196 chapter four
Özbek’s protégés showed themselves to be far bolder than expected,
and took advantage in unforeseen ways of the various privileges granted
to them: the khan could not have been indifferent to the fact that they
were using caffa as a base from which to build a barrier stretching the
length of the Northern Black Sea, affording them the highly rewarding role
of commercial middlemen.213
finding that his own role was that of sorcerer’s apprentice, Özbek sought
not to destroy his creation but to moderate its excesses. for two decades
after caffa was returned to Genoese rule, their monopolist tendencies had
become ever more intransigent and ever more troublesome to the khan:
his decisive first step toward correcting these tendencies would affect
Genoese interests in the Black Sea in the long term. In 1332 he granted
Venetian merchants a charter to lease land in tana, with the right to con-
struct public and private buildings and provisions for the jurisdictional
as well as commercial status of these “guests” on Jochid soil.214 this was
a serious breach in the Genoese barrier.215 the rift gave the Serenissima’s
merchants access to a market which, by its geographical nature, was a per-
fect gathering place for wares from the steppe and the Northern eurasian
forests, from turkestan and the far east.216 Genoese efforts to dislodge
their rivals from a position where they could trade these wares directly,
with Özbek’s permission, were mere chicaneries, carried out at the local
level, and never achieved their aim.217
213 cf. papacostea, “tana,” passim.
214 as well as defining the precise extent of the land concession, the principal clauses
ruled that disputes between Venetians and locals would be solved by common accord
between the Jochid “lord” and a council assembly, and that the “imperial customs duty”
would be 3% (DVL, I, pp. 243–244); for the dating, see heyd, Histoire, II, p. 181 note 4; com-
mentaries are Brătianu, Les Vénitiens, pp. 18–19, Skržinskaja, Storia, p. 8, Berindei, Vein-
stein, “tana-azaq,” p. 118, papacostea, “tana,” p. 205, ciocîltan, “Bürgerkrieg”.
215 papacostea, “tana,” pp. 202 ff., shows the exceptional importance of this event from
the point of view of Genoa’s Black Sea strategy: Genoese embargo on Venetian visits to the
emporium at the mouth of the Don was a central link in a programme followed since the
thirteenth century (cf. also ciocîltan, “Bürgerkrieg”).
216 See Skržinskaja’s monograph; the importance of this commercial emporium is tell-
ingly emphasised in the Venetian authorities’ preamble to a document of 1460, a date late
enough to make the opinion count as a considered one: viagium Tanae erat unum de prin-
cipaliorum et utilioribus, a que cetera viagia hujus nostre civitatis dependebant et dependent
(Nystazopoulou-pélékidis, Venise, p. 29; ciocîltan, “Bürgerkrieg”).
217 as well as direct attacks, it seems that the Genoese colonists at caffa were able
to suborn the Jochid governor and turn him against the Venetians, causing them a great
many troubles despite the charter and rights they had been granted by the highest author-
ity in the state (cf. heyd, Histoire, II, p. 184, Nystazopoulou-pélékidis, Venise, pp. 28–29).