182 chapter four
responsible for the reconstruction of Genoese caffa.149 a foreign town was
built on Jochid soil, inexpugnably, under his patronage, and for the rest
of his reign, when relations with the Genoese had their ups and downs,
there is no record that he ever denied his founding contribution, or tried
to undo his work.
for all its confidential character, the extraordinary character of Özbek’s
gift could not have escaped the attention of interested parties, revealed
as it was by the rapidity with which caffa grew once more from its own
ashes.
With remarkable instincts for the course of history, some residents of
the Black Sea coast sensed that the Jochid-Genoese agreement opened a
new era for the republic to realise its hegemonic aspirations in the sea.
these powers themselves participated in and benefited from regional
commerce, and justifiably feared harmful repercussions for their own
income. the size of the danger which the Genoese return to caffa was
seen to pose is shown clearly in the speed and scale of their response:
in 1313/4 a coalition took shape and took action, formed by the emperor
of trebizond, the turkish emir of Sinope and the Mongol governor of
Solkhat, the crimean capital. their concerted effort to uproot the newly-
planted polity was a failure.150
It is of course no surprise that along with the neighbouring powers on
the Black Sea shore, the governing bodies in Genoa also appreciated the
crucial significance of the privilege which their colonists obtained in 1313.
the measures which the mother-city took to make best use of Özbek’s gift
were so wide-ranging, yet coherent, that they show how Genoa planned to
play the dominant role once more in the Black Sea through her crimean
colony.
as a direct result of their agreement with the Mongol khan, in Novem-
ber 1313 the Officium Gazarie was created in the Ligurian capital as an
office for the crimea.151
149 See above, p. 178.
150 continuazione da Varagine/promis, p. 502; cf. Brătianu, Recherches, pp. 283–284,
Karpov, Impero, pp. 146–148. a comparable anti-Genoese uprising is examined in papa-
costea, “révolte.”
151 or perhaps for the whole of Golden horde territory, since the geographic term was
used for the entire eurasian steppe since the time of the Khazars and carries this meaning
at least in the usage of lo imperio de Gazaria, mentioned in the Jochid-Genoese treaty of
1380 (cf. ciocîltan, “restauraţia,” pp. 590–591 note 53, and below, pp. 226 ff.). according to
its own statutes (imposicio), the office was created occasione Gazarie (Sauli, “Imposicio,”
col. 305, forcheri, Navi, p. 7, Balard, Romanie, I, p. 202).