Byzantine Jewry in the Mediterranean Economy

Covers the middle Byzantine period, describing the day-to-day workings of the Byzantine-Jewish economy via primary sources.

Joshua Holo (Author)

9781108745086, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 14 May 2020

297 pages
15 x 23 x 1.5 cm, 0.44 kg

"This learned volume investigates Jewish economic life in a period in which the Jews did not play an obvious pivotal role in the Middle Byzantine Empire..." -Jewish Book World

Using primary sources, Joshua Holo uncovers the day-to-day workings of the Byzantine-Jewish economy in the middle Byzantine period. Built on a web of exchange systems both exclusive to the Jewish community and integrated in society at large, this economy forces a revision of Jewish history in the region. Paradoxically, the two distinct economic orientations, inward and outward, simultaneously advanced both the integration of the Jews into the larger Byzantine economy and their segregation as a self-contained body economic. Dr Holo finds that the Jews routinely leveraged their internal, even exclusive, systems of law and culture to break into - occasionally to dominate - Byzantine markets. In doing so, they challenge our concept of Diaspora life as a balance between the two competing impulses of integration and segregation. The success of this enterprise, furthermore, qualifies the prevailing claim of Jewish economic decline during the Commercial Revolution.

1. Introduction: Byzantine-Jewish history
2. Byzantine Jews throughout the Mediterranean: fluidity and exchange
3. The inner economy of the Jewish communities
4. The Jewish economy on the regional scale
5. Byzantine-Jewish trade and the Commercial Revolution
6. Conclusion: a new perspective on Byzantine economic history
Appendix A. MS translations
Appendix B. MS images.

Subject Areas: Jewish studies [JFSR1], Medieval history [HBLC1], European history [HBJD]