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

contains some useful information about Genoese society in the Latin East and it will be discussed
at greater length in the Chapter Five. In the following discussion, however, there will be an
attempt to make use of some of the economic implications of this report that might enable a better
understanding of the questions presented above.
An interesting clue emerges from the value of the sum collected from Acre as a census
when compared to other revenues. A comparison between this figure of £50 (or 150 bezants) and
the revenues of the Genoese commune from its possessions in Acre in the middle of the thirteenth
century will show that it was not a significant amount of money. It was clearly not a large sum in
terms of commerce but also not a significant tax. In the year 1248, the consuls Simon Malocello
and Guglielmo de Bulgaro collected 1,047 bezants and 12 carats. In the following year, the
consuls Simon Malocello and Ogerio Ricii were supposed to receive 1,843 bezants and 18 carats.
The consuls of the commune therefore collected revenues of more or less ten times more than the
sum that Ottone Giudice and Ugo Ferrario were sent to collect in 1200 and 1222! These figures
are derived from the first four sections in the report concerning the rent ad passagium which
means short term rent during the sailing season, and rent ad annum. A recent analysis of this text
was published by Robert Kool, who identified eight sections in the text, which are also being used
in the current analysis 504 The amount collected from the rent was probably exaggerated to some
extent because
the report was compiled especially to be used in the conflict between the Genoese
and the Venetian communes when they presented mutual demands for compensation.
505
Importantly, three sections in the report concern the census. Kool did not explain what
was this census paid for, but it can be easily inferred from his description that he interpreted it as
land tax as opposed to ownership of the houses themselves. This seems a correct interpretation in
essence and is clearly based on an old analysis of these three sections of the report by Joshua
Prawer. Prawer, however, classified these three sections as one because they are all about the
same tax. 506 Prawer suggested assessing the size of houses according to the amount of tax paid for
them. He wrote `as the tens certainly reflects in some measure the size of the house, it is worth
tabulating the respective cens. iS07 This idea, however, requires careful analysis. Section number
six in the report is concerned with the census from property that was built in one of the following
parts of the Genoese quarter, the burgensia or in rugam comunis Ianuae S08 The total amount
collected for this census was 358 bezants and 12 carats. Only a few houses that belonged to the
504 Robert Kool, `The Genoese Quarter in Thirteenth-Century Acre'. Kool analysed the urban layout of the
quarter and not the economic side of the report. The report itself was not republished by him. See Cornelio
Desimoni, `Quatre Titres des proprietes Genois A Acre et ä Tyr' in AOL 2 (1884), Documents, pp. 213-222.
505 See more about this report in Chapter Five.
506 Kool, ibid, p. 190; Joshua Prawer, Crusader Institutions (Oxford, 1980), pp. 239-241.
507 Prawer, ibid, p. 240.
508 Desimoni, ibid, p. 219.
139