Why was 12th century Byzantium so corrupt and unstable?

[GauchoBadger]

Whenever one studies the historical period between the 11th and 12th centuries in the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire, they come to face with not only a long list of usurpations and palace plots, but also treacherous and opportunistic aristocrats disobeying their superiors, putting the empire's territorial and economic integrity at risk, levying exorbitant taxes and tariffs, and supporting those aforementioned pretenders to the throne. As we all know, these problems snowballed from the death of Basil II onwards and led to dangerous situations for the empire, such as the aftermath of Manzikert in 1071 where most of Anatolia was overrun by hostile forces and the infamous Fourth Crusade of 1204.
Other medieval European centers of feudal power such as France, Britain, the HRE, etc., did see their own revolts and intrigue but nothing on the frequency and scale of the Byzantine elites. When wars happened between these kingdoms and/or the feudal lords within, they weren't usually affairs from which the central authority and the territory it controlled in name would not recover from.
My main question is, why was this so? What factors led to the Byzantine political system being so corrupt and unstable? Did economics play a main role in it or were there other forces at play?

 

[Fabius Maximus]

I think a big part of the problem was that that Byzantium had less attachment to the concept of hereditary monarchy than most of Western Europe did. Yes, successful Emperors would try and pass the Empire on to their descendants, but there was plenty of precedent for overthrowing weak, tyrannical, or incompetent Emperors, and everybody knew it. Compare this to, say, King John or Richard II of England: in both cases the feudal nobles tried to constrain the power of the King whilst keeping him around as a figurehead, whereas in Byzantium they'd probably have been overthrown and replaced. (Admittedly Richard did end up getting overthrown anyway, but this was only after the strategy of reducing his power had been tried and failed.) This meant that there was more incentive to overthrow a Byzantine Emperor; also, because people would be more likely to overthrow an Emperor after he'd been discredited by a major defeat, big disasters like Manzikert were more likely to snowball, as civil war and rebellion made it harder for the Empire to defend itself against external foes.

 

[Tanaka did nothing wrong]

The image of Byzantium as a decrepit, unstable and corrupt state could be said to be close to the true state of Byzantium during the Angeli years, especially the reign of Alexios III. At that time, we really begin to notice all these problems: the emperor and the court are only interested in the developments at Constantinople, state control disintegrates in the provinces (particularly during the last years of Alexios III's reign) with local aristocats seizing control of the provinces, theeconomy and the bureaucracy crumble, the army becomes nonexistent and enemies penetrate deep into imperial territory, which meant that the whole thing was gradually coming unglued, which in turn led to the rapid collapse of the empire when the Crusaders attacked its centre. But until the death of Manuel I Komnenos and perhaps until the overthrow of Isaakios II Angelos, the foundations of the state had remained strong, despite the serious threats the empire faced from time to time: even in the decade after Mantzikert, when the empire was perhaps at the lowest point since the time of the Arab conquests, the Byzantine state managed to deal effectively at least with some of the issues it had and wasn't really going to collapse.

(Also, people usually tend to overemphasise Mantzikert. Sure, it was a decisive defeat, but this wasn't the first time the empire had been inflicted one. The undoing of Byzantine Asia Minor was the coup of caesar John Doukas, who installed his nephew Michael (who had been after all, typically, the rightfull emperor since 1067, following the death of Constantine X Doukas) on the throne and plunged the empire into a civil war that offered the Seljuks the opening to invade Asia Minor. If we want to find the point of no return for Byzantine Asia Minor, we have perhaps to look at Myriokephalon, which in my view really sealed its fate.)

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Another factor is that, after the Theme system was allowed to wither away, the Empire was more centralised militarily than pretty much any Western European state. This was good when you had a strong Emperor and the Empire's external threats didn't get too great, but it did mean that when you had weak central leadership and/or a large portion of the army was lost, it was harder for the Empire to bounce back. In the West, OTOH, even if you managed to defeat the royal army, you still had to siege down a bajillion castles and cities, each with their own set of defenders, making it harder for enemies to exploit any victory they might gain.

It's like the distinction Machiavelli drew between France and Persia -- the latter was harder to defeat initially, but easier to conquer if you did manage to defeat it. Or if you prefer, it's like the fragile vs. antifragile distinction (sorry for the long quote):

Taleb gives the parable of John and George. John is a banker. He works for a big bank. Every month, the bank pays him a salary of $3000. In a good month, he gets $3000. In a bad month, he gets $3000.

His brother George is a self-employed cab driver. He makes an average of $3000 a month, but it varies a lot. If there's a big convention in town, he may be very busy and make much more than $3000. If there's an economic downturn and people try to save on cab fare, he might make much less than $3000.

John fancies himself protected from volatility. But he is only protected from small volatilities. Add a big enough shock, and his bank goes under, and he makes nothing. George is exposed to small volatilities, but relatively protected from large ones. He can never have a day as bad as the day John gets fired.

And George can adapt. As his business starts going down, he can take appropriate steps, whether that's branching out into new businesses (courier? working as a cabdriver half-time and digging ditches the other half?) or lowering his expenses. If demand declines in one neighborhood, he can figure out where the passengers are and shift to another. John can do none of these things. He just sits and banks until the axe falls.

John treats his bank as a system that buffers him from volatility, but it actually makes him more fragile at the tails by creating a big discontinuity - his salary is $3000 until it's $0. Think of firefighters who put out every tiny little forest fire, unaware that by preventing controlled burns they're building up tinder for a conflagration they won't be able to prevent. Taleb interprets many of our institutions in the same context - by preventing "creative destruction", they briefly buffer us from shocks but mean that the shock that overwhelms the system will be a disaster. For example, when governments bail out failing businesses, they replace ordinary volatility (sometimes bad companies go bust and people have to shift to better ones) with extreme volatility (no company will ever go bust, until the economy becomes such a basketcase that the government runs out of bailout money and everything collapses at once because all the companies are incompetent dinosaurs).

This is one reason (among many) Taleb disagrees so strongly with Steven Pinker's contention that war is declining. Pinker's data shows far fewer small wars, but does show that World Wars I and II were very large; he interprets the World Wars as outliers, and notes that since WWII the trend has been excellent. Taleb interprets the constant small wars that used to happen as "controlled burns", and the various institutions set up to prevent those wars - the Concert of Europe, multilateral alliances, the UN - as the same sort of dangerous volatility-buffering you get from a corporate job or a government bailout. It ensures fewer small wars - until the system gets overwhelmed, and you get a giant one. As long as NATO is intact, there's no risk of some dumb war between France and Britain over fishing rights; and as long as the Warsaw Pact is in place, there's no risk of Poland and Ukraine scuffling over borders. The cost is the risk of World War III between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

Byzantium was like the banker/NATO side of the equation: the centralised military system made localised conflicts between minor barons less likely, but when the system fell apart, such as after Manzikert, it fell apart in a big way. On the other hand, feudal Europe was like the cab-driver/small-wars side: because military power was dispersed, small-scale civil wars were more likely, but catastrophic defeats in which the kingdom's entire military force got wiped out were

 

[BIZANTINUL]

It wasn't. The Byzantine Empire for most of this period was the wealthiest and the most powerful state în Europe. Constantinople was a vibrant metropolis with ten times the population of contemporary Paris or London, involved heavily în shaping the contemporary international relations, recognised as the leader of Christianity în the East (during the second crusade the french king had to accept a lesser seating besides Manuel during his visit), the economy was developing with new industries on the rise (silk în Thebes).

It is much discussed that the dissolution of the theme system was the ultimate downfall of the Empire but keep in mind that it was more of a natural evolution brought about by the professionalisation of the army when the Empire went în the ofensive. It was hard to fight în Syria or Armenia for years at a time with part time soldiers bound by the agricultural cycles. So instead there were plenty of mercenaries that could do that. The Byzantine Empire will survive for another 300 years without themes.

All the event after Manuel died were a perfect storm with relatively low probabilities to happen concomitently: dying with an infant male heir, having a megalomaniacal cousin which will strangle said heir, a new inept dinasty, there was a tremendous amount of stres on the system. It has the same probabilty to have happened as the Capetian dinasty to become extinct after Philip the Fair death. Sometimes the unexpected happens.

 

[GauchoBadger]

It wasn't. The Byzantine Empire for most of this period was the wealthiest and the most powerful state în Europe. Constantinople was a vibrant metropolis with ten times the population of contemporary Paris or London, involved heavily în shaping the contemporary international relations, recognised as the leader of Christianity în the East (during the second crusade the french king had to accept a lesser seating besides Manuel during his visit), the economy was developing with new industries on the rise (silk în Thebes).

Having a surplus of wealth due to converging trade routes is good without context, but wasn't the empire a bit too overly centralized, the Constantinopolitans estranged from the provincial populations?
While places like England and France did have fairly large capital cities at the time, they seem to have been supplanted by other cities of regional importance such as Lyon, Rouen, Bordeaux, Toulouse in the kingdom of France and York, Southampton, Durham and a few others in England. The power and wealth of the capital cities was fairly modest compared to the others and may have forced the local elites to compromise to avoid political disobedience.
Constantinople, on the other hand, was seemingly very powerful over the empire as a whole and thus a bit full of itself. There were no other cities that could have offered something better than its strategic value and i hear that the outlying provinces were overly taxed and abused to sustain the outsized economy of the capital which might have been what led to so many regional rebellions flaring up through the post-Basil II era. At the same time, it often would be more profitable and advantageous for rebellious governors/generals/scions of the ruling family to march on Constantinople and seize the mantle and coffers of the state for themselves instead of breaking off as a separatist principality... i might be wrong in this, but i feel like economic geography might have played a part.

It is much discussed that the dissolution of the theme system was the ultimate downfall of the Empire but keep in mind that it was more of a natural evolution brought about by the professionalisation of the army when the Empire went în the ofensive. It was hard to fight în Syria or Armenia for years at a time with part time soldiers bound by the agricultural cycles. So instead there were plenty of mercenaries that could do that. The Byzantine Empire will survive for another 300 years without themes.

Mercenaries' loyalties, even more so than those of non-mercenary armies, always depend upon good pay, though. Filling the gaps of an underfunded professional army with mercenary corps under their own command doesn't strike me as good military policy.

All the event after Manuel died were a perfect storm with relatively low probabilities to happen concomitently: dying with an infant male heir, having a megalomaniacal cousin which will strangle said heir, a new inept dinasty, there was a tremendous amount of stres on the system. It has the same probabilty to have happened as the Capetian dinasty to become extinct after Philip the Fair death. Sometimes the unexpected happens.

I wouldn't attribute the empire's decline solely to bad luck or royal mismanagement, honestly. Perhaps the Komnenian state was getting stronger as you make it out to be, but the fact that such reforms were dependent on sequentially competent emperors and did not survive when these were deposed implies a weakness in the system that may have remained unexplained.

 

[Nyegosh]

Many reasons, but the best possible explanation for all internal declines of the sort in all civilization is simple: involution, and the loss of "asabiya" or "passionarity" or "sobornost," whatever you call it.

Over time, the elites become deracinated and uninterested in the well-being of the collective, oligarchies that form due to lack of debt forgiveness like in the antique near east, coupled with an increasingly entrenched and rogue bureaucracy, results in civilizational decline. Simple as.

 

[Gustavus Adolphus]

The main problem for Byzantium was that it lost control of the eastern medditerian to the Italian city states. Successive emperors issued bulls granting the latins preferential trading privelages allowing them to take control for the most part of the byzantine economy. This coupled with wasteful spending on useless expeditions to Alexandria for example or pet projects such as supporting Milan of all places and ambitions for conquering Italy coupled with a series of incompetant emperors lead to the disentigration of the state as others pointed out.

But I think the major issue was that the Komnenoi built up power through the use of clans and families and as power became concentrated in the hands of these few great families when the emperor died the vaccuum that was left could easily lead to conflict which in turn leads to rising taxes coupled with falling revenues leads to a vicious cycle that causes peaseants to get angry and revolt leading to a worsening crisis.

In a nutshell the problem with Byzantium post Manzikert was simple. A centralized beuracratic state became captured by a small group of powerful elites/noble families and these families bickered with each other and wasted their resources not on investment and development but on vanity projects since Manuel Komnenos time and even John for all his merits was drawn to the wealth of Syria when he should have focused his attention on driving the turks from Anatolia. Furthermore all of this was inevitable given the byzantines were exchausted fighting the Normans and the Turks during the reign of Alexius Komnenus and so they had no choice but to rely on such a clan based system but ultimately like in say a tribal society where you had civil wars constantly break out between clan members here the same thing happened. The reason why HRE and France survived is more due to the fact that royal authority was weak and these were feudal not centralized states and what that meant was that the nobility held more power than the king for the most part. Even the HRE had difficulty exerting his authority at the time and therefore given the feudal nature coupled with heriditory succession it was easy for these states to not fall into conflict since the role of the monarch was for the most part at the time symbolic.

Even then France had lots of civil wars and so did HRE and England and even Spain, but the problem for the byzantines is that they were a centralized state and centralized states with a strong beuracracy can unravel when said beuracracy is taken over by incompetant and prideful and glory seeking noble families.

It is same reason later on you had revolutions in France and Germany and Russia etc/ similiar. Like the French Monarchy the Byzantines corruption and control by large families lead to distrust by commoners leading to the loss of popular support leading to betrayal leading to disaster + external threats.

 

[Dominic]

There are many specific issues that have already been described in this thread, but I think it's mostly missing the point to focus on this issue or that event. All states are inherently unstable and when put under pressure begin to crack. The Roman Empire was remarkably resilient compared to its peers, but obviously went through many periods of instability. There's no specific issue or set of issues which, had they not arisen, would have seen the Romans return to some "natural" stability. The Empire fell due to a confluence of factors gradually overwhelming it, and if it had survived those factors a new set would have arisen to challenge it again, and again, and again. It's not hard to imagine an AH where the Roman Empire remains a major power throughout the late medieval period only to be brought down with relative ease by some 16th century gunpowder conquerer.

The 11th and 12th century Roman Empire had some of its greatest highs and lows and was no more inherently unstable or corrupt than at any other point in its history.

 

[Red_Neptune]

The image of Byzantium as a decrepit, unstable and corrupt state could be said to be close to the true state of Byzantium during the Angeli years, especially the reign of Alexios III. At that time, we really begin to notice all these problems: the emperor and the court are only interested in the developments at Constantinople, state control disintegrates in the provinces (particularly during the last years of Alexios III's reign) with local aristocats seizing control of the provinces, theeconomy and the bureaucracy crumble, the army becomes nonexistent and enemies penetrate deep into imperial territory, which meant that the whole thing was gradually coming unglued, which in turn led to the rapid collapse of the empire when the Crusaders attacked its centre. But until the death of Manuel I Komnenos and perhaps until the overthrow of Isaakios II Angelos, the foundations of the state had remained strong, despite the serious threats the empire faced from time to time: even in the decade after Mantzikert, when the empire was perhaps at the lowest point since the time of the Arab conquests, the Byzantine state managed to deal effectively at least with some of the issues it had and wasn't really going to collapse.

Not really, no: the Komnenian Emperors were quite successful at putting together relatively aesthetic borders and expanding Byzantine influence, but were not particularly popular. Remember that the Komnenian Empire was dependent on co-opting Latins (=Western Catholics); this made them unpopular to the Greek Orthodox masses, who resented what they saw as foreign intrusion into Byzantine affairs. The foundations of the Empire were hardly stable: while a charismatic leader like Manuel was able to hold them together, it was quite revealing that within two years of his death, Manuel's son and wife were both dead, and the Latin population of the city was massacred in the tens of thousands and many others sold as slaves. That's not a sign of a stable state; the Komnenian policy of co-opting locals extended Byzantine influence, but was also unpopular amongst the masses and clergy, in turn leading to the Angeloid-era fragmentation..

 

[BIZANTINUL]

Having a surplus of wealth due to converging trade routes is good without context, but wasn't the empire a bit too overly centralized, the Constantinopolitans estranged from the provincial populations?
While places like England and France did have fairly large capital cities at the time, they seem to have been supplanted by other cities of regional importance such as Lyon, Rouen, Bordeaux, Toulouse in the kingdom of France and York, Southampton, Durham and a few others in England. The power and wealth of the capital cities was fairly modest compared to the others and may have forced the local elites to compromise to avoid political disobedience.
Constantinople, on the other hand, was seemingly very powerful over the empire as a whole and thus a bit full of itself. There were no other cities that could have offered something better than its strategic value and i hear that the outlying provinces were overly taxed and abused to sustain the outsized economy of the capital which might have been what led to so many regional rebellions flaring up through the post-Basil II era. At the same time, it often would be more profitable and advantageous for rebellious governors/generals/scions of the ruling family to march on Constantinople and seize the mantle and coffers of the state for themselves instead of breaking off as a separatist principality... i might be wrong in this, but i feel like economic geography might have played a part.

Mercenaries' loyalties, even more so than those of non-mercenary armies, always depend upon good pay, though. Filling the gaps of an underfunded professional army with mercenary corps under their own command doesn't strike me as good military policy.

I wouldn't attribute the empire's decline solely to bad luck or royal mismanagement, honestly. Perhaps the Komnenian state was getting stronger as you make it out to be, but the fact that such reforms were dependent on sequentially competent emperors and did not survive when these were deposed implies a weakness in the system that may have remained unexplained.

I agree that the system was imperfect but it was not lethal for the future of the Byzantine Empire, just a distinct state of evolution. It was inevitable, due to the nature of the central authority in a medieval state, that the aristocracy will be the constant în a changing internal landscape. Kings die, there are frequent interegnums, the only sure thing is that there will always be magnates. So Alexios tried to include them in governing the state, in the process securing his own preeminence through marriage alliances. It is the same process that has taken place everywhere în Europe and it did not mean the colapse of the western kingdoms.

Theoretically the byzantine emperor had more power than his western counterparts over the nobility as the pronoia was a temporary grant of incomes which reverted to the crown after the receivers death and was not subject to the crown forfeiture of juridical prerogative.

Constantinople was huge and expensive to maintain but there were other important economic centres în the Empire: Thesalonika, Thebes, Athens, Efes from Asia Minor. True it was a rural population as were all the medieval populations în Europe. This is not the case of a large head on a weak body.

My point regarding the theme system was that according to some historians, it was becoming obsolete. The themes bordering the Aegean Sea for example were a drag on the treasury, with no military value, ill equiped and trained in the tenth century. It was natural to want to disband them. The mercenaries were dependent on being paid on time but they suited the purposes of the present strategical situation. The Empire even during the Komnenian era was on the whole on the ofensive, with aspirations în Italy, Asia Minor, Syria-Palestine and it would have been difficult to maintain long military engagements only with soldiers from the themes.

The provincial elites seemed to be quiet during much of the 12th century. I do not remember large scale rebellions în the Komnenian era because they were being placated with titles and gifts from Constantinople and they retained a lot of autonomy în goverment (like în Basil II time).

It was a converging set of "unfortunate" circumstances which would have put any social system under strain which brought about 1204 and the demise of the Byzantine Empire. If Manuel had a mature male heir, if he avoided masacring the Venetians în 1171, if Andronic was more moderate the system could have survived intact as there was a kind of consensus between members of the elite that a Komnenos should be on the throne.

 

[Tanaka did nothing wrong]

Not really, no: the Komnenian Emperors were quite successful at putting together relatively aesthetic borders and expanding Byzantine influence, but were not particularly popular. Remember that the Komnenian Empire was dependent on co-opting Latins (=Western Catholics); this made them unpopular to the Greek Orthodox masses, who resented what they saw as foreign intrusion into Byzantine affairs. The foundations of the Empire were hardly stable: while a charismatic leader like Manuel was able to hold them together, it was quite revealing that within two years of his death, Manuel's son and wife were both dead, and the Latin population of the city was massacred in the tens of thousands and many others sold as slaves. That's not a sign of a stable state; the Komnenian policy of co-opting locals extended Byzantine influence, but was also unpopular amongst the masses and clergy, in turn leading to the Angeloid-era fragmentation..

First, thanks for the input

I agree with this assessment in principle, as it shows that there was some serious trouble. But we still can't overlook the fact that the 1180 - 1204 period was a bit of a sh*tstorm for Byzantium, partly caused by the fact that Manuel left a minor on the throne when he died. The system, as it had been since 1081, did indeed need a string of good emperors to function properly, perhaps more so than the past; but at the same time, this wasn't that much the product of a new feature of instability in the system, but rather the fact that the empire now had more numerous and dangerous enemies to face, which meant that margins of error were smaller than in the past.

And we have to bear in mind that it took almost 10 years of Alexius III' reign for the whole thing to come down crashing. The guy literally did everything in his power to run the empire to the ground. Isaakios, although by no means a stellar emperor, at least showed some dynamism when dealing with certain issues (at least in the early part of his reign) and during his rule, the empire, although in a weak state, wasn't a house of cards on the verge of collapse (or that's my view, at least). And before him, I really doubt that the foundations of the empire would have been eroded to such an extent if not for the events of 1182-1185.

So, I agree that the problem was that the Komnenian dynasty needed many good emperors. But this was to a large extent, if not mainly, the result of the empire facing threats on many fronts, as well as it being fairly weaker than its previous self . It can be argued that the 1055-1067 period was an Angeloi-lite one (territorial losses, raids by the Seljuks, economic crisis, administrative ineffectiveness, uprisings, mediocre emperors) ; but the empire didn't crumble. This was due to the fact that the threats on the empire weren't so "lethal" (necessarily) and also, that the empire hadn't been taxed by many crises previously, therefore there was the potential for the empire to really recover in the future.

(just my views)

 

[funnyhat]

I think a big part of the problem was that that Byzantium had less attachment to the concept of hereditary monarchy than most of Western Europe did. Yes, successful Emperors would try and pass the Empire on to their descendants, but there was plenty of precedent for overthrowing weak, tyrannical, or incompetent Emperors, and everybody knew it. Compare this to, say, King John or Richard II of England: in both cases the feudal nobles tried to constrain the power of the King whilst keeping him around as a figurehead, whereas in Byzantium they'd probably have been overthrown and replaced. (Admittedly Richard did end up getting overthrown anyway, but this was only after the strategy of reducing his power had been tried and failed.) This meant that there was more incentive to overthrow a Byzantine Emperor; also, because people would be more likely to overthrow an Emperor after he'd been discredited by a major defeat, big disasters like Manzikert were more likely to snowball, as civil war and rebellion made it harder for the Empire to defend itself against external foes.

France in this same era was officially still an elective monarchy and part of the reason the Capétiens stayed on the throne was that the leading nobles did not fear them as they barely had any power beyond their humble royal domain.

Philippe II Auguste was a game changer, probably the most important monarch in French history.

 

[Basileus_Komnenos]

Philippe II Auguste was a game changer, probably the most important monarch in French history.

Honestly its a shame Philippe II gets so little mainstream attention compared to Louis XIV "the overrated." Philippe II essentially founded the state we'd all conceivably recognize as "France." Before him the title for the King was "Francorum Rex" (King of the Franks), but after Philippe II's ascension it became "Franciae Rex" (King of France).

 

[NedStark]

The inability to control trade was a very very important factor. As trade became dominated by Italians, the Byzantine Crown could not get a hand on its own commerce activities, I mean, they could not tax them. The velocity of monetary flows from trade was very high during Manuel's reign, but the Empire could not raise tax revenues from them, and as a result, he could never hope maintain an army as large as during Basil's reign.

Had the Empire been able to control and tax their own commerce, reconquering Anatolia would have been a matter of time. Continuously raising troops should not be a problem if you have money to dish out.

 

[Sevarics]

The inability to control trade was a very very important factor. As trade became dominated by Italians, the Byzantine Crown could not get a hand on its own commerce activities, I mean, they could not tax them. The velocity of monetary flows from trade was very high during Manuel's reign, but the Empire could not raise tax revenues from them, and as a result, he could never hope maintain an army as large as during Basil's reign.

Had the Empire been able to control and tax their own commerce, reconquering Anatolia would have been a matter of time. Continuously raising troops should not be a problem if you have money to dish out.

An issue that I think would need to be addressed is that culturally the Byzantines looked down on trade and looked down on making profits through trading. As a result, they were fine allowing foreigners to handle it.

 

[Avrorrange]

An issue that I think would need to be addressed is that culturally the Byzantines looked down on trade and looked down on making profits through trading. As a result, they were fine allowing foreigners to handle it.

I don’t think that was quite the case. The problem was that they bartered away their right to tariffs through agreements which allowed the East Roman state to hire Italian fleets.Their reluctance to maintain a strong navy meant that by the time they realized how much they were losing, they lacked the time and ability to reconstruct navies that could challenge the Italians in a meaningful way,seeing as a navy requires accumulation of a lot of institutional knowledge in order to be good.

 

[Sevarics]

I don’t think that was quite the case. The problem was that they bartered away their right to tariffs through agreements which allowed the East Roman state to hire Italian fleets.Their reluctance to maintain a strong navy meant that by the time they realized how much they were losing, they lacked the time and ability to reconstruct navies that could challenge the Italians in a meaningful way,seeing as a navy requires accumulation of a lot of institutional knowledge in order to be good.

I mean they did actually have a negative view is merchants. Theophilos even burned his wife’s wheat ships in a harbor. https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1179/trade-in-the-byzantine-empire/

 

[Avrorrange]

I mean they did actually have a negative view is merchants. Theophilos even burned his wife’s wheat ships in a harbor. https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1179/trade-in-the-byzantine-empire/

A lot of nobles have that attitude across different states.

 

[Sevarics]

A lot of nobles have that attitude across different states.

The Byzantines also set prices for many goods as they didn’t think it was right for merchants to make high profits. They also felt more securing taxing land than merchant incomes, which they felt could be more easily hidden. In general, they weren’t too friendly toward a mercantile economy. Even just getting rid of price controls might do well to help a Byzantine merchant class flourish.