152 chapter four
this second Genoese push into the Black Sea, after that of 1261, is cru-
cial to understanding the history of the sea and of the main powers acting
on and around it in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. the new wave of
Ligurian merchants arriving in the latter 1280s did not just intensify the
volume of trade in the region. far more importantly, they changed the
nature of Genoa’s Black Sea policy.
the Genoese were determined to exploit the Pax Mongolica for all it
was worth, both in the Ilkhanate31 and in the Golden horde.32 they thus
embarked upon a series of initiatives meant to protect their Black Sea
interests against the local peoples as much as against their Venetian rivals.
Most significantly, they surrounded the Black Sea with a ring of their own
naval and commercial bases, which certainly did not go unremarked by
those affected.
When they turned caffa into one such fortress at the end of the thir-
teenth century, the Mongol khans of Sarai felt this to be a provocation: as
time went on they reacted more or less vigorously, but they were never
indifferent. once the problem appeared on their horizon, it became a
major part of the Golden horde’s Black Sea policy: from this perspective,
it marks off two distinct stages in Jochid-Genoese relations.
4.2.1 The Beginnings
the motives which drove the Mongols and the Genoese to form their part-
nership are thus clear: nevertheless, the early stages of this collaboration
are shrouded in obscurity, especially the legal framework.
It seems to be no accident that the khan’s privilege, without which no
trade could be done, is missing, for this merely echoes other cases when
the Ligurian merchants were known to have been active in such-and-such
a state’s territory, but historians have been unable to produce their found-
ing charter.33 Given that it is inconceivable that foreigners would have
been able to buy and sell in any host country without the rulers’ con-
sent, here as elsewhere we must ask whether a written privilege actually
existed and has since been lost,34 or whether there was only ever a verbal
31 See chapter 3.4.2.
32 See chapter 3.4.1.
33 the situation was the same in trebizond (see p. 118 note 254), and in the Ilkhanate
and the Mamluk Sultanate (p. 124 note 285; see also p. 178 note 141).
34 cf. papacostea, “Gênes,” p. 222.