ABSTRACT
After the eleventh century, the eastern Mediterranean was a busy sea. International trade was on an upward curve which continued until about 1350. Venetian, Pisan and Genoese ships and, with time, those of other western states sailed to Egypt, the Byzantine Empire, Syria and eventually to the Black Sea. The Byzantine economy was never fully controlled or directed by the state. The state did, however, until some time in the eleventh century, act as a restraining agent, placing restrictions on processes such as the untrammeled accumulation of wealth in private hands, or the exploitation of the weakest members of society. Foreign trade is the economic sector in which state intervention can be seen in its strongest manifestation. The export of grain, along with that of arms, iron and salt, had been prohibited in the late third century upon pain of death.
