‘By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence.’ EZEKIEL XXVIII, 16
Throughout the history of Outremer the straightforward issue between Christianity and Islam was often obscured or deflected by questions of economic advantage. The Frankish colonies lay in an area that was reputedly rich and that certainly controlled some of the greatest trade-routes in the world. The financial and commercial ambitions of the colonists and their allies sometimes ran counter to religious patriotism, and there were occasions when their basic human needs demanded friendship with their Moslem neighbours.
There was no commercial motive force behind the launching of the First Crusade. The Italian maritime cities, whose merchants were the shrewdest money-makers of the time, had at first been alarmed by a movement that might well ruin the trading relations that had been built up with the Moslems of the Levant. It was only when the Crusade was successful and Frankish settlements were founded in Syria that the Italians offered their help, realizing that they could use the new colonies to their own advantage. The economic urge that impelled the Crusaders was, rather, land-hunger among the lesser nobles of France and the Low Countries and the desire of the peasants there to escape from their grim, impoverished homes and the floods and famines of recent years and to migrate to lands of legendary wealth. To many of the simple folk the distinction between this world and the next was vague. They confused the earthly with the heavenly Jerusalem and expected to find a city paved with gold and flowing with milk and honey. Their hopes deceived them; but disillusion came slowly. The urban civilization of the East and its higher standard of living gave an appearance of opulence which returning pilgrims reported to their friends. But as time went on the reports were less favourable. After the Second Crusade there was no mass-movement amongst the peasants of the West to find new homes in the Holy Land. Adventurous noblemen still went East to make their fortunes, but one of the difficulties in organizing the later Crusades was the lack of economic inducement.
In fact, the Frankish provinces of Outremer were not naturally rich. There were fertile districts, such as the plains of Esdraelon, of Sharon and of Jericho, the narrow coastal strip between the Lebanon mountains and the sea, the valley of the Buqaia and the plain of Antioch. But, in comparison with the country beyond the Jordan and the Hauran and the Bekaa, Palestine was barren and unproductive. The value of Oultrejourdain to the Franks had lain as much in the corn that it grew as in its command of the road from Damascus to Egypt. Without the help of Oultrejourdain it was not always easy for the kingdom of Jerusalem to feed itself. If the harvest were bad, corn had to be imported from Moslem Syria. During the last decades of Outremer, when the Franks were reduced to the towns of the coastal strip, corn must always have been imported.
Products of Outremer
Other foodstuffs were in adequate supply. The hills supported large numbers of sheep, goats and pigs. There were orchards and vegetable gardens surrounding all the towns, and there were plentiful olive-groves. Indeed, it is possible that olive oil was exported in small quantities to the West, while rare Palestinian fruits, such as the sweet-lemon or the grenadine, were sometimes seen on the dinner-tables of the wealthy in Italy.
There were, however, few products that Outremer could export on a big enough scale to bring any appreciable revenue into the country. The most important of these was sugar. When the Crusaders arrived in Syria they found that sugar-cane was cultivated in many coastal areas and in the Jordan valley. They continued the cultivation and learned from the natives the process of extracting sugar from the cane. There was a great sugar factory at Acre, and factories in most of the coastal cities. The main centre of the industry was Tyre. Almost all the sugar consumed in Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries came from Outremer. The second chief export was cloth of various sorts. The silk-worm had been cultivated round Beirut and Tripoli since the end of the sixth century, while flax was grown in the plains of Palestine. Silken stuffs were sold for export. Samite was made up at Acre, Beirut and Lattakieh; and Tyre was famed for the fabric known as zendado or cendal. The linen of Nablus had an international reputation. The purple dye from Tyre was still fashionable for clothes. But the Italians could also buy silks and linens in the markets of Syria and Egypt, where supplies were larger and prices often lower. It was the same with glass. The Jews in various cities, especially Tyre and Antioch, produced glass for export; but they had to face the competition of glass from Egypt. Tanneries probably only supplied local needs, but pottery was occasionally exported.
There was always a market in Egypt for wood. From the earliest ages the Egyptian fleet had been built with timber that came from the forests of Lebanon and the hills south of Antioch, and the Egyptians also required large quantities of timber for architectural purposes. Wars between Egypt and the Crusading states seldom interrupted this traffic for long. There were iron mines near Beirut, but their production probably was insufficient for export.
A certain number of herbs and spices were exported. The most important was balm. As it was mainly used in Europe for the services of the Church, balm from the Holy Land was particularly popular. In the twelfth century it was grown in large quantities near Jerusalem. But the crop was not easy to grow, as it needed expensive irrigation. After the Moslem reconquest at the end of the century its cultivation declined and was soon abandoned.
The Transit Trade
Far greater revenues were obtained by the rulers of Outremer from merchandize that passed through the country. There was an increasing demand in medieval Europe for Eastern goods, spices, dyes, scented woods, and silk and porcelain, as well as for goods from the Moslem countries just over the borders of Outremer. But this trade inevitably depended on political circumstances in Asia. When the Crusades began the bulk of the Far Eastern trade travelled by sea across the Indian Ocean and up the Red Sea to Egypt, attracted by the wealth of the Egyptian cities and the security of Fatimid rule away from its earlier route up the Persian Gulf to Baghdad. The Syrian ports only served for the export of more local goods, such as indigo from Iraq or Damascene metalwork, and for any spices from southern Arabia that were carried by caravan rather than by boats. The petty wars that followed the Turkish invasions at the end of the eleventh century did not encourage either commerce or industry in the Syrian hinterland. It was only when Nur ed-Din and, after him, Saladin made an ordered unit of Moslem Syria and Egypt that prosperity in Syria revived. Local products increased, and goods from Iraq and Persia could safely travel across to Aleppo or Horns or Damascus, and thence to the sea. The ports used by the merchants of Aleppo were Saint Symeon, which they reached through Antioch, and Lattakieh; Tortosa and Tripoli served as the ports of Horns, and Acre for Damascus.
Though the Italians had helped the Crusaders in the conquest of each of these ports, their main business interest remained in Egypt. Acts concerned with commerce published in Venice during the twelfth century mention Alexandria far more often than they mention Acre, particularly after the Venetians had been ejected from Constantinople. The records of the Genoese international lawyer Scriba during the years 1156 to 1164 show that nearly twice as many of his clients were interested in Alexandria as in the Frankish East. It is also remarkable that during the first half of the twelfth century most travellers bound from Europe to Palestine either went first in Venetian or Genoese ships to Constantinople and thence by land or in Greek coastal ships to Syria or else sailed direct from southern Italy in ships of the kingdom of Sicily. It seems, therefore, that there were not many ships from the Italian merchant-ports that made regular voyages to Syria till the later years of the century. Till then the amount of goods that passed through the Syrian ports cannot have been very large; and as the customs duties on these transitory goods were only about 10 per cent of their value, it is easy to understand why the exchequer of Outremer was seldom full and why the Kings were so often tempted to go raiding at times when it would have been more honourable and more diplomatic to keep the peace.
Role of the Italian Traders
It is also easy to understand why the Italian maritime cities were shy of supporting the Crusade too readily. It might be their Christian duty to aid the Franks against the Moslems. But their whole prosperity depended upon the maintenance of good terms with the Moslems. Whenever they gave help to a Christian enterprise they ran the risk of losing their trading rights with Alexandria. Yet without their co-operation the Crusaders could never have conquered the coastal cities; and the fact of their co-operation shows that their problem was not so simple after all. The Genoese sent help while the First Crusade was still at Antioch. A Pisan squadron set out before the news of the capture of Jerusalem reached the West; and their later coldness towards the kingdom of Jerusalem was due more to Baldwin I’s quarrel with Daimbert, who had been their Archbishop, than to any commercial calculation. Even the Venetians, who had the closest connection with Egypt, had offered assistance to Godfrey of Lorraine just before his death. This policy was not quite as risky as it seemed at first sight. Trade cannot exist unless it is to the benefit of both parties. The Moslem authorities in Egypt had no more wish than the Italians to break off commercial relations for long. Though they might in an access of rage close Alexandria to Christian ships, they themselves suffered from the interruption of business. Their reprisals were never therefore enforced too strictly. In addition the Italians found many advantages in securing a share of the newly conquered ports. In Moslem cities and even in Constantinople they could never feel secure. A popular riot might destroy their establishments, or the caprices of alien rulers might interfere with their business. Though the actual volume of trade to be conducted through the Christian Syrian ports might be less than through Constantinople or Alexandria they could count on uninterrupted business. Their only difficulties arose out of the rivalry of fellow Italians, not from the hostility of local rulers. There was also another advantage of growing importance to be derived from the Frankish ports. The main difficulty of the Italians was to find goods in Europe whose sale would pay for the Oriental goods that they wished to buy. Till the early years of the tenth century the main Venetian export had been slaves from central Europe, but the conversion of the Slays and the Hungarians had ended this traffic. In the later half of the thirteenth century the Genoese revived the slave-trade, carrying Turkish and Tartar slaves from the Black Sea ports to sell to the Mameluks in Egypt; but during the intervening years there were few slaves available. The only important exports from the West were metal and wood. As the main use for these materials was for armaments, the ecclesiastical authorities in Europe naturally disapproved of their sale to the Moslems. But the Italians gradually learned that the Crusading movement and the existence of Outremer drew a large number of soldiers, diplomats, and above all, pilgrims to the East. If the Italians carried them, the money that they paid for their fares and for their expenses on board gave the shipowners cash that they could spend in the Syrian ports on goods imported from further to the east. Finally, hard-headed though the Italian merchants were, religious scruples were not entirely ignored. Many men, even in Genoa or Venice, preferred to do business in a Christian rather than in a Moslem port; and there was the practical consideration that the Church strongly disapproved of trade with the infidel, and the Church was politically powerful in Italy. Its enmity could cause serious embarrassment.
The heyday of the commerce at Outremer was during the decade just before Saladin’s reconquest of Jerusalem and during the first decades of the thirteenth century. The Moslem world was united and prosperous, and the Italians had discovered the advantages of trade through the Christian ports. Meanwhile the Frankish colonists had learned how to make friends with their infidel neighbours. The Moslem pilgrim, Ibn Jubayr, who in 1184 travelled with a caravan of Moslem traders from Damascus to Acre, makes it clear that such caravans were of frequent occurrence. He was impressed by the smooth arrangements for the collection of customs-dues. Acre was the busiest port of the coast. It was the natural port of Damascus and therefore not only was used for the products of Damascene factories and of the rich countryside of the Hauran, but also served the merchants from the Yemen who came up the pilgrims’ road along the edge of the Arabian coast. It also possessed the only safe harbour in all Palestine. Voyagers to the Holy Places preferred to land there rather than at Jaffa with its open roadstead, where so many accidents had occurred before Acre had been captured by the Crusaders. The one disadvantage of Acre was that the inner harbour was too small to take the larger vessels of the time, which had either to lie off the breakwater, where they were exposed to the south-west wind, or else go up the coast to the larger and more secure harbour of Tyre. In northern Syria the best all-weather harbour was at Lattakieh, though Saint Symeon, at the mouth of the river Orontes, was more convenient for Antioch and Aleppo and was used for smaller vessels.
Trade-routes under the Mongols
The Assizes of Jerusalem mention a number of eastern goods that passed through the custom-houses of Outremer. Besides silk and other fabrics, there were various spices, such as cinnamon, cardamum, cloves, mace, musk, galangale and nutmeg, as well as indigo, madder and aloe-wood and ivory. The Franks themselves took very little part in this traffic. The goods were brought to the coast by merchants from the interior, Moslems or native Christians, and in northern Syria by Greeks and Armenians from Antioch also. The visiting merchants were treated with courtesy. The Moslems were allowed to carry out their worship in the Christian cities. Indeed, in Acre itself a portion of the Great Mosque, which had been converted into a church, was put aside for Moslem rites. There were khans at which they could stay, and there were Christian households that took in Moslem lodgers. The Italian merchants bought directly from the Moslem importers. Besides the Italians it seems that a certain number of Moslems came by sea to Acre to buy goods from the interior, in particular Moghrabis from north-west Africa, who would journey themselves as far as Damascus or other inland Moslem cities.
The expansion of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century altered the main trade-routes from the Far East. Once the Mongols had conquered the interior of Asia they encouraged merchants to take the overland route from China, through Turkestan and either to the north of the Caspian to the ports on the north coast of the Black Sea, such as Caffa, or south of the Caspian and through Iran to Trebizond, on the south coast of the Black Sea, or to Ayas, in the Cilician kingdom of Armenia. The perfect order kept by the Mongols made this route preferable to the hazardous sea-route across the Indian Ocean. In the twelfth century Chinese junks had frequently sailed west of Ceylon to the Arabian ports. Now it was seldom worth their while to go further than the east coast of India. The Mongol conquest of Iraq resulted in some of the Indian trade reaching the West by sea up the Persian Gulf, and a proportion of it passed through Damascus or Aleppo to the Frankish ports. But most of the merchants preferred to stay within the Mongol dominions and thence cut across to the Mediterranean at Ayas, while most of the Indian trade was carried by land through Afghanistan and Persia. Egypt was still a rich market for Oriental goods, but it was no longer on the cheapest route from the Far East to Europe.
Meanwhile both Venice and Genoa, with Pisa lagging behind, were steadily increasing their trade; and their rivalry with each other grew intense. The shifting of the trade-routes enhanced their competition. Venice at first controlled the Black Sea, owing to her domination over the Latin Empire at Constantinople. She therefore did not object to the rise of Mongol power. But when the Byzantines recaptured their capital in 1261, with the active help of Genoa, the Genoese were able to exclude the Venetians from the Black Sea and to keep the monopoly of the central Asiatic trade and, as a profitable side-line, the slave-trade between the Russian steppes and Egypt. As the Mameluk government was dependent on a steady supply of slaves from the Kipchak and neighbouring Turkish tribes, it was impossible for the Venetians to exclude Genoa from Alexandria. Though the Venetians were allowed by the Armenian King to share in the Mongol trade that came to Ayas, it was essential for Venice to try to drive the Genoese out of the Frankish ports. As far as Acre was concerned, they were successful. Tyre, to which the Genoese had to retire, was less well placed. It became the general policy of Venice, in her hatred of Genoa, to oppose the Mongols, out of whose empire Genoa was reaping such large profits. In consequence, the Venetians used their influence at Acre to induce the government there to support the Mameluks against the Mongols.
The Wealth of the Barons
The development of Ayas as the main Mediterranean outlet for Mongol trade naturally lessened the importance of the Frankish ports. But the general increase of Asiatic trade under the Mongols was such that there was always a surplus that followed the older routes. Merchants from Mosul regularly visited Acre during the second half of the thirteenth century. The wars between the Mameluks and the Mongols did not much inconvenience the passage of caravans from Iraq and Iran to Palestine. Right up to its last years as the Christian capital Acre was full of commercial activity, while, further north, Lattakieh was handling so much trade from Aleppo that the merchants of Aleppo especially begged the Mameluk Sultan to capture the port because so valuable a place should not be in infidel hands.
All this flourishing commerce was, however, of little profit to the Franks themselves. By making the seaports a battleground between rival Italian colonies it was a source of positive political weakness; and even if the Italians kept the peace, not much money came through to the governments of Outremer. The King was officially entitled to about 10 per cent of the custom-tolls, but in fact he had sold huge shares of that percentage to his vassals or to the Church or to the Military Orders. Not much was left for himself. The Princes of Antioch and Counts of Tripoli were slightly better off, for they had created fewer money-fiefs. But great fortunes were not to be made in Outremer. There were lords who were wealthy enough to live in luxury, such as the Ibelins of Beirut, who owned the local iron-mines, or the Montforts of Tyre, with their sugar factories. To the untrained eyes of Western travellers the citizens of Outremer seemed fantastically prosperous; but it was a superficial appearance. The towns were cleaner and better built. Their inhabitants could buy silken garments and employ scents and spices at prices that only the very rich could afford in western Europe. But such things were local products and therefore comparatively cheap.
We have very little information about the activities of the bourgeois classes in Outremer. They seem to have taken no part in international trade but to have confined themselves to shop-keeping and the manufacture of goods for local consumption. Politically they had some power. The Commune of Acre, which was composed of the Frankish bourgeoisie, was an important element in the state. But it seems to have kept itself apart from the native communities, even from the Orthodox, who were treated as a separate entity. In Antioch, where the Commune was even more influential, the Frankish and Greek bourgeoisie worked together. There was probably more intermarriage there, and the Franks had never been as numerous as in Acre, or in Tripoli, which seems to have followed the pattern of Acre. The labouring classes were mostly of native or of half-caste origin; and there were usually considerable numbers of slaves, Moslems captured in the war, to work in the mines or on the construction of public buildings or on royal or noble estates.
The Coinage of Outremer
The government was always short of money. Even in times of peace the country had to be ready for a sudden outbreak of war; and war usually resulted in the devastation of large areas of the countryside. The revenue from tolls and taxes was inadequate; and a sudden emergency, such as the capture of the King or of whole sections of the army, could not be met without outside help. Fortunately, outside help was often forthcoming. Quite apart from the money obtained, usually unwisely, by raids for plunder into Moslem territory, continual gifts were sent from Europe. Palestine was the Holy Land, and the Crusaders and colonists were generally regarded as the soldiers of Christ. Visitors paid a tax on arrival; and not only did pilgrims bring money with them into the country, to spend there or to give in alms, but many of the shrines and abbeys there were given lands in the West, whose revenues were sent out to them. The Military Orders derived most of their income from their endowments in the West, to such an extent that they were still enormously wealthy even after the loss of all their Syrian possessions. Individual citizens of Outremer, from the King downwards, would receive occasional gifts from Western relatives or sympathizers. These subsidies helped largely to balance the finances of Outremer; and thus the luxuries that visitors from the West admired in the Syrian cities were paid for in part by their compatriots at home.
Another source of economic strength, whose effect is more difficult to evaluate, was the coinage of Outremer. When the Crusades began, there was no gold coinage in western Europe, except in Sicily and Moslem Spain. Silver was the most precious metal employed. Nor at that time were the Moslem states in Syria issuing gold coins, though the rival Caliphs at Baghdad and Cairo both kept up the practice. Yet almost as soon as the Crusading states were established, the King of Jerusalem, the Prince of Antioch and the Count of Tripoli all began to mint dinars of gold, which were known by the name of Saracenate Besants and which were imitated from the dinars of the Fatimids but contained only about two-thirds of their gold content. These coins, particularly the coins of the kingdom of Jerusalem, which were known to the Moslems as souri, the dinars of Tyre, soon circulated widely through the Near East. It is difficult to understand where the Franks obtained the gold. Plunder and ransom can only have produced a small and irregular amount. The main source of gold at the time was the Sudan, and it is possible that some gold was brought to the Frankish ports by the Moghrabi merchants that came to trade there. But to explain the appearance of the coinage there must have been a general movement of gold from the Moslem countries to the Christian. The European settlers must have bought gold, no doubt at a very high price, from the Moslems in return for silver, which was plentiful in Europe; and the issues of this debased gold coinage must have helped in the whole movement. Large quantities of gold must have passed on further to the West; for it is remarkable that during the thirteenth century gold coinage of an excellent alloy began to appear in western Europe.
The right to issue gold coins was kept firmly in the hands of the rulers of Outremer. Neither the Italian colonies there nor the Military Orders were allowed to infringe on this monopoly. The tenants-in-chief could only mint bronze coins for local needs.
The Military Orders had an additional source of wealth, derived from their banking activities. With their vast possessions all over Christendom they were admirably placed to finance Crusading expeditions. The French participation in the Second Crusade was only made possible by the help of the Templars, who paid out enormous sums to Louis VII in the East, and were repaid in France. By the end of the twelfth century the Templars made a regular practice of money-lending. They charged a high interest, but, however unreliable they might be politically, their financial reputation was so high that even the Moslems had confidence in them and made use of their services. The Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights conducted similar operations, but on a lesser scale. The governments of Outremer gained nothing directly from these activities, which increased the power and insubordination of the Orders; but they were for the financial benefit of the country as a whole.
Economic Dilemma of Outremer
The economic history of the Crusades is still very obscure. Information is inadequate, and there are many details that cannot now be explained. But it is impossible to understand their political history without taking into account the commercial and financial needs of the settlers and of the Italian merchants. These needs usually ran counter to the ideological impulse that started and maintained the Crusading movement. Outremer was permanently poised on the horns of a dilemma. It was founded by a blend of religious fervour and adventurous land-hunger. But if it was to endure healthily, it could not remain dependent upon a steady supply of men and money from the West. It must justify its existence economically. This could only be done if it came to terms with its neighbours. If they were friendly and prosperous, it too would prosper. But to seek amity with the Moslems seemed a complete betrayal of Crusader ideals; and the Moslems for their part could never quite reconcile themselves to the presence of an alien and intrusive state in lands that they regarded as their own. Their dilemma was less painful, for the presence of the Christian colonists was not necessary for their trade with Europe, however convenient it might be at times. Good relations were therefore always precarious. The second great problem that Outremer had to face was its relations with the Italian merchant-cities. They were an indispensable element in its existence. Without them communications with the West would have been almost impossible to maintain, and it would have been quite impossible to export the products of the country or to have captured any of the through-trade from the further East. But the Italians, with their arrogance, their rivalries and the cynicism of their policy, caused irremediable harm. They would hold aloof from vital campaigns and openly parade the disunity of Christendom. They supplied the Moslems with essential war-material. They would riot and fight against each other in the streets of the cities. The rulers of Outremer must often have regretted the rich commerce that brought such dangerous and unruly allies to their shores; and yet without this commerce the story of Outremer would have been shorter and grimmer. It is never easy to decide between the hostile claims of material prosperity and ideological faith. Nor can any government hope to satisfy either claim completely. Man cannot live on ideology alone, while prosperity depends on wider issues than can be contained in one narrow strip of land. The Crusaders made many mistakes. Their policy was often hesitant and changeable. But they cannot be entirely blamed for failing to solve a problem for which, in fact there was no solution.