Byzantine Maritime Trade, 1025-1118

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ISBN 978-2-916716-64-0
ISSN 0577-1471
Byzantine maritime trade, 1025–1118
by David Jacoby
Only one study on Byzantine maritime trade covering the eleventh and early twelfth
century has appeared in the last twenty years or so.1 This is rather surprising, given
the vital role of maritime trade in the empire’s economy, its significant evolution in
that period, and important archeological discoveries providing new insights into its
workings. Two facets of Byzantine maritime trade deserve our attention: firstly, its modes
of operation, as well as the macro- and micro-economic domestic contexts in which it
evolved; secondly, these same aspects in trade and shipping conducted by the empire’s
subjects in foreign waters. The first facet is at best mentioned in passing in studies dealing
with the empire’s ports, ships, itineraries, trade, or economy in the years 1025–118.2 The
second facet is largely overlooked, since it is still widely assumed, based upon Byzantine
literary sources, that the Byzantines were reluctant to travel, feared the sea, were devoid
of enterprising spirit, and awaited foreigners to supply them with the goods they needed.3
These stereotypes were common among the Byzantine social élite and authors identifying
with its values and attitudes or presenting them in their writings. However, despite
1. A. E. Laiou, Byzantine traders and seafearers, in The Greeks and the sea, ed. by S. Vryonis Jr.,
New Rochelle NY 1993, pp. 79–96, though with an emphasis on trade rather than on the specific
aspects of maritime trade. Some studies on particular features or regions of that trade are cited below.
To shorten the notes I mainly cite recent publications, in which the reader will find primary sources
and earlier bibliography.
2. For instance, in A. Avramea, Land and sea communications, fourth-fifteenth centuries, in
EHB 1, pp. 57–90, here pp. 77–90, and the more thorough study by E. Kislinger, Verkehrsrouten
zur See im byzantinischen Raum, in Handelsgüter und Verkehrswege : Aspekte der Warenversorgung
im östlichen Mittelmeerraum 4. bis 15. Jahrhundert, hrsg. von E. Kislinger, J. Koder, A. Külzer
(Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse, Denkschriften 388),
Wien 2010, pp. 149–74. “Maritime trade” does not even appear in the index of either A. Harvey,
Economic expansion in the Byzantine Empire, 900–1200, Cambridge 1989, in EHB 3, pp. 1171–83,
or A. E. Laiou and C. Morrisson, The Byzantine economy, Cambridge 2007.
3. The supposed reluctance of Byzantines to travel and the fact that only two merchants of the
eleventh and twelfth century are known by name has recently been interpreted as limited Byzantine
sea-fearing, which enabled the Venetians to enter into the Byzantine supply system: E. Kislinger, Reise
und Verkehrswege in Byzanz : Realität und Mentalität, Möglichkeiten und Grenzen, in Proceedings of
the 22 nd International Congress of Byzantine studies, Sofia, 22–27 August 2011. 1, Plenary papers, ed. by
I. Iliev, Sofia 2011, pp. 341–87, here pp. 374–8. This construct may be safely dismissed in the light
of the evidence adduced below.
Autour du Premier humanisme byzantin & des Cinq études sur le xi e siècle, quarante ans après Paul Lemerle,
éd. par B. Flusin & J.‑C. Cheynet (Travaux et mémoires 21/2), Paris 2017, p. 627-648.
628 david jacoby
their prejudice against seaborne trade, some Byzantine authors stressed the audacity of
merchants and sailors engaging in that activity in their quest for profit.4 Incidentally,
these writers were not ignorant of maritime matters, as illustrated by the description of
the reign of Isaac Komnenos (r. 1057–59) by Michael Psellos: “He took over the state
as though it were a merchantman loaded to the safety-line, so that it barely topped the
wash of the waves, and having crammed it up to the very decks, he sank it.”5
The textual and material evidence bearing on both facets of Byzantine seaborne trade
in the period covered here is meager, fragmentary, and widely scattered. There are no
writings from a Byzantine travelling milieu such as western notary charters or the Jewish
letters of the Cairo Geniza recording maritime trade and travel.6 Paradoxically, textual
sources offer more evidence about foreigners than about imperial subjects operating
within the empire’s maritime network. This raises the question whether one may consider
contemporary and especially later, more abundant sources as reflecting the activity of
Byzantine traders and maritime carriers in the period examined here. The distribution of
known shipwrecks illustrates some maritime trade routes, yet it is impossible to determine
by them the full range of the Byzantine maritime networks, nor the Byzantine share
in shipping. Likewise, Byzantine ceramics or other artifacts found on board or near
shipwrecks do not always provide secure evidence in that respect, since they may have
been conveyed by foreign carriers or, in the case of amphoras, may have been re-used as
containers. This is also the case of ceramics found in land excavations. It remains to be
seen to what extent the available sporadic evidence enables a reconstruction of Byzantine
seaborne trade in the eleventh and early twelfth century.
The domestic economic background

It is important to stress already at this stage that the empire’s maritime trade in the period
covered in this paper was affected by some dynamic factors generating significant changes in
its nature, volume, intensity and range. Some of these changes were the result of economic
developments within the empire, while others were brought about by external factors.
By the early eleventh century economic expansion had already been underway for
some two centuries. It was reflected by demographic increase, especially in cities, by
urban growth, the accumulation of wealth, and a rise in purchasing power.7 These general
trends are particularly well illustrated in the major consumption center of the empire,
4. D. Jacoby, The Byzantine outsider in trade c. 900–c. 1350, in Strangers to themselves : the
Byzantine outsider : papers from the thirty-second Spring Symposium of Byzantine studies, University of Sussex,
Brighton, March 1998, ed. by D. C. Smythe, Aldershot 2000, pp. 129–32, repr. in D. Jacoby, Latins,
Greeks and Muslims : encounters in the Eastern Mediterranean, 10 th–15 th centuries, Farnham 2009, no. I.
5. Psellos, Chronographia, vol. 1, p. 233, Book 7, § 55; translation quoted from Fourteen Byzantine
rulers : the Chronographie of Michael Psellus, transl. with an introd, by E. R. A. Sewter, Harmondsworth
1966, p. 309.
6. On the rich material from the Geniza, see S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean society : the Jewish
communities of the Arab world as portrayed in the documents of the Cairo Geniza, Berkeley – Los Angeles
1967–93; J. L. Goldberg, Trade and institutions in the medieval Mediterranean : the Geniza merchants
and their business world, Cambridge 2012.
7. Laiou and Morrisson, The Byzantine economy (quoted n. 2), pp. 90–6, 130–3, on demography
and the urban economy.
Byzantine maritime trade, 1025–1118 629
Constantinople, both directly and indirectly. Modern estimates of the city’s population
in the period covered here remain in the realm of speculation, in the absence of reliable
figures in medieval sources.8 However, circumstantial evidence implies that the city
enjoyed a sizeable demographic growth. A large influx of “aliens, Armenians and Arabs
and Jews” in the first decades of the eleventh century was held responsible for the severe
riots that erupted in Constantinople in 1044, which prompted emperor Constantine IX
Monomachos (r. 1042-1055) to order the expulsion of all those among them who had
settled in the city in the preceding thirty years. It is highly doubtful that this order was
successfully implemented. In any event, the flow of immigrants was obviously not limited
to the ethnic groups just mentioned or to an influx from Syria and Asia Minor. It continued
throughout the eleventh century and was furthered by the Seljuq advance in Asia Minor.9
Constantinople was particularly attractive to people seeking employment or business
opportunities in view of its large population, the various functions of state institutions,
the growing economic resources flowing into the city, and the latter’s centrality in the
Byzantine supply system. The resulting increase in grain demand in Constantinople may
account for the short-lived attempt by Emperor Michael VII Doukas in the 1070s to
channel the grain trade of Thrace from Raidestos to Constantinople through an imperial
market, in order to take advantage of its growing volume and tax it more efficiently.10
The admission to the Senate of rich merchants, senior members of the guilds and
some administrative personnel, a new policy apparently initiated by Constantine IX
Monomachos and pursued until the reign of Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081–118), has
generally been considered in a political or social perspective.11 It also reflects an economic
process, namely the growing affluence of some individuals not belonging to the social
8. P. Magdalino, The empire of Manuel I Komnenos, 1143–1180, Cambridge 1993, p. 120 and n. 49,
refers to a study of mine, as though I accepted the figure of 400,000 stated by Geoffroy of Villehardouin
for 1204. Id., The grain supply of Constantinople, ninth-twelfth centuries, in Constantinople and its
hinterland : papers from the twenty-seventh Spring Symposium of Byzantine studies, Oxford, April 1993, ed. by
C. Mango and G. Dagron, Aldershot 1995, pp. 35–47, repr. in P. Magdalino, Studies on the history and
topography of Byzantine Constantinople, Aldershot 2007, no. IX, cites the figure as “inaccurate, but it is the
only global estimate we have” (pp. 35–6). Laiou and Morrisson, The Byzantine economy (quoted n. 2),
p. 131, refers to it as if it were a fact. We should beware of the impressionistic assessments of medieval
observers, prone to exaggeration. The city’s water supply system could anyhow not have sustained a
population of 400,000 inhabitants in the twelfth century. Compared to the water installations at their
peak in the fifth-sixth centuries, they were greatly diminished, and this must have already been the case
earlier: J. Crow, J. Bardill and R. Bayliss, The water supply of Byzantine Constantinople, London 2008,
respectively pp. 15–9 and 21–2. J. Koder, Maritime trade and the food supply for Constantinople in
the Middle Ages, in Travel in the Byzantine world, ed. by R. Macrides, Aldershot 2002, pp. 109–24, here
pp. 110, 116, adopts a hypothetical figure of 100,000 people, more plausible but still undocumented.
9. The Chronography of Gregory Abu’l-Faraj, the son of Aaron, the Hebrew physician commonly known
as Bar Hebraeus, transl. from the Syriac, with an historical introd. by E. A. W. Budge, Oxford – London
1932, p. 203. See also D. Jacoby, The Jews of Constantinople and their demographic hinterland,
in Constantinople and its hinterland (quoted n. 8), pp. 223–7, repr. in D. Jacoby, Byzantium, Latin
Romania and the Mediterranean, Aldershot 2001, no. IV.
10. Magdalino, The grain supply of Constantinople (quoted n. 8), pp. 39–45, and a different
interpretation by A. Laiou, Exchange and trade : seventh-twelfth centuries, in EHB 2, pp. 697–770,
here pp. 741–4, and in Laiou and Morrisson, The Byzantine economy (quoted n. 2), pp. 135–6.
11. G. Dagron, The urban economy, seventh-twelfth Centuries, in EHB 2, pp. 393–461, here
pp. 414–6; Laiou, Exchange and trade (quoted n. 10), vol. 2, p. 753; N. Oikonomides, The role of
630 david jacoby
elite and their mounting pressure to translate their large economic resources, which are
the main consideration here, into enhanced social status. By the early eleventh century
the accumulation of wealth and the rise in purchasing power in the empire resulted in
changing consumption patterns and a greater inclination to display luxury in food, dress,
and other material aspects of daily life.12 In turn these behavioral developments fueled a
growing and increasingly diversified demand, the driving force of the economy.
This is illustrated in Constantinople by the import of highly appreciated Cretan
cheese, which may have already been available by the 1020s. According to the poet
known as Ptochoprodromos, who apparently wrote around 1170, it was imported by
Venetians and obtainable in their quarter, its consumption not being limited to the
wealthy. His testimony seems to be also valid for the first half of the twelfth century.13
Olive oil arrived from Apulia and possibly also from Sicily beginning in the second half
of the eleventh century, and from the Peloponnese in the first half of the twelfth century,
if not earlier. Wine was imported from remote Byzantine and foreign regions such as
Southern Italy, present-day Albania, as well as from Chios, Crete and Samos, islands
producing high-grade brands, and even from the Levant.14
The rise in the standard of living was not confined to the elite, nor to the empire’s
capital. It also extended to wider circles of the urban population, as well as to the provinces.
Presumably much time after it had begun, the author of Timarion mentioned around
1140 the sale of textiles from Boeotia and the Peloponnese at the fair of St. Demetrios
in Thessalonike, indirectly referring to silk fabrics manufactured at Thebes or Corinth.15
The downscaling in quality and imitations of manufactured products ensured a broader
circle of consumers at middling and lowers ranks of society whose purchasing power was
more limited than at the level of the elite. Pieces of clothing made of second-grade silk
fibers or a mix of silk and other fibers were occasionally found in low-class households.
In 1022 a Jewish woman of modest means living at Mastaura, a small town located on
a tributary of the Maeander River in Lydia, granted her daughter a marriage gift that
included two silken kerchiefs valued two hyperpyra each and a dress woven of second-
the Byzantine state, in EHB 3, pp. 973–1058, here p. 1021; J. Haldon, Social élites, wealth and power,
in The social history of Byzantium, ed. by J. Haldon, Chichester 2009, pp. 168–211, here pp. 191–2.
12. A. Kazhdan and A. W. Epstein, Change in Byzantine culture in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries Berkeley 1985, pp. 74–83.
13. D. Jacoby, Silk in Western Byzantium before the Fourth Crusade, BZ 84–85, 1991–2,
p. 452–500, repr. in D. Jacoby, Trade, commodities and shipping in the medieval Mediterranean,
Aldershot 1997, no. VII, here p. 494, and n. 239 for the dating.
14. D. Jacoby, Mediterranean food and wine for Constantinople : the long-distance trade, eleventh
to mid-fifteenth century, in Handelsgüter und Verkehrswege (quoted n. 2), pp. 127–47, here pp. 129–30,
136–7. Koder, Maritime trade (quoted n. 8), p. 119, consider oil an important component of the
daily diet, yet its overall consumption in Constantinople must have been smaller than in his calculation
since it was a fairly expensive commodity, especially high-grade oil: see D. Jacoby, Rural exploitation
and market economy in the late medieval Peloponnese, in Viewing the Morea : land and people in the
late medieval Peloponnese, ed. by S. E. J. Gerstel, Washington 2013, pp. 213–75, here pp. 233, 238–9.
15. Timarion, pp. 53–5, §§ 5–6, and see esp. lines 147–57. I adopt here the approximate dating
proposed by M. Alexiou, After antiquity : Greek language, myth, and metaphor, Ithaca 2002, pp. 100–5,
different from the one in Jacoby, Silk in Western Byzantium (quoted n. 13), p. 462.
grade silk worth somewhat less.16 Ptochoprodromos refers to the half-silk dress woven
of silk and cotton of his wife, who reproached him of never having offered her a silken
dress, which suggests that in some cases one woven of floss silk could have been expected
in a modest household.17 The mass production of jewelry and cross-reliquaries in bronze
imitating objects in precious metals is a further illustration of the growing demand at
levels of the social scale below the elite.18
Large landowners, whether lay or monasteries, used accounting in the management
of their estates and found ways to reduce administration costs in order to increase their
revenue,19 yet they were not content with the sale of surpluses, as widely assumed. Textual
sources and recent archeological finds at Sparta point to the major role of local large
landowners in the rise of oil production and in its marketing, more fully documented for
the twelfth century. These landowners also encouraged the peasants to increase their yield
of olives.20 The large number of young mulberry trees in Calabria in the mid-eleventh
century points to an expansion of sericulture by local peasants in response to a rising
demand for raw silk. The market-oriented approach of the archontes who established silk
workshops in Thebes and Corinth in the eleventh century and financed their operation
is obvious.21 In short, large landowners, as well as entrepreneurs and merchants were
attentive to the expanding and increasingly varied market demand and responded to
it by initiating, pursuing and stimulating a market-oriented production of surpluses
in pastoral, agricultural and manufactured commodities. They also boosted demand
by diversifying production and market supply. In turn these developments generated
an increase in commercial exchanges and maritime transportation and expanded their
geographic range. The surplus of edibles, wine, semi-manufactured and manufactured
commodities produced in the empire was largely directed toward Constantinople, yet a
portion was also distributed throughout the empire and beyond its borders.22
Patterns of maritime trade and navigation: the domestic market

The common focus upon long-distance maritime trade and the role of the Italians
in its framework has deflected attention from Byzantine short-haul and medium-range
regional commerce and transportation. The Empire’s extensive coastline, the connection
between the mainland and numerous islands as well as between the latter, and wide
16. D. Jacoby, What do we learn about Byzantine Asia Minor from the documents of the Cairo
Genizah?, in Η Βυζαντινή Μικρά Ασία : 6ος-12ος αι. = Byzantine Asia Minor : 6th-12th cent., [eds.
N. Oikonomides and S. Vryonis, Jr.], Αθήνα 1998, pp. 83–91, repr. in Jacoby, Byzantium, Latin
Romania and the Mediterranean (quoted n. 9), no. I, here pp. 84–6.
17. Jacoby, Silk in Western Byzantium (quoted n. 13), p. 475.
18. B. Pitarakis, Les croix-reliquaires pectorales byzantines en bronze, Paris 2006.
19. On the management of large domains and accounting, see J. Lefort, The rural economy, in
EHB 1, pp. 231–310, here pp. 295–9; K. Smyrlis, La fortune des grands monastères fin du x e-milieu
du xiv e siècle, Paris 2006, pp. 234–43; M. Kaplan, L’économie du monastère de la Kosmosôteira
fondé par Isaac Comnène d’après le typikon (1152), in Mélanges Cécile Morrisson (= TM 16, 2010),
pp. 455–83, here pp. 471–80.
20. Jacoby, Rural exploitation (quoted n. 14), pp. 213, 233–9.
21. Jacoby, Silk in Western Byzantium (quoted n. 13), pp. 462–73, 475–88.
22. See above, n. 14; Jacoby, Silk in Western Byzantium (quoted n. 13), pp. 494–7, 500.
632 david jacoby
diversity in economic resources required continuous and intensive commercial exchanges

between micro-regions, as well as between the empire and foreign countries.23
The eleventh- and early twelfth-century textual and archeological sources offer sparse,
yet precious information regarding Byzantine merchant ships, their differing modes of
navigation, and the latter’s geographic ranges both in the Mediterranean and in the Black
Sea. Regardless of the distance covered, these sources reflect three distinctive navigation
patterns, each of which deserves special attention and will be illustrated in due course.
The first navigation pattern involved direct sailing to specific locations determined
in advance by market demand. Ship owners also acting as merchants engaged in that
type of sailing over short distances. In 1204 Gunther of Pairis was told that the local
Greeks operated some 1,600 fishing boats.24 Even if inflated, the figure suggests a
large-scale movement of barks and small vessels involved in the daily conveyance of
various commodities to the city from nearby locations, as from the Asian shore across
the Bosporos.25 The small vessels may have been similar to some of those discovered in
the Yenikapı district of Istanbul, the site of the Byzantine portus Theodosiacus. Direct
sailings over longer distances were also practiced in accordance with oral or written
carriage contracts concluded between the ship’s owner or owners and merchants sending
their goods on board the vessel. In addition, regardless of their tonnage, ships loaded
to capacity with a single or multiple commodities such as wine, grain, fish, timber, or
manufactured goods sailed directly from production or collection centers to specific
destinations determined by commercial contracts or by market conditions. The second
navigation pattern, cabotage, consisted in the movement of ships between ports or havens
located at fairly short- or medium-range distances one from another along a planned
navigation route. In contrast, tramping entailed calling into ports or havens without a
fixed schedule. The last two navigation patterns aimed at the small-scale collection and
distribution of goods, as well as the loading and unloading of passengers. Especially
tramping was conducted by petty traders.
These navigation patterns allowed for variations in maritime trade. Some of the cargo
on board may have been sent to a specific destination, while the remainder was to be
sold wherever possible. Merchants who did not accompany their cargo entrusted it to
an agent, a middleman,26 the ship owner or the captain, if these were not identical, for
delivery to a specific addressee.27 Sometimes the captain also traded along the way, as
the one on the Serçe Limanı ship, examined below. Navigational considerations induced
ships to hug the coast and to rely on a string of islands to cross the Aegean. Only strong
economic incentives prompted shipmasters and merchants to deviate from that rule.
23. D. Jacoby, The Eastern Mediterranean in the later Middle Ages : an island world?, in
Byzantines, Latins, and Turks in the Eastern Mediterranean world after 1150, ed. by J. Harris, C. Holmes
and E. Russell, Oxford 2012, pp. 93–118, here pp. 95–7, 112.
24. Gunther von Pairis, Hystoria Constantinopolitana : Untersuchungen und kritische Ausgabe, von
P. Orth (Spolia Berolinensia 5), Hildesheim – Zurich 1994, p. 129, cap. VIII.
25. In his discussion of food supplies Koder, Maritime trade (quoted n. 8), pp. 112–3, refers to
small ships bringing perishable goods over short distances.
26. For a case in Constantinople in 1111, see below, n. 71.
27. For a list of goods pertaining to a Byzantine carriage contract of the early thirteenth century,
though not for a business venture: M. Grünbart, Aspekte des Waren- und Informationsaustausches
in personalen Netzwerken, Byz. 80, 2010, pp. 157–73, here pp. 164–7.
Deep water sailing was occasionally practiced in the Black Sea by the eleventh century,28
yet was uncommon in the medieval Eastern Mediterranean before the second half of the
twelfth century, unless unavoidable as between Southern Italy and the Balkan shore or
between the latter and Crete.29
Short- and medium-range shipping is well illustrated by the tenth and eleventh-century
hagiographic texts regarding the founders of monasteries, typika of these institutions,
and imperial privileges granted to them. These monasteries mostly operated small ships
sailing with surpluses from their own estates or bought from peasants, sometimes also
with cash, and returned with goods acquired for their own supply. The mixed cargoes
on these vessels consisted of foodstuffs, raw materials, semi-finished products, and
manufactured commodities. The acquisition of goods may have been carried out at
specific, predetermined locations where sale and purchase or barter took place, or else
at several sites, in which case the ships conducted cabotage or tramping. Some of them
carried only 200 to 300 maritime modioi or 1.2 to 1.8 registered tons.30 However, in
963, shortly after its foundation, the monastery of Lavra on Mount Athos owned at
least one larger ship reaching Abydos, according to the Life of St. Athanasios. Before
984 Emperor Basil II granted Lavra a fiscal exemption for a vessel capable of carrying
6,000 maritime modioi or 36 tons. Athanasios transferred this privilege to John the
Iberian, which suggest that Lavra did not have then such a ship. At the same time
the monks of Mount Athos were allowed to sell their own surplus of wine as far at
Thessalonike, according to the typikon of Constantine IX Monomachos issued for them in
1045, which allowed to reach Ainos in Thrace. Shortly after its foundation, the monastery
of Patmos obtained permission to send its ships to all parts of the empire. One of them
was selling the monastery’s cheese and dried meat in the region of the Dardanelles and
arrived at Constantinople between 1088 and 1091/92. The monastery’s ships were also
reaching Crete by 1093. The Amalfitan monastery on Mount Athos was allowed by
1045 to send a large ship to Constantinople to collect donations from the Amalfitans
in the city, yet without conducting trade. Still, even tax-exempted vessels belonging to
monasteries barred from trading by imperial regulations engaged in purely commercial
sailings in the Aegean and in the Marmara Sea, occasionally as far as Constantinople.31
28. M. McCormick, Origins of the European economy : communications and commerce, ad 300-900,
Cambridge 2001, pp. 422–3, 482–3, for a somewhat earlier period.
29. Earliest testimonies for longer journeys: along Crete to Alexandria in 1183 and from Acre
directly to one of the Aegean islands and along Crete in the following year by round ships: The
travels of Ibn Jubayr, transl. by R. J. C. Broadhurst, London 1952, pp. 29, 329–30; directly from
Messina along the southern shore of Crete to Rhodes in 1191 by galleys, and directly from Marseilles
to Acre: Chronica magistri Rogeri de Hovedene, ed. by W. Stubbs (Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi
scriptores 51, 3), London 1868–71, pp. 105, 160.
30. According to E. Schilbach, Byzantinische Metrologie (Handbuch des Altertumswissenschaft 12, 4
= Byzantinisches Handbuch 4), München 1970, pp. 94–6, the θαλάσσιος μόδιος was equivalent to
12,8 kg wheat, which serves as basic unit for my calculation of the carrying capacity of the ships
mentioned here.
31. M. Nystazopoulou-Pélékidou, Les couvents de l’espace égéen et leur activité maritime
xe-xiiie s., Symmeikta 15, 2002, pp. 109–30; Smyrlis, La fortune des grands monastères (quoted n. 19),
pp. 219–25, 228–30. P. Soustal, Wirtschaft und Handelsleben auf dem Heiligen Berg Athos, in
Handelsgüter und Verkehrswege (quoted n. 2), p. 275–287; M. Kaplan, Monks and trade in Byzantium
from the tenth to the twelfth century, in Trade in Byzantium : papers from the third international Sevgi
634 david jacoby
The monasteries were obviously eager to take advantage of the expanding demand. The
monastery of Ganos, situated along the Marmara Sea, developed a market-oriented
production of wine that enjoyed a wide distribution in the eleventh and twelfth century.32
Yet there is no evidence that this monastery shipped the wine on its own vessels.
Several tenth or eleventh-century ships excavated in the Yenikapı district in Istanbul,
such as YK 6, 7 and 9, with a hull measuring between 6.2 and 8.5 m, were also involved
in short- and medium-range seaborne trade.33 They presumably carried a mixed cargo,
like YK 12, a somewhat larger ship originally 9.0 to 9.5 m long and 2.80 m wide, dated
to the period extending from 672 to 800. Some 180 Günsenin I amphoras were found
with this ship, each of them weighing some 4 kg and originally containing 7-8 liters
of wine produced by the Ganos monastery. The wine cargo would thus have weighed
between 1.98 and 2.16 tons.34 The navigation pattern of vessels carrying such small
shipments of wine amphoras was determined by commercial considerations. They may
have engaged in cabotage or tramping to distribute the amphoras at various locations,
unless the entire wine cargo had been ordered or bought by specific wholesalers or tavern-
keepers and was to be delivered to them.35 The eleventh-century Tekmezar I ship found
off Marmara Island, with a carrying capacity of some 220 to 240 metric tons, presumably
one of the largest Byzantine vessels of that period, transported a single commodity, some
20,000 amphoras of Ganos wine.36 The ship was clearly heading directly to a single large
market, namely Constantinople, in which she would have unloaded her entire cargo. It is
highly unlikely that the vessel would have called in several ports along its medium-range
voyage in order to sell parts of its wine load.
The Byzantine two-masted lateener that sank around 1025 along the southwestern coast
of Asia Minor at Serçe Limanı was engaged in a much longer commercial voyage. The
vessel, 15.6 m long and c. 5 m wide, with a carrying capacity of some 30 tons, was returning
Gönül Byzantine studies symposium : Istanbul, 24–27 June 2013, ed. by P. Magdalino, N. Necipoğlu
with the assistance of I. Jevtić, Istanbul 2016, pp. 55–64.
32. N. Günsenin, Ganos wine and its circulation in the 11th century, in Byzantine trade,
4 th-12 th centuries : the archaeology of local, regional and international exchange : papers of the thirty-eight
Spring Symposium of Byzantine studies, St. John’s College, University of Oxford, March 2004, ed. by
M. M. Mango, Farnham 2009, pp. 145–53. However, the wide diffusion of the Ganos amphoras does
not necessarily document the range of wine distribution, as assumed by the author, pp. 152–3, since
they may have been re-used as containers for other commodities.
33. I. Ö. Kocabaş – U. Kocabaş, Technological and constructional features of Yenikapı
shipwrecks : a preliminary evaluation, in The “old ships” of the “New Gate” = Yenikapı’nın eski gemileri,
ed. U. Kocabaş, Istanbul 2008, pp. 97–186, here pp. 103, 132, 148.
34. I. Ö. Kocabaş, The latest link in the long tradition of maritime archaeology in Turkey :
the Yenikapı shipwrecks, European journal of archaeology 15, 2, 2012, pp. 309–23. On the wine, see
previous note. For the weight of a full amphora of that type, see N. Günsenin, From Ganos to Serçe
Limanı : social and economic activities in the Propontis during medieval times illuminated by recent
archaeological and historical discoveries, The INA quarterly 26, 3, 1999, pp. 18–23, here p. 21. Koder,
Maritime trade (quoted n. 8), pp. 120–4, does not refer to the capacity of these Gunsenin amphoras
and bases his calculations on larger ones.
35. Two seventh-century ships have been found along Marmara Island, one carrying roof tiles
and the other water pipes: Günsenin, From Ganos to Serçe Limanı (quoted n. 34), pp. 19–20. They
would also have sailed directly to specific locations in response to specific orders.
36. Ibid., pp. 19–21.
from the southern Syrian-Lebanese coast ruled by the Fatimids of Egypt. It was manned by
around a dozen people. Each or most of them were apparently the owners of some of the
Günsenin amphoras type I on board, originally filled with Ganos wine yet re-used several
times.37 In addition, the mixed cargo of the ship included some Islamic pottery, raisins,
sumac (a spice, dyestuff and tanning agent), a small amount of Syrian glassware, and three
tons of glass cullet consisting of raw glass, broken glassware, and glassmaking waste to be
recycled.38 The unidentified perishable cargo in the forward half of the hold may have been
Syrian plant ashes, yet another ingredient entering in glassmaking.39 The raw materials
were sailing to glassworks most likely located at Constantinople. A ninth-century story in
the Miracles of St. Photeine is the only textual testimony for glassmaking in the city,40 yet
this activity presumably continued later. Except for the Günsenin amphoras, the goods had
obviously been purchased at several locations along the way, without a fixed schedule of
navigation. The ship was thus engaging in tramping. The conduct of small-scale trading
is also suggested by the weighing equipment on board.
Two pilgrimage accounts of the early twelfth century offer additional evidence on
long-distance Byzantine maritime trade and navigation. On his journey to Jerusalem
the English pilgrim Saewulf sailed in 1102 from Chalkis in Euboea on a vessel that
engaged in tramping in the Aegean. The following year he travelled to Constantinople,
changing ships along the way. In Rhodes he boarded a small vessel, probably Byzantine,
on which he reached Samos. He notes that “we bought our daily food [there], as in
all the islands”. In Chios he undoubtedly embarked on a Byzantine ship that likewise
anchored at several locations.41 The Byzantine vessel carrying the Russian abbot Daniel
of Chernigov from Constantinople to the Holy Land between 1106 and 1108 called in
several ports, although the abbot only mentions a three-day stop at Ephesos and suggests
a longer one in Byzantine Cyprus. From there the ship sailed to Jaffa, the nearest coastal
city to Jerusalem, where the pilgrims disembarked.42 All these vessels picked up passengers
and goods along the way.
37. Günsenin, Ganos wine (quoted n. 32), pp. 146–9.

38. F. van Doorninck Jr., The Byzantine ship at Serçe Limanı : an example of small-scale
maritime commerce with Fatimid Syria in the early eleventh century, in Travel in the Byzantine world
(quoted n. 8), pp. 137–48.
39. On the high quality of Syrian soda ashes, superior to the Egyptian ones, see the fourteenth-
century Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, ed. by A. Evans, Cambridge Mass.
1936, p. 380.
40. J. Henderson and M. M. Mango, Glass at medieval Constantinople : preliminary scientific
evidence, in Constantinople and its hinterland (quoted n. 8), pp. 333–56, here pp. 345–6, and for the
location of the glass factory mentioned in the text, p. 317, map; see also pp. 352–3, for the soda ash
component in analyzed glass found in Constantinople.
41. Peregrinationes tres : Saewulf, John of Würzburg, Theodoricus, ed. by R. B. C. Huygens
(CCCM 139), Turnhout 1994, pp. 75–7, and for the itinerary, see the map pp. 32–3. Dating of the
voyage by J. H. Pryor, The voyages of Saewulf, ibid., p. 51, n. 25. See also Kislinger, Verkehrsrouten
zur See (quoted n. 2), pp. 170, 174.
42. Account of Abbot Daniel, transl. by W. F. Ryan in J. Wilkinson, J. Hill, W. F. Ryan,
Jerusalem pilgrimage, 1099–1185, London 1988, pp. 122–6, chaps. 2–7, and see the map p. 123. For
its dating, see K.-D. Seeman, Altrussische Wallfahrtsliteratur : Theorie und Geschichte eines literarischen
Genres, München 1976, p. 175.
636 david jacoby
The attendance of merchants “from everywhere” at the fair of St. Demetrios in

Thessalonike, reported by Timarion, also suggest cabotage and tramping in the Aegean.
The merchants must have collected some of the goods they intended to sell at several
locations along their journey to the city.43 In the 1080s the three blocks of large estates
belonging to the Georgian nobleman Gregorios Pakourianos and his brother, situated
between the Strymon Delta and the region of Mosynopolis with good access to the coast,
commercialized a considerable amount of their agricultural produce. Significantly, the
chrysobull of Emperor Alexios I issued to the Venetians in 1082 mentions their right to
trade along the shore from Thessalonike to Constantinople, which included the regions in
which the estates of Pakourianos were located. The explicit listing of that stretch of coast
was obviously related to the purchase of agricultural produce.44 The listing was clearly
made at Venice’s request, although its merchants were allowed then to trade freely in all
regions of the empire.45 We may safely assume that Byzantine merchants and maritime
carriers had been engaging well before 1082 in the collection and transportation of
produce along the Balkan coast and its shipping to Thessalonike and Constantinople.
The Black Sea and the Mediterranean formed distinct commercial regions until
around the mid-thirteenth century. Each of them partly handled different goods within
its own trade patterns and shipping networks. At their juncture Constantinople served as
destination or point of departure for trade and shipping in one or the other region, and
as transit and transshipment station for commodities travelling between them.46 It would
seem that in the eleventh and twelfth century ships only exceptionally sailed from the
Mediterranean into the Black Sea or vice-versa in medium-range or long-distance voyages.
This was apparently the case of some vessels carrying wine, since the transshipment and
especially the re-stacking of amphoras in Constantinople would have entailed more time,
expenses, and risk of breakage than for other commodities. Two shipwrecks found in
the Bay of Sudak in southeastern Crimea, securely dated to the reign of Nikephoros III
Botaneiates (r. 1078–81), carried Günsenin types I and II amphoras containing Ganos
wine, some of them still sealed with their original pine cork stoppers. On board there
were also amphoras-jars presumably filled with olive oil.47
43. See above, n. 15.

44. The connection has been aptly made by A. E. Laiou, Regional networks in the Balkans
in the middle and late Byzantine period, in Trade and markets in Byzantium, ed. by C. Morrisson,
Washington DC 2012, pp. 125–46, here pp. 130–5, repr. in A. E. Laiou, Byzantium and the other :
relations and exchanges, Farnham 2012, no. XIII, pp. 10–7.
45. D. Jacoby, Italian privileges and trade in Byzantium before the Fourth Crusade : a
reconsideration, Anuario de estudios medievales 24, 1994, pp. 349–69, here pp. 351–3, repr. in Id.,
Trade (quoted n. 13), no. II.
46. D. Jacoby, The economy of Latin Constantinople, 1204–1261, in Urbs capta : the Fourth
Crusade and its consequences = La IV e croisade et ses conséquences, sous la dir. de A. Laiou (Réalités
byzantines 10), Paris 2005, pp. 195–214, repr. in Id., Travellers, merchants and settlers across the
Mediterranean, eleventh-fourteenth centuries, Farnham 2014, no. VII; Id., Constantinople as commercial
transit center, tenth to mid-fifteenth century, in Trade in Byzantium (quoted n. 31), pp. 193–210.
47. S. Zelenko, Shipwrecks of the 9th–11th centuries in the Black Sea near Soldaya, in Actas del
VIII Congreso internacional de ceràmica medieval en el Mediterráneo : Ciudad Real – Almagro, J. Zozaya
et al. eds, Ciudad Real 2009, pp. 235–44.
By the late ninth century Trebizond on the northern Asia Minor shore served as
maritime outlet for oriental food condiments, dyestuffs and aromatics, collectively called
“spices” in the Middle Ages, most of which originated in southern and eastern Asia and
arrived via the Persian Gulf.48 There can be no doubt that Byzantine merchants and ships
ensured the transfer of these commodities from Trebizond to Constantinople. On the
other hand, the extant tenth-century sources illustrate the seaborne trade of the Bulgars,
the Rus’, and the residents of Tmutarakan and Kerch/Bosporos with Constantinople.49 It
is inconceivable, though, that in the long run Byzantine merchants and maritime carriers
from the capital should have abstained from participating in commercial exchanges with
the western and northern shores of the Black Sea.
According to a mid-tenth century source, foreign fishermen or merchants were bringing
dried- or salt-fish from the Sea of Azov to Constantinople, the maritime journey lasting
between nine and fifteen days. Similarly, fishermen or traders from Cherson delivered fish
from the Dniepr estuary.50 The participation of Constantinopolitan merchants and ships
in traffic with the Straits of Kerch may have begun or increased after the Rus’ destruction
of the Khazar khaganate in the mid-960s and the reorientation and intensification of
that region’s trading toward Byzantium.51
In the absence of contemporary evidence, we may turn to some later sources providing
insights into the nature of that mercantile activity. In 1235 a ship carrying four Hungarian
Dominicans sailed for 33 days from Constantinople along the Balkan shore to reach
Matrica, situated on the peninsula of Taman at the entrance of the straits of Kerch.52 The
voyage to that region, which was presumably aimed at the purchase of fish, lasted far longer
than the one mentioned above. It clearly implied cabotage or tramping along the Western
Black Sea shore with its numerous havens.53 A faster return voyage may be envisaged if
48. S. Vryonis Jr., The decline of medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the process of Islamization
from the eleventh through the fifteenth century, Berkeley 1971, pp. 15–6; B. Martin-Hisard, Trébizonde
et le culte de saint Eugène, 6e-11e s., REArm NS 14, 1980, pp. 307–43, here pp. 337–8. S. W. Reinert,
The Muslim presence in Constantinople, 9th-15th centuries : some preliminary observations, in Studies
in the internal diaspora of the Byzantine Empire, ed. by H. Ahrweiler and A. E. Laiou, Washington
DC 1998, pp. 125–50, here pp. 132–3, 135–6, mentions another route in the tenth century leading
from the Persian Gulf via Basra, Raqqa, and Aleppo to Antioch. However, the treaty of 969 or 970
between the empire and the emir of Aleppo mentions costly silks, gems, pearls and other oriental
goods, yet not spices: see French transl. by M. Canard, Histoire de la dynastie des H’amdanides de
Jazîra et de Syrie (Publications de la faculté des lettres d’Alger, 2e série, 21), Alger 1951, pp. 833–6,
especially p. 835, § 20.
49. I treat these people as foreigners in the period covered in this paper, despite the Byzantine
conquest of Bulgaria in 1018 and considering the changing political conditions and uncertainty about
imperial rule or overlordship in the Crimea and around the Straits of Kerch.
50. J. Shepard, “Mist and portals” : the Black Sea’s north coast, in Byzantine trade (quoted n. 32),
pp. 421–41, here p. 427.
51. Ibid., pp. 432–9.
52. H. Dörrie, ed., Drei Texte zur Geschichte der Ungarn und Mongolen : die Missionsreisen
des fr. Julianus O. P. ins Uralgebiet 1234/5 und nach Russland 1237 und der Bericht des Erzbischofs
Peter über die Tartaren, Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen. 1, Philosophisch-
historische Klasse 1956, no. 6, pp. 126–202, here pp. 152–3; for the dating, see pp. 148–9.
53. On mooring conditions in a later context: D. V. Dimitrov, The role of the Black Sea ports
in navigation and commerce, 13th–15th centuries, in Proceedings of the 22 nd International Congress of
Byzantine studies (quoted n. 3), pp. 451–71.
638 david jacoby
the ship was fully loaded with fish. The Franciscan missionary William of Rubruck, who
travelled in the Black Sea in 1253, reports that merchants from Constantinople sail in
large ships to the straits of Kerch and pursue their voyage into the Sea of Azov on their
own small boats to buy vast quantities of dried sturgeon and other fish at the estuary of
the Don River.54 Both sources appear to reflect traditional patterns of seaborne trade and
navigation involving merchants and ships from Constantinople. It is likely that Byzantine
merchants also handled the traffic in naphta from the region around the Straits of Kerch
in the eleventh and twelfth century. This was the main ingredient of Greek fire, which
the imperial government was eager to obtain. The number of excavated red clay pitchers
serving as containers for naphta excavated at Tmutarakan, Cherson and Sarkel reaches
a peak in the tenth and first half of the eleventh century. Some have also been found in
Constantinople, though their content has not been explored.55
Grain exports from the western and northern shore of the Black Sea to Constantinople
are not directly documented in the eleventh and twelfth century. The treaty of 1169
between Manuel I Komnenos and Genoa nevertheless points to such traffic. The treaty
prohibited the sailing of Genoese ships from the Mediterranean toward Rhosia and
Matracha, and not just access to these two cities as generally stated. Considering that
vessels travelling from Constantinople usually engaged in coastal navigation to reach
the Straits of Kerch, the ban regarded the region extending from Bulgaria to the Sea of
Azov, which produced large grain surpluses, as illustrated by later sources. Circumstantial
evidence suggests that the Genoese bought that commodity before 1169, and that the
prohibition introduced in that year was aimed at ensuring that the grain would not bypass
Constantinople. Once there, it would be taxed and either available for local consumption
or for export.56 We may safely assume that the Genoese were not the first to purchase grain
along the Western Black Sea shore. Byzantine merchants and carriers must have been
involved in its supply to the capital from the first half of the twelfth century, if not earlier.
Byzantine traders and ships in foreign Mediterranean waters

The differing and complementary nature of the Byzantine and Fatimid economies
required trade in a broad range of commodities.57 The agreements which the emperors
54. Fr. Guillemus de Rubruc, Itinerarium, in Sinica franciscana. 1, Itinera et relationes Fratrum

Minorum saeculi XIII et XIV, collegit, ad fidem codicum redegit et adnotavit A. van den Wyngaert,
Ad Claras Aquas 1929, pp. 166–7.
55. On naphta and its use in Greek fire: Shepard, “Mist and portals” (quoted n. 50), pp. 427–8, 436;
J. F. Haldon, A. Lacy, and C. Hewes, Greek fire revisited : recent and current research, in Byzantine
style, religion and civilization : in honour of Sir Steven Runciman, ed. by E. M. Jeffreys, Cambridge 2006,
pp. 290–325; В. Е. Науменко, О боспорской нефти Константина VII Багрянородного как военно-
экономическом факторе политики Византийской империи в Северном Причерноморье в X-XI вв.,
in Восточная Европа в древности и средневековье 25, редкол.: Е. А. Мельникова и др., Москва 2013,
pp. 205–9. My thanks to Jonathan Shepard for the latest information on the topic.
56. D. Jacoby, Byzantium, the Italian maritime powers, and the Black Sea before 1204, BZ 100,
2007, pp. 677–99.
57. In this section I rely on the sources adduced in an earlier study of mine, yet with additions
and new interpretations: D. Jacoby, Byzantine trade with Egypt from the mid-tenth century to the
Fourth Crusade, Thesaurismata 30, 2000, pp. 25–77, repr. in Id., Commercial exchange across the
Leo VI and Romanos I Lekapenos concluded with the rulers of Egypt and Syria
respectively between 884 and 896 and between 935 and 944 presumably paved the way
for an increase in traffic. Byzantine trade in Egypt appears to have been routine by the
mid-tenth century. A Hebrew letter of 959 from the Cairo Geniza mentions a “Market of
the Greeks” in Fustat, or Old Cairo. The assignment of a special funduq for the housing
of Byzantine merchants by the Egyptian authorities implies that they were visiting Egypt
both regularly and in fairly large numbers.58 They were clearly sailing on Byzantine ships.
The Arab geographer Ibn Hawqal, who completed a revised version of his “Portrait
of the world” around 988, blamed Muslim rulers for their lax policy toward the empire.
He claimed that because of their eagerness to reap profit, they allow the Byzantines to
send their ships to Muslim ports for trade and their agents to travel in their countries.
These activities enable the empire to secretly gather information about Muslim territories.
His criticism implies that Byzantine merchants were welcome in Egypt, both for the
goods they brought and for the taxes they paid. The contemporary Arab geographer
al-Muqaddasi, who completed his “Best Classification for the Knowledge of Regions”
in 986 and a revised version in 989, noted that ships from Arabia and Rum, i. e. the
empire, were constantly arriving at Fustat.59
Arab authors of the second half of the tenth century mention trade between Egypt and
several Byzantine ports or regions: Crete, Chios, with reference to its mastic used in the
preparation of perfumes and pastries, Rhodes, and Attaleia on the southern coast of Asia
Minor.60 Small shipments such as those of the costly mastic of Chios or medicinal plants
from Crete and Asia Minor did obviously not fill the ships’ hold and imply that vessels
on the way to Egypt carried a mixed cargo and practiced cabotage or tramping.61 In all
likelihood, Byzantine merchants also shipped timber to Egypt. The Empire’s recovery
of Crete and Cyprus in the 960s deprived Egypt of direct access to two sources of that
material, required for the maintenance of its naval power. Shortly afterwards, in 971,
under the pressure of Emperor John I Tzimiskes, Doge Pietro Candiano IV of Venice
prohibited the transfer of timber, oars and arms to Muslim countries. A similar ban
must have been issued in the empire itself, despite the absence of direct evidence to that
effect. Byzantine merchants would have conveyed the timber and iron from the Taurus
and Amanus Mountains in Asia Minor.62 Most ports trading with Egypt were situated
along the sea lane leading from Constantinople to Alexandria. Cretan vessels crossed the
Aegean to join that waterway, since direct sailing to Egypt was not yet practiced.63
Two important developments generated an increase in the volume and value of
commodities Byzantine merchants acquired in Egypt from the late tenth or first half of the
Mediterranean : Byzantium, the Crusader Levant, Egypt and Italy, Aldershot 2005, no. I. The study is also
reproduced with a different pagination in J. Shepard, The expansion of Orthodox Europe : Byzantium,
the Balkans and Russia, Aldershot 2007, pp. 107–59.
58. Jacoby, Byzantine trade with Egypt (quoted n. 57), pp. 34–5.
59. Ibid., pp. 33, 36–7. “Rum” had several meanings in Arabic-speaking regions. Context or
circumstantial evidence determines when it was used for Byzantium or its subjects: see ibid., pp. 27–9.
60. Ibid., pp. 31–2.
61. On the export of medicinal plants from these two Byzantine regions at a later period, see
below, n. 72.
63. See above, n. 28–29.
640 david jacoby
eleventh century: growing and more diversified Byzantine demand, already mentioned,
and a shift in the flow of oriental spices. These spices were increasingly diverted from the
Persian Gulf, plagued by political instability, to the Red Sea and the Nile Valley through
which they reached the Mediterranean. Trebizond lost its function as major spice market,
and by the first half of the eleventh century Alexandria, with the support of its Fatimid
rulers, established itself as the main Mediterranean outlet for these oriental commodities.
As a result, the empire became dependent upon Egypt for their supply.64 Byzantine
maritime trade with Egypt steadily gained in importance, despite being restricted or
hampered for short periods by political circumstances, as between 975 and 987 and
between 1016 and 1027, by naval warfare or by piratical activity.65
The intensification of Byzantine maritime trading and shipping with Fatimid territories
is indirectly reflected throughout the eleventh and the first half of the twelfth century
by letters from the Cairo Geniza, which record the continuous two-way movement
of Jews sailing on Byzantine ships, some of which were attacked by Muslim pirates.66
More specifically, letters written in Alexandria in the 1060s or the early 1070s reveal
the involvement of merchants from Crete, along those from Constantinople, in the
acquisition of spices in Alexandria. The purchase strategy of the Byzantine merchants
had a direct impact on market prices in the Egyptian port. These fell sharply, as in
1094, when the merchants refused to buy spices, either because they considered them
too expensive or there was little demand for some of them in the empire. A letter sent
from Alexandria to Fustat in the last years of the eleventh century states that pepper,
cinnamon or ginger are not available in the Egyptian port and adds: “If you have any
of these commodities, keep them, for the Rum are keen solely on them. All the Rum
are about to leave for Fustat. They are only waiting for the arrival of two additional
ships from Constantinople.”67 The sailing of several Byzantine vessels from Alexandria
up the Nile to Fustat in a single season is noteworthy. The English chronicler Orderic
Vitalis reports that a few years later, in 1102, very rich merchants from Constantinople
were staying for some time in the Fatimid capital.68 They too had obviously arrived on
Byzantine ships. A nomisma histamenon of the emperors Basil II and Constantine VIII
minted in the early eleventh century, found in the harbor of Acre, may have been lost
by a Byzantine trader on his way to Egypt.69

65. Reinert, The Muslim presence in Constantinople (quoted n. 52), pp. 136–8. On Muslim
piracy in that period: H. Ahrweiler, Byzance et la mer : la marine de guerre, la politique et les institutions
maritimes de Byzance aux vii e-xv e siècles, Paris 1966, pp. 130–4. On eleventh-century piracy hampering
trade with Egypt, see next note.
66. Jacoby, The Jews of Constantinople (quoted n. 9), pp. 223–7; Id., What do we learn about
Byzantine Asia Minor (quoted n. 16), pp. 89–92.
67. Transl. by Goitein, A Mediterranean society (quoted n. 6), vol. 1, p. 44; dating of the document
after 1094: ibid., vol. 5, p. 104. See also Jacoby, Byzantine trade with Egypt (quoted n. 57), pp. 43–4.
68. The ecclesiastical history of Orderic Vitalis, ed. and transl. by M. Chibnall, Oxford 1969–80,
vol. 5, pp. 351–2.
69. This appears likely since Acre was neither an important trading center nor the port of destination
of pilgrims before the Frankish conquest of the city in 1104. On the coin, see R. Kool, A thirteenth
century hoard of gold florins from the medieval harbour of Acre, The numismatic chronicle 166, 2006,
pp. 301–20, here pp. 306–7.
Byzantine merchants financed their purchases in Egypt with a fairly large array of
commodities, which indirectly inform us about the empire’s ports and regions from
which they sailed and the navigation routes they followed. Silk textiles surely travelled
from Constantinople, a major manufacturer of silk stuff. Rumi mandil or Byzantine silk
kerchiefs, brocade, and cloth for upholstery appear in many Jewish marriage contracts
from the tenth to the twelfth century found in the Cairo Geniza.70 They clearly reflect
fashion throughout Egyptian society. In 1111 a Byzantine vestioprates or merchant
of silk garments entrusted several pieces, the total value of which was 125 hyperpyra,
to a Venetian for sale in Damietta.71 We may safely assume similar business ventures
involving Byzantine middlemen sailing to Egypt. Cretan merchants shipped pastoral and
agricultural produce from their island in the 1060s or early 1070s, and later medicinal
plants. Merchants from the Peloponnese may have conveyed olive oil to Egypt, as done
by Venetians in 1134. Mastic from Chios continued to be shipped to Egypt, as attested
around 1050 and in the second half of the eleventh century. Medicinal plants and drugs
in addition to cheese arrived from Asia Minor.72
There is good reason to believe that Byzantine merchants and carriers also shipped
timber and iron from Asia Minor to Egypt in the eleventh and early twelfth century. In
Egypt the purchase of these commodities became a state monopoly administered by the
Matjar or Trade Office from the mid-eleventh century. The prices it paid, combined
with low taxes, encouraged imports.73 The conveyance of timber and iron, bulky and
heavy commodities, required special shipping arrangements, different from customary
ones. As attested by thirteenth-century sources, the length of beams imported from
Asia Minor to Egypt varied between c. 6 and 7.5 m, and the voyage was only profitable
if the ship carried a large amount of them.74 As a result, the conveyance of timber was
limited to medium-sized or large ships. A large cargo of iron would have been carried by
similar crafts. Iron was stowed at the bottom of the hold to serve as ballast and ensure
the stability of the vessel.
The Persian Nasir-i Khusraw, who visited Jerusalem in 1047 reports, with reference
to the late tenth and early eleventh century, that many pilgrims from the empire used
to visit the Holy Sepulcher every year.75 Some well-off Byzantine pilgrims from distant
regions or cities such as Constantinople presumably sailed to the Holy Land, rather than
70. Goitein, A Mediterranean society (quoted n. 6), vol. 1, p. 46; vol. 4, pp. 191, 315, 320,
329–30.
71. Famiglia Zusto, a cura di L. Lanfranchi (Fonti per la storia di Venezia. 4, Archivi privati),
Venezia 1955, pp. 23–4, no. 6. Only the Venetian’s residence in Venice is mentioned. In 1114 he
received a loan there: ibid., pp. 24–5, no. 7.
72. Jacoby, Byzantine trade with Egypt (quoted n. 57), pp. 35, 43, 45. On oil: Documenti del
commercio veneziano nei secoli XI-XIII, a cura di R. Morozzo della Rocca e A. Lombardo, Torino 1940,
vol. 1, p. 69, no. 65, of 1135; the sailing took place in the preceding year.
73. D. Jacoby, The supply of war materials to Egypt in the Crusader period, Jerusalem studies in
Arabic and Islam 25, 2001, pp. 102–32, here pp. 103–4, 120–3, repr. in Jacoby, Commercial exchange
(quoted n. 57), no. II.
74. Ibid., p. 120: a cargo of 25 beams brought to a collection point and one of 400 beams weighing
80 metric tons sent to Egypt.
75. Nāṣer-e Khosraw’s Book of travels (Safarnāma), transl. by W. M. Thackston, Jr., Albany NY
1986, pp. 37–8; Jacoby, Byzantine trade with Egypt (quoted n. 57), pp. 37–8.
642 david jacoby
travel overland. They would have boarded vessels conducting commercial voyages to
Cyprus or Egypt, since there were no ships specializing in pilgrims’ transportation. The
vessels sailing to Egypt must have anchored off Jaffa, devoid of a protected harbor, and
stopped there again on their home journey to take pilgrims on board. Such pattern of
pilgrimage by the sea route is suggested by the journey of a Byzantine envoy sent to the
caliph al-Mustansir in 1056 or 1057, who sailed on a Byzantine ship as far as Cairo. After
delivering gifts on behalf of the emperor, he left Egypt on the same ship, accompanied
by Fatimid vessels from the Syrian fleet. In order to pray at the Holy Sepulcher he went
ashore at Jaffa, and must have re-embarked there.76 The same pattern appears to have
been followed by the vessel carrying the Russian abbot Daniel of Chernigov between 1106
and 1108 from Constantinople via Cyprus.77 The ship must have pursued her voyage to
Egypt after anchoring off Jaffa. This city could not have been the final destination of a
Byzantine ships, since it was devoid of a commercial role.
Byzantine trade with the Syrian-Lebanese coast has already been noted above. The Serçe
Limanı vessel engaged around 1020 in tramping in order to collect various commodities.
In 1047 Nasir-i Khusraw saw vessels from al-Rum and al-Firank, i. e. Byzantium and
the Christian West respectively, as well as from Andalusia and the Maghreb in Tripoli,
which was then an important port of call and transshipment station.78 The city may have
been the final destination of some Byzantine ships.
The evidence regarding maritime trade between Byzantine Southern Italy and other
regions of the empire in the period covered in this paper is extremely meagre. It is likely
that merchants and ships from the catepanate of Italy handled the bulk of these commercial
exchanges. An aspect of their trade is illustrated by the chrysobull of the co-emperors
Basil II and Constantine VIII issued in 992 in favor of Venice, which prohibited the return
of “Amalfitanos, Iudeos, Longobardos de civitate Bari et aliorum” from Constantinople
to Southern Italy on board Venetian ships. This provision appears to have been aimed at
preventing the illegal export of silk textiles from Constantinople.79 The chrysobull refers
to Longobards, who indeed represented the majority of Bari’s population, and implies that
merchants from Bari, the capital and main port of the province, were regularly sailing to
Constantinople. The Greeks of Bari formed only a small group and were mainly active
in the imperial administration.80 Their omission from the imperial decree suggests that
they were not directly involved in maritime trade. The presence of Byzantine silks in
76. M. Hamidullah, Nouveaux documents sur les rapports de l’Europe avec l’Orient musulman
au Moyen Age, Arabica 7, 1960, pp. 281–300, here pp. 288–9; there is some confusion in the text
regarding the identity of the emperor and the date of the embassy.
77. See above, p. 635.
78. Nāṣer-e Khosraw’s Book of travels (quoted n. 75) p. 13; Jacoby, Byzantine trade with Egypt
(quoted n. 57), pp. 38–9.
79. I trattati con Bisanzio 992–1198, a cura di M. Pozza e G. Ravegnani (Pacta veneta 4), Venezia
1993, p. 23, § 1, yet for emendations to the text and for its interpretation, see D. Jacoby, The Jews and
the silk industry of Constantinople, in Id., Byzantium, Latin Romania and the Mediterranean (quoted
n. 9), no. XI, pp. 5–7. The sailing on Venetian ships raises the question of Italian participation in the
internal maritime trade of the empire, which is examined below.
80. On Bari’s population: V. von Falkenhausen, Bari bizantina: profilo di un capoluogo di
provincia secoli IX-XI, in Spazio, società, potere nell’Italia dei comuni, a cura di G. Rossetti, Napoli
1986, pp. 195–227, here pp. 202–5.
early-eleventh century Bari confirms the trade in silk textiles.81 The city’s traffic in the
eleventh and early twelfth century also extended to other commodities and other regions
of the empire. Two of its ships sailing to Constantinople sank, respectively in 1051 and
1062, the first one carrying oil. Along the southern coast of Asia Minor Bari’s merchants
reached Tarsos in Cilicia in 1045. It is likely that merchants from Southern Italy exported
the bulk of raw silk produced in Calabria, attested in the mid-eleventh century, to silk
workshops in Constantinople and possibly also to those of Thebes.82
Bari’s trade with the empire continued after its conquest by the Norman Robert
Guiscard in 1071. An account on the transfer of the relics of St. Nicholas from Myra in
Cilicia to Bari in 1087 reports that the city’s merchants trading in Antioch brought there
grain, the origin of which is not recorded. They were well acquainted for a long time with
their Venetian counterparts and apparently conducted with them some joint trading. The
account also illustrates their thorough knowledge of the maritime route linking Bari to
Cilicia.83 A triangular voyage from Bari to Damietta in Egypt, Constantinople, and return
took place in 1119.84 It appears to have been routine, since the Consuetudines of Bari,
implemented in the course of the twelfth century, refer to merchants sailing to Egypt, Syria
and Constantinople.85 According to a letter written around 1135, preserved in a stylized
version, a Genoese merchant intended to travel to Constantinople via Bari on a local ship.86
The Italians in the empire’s maritime trade system

The long and intense debate regarding the involvement of the Italian nations in
the empire’s maritime trade, its influence on that trade and, more generally, its impact
upon the Byzantine economy has been much affected by two factors: a sharp imbalance
between Italian and Byzantine documentation, and an exaggerated weight ascribed to
the imperial privileges granted to these nations. The chance survival of a small number
of Italian notary charters and other sources and the absence of similar Byzantine
documentation has resulted in an inflated assessment of the Italian role. For instance,
it has been suggested that the Venetians were the initiators of large-scale exports of
oil from the Peloponnese in the twelfth century, Byzantine merchants adopting their
practices,87 that the privileges obtained in 1082 “enabled Venice to dominate much of
81. D. Jacoby, Silk crosses the Mediterranean, in Le vie del Mediterraneo : idee, uomini, oggetti,
secoli XI-XVI, a cura di G. Airaldi (Università degli studi di Genova. Collana dell’Istituto di storia del
medioevo e della espansione europe 1), Genova 1997, pp. 55–79, here p. 63, repr. with corrections in
Id., Byzantium, Latin Romania and the Mediterranean (quoted n. 9), no. X.
82. On Calabrian raw silk: Jacoby, Silk in Western Byzantium (quoted n. 13), pp. 471, 475–6.
A portion of that silk may have been absorbed by silk workshops in Southern Italy: Id., Silk crosses
the Mediterranean (quoted n. 81), p. 66.
83. Falkenhausen, Bari bizantina (quoted n. 80), pp. 209–13.
84. Documenti del commercio veneziano (quoted n. 72), vol. 1, p. 43–4, no. 41.
85. The Consuetudines were recorded in the late twelfth century: Falkenhausen, Bari bizantina
(quoted n. 80), p. 202.
86. W. Wattenbach, Iter austriacum, 1853, Archiv für Kunde österreichischer Geschichtsquellen 24,
1855, pp. 1–94, here p. 79, no. XIX.
87. Lately again by P. Armstrong, Merchants of Venice at Sparta in the 12th century, in Sparta
and Laconia from prehistory to pre-modern, ed. by W. G. Cavanagh, C. Gallou, M. Georgiadis, London
644 david jacoby
the Constantinopolitan commerce,”88 or that the Italians provided a major stimulus to

the development of the Byzantine economy in the eleventh and twelfth century.
Two basic factors have been largely overlooked in the discussion. First, the growth of
demand and the intensification of commercial exchanges in the empire in the eleventh and
twelfth century were propelled by domestic developments, as stressed above. To be sure,
traders and ships from Venice, Amalfi and Gaeta were already reaching Constantinople as
early as the 940s. Yet there is no evidence to suggest that the Italian share in the domestic
maritime trade of the empire attained some importance until around the mid-eleventh
century, and even that expansion must be qualified, as we shall see below. Secondly, the
Venetians and the Amalfitans were mainly interested in the export of Byzantine luxury
products, such as silk textiles, and could not offer in exchange western commodities of
equal value, whether qualitatively or quantitatively. As a result, they suffered from a
negative balance of trade with the empire. It has been argued that they partly financed
their purchases with precious metals. Indeed, in 1087 Venetian merchants in Antioch
were financing with much gold and silver their acquisitions of purple and other silks,
carpets and gems. This must have also been the case before the city’s fall to the Seljuqs
in 1084. It is generally assumed that Amalfi’s purchase of costly goods in the empire was
sustained by its trade with Tunisia, yet this trade declined from the late tenth century
onward and the flow of gold it may have yielded dried up by the mid-eleventh. Moreover,
since the Italians also suffered from a negative balance of trade in Egypt, they imported
there gold rather than exported it.
Venetian sources suggest that the Italians financed much of their purchases in the
empire by means other than precious metals. Rather than sailing directly to their final
destination, they engaged in trade and transportation along their navigation routes. The
Honorantie civitatis Papie, the market regulations of Pavia compiled between 991 and
1004, mention yearly Venetian imports of silks, yet it is unclear whether they refer to
Byzantine textiles since they also list food condiments and dyestuffs, obviously imported
from Egypt.89 The Venetian shipping of Cretan cheese to Constantinople is recorded
in 1022. Venetian contracts of 1089 and 1118 respectively referring to Apulia and
Sicily seem to have envisaged the conveyance of oil to the city. Yet Venetian cabotage
and tramping did not always extend as far as Constantinople. By the 1070s Venetian
merchants were regularly sailing to Corinth. From there they proceeded overland to
Thebes to buy silk textiles and return home, or proceeded to Thessalonike, as implied
by the early twelfth-century Timarion.90 They may have also acquired silks at Antioch
when returning from Egypt.91 Some Venetians and Amalfitans permanently residing at
Dyrrachion (Durazzo) well before 1081 were in a position to extend their trade along
2009, pp. 313–21, here pp. 319–20. For a refutation of that view, see Jacoby, Rural exploitation
(quoted n. 14), pp. 233–9.
88. R. W. Dorin, Adriatic trade networks in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, in Trade
and markets (quoted n. 44), pp. 235–80, here p. 264.
89. C. Brühl, C. Violante, Die “Honorantie civitatis Papie” : Transkription, Edition, Kommentar,
Köln – Wien 1983, p. 19, lines 53–67; pp. 40 and 44–5, commentary to lines 56 and 65–6, respectively.
For the layers of the text and their dating, see ibid., pp. 77–85.
90. See above, n. 15.
91. See above, p. 630.
the Via Egnatia to Thessalonike, and Constantinople, as well as to Southern Italy and
Venice.92 Trade and transportation along the way furthered a speedier turnover of the
initial investments and generated additional financial resources, possibly in some cases
quite substantial, which could be invested in the course of the journey.93
Undue importance has been ascribed to the chrysobull of Emperor Alexios I granting
privileges to the Venetians in 1082 with regard to their integration within the networks
of Byzantine maritime trade. That integration began well before 1082. It is illustrated by
Venetian trading and transportation services, some of which have just been mentioned.
The Venetians traded freely along the Byzantine shores in the Mediterranean, including
in Crete in the 1060s or 1070s. The permanent residence of Venetians and Amalfitans
in the capital before 1082 implies that the regulation limiting the sojourn of foreigners
in the city to three months had been lifted much earlier. Significantly, that regulation
is not even mentioned in the chrysobull of Alexios I or later. Venetians may have been
settled at Antioch by the 1050s, while Amalfitans were established there by the 1070s.
Citizens of both nations permanently resided in Constantinople and Dyrrachion before
1082. Moreover, the merchants and ships of Amalfi, Gaeta and Bari operated in the
empire without ever obtaining commercial or fiscal concessions and apparently without
any geographic restrictions, and so did the Genoese in Crete in the 1060s or 1070s.94
Only the purchase and export of specific high-grade silk textiles was strictly controlled.95
The export of precious metals, salt, and war materials, except for timber, was presumably
still prohibited, although there is no evidence in that respect for our period.
This is not to deny the importance of tax exemptions, which were the main imperial
concessions to the Venetians in 1082. They definitely increased Venetian competitiveness.96
However, the implementation of the privileges was far from smooth in the first half of
the twelfth century, thus hampering the expansion of Venetian commercial operations,
although in the long run they obviously favored Venetian trade in the empire. This was also
the case with respect to Pisa’s and Genoa’s commerce, respectively from 1111 and 1155,
though to a lesser extent since these two maritime powers enjoyed smaller tax exemptions.97
92. A. Ducellier, La façade maritime de l’Albanie au Moyen Âge : Durazzo et Valona du xi e au

xv e siècle,
Thessaloniki 1981, pp. 70–3.
93. For the last two paragraphs, see D. Jacoby, Commercio e navigazione degli Amalfitani nel
Mediterraneo orientale : sviluppo e declino, in Interscambi socio-culturali ed economici fra le città marinare
d’Italia e l’Occidente dagli osservatorî mediterranei : atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Amalfi
14–16 maggio 2011, a cura di B. Figliuolo e P. F. Simbula, Amalfi 2014, pp. 89–128, here pp. 90–1,
93, 98–102; Id., Venetian commercial expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean, 8th–11th centuries, in
Byzantine trade (quoted n. 32), pp. 371–91, here pp. 372, 375–80, 386–8.
94. Jacoby, Venetian commercial expansion (quoted n. 93), pp. 385–6, 389–90; Id., Commercio
e navigazione degli Amalfitani (quoted n. 93), pp. 91–4, 107. On the Genoese, see Id., Byzantine trade
with Egypt (quoted n. 57), p. 43.
95. On silks, see Jacoby, Silk in Western Byzantium (quoted n. 13), pp. 466–7, 488, 490–2.
96. See Laiou, Byzantine traders and seafearers (quoted n. 1), pp. 84–5, on the influence of the
fiscal exemptions on market prices.
97. Jacoby, Italian privileges (quoted n. 45), pp. 349–59, 362–4. Conditions were thus very
different from those described by Laiou, Byzantine traders and seafearers (quoted n. 1), p. 83, who
argues that until the late eleventh century “domestic trade must have been fully in the hands of
the Byzantine merchants,” since the operations of foreign merchants “were strictly regulated by the
Byzantine state and they were not free to engage in trade within the Byzantine Empire […] The general
646 david jacoby
The intensification of commercial exchange between the empire and Fatimid territories
in the eleventh century created new opportunities for Amalfitan and Venetian merchants
and maritime carriers. They progressively extended the geographic range of their trading
and transportation services based on cabotage and tramping and integrated within the
networks operated by imperial subjects and foreigners between the empire and the Levant.
Amalfitan sailings between Constantinople and Alexandria are attested by Jewish letters
from the mid-eleventh century onward.98 Similar Venetian sailings may be safely assumed
for that period. Indeed, the chrysobull of Alexios I issued in 1082 to Venice lists Byzantine
ports located along the Asian coast from Laodikeia to Constantinople and thus reflects
the perspective of Venetians sailing from Alexandria toward the imperial city.99 In 1111
a merchant from Venice undertook to sell in Damietta silk garments entrusted to him
by a Byzantine merchant. In 1119 a Venetian vessel sailed from Venice to Bari, from
where it was to pursue its journey to Damietta and Constantinople. In the same year
some Venetians boarded an Amalfitan vessel leaving the imperial city for Alexandria.
About 1135 the wife of a Genoese merchant visiting Egypt and planning to proceed
to Constantinople requested him to bring spices and silk textiles. The spices which the
merchant was expected to buy in Egypt would have partly financed the purchase of
silks in the empire.100 As noted above, the Italians also conveyed goods from Byzantine
provincial ports on their way to Egypt.
The expanding maritime trade of the empire and the Italian impact
Though useful, the various reconstructions of medieval sea-lanes presented so far offer
only a selective and static view of navigation routes, because they are based on the chance
survival or discovery of textual and archeological evidence and cover several centuries.
Medieval nautical guides known as portolans, extant from the thirteenth century onward,
provide a more complete, yet similarly static picture. Indeed, at any given time the actual
use of sea-lanes and the intensity of navigation along them mainly depend upon specific
economic factors, namely demand and supply, and upon political and naval developments
occasionally interfering with them.101 Thus, for instance, the Venetian list of complaints
submitted to Emperor Michael VIII in 1278, which mainly illustrates short- and medium-
range shipping affected by piracy in the Aegean provides a contemporary, though partial
view of the maritime network in the region in the second half of the thirteenth century.102
Unfortunately, there is no similar document reflecting Byzantine maritime trade in the
eleventh and early twelfth century. In view of the paucity of Byzantine sources bearing on
situation changed significantly” following the grant of privileges to the Venetians in 1082 and later
to the Pisans and the Genoese.
98. Jacoby, What do we learn about Byzantine Asia Minor (quoted n. 16), pp. 91, 93–4.
99. Jacoby, Italian privileges (quoted n. 45), p. 352.
100. See above, n. 71, 84, 86. The second case of 1119 was recorded in 1144: Famiglia Zusto
(quoted n. 71), p. 38, no. 16.
101. It should be noted, though, that goods seized by pirates or corsairs re-entered the trading circuit.
102. Urkunden zur älteren Handels- und Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig, hrsg. von
G. L. F. Tafel und G. M. Thomas, Wien, 1856–7, vol. 3, pp. 159–281; G. Morgan, The Venetian
claims commission of 1278, BZ 69, 1976, pp. 411–38, esp. 427–34.
the patterns and evolution of that trade, the resort to contemporary western documentation
and later evidence, such as adduced above in several instances, is therefore indispensable,
provided anachronistic backward projections are avoided.
Two macro-economic developments impacted on the empire’s trade in our period:
an ongoing qualitative and quantitative increase in market demand, and the shift in the
channeling of costly oriental commodities from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean.
The growing diversity in edibles, wines, raw materials, semi-manufactured and
manufactured goods, as well as luxury products circulating within the empire’s supply
system required an increase in shipping tonnage to cope with the larger volume and
intensity of commercial exchanges, including between the empire and Fatimid Egypt
and Syria. Once we consider the economic interdependence and interaction of micro-
regions, the growing diversity of origin of commodities, the pull of market demand, and
the commercialization of surpluses, the picture that arises is one of increasing complexity
of maritime networks.
The reconstruction of domestic maritime trade and shipping in our period at the
micro-economic level must first of all take into account the usually unrecorded daily
movement of barks and small ships engaged in supply services over short distances. The
larger vessels carrying Ganos wine illustrate a variety of navigation courses, determined by
specific commercial considerations. In addition to direct sailings, cabotage or tramping
involving short- and medium-range journeys were undoubtedly the most common
patterns of domestic maritime trade, yet presumably less so along the Levantine shore.
Cabotage also provided an indispensable support to long-distance trade by conveying
goods to and from multiple locations to collection and distribution centers. To be sure,
the sporadic sources of our period reveal isolated instances of Byzantine seaborne trade,
yet once they are inserted within their contemporary context and supported by carefully
selected later evidence, it is clear that they illustrate consistent patterns.
One may wonder to what extent the Italian involvement in Byzantine maritime trade
contributed to the latter’s expansion and impacted upon the Byzantine economy in the
eleventh and early twelfth century. In the absence of quantitative evidence, some general
considerations may help us to reach a balanced assessment, provided we remember the
disproportion between Italian and Byzantine evidence. In our period the population
of Venice was still small and its resources limited. Amalfi’s demographic and financial
resources were even smaller. The recourse of the merchants and ships of the two cities
and other Italians to cabotage and tramping to support their purchases in the empire
underlines the limitations of their initial capital investments. Moreover, the spreading of
Venetian ships throughout the entire eastern Mediterranean limited the overall tonnage
they could muster for trade in the empire, especially in view of the importance of the
bulky commodities they imported to Egypt, namely timber and iron, and the Egyptian
alum they carried on their return voyage. The Amalfitans operated within an even wider
geographic range, and their transportation capacity was more limited. For them too,
from the late tenth century onward trade with Egypt was more important and lucrative
than with the empire.103
103. Jacoby, Venetian commercial expansion (quoted n. 93), pp. 381–6; Id., Commercio e
navigazione degli Amalfitani (quoted n. 93), pp. 109–13. On eleventh- and twelfth-century Italian
648 david jacoby
The evidence adduced above reveals that the liberalization of foreign trade in the
empire did not follow the grant of privileges to the Italians.104 It was already well underway
before 1082. Regarding the privileges enjoyed by Venice from 1082 and Pisa from 1111,
one should distinguish between the individual advantage their traders undoubtedly
gained, and the combined impact of their privileges on Byzantine domestic trade, which
considering the limitations mentioned above could not have been substantial in our
period. The integration of the Italians within the domestic maritime supply system of the
empire is often viewed as leading to the replacement of Byzantine by Italian merchants,105
as if the volume of market exchange was static. It should therefore be stressed once more
that the integration took place within a dynamic, expanding maritime trade in the empire,
primarily stimulated by domestic demand. Therefore it did not necessarily undermine
the business of Byzantine merchants and maritime carriers and may have even furthered
their exports from the empire.
Although Italian merchants were trading in the empire by the mid-tenth century, they
apparently did not settle in Constantinople, in Dyrrachion and possibly in Antioch until
the following century. While extending the range of their trade before 1082, settlement
in other cities seems to have occurred only from the 1130s. This suggests that the Italian
involvement in the empire’s trade and transportation expanded rather slowly and in
stages until around the mid-twelfth century. The integration of the Venetians and the
Amalfitans within the maritime network connecting the empire to Egypt appears to have
proceeded faster, thanks to their earlier trading in Egypt. By the late eleventh century the
two cities had already established a triangular pattern of maritime trade connecting them
both with Constantinople and Alexandria. This pattern was consolidated following the
establishment of the crusader states in the Levant shortly afterwards and the addition of
Pisan and Genoese trading. It is along the waterway linking the empire to Egypt that Italian
mercantile activity gradually replaced Byzantine maritime trading in the twelfth century.106
In short, it may be safely assumed that in the eleventh and early twelfth century the
Byzantines, the silent majority, assumed the bulk of maritime trade and transportation
within the domestic supply system, including along major sea lanes. In these circumstances,
the Italian impact on the empire’s economy must have been rather modest. It gradually
increased and assumed more importance in the second half of the twelfth century, yet
this development is already beyond the chronological range of the present paper.
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
exports of Egyptian alum, a mineral used for the fixing of dyes on textiles, in the treatment of hides, and
in medicine, see D. Jacoby, Production et commerce de l’alun oriental en Méditerranée, xie-xve siècles,
in L’alun de Méditerranée, éd. par Ph. Borgard, J.-P. Brun et M. Picon (Collection du Centre Jean
Bérard 23), Naples – Aix-en-Provence 2005, pp. 219–67, here pp. 220–8.
104. As generally assumed, for instance by Laiou and Morrisson, The Byzantine economy (quoted
n. 2), pp. 144–5.
105. Laiou, Byzantine traders and seafearers (quoted n. 1), p. 85: “eventually […] domestic trade
passed increasingly into the hands of the Venetians (and other privileged Italian merchants).”
106. Jacoby, Byzantine trade with Egypt (quoted n. 57), pp. 47–61; Id., Venetian commercial
expansion (quoted n. 93), pp. 386–8; Id., Commercio e navigazione degli Amalfitani (quoted n. 93),
pp. 116–8.
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Annales ESC Annales, économie, sociétés, civilisations. Paris.
AnBoll Analecta Bollandiana. Bruxelles.
Anne Comnène, Alexiade : Anne Comnène, Alexiade, règne de l’empereur Alexis I Comnène
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BCH Bulletin de correspondance hellénique. Paris.
BEFAR Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises de Rome et d’Athènes.
BHG, BHG 3 Bibliotheca hagiographica Graeca, 3e éd. mise à jour et considérablement
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BMFD Byzantine monastic foundation documents : a complete translation of the surviving
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BMGS Byzantine and modern Greek studies. Leeds.
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BSA The annual of the British School at Athens. London.
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CC Corpus christianorum. Turnhout.

CCCM Corpus christianorum. Continuatio mediaevalis. Turnhout.
CCSG Corpus christianorum. Series Graeca. Turnhout.
CCSL Corpus christianorum. Series Latina. Turnhout.
CEFR Collection de l’École française de Rome. Rome.
CFHB Corpus fontium historiae Byzantinae.
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Cheynet, Société : J.‑C. Cheynet, La société byzantine : l’apport des sceaux (Bilans de
recherche 3), Paris 2008.
Cheynet et al., Istanbul : J.‑C. Cheynet, avec la coll. de V. Bulgurlu et T. Gökyıldırım, Les
sceaux byzantins du musée archéologique d’Istanbul, Istanbul 2012.
Cheynet – Morrisson – Seibt, Seyrig : J.‑C. Cheynet, C. Morrisson, W. Seibt, Les sceaux
byzantins de la collection Henri Seyrig, Paris 1991.
CJ Corpus iuris civilis. 2, Codex Justinianus, recognovit P. Krüger, Berolini 1877.
CPG Clavis patrum Graecorum. Turnhout 1974-2003.
CRAI Comptes rendus de l’Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres. Paris.
CSCO Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium. Louvain.
CSHB Corpus scriptorum historiae Byzantinae.
CTh Codex Theodosianus.
DAI Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De administrando imperio, Greek text ed. by
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DChAE Δελτίον τῆς Χριστιανικῆς ἀρχαιολογικῆς ἑταιρείας. Athènes.
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DOC III, 1 Ph. Grierson, Catalogue of the Byzantine coins in the Dumbarton Oaks collection
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DOC III, 2 Ph. Grierson, Catalogue of the Byzantine coins in the Dumbarton Oaks collection
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oströmischen Reiches von 565-1453. 2, 1025-1204, erweiterte und verbesserte
Auflage, München 1995.
DOP Dumbarton Oaks papers. Washington DC.
DOS Dumbarton Oaks studies. Washington DC.
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Art. 1, Italy, North of the Balkans, North of the Black Sea, ed. by J. Nesbitt and
N. Oikonomides, Washington DC 1991 ; 2, South of the Balkans, the Islands,
South of Asia Minor, ed. by J. Nesbitt and N. Oikonomides, Washington DC
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and N. Oikonomides, Washington DC 1996 ; 4, The East, ed. by E. McGeer,
J. Nesbitt and N. Oikonomides, Washington DC 2001 ; 5, The East (continued),
abréviations XI
Constantinople and environs, unknown locations, addenda, uncertain readings, ed. by

E. McGeer, J. Nesbitt and N. Oikonomides, Washington DC 2005 ; 6, Emperors,
patriarchs of Constantinople, addenda, ed. by J. Nesbitt, Washington DC 2009.
DOT Dumbarton Oaks texts. Washington DC.
EEBS Ἐπετηρὶς Ἑταιρείας Βυζαντινῶν σπουδῶν. Ἀθήνα.
EHB The economic history of Byzantium : from the seventh through the fifteenth century,
A. E. Laiou, ed.-in-chief (DOS 39), Washington DC 2002 (réimpr. 2007).
EI Encyclopédie de l’Islam, Leiden – Paris 1913-1938.
Esphigménou Actes d’Esphigménou, éd. diplomatique par J. Lefort (Archives de l’Athos 6),
Paris 1973.
FM 1-12 Fontes minores, hrsg. von D. Simon (Forschungen zur byzantinischen Rechts
geschichte), Frankfurt am Main 1976-.
GRBS Greek, Roman and Byzantine studies. Durham.
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Constantinople. 1, Les actes des patriarches. 3, 1043-1206, 2e éd. revue et corrigée
par J. Darrouzès, Paris 1989.
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IG Inscriptiones Graecae. Berlin 1903-.
Ioannes Mauropus, Opera Iohannis Euchaitorum metropolitae quae in codice Vaticano Graeco
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Ioannes Mauropus, Ep. The letters of Ioannes Mauropous metropolitan of Euchaita, Greek
text, transl., and commentary by A. Karpozilos (CFHB 34), Thessalonike 1990.
IRAIK Известия Русского археологического института в Константинополе. Одесса,
София.
Iviron 1-2 Actes d’Iviron. 1, Des origines au milieu du xi e siècle, éd. diplomatique par J. Lefort,
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Actes d’Iviron. 2, Du milieu du xii e siècle à 1204, éd. diplomatique par J. Lefort,
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XII abréviations
Κεκαυμένος, Στρατηγικόν, εισαγωγή, μετάφραση, σχόλια Δ. Τσουγκαράκης

[D. Tsougkarakis], Αθήνα 1996.
Kekaumenos, Consilia et Narrationes, English transl. by Ch. Roueché (Sharing
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Lampe Greek patristic lexicon, ed. by G. W. H. Lampe, Oxford 1961.
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Lavra 1 Actes de Lavra. 1, Des origines à 1204, éd. diplomatique par P. Lemerle,
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Lemerle, Premier humanisme : P. Lemerle, Le premier humanisme byzantin : notes et remarques
sur enseignement et culture à Byzance des origines au x e siècle (Bibliothèque
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Leo Diaconus Leonis Diaconi caloensis Historiae libri decem ; Liber de velitatione bellica Nicephori
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F. Jacobsii et Luitprandi legatio cum aliis libellis qui Nicephori Phocae et Joannis
Tzimiscius Historiam illustrant (CSHB 11), Bonnae 1828.
Leo VI, Nov. Οι Νεαρές Λέοντος Ϛ΄ του Σοφού, προλεγόμενα, κείμενο, απόδοση στη
νεοελληνική, ευρετήρια και επίμετρο, Σ. Ν. Τρωϊάνος [ed. S. N. Troianos],
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Leo VI, Taktika : The Taktika of Leo VI, text, transl. and commentary by G. T. Dennis
(CFHB 49), Washington DC 2010, 20142.
LSJ (& Rev. suppl.) : A Greek-English lexicon with a revised supplement, comp. by H. G. Liddell
& R. Scott, rev. and augm. throughout by H. S. Jones, Oxford 1996.
Matthieu d’Édesse : Chronique de Matthieu d’Édesse (962-1136) avec la continuation de Grégoire
le Prêtre jusqu’en 1162 : d’après 3 manuscrits de la Bibliothèque impériale de Paris,
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Mansi Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, J. D. Mansi evulgavit,
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MB 1- Μεσαιωνικὴ Βιβλιοθήκη ἠ Συλλογὴ ἀνεκδότων μνημείων τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς
ἱστορίας, ἐπιστασία Κ. Ν. Σαθα [éd. K. N. Sathas], Βενετία 1872-1894.
MEFRM Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Moyen Âge. Rome – Paris.
MEG Medioevo greco : rivista di storia e filologia bizantina. Alessandria.
MGH Monumenta Germaniae historica. Berlin. SS : Scriptores. Ep. : Epistolae.
Michael Attaleiates, The history : Michael Attaleiates, The history, transl. by A. Kaldellis and
D. Krallis (Dumbarton Oaks medieval library 16), Cambridge 2012.
Michaelis Attaliatae Historia : Michaelis Attaliatae Historia, rec. E. Th. Tsolakis (CFHB 50),
Athenis 2011.
Miguel Ataliates, Historia Miguel Ataliates, Historia, introd., ed., trad. y commentario de
I. Pérez Martín (Nueva Roma 15), Madrid 2002.
abréviations XIII
Michel le Syrien Chronique de Michel le Syrien, patriarche jacobite d’Antioche (1166-1199), éd.
et trad. par J.-B. Chabot, 1, Traduction livres I-VII ; 2, Traduction livres VIII-XI ;
3, Traduction livres XII-XXI ; 4, Texte syriaque, Paris 1899–1924 (réimpr.
Bruxelles 1963).
MIFAO Mémoires publiés par les membres de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale
du Caire. Le Caire.
MM 1-6 Acta et diplomata graeca medii aevi sacra et profana collecta, ed. F. Miklosich et
J. Müller, 6 vol., Vindobonae 1860-1890, réimpr. Aalen 1968.
MTM Monographies de Travaux et mémoires. Paris.
Nicetas Choniates, Historia : Nicetae Choniatae Historia, rec. I. A. van Dieten (CFHB 11),
Berolini – Novi Eboraci 1975.
OCA Orientalia Christiana analecta. Roma.
OCP Orientalia Christiana periodica : commentarii de re orientali aetatis christianae
sacra et profana. Roma.
ODB Oxford dictionary of Byzantium, A. P. Kazhdan ed. in chief, New York 1991.
Oikonomidès, Fiscalité : N. Oikonomidès, Fiscalité et exemption fiscale à Byzance (ixe-xie s.)
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Oikonomidès, Listes : N. Oikonomidès, Les listes de préséance byzantines des ixe et xe siècles :
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OLA Orientalia Lovaniensia analecta. Louvain.
Pantéléèmôn Actes de Saint-Pantéléèmôn, éd. diplomatique par P. Lemerle, G. Dagron,
S. Ćircović (Archives de l’Athos 12), Paris 1982.
Patmos 1-2 Βυζαντινὰ ἔγγραφα τῆς μονῆς Πάτμου. Αʹ, Αὐτοκρατορικά, γενική εισαγωγή,
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Ίδρυμα ερευνών. Κέντρο Βυζαντινών ερευνών), Αθήνα 1980.
PBW M.  Jeffreys et al., Prosopography of the Byzantine world, <http://pbw.kcl.ac.uk>
Peira Πείρα ἤγουν διδασκαλία ἐκ τῶν πράξεων τοῦ μεγάλου κυροῦ Εὐσταθίου τοῦ
Ῥωμαίου = JGR. 4, Practica ex actis Eustathii Romani : epitome legum, ex ed.
C. E. Zachariae a Lingenthal, ἐπιμ. Ἰ. Δ. Ζέπου, Athenis 1931.
PG Patrologiae cursus completus. Series graeca, accur. J.-P. Migne, Paris 1856-1866.
Photius, Bibliothèque : Photius, Bibliothèque. 1-8, texte établi et trad. par R. Henry, Paris
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Photius, Epistulae et Amphilochia : Photii Patriarchae Constantinopolitani Epistulae et
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PmbZ Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit, nach Vorarbeiten F. Winkelmanns
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PO Patrologia Orientalis. Paris.
Prôtaton Actes du Prôtaton, éd. diplomatique par D. Papachryssanthou (Archives de
Psellos, Chronographia : Michaelis Pselli Chronographia, hrsg. von D. R. Reinsch (Millennium-
Studien 51), Berlin 2014.
XIV abréviations
Psellos, Chronographie : Michel Psellos, Chronographie ou Histoire d’un siècle de Byzance :

(976-1077), texte établi et trad. par É. Renauld (Les Belles Lettres. Collection
byzantine), Paris 1926-1928.
Psellos, Ep. Michaelis Pselli scripta minora magnam partem adhuc inedita. 2, Epistulae, ed.
recognovitque E. Kurtz ex schedis eius relictis in lucem emisit F. Drexl (Orbis
Romanus. Biblioteca di testi medievali 12), Milano 1941.
Psellos, Historia syntomos : Michaelis Pselli Historia syntomos, rec., Anglice vertit et commentario
instruxit W. J. Aerts (CFHB 30), Berolini 1990.
Psellos, Or. Michaelis Pselli Orationes panegyricae, ed. G. T. Dennis, Lipsiæ 1994.
Ps.-Symeon Magister : Theophanes continuatus, Ioannes Cameniata, Symeon Magister, Georgius
Monachus, ex rec. I. Bekkeri (CSHB 31), Bonnae 1838, p. 601-760.
Rallès – Potlès 1-6 : Σύνταγμα τῶν θείων καὶ ἱερῶν κανόνων, ὑπὸ Γ. Α. Ῥάλλη καὶ Μ. Ποτλῆ,
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RE Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Stuttgart – München
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REG Revue des études grecques. Paris.
RbK Reallexikon zur byzantinischen Kunst, begr. von K. Wessel und M. Restle, hrsg.
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RHT Revue d’histoire des textes. Turnhout.
RN Revue numismatique. Paris.
RSBN Rivista di studi bizantini e neoellenici. Roma.
SBS Studies in Byzantine sigillography.
SC Sources chrétiennes. Paris.
Scylitzes Ioannis Scylitzae Synopsis historiarum, rec. I.  Thurn (CFHB. Series
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abréviations XV
Theophanes continuatus : Theophanes continuatus, Ioannes Cameniata, Symeon Magister,

Georgius Monachus, ex rec. I. Bekkeri (CSHB 31), Bonnae 1838.
Theophanes continuatus, ed. Featherstone – Signes : Chronographiae quae Theophanis
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TIB 7 : K. Belke & N. Mersich, Phrygien und Pisidien, Wien 1990.
TIB 13 : K. Belke, Bithynia und Hellespontos, en préparation.
TIB 15 : K.-P. Todt & B. A. Vest, Syria (Syria Prōtē, Syria Deutera, Syria
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XVI abréviations
Xèropotamou Actes de Xèropotamou, éd. diplomatique par J. Bompaire (Archives de l’Athos 3),

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ABSTRACTS/Résumés
Luisa Andriollo & Sophie Métivier, Quel rôle pour les provinces dans la domination
aristocratique au xi e siècle ? p. 505
Although he has drawn famous portraits of Byzantine aristocrats in a number of studies, Paul
Lemerle did not explicitly address the relation with the provincial territories as an important factor
in creating a Byzantine aristocratic identity. The issue was first explicitly raised by Hélène Ahrweiler,
who pointed to the progressive detachment of Byzantine aristocrats from their provincial bases during
the eleventh century and to their subsequent “Constantinopolisation.” In later years, scholars, such as
Jean-Claude Cheynet, Alexander Kazhdan and John Haldon, have further scrutinized the importance
of provincial bonds as a source of social power and political influence.
The authors of this paper provide a fresh look at long-debated questions by reconsidering Byzantine
aristocratic attitude toward the eastern regions of the empire on the eve of the Turkish invasions.
Evidence related to the physical presence of prominent individuals and families in the eastern provinces
has been collected in an updated prosopographic table, which takes into account both the ownership of
properties and the performance of public functions in Asia Minor. The interpretation of the available
sources sheds new light on a complex network of relations connecting the elites in the capital and
a stratified provincial society. The symbolic power of provincial family memory is also examined
through the prism of hagiographic literature. The Lives of Dositheos the Young and of Niketas
Patrikios showcase the alleged provincial connections of two important lineages, the Genesioi and the
Monomachoi, and point to their implications for family prestige and social legitimacy.
Theodora Antonopoulou, Emperor Leo VI the Wise and the “First Byzantine humanism”:
On the quest for renovation and cultural synthesis p. 187
The study offers a comprehensive re-evaluation of the literary personality and works of the emperor-
author Leo VI the Wise. Although he nowadays emerges as a pivotal figure in the revival of letters
of the ninth and tenth centuries, Leo is nearly absent from P. Lemerle’s classic book on the “First
Byzantine humanism.” After suggesting an explanation for this apparent paradox and briefly reviewing
subsequent scholarship on the emperor, the present author, building on her previous work, attempts
to disprove the hesitance with which Leo is still approached when it comes to his literary output, and
to highlight those issues which indicate and stress two themes that run through it: renovation and
cultural synthesis. In particular, the article examines the following issues: Leo’s culture, classical and
Christian, on the basis of mainly internal evidence; his hagiographical metaphrases and other works
to which rewriting and reworking applied and which reveal his realization of the need for literary and
cultural renovation and the ways in which he dealt with it; certain aspects of his personality as traced
mostly, but not exclusively, in his own works; his role as a “Christian humanist” within the cultural
phenomenon of the “First Byzantine humanism”; and, finally, some remarks on the influence his
literary works exercised, as illustrated by their Byzantine reception. An epilogue sums up the results of
this investigation, which underlines the emperor’s significant literary achievement and contribution
to the revival of his time.
810 abstracts/résumés
Isabelle Augé, Les Arméniens et l’Empire byzantin (1025-1118) p. 789

The Byzantine Empire has seen numerous migrations of Armenians and maintained long standing
relations with Armenia. The conquest of its territory in the 11th century enhances the flow of migrants.
The first part of this article attempts to present the role of the Armenians—active or passive parties—in
the conduct of events of the empire’s oriental border in the years 1025–1118. While the territories of
the northeast are annexed and placed under direct Byzantine administration, Armenians participate
in the defense against the Seljuk Turks in the region of Antioch. The key figure here is Philaretos
Brachamios. The second part of this article focuses on the Armenian communities within the Byzantine
Empire, in terms of location and numbers. The sources are varied but concentrate on the aristocracy,
leaving in the dark lower social ranks. Finally, this article presents religious disagreements in matters
of faith, which are always underlined by sources. The emperors and the ecclesiastical hierarchy try,
more or less, to convert all the Armenians to the Chalcedonian faith.
Dominique Barthélemy, L’aristocratie franque du xie siècle en contraste

avec l’aristocratie byzantine p. 491
In the eleventh century, the aristocracy of the Byzantine Empire, considered as a whole or in part,
has sometimes been called “feudal” by assimilation with that of Western Europe during the same
period. A comparative study may reveal some analogies, but the inventory of differences seems even
more interesting: the ways of combining birth and merit or of fighting social ascensions of subordinates
differ widely, and in feudal France, or even elsewhere in the West, there are a series of codes which
oblige kings and princes to use a great deal of clemency towards their “rebel” vassals, and when the
latter are fighting each other, they treat each other with some sort of respect, from which classical
chivalry rises around 1100.
Béatrice Caseau & Marie-Christine Fayant, Le renouveau du culte des stylites syriens aux x e et
xi e siècles ? La Vie abrégée de Syméon Stylite le Jeune (BHG 1691c) p. 701
The article offers an analysis of the 10th century Byzantine reconquest’s impact on the two Symeon
Stylites monasteries in northern Syria. The two saints share many characteristics besides their common
name and their two monasteries were in competition since the end of late antiquity, but Symeon Stylites
the Younger monastery located on the Wondrous Mountain, close to Antioch gained an advantage
from being in relatively close proximity with the ruling elites sent from Constantinople, where one also
notes a renewed interest for the two Syrian saints. In the early 11th century, Symeon Stylite the Younger
monastery has become an economically prosperous and intellectually very lively center. It is a place
of writing and translations of hagiographic texts. The ancient Life of the saint is either paraphrased or
abridged. The authors analyze what is considered worthy to be mentioned in the middle Byzantine
short versions of the saint’s Life and the interest of these choices for the historian. A translation of this
abridged Life of Symeon Stylite the Younger (BHG 1691c) is proposed by M.‑Ch. Fayant.
Reinhart Ceulemans & Peter Van Deun, Réflexions sur la littérature anthologique
de Constantin V à Constantin VII p. 361
This article surveys and reflects upon compilation activities from the 8th to the 10th century.
Attention is paid to spiritual florilegia as well as to the influence of the monumental compilation
ascribed to John Damascene. An appendix focuses on the ending of one of the anthologies treated in
the article, the so-called Coislin Florilegium.
Jean-Claude Cheynet, La société urbaine p. 449

Studies on Byzantine society have multiplied over the last forty years, renewed by the contribution of
archeology and even more of sigillography. Many unknown seals have been published and old editions
have been corrected and seals better dated. As a result, the aristocracy remains the most studied social
abstracts/résumés 811
group. While Constantinople is still the vital center of the Empire, the rise of provincial cities, notably
Antioch, Edessa, Melitene, Adrianople and Thessalonica, has highlighted the local elites whose relations
with the capital have largely determined the fate of the Empire. The “Queen of Cities” itself has a mix
of “ethnicities,” a diversification of civil and military functions within the most important families,
and an increase in the number of literate officials who worked in the administrations and entered the
Senate with the consent of emperors concerned with their popularity in the capital. The coming to
power of Alexis Comnenus changed much less these transformations than the upheavals engendered by
the invasion of Asia Minor by the Turks. Of all these works published since the fundamental studies
of P. Lemerle, the result is a less pessimistic view of the eleventh century which, without the enemy
incursions in both European and Asian provinces, would have witnessed a strengthening of the economy
and a greater cohesion of society.
Muriel Debié, « La science est commune » : sources syriaques et culture grecque en Syrie-
Mésopotamie et en Perse par-delà les siècles obscurs byzantins p. 87
Along the lines of a reappraisal of the so-called Byzantine “Dark Ages,” this contribution addresses
the question of the re-emergence of classical culture in Byzantium in the 9th century and how Syriac
sources can throw some light on the continuation and yet transformation of late antique teaching
and scholasticism. The continuous work by Syriac scholars on Greek scientific and philosophical
texts in the 7th–10th centuries shows the availability of Greek manuscripts in the East, even beyond
the Roman-Sasanian border. Syriac literature can help understand the transformation of Hellenism
and the constitution of a cultural koine in other languages than Greek. A Christian as well as more
specifically Syrian Hellenism blended the cultural idioms of Greek and “oriental” culture. Not only
did Greek culture survive, but it spread in the Arabic polity and ultimately re-emerged in Byzantium
from the shelves of the Byzantine libraries. Oblivion of classical “pagan” literature was parallel to the
transmission of a new canonised knowledge in Syriac and then Arabic but was ultimately reversed:
not so much thanks to the “return” of Greek manuscripts and texts from the East however as from a
competition over the appropriation of ancient Greek culture beyond Christianity.
Stéphanos Efthymiadis, De Taraise à Méthode (787-847) :

l’apport des premières grandes figures, une nouvelle approche p. 165
This study is a response to, and update of, chapter 5 of Paul Lemerle’s Premier humanisme, which
covers the period between the Seventh Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (787) and the restoration of the
veneration of icons (843). Taking into account scholarly surveys as well as editions and studies of texts
that have appeared in recent decades, it revalues those generations of the Byzantine literati, whether
active in the patriarchal or the monastic milieu. It shows that, as a result of such concurrent factors
as pursuing an education shared by iconoclasts and iconodules alike or an expanded care for copying
books, Byzantium had experienced a cultural revival already by the beginning of the ninth century.
This revival, however, must be measured and interpreted with the standards and priorities of Byzantine
society and not those of the classical world.
Raúl Estangüi Gómez & Michel Kaplan, La société rurale au xi e siècle :

une réévaluation p. 531
Since the Cinq études sur le xi e siècle byzantin by Paul Lemerle (1977), the way in which the
Byzantine empire countryside and its rural economy have been interpreted has evolved. Studies over
the past two decades have shown that, far from being a cause of “blocking,” the growth of the large
estate has favored growth, thanks to the ability of large landowners to invest. One notes the same trend
in Byzantium as in the rest of Europe and the Mediterranean world. However, too great a role was
accorded to the domanial framework, at the expense of the role played by the village society, which
remained relatively rich and dynamic and seemed co-responsible for the economic take-off of the
Byzantine countryside at that time.
The documents in the Athonite archives show a highly mobile rural society, taking part in the
dynamic of growth, where peasants working on a large estate become members of a village community,
improving their legal and social status. It would appear that after a period of crisis in village societies in
the 10th century, changes in taxation (the end of village solidarity, the introduction of a personal tax)
enabled the peasantry to improve its situation and benefit from the economic growth of the Byzantine
Empire, of which the eleventh century is a strong moment, and which continues at an even faster pace
in the following century.
Bernard Flusin, Aréthas de Césarée et la transmission du savoir p. 309

Paul Lemerle dedicates a chapter in his book on the “First Byzantine humanism” to “Arethas of
Patras,” and while he judges unfavorably the person, he dwells on the exceptional interest of his case.
Here we seek to show that Arethas, far from being a mere bibliophile, played a crucial role in the
transmission of knowledge, as a teacher and also because of his awareness of the stakes involved in the
copying of books. The knowledge he transmitted was to a large extent pagan, yet revised and sorted
out, as was often the case in late antiquity, in the light of Christianity.
Valérie Fromentin, La mémoire de l’histoire : la tradition antique, tardo-antique et byzantine

des historiens grecs, v e siècle avant-xe siècle après J.-C. p. 339
This paper aims to reassess the role played by the “first Byzantine Renaissance” in the textual
transmission of Greek (pre-Christian) historians. It seeks to demonstrate against the current
prevailing point of view that the making of the Excerpta Constantiniana did not prevent the
integral works from being copied simultaneously, from either private or imperial initiatives, the
two undertakings (excerpting fragments, editing complete Histories) both having helped preserve
this textual heritage.
Andreas Gkoutzioukostas, Administrative structures of Byzantium during the 11th century:

officials of the imperial secretariat and administration of justice p. 561
In this paper traditional and modern research views concerning officials of the 11th century who
belonged to (e.g. protoasecretis) or are assumed by scholars to be associated with the imperial secretariat
(e.g. mystikos) and who are known (e.g. droungarios of the vigla, kritai of the velum and kritai of the
hippodrome) or thought to have been judicial officers (e.g. mystographos, mystolektes, thesmophylax,
thesmographos, exaktor, kensor and praitor) are approached critically, and some new interpretations and
suggestions based on the information of the primary sources and the conclusions of our research over
the past decade are proposed.
John Haldon, L’armée au xi e siècle : quelques questions et quelques problèmes p. 581

It is generally assumed that the defeat of the imperial army under Romanos IV at the battle of
Mantzikert in 1071 was the result of a combination of several factors, including a long-term decline in
military effectiveness within the empire, reflected in the demobilisation of provincial thematic forces,
on the one hand, and the government’s reliance on foreign mercenary soldiers, on the other; and the
incompetence or poor leadership of military commanders, including the emperor Romanos IV himself.
While these reasons reflect the tendencies and agendas of the sources, this paper will question some
of the assumptions underlying them, and propose rather that the empire’s armies continued to be
effective, coherent and disciplined for much of this time, and that Romanos IV was a competent and
able strategist. The picture that currently prevails is far from entirely inaccurate, but there is no doubt
that some assumptions can be challenged and that greater precision can be achieved in certain respects.
James Howard-Johnston, Procès aristocratiques de la Peira p. 483

Roughly a quarter of the judgements and opinions collected in the Peira by an admirer of Eustathius
Romaios, a high court judge of the early eleventh century, concern the aristocracy. The selection of
criminal cases (picked out because of the points of law they raised) reveals the seamy side of the exercise
of power by the “powerful,” their use of retinues to prey upon their inferiors and the “poor” (or worse).
Civil suits concerning inheritance, debts and dowries cast light on the households, wealth and attitudes
of what was evidently a ruling class, conscious of its status. What is most striking is the commitment
of the courts to the upholding of the law, even when it went against the interests of the “powerful.”
The convictions of several members of the powerful family of the Skleroi are highlighted in the text,
as are the occasions when higher courts overruled the judgments of lower courts where they had been
swayed by local influence. It looks as if the justice system was successfully defending the traditional,
peasant-based social order of Byzantium in the first half of the eleventh century.
David Jacoby, Byzantine maritime trade, 1025–1118 p. 627

Despite its importance for the empire’s economy, maritime trade has not been the subject of a
recent synthesis. It benefited from the general dynamism of the Byzantine economy, which raised the
standard of living of the urban population. The Greeks were largely engaged in these activities, not only
in the very active cabotage, long underestimated, but also in the distant trade. The Black Sea, where
one of the spice routes ended up until the beginning of the eleventh century, remained a preserve. Then
the Byzantine merchants supplied themselves with spices in Fatimid Egypt, where they sold silks and
wood. The ships occasionally carried more and more pilgrims to the Holy Land. Amalfi and Venice
were engaged in trade with the empire, which had already largely opened its ports before 1082, but
their impact was rather modest and the treaty of 1082 effects were only slowly felt.
Johannes Koder, Remarks on trade and economy in eleventh-century Asia Minor:

an approach p. 649
The territorial reconquest in the East since the end of the 9  century was important for a temporary
th
economic and demographic stabilization in central and western Asia Minor in the 10th and the first
half of 11th century. Remarkable are the structural changes of political and economic power, in part
to be explained with the dominance of the new land owning aristocracy, which on the other hand
was conducive for the loss of a great part of Asia Minor in the decade after 1071. This paper discusses
aspects of the general conditions of economy, traffic and settlement structures, with reference to the
western part of Asia Minor, where the settlement density was relatively high.
The proximity to Constantinople strengthened the economy and the transregional trade, in
particular along the coastal regions and in the harbour towns, which had reduced agricultural functions,
but served as seaports for the provisions, which came from the extended hinterland to be shipped
to the capital. During the two centuries of prosperity, this territory of some 200,000 km2 may have
had some 3 million inhabitants. The major part of them lived not in the fifty (or a little more) cities,
but in rural settlements, in villages, as independent farmers or as paroikoi. This landscape had a fully
developed economy and was densely populated, but not “urbanized.”
Dimitris Krallis, Historians, politics, and the polis in the eleventh and twelfth centuries p. 419
By tracing the elusive image of the Byzantine city in the work of historians who wrote in the period
from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, this paper outlines the place of urban centres in the politics
of the Medieval Roman polity. Off-hand references and small vignettes are all the reader usually gets
in Byzantine histories when it comes to the empire’s urban centres. And yet, however limited, such
information gathered on the actions and opinions of urban populations and their leaders allow for
the reconstruction of a world where cities, large and small, rise up as active political agents. Cities are
therefore by no means politically passive in Byzantium. Their populations are accustomed to making
choices in the context of internal political rivalries and rebellions, while regularly negotiating with
imperial authority in order better to serve their interests. On occasion, concern for their city’s well
being even forced urban populations into deals with the empire’s political enemies. Approached from
this perspective the work of Byzantine historians, though normally focused on war, statecraft and the
actions of emperors, reveals when carefully read, a world of urban agency and political activity. As
recent scholarly work has once more directed our attention to Byzantium’s living, breathing body
politic, the empire’s cities can emerge from the pages of medieval histories and chronicles as loci for
the articulation of vibrant politics.
Margherita Losacco, Photius, la Bibliothèque, et au-delà :

l’état de la recherche, l’usage des classiques et les préfaces du corpus p. 235
This article is divided into four parts. The first one (I. Biography and books: general considerations)
provides a selected literature survey regarding Photius’ biography, along with a brief mention of
the books which allegedly belonged to his personal library. The second one (II. Photius’ corpus, a
memorial of books of other writers: history of the printed editions, translations, and commentaries)
focuses on the editorial history of Photius’ main works, before and after 1974, that is to say, before
and after the publication of Lemerle’s Premier humanisme (respectively, sections II.1 and II.2). A
sub-section is devoted to the issue of Photius’ classical quotations in his Letters and Amphilochia, with
an examination of three case-studies (II.2.2). The editorial history of Photius’ Library, and a general
survey of the relevant philological issues, will be the object of an independent section (II.3). The
third part (III. Ἀρχαιολογία of Photius’ Library) recalls the much-debated questions regarding the
composition and the chronology of the Library and its preface, the so-called Letter to Tarasius. The
fourth part (IV. Photius’ prefaces: beyond his Library) provides a commentary on Photius’ prefaces to:
Against the Manichaeans (IV.1), with a note on the chronology of its fourth book (IV.1.2) and a survey
of the topoi of this preface (IV.1.3); Amphilochia (IV.2); Lexicon (IV.3); Mystagogia (IV.4); the Letter
to Tarasius is considered in the broader context of the other prefaces (IV.5). An intertextual reading
of Photius’ prefaces is therefore suggested (IV.6), both within Photius’ work and in the long-lasting
perspective of the “topics of the exordium” (Curtius). In conclusion (IV.7), it is suggested that Photius’
prefaces shape a narrative frame around its huge, composite, and often untidy works, in order to give
them a more profound and consistent unity.
Paul Magdalino, Humanisme et mécénat impérial aux ix e-x e siècles p. 3

This article is concerned with the social dynamics of the written production that Paul Lemerle
characterised as the first Byzantine humanism. It considers the role of patronage from the top, as
compared with peer complicity and competition among writers, in stimulating literary activity in
non-religious genres. Although the last phase of Greek classicism in antiquity, in the early 7th century,
had been shaped by imperial and patriarchal patronage, the revival of high-style literature from the end
of the eighth century was initially more diffuse. During the ninth century the patriarchs overshadowed
the emperors as the leading sponsors of literature, but the exceptional figure of Photius dominated the
scene as much by his own output as by his patronage of other writers. The same was true of his pupil
Leo VI, with whom imperial sponsorship took the lead: the literature that appeared under Leo’s name
was more voluminous than the works explicitly written for him. The notion—or fiction—of imperial
authorship was maintained under Leo’s son Constantine VII, but at the same time Constantine appears
more clearly as the patron of “encyclopaedic” projects executed by others, as well as the addressee of
encomiastic rhetoric. After Constantine’s death (959), his projects and cultural style were continued
for a generation by the quasi-imperial “prime minister” Basil the Parakoimomenos. However, Basil’s
removal from power in 985 revealed the fragility of imperial patronage, and suggests that this was not
indispensable for the existence of Byzantine humanism.
Jean-Pierre Mahé, L’âge obscur de la science byzantine et les traductions arméniennes

hellénisantes vers 570-730 p. 75
Paul Lemerle had rightly assumed that the Armenian “hellenizing” translations of the liberal arts
shed light on the so-called obscure age of Byzantine science. In 1982 Abraham Terian showed that
most of these translations were made between 570 (Dionysius Thrax) and 728 (various translations
by Step‘anos Siwnec‘i). The Armenian version of the Organon dates to the end of the sixth century.
A former disciple of Olympiodorus the Younger, David the Invincible, to whom are ascribed most of
the commentaries, may well have been an Armenian Christian and have taken part in the Armenian
translation of his own writings. As to Ananias Širakac‘i, whose Autobiography had been studied by
Lemerle, Constantin Zuckerman (2002) convincingly fixed the chronology: 632-640, Ananias learns
mathematics and liberal arts in Trebizond at the school of Tychikos. Meanwhile Tychikos also welcomes
Greek students sent by the patriarch of Constantinople.
Several years after 667 (death of the Armenian patriarch Anastasius), Ananias compiles his K‘nnikon
(a textbook concerning the Quadrivium and derived arts).
Athanasios Markopoulos, L’éducation à Byzance aux ix e-x e siècles :

problèmes et questions diverses p. 53
The current paper re-examines four key issues relating to the educational process in Byzantium
during the ninth-tenth century: i) The presence of schools of enkyklios paideia in Constantinople,
such as the school of the Nea Ekklesia, the school of the Anonymous Professor and the school where
Athanasios of Athos studied, though this begs all manner of questions; ii) The revival of the institution
of the magister liberalium litterarum, an ancient institution with a long tradition both in late antiquity
and the early Byzantine period. An examination of the sources indicates that the institution in question
reappeared during the ninth century; as two highly representative examples make clear (Leo the
Mathematician and Niketas David), however, this was entirely at the behest of the emperor; iii) The
existence of a “school” at which the future patriarch Photios taught an especially exclusive student
body; and iv) The return to prominence of “higher education,” which is borne witness to once again
in the latter half of the ninth century with the founding of the Magnaura school by caesar Bardas, and
during the tenth century with the so-called school of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos.
Jean-Marie Martin, L’Italie byzantine au xi e siècle p. 733

11th-century Byzantine Italy covered two distinct administrative units: the katepanaton of Italy
(former thema of Langobardia) and the thema of Calabria. To these one should add the short-lived
thema of Lucania created during the 1040s. These two provinces harboured societies with distinctly
marked differences: while Calabria was hellenophone and had never left the Empire’s bossom,
Longobardia had a Latin-speaking, Lombard population of Germanic ascent. In Longobardia, while
Lombard law was applied, a normal local administration was established, mainly staffed by members
of the local elite, sometimes distinguished with honorary titles, but usually without extensive landed
patrimonies. In order to strengthen the frontiers, the imperial authorities built new towns in Basilicata
during the 10th century, and in Capitanata during the 11th century. The two provinces of Longobardia
and Calabria also made use of different coinages, the regular imperial coins circulating in the former,
while the latter preferred Sicily’s gold tari.
Cécile Morrisson, Revisiter le xi e siècle quarante ans après : expansion et crise p. 611
This chapter provides firstly an assessment of the various approaches of the eleventh-century
economy over the forty years elapsed since Lemerle summoned the international Table Ronde in Paris
(20–23.09.1973). The gloomy picture of increasing political, social and economic disintegration then
prevailing has been since deeply overhauled. In the 1970’s a first phase of research reconsidered more
favourably the 1000’s–1060’s and the 1100’s–1160’s on either side of the 1070’s–1080’s undebatable
crisis and accepted the “expansion” perspective introduced by Hendy and Lemerle, although Harvey’s
1989 book of this title did not reckon the importance of the investment by peasants and powerful in the
improvement of rural management, as highlighted by Lefort et al. The 1990’s–2010’s historiography
saw the integration of the enlarged archaeological documentation into the Economic history of Byzantium
ed. by A. E. Laiou and numerous new studies of rural settlement and trade. The second part focuses on
Byzantine money in the eleventh-century and recalls the factual data concerning its metal content and
the estimates of the number of coins struck before revisiting the interpretation of the successive phases
of gold debasement and offering a partial update of my 1973 (TM 6, 1976) too blunt explanation of
the process involved in the earlier expanding phase.
Paolo Odorico, Du premier humanisme à l’encyclopédisme : une construction à revoir p. 23

Since its appearance in 1971, Paul Lemerle’s study Le premier humanisme byzantin deeply influenced
scholarship in the field of Byzantine studies. However, in spite of many qualities, this influential
book has several significant flaws, such as the invention of a Byzantine “encyclopaedism”: according
to Lemerle, during the reign of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos and instigated by the emperor, a
group of scholars devoted itself to the creation of encyclopedias, huge repertories of knowledge with
imperial/moral purpose. The aim of the present paper is to place Lemerle’s ideas in their context, to
clearly trace a distinction between “compilation” and “syllogè,” and to pay attention to the structure, the
function, and the mentality behind the creation of the texts under scrutiny (the Excerpta, for example).
The conclusion is beyond doubt: a Byzantine encyclopaedism never existed, and a re-evaluation of the
“com-positions” unjustly relegated under the label “compilations” is in order.
Mihailo St. Popović, Les Balkans : routes, foires et pastoralisme au xi e siècle p. 665

The present article focuses on the economic history of Byzantium as one of the manifold research
interests of the renowned French scholar Paul Lemerle. By summarising and reviewing publications by
Nicolas Svoronos, Michael Hendy, Michael Angold, Angeliki Laiou, Jacques Lefort, Gilbert Dagron,
Cécile Morrisson and Jean-Claude Cheynet the macro-structures and the development of the economy
of the Byzantine Empire are addressed and reviewed through the looking glass of their respective
interpretations concerning the economic decline of Byzantium in the late Byzantine period.
The second part of the article deals with the fairs in the Balkan peninsula based on the author’s
scholarly work on the volume Tabula Imperii Byzantini 16 (“Macedonia, Northern Part”) at the
Austrian Academy of Sciences, which represented vivid nodal points of economic activity and local
as well as regional transformation. After providing the designation of fairs in the Greek and Slavonic
languages (panēgyris, phoros and panagjurŭ, panagirĭ, sŭborŭ, forŭ), an overview is given on the fairs in
the historical region of Macedonia. Finally, another aspect of the Byzantine economic activity in the
Balkan peninsula is highlighted by collecting and interpreting evidence on pasture economy in the
historical region of Macedonia from the 10th until the 16th centuries. Summer and winter pastures as well
as seasonal dwellings of the nomads (i.e. Vlachs) are localised and the respective distribution patterns
analysed. This approach leads directly to applications deriving from Digital Humanities (especially
HGIS and GIScience), which provide the necessary means for the visualisation and more detailed
study of this economic phenomenon.
Vivien Prigent, À l’Ouest rien de nouveau ? L’Italie du Sud

et le premier humanisme byzantin p. 129
This article aims to ascertain the possibility that Southern Italy played a role in the so-called
Macedonian Renaissance studied by Paul Lemerle in Le premier humanisme byzantin. The famous
Byzantinist discarded the possibility from the outset but our knowledge of the complex realities of
Byzantine Italy has considerably improved since 1971, justifying a reappraisal. The position of the
Greek language itself in Italy during the “Dark Ages” is first assessed, focusing on the real impact of
the 7th-century migrations. Then, a temptative panorama of the available book resources in 7th–9th-
century Southern Italy is offered. Finally, the author investigates how this cultural patrimony could have
impacted the Eastern Renaissance insisting on the Muslim invasions of Sicily and the end of Iconoclasm
which resulted in an influx of learned Italians in Constantinople. As a case study, sigillographic evidence
are adduced to offer a glimpse on the faction built around Gregorios Asbestas, metropolitan bishop of
Syracuse, a key-player in church politics at the onset of the Macedonian Renaissance.
Jonathan Shepard, Man-to-man, dog-eat-dog, cults-in-common: the tangled threads of Alexios’

dealings with the Franks p. 749
Paul Lemerle’s characterisation of Alexios Komnenos as “un réactionnaire borné” is consistent with
Anna Komnena’s portrayal of her father’s resourcefulness and flair for duplicity. The demarches of
Alexios towards the West in quest of military aid seem to exemplify this, along with his less celebrated
bid to install a cooperative Rus prince on the Straits of Kerch. However, his interest was broader and
deeper than the Byzantine or Latin sources might lead one to expect. He had close ties with other
members of the de Hauteville family besides Bohemond and, in taking liege homage from the latter
in 1097, he was exploiting a quite recent development in the West. Alexios’ interest in the Holy Land
was informed by earlier imperial policies, and by continuing communications between the Byzantine
lands (including Cyprus) and monasteries in Palestine and northern Syria. Besides assigning John the
Oxite to the patriarchal see of Antioch, Alexios kept up ties with the patriarch of Jerusalem. At the same
time, he networked busily in Norman Apulia, while maintaining links with Count Roger of Sicily.
It is contended that Alexios envisaged a Christian consensus, with three patriarchates under his wing
and cooperation from a fourth, Alexandria, fostered by his amicable ties with the Fatimids; he might
gain a concordat through a general church council, attended by the Roman pope or his representatives.
Fantasizing as the scheme looks now, it might have spoken to significant clerical and secular elements
in the West. Events, however, turned against him and Bohemond had no scruples about exploiting
them to full advantage at Antioch.
Kostis Smyrlis, The fiscal revolution of Alexios I Komnenos: timing, scope, and motives p. 593
The article examines the turn towards the use of land and tax grants to remunerate imperial officials
instead of salaries under Alexios I. To determine the timing, scope and motives of this reform, the
article studies two measures of that emperor, namely the confiscations that took place after the census
of 1088/89 and the concession of estates and fiscal rights to imperial relatives. It is argued that the
confiscations were extensive, affecting most great ecclesiastical and lay landowners, and that the lands
seized were usually ceded to imperial relatives and state servants. The analysis of the concessions to
imperial relatives underlines their scale suggesting that they were as much payment for military and civil
services as they were a way to secure the political support of the beneficiaries. It is finally suggested that,
rather than being the result of pressure by the powerful, the concession of lands and taxes to imperial
relatives and state servants was dictated by considerations of financial efficiency.
Jean-Michel Spieser, La « Renaissance macédonienne » :

de son invention à sa mise en cause p. 43
The expression « Renaissance macédonienne » was not used in the first academic studies about
Byzantine art in the second half of the 19th century. But its use was prepared by some comments about
the relation between Byzantine art and the classical Greek art. It seems that Charles Diehl used it for
the first time in the first edition of his handbook. This notion got a new momentum through the work
of Kurt Weitzmann at the end of the 20’ and in the 30’ of the 20th century. He insists more and more
in his later work on the ties, in the 10th century, of the Byzantine art with a “perennial Hellenism.”
These views on Byzantine art are part of a more general appreciation of the Byzantine Empire as a
Greek Empire and of the Byzantines as Greeks, sometime as keeping unconsciously something of the
genuine classical Greek mind. This view was supported by many art historians and historians until
the second third of the 20th century and is not completely forgotten. Nevertheless, beginning with the
70’, art historians and historians like H. Belting, A. Cutler, C. Mango tend towards a new approach
of Byzantium, stressing its originality and giving more weight to its internal evolution than to the
influence of a supposed Greek spirit.
Jean-Michel Spieser, L’art au xi e siècle : une vue d’ensemble p. 675

This paper tries to review recent studies on the 11th century’s art. The 11th century is itself a flexible
notion. It is possible to consider that it starts at some point within the reign of Basil II and ends at the
beginning or at the end of the reign of Alexis Ist. It is an important century for the architecture. Many
foundations give evidence for the interest of the emperors and the upper class for monasteries. Some
architectural innovations belong to this century: if the cross-in-square church remains the most used
plan for church building, two new types come up, the so-called Athonite plan and the Greek-cross
domed octagon. The origins of both are disputed. It is a common opinion, that both, but principally
the Greek-cross domed octagon, have Armenian models, but, if the question remains open, it can be
said that neither is a copy of an Armenian known type. In the field of monumental painting, if more
monuments are known and published, no important changes in interpretation are offered for the major
lines of the stylistic and iconographic evolution. For Greece and Cappadocia, the two areas where the
majority of paintings survives, the social origin of the patrons is an important field of study. New
interest arises also on the topic of paintings programs, with more balanced answers than that given by
O. Demus, whose work remains nevertheless fundamental. For somptuary arts, we need new syntheses.
Anne Tihon, Premier humanisme byzantin :

le témoignage des manuscrits astronomiques p. 325
In this paper, the author examines the astronomical manuscripts containing the works of Ptolemy
and Theon of Alexandria, in order to determine the level of the astronomical knowledge during the 9th
and 10th centuries. The results are rather disappointing: while Byzantine historians suggest a very high
level of scientific achievement, one can hardly find in the manuscripts proofs of a real astronomical
practice. The beautiful astronomical manuscripts of the 9th century (for example Vat. gr. 1594, Vat.
gr. 190) do not reveal any hints of a reading of the works of Ptolemy and Theon during the 9th and
10th centuries. One can only guess that Ptolemy’s Handy tables were used for astrological purposes.
The most interesting document comes from Palestine (perhaps from Sinai Monastery): the palimpsest
Vat. syr. 623 which contains a copy of a part of the Handy tables of Ptolemy written in uncial script
around 800 together with an attempt of Arabic translation of Theon’s Small commentary and a little
Greco-Arabic lexicon giving the names of the winds written by the same hand on a Ptolemy’s table. It
is certainly one of the most ancient testimony of an Arabic translation of Ptolemy’s and Theon’ works.
Peter Van Deun, Le commentaire de Métrophane de Smyrne sur la Première Épître de Pierre
(chapitre 1, versets 1-23) p. 389
This article offers the editio princeps of a Byzantine commentary on a part of the First Epistle of
Peter (Chapter 1,1-23); this commentary has been written by Metrophanes, who was bishop of Smyrna
in the second half of the 9th century and one of the most important opponents to Patriarch Photius.
The text has only been preserved in the recent manuscript Athous, Dionysiou 227.
Table des matières
Avant-propos ..........................................................................................................................  v 
Abréviations ........................................................................................................................... ix 
Autour du Premier humanisme byzantin

édité par Bernard Flusin
Notions et institutions
Paul Magdalino, Humanisme et mécénat impérial aux ixe et xe siècles ................................... 3
Paolo Odorico, Du premier humanisme à l’encyclopédisme : une construction à revoir....... 23
Jean-Michel Spieser, La « Renaissance macédonienne » : de son invention à sa mise en cause..  43
Athanasios Markopoulos, L’éducation à Byzance aux ixe-xe siècles....................................... 53
Aux marges de l’Empire
Jean-Pierre Mahé, L’âge obscur de la science byzantine et les traductions arméniennes
hellénisantes vers 570-730 ............................................................................................  75
Muriel Debié, « La science est commune » : sources syriaques et culture grecque en Syrie-
Mésopotamie par-delà les siècles obscurs byzantins .......................................................  87
Vivien Prigent, À l’ouest rien de nouveau ? L’Italie du Sud et le premier humanisme byzantin. 129
Acteurs
Stephanos Efthymiadis, De Taraise à Méthode : l’apport des premières grandes figures
reconsidéré..................................................................................................................  165
Theodora Antonopoulou, Emperor Leo VI the Wise and the “first Byzantine humanism”:
on the quest for renovation and cultural synthesis.......................................................  187
Margherita Losacco, Photius, la Bibliothèque, et au-delà : l’état de la recherche,
l’usage des classiques et les préfaces du corpus ............................................................ 235
Bernard Flusin, Aréthas de Césarée et la transmission du savoir..........................................  309
Genres
Anne Tihon, Premier humanisme byzantin : le témoignage des manuscrits astronomiques .. 325
Valérie Fromentin, La mémoire de l’histoire : la tradition antique, tardo-antique
et byzantine des historiens grecs, ve siècle avant-xe siècle après J.-C.)...........................  339
Reinhart Ceulemans & Peter Van Deun, Réflexions sur la littérature anthologique
de Constantin V à Constantin VII..............................................................................  361
Peter Van Deun, Le commentaire de Métrophane de Smyrne
sur la Première Épître de Pierre (chapitre 1, versets 1-23)............................................  389
848 table des matières
Études sur le xie siècle

édité par Jean-Claude Cheynet
Historiographie
Dimitris Krallis, Historians, politics, and the polis in the eleventh and twelfth centuries... 419
Histoire sociale
Jean-Claude Cheynet, La société urbaine............................................................................ 449
James Howard-Johnston, Procès aristocratiques de la Peira..............................................  483
Dominique Barthélemy, L’aristocratie franque du xie siècle en contraste
avec l’aristocratie byzantine......................................................................................... 491
Luisa Andriollo & Sophie Métivier, Quel rôle pour les provinces dans la domination
aristocratique au xie siècle ?.......................................................................................... 505
Raúl Estangüi Gómez & Michel Kaplan, La société rurale au xie siècle : une réévaluation..  531
Les institutions
Andreas Gkoutzioukostas, Administrative structures of Byzantium during
the 11th century: officials of the imperial secretariat and administration of justice........ 561
John Haldon, L’armée au xie siècle : quelques questions et quelques problèmes.................. 581
Kostis Smyrlis, The fiscal revolution of Alexios I Komnenos: timing, scope and motives .... 593
La vie économique
Cécile Morrisson, Revisiter le xie siècle quarante ans après : expansion et crise...................  611
David Jacoby, Byzantine maritime trade, 1025–1118..........................................................  627
Johannes Koder, Remarks on trade and economy in eleventh century Asia Minor:
an approach ............................................................................................................... 649
Mihailo St. Popović, Les Balkans : routes, foires et pastoralisme au xie siècle....................... 665
Vie culturelle et religieuse
Jean-Michel Spieser, L’art au xie siècle : une vue d’ensemble............................................... 675
Béatrice Caseau & Marie-Christine Fayant, Le renouveau du culte des stylites syriens
aux xe et xie siècles ? La Vie abrégée de Syméon Stylite le Jeune (BHG 1691c) ............  701
Byzance et la périphérie
Jean-Marie Martin, L’Italie byzantine au xie siècle ............................................................. 733
Jonathan Shepard, Man-to-man, dog-eat-dog, cults-in-common: the tangled threads of
Alexios’ dealings with the Franks ................................................................................  749
Isabelle Augé, Les Arméniens et l’Empire byzantin (1025-1118).........................................  789
Abstracts/Résumés en anglais ..............................................................................................  809 

Liste des contributeurs ........................................................................................................  819
Index général...................................................................................................................... 821
des manuscrits........................................................................................................... 844
Table des matières ............................................................................................................... 847

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co l l è g e de france – cnrs

centre de recherche d ’ histoire

Ouvrage publié avec le concours

Association des Amis du Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance

Secrétariat de rédaction, relecture et composition :

©Association des Amis du Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance – 2017

The domestic economic background

Patterns of maritime trade and navigation: the domestic market

diversity in economic resources required continuous and intensive commercial exchanges

37. Günsenin, Ganos wine (quoted n. 32), pp. 146–9.

The attendance of merchants “from everywhere” at the fair of St. Demetrios in

43. See above, n. 15.

Byzantine traders and ships in foreign Mediterranean waters

54. Fr. Guillemus de Rubruc, Itinerarium, in Sinica franciscana. 1, Itinera et relationes Fratrum

64. Jacoby, Byzantine trade with Egypt (quoted n. 57), pp. 30–1.

The Italians in the empire’s maritime trade system

the Constantinopolitan commerce,”88 or that the Italians provided a major stimulus to

92. A. Ducellier, La façade maritime de l’Albanie au Moyen Âge : Durazzo et Valona du xi e au

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

CC Corpus christianorum. Turnhout.

Constantinople and environs, unknown locations, addenda, uncertain readings, ed. by

Κεκαυμένος, Στρατηγικόν, εισαγωγή, μετάφραση, σχόλια Δ. Τσουγκαράκης

Psellos, Chronographie : Michel Psellos, Chronographie ou Histoire d’un siècle de Byzance :

Theophanes continuatus : Theophanes continuatus, Ioannes Cameniata, Symeon Magister,

Xèropotamou Actes de Xèropotamou, éd. diplomatique par J. Bompaire (Archives de l’Athos 3),

Isabelle Augé, Les Arméniens et l’Empire byzantin (1025-1118) p. 789

Dominique Barthélemy, L’aristocratie franque du xie siècle en contraste

Jean-Claude Cheynet, La société urbaine p. 449

Stéphanos Efthymiadis, De Taraise à Méthode (787-847) :

Raúl Estangüi Gómez & Michel Kaplan, La société rurale au xi e siècle :

Bernard Flusin, Aréthas de Césarée et la transmission du savoir p. 309

Valérie Fromentin, La mémoire de l’histoire : la tradition antique, tardo-antique et byzantine

Andreas Gkoutzioukostas, Administrative structures of Byzantium during the 11th century:

John Haldon, L’armée au xi e siècle : quelques questions et quelques problèmes p. 581

James Howard-Johnston, Procès aristocratiques de la Peira p. 483

David Jacoby, Byzantine maritime trade, 1025–1118 p. 627

Johannes Koder, Remarks on trade and economy in eleventh-century Asia Minor:

Margherita Losacco, Photius, la Bibliothèque, et au-delà :

Paul Magdalino, Humanisme et mécénat impérial aux ix e-x e siècles p. 3

Jean-Pierre Mahé, L’âge obscur de la science byzantine et les traductions arméniennes

Athanasios Markopoulos, L’éducation à Byzance aux ix e-x e siècles :

Jean-Marie Martin, L’Italie byzantine au xi e siècle p. 733

Paolo Odorico, Du premier humanisme à l’encyclopédisme : une construction à revoir p. 23

Mihailo St. Popović, Les Balkans : routes, foires et pastoralisme au xi e siècle p. 665

Vivien Prigent, À l’Ouest rien de nouveau ? L’Italie du Sud

Jonathan Shepard, Man-to-man, dog-eat-dog, cults-in-common: the tangled threads of Alexios’

Jean-Michel Spieser, La « Renaissance macédonienne » :

Jean-Michel Spieser, L’art au xi e siècle : une vue d’ensemble p. 675

Anne Tihon, Premier humanisme byzantin :

Autour du Premier humanisme byzantin

Études sur le xie siècle

Abstracts/Résumés en anglais .............................................................................................. 809

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37. Günsenin, Ganos wine (quoted n. 32), pp. 146–9.

The attendance of merchants “from everywhere” at the fair of St. Demetrios in

43. See above, n. 15.

54. Fr. Guillemus de Rubruc, Itinerarium, in Sinica franciscana. 1, Itinera et relationes Fratrum

64. Jacoby, Byzantine trade with Egypt (quoted n. 57), pp. 30–1.

92. A. Ducellier, La façade maritime de l’Albanie au Moyen Âge : Durazzo et Valona du xi e au

Κεκαυμένος, Στρατηγικόν, εισαγωγή, μετάφραση, σχόλια Δ. Τσουγκαράκης

Psellos, Chronographie : Michel Psellos, Chronographie ou Histoire d’un siècle de Byzance :

Xèropotamou Actes de Xèropotamou, éd. diplomatique par J. Bompaire (Archives de l’Athos 3),

Isabelle Augé, Les Arméniens et l’Empire byzantin (1025-1118) p. 789

Dominique Barthélemy, L’aristocratie franque du xie siècle en contraste

Jean-Claude Cheynet, La société urbaine p. 449

Stéphanos Efthymiadis, De Taraise à Méthode (787-847) :

Raúl Estangüi Gómez & Michel Kaplan, La société rurale au xi e siècle :

Bernard Flusin, Aréthas de Césarée et la transmission du savoir p. 309

Valérie Fromentin, La mémoire de l’histoire : la tradition antique, tardo-antique et byzantine

Andreas Gkoutzioukostas, Administrative structures of Byzantium during the 11th century:

John Haldon, L’armée au xi e siècle : quelques questions et quelques problèmes p. 581

James Howard-Johnston, Procès aristocratiques de la Peira p. 483

David Jacoby, Byzantine maritime trade, 1025–1118 p. 627

Margherita Losacco, Photius, la Bibliothèque, et au-delà :

Paul Magdalino, Humanisme et mécénat impérial aux ix e-x e siècles p. 3

Athanasios Markopoulos, L’éducation à Byzance aux ix e-x e siècles :

Jean-Marie Martin, L’Italie byzantine au xi e siècle p. 733

Paolo Odorico, Du premier humanisme à l’encyclopédisme : une construction à revoir p. 23

Mihailo St. Popović, Les Balkans : routes, foires et pastoralisme au xi e siècle p. 665

Jean-Michel Spieser, L’art au xi e siècle : une vue d’ensemble p. 675

Anne Tihon, Premier humanisme byzantin :

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Abstracts/Résumés en anglais ..............................................................................................  809 