The Mongols and the Black Sea Trade in the 13th and 14th Centuries

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successors, Janibek and Berdibek, also appreciated how useful this rivalry

could be, and also blocked Genoa in her aims to impose herself as sole

political partner and commercial middleman for the Jochid state.

as well as this coercive function, which clearly achieved its end, settle-

ment of the Venetians at tana served another Jochid purpose: although

there is not enough documentary evidence to judge exactly how much

income the khan drew from their trade, there can be no doubt that they

stimulated trade volume on the Northern Black Sea coast and that this

helped the khan’s finances.

In dealing with the Italian merchants, their strengths and weaknesses,

Özbek showed a keen sense of the possible and the necessary. the same

is shown in the history of caffa, the most important result of his Black Sea

policy and a clear illustration of how external factors came to influence

decisions made in Sarai. caffa was a base line of the policy, as a barometer

of shifting circumstances sensitive to many different influences.

During Özbek’s long reign, the settlement’s history can be measured in

both economic and political terms. It was revived in 1313, and grew quickly

for a decade thanks to truly exceptional conditions created by Özbek,

imposed at least in part to meet the basic Golden horde need to reopen

Black Sea-Mediterranean trade after the stifling isolation which was toq-

ta’s legacy, but also to cultivate diplomatic contacts with the Mamluk ally.

When this latter prop of Jochid policy failed in 1322/3, the consequences

for the Genoese colony were most damaging: the khan partly cut off the

flow of trade to caffa and redirected it to the Venetians, in tana.

compared to the destructive actions of both his predecessor and

his successor, who used force against caffa in 1307/8 and then in 1343

onwards, Özbek’s Black Sea policy is characterised by a certain balance

and judiciousness highly profitable to the Golden horde’s economy. his

conduct was at the very least a contributing factor in the flourishing of the

ulus of Jochi at this peak of its development.225

the most convincing proof in this regard is furnished by his succes-

sor Janibek, who attacked the very foundations of his father’s Black Sea

policy. for a decade and a half he obstinately pursued a hostile policy,

mostly against Genoese caffa, which rebounded disastrously upon the

225 Despite differing ideological viewpoints, there is a prevailing consensus among
authors who have surveyed Golden horde history that this was the high point of its devel-
opment; cf. Spuler, Horde, pp. 87, 99, Grekov, Yakubovskiy, Orda, pp. 89–90, 262.

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