Industry

he industry of the late Byzantine period never went beyond the limits of home industries or workshop artisanship. The articles manufactured were produced by craftsmen skilled in metalwork, engraving, carpet-making, carpentry, glass and cabinet making, tanning, and the production of papyri. Articles needed for the use of the state were manufactured in state workshops. Privileges were often granted, and the state intervened by levying taxes on purchases and sales and by imposing duties on imported goods. In general, manufacturing declined in the late Byzantine period as a result of both the economic situation and the preference shown towards goods imported from the West. Such, for instance, was the case as regards the decline of textile manufacturing, which had constituted an important sector of secondary production in the past. It is only in Thessalonike that we hear of textile manufacture in the middle of the 14th century. As a matter of fact, textiles constituted the major import from the West.

Information on state activities is scant. Metalwork - mainly the production of weapons - as well as the construction of warships must have been carried out under state supervision. Indeed, certain activities such as the making of weapons, the minting of coins and the production and sale of silk, most probably constituted state monopolies, as is suggested, in the case of silk, by the fact that certain fabrics bear the name of the emperor. Luxury items for ecclesiastical and secular use were also produced in the imperial workshops.

Information regarding the organisation of workers -artisans and others- into guilds, is also scant. The existence in the late Byzantine period of certain unions of port workers, a number of which, in fact, took part in the Zealot uprising, may indicate the survival of corporations as late as this period. However, it would be difficult to ascribe to the term "guild" its middle Byzantine sense, that is of a professional group strictly organised within an institutional framework.