The poverty of the Patriarchate of Grado and the Byzantine–Venetian Treaty of 1082
The imperial chrysobull granted to the Venetian state in 1082 provided the Venetians with considerable economic advantages throughout the Byzantine Empire, and had a major impact on the political relationship of the two powers down to the Fourth Crusade. Yet the chrysobull also granted considerable monies to the metropolitan of Venice, the Patriarch of Grado. In the decades prior to 1082 Grado had suffered from systemic poverty, and various attempts by the Doge to solve this problem failed. The grant of large sums in gold in the chrysobull was aimed at solving this problem. Even this ultimately failed, and another proviso of the chrysobull, the grant of a merchant quarter in Constantinople to Venice, eventually became a funding tool for Grado and other Venetian ecclesiastical institutions.
Byzantine trade privileges to Venice in the eleventh century: the chrysobull of 1092
The question of the grant by the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos of an extensive series of concessions to Venice in the late eleventh century has generated considerable attention among modern commentators. Of particular importance is the correct assessment of the date at which the generous privileges were awarded. Recent treatments of this subject have concluded that the traditional dating of 1082, which sets the Byzantine award in the context of the Norman attacks on Epirus of 1081–1085, is likely to be correct. This paper offers a rather different interpretation, arguing that the correct context for the concessions is in fact 1092. Moreover, it is stressed that this is the date provided on both the full versions of the chrysobull which survive in Latin translations. The paper sets out the case in support of this date on literary, palaeographical, numismatic and contextual grounds. Apart from having an impact on analysis of Byzantium’s relations with Venice in the eleventh century, this new interpretation also has important implications for our assessment of the Byzantine context for the First Crusade.
ATP-dependent S-(2,4-dinitrophenyl)glutathione transport in canalicular plasma membrane vesicles from rat liver.
Uptake of the thioether S-(2,4-dinitrophenyl)glutathione (DNPSG) in canalicular plasma membrane vesicles from rat liver is enhanced in the presence of ATP and exhibits an overshoot with a transient 5.5-fold accumulation of DNPSG. Stimulation by ATP is not caused by the generation of a membrane potential, based on responses of the indicator dye oxonol V. ATP-dependent uptake has an apparent Km of 71 microM for DNPSG and a Vmax of 0.34 nmol.min-1.mg of vesicle protein-1. Protein thiol groups are essential for transport activity as indicated by the sensitivity of DNPSG transport to sulfhydryl reagents. There is competitive inhibition with other thioethers, S-hexylglutathione (Ki = 66 microM), the photoaffinity label S-(4-azidophenacyl)glutathione (Ki = 56 microM), as well as with glutathione disulfide (Ki = 0.44 mM) and with the bile acid taurocholate (Ki = 0.61 mM). GSH (2 mM) or cholate (0.4 mM) does not inhibit. Both glutathione disulfide and taurocholate show ATP-dependent transport in the canalicular membrane vesicles which is inhibited by DNPSG. No ATP-dependent transport is found for GSH. Transport of DNPSG is also inhibited competitively by alpha-naphthyl-beta-D-glucuronide (Ki = 0.42 mM) but not by alpha-naphthylsulfate (2 mM), and there is substantial inhibition with the glucuronides from ebselen and p-nitrophenol. The results indicate that the canalicular transport system for DNPSG is directly driven by ATP and that the biliary transport of other classes of compounds may also proceed via this system.