preliminary remarks 11
this being the case, it should be no surprise that merchants were seen
as the saviours of state finances thanks to both the volume and the nature
of their payments toward a budget which was never sufficient to needs. In
this context, the Ilkhan aḥmad tegüder expressed an opinion which was
surely widely shared by the other chinggisids when he called the merchant
the “foundation of the state.”32 timur Lenk (tamberlane) was even better
placed to judge the importance of merchants in eurasian long-distance
trade, ruling as he did over such vast territories: the ‘world-conqueror’
applied all his energies to rebuilding the Mongol empire, and shortly after
his victory in the battle of ankara (1402) he wrote to charles IV of France
that merchants were the basis of all prosperity, and invited the king to
join him in protecting them.33
timur Lenk’s conduct toward the merchant class was by no means
innovative: his Mongol predecessors took the same benevolent attitude,
offering patronage which made their mercantile policy one of the brightest
pages in their history—in stark contrast to the barbarity of the conquests.
Various different sources agree that this was characteristic for all the khans,
from the all-powerful rulers of the unitary empire down to the epigonal
princelings of the ages of decline.34 no effort was spared to encourage all
oktober 1294 war alles Gold und Silber bei todesstrafe ablieferungspflichtig.” the measure
was intended to fill the exchequer, but it had precisely the opposite effect, and “führte
sogleich zu einem vollkommenen wirtschaftlichen Zusammenbruch” (Spuler, Mongolen,
p. 252). the reforms of the Ilkhan Ghāzān were on a somewhat sounder footing, but only
managed to halt the decline of the Ilkhanate for a little while, and his successors were
unable to do more to stem the problem of military expenditure before the collapse of the
state (1335). “trotz Ghazans Maßnahmen zur hebung der Steuer- und Finanzkraft waren
schon unter Ölgäitü die ausgaben für die heere wieder höher als die einnahmen. Unter
abū Sa‛īd haben sich die Verhältnisse sicher nicht gebessert” (ibid., p. 249). the economic
causes of the Golden horde’s decline are equally evident (see below, chapters 3.4.1, 4.2.5,
4.2.6).
32 Mufaḍḍal/Blochet, II, p. 506: “nous avons rendu toute la liberté de transit aux mar-
chands, sur lesquels repose la prospérité des empires;” the translation downplays the role
of the merchants, which in the original arabic is marked by the use of the word ‛imāra,
meaning “Gebäude, Bau, Grundstück” (Wehr, Wörterbuch, p. 578); Spuler, Mongolen, p. 357,
comes closer to the original when describing merchants as the “Grundlage des reiches”; cf.
ciocîltan, “Fernhandel”, passim.
33 charrière, Négotiations, p. cXVII: Oportet praeterea mercatores vestros ad has partes
mitti, ut quemadmodum illis honorem haberi et reverentiam curabimus, ita quoque merca-
tores nostri ad illas partes comeent; et illis honor ac reverentia habeatur, nec quisquam vim
aut augmentum eis faciat, quia mundus per mercatores prosperatur.
34 It is a general feature of the historiography of this subject that the sources agree; cf.
among others Spuler, Mongolen, p. 388 (for general remarks) and Grekov, Yakubovskiy,
Orda, pp. 62–64 (on the Golden horde). even when they were at war with the merchants,
the khans were not fundamentally against trade; an edifying example is that of Janibekʼs
attack on the Genoese and Venetians at caffa and tana in the mid-fourteenth century (cf.
papacostea, “tana,” pp. 201–207, and chapter 4.2.5).