92 chapter three
in their clashes with the ilkhanids, while the mamluk soldiers, all of them
“recruited” from the cuman steppe, withstood all assaults and finally car-
ried the victory in the fertile crescent. severely constrained by their irk-
some exclusion from the trade routes after the loss of azerbaijan and the
arran, the golden horde rulers accepted the sacrifice required of them,
hoping thereby to push their mamluk allies to mobilize, though they did
not hold back from applying blackmail with an embargo of this strate-
gic supply whenever their egyptian partners slipped from inertia to flat
refusal to give aid.
for the sarai-cairo axis to exist and to function, it was indispensable
that the other participants in the cairo conference of 1263 also be kept in
coalition. often enough, the khans and the sultans were of one mind at
least as regards the function that each ally had to play.
to keep the Black sea route open for communication and commerce
needed the consent of the Byzantine emperor, who held the straits. the
sultan and the khan were equally in his debt for their ability to use the
Bosphorus freely. although not easily discovered in documentary evi-
dence, these two powerful eastern monarchs offered their friendship to
michael viii palaiologos and thereby contributed very significantly to
shoring up the fragile regime of the palaiologan restoration, threatened
by frustrated Western powers. likewise, the muslim rulers accorded the
orthodox emperor certain privileges in ecclesiastical matters.
thus in exchange for recognition of Byzantine protectorate over the
melkite churches in the sultanate,139 the emperor granted Baybars the
right to bring one or two shiploads of slaves through the straits every year,140
in a treaty concluded early in 1262.141 the establishment of an orthodox
metropolitan see at sarai in 1261 served the same purpose in Berke’s
139 it seems that this was agreed while the emperor was still in nicea, thus before he
returned to constantinople in august 1261 (schmid, Beziehungen, p. 118).
140 the Byzantine historians pachymeres/Bekker, i, pp. 174–179, and gregoras/schopen,
i, pp. 101 ff., rightly claim that Baybars adopted this attitude to the empire because he
wished to have the freedom of the Black sea for ships and merchants headed to the crimea
to buy “scythian” slaves, who would become mamluk soldiers. pachymeres intriguingly
claims that Baybars himself was of cuman descent, and had an unusually high opinion of
his nation’s military qualities, finding them incomparably better than the “lazy and effemi-
nate” egyptians, who were useless in war; he also regrets that the emperor made these con-
cessions, which contributed to the conquest of palestine and cilicia and the subjugation of
the christian population in those parts. the mamluk encyclopaedist al-Qalqashandī says
that the treaty contained a clause on the slave trade in soldaia (nystazopoulou-pélékidis,
Venise, p. 30 note 53; cf. al-maqrīzī/tiesenhausen, Sbornik, i, p. 420, canard, “le traité,”
pp. 669–680, canard, “Un traité,” p. 210 note 1, 211, spuler, “außenpolitik,” p. 31, labib,
Handelsgeschichte, p. 104, Brătianu, Recherches, pp. 61–63).
141 for this date, see canard, “Un traité,” p. 211.