The author of this book, Angeliki Laiou (Athens 6/4/1941–Boston 11/12/2008), late professor of Byzantine history at Harvard University (1981), director of Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC (1989), member of the Academy of Athens (1998), member of the Greek Parliament (2000–2002), and state secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2000–2001),Footnote 1 studied several decades ago issues concerning the field of Byzantine economy and Byzantine economic thought. She devoted herself to this study not only with deep interest, but also with a critic mind.
This volume has been modeled on the form successfully adopted by the authoritative Variorum Reprints: photo reproductions of articles originally published in periodicals/journals, conference proceedings, festschriften, etc., sometimes with additions and revisions. It frequently happens that old research papers that are still of interest and value to scholars—as evidenced by the fact that copies continue to be requested, sometimes from the author himself, who has often disposed of his last offprint a long time ago—are only to be found in this or that learned publication, not always easily accessible. Volumes of this type gather such articles together and bring them within reach, especially for young graduates and other scholars.
Similarly, the present book is part of an attempt to create and develop the necessary foundations for the study and cultivation of Byzantine economy by publishing analytical studies on certain crucial aspects of Byzantine economic thought and the problems arising therefrom. Included in this volume, systematically arranged, are twelve previously published papers, divided in two parts. The first part is entitled “Economic Thought” with six papers, and the second part is entitled “Economic Life,” also with six papers.
Cécile Morrisson and Rowan Dorin describe in the short preface (pp. vii–viii) the innovative character of Laiou’s researches and publications in Byzantine history. Cécile Morrisson (1940– ), director of Cabinet des Médailles of Bibliothèque Nationale (1988–1990), director of the Centre of History of Byzantine Civilization (College de France/CNRS, 1988–2000), and corresponding member of the Academy of Athens since 2006, gives in her introduction (pp. ix–xiii) an overview of the contents of the reprinted papers.
It is obvious that the request for a more comprehensive research approach to the sphere of economic phenomena in the Byzantine world cannot take a specific form. The main part of the economic studies in Byzantium is given through legal texts and relevant provisions, which do not reach a conclusion by means of treatises or other independent works. The cause of this should be interpreted by taking account of institutional particularities, such as the structure of the Byzantine bureaucracy and its relation to the intellectuals, and the ordering of the priorities of the authors (Hunger Reference Hunger1994, vol. III, p. 316; Gotsis Reference Gotsis1997, p. 58). It is worth noting at this point that the Byzantines have not put forward any political or philosophical theories to organize in a systematic way the prevalent opinions about the emperor and the state (Beck Reference Beck1970, pp. 379–380; Karayannopoulos Reference Karayannopoulos1992, pp. 13–14). On the contrary, the West was prolific in ideas and theories referring to the concept of the empire. This conflict is due to the different way of dealing with problems; the West was dominated by the horror of death and total destruction, a focus that was not predominate in the East (Bryce Reference Bryce1904, pp. 324–344).
Three elements had a strong impact in the Byzantine Empire: (a) Christianity, (b) the Roman legal tradition, and (c) the ancient Greek philosophical tradition. This is the concept of the six articles of the first part of the volume.
Article I, entitled “God and Mammon: Credit, Trade, Profit and the Canonists” (1991), explores Byzantine canonists’ approaches to lending at interest. The development of Byzantine canon law in the twelfth century parallels the great concern of Western authors in the same period, in a similar context of economic expansion, implying a higher demand for investment credit. It is worth noting that there is a comparison with the West, which highlights the specifities of the Byzantine situation: due to the importance of civil law and the Roman tradition, for example, lending at interest was not condemned tout court. Canonists denounced the participation of clerics only in dishonorable trades such as banking or the keeping of taverns or baths, disapproving of the pursuit of economic profit by clerics rather than by laymen.
Article II, entitled “The Church, Economic Thought and Economic Practice” (1996), analyzes the position of the Byzantine church on the family, lending at interest, and agricultural investment in the period from the sixth to the fourteenth centuries.
Article III, entitled “Social justice: Exchange and Prosperity in Byzantium” (1999), is the English translation of Laiou’s inaugural address as a member of the Academy of Athens. The text has been translated by Sasia Dirkse. This important article deals with the evolution of the ancient and patristic ideal of social justice and its interplay with civil law, with the latter’s principles supporting freedom of exchange, property rights, and the validity of contractual exchange coming back into force in the ninth century with the full translation into Greek of the Justinianic Code in the Basilika. The importance and the innovative character of this paper is twofold. First, it has been shown that the Byzantines engaged with the idea of fair price much earlier than in the West, with fair profit’s being regulated in Leo VI’s Book of the Prefect. As with usury, only unreasonable profit (higher than 16.6%) was condemned. Second, it was the scholar Michael of Ephesos, writing in the early twelfth century, a systematic commentator of Aristotle’s works, who understood that the market value of money is determined by demand and fluctuations in production and tried to understand the resultant shifts in value. It is no wonder that this text had a great impact in the West and was used later by Nicholas Oresme and John Buridan.
The impact of Aristotelian economic thought and especially the conception of money on the Byzantine economic practice is the content of Article IV, entitled “Nummus parit nummos: l’ usurier, le juriste et le philosophe à Byzance” (1999). Although the Greek fathers had exported the question of the sterility of money to the West with great success, in Byzantium the same question remained a rhetorical formula. An anonymous twelfth-century commentator on the Basilika rejected the idea outright, arguing that interest was justified by the contract; others, known only through their religious opponents, defended it as a legitimate share in the profit taken from the loan. Both approaches stemmed from the widespread juridical culture of Byzantine intellectuals and the importance of civil law.
The attitude of the scholars of Thessalonica, the second city of the Empire, regarding the problem of the civil war in the fourteenth century, is the content of Article V, entitled “Economic Concerns and Attitudes of the Intellectuals of Thessalonike” (2003). The economic ideas of these scholars are concentrated in three topics: (a) the defense of private property, (b) freedom in exchange, and (c) lending at interest.
The fiscal sector and especially the tax burden is the content of Article VI, entitled “Le débat sur les droits du fisc et les droits régaliens au début du 14e siècle” (2000). When the first Paleologean emperors were forced, by external circumstances, to increase taxes through new, exceptional exactions such as abiotikon (confiscation of property of deceased intestate owners), and several judicial fines in cases of murder (phonikon), rape (parthenophtoria), and treasure hoards (heuresis thesaurou), they came up against the open opposition—something new—of their subjects, of whom Thomas Magistros appeared to be the spokesman. Cities thus gained important privileges. In its own way, Byzantium took part in the European phenomenon of fiscal burdens and negotiations between sovereign and subjects.
The second part of the volume deals with the peasantry and the economy of specific villages and towns.
Article VII, “On Individuals, Aggregates and Mute Social Groups: Some Question of Methodology” (1994, published 1996), introduces the second part of the volume with a methodological reflection on observing social groups that are “mute” in the sense of having left few records of themselves.
Article VIII, “Priests and Bishops in the Byzantine Countryside, Thirteenth to Fourteenth Centuries” (2009), deals with the role of the bishops as speakers in the name of their flock or as mediators wielding considerable power, while the priests, living the same life as the villagers, but more literate, formed part of the village élite.
Article IX, “The Peasant as Donor (13th–14th Centuries)” (2012), deals with the peasants’ donations to monasteries or churches, which are scrutinized in order to discriminate disguised from real gifts by families or inhabitants for the decoration of the local churches. These offer a picture of peasant piety and concerns, including due punishment of usurers and of money-loving monks.
Article X, “Of Mills and Monks: The Case of the Mill of Chantax,” written in collaboration with Dieter Simon, first published in German (1992), deals with the property of the watermill of Chantax; it is a tribute to the authors’ erudition in unraveling this tangled affair, so “Byzantine” in all the senses of the word.
The remaining two articles of this collection are concerned with the same theme: the Byzantine village (fifth through fourteenth centuries) and the Byzantine city. Both of these synthetic studies have been delivered in the two last international congresses of Byzantine Studies, in which the late Professor Laiou took part, in Paris (2001) and London (2006). Article XI is entitled “The Byzantine village (5th–14th Century),” and Article XII is entitled “The Byzantine City: Parasitic or Productive?” (2006).
Α thorough index accompanies this well-prepared and weighty edition. The author, the late Professor Laiou, has been highly successful in researching primary sources and devoting particular attention to the historical aspects of the spread of ideas. The contribution of the two managing editors of Ashgate Publications is also to be praised, in that the publisher has decisively contributed in the research work done in connection of the Byzantine economic thought.
