The last Venetian-Byzantine Trade Agreement and Mehmed II’s First Peace Agreement with Venice
abstract
The goal of this article is to compare two inter-state commercial charters as the title suggests, a chrysobull by the Byzantine emperor John VIII and a document signed by Mehmed the Conqueror. The Ottoman Empire at that time was expanding at the expense of the Venetian thalassocracy, and particularly Byzantium. Venice, in its turn, was deriving more trade privileges from the dying Byzantine Empire. The emphasis in the article will be put on the similarities between the documents proving the continuity in the various spheres of international politics in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period.
Keywords: Chrysobull • Venice • Ahd-nāme • Sultan Mehmed II • Trade privileges • John VIII Paleologus • Byzantium • Ottoman empire