Abstract
SUMMARY The objective of this study is to give a general framework of the economic and social atmosphere of the medieval Byzantine Anatolia. What sort of a structure and environment Turks met when they had came in Anatolia in the middle ages is an important question. This study is also a contribution to the researches about this subject in Turkish literature. In order to present the 10th- 13th centuries Byzantine Anatolia, this study examines the contemporary structure with a state-centered socio-economic analysis. Because the consideration of the `economic aspect` of social life seperate from the other aspects is valid for only two hundred years, that is, for the market economies. As for the previous periods economic aspect of social life or economy is related also with non-economic aspects. In order to examine the `economic` events of the previous periods, each component of the state structure should be taken into consideration. This necessitates the examining of some social institutions, which are supposed to be economical from today's perspectives, like commerce, landownership, taxation and of the componenets of state structure like the legal system, the emperor, the army and the church. For this reason in the thesis structure the fifth chapter,`economic life`, follows the fourth chapter which is about the Byzantine state structure. The first two chapters are concerned with the geographic conditions and the demographic structure of the 10th-13th Byzantine Anatolia. The first chapter deals with the geographic conditions and road system, while the second chapter deals with some issues related to native Anatolian population such as the composition of it. The problem of how to call the native Anatolian population is examined under the sub-title `Anatolian Folk`. The third chapter examines the three main roots of Byzantine Empire: the Hellenic culture/ Orthodox Christianity and Roman imperial tradition. It is stressed that the Hellenic culture and Roman imperial tradition had been `easternized` to some extent before it became a heritage for Byzantine Empire. 186The fourth chapter examines the Byzantine state organization in four sub-titles: i) Imperial Institution, ii) Military Organization, iii) The Church and the Clerics, iv) Civil Administration and Law System. The fifth chapter introduces some economic and social institutions which are related to Byzantine economy. The sixth chapter examines the state interferences in economic life under four sub-titles: i) Coinage System, ii) Guilds, iii) Interferences in Trade, iv) Tax-farming. The two chapters are complementary to one another. They consider different issues of economic life but together they form a complete whole, Byzantine Empire can be considered as an `Eastern` state despite the fact that it possesses some characteristics peculiar to antic Hellenic and Roman traditions. It is state- centered in the sense that it tends to intervene and regulate almost every field of its subjects' lives. In order to point out the effects of these interventions on economic activities and institutions, the non-economic institutions should also be examined. Because, as mentioned above, the `economic` institutions were `embedded` in the `non-economic` institutions. 187
