chapter fourthe GoLDeN horDe aND the BLacK Sea
there is very little to choose between the two Mongol states, that of the
cuman steppe and that of persia, from the perspective of their contribu-
tion to Black Sea geo-politics and integration into the great eurasian trade
routes: each contributed in its own particular way to the process, and nei-
ther was less significant in its contribution.1
Nevertheless, the Golden horde is categorically different from the
Ilkhanate in the immediacy of its Black Sea initiatives. While the Mon-
gol lords of persia only rarely intervened in the region,2 their opposite
numbers in Sarai, whose lands bordered the Black Sea, showed that they
had a consistent and coherent policy approach and well-define goals and
methods. In this latter case, it is perfectly appropriate to say that they had
a Black Sea policy as such.
In pursuing this policy, the khans of the Golden horde had two fixed
goals: cooperation with the Italian thalassocracies, and the freedom of the
Straits.
4.1 The Origin of the Golden Horde’s Black Sea Policy
Before achieving its mature form, the Jochid approach to Black Sea ques-
tions developed and went through several stages. these are hard to under-
stand without reference to previous circumstances, specifically the cuman
approach to this sea and to its maritime commerce.
4.1.1 The Cumans and the Black Sea Trade
In this as in so many other regards, the cumans were the fore-runners for
their chinggisid conquerors and successors, participating in and benefit-
ting from Black Sea commerce.
1 See chapters 3.3 and 3.4.
2 only two Ilkhanid political initiatives can be considered as genuinely Black Sea-
oriented: the first is hülegü’s insistence that the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII cut off
communications through the Bosphorus between the Jochids and the Mamluks, in 1263/4
(see below, p. 243), and the second is arghun’s arming of a Genoese galley, at his own cost,
to hunt pirates in the Black Sea in 1290 (see above, p. 158 note 65).