Identity and Forced Labour in the Imperial Textile Workshops, 4th-10th Centuries

Abstract

Imperial silks were highly symbolic in the Byzantine world and were important conveyors of the imperial image. Despite this fact, the factories and workers that produced them have been little studied. This article attempts to remedy this gap in the academic literature by examining the sources of labour in the imperial textile factories from their inception in the fourth century. It proposes that forced labour was a key factor of these factories, and that this created an environment in which the workers enabled the development of a collective identity which gave them agency in the power politics of the state. It further suggests that the mode of production was implied by the material, embedding the imperial textile factories into the social fabric of Byzantine society.