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

Abulafia wrote about Crete that `strategically and politically Crete was a promising prize. '236
David Jacoby examined Crete in the context of maritime navigation and trade routes. Jacoby
argued that `only gradually was Crete integrated in that period within the shipping and
commercial networks of Venice and Genoa, the two western maritime powers displaying interest
in the island. '237 This probably explains why before 1204 the island attracted mainly pirates.
David Abulafia mentioned that before the conquest of the island by Henry of Malta, the corsair
Alamanno da Costa `had already been in Cretan waters, and in 1199 Genoese pirates may have
been using Fraskia as a base. '238
Piracy in the Mediterranean was not a new phenomenon at the beginning of the thirteenth
century. According to Fotheringham, piracy was `practised by Genoa since the catastrophe of
1182. i239 Guglielmo Grasso was a famous pirate already in 1187, when he and his Pisan colleague
were described in the Genoese annals as pirates: ambo essent pyrate. The Genoese Regni
Iherosolymitani Brevis Historia related how the two pirates managed to lay hands on the remains
of the True Cross (crux vera), a gift that Saladin had sent to the Byzantine Emperor Isaac Angelos
after the fall of the first kingdom of Jerusalem 24° Piracy went alongside diplomacy in the city
state's international affairs. Thomas van Cleve showed that Markward von Anweiler and
Guglielmo Grasso had been on good terms for a very long time before 1201. In 1199 Grasso
commanded the Genoese vessels that shipped Markward to Sicily. David Abulafia further
mentioned how `Henry VI appointed to both offices the first Genoese Count [of Malta] and
Admiral, Guglielmo Grasso. 241
The reasons for Grasso's eventual imprisonment by Markward
are not known, but as was argued above and as David Abulafia summarised, `the quarrel was as
much between Genoa and the Germans in Sicily as between Grasso and Anweiler. '242 The role of
these pirates - admirals in the German-Sicilian politics and the early counts of Malta were studied
by Leon-Robert Menager who also wrote about Grasso that in making this shift from piracy to
acting as count and admiral of the empire Grasso was the successor of Margarit of Brindisi who
236
David Abulafia, 'Henry Count of Malta', p. 114
237
David Jacoby, `Byzantine Crete in the Navigation and Trade Networks of Venice and Genoa', in Laura
Balletto, Oriente e occidente tra medioevo ed eta moderna, studi in onore di Geo Pistarino (Genoa, 1997),
3518 8 David Abulafia, `Henry Count of Malta', pp. 114-5; see also Fotheringham, `Genoa and the Fourth
Crusade', pp. 43-6.
239
Fotheringham, `Genoa and the Fourth Crusade', p. 27.
240
Regni Iherosolymitani brevis historia, in Ann. Ian., vol. 1, p. 141; and see David Abulafia, `Henry Count
of Malta', p. 108.
241
David Abulafia, `Henry Count of Malta', p. 108.
242 David Abulafia, `Henry Count of Malta', p. 109.
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