Trade, Commodities and Shipping in the Medieval Mediterranean: (Variorum Collected Studies)

This fourth collection by David Jacoby focuses on Western economic expansion the Eastern Mediterranean during the 11th-15th centuries. He is concerned to emphasize the interconnections linking the West, Byzantium and the Levant, and to examine normative sources for commercial activity (charters, etc.) against the background of actual practice, such as reflected in notarial documents. The articles deal with the evolution of urban centres, the trade in raw materials, and at the same time questions of technology transfer and the mobility of merchants and craftsmen. Particular attention is given to the silk trade: the author argues that demographic expansion in the Byzantine world, as in the West, stimulated economic growth, and demand for silk led to the emergence of a market-driven industry in Byzantium.

Table of Contents:
Contents: The migration of merchants and craftsmen: a mediterranean perspective (12th-15th century); Italian privileges and trade in Byzantium before the Fourth Crusade: a reconsideration; Les Génois dans l’Empire Byzantin: citoyens, sujets et protégés (1261-1453); Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem (1187-1192); L’évolution urbaine et la fonction méditerranéenne, d’Acre à l’époque des croisades; Les Communes italiennes et les ordres militaires à Acre: aspects juridiques, territoriaux et militaires (1104-1187, 1191-1291); Silk in Western Byzantium before the Fourth Crusade; Silk production in the Frankish Peloponnese: the evidence of 14th-century surveys and reports; Raw materials for the glass industries of Venice and the Terraferma, about 1370 - about 1460; L’alun et la Crète vénitienne; La production du sucre en Crete vénitienne: l’échec d’une entreprise économique; Venetian anchors for Crusader Acre; Index.

Review :
with other three volumes by Jacoby: this quartet presents impressive testimony to Jacoby’s productivity and the breadth of his writings on the eastern Mediterranean world in the Middle Ages.' MESA Bulletin, No. 32 'The scope of [Jacoby’s] research allows for the clarification of misunderstood or overlooked aspects, permitting new interpretations and revealing new light on different matters...This volume is a great scholarly contribution not only to the study of the specific periods and products with which it deals but also to how these small pieces from the jigsaw of history fill in the spaces in the overall view of the Middle Ages.' The Northern Mariner, Vol. IX, No.1