The Exchange of Goods and the Construction of Identity: A Comparative Analysis of Byzantium and Al-Andalus

Throughout history, urban marketplaces have served as a space of nuanced social interaction, complicated by the ramifications of politics, economics, and religion. Beginning in the marketplaces of the classical world, specifically Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, the marketplace was used for political and cultural events, in addition to commercial ventures. The marketplaces of the classical world set the precedent for marketplace legislation and authority used throughout medieval Europe. In the Byzantine Empire, the marketplace was used as a space to assert communal identity and political power, as represented by marketplace legislation such as The Book of the Eparch and marketplace inspectors, called eparchos. The marketplaces of al- Andalus were a space in which religious devotion and power were exercised, also through marketplace legislation and muhtasibeen, the Andalusi marketplace inspectors. These three case studies are indicative of a greater Mediterranean marketplace culture in which these spaces were of paramount importance to the construction of identity and the assertion of power.