the disintegration of the empire 109
every turn, and the less visible but no less effective set of very severe laws,
inflexibly applied, which put thieves to death in short order.211
pegolotti’s guide gives a picture of a very favourable set of conditions
for trade in the cuman steppe, instituted by Özbek, and the picture is
confirmed and completed from an entirely different perspective by the
arab traveller ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s description of a journey through the lands of
the golden horde in 1333–1334. one of his most significant additions is
missing in the florentine portrayal, the mention of the crimean section
of the route.
coming from sinope, the maghrebi scholar disembarked at Kerch,
whence he headed for the large border town of caffa, inhabited by chris-
tians, mostly genoese: it had fine markets and an admirable harbour,
where there were around two hundred ships put in, both warships and
trading ships, large and small.212
the other important settlement on the south-east coast of the penin-
sula, soldaia, likewise had a large and well-appointed harbour, and here
the turks ruled over a number of greek craftsmen and artisans; the town,
which was once imposing, had been largely laid waste in the course of a
war between the two groups.213 next on his itinerary was solkhat, also
called al-Qirim, a large and beautiful town where the mongol governor
resided.214 tana features under its cuman name azak as a “beautifully
built” town where the genoese and others came to trade their goods.215
after reaching Özbek’s camp, where he bathed in the hot springs at
Besh tagh,216 the arab traveller went to Bulghar, gateway to the “land of
448, himself makes a neat distinction between the mongols and the cumans, indicating
that by the 1330s the process of assimilation which ‛Umarī/lech describes, p. 141, had not
yet been entirely completed.
211 ibn Baṭṭūṭa/defrémery, sanguinetti, ii, p. 364, claims that the severity of the laws
against theft saved this nomad people from the trouble of having to watch their flocks at
all times.
212 ibid., pp. 357–358.
213 initially victorious, the greeks were finally defeated by turkish forces supported by
their compatriots, who then butchered or expelled most of the defeated party so that only
a very few remained in the town, which the arab traveller knew as Sudaq (ibid., pp. 414–
15); on the dating and circumstances for the war, see below, pp. 193 ff.; the ‘turks’ are in
fact cumans, called by the name of the larger turanic group of which they were part.
214 ibid., p. 357; al-Qirim is an arabic variant of the turkish toponym Qïrïm, often pre-
ceded by the adjective Eski ‘oldʼ to denote the mongol capital on the peninsula but without
this prefix meaning all of the crimea.
215 ibid., p. 368: Azaq.
216 ibid., p. 379; like many other spa resorts, the “five hills” must be placed somewhere
in the northern caucasus.