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

Introduction:
The merchant of Genoa is the figurative hero of this dissertation. The real heroes were many
people, merchants who lived in Genoa, travellers who explored the Mediterranean Sea, men of
war and peace, crusaders and also the Genoese who settled in the crusader states, far away from
Genoa. What these people had in common, apart from being Genoese, is that they left records of
their activities in the form of notarial documents. These records were registered
in large
notebooks, better known as cartularies, and were later deposited in the archive of Genoa, where
whatever remains is nowadays accessible. Probably this is the earliest time in the history of
Europe in which such documents were not only recorded but also preserved for posterity.
Coincidentally, the period in which these documents were written was also one of the most
interesting periods in the history of Europe and the Mediterranean,
the time of the crusades. This
means that from the perspective of the history of the crusades, there is a bulk of documents that
have not been previously utilised. It is also exciting from the perspective of the Genoese history,
because
it provides a special opportunity to examine the Genoese contribution to the crusades and
to the crusading states. This was the reason for pursuing this research beginning with the
examination of thousands of such notarial documents, published and unpublished ones, covering
a period of several decades.
Historians who have examined the evolvement of Italian commerce have raised the
question of the impact of the crusade on the patterns of trade. In particular, it has been asked if
the foundation of the crusader states created an alternative to trade in Alexandria. In his article
`Trade and Crusade, 1050-1250', David Abulafia reviewed the existing historiography on the
matter. Adolf Schaube's theory was that the crusader states were used as a station for the Italian
merchants in order to sell their commodities for local bezants before they continued to Egypt to
purchase goods with this money. Abulafia argued against this theory utilising notarial evidence
that reveals that many merchants who travelled to the Latin East did not travel to Alexandria
while many others sailed directly to Alexandria where they sold merchandise and bought other
goods. ' The current study will take this issue a step further by examining the ways in which three
crusades affected commercial activities, trade with the Latin East and with Alexandria, and how
1 David Abulafia, `Trade and Crusade1050-1250', in Michael Goodich, Sophia Menache and Sylvia Schein
(eds.
), Cross Cultural Convergences
in the Crusader Period (New York, 1995), pp. 14; Adolf Schaube,
Mandelgeschichte
der romanischen Völker des Mittelmeergebiets bis zum Ende der Kreuzzüge (München,
1906), pp. 152-169. Abulafia thus accepts Erik Bach's arguments about the nature of Italian trade in the
Latin East, but takes this argument further. See Erik Bach, La Cite de genes au XI! siecle (Copenhagen,
1955). See also Eugene H. Byrne, `Commercial Contracts of the Genoese in the Syrian Trade of the
Twelfth Century', The Quarterly Journal of Economics 31 (1917), p. 134, n. 1; Claude Cahen, Orient et
occident au temps des croisades (Paris, 1983), p. 192.
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