A History of the Crusades-Vol 3 (47 page)

A certain number of herbs and spices were
exported. The most important was balm. As it was mainly used in Europe for the
services of the Church, balm from the Holy Land was particularly popular. In
the twelfth century it was grown in large quantities near Jerusalem. But the
crop was not easy to grow, as it needed expensive irrigation. After the Moslem
reconquest at the end of the century its cultivation declined and was soon
abandoned.

The Transit Trade

Far greater revenues were obtained by the
rulers of Outremer from merchandize that passed through the country. There was
an increasing demand in medieval Europe for Eastern goods, spices, dyes,
scented woods, and silk and porcelain, as well as for goods from the Moslem
countries just over the borders of Outremer. But this trade inevitably depended
on political circumstances in Asia. When the Crusades began the bulk of the Far
Eastern trade travelled by sea across the Indian Ocean and up the Red Sea to
Egypt, attracted by the wealth of the Egyptian cities and the security of
Fatimid rule away from its earlier route up the Persian Gulf to Baghdad. The
Syrian ports only served for the export of more local goods, such as indigo
from Iraq or Damascene metalwork, and for any spices from southern Arabia that
were carried by caravan rather than by boats. The petty wars that followed the
Turkish invasions at the end of the eleventh century did not encourage either
commerce or industry in the Syrian hinterland. It was only when Nur ed-Din and,
after him, Saladin made an ordered unit of Moslem Syria and Egypt that
prosperity in Syria revived. Local products increased, and goods from Iraq and
Persia could safely travel across to Aleppo or Horns or Damascus, and thence to
the sea. The ports used by the merchants of Aleppo were Saint Symeon, which
they reached through Antioch, and Lattakieh; Tortosa and Tripoli served as the
ports of Horns, and Acre for Damascus.

Though the Italians had helped the
Crusaders in the conquest of each of these ports, their main business interest
remained in Egypt. Acts concerned with commerce published in Venice during the
twelfth century mention Alexandria far more often than they mention Acre,
particularly after the Venetians had been ejected from Constantinople. The
records of the Genoese international lawyer Scriba during the years 1156 to
1164 show that nearly twice as many of his clients were interested in
Alexandria as in the Frankish East. It is also remarkable that during the first
half of the twelfth century most travellers bound from Europe to Palestine
either went first in Venetian or Genoese ships to Constantinople and thence by
land or in Greek coastal ships to Syria or else sailed direct from southern
Italy in ships of the kingdom of Sicily. It seems, therefore, that there were
not many ships from the Italian merchant-ports that made regular voyages to
Syria till the later years of the century. Till then the amount of goods that
passed through the Syrian ports cannot have been very large; and as the customs
duties on these transitory goods were only about 10 per cent of their value, it
is easy to understand why the exchequer of Outremer was seldom full and why the
Kings were so often tempted to go raiding at times when it would have been more
honourable and more diplomatic to keep the peace.

Role of the Italian Traders

It is also easy to understand why the
Italian maritime cities were shy of supporting the Crusade too readily. It
might be their Christian duty to aid the Franks against the Moslems. But their
whole prosperity depended upon the maintenance of good terms with the Moslems.
Whenever they gave help to a Christian enterprise they ran the risk of losing
their trading rights with Alexandria. Yet without their co-operation the
Crusaders could never have conquered the coastal cities; and the fact of their
co-operation shows that their problem was not so simple after all. The Genoese
sent help while the First Crusade was still at Antioch. A Pisan squadron set
out before the news of the capture of Jerusalem reached the West; and their
later coldness towards the kingdom of Jerusalem was due more to Baldwin I’s
quarrel with Daimbert, who had been their Archbishop, than to any commercial
calculation. Even the Venetians, who had the closest connection with Egypt, had
offered assistance to Godfrey of Lorraine just before his death. This policy
was not quite as risky as it seemed at first sight. Trade cannot exist unless
it is to the benefit of both parties. The Moslem authorities in Egypt had no
more wish than the Italians to break off commercial relations for long. Though
they might in an access of rage close Alexandria to Christian ships, they themselves
suffered from the interruption of business. Their reprisals were never
therefore enforced too strictly. In addition the Italians found many advantages
in securing a share of the newly conquered ports. In Moslem cities and even in
Constantinople they could never feel secure. A popular riot might destroy their
establishments, or the caprices of alien rulers might interfere with their
business. Though the actual volume of trade to be conducted through the
Christian Syrian ports might be less than through Constantinople or Alexandria
they could count on uninterrupted business. Their only difficulties arose out
of the rivalry of fellow Italians, not from the hostility of local rulers.
There was also another advantage of growing importance to be derived from the
Frankish ports. The main difficulty of the Italians was to find goods in Europe
whose sale would pay for the Oriental goods that they wished to buy. Till the
early years of the tenth century the main Venetian export had been slaves from
central Europe, but the conversion of the Slays and the Hungarians had ended
this traffic. In the later half of the thirteenth century the Genoese revived
the slave-trade, carrying Turkish and Tartar slaves from the Black Sea ports to
sell to the Mameluks in Egypt; but during the intervening years there were few
slaves available. The only important exports from the West were metal and wood.
As the main use for these materials was for armaments, the ecclesiastical
authorities in Europe naturally disapproved of their sale to the Moslems. But
the Italians gradually learned that the Crusading movement and the existence of
Outremer drew a large number of soldiers, diplomats, and above all, pilgrims to
the East. If the Italians carried them, the money that they paid for their fares
and for their expenses on board gave the shipowners cash that they could spend
in the Syrian ports on goods imported from further to the east. Finally,
hard-headed though the Italian merchants were, religious scruples were not
entirely ignored. Many men, even in Genoa or Venice, preferred to do business
in a Christian rather than in a Moslem port; and there was the practical
consideration that the Church strongly disapproved of trade with the infidel,
and the Church was politically powerful in Italy. Its enmity could cause
serious embarrassment.

The heyday of the commerce at Outremer was
during the decade just before Saladin’s reconquest of Jerusalem and during the
first decades of the thirteenth century. The Moslem world was united and
prosperous, and the Italians had discovered the advantages of trade through the
Christian ports. Meanwhile the Frankish colonists had learned how to make
friends with their infidel neighbours. The Moslem pilgrim, Ibn Jubayr, who in
1184 travelled with a caravan of Moslem traders from Damascus to Acre, makes it
clear that such caravans were of frequent occurrence. He was impressed by the
smooth arrangements for the collection of customs-dues. Acre was the busiest
port of the coast. It was the natural port of Damascus and therefore not only
was used for the products of Damascene factories and of the rich countryside of
the Hauran, but also served the merchants from the Yemen who came up the
pilgrims’ road along the edge of the Arabian coast. It also possessed the only
safe harbour in all Palestine. Voyagers to the Holy Places preferred to land
there rather than at Jaffa with its open roadstead, where so many accidents had
occurred before Acre had been captured by the Crusaders. The one disadvantage
of Acre was that the inner harbour was too small to take the larger vessels of
the time, which had either to lie off the breakwater, where they were exposed
to the south-west wind, or else go up the coast to the larger and more secure
harbour of Tyre. In northern Syria the best all-weather harbour was at
Lattakieh, though Saint Symeon, at the mouth of the river Orontes, was more
convenient for Antioch and Aleppo and was used for smaller vessels.

Trade-routes under the Mongols

The Assizes of Jerusalem mention a number
of eastern goods that passed through the custom-houses of Outremer. Besides
silk and other fabrics, there were various spices, such as cinnamon, cardamum,
cloves, mace, musk, galangale and nutmeg, as well as indigo, madder and
aloe-wood and ivory. The Franks themselves took very little part in this
traffic. The goods were brought to the coast by merchants from the interior,
Moslems or native Christians, and in northern Syria by Greeks and Armenians
from Antioch also. The visiting merchants were treated with courtesy. The Moslems
were allowed to carry out their worship in the Christian cities. Indeed, in
Acre itself a portion of the Great Mosque, which had been converted into a
church, was put aside for Moslem rites. There were khans at which they could
stay, and there were Christian households that took in Moslem lodgers. The
Italian merchants bought directly from the Moslem importers. Besides the
Italians it seems that a certain number of Moslems came by sea to Acre to buy
goods from the interior, in particular Moghrabis from north-west Africa, who
would journey themselves as far as Damascus or other inland Moslem cities.

The expansion of the Mongol Empire in the
thirteenth century altered the main trade-routes from the Far East. Once the
Mongols had conquered the interior of Asia they encouraged merchants to take
the overland route from China, through Turkestan and either to the north of the
Caspian to the ports on the north coast of the Black Sea, such as Caffa, or
south of the Caspian and through Iran to Trebizond, on the south coast of the
Black Sea, or to Ayas, in the Cilician kingdom of Armenia. The perfect order
kept by the Mongols made this route preferable to the hazardous sea-route
across the Indian Ocean. In the twelfth century Chinese junks had frequently
sailed west of Ceylon to the Arabian ports. Now it was seldom worth their while
to go further than the east coast of India. The Mongol conquest of Iraq
resulted in some of the Indian trade reaching the West by sea up the Persian
Gulf, and a proportion of it passed through Damascus or Aleppo to the Frankish
ports. But most of the merchants preferred to stay within the Mongol dominions
and thence cut across to the Mediterranean at Ayas, while most of the Indian
trade was carried by land through Afghanistan and Persia. Egypt was still a
rich market for Oriental goods, but it was no longer on the cheapest route from
the Far East to Europe.

Meanwhile both Venice and Genoa, with Pisa
lagging behind, were steadily increasing their trade; and their rivalry with
each other grew intense. The shifting of the trade-routes enhanced their
competition. Venice at first controlled the Black Sea, owing to her domination
over the Latin Empire at Constantinople. She therefore did not object to the
rise of Mongol power. But when the Byzantines recaptured their capital in 1261,
with the active help of Genoa, the Genoese were able to exclude the Venetians
from the Black Sea and to keep the monopoly of the central Asiatic trade and,
as a profitable side-line, the slave-trade between the Russian steppes and
Egypt. As the Mameluk government was dependent on a steady supply of slaves
from the Kipchak and neighbouring Turkish tribes, it was impossible for the
Venetians to exclude Genoa from Alexandria. Though the Venetians were allowed
by the Armenian King to share in the Mongol trade that came to Ayas, it was
essential for Venice to try to drive the Genoese out of the Frankish ports. As
far as Acre was concerned, they were successful. Tyre, to which the Genoese had
to retire, was less well placed. It became the general policy of Venice, in her
hatred of Genoa, to oppose the Mongols, out of whose empire Genoa was reaping
such large profits. In consequence, the Venetians used their influence at Acre
to induce the government there to support the Mameluks against the Mongols.

The Wealth of the Barons

The development of Ayas as the main
Mediterranean outlet for Mongol trade naturally lessened the importance of the
Frankish ports. But the general increase of Asiatic trade under the Mongols was
such that there was always a surplus that followed the older routes. Merchants
from Mosul regularly visited Acre during the second half of the thirteenth
century. The wars between the Mameluks and the Mongols did not much
inconvenience the passage of caravans from Iraq and Iran to Palestine. Right up
to its last years as the Christian capital Acre was full of commercial
activity, while, further north, Lattakieh was handling so much trade from
Aleppo that the merchants of Aleppo especially begged the Mameluk Sultan to capture
the port because so valuable a place should not be in infidel hands.

All this flourishing commerce was,
however, of little profit to the Franks themselves. By making the seaports a
battleground between rival Italian colonies it was a source of positive
political weakness; and even if the Italians kept the peace, not much money
came through to the governments of Outremer. The King was officially entitled
to about 10 per cent of the custom-tolls, but in fact he had sold huge shares
of that percentage to his vassals or to the Church or to the Military Orders.
Not much was left for himself. The Princes of Antioch and Counts of Tripoli
were slightly better off, for they had created fewer money-fiefs. But great
fortunes were not to be made in Outremer. There were lords who were wealthy
enough to live in luxury, such as the Ibelins of Beirut, who owned the local
iron-mines, or the Montforts of Tyre, with their sugar factories. To the
untrained eyes of Western travellers the citizens of Outremer seemed
fantastically prosperous; but it was a superficial appearance. The towns were
cleaner and better built. Their inhabitants could buy silken garments and
employ scents and spices at prices that only the very rich could afford in
western Europe. But such things were local products and therefore comparatively
cheap.