AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY IN BYZANTINE WORLD

The Byzantines have been criticized, somewhat unfairly, for a lack of technical progress in their mode of agricultural exploitation. In fact, the stability of the empire and the relative abundance and variety of foodstuffs cited by medieval western travellers to Constantinople are two important barometers whereby we can measure the effectiveness of the Byzantine farmer in sustaining the population over more than a millennium.
The geography and climate of the empire was always varied, demanding a wide range of responses to the perpetual challenge of food supply. Methods of production depended on a range of precursors, such as climate, quality of the land, availability of water for irrigation, individual and communal wealth, land tenure relationships, and local cultural traditions, to name only a few. Our fragmentary sources, nearly all of which have little interest in agricultural pursuits, leave many problems unresolved and permit us only glimpses of agrarian life through portions of Byzantine history. The utmost caution is advised due to our scanty data, and doubtless the picture of the Byzantine countryside will alter substantially as new archaeological material comes to light.

TOOLS AND TRACTION

Some general remarks may be made about technology in the landscape. First, the Byzantine farmer was almost exclusively dependent on muscle power and inherited practical knowledge passed from generation to generation. Muscle power, in the form of human labour and animal traction, was used for most activities in the countryside, especially tillage. The technology employed in the major tillage activity, ploughing, was already ancient by the Byzantine period. Most of the time pairs of oxen provided traction for ploughing, though other animals, namely buffalo, were used from time to time. The prominent misunderstanding that Roman-Byzantine harnessing was wholly inadequate and strangled the horse or ox is false and must be discarded. The passage in the Codex Theodosianus (V.8.48) used to argue the modest limits to Late Roman-Early Byzantine harnessing does not represent a maximum hauling capacity of Roman-Byzantine carts, but legislates ideal maximums in view of public safety of lighter carts that were probably overburdened for their size. There were both two- and four-wheeled carts, most often drawn by oxen, but we know next to nothing about their exact methods of construction, hauling capacity, and precise uses. By the end of the medieval period, the harnessing systems and modes of cartage in Byzantium were less advanced than those of their western neighbours, but were probably adequate in their capabilities. Much more limiting would have been the condition of the road network, which was probably poorly adapted to moving large quantities of bulk agricultural goods overland.
In ploughing, animals were yoked to the scratch-plough, the arotron. The major components of the arotron are the wooden beam that ended at its front side in the plough-share, most often encased in iron, the stilt connecting the beam to the yoke beam. The ploughman exerted pressure on the plough with his foot and the depth of the furrow thus cut as the team moved forward was determined by the angle at which the beam was set in the stilt. There were many variations of scratchplough in use; the method of construction and the number of wooden pieces used, the overall refinement of the plough and its weight and size would have depended in large part on the availability of suitable wood. In some cases, the plough-share might be fire-hardened rather than sheathed in metal. Although morphologically slightly variable, the range of ploughs created the same pattern of tilth as they cut shallow furrows and pushed the earth to both sides.
It has been pointed out in the past, but is worth stressing here, that Byzantine plough technology was the product of centuries of experience accumulated by Mediterranean farmers with local soil and climate conditions. As such, it was admirably adapted to creating a seed-bed which maintained soil moisture, essential in the dominant methods of dry farming. Dry-farming methods, described in the tenth-century agricultural encyclopedia, the Geoponica, include the fallowing of land and frequent ploughing of the fallow to destroy weeds and maintain soil moisture. One of the major reasons that the asymmetrical, heavy mouldboard plough developed in medieval Europe failed to reach Byzantium was undoubtedly its lack of general necessity.
Some heavier soils and marshy areas would have benefited from such equipment but the greater part of the arable landscape was better suited to the simple arotron. Animal-drawn harrows were used to break up clods of earth left by the plough and to even and smooth the surface of the seed-bed. Harvesting was accomplished by sickle and the Byzantine sickle (drepanon) is noteworthy in that it is usually depicted in manuscripts as serrated.
This type is often more efficient than its smooth-bladed relatives, and implies topping of the grain through pulling the heads with the sickle, rather than cutting at the base or middle of the grain stalk. The threshing sledge, an animal-drawn set of boards studded with flints, was in common use in the Mediterranean in order to thresh the grain on the wooden, pounded-earth, or cobbled threshing floors. Once threshed, the Byzantines employed both built granaries and underground storage pits (Cappadocia) as well as underground, masonry silos (Pergamon).
Not every farmer could afford a plough or yoke of oxen, nor was every landscape suitable for ploughing. Hilly areas were frequently terraced, as they had been for millennia throughout the Mediterranean region. Various types of terracing were in use throughout the Byzantine period, and most employed the use of dry stone walling, the building material being collected from the hillside itself. Earth was often carried from elsewhere to fill in the area behind the constructed terrace wall. Terrace construction was one technology through which cultivators could extend the productive area of the land surface and take advantage of natural run-off and soil deposition in order to create fertile pockets, most often for tree crops for which terraces are especially suitable, but also for cereal cultivation and garden crops.
The building of such agricultural installations required little in the way of tools or capital outlay, but was a laborious job; many terrace systems undoubtedly took years to complete. Terraced areas, and many open areas tilled by farmers were worked by hand using two-pronged digging forks (lisgarion) and broken up using drag hoes (dikella) crafted from wood or sometimes metal. These two hand tools were apparently the most common implements for preparing grain fields and for the frequent trenching and digging round the olive trees and vines prescribed by the Geoponica and illustrated in Paris, BN gr. 74, fo. 39v. The use of iron in such implements was limited, though attested in manuscript illuminations and archaeological finds from the early Byzantine period. The Euphrates zone around Samosata, important in the early Byzantine period but only briefly held during the Middle Byzantine period, has produced iron implements such as sickles, scythes, spades, and knife blades. The metal tongs featuring in the life of Germanos of Kosinitza (Vita 8 E. 2-5), or those unearthed at Corinth, and the lisgarion in iron depicted in an Athos manuscript (Vatopedi, 620, fo. 384') hint that iron implements were common technology in everyday use. They were not without cost, and not everyone could own them. The Farmer's Law shows a fair amount of implement borrowing, probably by poorer village farmers.

CROPS AND CROPPING TECHNOLOGY

The Byzantines relied on various basic staple crops. Garden vegetables such as lettuce, leeks, turnips, and cabbage formed an important part of the diet of the average person. Grapes were a major crop for both table and especially for wine.Just as today, there were named varieties prized for various characteristics. The major fibre crops were flax and hemp. Flax also provided oil, especially in cold areas like the Anatolian plateau where olive oil was not produced. Tree crops, including various nuts, olive, fig, pear, apple, peach, pomegranate were common. Most citrus crops (sour orange and citron being exceptions) probably made only limited headway even after the Muslim conquest, but this is uncertain. One of the major techniques known to be widely applied in everyday arboricultural practice was grafting. The Geoponica notes numerous different methods of grafting and an astonishing array of experimentation, while illustrations in mosaics and manuscripts attest to the practice throughout the Byzantine period.he advantages of grafting are numerous: superior individuals may be cloned, sick trees and vines remedied, and the time from planting to the first crop of fruit or nuts reduced. Grafting also allows hybridization and enhances the opportunities to adapt varieties from one locality to another.
New crops did arrive into Byzantium in the medieval period. Several nonindigenous species were already in place in antiquity and do not belong to any agricultural 'revolution', either European or Islamic. Rye was an important crop in the temperate regions of the empire, and durum wheat (today used mainly in pasta) was a commonly produced variety of great antiquity by the Byzantine period, not an Islamic introduction as has been argued. Millet was a major crop in many regions, as was barley. Among the new crop technologies available to the Byzantines in the middle period and later were sugar and cotton.
Both were assuredly known in Late Antiquity, but the circumstances of their production within the empire is little known. Cotton was grown on Crete in the later medieval period and also on Cyprus (strengthening the case of widespread irrigation there), as was sugar (with the same implication) (Malamut 1988: 390). Major sugar installations were in place
in Cyprus during the Venetian period, but we await archaeology to inform us of installations within the empire itself. While these crops may have had a significant economic impact in a given time and place, the repository of crop technology within Byzantium remained relatively stable: numerous garden vegetables, legumes, and common temperate orchard trees were combined with grape, olive, and cereal production to furnish the basics of the diet.

PRESSES AND PRESS TECHNOLOGY

Wine and oil production were especially important in the Byzantine diet. In the Mediterranean coastal regions, the olive tree was the major oil crop. Flax was also particularly important, especially in the temperate regions of the empire. The extraction of olive and other oils (flaxseed, sesame) was accomplished by milling, then placing the resultant pulp into a press. The simple lever and weights press consisted of a socket in the wall of a building or a pair of upright piers in which was anchored the press beam. Baskets containing the pulp fresh from the mill were stacked to the front of the beam. The beam was lowered onto the stack through applying weights or through a windlass or by means of a screw anchored in a stone. The weight of the beam thus exerted force on the baskets and expelled a mix of pulp, kernels, oil, and watery lees. By the Middle Byzantine period, most oil presses employed screw technology in one fashion or another.
A fine Middle Byzantine oil press in Aphrodisias, a large-scale lever and screw press, is probably largely representative (Ahmet 2001). An old improvement (a Hellenistic invention) in the oil press technology was adopted widely in early Byzantium. The direct screw press operated without the long lever beam and involved a rigid frame that housed a pressing board that operated vertically directly onto the pulp-filled baskets. Thus the direct screw press required less wood in its construction. It further reduced pressing time. Direct screw presses are abundant on Cyprus and examples are known from the Chalkidike. The direct screw press was not universally used in Byzantium, but was a technological option that served side by side with the older lever press varieties (Frankel 1999: 25-30). The direct screw press was also used in wine production, notably in the largescale wineries of early Byzantium in Palestine.
The use of the screw press for wine production in other areas of the empire is uncertain. In north Syria and Cilicia, roller installations were used to crush the grapes quickly and efficiently. In most regions of the empire wine production was by means of the simple treading floor (lenos) which might be wooden, as it was in the case of Skaranos' estate near Corinth (Nesbitt 1973). Wine-treading floors were often cut into bedrock and represented a minimal investment in capital outlay. While not as efficient or specialized as the centralized wineries of early Byzantine Syria-Palestine, these wineries were well adapted for local and communal production.

MILLS AND MILLING TECHNOLOGY

As noted, rotary oil mills were used to render crops to paste before processing (olive, sesame, flax). Such mills were cut from limestone and basalt. They generally consisted of a circular base in the centre of which was a socket housing the wooden shaft with horizontal axle on which were fixed the millstones. Sometimes there were pairs of millstones without vertical support. A carved circular track in the stone base contained the product to be milled and guided the stone(s) as it was turned either by animal or human power. This technology was ancient and remained largely unmodified until the industrial age.
The most common type of mill in Byzantium was probably the simple rotary hand quern, like that uncovered in the Middle Byzantine levels at Pergamon. This mill consists of a pair of flat, circular stones with a perforation on the top stone into which the grain is trickled. As with most other mills, these were generally crafted from volcanic rock. A handle on the top stone allows one to turn the mill and flour is ejected from the bottom stone. These mills were for household use and depended entirely on human labour. They had the advantage of requiring no external power and were cheap and somewhat portable. Another mill type, the hour-glass mill, takes its name from its open crown, tapering to a pinched, socketed waist where wooden cross-pieces formed the framework allowing the mill to be harnessed to a beast or turned by a person.
Grain was fed into the top of the mill and ground at the waist, flour being discharged at the bottom. Sometimes called the Pompeian mill due to its frequent occurrence there and its Roman origin, it is uncertain when manufacture of this type of mill was suspended, though it seems to have vanished shortly after the Islamic conquests of the eastern Mediterranean in the seventh century CE. Where capital and nature allowed, watermills and later windmills were used in place of animal-powered mills. Human and animal-driven mills were never entirely replaced, however. When the public bakeries of early Constantinople gave way to the numerous private bakeries, according to the Book of the Eparch (18.1) the bakers ground their flour in situ. Some of these establishments may have had access to mills driven from the aqueduct of Hadrian, but nearly all were probably animal or human powered.
Watermills were common in the late antique landscape of Byzantium. They appear in early Byzantium in Palestine, at Caesarea. They were a major feature at such eastern cities as Dara and Amida. Watermills were primarily for grinding grain, though milling technology was also used for other purposes. Everyday technologies). The Byzantines used both the horizontal undershot, or so-called Norse watermill, the undershot vertical mill and the overshot vertical watermill. In the case of the Norse watermill, the charge of technological backwardness levelled against the Byzantines must be dismissed. Such mills were eminently practical in the Pontic mountains and other areas of Anatolia where the steep terrain carried suddenly falling streams whose energies were often easiest to exploit by construction of the simple undershot watermill.
Overshot mills were more efficient, but also more expensive, often requiring mill ponds and gearing not needed in undershot mills. The sixth-century mill in the Athenian agora is a vertical overshot mill, while that depicted on the sixth-century Great Palace mosaic floor may also have been an overshot mill. The same mosaic depicts a Byzantine bridge mill, in which the milling facility was incorporated into the bridge structure. As is well known, the Farmers Law mentions watermills, which seem to have been a commonplace in the early medieval Byzantine landscape. They appear throughout the medieval period in monastic typika all over the empire and are known archaeologically in Pisidia and at Papikion in Thrace (Thomas and Hero (eds.) 2000; Donners, Waelkens, and Deckers 2002; Soustal 1991:387-9).
The transmission of windmill technology to Byzantium is uncertain. They were çon the land in the fourteenth century. This method of grinding corn probably arrived in Byzantium before the Crusades, since vertical windmills were known from the early Islamic period in Persia. In any case, windmills were probably never very important on the Byzantine landscape. Like overshot water mills, they are generally expensive to build and maintain and did not feature in the Byzantine economy which was already in decline. While windmills possess the obvious advantage of not needing a perennial source of strong running water (absent from so many of the Byzantine islands), they do, of course require the wind to blow regularly. Thus we find evidence of Byzantine windmills on Lemnos, at Alexopyrgos and Antzyke (Koder 1998: 93).

IRRIGATION TECHNOLOGY

Most of the Byzantine territory depended on rainfall for agricultural production. There were few open river plains with great expanses of irrigable landscape on which to base hydraulic agriculture. In Anatolia many of the streams were enclosed by sheer valleys and thus unsuitable for irrigation. The Maeander Valley was certainly irrigated during the Byzantine period, probably predominantly through gravity-flow irrigation by small derivation channels from the course of the river and its tributaries. Gardens, particularly those near cities, would have been the areas where Byzantine farmers had the motivation to irrigate in order to intensify their production of vegetables and tree crops. In addition to some gravity-flow systems from springs, aqueducts, or streams, such irrigation was in all likelihood small-scale, varied, and done by hand from wells or cisterns. We know little about irrigation machinery in the medieval period.
The large vertical waterwheel, the noria, the relics of which still stand in Hama, were developed in antiquity somewhere in the Orontes-Euphrates corridor. A noria is depicted on a fourth-century pavement at Apamea. Those norias known from Hama, the Euphrates, and the Syrian Chalkidike are probably useful proxies to determine the area of major use in late antiquity (Duli£re 1974: 26-7,37-8, pis. xxn, xxv, LXII—LXIII). The mechanism of the spread of the noria to other parts of the Mediterranean is uncertain; it is generally attributed to the Muslims. However, an equally probable route of transmission would have been through the exarchate of Ravenna or Byzantine south Italy and Sicily. The question remains unanswerable without further work. Equally unknown is the extent to which the noria was used within Anatolia and the European themes. They do not feature in texts and so we must wait for archaeology to address the issue. Likewise unknown is the fate of the Archimedes screw in Byzantium. The ancient simple swipe (geranon)y a counterweighted bucket suspended from two beams and a cross-piece over a well or watercourse, was probably fairly common (Koukoules 1952: 226-7). Human muscle lowered the bucket into the water and raised the water a short distance, assisted by the reaction of the heavy counterpoise.
The saqiya was a major component of the period of agrarian expansion that occurred in the fifth-sixth centuries (Decker forthcoming). A complex machine with over several hundred different parts, these machines represent a capital investment. In the saqiya, an animal is connected to the drive shaft via harnessing. The drive shaft turns a gear wheel on the horizontal that meshes with the vertical gear, thus converting the horizontal treading of the driving animal to vertical power. The vertical wheel then turns on its axis and to this axis is affixed a loop of rope, to the outside of which is attached a series of vessels, most often pointed clay jars. The entire machine is placed over a well or cistern, and as the animal circumambulates, the empty jars plunge into the water source, then rise to the other side and discharge on their way down once again. Saqiyas were not cheap.
In Late Antiquity they are found most often on Egyptian estates belonging to wealthy landowners engaged in cash cropping (Banaji 2001:109). In early Byzantine Palestine numerous finds of early Byzantine saqiya jars point to the importance of the machine there, probably in connection with vineyard irrigation where the cash generated from increased viticultural output could justify the expense of the machines (Decker forthcoming). The saqiya is a flexible and efficient irrigation device: it is adaptable to the groundwater sources (wells) commonly used throughout the Mediterranean, may be used with cisterns and even on the banks of streams in order to raise water where needed amongst the fields and orchards. Once again, the medieval experience is unknown. This was probably the machine that was used in the drainage and dredging operations in the harbour of Julian in 509 reported by Marcellinus Comes, though the rotalibus machinis mentioned might have been a noria or some other device (Croke 1995:35).
While the saqiya was common in early modern Cyprus, we are far from certain that this was the case in the Middle Ages on the island as well as elsewhere throughout the empire.
Equally problematic in its pattern of diffusion and use in Byzantium is the qanat. The qanat technique is a means of tapping and conducting groundwater to the areas where it is needed. The technology is an eastern one, perhaps Persian (or Urartian) and was developed several millennia before Byzantium's floruit. The principle of the qanat is simple: a well is sunk into the aquifer to be exploited. Subsequent  are sunk in a line proceeding from the mother well and connected to one another through a horizontal shaft (thus the term sometimes employed in English 'chainof-wells').

Qanats were common in the early Byzantine east, especially along the desert margins of the Syrian steppe where their use was probably one of the major components of settlement viability in Late Antiquity. Qanats are also known in eastern Anatolia and are ideally suited to the semi-arid uplands. In Cappadocia a qanat of uncertain date is recorded at Caesarea (Goblot 1979: 126-217). Qanats were a major feature of the landscape on Cyprus in the early modern period. Though they probably pre-date the Turkish occupation there, we have no conclusive proof of this, nor do we know the extent of the qanafs spread over Byzantine Anatolia.


By Michael Decker in the book "The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies" edited by Elizabeth Jeffreys with John Haldon and Robin Cormack, Oxford University Press, New York, 2008, excerpts  p. 397-405. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.