The Byzantine Empire relied on the strength and duration of an economy with interesting and often complex structures. Although there have been many studies on various aspects of the Byzantine economy, until now there has been a lack of a synthetic work that studies the economy of Byzantium as a whole and provides a comprehensive picture of its structures, organization, and evolution over time.

This gap aims to be filled by "The Economic History of Byzantium," a collective work that gathers and synthesizes the findings of the fields of economic history, numismatics, archaeology, geography/geology, art history, institutions, and law for the Byzantine medieval times from the 7th to the 15th century.

The authors of this work study, among other things, the demographic factors, the physical and technological conditions of production, the wealth-producing sources, the structures and organization of production in the agricultural economy and the economy of towns, the economic role of the state and fiscal phenomena, consumption, investment and credit mechanisms, prices, methods of exchange, internal and external trade, the production and circulation of coins, the institutions of property and transactions, aspects of practical economic law, economic ideology, and the position of the Byzantine economy in the medieval Mediterranean world.

Their analyses challenge the image of an economy with archaic structures, monopolistically controlled and managed by the state authority, which does not evolve. On the contrary, they converge to the conclusion that the Byzantine economy exhibited remarkable adaptability at times, and for long periods, the combination of state and private activity operated effectively, ensuring both economic progress and stability.

The texts included are:

• Cecile Morrisson, "Byzantine Coinage: Production and Circulation"
• John Day, "Monetary Mechanisms in the East and the West: A Brief Commentary"
• Nikos Oikonomidis, "The Role of the Byzantine State in the Economy"
• Eleftheria Papayianni, "Legal Institutions and Practice on Ecclesiastical Property"
• Eleftheria Papayianni, "The Byzantine 'Preference'"
• Eleftheria Papayianni, "Byzantine Legislation and Economic Activity by Social Classes"
• Dimitrios Gofas, "Interest in Byzantine Law"
• Olga Maridaki-Karatzas, "Legal Aspects of Trade Financing"
• Angeliki E. Laiou, "Economic Thought and Ideology"
• Angeliki E. Laiou, "Overview of the Byzantine Economy"