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Abstract
This article examines the merchant and commodity networks of Trebizond as well as routes at the regional, interregional, and international levels that connected the city to Constantinople, the rest the Black Sea, Armenia, the Near East and the Caucuses in the early Middle Ages. After a brief survey of the commercial history of Trebizond from the late antique period to the eleventh century, the economy of the Pontic region and its commercial exchanges with various regions are investigated in detail. The available evidence shows that the list of commodities exchanged between Pontos and its neighbours were longer, and the networks of merchants and routes were more complex than assumed thus far. Trebizond’s advantage as a port town for landlocked territories to its south and east (especially the large Iranian and Iraqi markets at the end of the Silk/Spice Route), as well as its close ties with Constantinople and the rest of the Black Sea, established the Pontic capital as a vital emporium. Benefiting from the increasing economic development in Byzantium and its neighbours, the prosperity of the Pontic region and is main city Trebizond is most visible in the period from the mid-ninth to the mid-eleventh centuries.
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Notes
1. Bessarion, Encomium on Trebizond in Two Works, 96, 194.
2. For the primary sources on late Byzantine Trebizond, see Karpov, A history, 15–27.
3. Fallmerayer, Geschichte, 1–43; Miller, Trebizond, 8–13; Bryer and Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments, passim; Karpov, A history, 34–83; Peacock, “Black Sea Trade”, 66–9; Karpov, Trebizond, 137–9. Karpov’s treatment of pre-1204 Trebizond in his Istoriya Trapezundskoy imperii, which is the longest among the works in this category, is confined to the discussion of the role that Trebizond played in the political and military developments in the middle Byzantine period.
4. Heyd, Histoire du commerce, 44–5; Canard, “Les relations”, 53; Ashtor, A Social and Economic History, 100; Oikonomidès, “Le marchand byzantin”, 652; Patlagean, “Byzance et les marchés”, 603–4; Oikonomidès, “Poleis-Commerce”, 68–70; Ducellier et al., Byzance et le monde orthodoxe, 207–8; McCormick, Origins, 588–91; Laiou, “Exchange and Trade”, 728, 748.
5. Laiou, “Exchange and Trade”, 728, 748; Laiou relies largely on Vryonis’s observations regarding Trebizond’s interregional commercial connections. Vryonis, Decline, 15–16; Gerolymatou, Markets, 117–21.
6. Bryer, “Latins in the Euxine”, 12–13.
7. The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 26, 30, 45, 65.
8. Thomson, A Bibliography of Classical Armenian Literature; Thomson, “The Writing of History”, 493–520; Deeters, “Georgische Literatur”, 129–55; Fähnrich, Georgische Literatur.
9. Miquel, La géographie humaine du monde musulman.
10. “Trapezus”, Paulys Realencyclopädie, 2219; Fallmerayer, Geschichte, 13–14; Karpov, A history, 61; Miller, Trebizond, 2.
11. Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman History, 224 [“non obscura”]; Procopius, History of the Wars, Volume I, 534 [“choria poluanthrōpa”]; Zosimus, Historia Nova, 31 [“polei megalēi kai poluanthrōpōi”]; Ananias of Shirak, The Geography, 57.
12. Manandian, Trade and Cities, 155; Jones, Later Roman Empire, 827.
13. Juanser, History of King Vaxt’ang Gorgasali, in Thomson, Rewriting Caucasian History, 187.
14. Runciman, “Byzantine Trade”, 135; Jones, “Asian Trade”, 4.
15. Procopius, History of the Wars, Volume I, 386, 522.
16. Vnukov, “Overseas Trade”, 108, 110, 119–21, 135; Inaishvili and Khalvashi, “Sinopean Imports on the Black Sea”, 487–559; Vnukov, “‘Colchean Amphorae’ from Abkhazia”, 276–8; Kassab Tezgör, “Les ateliers implantés”, 156–8; Kassab Tezgör, “Le réseau commercial des amphores sinopéennes”, 169–70, note 34.
17. Kropotkin, Byzantine coin hoards, Maps 3 and 4; Gandila, Cultural Encounters, 195.
18. Ananias of Shirak, Autobiography, 572–3.
19. Jones, “Asian Trade”, 9; Sebeos, History, I, 143.
20. For the rebuilding of the St Anna Church, see Rosenqvist, “Byzantine Trebizond”, 34. For contraction in Byzantine cities and Trebizond, see Fallmerayer, Geschichte, 14–15; Haldon, Seventh Century, 110; Decker, The Byzantine Dark Ages, passim, esp. 81–122.
21. Theophanes, Chronographia, 393; Bessarion, Encomium on Trebizond in Two Works, 166–72.
22. Allen and Neil, Maximus the Confessor, 18, 155.
23. Martin, Epistula XVII, Patrologia Latina, 87.202–4; Anastasius Bibliothecarius, Collectanea, 129.601. For the discussion of this piece of information, see Hendy, Studies, 50; McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 854.
24. Life of St George of Amastris, 43–7. On the date of the saint’s journey, see McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 884. The Martyrdom of Abo in Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints, 120.
25. Oikonomidès, “Silk Trade and Production in Byzantium”, 33–53.
26. For the seals of Armenia I, see Zacos and Veglery, Byzantine Lead Seals, I, pt. 1, nos. 150, 155, 162, 179, 191. For the seals of Pontos, see Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks, III, nos. 72.2, 72.3; Zacos and Veglery, Byzantine Lead Seals, I, pt. 3, nos. 2765, 2480B, 2077A, 2671; Ragia, “The Geography of the Provincial Administration”, 208, 215.
27. Kropotkin, Byzantine coin hoards, Maps 5 and 6; Kassab, Lemaître, and Pieri, “La collection d’amphores”, 185.
28. Shepard, “Approaching Byzantium”, 35. For an extensive discussion of the theme of Chaldia, see Vlyssidou, Themes of Asia Minor, 287–97, 459–68.
29. Step’anos Tarōnec’i, Universal History, 205, 288, note 476; Winfield, “Northern Routes”, 157–62.
30. Ibn Khurradādhbih, Kitāb al-masālik, 108; Ḳudāma, Kitāb al-Kharādj, 258.
31. For economic growth in Byzantium from the ninth to eleventh centuries, see Oikonomidès, “Le marchand byzantin”, 646; Harvey, Economic Expansion, 207–8; Laiou and Morrisson, The Byzantine Economy, 80–91; Van Doorninck, “Byzantine Shipwrecks”, 902; McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 588–9. For the Islamic world, see Lombard, The Golden Age of Islam, 24–6, 34–5; Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, 301–5. For economic development in Armenia in the same period, see Hewsen, Armenia, 112; Martin-Hisard, “From Tao-Klarjet’i to Athos”, 246.
32. Lombard, The Golden Age of Islam, 226; McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, 589–91. Please see the references in the footnotes 3 and 4.
33. Lazaropoulos dates the change of the date of fair to the reign of Emperor Basil I. Lazaropoulos’s Logos in The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios of Trebizond, 206. For the discussion of the change of the date by Jan Rosenqvist, see The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 75.
34. Gerolymatou, Markets, 134.
35. Xiphilinos’s Miracles in The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios of Trebizond, 198; Lazaropoulos’s Logos in The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios of Trebizond, 212–13;
36. Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks, IV, nos. 32.15 to 32.30; Wassiliou and Seibt, Die byzantinischen Bleisiegel, II, nos. 164, 165, 190, 191; Schlumberger, Sigillographie, 668, no. 1; Zacos and Nesbitt, Byzantine Lead Seals, II nos. 357, 442; Bryer and Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments, I, 318.
37. Lazaropoulos’s Logos in The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 214, 388. For the recovery in the twelfth century, see the Peacock, “Black Sea Trade”, 68–9; Karpov, Trebizond, 138; Ter-Ghewondyan, The Arab Emirates, 141–2.
38. Bryer and Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments, I, 2–3; Vlyssidou, Themes of Asia Minor, 292–3; “Chaldia” in Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, I, 405. For a short description of the Chaldian theme and its ancient history, see Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Thematibus, 73. For a discussion on the natural limits of the region of Trebizond, see Janssens, “Le pays de Trébizonde”, 97–126.
39. Lazaropoulos’s Logos in The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 234;
40. Notitiae episcopatuum, 284, 303, 326; Honigmann, Die Ostgrenze, 53–4, 191–8.
41. Janssens, “Le pays de Trébizonde”, 97–102; Bryer, “The Question of Byzantine Mines”, 136; Winfield, “Northern Routes”, 158; Lazaropoulos’s Logos in The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 222; Bryer and Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments, I, 48–53.
42. For the route through Paipert, see Lazaropoulos’s Synopsis in The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 252, 294–6; Aristakes Lastivertc’i, History, 16; Sagona, Archaeology at the North-East Anatolian Frontier, 94.
43. For the “countless population” remark and the famine, see The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 212 (Lazaropoulos’s Logos), 198 (Xipihilinos’s Miracles). For modern views on the size of middle-Byzantine-period towns, see Treadgold, A History of the Byzantine State, 573; Haldon and Kennedy, “The Arab-Byzantine Frontier”, 94; Harvey, Economic Expansion, 198–9.
44. Bryer and Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments, I, 18.
45. Theophanes, Chronographia, 440. Lazaropoulos speaks of a wife of a shoemaker in Trebizond from the period of Emperor Basil II in his Logos. The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 208.
46. Lazaropoulos’s Synopsis in The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 294. For the dating of this miracle, see The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 45–6. Oikonomidès gives a tenth-century date for the importation of glass from Phasiane in Armenia. Oikonomidès, “Le marchand byzantin”, 654.
47. Das Eparchenbuch Leons des Weisen, 107. “Linen” in Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, II, 1231.
48. Lazaropoulos’s Logos and Synopsis in The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 210, 260, 270, 278, 280; Bryer and Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments, I, 17.
49. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio, I, 286. For references from later centuries, see Bryer and Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments, I, 2, 5–7, 107, 109; Teall, “The Grain Supply”, 125.
50. Lazaropoulos’s Synopsis in The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 304.
51. Bryer, “Estates of the Empire”, 375, 381; Bessarion, Encomium on Trebizond in Two Works, 120–2.
52. For Basil II’s order, see Lazaropoulos’s Synopsis in The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 250–2. Vryonis, Decline, 15. For the horreiarios of Aminsos and Amastris, see Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks, IV, no. 12.1; Cheynet, “Un aspect du ravitaillement”, 220–23. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio, I, 286.
53. Karpov, “The Grain Trade”, 55–7; Bessarion, Encomium on Trebizond in Two Works, 93, 120.
54. Bryer, “Latins in the Euxine”, 13; Bryer and Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments, I, 4–6, 18, 127–8, 229, note 18; Bryer, “Estates of the Empire”, 372–89; Bryer, “Greeks and Türkmens”, 122, note 26; Karpov, A history, 116–20, 139–40.
55. Clavijo, Embassy to Tamerlane, 1403–1406, 175; Bryer, “Greeks and Türkmens”, 122, note 26;
56. Fairbairn, Kulakoğlu, and Atıcı, “Archaeobotanical Evidence for Trade in Hazelnut”, 167–74. For Alexandrian consignment, see Bryer, “Greeks and Türkmens”, 122, note 26. For references to Pontic hazelnut in Ottoman sources, see Yurtoğlu, Hazelnut, 185–7; Göreci, Culture of hazelnut.
57. Simeon Seth, Syntagma de alimentorum facultatibus, 62; Geoponica, 309. For the twelfth-century reference to “Pontic nut” in Constantine Manasses’s Description of the Earth, see Lampsidis, “Der vollständige Text der Ἔκφρασις γῆς”, 204.
58. Bryer, “The Question of Byzantine Mines”, 133–50; Bryer and Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments, I, 3, 15, 139, 146, 148–9, 171; Karpov, A history, 137–8. For moumie in the Byzantine and Islamic worlds, see Durak, “Healing Gifts” (forthcoming).
59. For the seals, see footnote 26. A three-day-long journey by boat connected Trebizond to Kerasous. For the alum of Koloneia, see Bryer, “The Question of Byzantine Mines”, 136.
60. Vryonis, Decline, 13–15; Gerolymatou, Markets, 121–2; Bryer and Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments, I, 39–40, 69–72, 92–3; Crow and Hill, “Byzantine Fortifications of Amastris”, 252; Belke, Tabula – Paphlagonien, 127–30, 147–9.
61. Zacos and Veglery, Byzantine Lead Seals, I, pt. 2, no. 1559, pt. 3, no. 2894.
62. Karpov, A history, 132; Al-Idrīsī, Kitāb nuzhat al-mushtāḳ fi ’khtirāḳ al-āfāḳ, II, 907. Prokopios gives 40 days of travel between Constantinople and the Phasis River. Procopius, History of the Wars, Volume II, 6.
63. Epiphanios, Vita S. Andreae, Patrologia Graeca, 120.240; Life of St Andrew by Epiphanos, and Laudatio of St Andrew by Niketas Paphlagon, edited by A.Y. Vinogradov, 255, 282. For St Andrew’s trip around the Black Sea, see Mango, “A Journey Round the Coast”, 255–64. Xipihilinos’s Miracles in The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 194.
64. Zacos and Veglery, Byzantine Lead Seals, I, pt. 1, no. 159; Life of St George of Amastris, 43; Niketas Paphlagon, Oratio XIX, 105.421.
65. Das Eparchenbuch Leons des Weisen, 94, 110; Lazaropoulos’s Logos in The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 228, 262, 348.
66. In his Encomium on St Eugenios, Constantine Loukites claims that the cult of the saint reached Cyprus. The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 164. For Trapezuntine merchants travelling to Syria through Constantinople via maritime routes, see Jacoby, “Constantinople as Commercial Transit Center”, 195. Another interesting piece of evidence representing commercial connections between the Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean comes from the excavations in Tarsus (Gözlükule). The only imported amphora found on the mound of Gözlükule, and dating to the period around the ninth and tenth centuries, originated from eastern Crimea/eastern Black Sea region. Özyar et al., “Recent Fieldwork at Tarsus”, 222.
67. Lazaropoulos’s Synopsis in The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 262; Das Eparchenbuch Leons des Weisen, 110, 106.
68. Bryer and Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments, I, 6, note 25, 70, 332.
69. “[G]rain ships did not dare to go out but spent the winter in the harbours, preferring their own safety to making profit.” Xiphilinos’s Miracles in The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 198. For the central and western Black Sea coast of Asia Minor as grain exporting regions, see Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio, I, 286; Belke, Tabula – Paphlagonien, 140–1.
70. Martin, Treasure of the Land of Darkness, 37; Bortoli and Kazanski, “Kherson and its Region”, 661–3; Nystazopoulou-Pélékidou, “L’administration locale de Cherson”, 1–13; Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks, I, no 82.4 to 82.9. For artistic connections between Trebizond and Cherson, see the colonette found on the walls of Cherson, possibly dating to the middle Byzantine period, which resembles an early tenth-century inscription from Panagia Chrysokephalos, Trebizond. Ancient Inscriptions of the Northern Black Sea: https://iospe.kcl.ac.uk/5.54.html
71. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio, I, 286.
72. Günsenin, Les amphores Byzantines, I, 61, 75; Günsenin, “Ganos Wine and Its Circulation”, 145–53; Günsenin, “La typologie des amphores”, 95; Kassab Tezgör, “Les ateliers implantés”, 155; Kassab, Lemaître, and Pieri, “La collection d’amphores”, 184; Csiky, The Transformation of Pontic Trade, 44, 48–9, 64, 77–83, 89–91, 140, 144, 153, 170–5; Morozova and Albertson, “Byzantine Shipwrecks”, 208–13; Zelenko, “Shipwrecks of the 9th–11th Centuries”, 235–44.
73. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio, I, 284–6; Shepard, “‘Mists and Portals’”, 428.
74. Volkov, “Amphorae of Novgorod the Great”, 90–103; Vladimir J. Koval’s findings as stated in Noonan and Kovalev, “Wine and Oil for all the Rus’!”, 119, 141; Musin, “Russian Medieval Culture”, 17.
75. Al-Masʿūdī, Murūdj al-dhahab, II, 3, 45–47; Ḥudūd al-ʿālam, 161. For a more easterly location for Kasachia corresponding to Balkaria and Karachai, see Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio, I, 186.
76. Shepard, “‘Mists and Portals’”, 435–6; Martin, Treasure of the Land of Darkness, 45. For a find of Byzantine glass vessel in Duin and the possible role of Trebizond in its commercial transmission, see Ristovska, “Distribution Patterns”, 214, 217.
77. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio, I, 52; Canard, “La relation du vogage d’Ibn Fadlân”, 135.
78. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio, I, 286; Al-Masʿūdī, Murūdj al-dhahab, II, 45–7.
79. For Russian products, see Sorlin, “Les traités de Byzance avec la Russie”, I, 335; Sorlin, “Les traités de Byzance avec la Russie”, II, 475; Martin, Treasure of the Land of Darkness, 39.
80. Peacock, “Black Sea Trade”, 66–7.
81. Ibn Djuldjul, Ergänzung, 57, no 44.
82. Ḥudūd al-ʿālam, 142. Youval Rotman states that the transfer of slaves between the Rus’ and the Near East took place through the Khazar–Arran route, not through Trebizond, in order to avoid taxes imposed on slave trade by the Byzantine state. Rotman, Byzantine Slavery, 71; Rotman, “Byzantium and the International Slave Trade”, 137–8.
83. Lazaropoulos remarks on the dried fish from Khazari. The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 337. For dried fish and caviar, see The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 458. Karpov, A history, 11; Bryer and Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments, I, 5 no. 22, 129 no. 40; Shepard, “‘Mists and Portals’”, 426–7, 437.
84. Al-Masʿūdī, Murūdj al-dhahab, II, 3; Peacock, “Black Sea Trade”, 67; Niketas Paphlagon, Oratio XIX, 105.421; Sorlin, “Les traités de Byzance avec la Russie”, I, 320, 329–36.
85. For the earliest reference to the Jews in Trebizond, see Vryonis, Decline, 16. For Radhaniyya merchants, see Ibn Khurradādhbih, Kitāb al-masālik, 153.
86. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio, I, 286; Procopius, History of the Wars, Volume V, 82.
87. Epiphanios, Vita S. Andreae, Patrologia Graeca, 120.241–4; Life of St Andrew by Epiphanos, and Laudatio of St Andrew by Niketas Paphlagon, edited by A.Y. Vinogradov, 257–8, 287–8.
88. Shepard “‘Mists and Portals’”, 423; Karpov, A history, 131, 133.
89. The Martyrdom of Abo in Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints, 120; Michael Psellos, Chronographia, chap. 6, sec. 153; Shepard, “Closer Encounters”, 39–40; Bryer and Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments, I, 127.
90. Al-Idrīsī, Kitāb nuzhat al-mushtāḳ fi ’khtirāḳ al-āfāḳ, II, 908–11, 914–15; Shepard “‘Mists and Portals’”, 435–9.
91. Niketas Choniates, Historia, 528; Bryer and Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments, I, 347.
92. Kropotkin, Byzantine coin hoards, Maps 7 and 8.
93. Dadoyan, The Armenians in the Medieval Islamic World, 43–89, 113–14; Toumanoff, Studies in Christian Caucasian History, 355–416; Toumanoff, “Bagratids of Iberia from the Eighth to the Eleventh Centuries”; Ter-Ghewondyan, The Arab Emirates, 88; Hewsen, Armenia, 107–14.
94. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio, I, 216. One should note that in the tenth-century Byzantine literature “Syria” stood for the core areas of the Abbasid state, i.e., Syria, Iraq, and western Iran. Durak, “The Location of Syria in Byzantine Writing”, 45–55.
95. http://geonumismatics.tsu.ge/en/catalogue/types/?type = 41 (accessed in 18 April 2020).
96. Ananias of Shirak, The Geography, 65, 210; Rayfield, Edge of Empires, 73; Lordkipanidze and Hewitt, Georgia in the XI–XII Centuries, 39.
97. For commercial links between Kalikala and Tao-Klarjeti, see Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio, I, 214. Aristakes Lastivertc’i, History, 11. On Ardanoutzin in general, see Evans, “Kastron, Rabaḍ and Arḍun”, 345–64.
98. Juanser, History of King Vaxt’ang Gorgasali, in Thomson, Rewriting Caucasian History, 222, 224; Seljuks in Aristakes Lastivertc’i, History, 97; Bryer and Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments, I, 19; Martin-Hisard “From Tao-Klarjet’i to Athos”, 246.
99. For the argument that Armenians as a diaspora played a larger role in the commercial networks of the Near East, see Dimitroukas, Reisen und Verkehr, 156. However, this role seems to apply to later centuries. Panossian, The Armenians from Kings and Priests, 61. For Armenians in Trebizond in the Middle Ages, see Terian, “The Armenian Ties to Medieval Trebizond”, 93–112.
100. Thomson, “The Historical Compilation of Vardan Arewelcʿi”, 173; Movses Dasxuranci, The History of the Caucasian Albanians, 3.
101. Ananias of Shirak, Autobiography, 573; Lazaropoulos’s Synopsis in The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios of Trebizond, 282; Rosenqvist, “Local Worshipers”, 201. For the Armenian Passio, see Martin-Hisard, “Les textes anonymes grec et arménien”, 115–85.
102. Ananias of Shirak, The Geography, 57; al-Masʿūdī, Murūdj al-dhahab, II, 3; Ibn Ḥawḳal, Kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ, 344.
103. Aristakes Lastivertc’i, History, 78, 91.
104. Dunn, A Handlist of the Byzantine Seals, 13–16; Galavaris, “Seals of the Byzantine Empire”, 267; Walker, Exotic Elements in Middle Byzantine Secular Art, 119–20. For the responsiveness of Byzantine imperial imagery to the Islamic artistic vocabulary, see Walker, The Emperor and the World.
105. Al-Masʿūdī, Murūdj al-dhahab, II, 3; Ibn Ḥawḳal, Kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ, 344; al-Muḳaddasī, Aḥsan al-taḳāsīm, 148.
106. Dunn, A Handlist of the Byzantine Seals, 22 no. 146.
107. Al-Masʿūdī, Murūdj al-dhahab, II, 45–7; al-Muḳaddasī, Aḥsan al-taḳāsīm, 148.
108. Al-Iṣṭakhrī, Kitāb al-masālik, 188; Ibn Ḥawḳal, Kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ, 344; al-Idrīsī, Kitāb nuzhat al-mushtāḳ fi ’khtirāḳ al-āfāḳ, II, 825.
109. Das Eparchenbuch Leons des Weisen, 110; Dunn, A Handlist of the Byzantine Seals, 13–16.
110. Das Eparchenbuch Leons des Weisen, 110; Lazaropoulos’s Synopsis in The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 262, 294.
111. Ioannis Skylitzes, Synopsis historiarum, 451; Michael Attaleiates, Historia, 148.
112. Xiphilinos’s Miracles in The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios of Trebizond, 191–3.
113. For glass vessels from Phasiane, see Lazaropoulos’s Synopsis in The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 294. For aromatics, see Eparchenbuch Leons des Weisen, 110. For glass production in Armenia, see Janpoladian and Kalantarian, Trade Relations of Medieval Armenia, 50–3, as presented in Bass et al, Serçe Limanı, Vol 2: The Glass of an Eleventh-Century Shipwreck, 73; “Armenia”, in Trade, Travel, and Exploration, 32; Rayfield, Edge of Empires, 73.
114. Jacoby, “Venetian Commercial Expansion”, 381.
115. Simeon Seth, Syntagma de alimentorum facultatibus, 55; Michael Attaleiates, Historia, 148.
116. Al-Iṣṭakhrī, Kitāb al-masālik, 188; Ibn Ḥawḳal, Kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ, 344.
117. Muthesius, Byzantine Silk Weaving, 94–100; McCormick, Origins, 589.
118. For the Byzantine linen sold in Amida, see al-Muḳaddasī, Aḥsan al-taḳāsīm, 145.
119. Manandian, Trade and Cities, 150–2; Laurent, Arménie entre Byzance et I’Islam, 38, 41; Serjeant, “Material for a History of Islamic Textiles”, 92–100; Ter-Ghewondyan, The Arab Emirates, 137–40; Ghazarian, Armenien unter der arabischen Herrschaft, 67–8; von Kremer, Culturgeschichte Des Orients, I, 342.
120. Rice, “The Pottery of Byzantium and the Islamic World”, 215–17; Dark, Byzantine Pottery, 70.
121. Yovhannes Drasxanakertc’i, History of Armenia, 138.
122. Durak, Commerce and Networks of Exchange, 414–36; Durak, “The Cilician Frontier”, 168–83; Canard, “Les relations”, 33–56; Jacoby, “What do We Learn About Byzantine Asia Minor”, 92; Jacoby, “Byzantine Trade with Egypt”, 31.
123. Hewsen, Armenia, 65, maps 27, 40, 59, 76.
124. Manandian, Trade and Cities, 144, 147, 155; Ter-Ghewondyan, The Arab Emirates, 139–41. For a tenth-century description of the parts of the northern route, see al-Muḳaddasī, Aḥsan al-taḳāsīm, 150.
125. Ananias of Shirak, The Geography, 274; Aristakes Lastivertc’i, History, 11.
126. Acun, Introduction, 14; ÇEKÜL Anadolu Araştırmaları [ÇEKÜL Anatolian Studies], İpek Yolu-Kültür Yolu Haritası [Silk Route – Cultural Route Map].
127. For the land route from Duin to Constantinople, see Ananias of Shirak, The Geography, 321; Manandian, Trade and Cities, 168–9; Winfield, “Northern Routes”, 152–4; Dimitroukas, Reisen und Verkehr, 156–7. For Keltzene and Mesopotamia, see Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks, IV, 134–5; Honigman, Ostgrenze, 198–201.
128. Manandian, Trade and Cities, 101–3. Hewsen, Armenia, 65, maps 27 (Arsacid Armenia), 59 (Roman itineraries), 76 (Anonymous Ravenna Cosmography), 114 (al-Idrīsī’s map). The Armenian Itinerary in Ananias of Shirak, The Geography, 321; Ibn Ḥawḳal, Kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ, 224–5.
129. Al-Muḳaddasī, Aḥsan al-taḳāsīm, 150. For the identification of Kumish and Sinn Nuhās, see Honigmann, Die Ostgrenze, 152, no. 2; Bryer and Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments, I, 26, no. 85. For Kunb, see Manandian, Trade and Cities, 104.
130. Winfield, “Northern Routes”, 158; Hewsen, Armenia, 68, maps 27, 40, 59; Acun, Introduction, 14; ÇEKÜL Anadolu Araştırmaları [ÇEKÜL Anatolian Studies], İpek Yolu-Kültür Yolu Haritası [Silk Route – Cultural Route Map].
131. Epiphanios, Vita S. Andreae, Patrologia Graeca, 120.240–1; Life of St Andrew by Epiphanos, and Laudatio of St Andrew by Niketas Paphlagon, edited by A.Y. Vinogradov, 256, 285; Ibn Ḥawḳal, Kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ, 195.
132. Cheynet and Morrisson, “Lieux de trouvaille”, 128; Gerolymatou, Markets, 118. For the pilgrims, see Lazaropoulos’s Synopsis in The Hagiographic Dossier of St Eugenios, 280, 302; Gregory of Khandzta from the ninth century in Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints, 145.
133. Maria Gerolymatou is the only scholar who sketched a network for early medieval Trebizond, albeit a brief one Gerolymatou, Markets, 117–21.
134. For a few singular references to Trapezuntine merchants abroad in this period, see Patlagean, “Byzance et les marchés”, 614; Oikonomidès, “Le marchand byzantin”, 655.
135. Dagron, “The Urban Economy”, 403–5.
136. Konstantakopoulou, “L’éparque de Thessalonique”, 157–62; Oikonomidès, “Le kommerkion d’Abydos”, 2:241–48; Dagron, “The Urban Economy”, 403.
137. Oikonomidès, “Le marchand byzantin”, 636–56; Patlagean, “Byzance et les marchés”, 621, 625–27; Oikonomidès, “The Economic Region of Constantinople”, 227; Laiou, “Exchange and Trade, Seventh-Twelfth Centuries”, 704–36.
138. Gerolymatou, Markets, 190–221; Laiou, “Exchange and Trade, Seventh-Twelfth Centuries”, 724–5.
139. For the Amastrian merchants, see Life of St George of Amastris, 43–8. For the crime in question and the punishment inflicted on the merchants, see Patlagean, “Byzance et les marchés”, 613; Oikonomidès, “Le marchand byzantin”, 656; Karpov, A history, 125–6. Nicholas Oikonomidès claims that the merchants were involved in illicit trade, i.e. trade in kekolymena. Oikonomidès, “The Economic Region of Constantinople”, 227.
140. Patlagean presents two such cases: in 894, Stylianos Zaoutzes, an advisor to Emperor Leo VI was instrumental in transferring the location of trade with the Bulgarians from Constantinople to Thessaloniki, and in granting the monopoly of this trade to two of his clients. The other case involves the “tax collector” of Attaleia from the early tenth century who, according to Ibn Ḥawḳal, received more from the sale of booty than the imperial fisc. Patlagean, “Byzance et les marchés”, 614. Ibn Ḥawḳal confirms this state of affairs, referring to the share of “official in charge” receiving his share from the customs dues in Trebizond. Ibn Ḥawḳal, Kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ, 198.
141. Bryer and Winfield claim that revenues of the Chaldian theme, i.e. Pontos, came mostly from duties on transit trade, rather than the taxation of the Pontic products. Bryer and Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments, I, 301. The debate over the role of international trade in Byzantine economy and the share of customs revenues in the government budget is long-standing, with most scholars being inclined to accept that agriculture’s share of the revenue was much larger than trade. Harvey, Economic Expansion, 213; Hendy, Studies, 157–8; Oikonomidès, “The Role of the Byzantine State”, 1008. Warren Treadgold calculates the total state revenue in the eighth and ninth centuries to be 3.3 million nomismata, of which 2.9 million came from hearth and land taxes. Treadgold, The Byzantine State Finances, 60–1.
142. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Ceremonies, I, 697; Ibn Ḥawḳal, Kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ, 197–8; Oikonomidès, “Poleis-Commerce”, 71–2.
143. Ibn Ḥawḳal, Kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ, 197–8.
144. Al-Iṣṭakhrī, Kitāb al-masālik, 188; Ibn Ḥawḳal, Kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ, 344.
145. Karl Polanyi coined the term of “ports of trade” to describe locations where actors with differing political and economic structures could interact to exchange goods in a state of neutrality. Because the conditions regarding the nature, quantity, and price are clearly defined, it is a type of administered trade as opposed to fully free-market exchange: Polanyi, Trade and Market, 262–3; Polanyi, “Ports of Trade”, 30–45.
146. Theophanes, Chronographia, 497.
147. There are currently no seals of kommerkiarios from the Melitene region found in excavations or museums. For Melitene, see Durak, “The Economy of Melitene/Malaṭya and Its Role in the Byzantine-Islamic Trade (Seventh to Eleventh Centuries)”: forthcoming.
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Koray Durak
Koray Durak is an associate professor at the Department of History at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey. His main areas of research interest include Byzantine and medieval Islamic trade and networks of exchange, and geographical imagination in the Middle Ages. Among his works on economic history one can mention “The Cilician Frontier: A Case Study of Byzantine-Islamic Trade in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries”, in Province and Periphery in the Age of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, published in 2018, “Commercial Constantinople” in Cambridge Companion to Constantinople and “The Economy of Melitene/Malaṭya and its Role in the Byzantine-Islamic Trade,” in Byzantine-Islamic Borderland, both to be published 2021.