The invasion of silk industrial centers such as Thebes and Corinth in southern Greece brought a large number of silkworm technicians and silk weavers to Sicily, breaking the Byzantine monopoly on silk. Several Crusades, especially the Fourth Crusade

The invasion severely damaged Byzantium's commercial status and completely changed the Mediterranean trade pattern. In several royal struggles in the late Byzantine Empire, in order to obtain funds, the contenders for the Byzantine throne repeatedly used commercial and trade privileges as collateral, resulting in already suffering losses.

The severely damaged domestic commerce fell into an even more difficult situation. Constantinople and Trabzon were no longer distribution centers for Eastern goods, and their status was taken away by Venice's commercial stronghold in the Eastern Mediterranean. Venetian and Genoese merchants even established themselves in Byzantium itself

Commercial privileges were obtained and a commercial colony was established in Galata on the outskirts of Constantinople (Istanbul). By the 14th century, Byzantine business had completely shrunk.

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In addition to commercial taxes, other sources of economic income of the Byzantine Empire include real estate taxes levied on the senatorial class and currency taxes levied on urban industrial and commercial owners. The empire also levied physical taxes on horses, cloth, etc. from urban industrial and commercial owners. Urban citizens also had to pay

Notary tax, stamp duty, judicial tax and other indirect taxes. Wealthy citizens also have to bear the costs of street light fuel, festival horse racing, charities, urban sanitation and fire fighting.

Byzantine agricultural taxes were levied collectively on villages based on the area of ​​land, and the taxes required for deserted farmland abandoned by fleeing farmers were paid by the villages where they lived. In May and September every year, the imperial circuit judges and tax officials went to the countryside to collect taxes.

To tax, a census of land conditions is conducted every three years to determine the amount of tax.

After losing the main agricultural province of Syria in the 8th century, the Byzantine Empire increased its agricultural reclamation efforts in the Balkans and Asia Minor. When the land in these places gradually fell into the hands of Slavs and Turks from the 11th to 14th centuries, the empire's commercial

When trade shrank extremely, the Byzantine Empire naturally encountered financial difficulties. In the 14th century, in order to raise expenses, Queen Anna de Savoy ordered the gold and silver vessels in the palace to be melted down and coins to be minted. A record

The Byzantine historian who attended the coronation of John V once lamented: "Most of the emperor's crowns and crowns only look like gold jewelry, but they are actually leather dyed with gold and decorated with colored glass to pretend to be gems. The previous emperors used

The tall gold cups decorated with red emeralds and pearls for tasting fine wine have been replaced by white tin cups or clay cups... You can see things like naturally beautiful gemstones and colorful pearls everywhere, but

None of this can deceive everyone's eyes...The prosperity and glory of the Roman Empire have declined to such an extent that its former glory has completely disappeared..."

By the end of the Palaeologus Dynasty, the Byzantine Empire had relied entirely on selling royal property and land and borrowing usury to maintain necessary expenses. In order to raise cash, the Empire repeatedly ceded land to the Serbs, Bulgarians, Venetians, Genoese and Turks.

Even important areas crucial to the life and death of the capital and country, such as Thrace and Galata, were ceded, depriving the empire of its last self-rescue resources. In 1423, Manuel II sold Salonika, the second largest city, to
Chapter completed!