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

previously embarked with him on the Third Crusade in 1189. They went together to
Constantinople in 1193 to discuss with the Emperor Isaac II Angelos the pressing problem of
piracy in the eastern Mediterranean and his stolen gifts that were sent to him by Saladin. 539
Similarly, when Maurino Rodoani finished his period of consulate in the Latin East he was sent to
Genoa carrying a communication from King Richard the Lion Heart who was then based in
Acre 540
From 1192 to the end of the century there is a noticeable change in the nature of the
Genoese consulate in the kingdom of Jerusalem in the form of significant reduction in the
diplomatic level employed to represent Genoa in the Latin East. Guillielmo Ricio, Nicola
Cartofigo, Ugo Lercario and the admiral Gafforio are more obscure names in the contemporary
sources. None of them had ever been a consul or served in an important diplomatic mission
before his assumption of the position in the kingdom of Jerusalem. Ugo Lercario was previously
mentioned with his brother Belmusto Lercario in the witness list of the first concession granted
by Conrad of Montferrat to the Genoese in 11 April 1190 541 However, there is evidence that by
1195 he was back in Genoa where he financed the arming of galleys to assist the Emperor Henry
VI in his Sicilian wars. 542
Apart from these fragments of evidence there is no more information
about him or any of the other consuls. Who were Nicola Cartofigo and Admiral Gafforio? In the
second charter of Henry of Champagne Admiral Gafforio is described on six occasions in the
charter as the admiral of the Genoese fleet
- amirato victoriosi stolii Ianuensium. 543 Michel
Balard mentions other activities of Gafforio (Kaphoures) , who was in fact an infamous Genoese
pirate who threatened and often pillaged the islnads and the shores of the Aegean 544
Byrne wrote about the Genoese consuls that they `were men of discreet age who had
served the commune in civil office before they were entrusted with the colonial service, '545 but
the current analysis shows that in reality the Genoese consulate in the Latin East had been
through several transformations during the years. Not all consuls had previously been in high
positions in Genoa or elsewhere; in fact some of them are not mentioned in the contemporary
539
Trattati, p. 37 no. 161; see documents which were written as a result of that mission in CDG, vol. 3, pp.
50-78. on Genoa and its relationship with Constantinople in the light of the problem of piracy see Charles
M. Brand, `The Byzantines and Saladin, 1185-1192: Opponents of the Third Crusade', Speculum 37: 2
(April, 1962), p. 172, no. 13; p. 178, n. 24
Sao CDG, vol. 3, no. 7, pp. 19-22.
Sat CDG, vol. 2, p. 371.
542 Trattati, 164, p. 37.
5431 Libri lurium 1/2, no 336, pp. 149-152.
544 Michel Balard, La Romanie genoise (XIIe debut
- duXVe siecle), in ASLSP 18 (92): 1 (1978), pp. 588-9.
See also, H6l8ne Ahrweiler, Byzance et lamer: la marine de guerre, la politique et les institutions
maritimes de Byzance aux VIIe-XVe siecles (Paris, 1966), pp. 288-292 and John K. Fotheringham, `Genoa
and the Fourth Crusade', The English Historical Review, 25 (1910), pp. 29-32
545
Byrne, `The Genoese Colonies in Syria', pp. 169-170.
155