the disintegration of the empire 137
their first contribution was to moderate the taxes levied on their
territories,337 while the second—no less important—was the freedom
accorded to foreigners to cross persia in order to buy directly at source,
which boosted the merchants’ share of the profits and reduced the num-
ber of middlemen.338 By these two measures, the ilkhans kept the persian
spice route economically feasible, even though it was longer and more
expensive, vastly outclassed by the rival egyptian route.339
the mongol rulers of persia thus worked with Western merchants to
bring about a state of affairs which was a remarkable, though artificial,
achievement in itself: yet the level of taxes imposed on goods in transit,
dictated by the nature of the route that had been created and by its very
length, had deleterious effects upon the state’s already strained budget.
in the crisis of 1294 the state introduced paper banknotes by fiat, seeking
a way to replenish the ilkhanate’s finances, which turned out to be an
illusory hope: from this year onward, the gap between the state’s meagre
income and high expenditure yawned ever wider. although ghazan had
managed to slow the deficit somewhat, it increased under his successors,
so that at the death of the last ilkhan, abū sa‛īd, in 1335 the state was
bankrupt and collapsed, although there were certainly other reasons as
well for this implosion.340
several signs boded ill both for commercial activity in the ilkhanate and
for the existence of the state itself. among these was the central authorities’
337 as well as on trebizond’s territory, naturally; grosso modo, they seem to have
amounted to less than 10% of the value of taxable goods (cf. p. 125 notes 287, 288).
338 in the privilege granted to the venetians in 1320, the ilkhan permitted them to
travel in tute parte del nostro Imperio (DVL, i, 173), meaning that they were certainly also
allowed to travel beyond the borders. numerous sources mention the presence of italian
traders in the indian ocean and on the chinese seaboard, and sanudo/Bongars, p. 23,
contrasts the ilkhanid attitude with that of the mamluk sultans: Soldanus vero per terras
quas tenet non permittit aliquem Christianum transire, qui in Indiam cupiat transfretare; see
also above, pp. 120, 125 note 288.
339 sanudo/Bongars, p. 23, compares this inborn defect of the tabriz route, and the
remedy which the ilkhans applied, to the more advantageous egyptian route in a percep-
tive remark: Nam conductus mercium per hanc viam [from persia] magnas expensas sus-
tinet de salmatio vel vectura et de commercio vel thelloneo modicas; sed a partibus Aegypti,
conductus mercium parum constat, propter dextrum et commoditatem fluminis, sed solvitur
maximus thelloneus, qui datur Soldano; a rough-and-ready comparison shows that the sul-
tan imposed duties of around 33% of the value of goods, while the ilkhanate and the
empire of trebizond had to content themselves with less than 10%. in order to keep their
transport costs as low as possible, merchants travelling to persia and beyond specialised
in the trade with mercimonia modici ponderis et magni pretii sive valoris (ibid., p. 23);
cf. ashtor, History, p. 264.
340 cf. spuler, Mongolen, pp. 107 ff.