The Economic History of Byzantium From

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but close to them by virtue of their trade and confused with them by the subtle play of synonyms. These are the creditors from whom the emperors periodically purchased debtors’ promissory notes (shma´ dia), so as to acquit the debtors or burn the notes with great ceremony;249 in the twelfth century, they are the great financiers, accorded fame and honor,250 as is Kalomodios, whom Niketas Choniates caricatures and calls a “money changer” (kollubisth´"). Having made a fortune in large-scale and long-distance trade, Kalomodios has dealings with archontes, for whom he is undoubtedly a creditor; they set a trap to capture him and steal his money; barely do they lay hands on him, however, when a riot erupts in the city and the “tradespeople” gather to demand that Patriarch John Kamateros intervene with the emperor to secure the release of their associate.251

The Textile Industry

The Silk Trades The Book of the Eparch devotes no fewer than five chapters to the production and marketing of silk, thus showing both the importance of demand and the concern of the state to organize the manufacture and control the sale of what was concomitantly a negotiable product, a valued asset in household patrimony, and the object of imperial bounty.252 A detailed analysis of the processes of its manufacture appears in a separate chapter, but a short summary of the stages of the process is essential to understand the strict division of specialized guilds, with respect to Constantinople at least.253 When the transformation of the silkworm is interrupted, the cocoon must be unraveled and the filament wound onto reels. This drawing, or simultaneous reeling, of several cocoons produces the thread of raw silk, composed of the untwisted filament fibers, which adhere to each other by virtue of the gum. The raw thread must subsequently be washed (skimmed of its gum) and twisted in order to obtain the raw

Brooks (Louvain, 1952), 3.11 (pp. 100–101); under the ancient ranking of dignities, the argyropratai could be clarissimi, while the trapezitai were only honestissimi. We have several seals belonging to argyropratai (Zacos and Veglery, Byzantine Lead Seals, 1.1: nos. 315, 513, 828, 962, 1078; 1.2: no. 2209B), but none of the trapezitai.

249Empress Sophia, in 567/568, asked the ajrguropra´ tai and the shmada´ rioi to give her the promissory notes that they held (Theophanes, 242); Romanos Lekapenos solemnly burned the acknowledgments of debt of the inhabitants of the capital in a great popular celebration in front of the church of Christ of the Chalke (Theophanes Continuatus, 429–30; Skylitzes, 231).

250Choniates, 483–84.

251Ibid., 523–24; cf. Laiou, “Exchange and Trade,” 750–51.

252In an abundant bibliography, the following are particularly noteworthy: R. S. Lopez, “The Silk Industry in the Byzantine Empire,” Speculum 20 (1945): 1–42; D. Simon, “Die byzantinische Seidenzu¨nfte,” BZ 68 (1975): 23–46; N. Oikonomides, “Silk Trade and Production in Byzantium from the Sixth to the Ninth Century: The Seals of the Kommerkiarioi,” DOP 40 (1986): 33–53; D. Jacoby, “Silk in Western Byzantium before the Fourth Crusade,” BZ 84/85 (1991–92): 452–500; A. Muthesius, “The Byzantine Silk Industry: Lopez and Beyond,” JMedHist 19 (1993): 1–67, and the other works by the same author collected in Byzantine Silk Weaving, AD 400 to AD 1200 (Vienna, 1995).

253See the contribution of A. Muthesius, “Essential Processes, Looms, and Technical Aspects of the Production of Silk Textiles,” EHB 147–68.

1. Quadriga silk, Constantinople, 8th century. Paris, Musée National du Moyen Age et des Thermes de Cluny, inv. no. 13289 (anc. M.L. 371) (after Byzance: L’art byzantin dans les collections publiques françaises, catalogue of the Louvre exhibition [Paris, 1992], 194)

4. Emperor on horseback, silk, tapestry weave. Bamberg, Diözesanmuseum (photo: I. Limmer)

5. Retail merchant, Paris gr. 923 (9th century), Homilies of St. John of Damascus

(after ÑIstor¤a toË ÑEllhnikoË ÖEynouw

[Athens, 1979], 8:208)

yarn. Weaving may take place either at that point, that is, prior to any dyeing of the yarn, or after the yarn has been dyed.

The first of the guilds that we see participating in the process were the metaxopratai, who alone were entitled to purchase, on the Constantinopolitan market, raw silk (metaxa) imported from sericultural zones.254 What were these zones, and how did the gathering and consignment take place? We do not know. When silkworking was an “imperial monopoly” and its raw material depended in whole or in part on imports from Persia, it is possible that commerce in imported raw silk and the collection of it in Byzantine territory were contracted out to the kommerkiarioi, whose seal guaranteed the product’s quality.255 By the beginning of the tenth century, however, when the Book of the Eparch was issued, that period had ended, and consignments thereafter undoubtedly were effected through a variety of sources and financing mechanisms.256 In any event, the metaxopratai were prohibited from traveling outside Constantinople to negotiate personally purchases from producers and thereby avoid competition.257 Nor did they have the right to work the silk themselves: they resold it in the condition in which they had purchased it to the serikarioi, who wove it, and, in part at least, to the katartarioi, who “dressed” the silk; they were prohibited from selling it to Jews or to other merchants suspected of seeking to export it from Constantinople.258 Their guild thus constituted a type of buying consortium under prefectural supervision, which avoided an excessive dispersion of the raw material, or, conversely, the establishment of private monopolies.

The katartarioi represented the next stage in the production process; their function seems to have consisted in the dressing of a portion of the silk prior to its weaving. They participated in the purchase of a part of the raw silk in the market of Constantinople, but subject to two conditions: (1) that their purchase be limited to the quantity of raw silk that they were able to process and that they not resell it in its unprocessed condition; and (2) that they come to an understanding with the metaxopratai to enter into the latter’s buying consortium and establish by common agreement the price for the purchase of the raw silk, which would subsequently have been turned over to the serikarioi, either in its unprocessed state by the metaxopratai or after its processing by the katartarioi.259 We have here either two distinct manufacturing procedures, one of which admits and the other of which omits a special treatment of the raw silk, which would have been the prerogative of the katartarioi, or else two modes of labor organiza-

254EB, 6.5; 8.8. It is the raw silk and not the cocoons themselves that are at issue; the latter are much heavier and need to be reeled fairly quickly to avoid a deterioration of the filaments; cf. Simon, “Die byzantinische Seidenzu¨nfte,” 25–26; Muthesius, “Silk Industry,” 34.

255Oikonomides, “Silk Trade,” summarized in idem, “Commerce et production de la soie `a Byzance,” in Hommes et richesses (as above, note 37), 1:187–92.

256Sources of supply would have included the Arab world in general, which remained a significant exporter of raw silk to Byzantium, also southern Italy (see the works of A. Guillou, cited below, note 281), and the Peloponnese, the region within the empire best adapted to sericulture.

257EB, 6.12.

258EB, 6.14, 16; 7.4–5; 8.8.

259EB, 7.1, 4–5.

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tion, one of which would bring in specialized teams to treat the silk prior to its weaving, while the other would entrust this function to the serikarioi directly.260 In any event, to avoid a situation in which the guild of “silk dressers” might create a breach in the system of controls and lead to an excessive fragmentation of purchases and a lowering of the quality, only katartarioi with sufficient resources to buy wholesale had the right to enter into direct partnerships with raw silk merchants; they could thereafter cede a portion of their purchases to less wealthy katartarioi, for a commission capped at 1⁄12 ( 8.3%).261

The manufacture of silk cloth passed to the serikarioi, who represented the most important element of the manufacturing process; the guild included a great number of specialties, since its members directly dressed a portion of the raw silk, wove, dyed, and cut it. They ran businesses that included highly diversified workshops and that employed a great number of workers.262 They certainly would have controlled the entire silk trade had not regulation prohibited them, on the one hand, from access to markets in the raw material, which they were forced to purchase from the metaxopratai, and, on the other, from selling the fabric or clothing that they manufactured and subsequently ceded to the vestiopratai.263 Thus, boxed in between two merchant guilds, they were expected, in principle, to engage solely in manufacturing. It is understandable that the regulations stress the rigorous controls exercised on them by the administration to ensure the quality of the silk and silk textiles, as well as to avoid any encroachment on the prerogatives of the imperial workshops.264 Government regulation affected a labor force that was numerous, hierarchically organized, and, in part, highly skilled. It sought to discourage workers from breaking their contracts and prohibited any transfer of these artisans to foreigners who would not lose the opportunity to draw advantage, as the Normans did in 1147 when they deported the Theban and Corinthian silk weavers and embroiderers to Sicily.265 Admittance to this highly supervised guild required the surety of five individuals or, for a slave, that of his master.266 We can conclude with assurance that a good number of these silk tradesmen were ethnikoi of unfree status, but also that a substantial number of aristocratic households were involved, through their dependents, in this extremely lucrative activity.

Finally, two guilds specialized in the sale of cloth and apparel: the vestiopratai and the prandiopratai. Only the first held the right to sell the product of local silkworks. They were merchants, barred from manufacturing clothing and apparel themselves, except for their own use, just as the serikarioi were barred from commercializing their production. The vestiopratai obtained their stock from the serikarioi, and, to a lesser

260See Simon, “Die byzantinische Seidenzu¨nfte,” 27–33.

261EB, 6.2, 5.

262See Simon, “Die byzantinische Seidenzu¨nfte,” 34–44; Muthesius, “Silk Industry,” 35–36.

263EB, 8.6, 8.

264EB, 8.1, 3, 4, 9.

265EB, 8.7, 10, 12; Choniates, 73–76, in which only embroiderers are mentioned with respect to Corinth; see the analysis of the other sources in Jacoby, “Silk,” 462 n. 54.

266EB, 8.13.

extent, from certain archontes.267 In addition to this allocation of roles, the prefectural regulations sought above all to impose a control on the vestiopratai with respect to sales to foreigners (toi'"“qnesi) or to all persons outside Constantinople (toi'"“xwqen), who might purchase these goods with the intent of exporting them.268 The “imperial monopoly” was at issue here. Declaration was required of any purchase by the vestiopratai of a garment valued in excess of 10 nomismata, so that the eparch could supervise its resale;269 foreigners were not allowed to purchase silks whose export was prohibited, and they were required to have the prefectural seal applied to authorized garments, intended solely for their own use, which had to be tailored in Constantinople.270 The testimony of Jacob the “new convert” around 630 shows that fraudulent exports were both common and profitable;271 that of Liutprand, a half century after the publication of the Book of the Eparch, indicates that these controls were futile, if it was indeed the case that one could find the same silk cloth in Venice that was in principle barred from export out of Constantinople.272

The prandiopratai, differentiated from the vestiopratai, were the buyers and resellers of manufactured goods imported from “Syria” in its broader sense—that is, from the Muslim world—and most often mediated by way of Antioch and its port city Seleukeia Pieria. The articles might be silk, but there were other fabrics as well; their common trait was that they were Arab specialties: undergarments, kaftans, wide breeches, clothing of “sea wool.”273 According to customary practice, the Arab merchants resided in a city hostelry for three months, during which they could trade their imported goods with the prandiopratai, as well as with Syrians resident in Constantinople for more than ten years,274 and archontes seeking to purchase supplies for themselves.

The Privilege of the Archontes and the Monopoly of the State Even without taking into account the risk of fraud, negligence, or the venality of prefectural agents, this system of manufacture and of commercialization, ostensibly so coherent and segmented, had

267EB, 4.2, 7.

268EB, 4.1, 4.

269EB, 4.2.

270EB, 4.8.

271Doctrina Jacobi, 5.20 (pp. 216–17, 238): the wealthy man—a merchant or an archon—who employs Jacob sends him to Carthage to trade illegally in garments, certainly of silk. In so doing, the man claims to be following the example “of Asmiktos and others,” individuals who had devised this method of gaining wealth.

272Liutprand, Legatio, in Die Werke Liudprands von Cremona, ed. J. Becker (Hannover, 1915), 54–55 (pp. 204–5), referring to Venice and Amalfi.

273EB, 5.1–2. The terms used require special study. Regarding the silk cloth manufactured in Arab countries, see Ibn Hawqal, Configuration de la terre, 2:157, 199, 254, 293, 331, 335, 354–55, 371, 422, 447; cf. A. Guillou, “La soie du kate´panat d’Italie,” TM 6 (1976): 70–71. See also the treaty struck in 969/70 between Nikephoros Phokas and the amir of Aleppo, which makes mention of customs dues on the imports and exports of raw silk and silk cloth; cf. M. Canard, Histoire de la dynastie des H’amdanides de Jazira et de Syrie (Paris, 1953), 1:835.

274EB, 5.2, 4–5. As usual, we are dealing with a purchase arranged by the guild as a whole. It was not unusual to come across Arab merchants in traditional costume in Constantinople: cf. The Life of St. Andrew the Fool, ed. L. Ryde´n (Uppsala, 1995), 66–67, 70–73 (lines 798–801, 876–90).

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a number of fault lines and shadow areas that admitted encroachments by one specialty on another. It also discloses a disequilibrium between the serikarioi, who practically controlled the entire chain of production, and the others. Corporative and financial logic often clashed when the interests of the merchants of raw silk, the silk dressers, and the other artisans who had a practical interest in the consignments came up against the interests of individuals who had means sufficient to participate in these transactions.275 The same was true for archontes or other private individuals whose entry into the system was anticipated, but was subject to certain conditions. They had the right to manufacture silk for their own use (with the exception of certain types of cloth or clothing reserved for the emperor),276 to sell certain garments to the vestiopratai on the same terms as the serikarioi,277 and to obtain supplies directly from Syrian importers without the intermediation of the prandiopratai.278 At the same time, denunciations were leveled at the metaxopratai and the katartarioi who acted as front men for the archontes to ensure to them direct access to the market in raw silk.279 Here again, frequent references to the servile status of certain members of the silk guilds in any event reflect the presence of financial backers and suggest that the archontes not only represented a parallel channel, but that they also controlled a significant segment of the system of guilds itself.280 Prefectural regulation was intended not only to maintain production at a high level and protect the imperial prerogatives, but, to the extent possible, to safeguard the autonomy of a specialized craft industry both from the control of the “powerful” and from the small retail trade.

It is neither novel nor surprising to note that the Byzantine aristocracy took an interest in silk. In a number of provinces, notably in Greece and Calabria, the large provincial estates must have been directed toward the cultivation of silk;281 aristocratic families often employed a portion of their manpower in weaving, as shown in the oftencited example of the widow Danelis/Danelina in the Peloponnese,282 and this domestic production circulated as gifts or as merchandise. Dignitaries, on the occasion of the annual roga in particular,283 received silk cloth or garments from the emperor which they might hoard, but which they could also resell or donate to churches. These ar-

275EB, 6.9; 7.2.

276EB, 8. 2. The provision prohibiting “archontes and individuals” from manufacturing specific types of cloth suggests that they were allowed to manufacture others; it is with respect to this manufacture that they are authorized to purchase raw silk.

277EB, 4. 2. It should probably be understood that they were reselling garments rather than manufacturing them for sale, which would have contradicted the other relevant provisions.

278EB, 5.4.

279EB, 6.10; 7. 1. One may nonetheless assume that these archontes had the right, as did the serikarioi, to purchase treated or untreated raw silk from the metaxopratai and the katartarioi.

280On this point, see the conclusions of Simon, “Die byzantinische Seidenzu¨nfte,” 40–44.

281A. Guillou, Le Bre´bion de la me´tropole byzantine de Re´gion (vers 1050) (Vatican City, 1974); idem, “Production and Profits in the Byzantine Province of Italy (Tenth to Eleventh Century): An Expanding Society,” DOP 28 (1974): 91–109; idem, “La soie du kate´panat d’Italie,” TM 6 (1976): 69–84; the estimates given by the author have often been held to be excessively high: Harvey, Economic Expansion, 149–50.

282Vita Basilii, 74; Theophanes Continuatus, 318; see Jacoby, “Silk,” 458–60.

283Liutprand, Antapodosis, ed. Becker (as above, note 272), 6.10, pp. 157–58.

ticles, itemized and painstakingly described in wills and inventories—like pieces of goldwork—were assets in the same way as money.284 What most struck Benjamin of Tudela and other western travelers to Constantinople was that the inhabitants were dressed in silk clothing embroidered with gold.285 Silk, moreover, had multiple uses (whole garments, strips or edgings sewn on garments, hangings, cushions, book linings, etc.); it could be of higher or lower quality, that is, blended with cotton, wool, or linen to a greater or lesser degree.286 The demand for it was thus very strong, profit was assured, and it is understandable that the archontes would gradually have involved themselves in the system of production.

The state intervened on two levels: export and manufacture. Gifts of silk fabric or clothing held an important role in diplomacy and sometimes accompanied the conferral of court dignities to foreigners;287 measures were undertaken, as we have seen, to limit or prohibit the sale to foreigners of a certain number of products marketed by the serikarioi of Constantinople, and more or less destined for imperial largesse. There were, moreover, imperial factories, whose provisioning in raw material and whose structure we do not understand, but that occasionally had to fill large orders, such as the hundred skaramangia whose shipment to Bulgaria was envisaged in a treaty between Leo VI and Symeon.288 These silk garments, according to Constantine Porphyrogennetos, were highly sought after by the Khazars and other “Turks” or the “Ros,” who saw them not only as the trappings of wealth and power, but also as the insignia of the basileia, to the same extent as the stemmata; the articles were denied them.289 The Book of the Eparch lists in some detail the fabrics (blattia) and the garments (skaramangia), the manufacture of which, by virtue of their quality, color, or shape, was forbidden to the serikarioi, but reserved exclusively for the imperial workshops;290 it suggests, conversely, that the imperial stores could place orders for certain kinds of cloth with the serikarioi.291 The underlying impression is that Byzantium was already engaged in a

284P. Gautier, “Le typikon du Se´baste Gre´goire Pakourianos,” REB 42 (1984): 43; idem, “La Diataxis de Michel Attaleiate,” 97–99, 129. See also S. D. Goitein, “A Letter from Seleucia (Cilicia),” Speculum 39 (1964): 299. Regarding silk garments as assets, cf. the Rhodian Sea Law [Nomos Rhodion], 40, Zepos,

Jus, 2:103; S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 1, Economic Foundations (Berkeley, 1967), 222–24, cited in Guillou, “La soie,” 82.

285Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, 13; see also K. N. Ciggaar, “Une description de Constantinople dans le Tarragonensis 55,” REB 53 (1995): 119 (lines 18–19), 129 (line 13), and the letter mistakenly attributed to the count of Flanders, ed. P. E. Riant, Exuviae sacrae Constantinopolitanae (Geneva, 1878), 2:209.

286Jacoby, “Silk,” 470–76, stresses, with good reason, the growth in demand and the variety of uses. Cf. Laiou, “Exchange and Trade,” 739–40.

287Nikephoros, Short History, 162 (§ 86); A. Muthesius, “Silken Diplomacy,” in Byzantine Diplomacy, ed. J. Shepard and S. Franklin (Aldershot, 1992), 242.

288Theodore Daphnopates, Correspondance, ep. 6 (of 924/925), 78–79; see also the Theban silk cloth that the sultan of Ikonion demanded from the emperor as annual tribute ca. 1195 (below, note 295).

289DAI, chap. 13, 66–69.

290EB, 8.1. A number of the terms in this list still require interpretation.

291EB, 8.11: “Whoever [of the serikarioi?] brings to the imperial store garments made outside [and not by himself] shall be flogged and shorn.” This provision seems to involve an imperial commission from a member of the guild, but J. Koder’s translation points to a different interpretation.

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path of liberalization that came to fruition in the following century; it is clearly no longer a question of an “imperial monopoly” but, at most, exclusive rights over certain articles and the supervision of production and sale.

The Book of the Eparch is the sole source on the organization of the silk guilds; for all that, Constantinople was nonetheless far from being the sole center of production. Possibly as early as the ninth or the tenth century—more probably the eleventh to twelfth centuries—the sericultural regions (the Peloponnese, southern Italy)292 and the islands situated on important commercial routes (Andros)293 manufactured certain kinds of dyed silk cloth. Important locations such as Thebes and Corinth,294 where specialized artisans seem to have been supplied, in part at least, by the Jewish community, and in which the Venetians appeared very early on, enjoyed a high reputation and received orders placed by the court.295

Everyday Fabrics and Clothing There is a relative dearth of sources regarding the manufacture and marketing of everyday linen or cotton cloth, which would nonetheless have been much more widely used than silk. The cultivation of flax is well attested, particularly in the Peloponnese296 and in the regions of the Strymon and the Pontos;297 certain place names (Linobrocheion: the place where linen is washed), give evidence of it, and it was subject to fiscal requisitions and therefore also to dispensation.298 The weaving of linen, alone or in combination with cotton or wool,299 and the manufacture of linen cloth and clothing, must have been widespread, partly in homes and partly in specialized workshops. The Constantinopolitan market, according to the chapter in the Book of the Eparch devoted to the othoniopratai, was abundantly furnished with finished products from all the empire’s productive regions, from Bulgaria and the Arab world, as well as from manufacturers in Constantinople. The latter were prohibited by

292With respect to the Peloponnese, the first reference appears in the passage of the Vita Basilii, 74, concerning the widow Danelis and thus the region of Patras: Theophanes Continuatus, 318 (lines 13–15); see also Pseudo-Luciano, Timarione, ed. R. Romano (Naples, 1974), 53–55 (§§ 5–6), which mentions, around the year 1110, silk garments manufactured in Boeotia and in the Peloponnese that are brought to the market of Thessalonike. For southern Italy, see Guillou, “Production and Profits,” and “La soie.”

293On Andros, see E. Malamut, Les ˆıles de l’Empire byzantin, VIIe–XIIe sie`cles, 2 vols. (Paris, 1988), 1:210–12, 2:540ff; Jacoby, “Silk,” 460–62.

294See Jacoby, “Silk,” 462–500.

295Haldon, Three Treatises, 112 (lines 289–92); Niketas Choniates, 461: around 1195, the Seljuk emir of Ikonion demanded annual tribute of precious metal and “forty of those pieces of silk that are provided to the emperor by Thebes of the Seven Gates.”

296Vita Basilii, 74, Theophanes Continuatus, 318 (among the gifts offered by the widow Danelis). Regarding clothing in general, see Harvey, Economic Expansion, 182–86.

297Cited in EB, 9.1 together with the town of Kerasous (in the Pontos Polemoniakos), a town of minor importance, but which might have been an outlet for the linen trade.

298Lavra, 1: no. 48 (line 41); E. Vranouse, Buzantina` e“ggrafa th'" monh'" ´Patmou (Athens, 1980), 1: no. 6 (line 55).

299The best attestation appears in the Prodromic poems: Poe`mes prodromiques, 41–42, 49. Regarding the cultivation of cotton, see Lefort, “Rural Economy,” 252.