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The Mongols and the Black Sea Trade in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth CenturiesEast Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450 General Editor Florin Curta VoluME 20 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/eceeThe Mongols and the Black Sea Trade in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries By Virgil Ciocîltan Translated by Samuel Willcocks lEidEn • BoSTon 2012This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering latin, iPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. iSSn 1872-8103 iSBn 978-90-04-22666-1 (hardback) iSBn 978-90-04-23643-1 (e-book) Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill nV, leiden, The n etherlands. Koninklijke Brill nV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global oriental, Hotei Publishing, idC Publishers and Martinus nijhoff Publishers. All rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood drive, Suite 910, d anvers, MA 01923, uSA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Cover illustration: The ruins of the Genoese fortress at Soldaia (Sudak), Crimean Peninsula. An important location for trading in the 12th and 13th centuries. ©Photograph by Virgil Ciocîltan. library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data Ciocîltan, Virgil. [Mongolii si Marea neagra în secolele Xiii–XiV. English] The Mongols and the Black Sea trade in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries / by Virgil Ciocîltan ; translated by Samuel Willcocks. p. cm. — (East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450, 1872–8103 ; v. 20) includes bibliographical references and index. iSBn 978-90-04-22666-1 (hbk. : alk. paper) — iSBn 978-90-04-23643-1 (e-book) 1. Mongols—Commerce—Black Sea Region. 2. Golden Horde—Commerce—Europe. 3. Europe—Commerce—Golden Horde. 4. Black Sea Region—Commerce—History. 5. Black Sea Region—Economic conditions. i. Title. HF3750.8.C5613 2012 382.09182’29—dc23 2012028032ConTEnTS Acknowledgements vii list of Maps ix 1 Preliminary Remarks 1 1.1 The Mongols and Trade . 2 1.1.1 Sources and Historiographical Concepts 3 1.1.2 The Khan and the Merchants: A Symbiotic Relationship . 8 1.1.3 The Silk Road as the Spine of Eurasian Commerce 20 1.1.4 The nomads and the Silk Road . 23 1.2 The Mongols and the Black Sea 30 1.2.1 Continental Possessions, Maritime Horizons 30 1.2.2 Expansion and Blockade 32 1.2.3 The Black Sea—A Crossroads of Eurasian Trade . 34 2 The Mongol Expansion and the Eurasian Commercial Axes . 37 2.1 The Silk Road as a Channel for Expansion 37 2.1.1 Chinggis Khan and the Silk Road 37 2.1.2 The Silk Road under the Protectorate of the Golden Horde 42 2.2 The Spice Road: Assault on the Fertile Crescent . 55 2.2.1 The last Pan-Mongol Campaign to the West: Half a Victory . 55 2.2.2 The ilkhanate—Chief Beneficiary of Western Asian Expansion . 58 3 The disintegration of the Empire: intra- and Extra-Mongol Commercial Rivalries 61 3.1 The Jochid-ilkhanid Struggle for Tabriz . 61 3.2 Cilician Armenia in the ilkhanid-Mamluk Struggle for the Fertile Crescent . 68 3.3 Political Consequences: The Sarai-Cairo-Tabriz Triangle . 88 3.3.1 The Sarai-Cairo Axis and its Allies . 89 3.3.2 The ilkhanid-Genoese Alliance 95vi contents 3.4 The Commercial implications: Connecting the Black Sea to the Eurasian Trade network . 95 3.4.1 The Jochid Branch: urgench-Sarai-Tana/Caffa . 96 3.4.2 The ilkhanid Branch: Tabriz-Trebizond 114 4 The Golden Horde and the Black Sea . 141 4.1 The origin of the Golden Horde’s Black Sea Policy . 141 4.1.1 The Cumans and the Black Sea Trade . 141 4.1.2 Batu: Black Sea Trade in the Shadow of Tabriz 144 4.1.3 Berke and the loss of Tabriz: The Basis of the Golden Horde’s Black Sea Policy . 148 4.2 Cooperation and Confrontation with the italian Merchant Republics 150 4.2.1 The Beginnings 152 4.2.2 noghai and Toqta, the Genoese and Venetians: The Battle for the Black Sea Trade . 157 4.2.3 Toqta: Cooperation and Rupture 163 4.2.4 Özbek: Cooperation Reaches its Peak . 173 4.2.5 Janibek: The Great Rupture 199 4.2.6 Berdibek and Mamai: The low Point 219 4.2.7 Toqtamïsh: A Brief Revival 225 4.3 The Problem of the Straits and the Tartar Solution . 241 4.3.1 The Battle for the Straits and for the Seljuk Sultanate 241 4.3.2 A Guardian of the Straits: The Khanate of the lower danube . 248 4.3.3 Tartar Policy Between the Carpathians and the Straits After the End of noghai’s Khanate 259 5 Conclusion: The Black Sea, Crossroads and Bypass of Eurasian Trade 281 The Main Chinggisid Rulers 283 Bibliography . 285 index . 301ACKnoWlEdGEMEnTS This book was originally a doctoral thesis, and i owe its composition, along with my whole training as a historian, to Professor Şerban Papa- costea, member of the Romanian Academy, who has supervised my work as a researcher at the nicolae iorga institute of History in Bucharest since 1971. Professor Gottfried Schramm, Professor ulrich Haarmann, Professor dieter Mertens and doctor ursula ott of the Albert ludwig university of Freiburg gave me unstinting support, in word and in deed, while i was gathering source material in German libraries with the help of a stipend from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. My great good fortune in having such help and support became clear to me ten years later back home in Romania, when i set about updating the bibliography for the English edi- tion of this work. Although much can be achieved with research on the internet and inter-library loans, i sorely felt my lack of access to libraries such as that of the Freiburg orientalisches Seminar, which undoubtedly contain a wealth of recent literature on the topic which i could not, alas, include. Samuel Willcocks and his wife, dr Maria Pakucs, have ensured that the English translation follows my arguments and style in the Romanian ver- sion of the book as closely as possible, while dr iuliana Barnea’s profes- sional and painstaking work on the maps has illustrated the sweep and scope of these arguments. To all these people, and to the institutions named, i owe my most heart- felt gratitude. liST oF MAPS These maps can be found at the back of the book 1. Black Sea (Xiii–XiV centuries) 2. Mongol states (after 1261) 3. Trade Routes before 1241 4. Trade Routes, 1241–1261 5. Trade Routes, 1261–1291 6. Trade Routes, 1291–1335 7. Trade Routes, 1335–1395chapter one preLIMInarY reMarKS It is a well-established fact that in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Black Sea benefited from an economic boom without parallel in the Middle ages, since during this period more than any other this crossroads region fulfilled the function that Gheorghe Brătianu so aptly described as a “plaque tournante” (“turntable”) of the eurasian trade.1 the romanian historian made extensive studies of the commercial activity of Western seafarers in the Black Sea, and especially of the inter- ests and actions of the Venetians and, predominantly, the Genoese.2 he must also be credited with the insight that the famous Pax Mongolica was fundamental to the development of trade in the Black Sea as in all the other areas across which it extended.3 nevertheless, along with all those who shared this historical view, he missed two factors: shifts within the great web of long-distance trade routes controlled by the chinggisids, and the khans’ own concrete initiatives in the realm of Black Sea trade. Both were of supreme importance for the truly exceptional economic develop- ment of the Black Sea region. It is impossible to correctly appreciate the importance of these factors, their profound implications and the specific forms which they took, with- out first clarifying the attitudes of the Mongol rulers to trade in general. the first step in such an assessment is to research the sources, and the his- toriographical concepts and approaches, touching on relations between the khans and the merchants. 1 See the title: “La mer noire, plaque tournante du trafic international à la fin du Moyen Âge” (Brătianu, “La mer noire”). 2 this perspective runs throughout his work, from the doctoral thesis that became Brătianu, Recherches, to the posthumously published monograph, Brătianu, Mer Noire; the most important works are listed in the Bibliography. 3 cf. ibid. 2 chapter one 1.1 The Mongols and Trade there is no escaping the fact that the massacres and devastation which the Mongols left in their wake in the course of their conquests will for- ever—and rightly—cast a shadow over chinggisid history. nevertheless, even from the very start there were discordant notes in this dismal image: even those who suffered from the Mongol scourge could not restrain themselves from admiring comment on the conquerors’ military prowess. Similarly, the sheer size of the empire, which in the mid- thirteenth century extended from the pacific to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, was impressive. those who had direct experience of internal conditions in the state were among the most admiring voices. they did not hesitate to praise the law and order which the rulers could guarantee throughout the whole extent of the vast empire. positive opinion only increased once foreign travellers, merchants or missionaries, came forward to say that not only did the ‘barbarians’ not forbid access to the territories that they ruled, but they even encouraged travellers to their enormous eurasian domain. this welcoming attitude was all the more surprising since it so visibly went against the well-known practice in Islamic and Byzantine lands of com- pletely forbidding foreigners to travel in the interior of the country. Indeed, the most positive accomplishment in all of chinggisid history is precisely the extraordinary ease of access and transit which they created in an enormous geographical space. people from the most diverse cultural regions, heretofore isolated from one another, came into contact for the first time, came to know one another, and exchanged material goods and religious or intellectual ideas. among the first to take advantage of the abolition of traditional barri- ers and the opening of new horizons were, of course, merchants. It is self- evident that in such unusual conditions, transcontinental trade developed at a dizzying rate, on a scale unprecedented in the Middle ages. historians agree in emphasising that this measure was the Mongol khans’ decisive contribution to the development of the global economy. no significant voices deny the achievement, just as no arguments would be sufficient to refute this major fact in world history. Sadly, the historical consensus is not demonstrably based on concrete proofs. It is here, precisely in the domain of academic rigour and demon- stration, above and beyond any general impressions, that the difficulties begin. as might easily be supposed, the main fault underlying this state of preliminary remarks 3 affairs—as in so many other instances in medieval history—is the scarcity of source material. 1.1.1 Sources and Historiographical Concepts one of those who deplored the paucity of information on trade during the time of Mongol rule was Bertold Spuler, unsurpassed as a scholar of chinggisid history. his remark on the situation in the tartar 4 state in Iran is indeed discouraging.5 Surviving written sources from the Ilkhanate6—where, as is well known, the long-established persian bureaucracy continued to function with a high degree of efficiency under the Mongols—give some idea, how- ever exiguous, of merchant activity and of the policies which this or that ruler may have adopted regarding the merchant class. It is no surprise then that a genuine steppe empire, as the Golden horde was, left incom- parably fewer documents as evidence. Indeed the output of documents issued by the khans of Desht-i Qïpchāq7 seems, by all appearances, to have been already very modest, and the number that has survived the ravages of time is so low that they can be counted on one’s fingers. nor is there any hope of supplementing this scanty internal source with information from private documents, since these too are notably absent. equally dis- couraging to researchers is the situation regarding narrative sources, since none of the rulers of the ulus of Jochi8 in the cuman steppe departed suf- ficiently far from nomad habits to feel any need to immortalise his deeds through the efforts of court chroniclers. By contrast, in the neighbouring Ilkhanate—as in china—the genius loci displaced at least a part of these established customs. In the fertile cultural soil of persia, works of history and literature flourished under Mongol rule which were no lesser in quality than those composed in other epochs under the patronage of local rulers.9 For instance, the works of 4 on the relation of the ethnonyms Mongol and Tartar, which were often synonymous in the Middle ages, cf. ciocîltan, “evoluţia.” 5 Spuler, Mongolen, p. 356 note 2: “es sei hier nochmals darauf hingewiesen, dass über den handel keinerlei originalzeugnisse (abrechnungen, Geschäftsbücher usw.) vorliegen, so dass hier nur einige notizen über diesen Gegenstand gesammelt werden können.” 6 on the meaning of the term, see below, chapter 3.1. 7 this persian expression for the ‘cuman steppeʼ is widely used in the oriental sources. 8 this is the common eastern term for the Golden horde; ulus “appanages, state, peo- ple” (CH Inner Asia, p. 487), and Jochi, the first-born son of chinggis Khan. 9 Browne, History, III.4 chapter one the great persian scholars ʿalā al-Dīn ʿaṭā Malik Juwaynī and Faḍl allāh rashīd al-Dīn are fundamental not just for understanding the history of the Ilkhanate, but also that of all other branches of the chinggisid dynasty down to the beginning of the fifteenth century; these works recorded and duly celebrated the deeds of the rulers at some length, but do not mention merchants except briefly and in passing, since this socio- professional class was valued no more highly in Muslim circles than it was in christian settings.10 although there are more internal Ilkhanid sources on trade than these persian chronicles alone, these cannot offer anywhere near as much infor- mation as external sources. these latter are more numerous and more comprehensive, offering the main body of evidence for the history of trade both during the time of the unitary empire and, after 1260, in the age of the Mongol successor states.11 of the multitude of documents, uncommonly heterogeneous both in genre and in place of origin, which happen to contain information about trade, it is worth paying clo