Sutton Hoo: First finished pieces of Anglo-Saxon ship joined

[Imperial Dave]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-59236347

little steps but will be awesome when complete

[Aetius]

Amazing who they traded with...

John

[Jim Webster]

Amazing who they traded with...

John

It's interesting how the 'Mediterranean world' still hung together. When you stop to think about it, the technology hadn't regressed much if at all, only the politics had changed. So the biggest hurdles to continuing trade were probably just the political

[Aetius]

So the Mare Nostrum became the Divisa Mari...

John

[Jim Webster]

So the Mare Nostrum became the Divisa Mari...

John

Pretty much. The problems of piracy and the fact that if you landed at a port you couldn't guarantee that the authorities wouldn't rob/execute you put off most merchants

[Erpingham]

So the Mare Nostrum became the Divisa Mari...

John

Pretty much. The problems of piracy and the fact that if you landed at a port you couldn't guarantee that the authorities wouldn't rob/execute you put off most merchants

But the "social contract" also persisted - sieze one merchants goods and thats all you'd get.  Protect the merchant and lots of merchants and goods would appear.  "Gifts" might be expected from grateful traders to those in authority. 

[Jim Webster]

So the Mare Nostrum became the Divisa Mari...

John

Pretty much. The problems of piracy and the fact that if you landed at a port you couldn't guarantee that the authorities wouldn't rob/execute you put off most merchants

But the "social contract" also persisted - sieze one merchants goods and thats all you'd get.  Protect the merchant and lots of merchants and goods would appear.  "Gifts" might be expected from grateful traders to those in authority.

Payments for this sort of protection were not particularly frowned upon, in the later Roman Empire the charges you were expected to pay to everybody in the legal process, from the judge down, were carved on the wall

I worked it out, if the numbers were correct, and allowing for relative spending power, even with that level of 'corruption' a late Roman civil court case might still have been cheaper than a modern civil court case

[Erpingham]

I was thinking more in the shadowy world when the rule of Roman law had lost it's grip.  A Mediterranean trader bringing luxuries into, say, Cornwall would expect local protection.  While there may no longer have been a set of charges carved in a wall, there would still no doubt be customary tolls, taxes, kickbacks to be negotiated.  These, of course, created a vested interest in protecting merchants rather than robbing them.  Whether rulers had any interest in foreign trade as a polity wide economic matter, or simply because it gave them access to the good things in life, I wouldn't know.

[Imperial Dave]

trade brings items that cant be obtained in the locality and with it kudos for the local king who control, tax and distribute such items

[Imperial Dave]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-59233062

little addendum