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An Image of the Great Palace's Exterior.
July 2007, photo,1,600 × 1,200 pixels, Wikimedia Commons, Istanbul, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palace_of_Porphyrogenitus_2007_016.jpg#.
About the Great Palace:
About the Great Palace:
When you look from the outside of the palace you will see there are four gateways and columns with gold and silver on them.[1] There are guards at the door, and they will search you for weapons if you are entering to make sure you cannot harm anyone as a custom.[2] As you enter the palace, you will walk through hallways and see mosaics on the walls with images of creatures and previous battles.[3] The Emperor’s throne has many other jewels and is made of gold, along with a crown made with the same materials.[4] The jewels show the wealth of the empire, as the residents and Emperor wear very expensive attire containing these materials.[5] If you are an ambassador from another empire, you may also be given gifts of gold and silver from the Emperor himself.[6]
For the locals of the Byzantine Empire, the emperor’s palace is an extremely important place. Due to the monarchy, the emperor controls everything related to the government, such as taxes and foreign policies, which affect the Byzantine citizens greatly. [7] An important part of life for some Byzantine citizens is trade, which thrives due to policies controlled by the emperor. A current rule in place controls private land ownership as a way to keep the economy stable and prevent inflation in crafts sold.[8] This policy helps assure trade can be a main source of wealth for those in the Byzantine Empire, and there are also policies enacted giving regulations for what prices crafts can be sold at. [9] Through these rules, it is quite apparent how the Byzantine economic policies greatly affect its wealth, as without these rules trade could function much differently.
1. Benjamin of Tudela, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela (1160-1173), as reproduced in Silk Road Narratives, Silk Road Seattle Project, 2024,https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/tudela.html.
2. Ibn Battuta, The Byzantine Empire and Constantinople, from Travels in Asia and Africa, (1325-1354), as reproduced in Internet Medieval SourceBook, Fordham University, 2024, https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/ibnbattuta-byzantium14C.asp.
3. Ibid; Tudela, The Itinerary.
4. Tudela, The Itinerary.
5. Ibid.
6. Rabban Sawma, THE HISTORY OF THE LIFE AND TRAVELS OF RABBAN SAWMA (1278-1313), trans. E. A. Wallis Budge, as reproduced in Silk Road Narratives, Silk Road Seattle Project, 2024,https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/sauma.html.
7. Ken Dark and Ferudun Özgümüş, eds. “THE BLACHERNAE PALACE” In Constantinople: Archaeology of a Byzantine Megapolis, 66–82. Oxbow Books, 2013. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh1dn5p.14.
8. Angeliki E. Laiou, The Economic History of Byzantium: From the Seventh through the Fifteenth Century, (2002), as reproduced in the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine, 2024, 1153, https://web.archive.org/web/20070221221724/http://www.doaks.org/EconHist/EHB51.pdf.
9. Ibid, 1149-1152.
10. Ibid, 1149.
Nona R.
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