12 chapter one
kinds of commercial activity: they allowed unhindered access for foreign-
ers in the lands which they governed,35 guaranteed safety for travellers
and ensured the proper conditions for transport of goods, which of course
also included setting customs duties at an attractive level. any measure
which would increase trade was considered good.36
the unprecedented amount of transcontinental trade in the chinggisid
era is clear proof that the khans’ efforts were successful. In turn, the scale
of their achievements is an indication of the economic constraints which
forced the Mongol rulers, at all times and in all their realms, to work to
the advantage of the merchants. If we are to judge exactly how far any
given chinggisid ruler depended on income drawn from trade, we need
to establish its relative importance in the balance of income and expen-
diture. Sadly, any such calculations are ruled out, since the quantitative
information available does not allow any such estimation even in excep-
tional cases.37
In my view, the problematic effects of this paucity of sources can be
reduced to some extent if we include the Mongol case in a whole series of
others such, a larger Fallreihe where the vital relationship between rulers
and merchants is the common denominator. therefore, before going on
to analyse the economic basis of power in the chinggisid empire and its
successor states in concrete terms, I will compare the convergent findings
of other scholars of the medieval era who have examined the matter from
the same perspective using cases from outside the Mongol realm.
the effects of this “unwritten law” become especially evident at
moments when long-distance trade stops contributing to the treasury
for one reason or another. Below are a few instructive examples of the
35 this was in absolute contrast to the usual practice in Byzantium, for instance, or
in the Islamic lands, where foreigners were limited in where they could travel or were
completely forbidden from doing so. among the many motives which may have caused
chinggisid rulers to adopt this approach, we should probably include the need to call on
foreign merchants because the Mongols themselves never developed even the rudiments
of a “commercial bourgeoisie” which the state would have wished to protect against for-
eign competitors (as in the countries mentioned).
36 the set of measures which might stimulate trade is not of course limited to those
few mentioned here. the concern for commerce also had its effects in other areas which
at first glance have little to do with trade, such as for instance the religious policies of the
various khans.
37 this is true even in the Ilkhanat, where although the persian bureaucracy produced
great numbers of trade-related documents, losses over time make any such reconstruc-
tion impossible today (Spuler, Mongolen, p. 250). In the ulus of Jochi, such documentation
was completely unknown, since the absence of written sources is almost total here (see
above, p. 4).