preliminary remarks 7
variations over time and in different lands, the trade policy of the Mongol
khans was relatively stable in its characteristics, a circumstance which
makes it much easier to define and to classify this policy.
as it is, most historians have understood matters in the same way as
heyd, considering that trade is a part of the ruler’s power when this power
is exercised in economic affairs, especially touching trade.18 according
to the established view in the historiography of the topic, the extent of
chinggisid powers and interests covered approximately the same field of
problems as a Minister for trade’s portfolio ordinarily includes today.
there are strong indications that even such an understanding is too
restricted to do justice to the overwhelming importance that the Mongol
khans gave to trade, or to fully convey the stranglehold which trade policy
had on other spheres of activity. It is not merely that such a presentation
arbitrarily cuts off the side-branches which run out from trade and com-
merce into various other areas of the economy and social life; there is
another aspect which is much more prejudicial to a full understanding of
the importance of trade from the perspective of the Mongol rulers.
taken in isolation, trade policy appears to be a self-contained matter
which is subordinate to other decisions taken at a higher level. admit-
tedly, such a subordinate status cannot be disproven, and it accordingly
features, either tacitly or overtly emphasised, in works on the topic. the
opposite argument, namely that trade and commercial considerations
determined wider chinggisid state policy, has not been advanced to any-
thing like the same extent. even if a few historians have suspected that,
for example, strong commercial impulses may have underlain some of the
great trends in foreign policy (while the sources passed over these motives
in silence) there has so far been no systematic research into the way such
considerations may have impacted the great business of state.
From this perspective, the khans’ “interventionist” approach favouring
the merchants not only attests to a sphere of activity well beyond the
traditional limits of trade policy stricto sensu, but it also confirms the sus-
picion that merchants fulfilled a central function in the chinggisid state.
any study hoping to establish the exact degree of mutual depen-
dence between the khan and the merchants can only reach provisional
18 cf. for example the chapters on trade in Martinez, “Development,” pp. 100–108.
19 the prolonged conflict between the Golden horde and the Ilkhanate over territories of
transcaucasia offers an example case. Following a suggestion by pelliot, Brătianu observes
that the problem of Far eastern trade was the actual cause of the enmity (Brătianu, “Les
Vénitiens,” p. 154); he did not however follow up all the implications here.