic Factors in the Decline of the Byzantine Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Peter Charanis
Peter Charanis
Affiliation:
Rutgers University
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Extract

It is now five hundred years since the Byzantine empire was brought to an end by the Ottoman Turks, Scholars today quite justly reject Gibbon's assumption that the Byzantine empire was, throughput its entire existence, in a state of decline. They have come to rank it, instead, as one of the great empires in history. And this for good reasons. It endured for over a thousand years. Down to about the middle of the eleventh century it was the center of civilization in Christendom. It preserved the thought and literature of antiquity; it developed new forms of art; it held back the barbarians. It produced great statesmen, soldiers, and diplomats as well as reformers and renowned scholars. Its missionaries, aided by its diplomats and sometimes by its armies, spread the gospel among the pagan tribes, especially the Slavs, which dwelt along its frontiers and beyond. As a Czech historian has put it, Byzantium “molded the undisciplined tribes of Serbs, Bulgars, Russians, Croats even, and made nations out of them; it gave to them its religion and institutions, taught their princes how to govern, transmitted to them the very principles of civilization—writing and literature.” Byzantium was a great power and a great civilizing force.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , Fall 1953 , pp. 412 - 424
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1953

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References

1 Not only specialists but generally cultivated people have come to have a high regard for Byzantium. The Nansen, Norwegian Fridtjof wrote in his book, l'Arménie et le prochc Orient (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1928), p. 31Google Scholar: , St. Sophia “is and will remain one of the most remarkable works of architecture, and if the Byzantine culture had created nothing but that, it would be sufficient to classify it among the greatest.” And the philosopher Whitehead, A. N. wrote in his Adventures of Ideas (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1933), p. 104Google Scholar: “The distinction separating the Byzantines and the Mahometans from the Romans is that the Romans were themselves deriving the civilization which they spread. In their hands it assumed a frozen form. Thought halted, and literature copied. The Byzantines and the Mahometans were themselves the civilization. Thus their culture retained its intrinsic energies, sustained by physical and spiritual adventure. They traded with the Far East: they expanded westward: they codified law: they developed new forms of art: they elaborated theologies: they transformed mathematics: they developed medicine. Finally, the Near East as a centre of civilization was destroyed by the Tartars and the Turks.”

2 Dvornik, F., Les Slaves byzance et Rome au IXe siècle (Paris: Librairie Ancicnne Honoré Champion, 1926), Vol. IIGoogle Scholar.

3 Charanis, Peter, “A Note on the Population and Cities of the Byzantine Empire in the Thirteenth Century,” The Joshua Starr Memorial Volume, Jewish Social Studies, Publication No. 5 (New York: Conference on Jewish Relations, Inc., 1953), pp. 137–39Google Scholar.

4 Schlumberger, G., Un Empereur byzantin au dixiime siicle: Niciphore Phocas (Paris, 1890), pp. 429 fGoogle Scholar.

5 Wright, F. H., trans., The Works of Liudprand of Cremona (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1930), P. 249Google Scholar.

6 This statement, made by me in my study, “On the Social Structure of the Later Roman Empire,” Bytantion, XVII (1944-1945), 57, has been repeated by others. See, for instance,Google ScholarZakythinos, D. A., “Les Institutions du Despotat de Morée. VI. Justice,” L'Hellénisme Contemporain, Ser. 2, 4th year (1950), p. 206Google Scholar. A most amazing interpretation has been given to it recently by a Soviet scholar. He writes: “The American historian P. Charanis extracts from the Fascist ideological arsenal the ancient glorification of war, carols its sham creative role; it is a pseudo scientific theory calling only to concur in the ideological preparation of a new war.” Kazhdan, A. P., Agrarnye otnosheniia v Vizantii XU1-XIV VV (Moscow: Akademica Nauk SSSR, 1952), pp. 17–18Google Scholar. The translation is by G. Alef.

7 The latest work on the origin of the theme system with the essential bibliography is by Pertusi, A., Constantino Porfirogenito de thematibus. Introduzione. Testo critico (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1952), pp. 103–11Google Scholar.

8 For a discussion of this with the essential bibliography see , Charanis, “On the Social Structure of the Later Roman Empire,” Byzantion, XVII (1944-1945), 42–49Google Scholar.

9 For the essential bibliography see , Charanis, “On the Social Structure and Economic Organization of the Byzantine Empire in the Thirteenth Century and Later,” Byzantino-slavica, XII (1951), 94, n.2Google Scholar. To the works listed there the following should be added: Zakythinos, D. A., “Crise monétaire et crise économique à Byzance du XIIIe au XVe siècle,” L'Hellénisme contemporain (1948), pp. 50 f.Google Scholar; Lipsic, E. E., Byzanz und die Slaven. Beitrage zur byzantinischen Geschichte des 6–9. Jahrhunderts, trans, from the Russian by Langer, E. (Weimar: Hermann Bohlaus Nachfolger, 1950, pp. 5–105Google Scholar; , Zakythinos, “La Societe dans le dcspotat de Morée,” L'Hellénisme contemporain (1951), pp. 7–28Google Scholar; , Zakythinos, “Etatisme byzantine et experience hellenistique,” Annuaire de L'lnstitut de Philologie et d'Histoire Orientale et Slave. Tome X: Mélanges Henri Grégoire, II (1950), 667–80Google Scholar.

10 Jus-Graeco-Romanum, ed. Lingenthal, Zachariae von (Leipzig, 1857), III, 246–47Google Scholar. On the efforts of the emperor to check the growth of ecclesiastical properties see , Charanis, “The Monastic Properties and the State in the Byzantine Empire,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers (1948), IV, 53–64Google Scholar.

11 Jus-Graeco-Romanum, III, 262 f.

12 Psellos, M., Chronographie, ed. and trans, into French by Renauld, E. (Paris: “Les Belles Lettres,” 1926), pp. 1–17Google Scholar. English trans. Sewter, E. R. A., The Chronographia of Michael Pscllus (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1953), p. 23Google Scholar.

13 , Cedrenus, Historiarum Compendium (Bonn, 1839), II, 652Google Scholar.

14 Ibid., II, 668.

15 For the essential bibliography on the Byzantine pronoia see , Charanis, “On the Social Structure and Economic Organization of the Byzantine Empire in the Thirteenth Century and Later,” Byzantino-slavica, XII (1951), 97, n. 11Google Scholar. To the works listed there should be added the important work by Ostrogorsky, G., Pronoia, A Contribution to the History of Feudalism in Byzantium and in South-Slavic Lands (Belgrade: Serbian Academy of Science, Special Editions, CLXXVI, Byzantine Institute, Vol. I, 1951)Google Scholar. Unfortunately Ostrogorsky chose to write this book in Serbian. However we have now a lengthy summary of it in English: Sevienko, Ihor, “An Important Contribution to the Social History of Late Byzantium,” The Annals of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the United States, II (1952), 448–59Google Scholar.

16 , Charanis, “The Aristocracy of Byzantium in the Thirteenth Century,” Studies in Roman Economic and Social History in Honor of Allan Chester Johnson, ed. by Coleman-Norton, P. R. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), pp. 336–55Google Scholar.

17 For the essential bibliography on the exkuseia see , Charanis, “The Monastic Properties and the State in the Byzantine Empire,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers (1948), IV, 65, n. 3:Google Scholar.

18 lbid., pp. 64–67. For a reference to exkuseia in the tenth century, 995, see Dolger, F., Aus den Schatzkammern des Heiligen Berges. Textband (Munich: Münchner Verlag [Bisher F. Bruckmann], 1948), p. 155, 1. 3Google Scholar.

19 On the social upheavals in Byzantium in the fourteenth century see , Charanis, “Internal Strife in Byzantium in the Fourteenth Century,” Byzantion, XV (1940-1941), 208–30Google Scholar.

20 There is really no systematic and exhaustive study on the commerce and industry of Byzantium. The latest general survey is that by Runciman, S., “Byzantine Trade and Industry,” The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952)Google Scholar. The chapter by R. S. Lopez in the same publication, entitled “The Trade of Medieval Europe: the South,” also bears upon the commerce of Byzantium. For the industry and commerce of the Peloponnesus there is now the book by Bon, A., Le Piloponnise byzantin jusqu'en 1204 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1951), Pp. 119–53Google Scholar. On the silk industry the important study is by , Lopez, “Silk Industry in the Byzantine Empire,” Speculum, XX (1945), 1–43Google Scholar.

21 As an illustration of this one may consult the commercial treaty which the Byzantines concluded in the tenth century with the Russian Prince Igor: Cross, S. H., “The Russian Primary Chronicle,” Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, XII (1930), 159 ff. A new edition of Cross's translation of this chronicle will soon be published by the Mediaeval Academy of AmericaGoogle Scholar.

22 The fundamental source for the guild organization in Byzantium remains the Book of the Prefect of which there is an English translation, Boak, A. E. R., “The Book of the Prefect,” Journal of Economic and Business History, I (1929), 600 ffGoogle Scholar. For the essential bibliography see , Charanis, “On the Social Structure and Economic Organization of The Byzantine Empire in the Thirteenth Century and Later,” Byzantino-slavica, XII (1951), 149, n. 247Google Scholar.

23 Rouillard, G., “Les Taxes maritimes et commercials d'après des actes de Patmos et de Lavra,” Mélanges Charles Diehl (Paris: Librarie Ernest Leroux, 1930), I, 177–89Google Scholar; Danstrup, John, “Indirect taxation at Byzantium,” Classica et Mediaevalid, VIII (1946), 139–67Google Scholar.

24 For the twelfth century, we are told by the traveler Benjamin of Tudella, the daily revenues of Constantinople amounted to 20,000 nomismata. For the essential bibliography concerning the meaning of this figure and in general about the revenues of Byzantium see , Charanis, “Internal Strife in Byzantium during the Fourteenth Century,” Byzantion, XV (1940-1941), 224, n. 62. The nomisma was a gold piece which weighed about 4.50 grGoogle Scholar.

25 Danstrup, John, “Manuel I's Coup against Genoa and Venice in the Light of Byzantine Commercial Policy,” Classica et Mediaevalia, X (1948), 195–219Google Scholar.

28 See n. 27.

27 Guilland, R., “La Correspondence inélite d'Athanase, patriarch de Constantinople (1289–1293; 1304–1310),” Mélanges Charles Diehl, I (1930), 121–40Google Scholar; Banescu, N., “Le Patriarch Athanase I et Andronic II Paleologue. £tat religieux, politique et social de l'Empire,” Academic Roumaine: Bulletin de la Section Historique, 23, 1 (1942), 35 ffGoogle Scholar.

28 Subdivision of Byzantine money was as follows:

1 pound of gold = 72 nomismata

1 nomisma = 12 miliarisia = 24 keratia = 288 folleis

See Ostrogorsky, further G., “Die landliche Steurgemeinde des byzantinischen Reiches im X Jahrhundert,” Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial-und-Wirtschajtsgeschichte, XX (1927), 63Google Scholar.

29 I have used'Boak's translation, pp. 616–17.

30 On this see , Charanis, “Internal Strife in Byzantium in the Fourteenth Century,” Byzantion, XV (1940-1941), 211 ffGoogle Scholar.

31 Lewis, A. R., Naval Power and Trade in the Mediterranean, A. D. 500–1100 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), p. 353Google Scholar.

32 An idea of what happened to the revenues of Constantinople is given by the statement of the Byzantine historian Gregoras that, while the annual custom revenues of Constantinople had shrunk to about 30,000 nomismata, those of the Genoese colony of Galata went up to about 200,000 nomismata. This was about the middle of the fourteenth century. Gregorat, Nicephorus, Byzantina Historia (Bonn, 1829-1830), II, 842Google Scholar.