Ebook: Gender, Society, and Economic Life in Byzantium

The studies in this volume reflect the author's interest in history as it was lived: not only social and economic structures, but the men and women, collectively and individually, who made them function. The role of women in Byzantine economy and society is found to be much more important than had been believed; their participation in trade and manufacturing is established, as is the role of aristrocratic women in the economic affairs of the household; the question of female literacy is also discussed. Two studies on the Byzantine family, based in large part on the legal services, examine the formation of matrimonial ties as well as the practice of divorce and concubinage in the 13th century. The second part of the volume is focused on the economy of exchange in Byzantium between 1204 and the fall of the Empire. Byzantine trade and manufacturing are place in the context of the economic developments of the eastern Mediterranean, with the conclusion that, whereas the activities of Byzantine and Greek merchants were much more considerable than scholars had thought, they were subordinated to the needs of the Italian-dominated trade system, while Byzantine manufacturing declined.