The Crusades, the Genoese and the Latin East - DSpace at ...

town may contribute to the understanding of how the Embriaci perceived their possession of
Gibelet in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Most of the cartularies in the notarial archive of Genoa contain contracts that involved
members of the Embriaco family. The cartulary of the notary Guglielmo di Sori from the
beginning of the thirteenth century is especially valuable, because Guglielmo di Sori is to be
considered the notary of the Embriaco family and his unpublished cartularies contain dozens of
acts by members of the family. 90 These contracts make an important supplement to other
sources, because they allow access to the study of the Genoese branch of the Embriaco family in
the context of its members' vast commercial activities in the crusader states and elsewhere.
Gibelet and the Embriaco family in historiography
For historians of the crusades the story of the Embriaco family in Gibelet is interesting for several
reasons. However, scholarship has, thus far, paid relatively little attention to the family or to
Gibelet. In Genoa, the Embriaci attracted slightly more attention, because
the family belonged to
one of the most influential political groups in the city. In Steven Epstein's words, the Embriaci
`were at the pinnacle of Genoese society in terms of prestige and wealth. '391 The historiography
regarding the Embriaci in the Latin East begins with Emmanuel Rey's study of the family as part
of his research on the genealogy of the nobility of the crusader states. Rey published two articles
about the Embriaci. Rey included the first version with his publication of Charles du Cange's
manuscript entitled Les Families d'Outre-mer (published by Rey almost 200 years after du
Cange's death in 1869). Rey published an amended version in the Revue de 1'Orient latin (ROL)
in 1895.392 Rey drew primarily on the Lignages d'Outremer, a medieval collection of histories of
families from the crusader states and Cyprus 393
In the first article he failed to make enough use of
the Genoese sources. In the second version Rey utilised the Genoese Liber lurium but did not
examine any of the notarial documents. Furthermore, Rey's point of view was limited to
genealogy. Consequently, he paid little attention to cultural or social histories.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Eugene Byrne further contributed to the
understanding of the motivations behind the activities of the Embriaci by placing their experience
in the Latin East in the context of Genoese shipping and commerce at the time. Moreover, his
pioneer study of the collection of cartularies in the notarial archive of Genoa proved that these
390 On Guglielmo di Sod and the Embriaco family, see David Abulafia, The Two Italies: Economic
Relations between the Norman Kingdom of Sicily and the Northern Communes (Cambridge, 1977), p. 19.
391 Steven Epstein, Wills and Wealth in Medieval Genoa, 1150-1250, (Cambridge Mass., 1984). p. 69.
392 Baron Emmanuel G. Rey, `Les seigneurs de Giblet', in Charles du Cange, Les Families d'ouire-mer, ed.
Emmanuel G. Rey (Paris, 1869) pp. 316-327; ROL 3 (1895), pp. 398-421.
393
Alan V. Murray, `Prosopographical Research on the Crusader States', Prosopon: Newsletter of the Unit
for Prosopographical Research 4 (January 1996), online:
http: //www. linacre. ox. ac. uk/research/prosop/prspn4.
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