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

Genoese names in the charters of Archbishop Joscius and Conrad of Montferrat include
Ansaldo de Nigro, Ansaldo Guaraco, Arloto vicecomes and Rollando Picio. These people
belonged to well known families in Genoa. However, there reason to believe that they were not
residents of Genoa: their names do not appear in any contemporary sources from Genoa before
1190 or after 1192. How many of these people lived in the Latin East before 1187 and how many
of them do not appear in the Genoese sources from the following years because
they perished in
the wars? Some, like presbyter Turdano and magister Blanco, the representatives of the religious
authorities in Tyre who received the concession from 'Archbishop Joscius, were probably
inhabitants of the Latin East before, as the document refers to them as simply lanuensibus
canonicis and not as canons of a particular church in Genoa sb' It is not impossible that those who
had Genoese surnames but appear for the first time in the Genoese
text as witnesses to royal acts
in Ultramare, were also inhabitants of the kingdom of Jerusalem before 1187.
The analysis of the process of reestablishment of the Genoese community in the Latin
East thus far showed that in many ways it was a complete new start for the commune. The influx
of new blood to the kingdom of Jerusalem was encouraged by the local lords to remain in Tyre
and Genoese individuals hastened to take advantage of these opportunities. The powerful
leadership of the commune was able to gain privileges that spelled the fast recovery of the
commune and advanced the position of the Genoese among other trading communities that were
active in the Latin East.
The Genoese financial and property reports from the Latin East
An additional source of information on the Genoese settlers is found in the property and financial
reports from the middle of the thirteenth century. These are interesting documents that offer some
ideas about life in the Genoese quarters in Acre and Tyre. There are many ways to analyse these
documents, as mentioned above, scholarship often concentrated on the geographical and urban
questions with an attempt to reconstruct maps of these urban units. However, the following
paragraphs will focus on several aspects concerning the people who lived in these Genoese
neighbourhoods. This means that the document written about Acre is of more significance to the
current analysis than the one written on Tyre, because it provides a list of house holders in the
burgensia and in the ruga comunis Ianuae. In contrast to Acre the report on Tyre only mentions
individuals and their property as an indication of the location of communal property.
The report on Acre has its shortfalls too. Unlike Prawer's assumption that the Genoese
list is inclusive of all the houses owned by members of the commune, it seems that the list is only
partial and excludes much of the private property. For example, the property of the church of
567
CDG, vol. 2, pp. 373-374.
166