engleski

TRADE RELATIONS BETWEEN BYZANTINE EMPIRE AND ITALIAN MERCHANT REPUBLICS FROM XIII TO XV CENTURY

In the article a number of commercial treaties between Byzantine Empire and Italian maritime republics of Genoa and Venice is analysed. Venice and Genoa always concluded these treaties with Byzantium in order to gain economic advantages on territories ruled by the Byzantine Emperors, who wished to gain certain political and military advantages, most often with limited results. Venice and Genoa profited mightily from the economic advantages they gained. The question we tried to answer was: were Venetian merchants enjoying full commercial privileges in the years which were not covered by the treaty? In our opinion the answer is negative, but a modus vivendi must have been reached between interested parties. Also, from the treaties studied, it is obvious that liberalization of trade and religious freedoms went hand in hand in that period, as a continuation, expansion and formalization of the trend started by the emperor Constantine some thousand years earlier.

Byzantine Empire; Venetia; Genoa; international political economy;

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