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

notary Lanfranco from the first eight months of 1203 were of a domestic nature. They concern
properties, mobile and immobile goods, wills as well as marriage agreements. By contrast, the
cartulary of Giovanni di Guiberto from the same year contains 508 records out of which 302 are
travelling contracts. Significantly, all the documents in this cartulary were written in a span of
two and a half months from 19 September 1203, during the autumn sailing period. When the trade
routes and the travel history of Genoese ships are being examined, it is important to bear in mind
that the contracts present the sailing plans only before setting off from Genoa. The way the routes
changed later on in the journey is not known. Shelomo Goitein, for example, argued that `it was
common for the people represented in the Geniza records to travel on Genoese, Pisan or Gaetan
ships, as well as vessels of other western powers. '4 In the records of Genoa, however, the story is
one-sided.
Unlike letters of concessions, charters and other diplomatic documents, a single notarial
record only rarely tells a complete story. Even when information is gathered from several notarial
records they generally reveal just scattered parts of the sequence of events. Remie Constable
noted how `notarial materials are more suited to showing the results of change than change
itself. '5 This observation holds an important lesson for whoever wishes to use notarial documents
in research. Patterns must be identified first, before one can recognise any change that may have
occurred. The time factor is important too. From the instant major political or military changes
occurred, it took some time until the change could become noticeable in notarial acts. For
example, it will be argued that the earliest written permission given to merchants by their residing
partners to travel to Aleppo was granted in September 1203. The diplomatic negotiations that
made this route available, however, must have taken place beforehand. Moreover, none of the
contracts explains when this travel route was opened or why merchants wanted to travel to
Aleppo to begin with. In Chapter Two, these permissions will be examined in the context of the
changes in the Mediterranean's web of commerce during the course of the Fourth Crusade. It will
be argued that there is some correlation between these events. The opening of the route to Aleppo
will be discussed in the context of the relationship between Genoa and Byblos, a city on the route
between the ports of the kingdom of Jerusalem and Aleppo. Importantly, Byblos was originally
granted to the cathedral church of St Lawrence and the commune of Genoa and was ruled by
descendents of the noble Genoese family Embriaco. This family connection and the history of the
a Shelomo D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: An Abridgment in One Volume, ed. Jacob Lassner,
(Berkeley, 1999), pp. 36-7.
Olivia R. Constable, `Genoa and Spain in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Notarial Evidence for a
Shift in Patterns of Trade', Journal of European Economic History, 19: 3 (1990), p. 637.
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