Coinage of the Byzantine Empire



Coinage was used primarily for the basic economic needs of the Empire: buying and selling commercial goods, and paying salaries, rents, and taxes. How highly monetized the Byzantine economy was is vigorously debated; the level must have varied greatly according to time and place. Urban and maritime regions were mostly monetary economies, with barter occupying only a small place. The loss to the Arabs in the mid-7th century of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, with their vast economic resources, resulted in a substantial decrease in the number and use of coins, a fact clearly demonstrated by the reduced number of 8th century coins found on excavated sites (click here to see Chart of Coin Finds from St. Polyeuctus). However, in the 10th century, the Empire's increased military strength protected the trade routes from raiders and brought security to the countryside. There followed a period of economic recovery and population growth that led to an increase in coin exchanges, especially in the 11th and 12th centuries. Like the Islamic world, Byzantium had one of the more monetized economies of the medieval world. The use of gold solidi was reserved primarily for the salaries of high officials, for luxury goods, and for tributes paid to "Barbarian" nations. Smaller gold coins were used among the lower social classes—as pay for soldiers, for skilled craftsmen, and occasionally for hermits or other holy men; even prostitutes were sometimes paid in gold! At the lowest level, bronze and occasionally tiny silver coins were used for the transactions of daily life—buying foodstuffs and retail goods and payment for small services. Inscription with Customs Tax Rates for Commercial Goods Asia Minor, 5th-6th century Adana (Turkey), Archaeological Museum This fragmentary marble inscription lists the products subject to city customs taxes and gives the amounts to be paid per item. In the left column is the name of the product, such as saffron, fish sauce, heavy rope, gourds, fenugreek, garlic, fish, wine, salt, plants, silk, tin, lead, cows—and even slaves. The second column gives the unit of measure, or load (O' =gomos or load), followed by a letter, K´, the abbreviation for keration (a silver coin worth 1/24 of the gold solidus) or AP´ for argyron, likely the bronze nummus. The last letter on the far right is the tax rate stating the number of keratia or nummi that had to be paid, with the Greek letters A, B, , standing for 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on (NE =55; PE =165).