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

chapter five

conclusion: the Black sea, crossroads

and Bypass of eurasian trade

study of the sources and secondary literature on chinggisid influence on

Black sea trade in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries leads to two

major conclusions.

as the state of affairs in the sea in the interval of 1241–1261 proves, even

while the fabled Pax Mongolica reigned over most shores of the Black sea,

this peace and security across vast stretches of asia and eastern europe

did not in itself change the conditions of trade on and around the sea,

but there is no doubt that it provided the indispensable foundation for

the exceptional economic development in the Black sea after 1261, along

with its two transcontinental connecting routes. the inclusion of the

Black sea basin into the long-distance trade network—with its two axes

of the silk road through the Golden horde (urgench-sarai-tana/caffa)

and the spice road through the ilkhanate (ormuz-tabriz-trebizond)—

was the two Mongol states’ most important contribution to making the

sea a “crossroads of international commerce”.

in this context, one of history’s great oddities deserves to be pointed

out: the closest recorded working relationship between european and

asian powers in the medieval period, achieved by the joint efforts of the

chinggisid rulers and the italian merchant republics, was not realised

via the usual geographic channels of the eastern Mediterranean and the

fertile crescent, but rather by roundabout routes to the Black sea. thus

at the same time as the sea fulfilled its function as a crossroads of long-

distance eurasian trade, it was also a bypass.