The canon Usurarum voraginem (VI 5.5.1), promulgated in 1274 at the Second Council of Lyon, called for the expulsion of foreign usurers and threatened recalcitrant authorities with excommunication and interdict. This article argues that the expulsion provision was indebted to contemporary French royal legislation for its contents and wording, rather than to any prior tradition within canon law. The case of Usurarum voraginem is therefore a rare example of direct influence of ius proprium on the ius canonicum. As seen from the dozens of surviving commentaries on the canon from the thirteenth through the mid-fifteenth century, Usurarum voraginem not only spurred canonists to debate its reach and implementation, but also led them to engage with current discussions of citizenship and foreignness. Finally, the article examines how the canon came to provide justification for expelling not only Christian usurers, but their Jewish counterparts as well.||  Der Kanon Usurarum voraginem (VI 5.5.1), der 1274 auf dem Zweiten Konzil von Lyon verkündet wurde, rief zur Vertreibung fremder Wucherer auf und drohte aufsässigen Obrigkeiten mit Exkommunikation und Interdikt. Dieser Artikel vertritt die Auffassung, dass sowohl der Inhalt als auch der Wortlaut des Aufrufes zur Vertreibung der Wucherer dem zeitgenössischen französischen königlichen Recht und nicht den bereits bestehenden Traditionen des kanonischen Rechts geschuldet ist. Demzufolge ist der Usurarum voraginem ein seltenes Beispiel des direkten Einflusses des ius proprium auf das ius canonicum. Wie Dutzende aus der Zeit des 13. bis zur Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts erhaltene Kommentare zum Kanon bezeugen, bewegte der Usurarum voraginem die damaligen Kanonisten nicht nur dazu, die Anwendung und die Tragweite des Kanons zu erörtern, sondern auch dazu, sich mit dem Status des Bürgers und des Fremden auseinanderzusetzen. Darüber hinaus untersucht der Artikel, wie der Kanon Usurarum voraginem zur Rechtfertigung für die Vertreibung sowohl christlicher als auch jüdischer Wucherer herangezogen wurde.

Angeliki Laiou (1941-2008), one of the leading Byzantinists of her generation, broke new ground in the study of the social and economic history of the Byzantine Empire. Economic Thought and Economic Life in Byzantium, the last of three volumes to be published posthumously in the Variorum Collected Studies Series, brings together twelve articles that reflect her perennial concern with the relationship of theory and practice in historical contexts. Two of these are translated from Greek and German, respectively, and another is here published for the first time. The six articles in the first part explore several lively and wide-ranging debates over economic concepts and practices in late medieval Byzantium, touching on such concerns as usury, regalian rights, and the proper functioning of the market. The articles in the second part examine the nature and role of cities, villages, and the countryside in Byzantium, together with the rich and varied experiences of their inhabitants.

Angeliki Laiou (1941-2008), one of the leading Byzantinists of her generation, broke new ground in the study of the social and economic history of the Byzantine Empire. Byzantium and the Other: Relations and Exchanges, the second of three volumes to be published posthumously in the Variorum Collected Studies Series, brings together fourteen articles published between 1982 and 2012 that reflect her enduring interest in Byzantium's political, ideological, and commercial relations with its neighbours. The first three articles examine Byzantine attitudes and institutional responses to foreigners and strangers within the empire, while the next four concern Byzantium's response to the Crusades and, more generally, to questions of justice in the spheres of conflict and colonisation. The final seven articles investigate Byzantium's political and commercial relations with other regional and Mediterranean powers; particular emphasis is placed on Venice and Genoa, whose increasing involvement in the Byzantine economy so marked the final centuries of the empire's existence. Reviews: 'As this collection of papers worthily represents, Angeliki Laiou’s scholarship deserves wide dissemination and readership for those interested in Byzantium, the Crusades, and Mediterranean economic history. Her insightful interaction with numerous sources both Byzantine and otherwise coupled with her originality of approach make for both interesting and essential reading. The editors, Cécile Morrison and Rowan Dorin, as well as Ashgate, deserve our gratitude for bringing these articles together and making them accessible.' Reviews in History

Over the course of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, the Adriatic Sea underwent profound political and economic transformations. Among the most enduring of these was the expansion of Venetian control over the Adriatic sea-lanes that so marked the subsequent history of the region. Drawing on the rich familial archives of Venice, this paper offers a sketch of the ways in which this expansion spurred the commercial activities of Venetian families within the region, activities that themselves served to reinforce Venetian economic dominance and ultimately to integrate the Adriatic into a regional trade system. In particular, it argues that the increasing importance of the Adriatic region to Venice’s economic well-being, as well as the development of a specifically intra-Adriatic trade system, can be seen in a striking shift in the private commercial activities of Venetian merchants around the year 1200.

Angeliki Laiou (1941-2008), one of the leading Byzantinists of her generation, broke new ground in the study of the social and economic history of the Byzantine Empire. Women, Family and Society in Byzantium, the first of three volumes to be published posthumously in the Variorum Collected Studies Series, brings together eight articles published between 1993 and 2009. Demonstrating Professor Laiou's characteristic attention to the relationship between ideology and social practice, the first five articles concern the status of women as evidenced through legal, narrative, hagiographical, and archival sources, while the final three investigate conceptions of law and justice, the vocabulary and typology of peasant rebellions, and the and the form and evolution of political agreements in Byzantine society.

The iconographic program of the episcopal throne in the basilica of San Nicola inBari,Italy, has proven tenaciously enigmatic, particularly on account of the central figure on the throne’s base, whose identity has so far eluded scholars. The author reinterprets the Bari throne in light of late eleventh-century ecclesiastical politics, notes artistic echoes within the Adriatic, and demonstrates the crucial importance of contemporary Fatimid art to an understanding of the central figure, who was likely intended to represent a Muslim. The throne is thus reconceived as the expression of a dialogue between a crusading pope and a consolidating prelate, as a response to the social upheaval prompted by the Norman conquest of southernItaly, and as new evidence for cross-Mediterranean cultural contacts at the dawn of the Crusades.