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Economic Factors in the Decline of the Byzantine Empire

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“Economic Factors in the Decline of the Byzantine Empire” In this article taken from The Journal of Economic History, Peter Charanis discusses the factors that economically affected the decline of the Byzantine Empire. His discussion is based on the fact that past scholars, such as English historian Edward Gibbon who wrote The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, thought the Byzantine Empire was in a constant state of decline throughout its existence, but he disagrees. He says that more recent scholars have found that it was, in fact, one of the great empires in history. He references to historians such as Fridtjof Nansen, author of L’Armenie et le proche Orient, who said that the Byzantine culture “is and will remain one …show more content…

The focus of the emperors was the happiness of the soldiers and not of the peasants, or all the other people in the empire, and this was also a large source of decline in Byzantium. Once the emperors of the eleventh century realized that this system was not working quite as well, they tried to create an anti-military policy, which consummated a depression in soldiers. This entire struggle that occurred after the seventh century caused the empire to participate in a series of civil wars affected its sources and manpower, according the Charanis. Other serious factors that caused the decline were the weakening of the central administration, the failure to enforce measures of protection for the soldiery-peasantry, and the grants of privileges made to the aristocracy. It has been said that another reason for their decline was the strict controls they placed on commerce and industry, but Charanis disagrees and says it is extremely doubtful that this was their weakness. He backs up this argument by saying that when those controls were most strictly enforced, was when their empire was at its greatest. He goes on to say that the period of the greatest decline is marked by the breakdown of these controls. Tenth century Byzantine emperor Romanus Lecapenus wrote in one of his novels that the extension of power to the strong and the depression of power to the many would “bring about the irreparable loss of the

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