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

documents contain valuable information for family histories as well as the study of Genoese and
crusader societies. However, Byrne's framework was influenced by the experience of colonialism
of the nineteenth-century. He compared the commercial activities of the Genoese and their
settlements to colonialism in his time. He wrote, for example, of the Genoese view `of their
colonial possessions in the twelfth century. ' In his opinion, the Italian communes in the crusader
states `were not regarded or treated as daughter communes, scarcely as colonies, in the modern
sense of the term, but rather as trading posts, factories, where the Genoese merchants might easily
conduct their commerce.... '394 Despite this sort of anachronism in his study and the occasional
misinterpretation of the text, Byrne made an important contribution to the study of Genoese
involvement in the Latin East by utilising documents from the notarial archive. In particular,
since the cartulary of Gugliemo di Sori has not been published yet, some of Byrne's notes about
the Embriaci are relevant to the current study too. Furthermore, Byrne was the first to offer a
theory on the development of the relationship between Gibelet and Genoa. He wrote about the
Embriaco family that `the family exercised rigid authority over its various members in Syria... '
and also that `the elder branch of the family in Gibelet proved most difficult to control... they
were now on an equality with the great baronial families of Syria. '395 Byrne did not write much
more about Gibelet or on the nature of the relationship between its lords and the nobility in the
crusader states. The study of Genoese administration of its `colony' and possessions stood at the
core of Byrne's discussion. Similar approaches can be found in later works too. Claude Cahen
dedicated his book of 1940 to the northern parts of the crusader states. A short account of the
story of the Embriaci and Gibelet is included as part of the discussion of Tripoli and the noble
families in that county. Cahen, perhaps as a result of his Marxist affiliation at the time, limited his
discussion to the administration of the Italian communities and excluded their commercial
activities.
Il ne peut titre question d'etudier ici en aucune facon 1'organisation du commerce
maritime des Italiens, parce qu'elle ne concerne guere les habitants de la Syrie... Nous
dirons seulement un mot de 1'administration des colonies italiennes. 396
Cahen viewed the Embriaci as Genoese in essence, although he acknowledged a growing
tension between the Embriaci and Genoa. Even when the rift grew deeper between the two sides,
Cahen saw it as an administrative problem of the Genoese, with some economic advantages and
political disadvantages.
394 Eugene H. Byrne, `The Genoese Colonies in Syria', pp. 142-43.
395 Byrne, `The Genoese Colonies in Syria', pp. 150-51.
396 Claude Cahen, La Syrie du Nord a 1'epogue des croisades et la principaute frangue d'Antioche (Paris,
1940), p. 498.
113