Eagle Byzantium

When Alexios was fighting against the Norman leader Guiscat (Bohemond's father), he signed a contract with Venice in order to win Venice's maritime support. The content of the contract was roughly to recognize Venice's presence in Dalma. The power of the Tia region was granted to its governor as The great nobles granted the title of nobility to the ten powerful people in their country (and paid their salaries every year, because Byzantine noble officials were paid), and promised to donate a huge sum of money to St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, and at the same time to Venice Open port cities such as Durazzo.

To be fair, the conclusion of this contract caused little damage to the Eastern Roman Empire. After all, it only sent titles and money, plus the actual recognition of Venice’s rights and interests in the Adriatic Sea, and the latter was originally a violation of the established Recognition of facts.

It was also driven by this contract that the Venetian fleet played a huge role in resisting Guiscat's first invasion and defending the city of Durazzo. Later, Guiscat fell ill and died, and the Norman nobles who returned to Italy began to fight among themselves. Emperor Alexios was temporarily able to breathe, but his temporary victory in the western territory of the empire came at the cost of almost completely losing the north and east. ——Barbarians of the northern grasslands The Roman tribes (Pechenegs, Cumans, Rus, etc.) colluded with the Paulist heretics in Bulgaria and Thrace and began to invade Constantinople; while the Roman Sultanate in the east had advanced to the edge of the Marimara Sea, removing Apart from a few cities, all of Anatolia has been lost.

Therefore, seven years after Guiscat's death, when the emperor raised troops to resist the massive invasion of the Pechenegs, the Venetian city-state sent a messenger asking the emperor to "compensate them for the two wars against the Normans (1081 and 1084)." Huge losses suffered.”

The losses were caused in this way. In the third naval battle that broke out on the coast of Epirus during Guiscat's second invasion (which had been fought twice before), the emperor's fleet shamefully escaped, causing the Venetians who fought bravely to end the battle. Seven large ships were sunk by the Normans, two were captured, and 2,500 people lost their lives. After the news came back, the governor of that year was deposed by the angry people. The successor governor was extremely disappointed with the Eastern Rome and soon left the war. Anna Komnenos (a princess from the historical plane) in her book "My Father" "The Biography" also vividly describes the "combined fleet" of the Empire and Venice against the Conqueror. The victory of the fourth naval battle of the Man. In fact, this fourth victory may only exist on yellowed paper (because it may not exist)-because soon the Norman fleet began to besiege the gateway island of Eastern Rome. Cairofania, and Venice no longer had the heart and strength to block the emperor's arrows.

This is why seven years later, the Venetians confidently asked the emperor to "compensate our country."

But at this time Alexios said, "I'm really worried - I have no money."

At this time, the empire may indeed be out of money: 90% of its territory in eastern Asia Minor has been lost, the north has been invaded by barbarians, and several western provinces have also suffered huge losses in the previous Norman invasion and have not recovered.

Therefore, the emperor who had no money could only sell trade privileges to maintain peace with Venice. This was also his second contract with Venice.

But this trade privilege was sold a bit harshly, which was also an important reason why Alexios was criticized in later generations. The contract was roughly like this. The Venetians had the right to live in the imperial capital and three floating docks. Soon they built a huge commercial port area in the Pella area, extending from the Vigora Gate (an area in Greece) to Chili All operations in the imperial territory of Chiamen (i.e. the Gate of Judah) are exempt from all dock fees, port fees, excise taxes and tolls.

To sum it up, Alexios packed up and sold more than 30 ports to Venice at once, so much so that some people criticized his move as a "crazy" behavior.

No matter what Alexius thought at the time, or how forced the situation was, it is not objective to say that his behavior was harmless to the empire. We can simply make a deduction. What does it mean for the Venetians to enjoy these rights? It means that they can use Constantinople as a base, and all merchant ships can travel freely in the Adriatic Sea and the Aegean Sea. They sell goods from all over the world in various parts of the empire, and they are still tax-free. For example, if the Seljuk invasion defeated the military power of the empire, then the Venetians would be equivalent to completely destroying the empire's maritime commercial activities. The empire's previous trading ships were very active and powerful, and it can be said that their footprints were all over the Levant, the Euxine Sea, the Danube, the Aegean Sea and the Adriatic Sea (I don't know where the view that the Eastern Roman Empire did not attach importance to trade came from), but what can they use now to compete with Venice? Therefore, the empire's maritime commerce has never recovered since then, and the merchant ship business is also gone. Once there is no merchant ship business, the idea of ​​building a powerful armed fleet is like a mirage - compared with land tax and head tax, trade tax can be regarded as the most economical national income - not only does the land cost a lot of money, but it may not have a considerable return; and once the head tax is heavy, a large number of farmers will flee and abandon the land, and many working and serving people will almost inevitably take refuge in the accounts of the nobles. But what about maritime trade? It doesn't cost anything at all. As long as there is a port area that is not blocked by silt and can dock large ships, and it is located on a suitable trade route, even if you don't have a merchant fleet (the cost of maintaining ships is also huge), as long as you issue a trade charter, the ocean and monsoon will naturally send merchants from all over the world to you, they will build large commercial ports here, bring many merchant ships, and then you only need to collect their tolls and port fees with your eyes closed, and almost all of them are hot cash. Historical records have recorded that the income of a port in Palermo, Sicily in the Middle Ages was equal to the annual income of the King of England, and the latter's income, according to statistics from the 15th century, was approximately equivalent to 250,000 US dollars at the end of the 19th century. It was not a wise act to abandon such a rich income, and it was considered "pitiable and obvious".

The problem should be clear now. It is not that Alexius gave the Venetians trade privileges that were problematic, but that the two rights of giving them complete tax exemption and settlement greatly harmed the empire. By the time of Manuel I, how many Venetians settled in Constantinople? There were 14,000 adult men who could fight in the war alone, plus their families such as women, children, and the privilege of complete tax exemption for business operations. It is no exaggeration to say that there was a huge tumor in the body of the empire. Even if these tens of thousands of Venetians promoted prosperity on the surface, it was deformed and had nothing to do with the imperial finances itself. The imperial finances gave up trade taxes, and the price was that the land and head taxes were extremely heavy (after all, there was a theory of transfer). Otherwise, when the Norman Kingdom of Sicily attacked the Empire's Corfu Island, there would not have been the tragic scene of local residents "carrying food and drink to welcome the royal army" (the royal army was Norman) - later Manuel could no longer bear it and carried out a large-scale purge of the Venetians in Constantinople, which was also the final outcome of the accumulation of such contradictions.