the golden horde and the black sea 237
tartar-Genoese treaties. this fourth treaty, in the summer of 1387, fol-
lowed much tension in the aftermath of the emir Bulat’s attacks on caffa
in 1383.371 this was apparently a local conflict after two years of mutu-
ally beneficial cooperation, but the hostilities concealed serious difficul-
ties between the signatories of the 1380–1382 treaties, and the fact that
the attackers were so highly-placed in the horde reveals more about
the trouble. Bulat-Bey was a close kinsman of Qutlugh Bugha and one
of toqtamïsh’s favoured generals, a commander of the tartar troops and
holder of many other imperial privileges.372 the lord of Solkhat, who had
signed the treaty of 1382, and the khan, in whose name it was signed, were
thus both involved in the attack against caffa, suggesting the depth of the
crisis and foreshadowing the larger war of 1386–1387.
We might easily suppose that tartar-Genoese relations worsened once
the conditions which had led to a balance of power, and maintained it
from 1380 to 1382, disappeared. the Genoese had actively or passively sup-
ported toqtamïsh’s efforts against Mamai and Dmitriy Donskoy, but once
these enemies were out of the game, the khan had no further reason to
make such concessions as he had. once these counterbalancing factors
were eliminated, the accords became flagrantly one-sided: toqtamïsh had
recognised caffan autonomy and ceded several crimean settlements, and
in 1383 was left with very little to show for it. hence the clashes and con-
frontations of 1383–1387.
371 a report in an armenian source from trebizond (Sanjian, Colophons, p. 100) gives
Bulat (Pulad) the title of khan, suggesting that he ruled jointly with toqtamïsh; the con-
fusion is resolved once we remember that the title was not reserved to ruling sovereigns
but was also used by some members of the tartar high aristocracy, for instance Janibek’s
and Berdibek’s emissaries, mentioned as canni or canni signori in Venetian treaties (DVL,
I, p. 313, II, p. 51). Bulat is the same as oghlan Bolat, who marched with toqtamïsh on the
campaign of 1392 against timur (tiesenhausen, Sbornik, I, p. 376; fedorov-Davydov, p. 46;
oghlan is a prince of chinggisid blood) and as Bek Pulad, mentioned in a letter of 1392 from
toqtamïsh to Jagiełło of poland (fedorov-Davïdov, Story, p. 154).
372 the Metropolitan pimen of Moscow passed through Vulat’s camp on the lower Don,
near tana, on his way to constantinople, either before or after Bulat and twelve other
oghlans led toqtamïsh’s campaign to tabriz in winter 1385/6 (howorth, History, II/1, pp.
232, 235). In an entry in the caffan accounts book of 2nd february 1382, Olat bey appears
as frater domini Sorchati (Iorga, Notes, I, p. 16), probably brother of Ilyas Bey and son of
Qutlugh Bugha, if the latter had not replaced his son in Solkhat at this point, or otherwise
brother of Qutlugh Bugha and uncle to Ilyas. there is a Pulal-beg who governed briefly
from 1407 (Iorga, Notes, I, p. 19 note 4) but this is a different person despite the closeness
of the name and the chronology. the oghlan was mentioned frequently in documents
of the 1380s and 1390s and was executed on toqtamïsh’s orders, probably in 1393 (Ibn
Khaldūn/tiesenhausen, Sbornik, I, p. 376). Beg, bek or bey correspond to the Mongol noyon
or arabic amīr.