The Economic History of Byzantium From
.pdf
2. Late medieval Constantinople. Cristoforo Buondelmonti, Liber insularum archipelagi, ca. 1450. Private collection (reproduced courtesy of Kenneth Nebenzahl, copyright 1998)
Medieval Constantinople |
535 |
and the Jews, already mentioned, Armenians, Syrians, and Russians had “ethnic neighborhoods,” and Georgians and Turks were numerous.20
The population of Constantinople, including merchants, litigants, and other transients, may have numbered as much as four hundred thousand in 1204 and occupied a built-up area corresponding very closely to that of the sixth-century city, with a dense concentration around the commercial district and tentacles of development along the seashores and the branches of the Mese leading to secondary nuclei in the northwest and southwest corners. The settlement used and reused the buildings of the late antique, early Christian, and earlier medieval phases in ways that ranged from careful conservation through structural conversion to outright quarrying. Whether the result was a pleasing blend or an incongruous jumble is impossible to say, but no part of the city was entirely a recent creation, and Constantinople was probably more closely, richly, and naturally in touch with its physical origins than any other city surviving from Greco-Roman antiquity.
All this changed drastically with the arrival of the Fourth Crusade in 1203.21 The presence of the crusading army not only culminated in a violent sack that dispersed and destroyed the accumulated wealth and culture of centuries; it was accompanied by three terrible fires that ravaged the whole northern and central sections of the city, and it resulted in the establishment of a Latin regime that set off a steady exodus of Constantinopolitans to the Greek centers of government in exile. Far from restoring the damage done in 1203–4, the impoverished Latin emperors melted down statues for coin and sold the lead from palace roofs, while the Venetians, who now controlled much of the city, exported their declining profits, along with choice relics and architectural spolia for their churches.
When Constantinople reverted to Greek rule in 1261, Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos spared no effort or expense to restore his capital, like his empire, to its twelfthcentury greatness. But the resources of the Palaiologan empire were inadequate to both tasks. Michael could restore the basic shell of traditional authority and worship— the walls, the Blachernae Palace, parts of the Great Palace, Hagia Sophia, and a few other churches and monasteries—but even this was more than his successors could afford to keep in repair, let alone to fill with urban redevelopment. They were thwarted by the irreversible decline in their territorial base and by the development of the Genoese trading colony in the suburb of Pera into a separate fortified settlement, where
20See the anonymous description of the late 11th century in Ciggaar, “Constantinople,” 119; for the Russians, see Anthony of Novgorod, Itine´raires russes en Orient, trans. B. de Khitrowo (Geneva, 1889), 105; for the Georgians and Turks, see Nicetae Choniatae, Historia, ed. J. L. van Dieten, 2 vols. (Berlin–New York, 1975), 1:233, 493–44.
21There is no up-to-date study of urban development in the late Byzantine period, but one may consult N. Oikonomides, Hommes d’affaires grecs et latins `a Constantinople, XIIIe–XVe sie`cles (Montreal, 1979); G. Majeska, Russian Travelers to Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (Washington, D.C., 1984); A.-M. Talbot, “The Restoration of Constantinople under Michael VIII,” DOP 47 (1993): 243–61; V. Kidonopoulos, Bauten in Konstantinopel, 1204–1328 (Wiesbaden, 1994); and, for the Latin occupation, L. Buenger Robbert, “Rialto Businessmen and Constantinople, 1204–61,” DOP 49 (1995): 43–58; T. F. Madden, “The Fires of the Fourth Crusade in Constantinople, 1203–1204: A Damage Assessment,” BZ 84/85 (1991–92): 72–93.
536 PAUL MAGDALINO
immunity from imperial tolls drew business away from the old city. Constantinople became once more, as in the seventh and eighth centuries, a ruralized network of scattered nuclei, though with several important differences (Fig. 2). It was now the south coast that declined, as the Great Palace fell into decay, the Port of Julian became a military naval base, and the Jewish quarter, with its stinking tanneries, moved from Pera to Vlanga, near the former Port of Theodosios. The great open cisterns ran dry and served as kitchen gardens. The main foci of power and wealth were now at the corners of the urban triangle, particularly in the Blachernae quarter, and at the east end, where the patriarchal church of Hagia Sophia still remained the center of religious life, but as such looked more to the monasteries on and around the Acropolis than to the decaying civic center to the west.22 The shore of the Golden Horn, where the Venetians reestablished themselves, took over from the Mese as the main commercial axis. Finally, in a complete inversion of the early medieval situation, the state sector was weak and fragmented, but building continued, albeit on a modest scale. The Palaiologoi operated an even more devolved version of the Komnenian dynastic system and literally encouraged the imperial nobility to enrich themselves at the state’s expense; individuals accordingly built themselves sumptuous palaces and commissioned extensive additions or improvements to old monasteries.23 Such munificence became rarer from the mid-fourteenth century, when Constantinople was hit by the Black Death and progressively deprived of its agricultural hinterland. Yet profits were to be made in commerce, in spite of, but also in association with, the predominant Genoese and Venetian enterprises. Western visitors described a space “made up of villages, more empty than full,” a ghost city of crumbling tourist attractions that caught the eye of humanists and invited comparison with Rome.24 But imperial Constantinople, like papal Rome after the Great Schism, was untypical of the wider Mediterranean urban scene, with which it was inextricably involved. In the final decades before the fall, the population numbered seventy thousand, and along the Golden Horn, on the hills above the busy markets, the new three-story houses of a prosperous aristocratic bourgeoisie turned their back on the urban decay behind them, creating a built environment that had much in common with the bustling Genoese business center across the water.25
22G. Majeska, “The Sanctification of the First Region: Urban Reorientation in Palaeologan Constantinople,” in Actes du XVe Congre`s international d’Etudes byzantines, Athe`nes, 1976 (Athens, 1981), 2:359–63.
23The most striking example is Theodore Metochites, whose monastery church still stands, and whose palace was so splendid that, after his fall, Emperor Andronikos III made a diplomatic pres-
ent of the marble flooring to the khan of the Golden Horde: P. A. Underwood, ed., The Kariye Djami,
ˇ ˇ
4 vols. (Princeton, N.J., 1966, 1975), esp. I. Sevcenko in vol. 4:28–32; Nicephori Gregorae Byzantina Historia, ed. L. Schopen and I. Bekker, 3 vols. (Bonn, 1822–55), 1:459.
24Bertrandon de la Broquie`re, Le voyage d’outremer de Bertrandon de la Broquie`re, ed. C. Schefer (Paris, 1892), 150–67; Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, Narrative of the Embassy to the Court of Timour at Samarkand,
A.D. 1403–6, trans. C. R. Markham (London, 1859), 29–49; Pero Tafur, Travels and Adventures, trans.
M.Letts (London, 1926), 138–48; Manuel Chrysoloras, Letter to John Palaeologus, in PG 156:45ff; G. Gerola, “Le vedute di Costantinopoli di Cristoforo Buondemonti,” SBN 3 (1931): 247–79.
25Iwshj`f Monacou' tou' Bruenni´ou ta` euJre e´nta, ed. E. Voulgaris (Leipzig, 1768); Johannes Chortas-
menos, ca. 1370–ca. 1436/7: Briefe, Gedichte und kleine Schriften, ed. H. Hunger (Vienna, 1969), 190–92.
Medieval Constantinople |
537 |
Select Bibliography
Berger, A. Untersuchungen zu den Patria Konstantinupoleos. Bonn, 1987.
Constantelos, D. Byzantine Philanthropy and Social Welfare. New Brunswick, N.J., 1968. Dagron, G. Constantinople imaginaire: Etudes sur le recueil des “Patria.” Paris, 1984.
———.“Constantinople: Les sanctuaires et l’organisation de la vie religieuse.” In Actes du XIe Congre`s international d’arche´ologie chre´tienne. Rome, 1989.
———.Naissance d’une capitale: Constantinople et ses institutions de 330 `a 451. Paris, 1974. Durliat, J. De la ville antique `a la ville byzantine: Le proble`me des subsistances. Rome, 1990. Janin, R. Constantinople byzantine. 2d ed. Paris, 1964.
———.La ge´ographie eccle´siastique de l’Empire byzantin. Vol. 1, Le sie`ge de Constantinople et le patriarcat oecume´nique. Fasc. 3, Les ´eglises et les monaste`res. 2d ed. Paris, 1969.
Magdalino, P. “The Byzantine Aristocratic Oikos.” In The Byzantine Aristocracy, IX–XIII Centuries, ed. M. Angold. Oxford, 1984. Reprinted in P. Magdalino, Tradition and Transformation in Medieval Byzantium. Aldershot, 1991.
———.Constantinople me´die´vale: Etudes sur l’e´volution des structures urbaines. Paris, 1996. Majeska, G. Russian Travelers to Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.
Washington, D.C., 1984.
Mango, C. The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312–1453: Sources and Documents. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1972.
———.Byzantine Architecture. New York, 1976.
———.“The Development of Constantinople as an Urban Centre.” In The Seventeenth International Byzantine Congress, Main Papers. New Rochelle, N.Y., 1986. Reprinted in C. Mango, Studies on Constantinople. Aldershot, 1993.
———.Le de´veloppement urbain de Constantinople, IVe–VIIe sie`cles. 2d ed. Paris, 1990.
———.Studies on Constantinople. Aldershot, 1993.
Mango, C., and G. Dagron, eds. Constantinople and Its Hinterland. Aldershot, 1995. Mathews, T. F. The Byzantine Churches of Istanbul: A Photographic Survey. University Park,
Pa., 1976.
Miller, T. S. The Birth of the Hospital in the Byzantine Empire. Baltimore, Md., 1985. Mu¨ller-Wiener, W. Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls. Tu¨bingen, 1977.
Oikonomides, N. Hommes d’affaires grecs et latins `a Constantinople, XIIIe–XVe sie`cles. Montreal, 1979.
Talbot, A.-M. “The Restoration of Constantinople under Michael VIII.” DOP 47 (1993): 243–61.
Master Craftsmen, Craftsmen, and Building
Activities in Byzantium
Charalambos Bouras
To judge from the written sources and from the surviving monuments, building was one of the most important activities carried out in Byzantium and an essential component of life. SigniÞcant sums of money were invested in the construction and ornamentation of buildings, mostly of a religious or generally public nature, since in Byzantine society sponsors reinforced their image and gained in social prestige when they created and donated works of art and architecture. This concept had roots in the ancient world and survived without interruption even after the fall of the empire.
Although the role of architects, craftsmen, and laborers in producing such buildings was obviously a central one, accounts of it are very scanty and always indirect. No systematic archives on the construction of major projects have survived from Byzantium (as they have in the case, for instance, of the Ottoman projects of the 16th century), nor have any theoretical or practical texts of architecture come down to us. Such questions were of very little interest to any of the authors of the time, who passed lightly over the constructional details of the buildings to which they referred and rarely provided descriptions when singing the praises of donors and founders.
The situation became still more difÞcult after the iconoclastic controversy. It is common knowledge that the substantive differences between the early Christian and early Byzantine periods, on the one hand, and the middle Byzantine and Palaiologan periods, on the other, also extended to the realm of architecture. It was not only the case that building projects became smaller, and consequently that the organization of their construction became simpler; it is also a fact that our information becomes still more limited. In the particular instance of the production of buildings, of their economic dimension, and of the individuals who put them into effect, the ßow of information dwindles almost to nothing. However, analysis of the typological, morphological, and technological aspects of the architectural monuments themselves is sufÞcient to convince us of their continuity, of their constructorsÕ loyalty to the values of the ancient heritage.
This chapter was translated by John Solman.
540 CHARALAMBOS BOURAS
The publication in the early tenth century (in the reign of Leo the Wise) of the Book of the Eparch1 seems to have been part of the effort to reorganize the Byzantine state after the Dark Ages where building projects, too, were concerned. It contains regulations dealing with the working methods of craftsmen in general (masons, carpenters, plasterers, locksmiths, artists) that display similarities to the rules of the late Roman period,2 although the craftsmen were not viewed as members of any speciÞc guild among the twenty-two provided for in the Book of the Eparch, as had been the case in Roman times. The rules deal mainly with the obligations of craftsmen toward their employers and with the role of the eparch as arbitrator in any disputes that might arise. By modern standards, the position of the craftsmen was undoubtedly a difÞcult one; when executing one project, for instance, they were prohibited from agreeing to the next, and could only take on a new building when they were unemployed.
Naturally enough, this unique source of information has been the object of study and the starting point for hypotheses of all kinds3 based on the state of the guilds or the synaphia in the Byzantine world at a much later date.4 The provisions determining the liabilities of the craftsmen in the event of the project proving to be ill-advised or being abandoned are enlightening, as are the sanctions provided for in each case. However, the Book of the Eparch has not been securely dated,5 and, more important, it does not seem to have had force outside Constantinople.6 The frequent movements of craftsmen in the Byzantine period are strong evidence that in the provinces during the middle Byzantine era there were no local guilds, but rather informal teams of craftsmen formed on a temporary basis. However the case may be, a document from Thessalonike dated 1322 confers the title of Òmaster craftsman of the building workersÓ (prwtomai?stwr tw'n oijkodo´mwn) on a certain kyr Georgios Marmaras,7 and this implies a form of organization broader than a mere team.
In Byzantine times, construction projects were commissioned and executed on the
1Leo the Wise, To` Eparcikoj´n Bibli´onÚ J. Nicole, ed., Le Livre du Pre´fet (Geneva, 1893; repr. London, 1970). The most recent edition is by J. Koder, Das Eparchenbuch Leons des Weisen (Vienna, 1991). For the builders, see also C. Mango, The Byzantine Empire: Sources and Documents (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1972), 206Ð7.
2Where liability for the discontinuation of a project already undertaken is concerned, comparisons can be made with the provisions of the Sardis inscription of 459. See H. Gre«goire, Recueil des inscriptions grecques-chre´tiennes de l’Asie Mineure (Paris, 1922), 1:112, no. 322; C. Foss, Byzantine and Turkish Sardis (Cambridge, Mass., 1976), 19, 20, 112, 113; and A. Kazhdan, ÒKritikh´,Ó Byzantina 9 (1977): 479. For the situation prior to the iconoclastic controversy, see also J.-P. Sodini, ÒLÕartisanat urbain `a lÕe«poque pale«ochre«tienne,Ó Ktema 4 (1979): 71Ð119.
3A. Christophilopoulos, To` Eparcikoj´n Bibli´on Le´onto" tou' Sofou' kai´ aiJ suntecni´ai ejn Buzanti´v
(Athens, 1935); A. Stoeckle, ÒSpa¬tro¬mische und byzantinische Zu¬nfte,Ó Klio 9 (1911): 120.
4Particularly as described by A. Choisy, L’art de baˆtir chez les byzantins (Paris, 1883), 174Ð78, and N. Moutsopoulos, Ekklhsij´e" th'" Kastoria'"(Thessalonike, 1992), 440Ð44.
5See A. Kazhdan, ÒBook of the Eparch,Ó ODB, 308.
6C. Mango, Byzantine Architecture (New York, 1976), 26. For the last period, see also R. Ousterhout,
ÒConstantinople, Bithynia and Regional Developments in Later Palaeologan Architecture,Ó in The
« ÿ «
Twilight of Byzantium, ed. S. Curcic and D. Mouriki (Princeton, N.J., 1991), 79.
7 L. Petit and B. Korablev, ÒActes de Chilandar,Ó VizVrem 17 (1911): 178. Kyr Georgios was a witness to a legal instrument.
1. The builders. Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, the Skylitzes codex (Vitr. 26-2), fol. 141v (13th–14th centuries) (after A. Grabar and M. Manoussacas, L’illustration du manuscrit de Skylitzès de la Bibliothèque Nationale de Madrid [Venice, 1979], pl. XXIX)
2. The building of the Temple. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. gr. 20, fol. 4r (10th century) (after S. Dufrenne, L’illustration des psautiers grecs du Moyen Age, vol. 1 [Paris, 1966], pl. 34)
Craftsmen and Building Activities |
541 |
basis of a written ÒbondÓ signed by the employer and the team of craftsmen who were to undertake the project. In accordance with express provisions of the Basilics,8 a contractor could serve as a middleman, undertaking to construct the entire building in return for a Þxed sum. Such was the case with the katholikon of the Kosenitza monastery, for which St. Germanos9 agreed to pay a sum of 100 gold pieces (which he did not in fact have), and of the Enkleistra monastery in Cyprus,10 where, by way of contrast, St. Neophytos refused to give his consent to the commencement of building work until the entire sum necessary had been assembled. The contractor might also provide all the building materials needed, depending on circumstances.11
It seems that a more common practice was for the agreement to provide for the payment of daily wages to the craftsmen of different skills and for the materials to be supplied by the employer. The dynamic method of constructing buildings, including many important ones, with modiÞcations to the original plans,12 and sometimes with the demolition of sections already built so as to incorporate changes,13 could not have been implemented without the system of payment of a daily wage.
A third method consisted of the payment by lump sum of only a part of the construction project (the system still called fatoura in the Greek building trade today). We have no direct account of this, but indirect evidence is to be found in the prefabricated marble or stone architectural members that reached the building site ready, or almost ready, for use.14 These can be recognized in Byzantine buildings by the buildersÕ symbols they bear, which were very probably used to indicate the names of those who had constructed the project and supplied its component parts. Most of the known examples date from the centuries preceding the iconoclastic controversy,15 but the tradition seems to have continued into the middle Byzantine period.16
8Basilicorum libri LX, ed. H. J. Scheltema, N. van der Wal, and D. Holwerda, 17 vols. (Groningen, 1953Ð88), 15.1.39.
9ÒBi´o" kai` politei´a tou' OsiJ´ou patro`" hJmw'n Germanou',Ó AASS, May 3:10; see also Moutsopoulos, Kastoria´ , 445Ð47.
10I. Tsiknopoulos, Kupriaka´ Tupika´ (Nicosia, 1969), 89Ð90. The same recommendation is made by Kekaumenos (Strathgiko´n, ed. D. Tsoungarakis [Athens, 1993], chap. 52, p. 175): ÒIf you are poor, do not attempt to build, lest you fall into sin, and change your purpose.Ó
11In accordance with the provisions of the Basilics.
12C. Bouras, IstoriJ´a th'" ajrcitektonikh'",2 vols. (Athens, 1994), 2:192Ð93.
13Extreme examples of this were the church of the Peribleptos, founded by Romanos III Argyros, and St. George of Mangana, founded by Constantine IX Monomachos. See, in this respect, Michel Psellos, Chronographie, ed. E. Renauld, 2 vols. (Paris, 1967), 1:41Ð43, chap. 3.14 and 2:61Ð63, chap. 6.186, respectively.
14See N. Asgari, Objets de marbre finis, semi finis et inacheve´s du Proconne`se, Pierre ´eternelle du Nil au Rhin, Carrie`res et pre´fabrication (Brussels, 1990), 106Ð26.
15C. Mango, Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome (London, 1980), 261Ð62; J.-P. Sodini, ÒRemarques sur la sculpture architecturale dÕAttique, de Be«otie et du Peloponne`se,Ó BCH 101 (1977): 425ff; idem, ÒMarques de taöcherons ine«dites `a Istanbul et en Gre`ce,Ó in Artistes, artisans et production artistique au moyen ˆage, ed. X. Barral i Altet, 2 vols. (Paris, 1986Ð87), 2:503Ð18; idem, ÒLe commerce des marbres `a lÕe«poque proto-byzantine,Ó in Hommes et richesses dans l’empire byzantin, 2 vols. (Paris, 1989Ð91), 1:163Ð86; cf. idem, ÒMarble and Stoneworking in Byzantium, SeventhÐFifteenth Centuries,Ó EHB.
16J. Morganstern, The Byzantine Church at Dereag˘zi and Its Decoration (Tu¬bingen, 1983), 132; A. H. S. Megaw, ÒExcavations on the Castle Site at Paphos, Cyprus, 1970Ð1971,Ó DOP 26 (1972): 335 n. 42, Þgs. 18 and 19.
542 CHARALAMBOS BOURAS
Major public or imperial projects of a defensive, ecclesiastical, or other nature were constructed by the second method: after the materials had been assembled (sunagwgh` th'"”ulh"), craftsmen were hired by the day and implemented the project. The various items of work had to be coordinated, and the person responsible for liaison operations of this kind was usually a state ofÞcial with experience of similar tasks and not the master craftsman. Here, too, we see a continuation of a tradition dating back to the time of Theodosios17 or Justinian.18 The names of quite a number of these supervisors of large projects are known to us from inscriptions and other sources: they include Theodore Velonas,19 Kakikis,20 Vasileios Kladon,21 Fakoleatos, Astras and Peralta,22 Eustathios,23 Roupenis Armenios,24 and others. In the case of large-scale private projects, the supervisor for construction of the project, responsible for coordinating the work of the craftsmen, might be a secretary who enjoyed the conÞdence of the owner of the project.25
As far as the building work sector is concerned, we do not know to whom the means of production belonged in Byzantium. By Òmeans of productionÓ I mean, on the one hand, the simple tools of the craftsmen (hammers, saws, drills, T squares, spirit levels, planes,26 pack saddles,27 and the tools of masons, including trowels, picks, and hods) and, on the other, the building site equipment, which a number of craftsmen would have used together (scaffolding, ladders, pulleys, ropes, winches, cranes, primitive cement mixers,28 and so on). The appearance of these tools, often unchanged to the
17Examples being those of Cyrus, who built the walls of Constantinople (according to Theophanes, Chronographia, ed. C. de Boor, 2 vols. [Leipzig, 1883Ð85], 1:96, 97 (hereafter Theophanes), and of Hormisdas in Thessalonike (O. Tafrali, Topographie de Thessalonique [Paris, 1913], 33ff).
18As in the case of Victorinos, who fortiÞed the Isthmus of Corinth and Byllis in north Epiros: S. Anamali, ÒKate¬r Mbishkrime ude¬rtimi nga Bylisi,Ó Monumentet 33 (1987): 62Ð73 nn. 7Ð12.
19Who built a church in Chalcedon, according to Theophanes Continuatus: A. Markopoulos, ÒLe te«moignage de Vaticanus gr. 163 pour la pe«riode entre 945Ð963,Ó Su´mmeikta 3 (1977): 4Ð25, and O. Demus, The Church of San Marco (Washington, D.C., 1960), 91.
20Who in 862 repaired the fortiÞcations of Thessalonike: E. Marki, Deu´tero Sumpo´sio Cristianikh'" Arcaiologikh'"jEtaireiJ´a" (Athens, 1982), 55Ð56.
21Who repaired the walls of Kavala: see S. Kyriakides, Buzantinai` Mele´tai (Thessalonike, 1939),
134.
22Who, according to Kantakouzenos, repaired the domes of Hagia Sophia: Ioannis Cantacuzeni Historiarum libri quattuor, ed. L. Schopen, 3 vols. (Bonn, 1828Ð32), 3:29Ð30 (hereafter Kantakouzenos).
23A droungarios who built a settlement for Alexios Komnenos: Anne Comne`ne, Alexiade, ed. B. Leib, 3 vols. (Paris, 1937Ð45), 2:71.
24Who, according to Kedrenos, repaired the walls of Thermopylae in the reign of Basil II: Georgius Cedrenus, Su´noyi" Istoriw'n,J2 vols. ed. I. Bekker (Bonn, 1838Ð39), 2:435.
25Such as Michael Grammatikos, who supervised the construction of the monastery of the Kosmosoteira: see L. Petit, ÒTypikon du monaste`re de Kosmosotira pre`s dÕAenos (1152),Ó IRAIK 13 (1908): 69.
26See Ch. du Cange, Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae Graecitatis (Lyons, 1688; repr. Graz, 1958), 1307, s.v. rJouka´ nh.
27See PG 4:140.
28There is no testimony to such equipment in Byzantium, but it is reported in western Europe and Georgia in the period from the 10th to the 12th centuries: see Barral i Altet, Artistes, artisans et
Craftsmen and Building Activities |
543 |
present day, can be recognized in their depictions in miniatures, wall paintings, and mosaics.29 If the project was undertaken by a contractor, it is reasonable to assume that this essential equipment would have belonged to him.
In the case of major public projects, however, the site equipment would have been so costly that it can only have belonged to the state itself. Characteristic is the following piece of information from the accounts relating to the repairs on Hagia Sophia in Constantinople in 995: ÒJust for the lifting machinery on which the craftsmen stand and, receiving the materials hoisted up to them, rebuild the part of the structure that had collapsed, 10 kentenaria,Ó30 that is, the cost totaled 1,000 litrai of gold. No study has yet been conducted of the relationship between the technology of war engines or shipbuilding and that of construction sites, possibly permitting the formation of hypotheses about the use of some of the same engines. It is apparent from indirect references that the Byzantine monasteries possessed their own equipment, at least as far as tools were concerned: the severe penances speciÞed by Theodore of Stoudios31 are testimony to his concern that the masonÕs tools belonging to the monastery should be looked after carefully and maintained.
In the Byzantine period, unlike classical antiquity, we have no information as to the wages paid to craftsmen. Such wages differed in any case from place to place and in accordance with the craftsmanÕs trade and the season of the year. Cyril Mango has investigated these wages and their purchasing power in early Christian times,32 but once again the information is of limited extent. The duration of the craftsmanÕs working day is noted loosely in the Hypotyposis of St. Christodoulos of Patmos33 as being Òfrom dawn till dusk.Ó The Þve-day week recorded by the same document was probably an exception caused by the living conditions peculiar to the island in the eleventh century.
As a result of our ignorance of the wages received by craftsmen and of their purchas-
production artistique au moyen ˆage (as above, note 15), 2:324 (P. Skubiszewki) and 321 (N. Thierry), respectively. Equipment of this kind was probably to be found in Byzantium, on the sites of large projects. Among similar machinery one could cite the kneading machine powered by animals and invented by St. Athanasios the Athonite: see L. Petit, ÒVie de Saint Athanase lÕAthonite,Ó AB 25 (1906): 63.
29A. K. Orlandos, ÒParasta´ sei" ejrgalei´wn tinw'n xulourgou' marmaroglu´ptou kai´ kti´stou ejpi` palaiocristianikw'n kai` buzantinw'n mnhmei´wn,Ó Pepragme´na tou' Q dieqnou'" buzantinologikou' sunedri´ou
(Athens, 1954), 1:329Ð39, Þgs. 57Ð63; A. Louvi-Kizi, Ò HJ buzantinh´ te´cnh wJ" phgh´ gia´ th´n mesaiwnikh´ tecnikh´,Ó Eqnografikaj´ 6 (1989): 115Ð20.
30eij" mo´na" ta` " mhcana` " th'" ajno´dou, di∆ w» n oiJ tecni'tai iJsta´ menoi kai` ta` " u”la" ajnagome´na" deco´menoi vjkodo´moun to` peptwko´", kenthna´ ria i .Ó Michaelis Glycae, Annales, ed. I. Bekker (Bonn, 1836), 576 (hereafter Glykas).
31ÒQeodw´ rou tou' Stoudi´tou ta` euJrisko´mena,Ó PG 99:1744.
32Mango, Byzantium, 40ff. In a case in which accounts were rendered for 200 gold pieces spent on the monastery of Bebaia Elpis (H. Delehaye, ÒDeux typica byzantins de lÕe«poque des Pale«ologues,Ó Me´moires de l’Acade´mie Royale de Belgique 13.4 [1921]: 104), things are equally unclear. See also in this respect, A. E. Laiou, ÒSto Buza´ ntio twn Palaiolo´gwn. Oikonomika´ kai politistika´ faino´mena,Ó in Eujfro´- sunon. Afiej´rwma sto`n Mano´lh Catzhda´ kh (Athens, 1991), 1:392 n. 36.
33MM 6:68.