the golden horde and the black sea 217
that the parties to the contract thought the project realistic. the targets of
this hostile measure, the Genoese, were much more sceptical, and future
developments bore them out: caffa was not toppled from its position of
hegemony.291
this outcome was certainly the darkest blot on Janibek’s reign, which
had from the start been driven by an obsessive desire to conquer caffa,
whether by Jochid strength alone or with Venetian support after 1347.
the ultimate effects of his Black Sea policy were not confined to this
evident defeat. the state of permanent insecurity and the lengthy imposi-
tion of sanctions against merchants must have led to a steep drop in trade
on the Northern Black Sea coast, although there are few documentary
sources to confirm this, and this would have considerably reduced the
khan’s income from customs. this in turn affected expenditure, includ-
ing military spending, and the khan’s army shrank in direct proportion
to his dwindling budget. Janibek’s ill-advised Black Sea policy thus had
knock-on ill effects far beyond its own limits. clashes with the christian
powers of east-central europe and the transcaucasian campaign would
both show just how much the Golden horde’s military capacity had been
diminished by the war with the Genoese, and additionally by the plague,
though it is impossible to determine exactly what contribution this had.292
although the russian knyazï could still be firmly controlled,293 by
contrast neighbouring christian powers exerted steady pressure on the
Western and North-Western fronts for the first time. although Lithu-
anian, polish, hungarian and romanian military campaigns as yet had no
291 heyd, Histoire, II, 203, rightly remarks on the Jochid concessions: “Les Génois ne
se montrèrent point jaloux de la faveur accordée à leur rivaux; en ce moment, précisé-
ment, les relations entre les deux nations étaient des plus amicales et, dans les instructions
envoyées aux autorités coloniales du pont, leurs gouvernements insistaient énergique-
ment en ce sens. Les Génois, d’ailleurs, conservaient toujours l’avantage, en ce sens que
le siège de leur colonie était leur propriété; [.. .]. Vers l’époque où nous sommes arrivés,
on s’occupait activement de compléter les fortifications de caffa. [.. .] un des promoteurs
les plus zélés de ces travaux fut le consul Goffredo di Zoagli (1352–1355).” on the town’s
development and its system of fortifications in the latter fourteenth century, cf. Balard,
Romanie, I, pp. 207 ff.
292 timur’s campaign of 1395/6 demonstrates how susceptible the Golden horde was to
downturns in trade even when its demographic health was not affected by natural disas-
ter; he destroyed the Jochid commercial centres in the cuman steppe, leading to its final
decline and disintegration; cf. chapter 1.1.2.
293 cf. Spuler, Horde, pp. 103–108; Brătianu, Vicina, p. 77, points out the link between
this Western front and the Northern Black Sea coast.