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.
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.
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 closer attention to the ‘high-profile’ sources pre-
served in the archives of Genoa and Venice, the great maritime and com-
mercial powers of the Middle ages. Documents touching upon commercial
activity by the subjects of these two republics in the lands governed by the
tartars are unevenly distributed, both chronologically and geographically,
and by their very nature they give only a partial and partisan picture of
the complex of problems in trade under Mongol patronage, yet despite all
these reservations they far surpass any other sources in the precision of
the information they offer.
the absence of internal sources mentioned above is indeed to a great
extent compensated by the Italians, who either found themselves physi-
cally and geographically in the thick of the action, or else were at least
much concerned with the problems connected to the trade, and who
built the structures whereby we generally understand eurasian trade in
chinggisid times. among many illustrious names, it suffices here to men-
tion Marco polo, a tireless and well-informed observer of the trade condi-
tions he came across on his famous voyage to china; Francesco Balducci
10 on the situation concerning editions and translations of these two authors and of
other scholars, their contemporaries, cf. also Spuler, Mongolen, pp. 399–408.
11 a review of external sources containing information about the Golden horde can
be found in Spuler, Horde, pp. 388–409, and about the Ilkhanate in idem, Mongolen,
pp. 355–361.
12 cf. for example, Balard, Romanie, Iorga, Veneţia, thiriet, Régestes, thiriet, Romanie.