6 chapter one
to answer this question, it is enough to compare the contrasting find-
ings of studies in trade and commerce by scholars with differing ideas on
what commerce is.
here I refer on the one hand to Spuler’s chapter, already frequently
mentioned, where he collected those few scattered reports on merchant
activity in persia under the Mongols, and on the other hand to the sub-
stantial chapter on the Ilkhanate in Wilhelm heyd’s monograph on the
history of Levantine trade.17 the formal constraints imposed by the dif-
ferent themes of these two works—one concerned to present an overall
view of the Ilkhanate, in which trade was necessarily given only a limited
space, the other primarily examining the historiographical problems of
commerce, and presenting these as a unitary whole—does not explain the
fundamental difference in their approach to the matter under discussion.
the two historians were at odds in their essential concept of trade, more
precisely in the way they understood the concept and its extent. thus in
Spuler’s view, trade primarily means the sum of all activities undertaken
by professional merchants, as reflected in a specific set of documents
(account books, registers etc.). For heyd, the same word has a much larger
and more complex meaning, and it cannot be understood in its true scale
outside of the geopolitical context created by the Mongol conquests, the
determining framework for the concrete conditions under which goods
where produced and traded. the state of the roads, security and ease of
transport, customs duties and many other ‘peripheral’ matters all entered
into this extended definition of trade.
Basing his concept on such considerations, heyd included the Mon-
gol khan, alongside the merchants, as an essential player and participant
in the process of trade and exchange. the khan was the main actor in
assuring those conditions which the professional merchants needed to
practice their trade. the sources consistently attest that the chinggisid
rulers made sustained efforts to create and to maintain an infrastructure
for long-distance trade, and sought, through a series of liberal measures,
to make the territories which they controlled as attractive as possible for
foreign merchants.
Such are the broad outlines of the portrait of the Mongol ruler as protec-
tor and promoter of trade, as this can be found in contemporary accounts
and specialist literature; furthermore, they also indicate the extent of
his powers and ability to affect the sphere of trade. Despite inevitable
17 Spuler, Mongolen, pp. 355–361, heyd, Histoire, II, pp. 73–139.