Italian Privileges and Trade in Byzantium before the Fourth Crusade: A Reconsideration

Abstract

Between 1082 and· 1192 several Byzantine emperors conferred extensive privileges on the three main Italian maritime powers, Venice, Pisa and Genoa. A new reading of their commercial and fiscal provisions in a contemporary context and in a comparative framework reveals some misunderstood or overlooked aspects of their content, suggests novel inter­pretations, and sheds light on some of their effects on trade, shipping and the Italian settletment pattern in the Empire before the Fourth Crusade. The disparity between the respective privileges granted to the three maritime powers was far wider than generally assumed. Deliberate measures taken by the Byzantine government, the arbitrary action of its officials, especially in the provinces, and political developments affected in various ways, at times heavily, the implementation of these privileges and the benefit deri­ving from them. These factors should be taken into account in any evalua­tion of Italian trade and settlement in Byzantium and the impact these had on the Empire's economy.