The Byzantine Economy Explained (Briefly)

The Byzantine Empire inherited an incredibly advanced economy from the Roman past, complete with a functioning bureaucracy, tax collection systems and wide ranging trade links. This economy remained extremely powerful throughout the medieval period - however, demographic changes, combined with a series of crises including the disastrous Fourth Crusade, saw the Byzantine economy dwindle to a shell of its former self by the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
A short history mini-documentary covering the history of the Byzantine economy.
All materials are used under fair use for education and commentary.
Music:
- Chopin - Nocturne in B flat minor, Op. 9 No.1 ( • Nocturne in B flat min... )
- Chopin - Waltz No. 7 in c sharp minor, Op. 64,2 ( • Waltz No. 7 in c sharp... )
- Chopin - Nocturne No. 8 in D flat Major, Op. 27,2 ( • Nocturne for Piano, No... )

[@Pan_Z]

Imperial tax revenue tableau. Note: the solidus didn't experience debasement until the mid 11th-century, making it consistent as a measuring metric. AD 540: 11-million solidi 555: 6-million 668: 2-million 850: 2.9-million 1025: 5.9-million Anastasius I left the imperial exchequer with 23,000,000 solidi at his death in 518. If the Empire's revenue hadn't changed much by 540, then Anastatius left his successor with over 2-years worth of tax revenue in the treasury. The fact that Basil II left the Empire with 14.5-million solidi in 1025, in an Empire less than half the size of Anastasius' time, shows his financial prudence.

[@zippyparakeet1074]

Yep that's what I keep saying. People keep focusing on his "Bulgar slayer" epithet which wasn't even contemporaneous but regardless. There was so much more to the man. He was a genius diplomat, a genius administrator and a genius economist. He truly deserved the name "Porphyrogenitus" since he was the perfect ruler.

[@henripentant1120]

I wish there was more deep content on the roman and byzantine applications of credit and functions of the money economy it is quite deeper than ever portrayed in popular history

[@JustAnotherHistoryChannel]

I agree! It's pretty fascinating and I've only ever really scratched the surface of it, it will certainly be something I look at more in future - perhaps the subject of a video too if I can get a good enough grasp of it

[@antonbender1996]

Collapse of antiquity - Micheal Hudson

[@ReplyToMeIfUrRetarded]

“Byzantines” are romans.

[@gm2407]

I think it must be hard to do direct comparisons as so much of the population and lands were lost and regained at different times.

[@Pan_Z]

Thank you for this. We often hear things about the wealth generated from trade or tax system in the Roman Empire, but not really why nor the consequences of it. This helps establish why the Empire was so wealthy in comparison to other civilisations.

[@alperena1675]

YES THIS IS THE KIND OF ECONOMIC HISTORY WE WANT TO SEE!!!! Please continue making original content

[@thiccboi5011]

This was an insanely well-made video. Great job!

[@Sparticulous]

Always good to have more history channels

[@matziorinis]

Thank you for producing this well researched and accurate documentary on Byzantium's economy. Today's modern world, especially the Anglo-American free enterprise followers have a lot to learn from the way the Byzantines (AKA Eastern Roman Empire) managed their economy. The foundation of economic policy was first and foremost the stable currency, the solidus, or bezant or nomisma, which was kept stable for nearly eight hundred years, a feat that surpassed any other including Republican and Imperial Western Roman history, Indian, Chinese, Persian, Arab or other empires. A stable currency coupled with a well regulated economy, with export controls to slow down the export of technology such as silk and Greek fire secured the lasting power of the Byzantines, despite being at a cross roads of continents, invaders and civilizations. In our modern world, neither the British Empire and the gold standard nor the American Empire and the dollar standard will match the stability and lasting power of Byzantium.

[@user-qz4go8pf8l]

Another great video about the Romans. Thank you for posting this and exploring the Roman past.

[@TheMrBrosef]

Great video, I look forward to making my way through your others, and anything else you put out!

[@GuildofGentlemen]

Immediately subscribed. Great video, very informative and easy to follow along.

[@skyhanni6691]

Very good video, i hope your videos will get more recognition

[@GrandeSalvatore96]

Been waiting so long for a second video! Excellent work, keep it up and can’t wait for the next.

[@JustAnotherHistoryChannel]

Thank you!! I hope I will be able to release the next one a bit sooner:)

[@Medik_0001]

Loved this video and your presentation! You got a new subscriber. Please make more videos, I can't get enough

[@lideruploader6577]

Nice video, hope this channel grows rapidly.

[@foswa6335]

Lovely video, cannot wait to see more.

[@kristiangustafson4130]

Perhaps I missed it, but the important factor for me is the fact that the army was always paid in gold, and taxes always taken in gold. Because there was a cash economy, there was constant flow of money, and wealth was productive in a way it isn't when you have a barter economy. Money flowed out from the capital to the provinces and then back. This cash economy is a more efficient economy (though still with massive inequalities and inefficiencies). THAT is the probably the most important factor of the internal economy. You should also have dealt with the guild set-up, price controls, money-lending and insurance for shipping.

[@mostm8589]

It's not often that one witnesses the birth of a superb educational channel. Welcome to educational youtube, The Histories. - new subscriber

[@victortodorov3459]

A great video! Congratulations!

[@SuperAussm]

Nice video, well made, I'd love more. You have a good narration voice!

[@shulgi-nam]

keep up the great work

[@Georgios1821]

Very nicely made

[@BigChapDidNothingWrong]

Fantastic work

[@georgios_5342]

Amazing and detailed look. You gained a new sub

[@milosmarkovic7333]

Im fond of playing games and listening to this kind of videos. Well done, one of my top 10 channels of this kind.

[@JustAnotherHistoryChannel]

Thank you so much, I hope you like the upcoming videos!

[@Vin01743]

So far my favourite Videos

[@Uzair_Of_Babylon465]

Fantastic video keep it up you're doing amazing things and if it was a byzantine TV series what would you want it to be about?

[@richardsmith579]

Good work.

[@andy9657]

Good Video 👍🏻

[@basiliks4374]

Nice video bro

[@smorcrux426]

Damn this was fascinating. It's really cool to see the political success and failure of the Byzantines in their economy, and some things affected them differently than I expected. It's also amazing just how many times the Byzantines rebounded after absolutely civilization-shaking events, just like the Romans thousands of years beforehand.

[@lauriallantorni3761]

Excelent video

[@majorianus8055]

Immediately subscribe seeing Byzantine videos. Keep up the Lord's work sir!

[@wilsontheconqueror8101]

The fourth crusade was a disaster for Constantinople! Never recovered. And the defeat at Manzikert decades earlier didn't help.

[@thraker2462]

The massacre of the latins in konstantinople 20 years earlier also didn't help, they killed 60.000 latins. That's one of the reasons for the fourth crusade.

[@BobSmith-dk8nw]

Thanks. That was very interesting. For myself - I've always thought that dividing the Empire was a Monumental Mistake. .

[@lordofhostsappreciator3075]

Criminally underrated

[@tobilandsfried8083]

Subscribed!

[@jackcranmer4904]

I hate how overlooked the economic side of this part of history is, like I understand a lot of it comes from simple agriculture but certain empires had much deeper economic systems then people give credit for

[@Worldtimes1]

Make Byzantium Great AGAIN!

[@user-qz4go8pf8l]

Make *ROMAN EMPIRE* great agian.

[@8bitorgy]

Make a video like this but about the roman grain subsidy

[@d.m.collins1501]

Where did you get that WONDERFUL map at 4:45 or so? I would love to pore over it at a leisurely pace while sipping garum and eating mercury.

[@JustAnotherHistoryChannel]

You can find it here: rear-view-mirror.com/2014/08/29/a-very-short-history-of-merchants-and-trade-in-constantinople/. I'm afraid you'll have to source/make the garum yourself though!

[@d.m.collins1501]

@@JustAnotherHistoryChannel awsuuuuuum thank you!

[@MBP1918]

Interesting

[@cjclark1208]

The last emperor left the mortal plane like a true Roman, which is admirable.

[@Vin01743]

Economy is a boring Topic but you make economic topic Seems Interesting

[@sr-71blackbird57]

The so called "Byzantine" economy consisted of the scraps of what was left of the Roman economy before the Roman Empire was shattered by the armies of the Persian Sassanids and the Arabs. Whatever infrastructure was left from the days of the Roman Empire during its height comprised a sturdy foundation for "Byzantium".

[@helast3916]

@Θεόδωρος it’s called byzantine empire to differentiate it from the latin roman empire because they are in 2 different eras, for the same reason why the united kingdom is not called british empire anymore. And no they were most of the times defeated by the arabs and the war with the sassanids destroyed both economically

[@powerist209]

Well; successive waves of Caliph managed to raid Anatolia though except when they were distracted with rebellions or capable emperors were able to use that to their advantage. Even laying siege to Constantinople, though the failure to take it laid to their destruction of Arab naval power to the point that Byzantine managed to gain upper hand.

[@nihil_hd1598]

@@helast3916 yeah but ´´byzantine empire´´ is just a bad term because it was used in the HRE to discredit the ERE.Eastern roman empire is much better than ´´byzantine empire´´ because it was the eastern roman empire and it differentiate the 2 roams without delegitimize ther romani-sh(?).

[@user-qz4go8pf8l]

Correct. It was the Roman Empire, and they were the Roman people. Never any such thing as the "Byzantine Greeks". This is a modern historiographical term for those who like to learn from Wikipedia.

[@lorenzoc.b.9809]

Bizantine people during the Fall of Constantinople: "This will be terrible for the economy".

[@janbrittenson210]

It's worth remembering that they themselves never used the terms Byzantium or Byzantine; they identified as Romans. There was no magic date when they decided on a new identity, they were simply Romans and their state continued to be Rome even after the western half and the actual city of Rome was lost. (Keep in mind no emperor since 260 had been from Italy, and many never even visited Rome - everyone was a citizen, it was highly homogenized and someone from Illyria was just as Roman as someone from Hispania, Syria, Italy or Gaul.) The only way to really understand the Byzantines is to think of them as the continued evolution of Rome and its culture - such as the notion of the res publica to which the augustii would think of as themselves serving.

[@FecklessFool]

They didn't succeed the Romans, they were the Romans.

[@gilpaubelid3780]

Byzantines were Greeks with Roman citizenship that took under their control the Roman state. Since they had Roman citizenship they were indeed Romans (politically), but other than that they weren't the same people as the ancient/Latin Romans.

[@user-qz4go8pf8l]

Correct. They were the Romans, and in 99% of all the eastern Roman texts, they call themselves the *race of the Romans* and the *Roman nation* as well as the Roman Empire. They never called themselves "Byzantines, and they definitely were not Greeks. Greece did not exist as a nation back then. They were the Romans and the Roman Empire, and they expired in 1453 as the Romans, not as the Greeks.

[@user-qz4go8pf8l]

Αυτό το βίντεο αφηγείται την ιστορία της ύστερης ρωμαϊκής οικονομίας καθ' όλη την διάρκεια του Μεσαίωνος, δηλαδή την μεγάλη ιστορία του ρωμαϊκού έθνους.

[@play-doughsrepublic5121]

Very informative video, but the music is outright irritating. It gave me a headache trying to listen.

[@milagroscortez690]

C?

[@giorgichumburidze4711]

That bg music is so loud and distracting

[@aaronTGP_3756]

This video makes me appreciate the Eastern Romans much more. If I was forced to live in the garbage hole that was medieval Europe, either I'd pick Cordoba or Constantinople.

[@Michael_the_Drunkard]

Medieval Europe was far from a "garbage hole".

[@fusion9619]

5:04 how could they be producing corn in Crimea? Corn was native to North America..

[@JustAnotherHistoryChannel]

Good point! I hadn't spotted that - I think they must be using an older use of the word 'corn' to refer to cereal crops more generally. They definitely didn't have maize in europe at the time!

[@fusion9619]

@@JustAnotherHistoryChannel that's pretty cool, I didn't know "corn" had an earlier meaning.

[@ryhol5417]

@@fusion9619corn can be used to refer to certain sizes/shapes of coal (pea coal, corn coal) and some chemicals are sold in corns. Word was in use prior to development or widespread knowledge of the anericas. I recall seeing corns of salt petre and table salt for example. (I ran through that rabbit hole a couple years ago)

[@robinbreeds9217]

Eastern Roman Empire

[@cidadao.romano]

300 subscritos? que prazer!

[@JustAnotherHistoryChannel]

Muito obrigado!!

[@user-qz4go8pf8l]

Make the *ROMAN EMPIRE* great again!

[@pauloseara7332]

Maybe the Latin Empire, was the cause for the downfall of the Byzantine Empire, after that crusader 57 years takeover 1204-1261.

[@clydecessna737]

Justinian conquered nothing: he recovered lands taken by barbarian armies.

[@grecokremmos2641]

THEY WERNT THE HEIRS OF THE ROMANS. THEY WHERE THE ROMANS.

[@ConstantineofRome]

🇹🇷🇨🇦

[@laurajaneluvsbeauty9596]

It’s Biz-an-teen not Buy-zan-time

[@JustAnotherHistoryChannel]

American vs British pronunciations :)

[@ottobismarck6623]

Its Ro-man Em-pi-re not Byzantine

[@fusion9619]

@Xa Ga why the aggression? He's right.

[@achilleuspetreas3828]

@Xa Ga how is calling the Roman Empire "the Roman Empire" being a historian wannabe?

[@nihil_hd1598]

@Xa Ga u are kind of the historian wannabe

[@urielseuthes7484]

say it right at least if nothing else. Baizantain?

[@fusion9619]

There is no right way to say it. Historians made it up long after the empire fell.

[@urielseuthes7484]

@@fusion9619 nope. There is the right way to say we know it. They did not speak english.

[@JustAnotherHistoryChannel]

American and British pronunciation differs:)

[@urielseuthes7484]

@@JustAnotherHistoryChannel nice trolling. Nos signa sequimur, quocumque nos ducunt, A barbara Germaniae silva, Ad Caledoniam caliginem, Domitores Britannorum procedite. Mars, Mars ultor

[@JustAnotherHistoryChannel]

@@urielseuthes7484 I'm not sure what you mean, I was always taught the British style of pronunciation