the golden horde and the black sea 195
thus by his actions in the decade 1313–1323, Özbek furnished the
Genoese with extremely suitable conditions for expansion, whether or not
he had wanted to do so. their colonies and commercial expansion took
them from the Northern shore, to all of the rest of the Black Sea.210
the course of events in the Near east was also unexpectedly favourable,
at the state and inter-state level. one crucial event, persisting throughout
and beyond the period, considerably changed the continental trade struc-
tures and ipso facto made the Genoese possession in South-east crimea
much more valuable. In 1321 the Mamluk Sultan’s troops occupied ayas
(Laiazzo) in cilician armenia, the ‘antechamber’ to the Silk road,211 an
action which definitively choked off the great commercial artery, forcing
merchants engaged in trade with central asian and Indian ocean goods
to seek some alternative route around the Mamluk blockade. Given the
geopolitical situation, all such routes necessarily led to the Black Sea,
whether through the Ilkhanate and trebizond or through Golden horde
territory and the Northern Black Sea ports. following this major shift in
trade patterns, caffa took over a good part of the role that ayas had previ-
ously played as a vital centre of eurasian commerce, leaving the impres-
sion that fate was now kinder to the town than ever before, and that it
was just on the threshold of its greatness.212 however, developments in
the Genoese city of caffa in the years to come would show that it had
already passed its peak.
the benefits of the khan’s working arrangement with the Genoese were
incontestable; yet the picture was not entirely rosy. Indeed, a dark shadow
fell across it.
their wish in 1338, the Genoese occupied the town in 1365 and held it until 1374 when the
Jochids reconquered it. Subsequently Genoese agents persuaded toqtamïsh to grant the
town to them officially (Nystazopoulou-pélékidis, Venise, p. 27, Balard, Romanie, I, p. 158,
and chapter 4.2.7).
210 these consequences will be the subject of a further study.
211 the deed was done before the Ilkhan could respond to the pleas for aid from his
faithful vassal, the king of the small christian kingdom of armenia (RHC DA, I, p. 757);
abu ’l-fidā’ (Labib, Handelsgeschichte, pp. 66–67) stresses the huge importance of this
event for egyptian commerce; a text of 1337 reports 2,000 Muslim merchants active in the
kingdom (ibid.). for the history of Ilkhanid-Mamluk clashes at the end of the thirteenth
century, in which Genoa played a major part: amitai-preiss, “Ghazan,” ciocîltan, “Genoa,”
and chapter 3.2.
212 In the opinion of Bautier, “relations,” p. 276, caffa’s greatness would last for the
next quarter century. this opinion overlooks, among other circumstances, the fact that
in 1343 the Italian merchants went to war against the Jochids, changing the whole frame
of reference.