The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean
Page 37
By now, Mairano was about fifty years old, and had to rebuild his business from scratch. He could only do this by turning once again to the patrician Ziani family; the late doge’s son Pietro invested £1,000 of Venetian money in a voyage Romano was to make to Alexandria. Romano carried with him a large cargo of timber, paying no attention to papal condemnation of the trade in war materials. While relations between Venice and Constantinople were so bad, he sent ships to North Africa, Egypt and the kingdom of Jerusalem, trading in pepper and alum. He was ready to return to Constantinople when a new emperor readmitted the Venetians on excellent terms in 1187–9. Even in old age Romano continued to invest in trade with Egypt and Apulia, though funds ran low again in 1201, when he borrowed money from his cousin; he died not long after.48 It was, then, a career marked by ups and downs, as notable for its successes as for the disastrous collapse of his business and his dramatic escape in mid-career.
Another uneven career was that of Solomon of Salerno. Though he came from southern Italy he traded from Genoa, where, like Mairano, he was close to the patrician families.49 He also had personal ties to the king of Sicily, whose faithful subject, or fidelis, he was said to be. He showed he wanted to be counted as Genoese when he bought some land just outside the city, and he tried to forge a marriage alliance between his daughter and one of the patrician families; he had turned his back on Salerno. He recognized that Salerno, Amalfi and neighbouring towns had been greatly overtaken by the more aggressive trading cities of Genoa, Pisa and Venice, and it was in Genoa that he made his fortune. He brought with him from Salerno his wife Eliadar, who was another keen merchant, for there was nothing to prevent women in Genoa from investing money in trading ventures. Solomon and Eliadar made a formidable pair, casting their eyes over the entire Mediterranean. Like Romano Mairano, Solomon was willing to travel to its furthest corners in pursuit of wealth. Golden opportunities beckoned in 1156, in Egypt, Sicily and the West. In summer of that year he decided to capitalize on the more open mood of the Fatimids. He agreed to travel out to Alexandria on behalf of a team of investors, and then to follow the Nile down to Cairo, where he would purchase oriental spices including lac, a resin that could be used as a varnish or dyestuff, and brazilwood, the source of a red dye. Solomon also had plenty of interests that pulled him in other directions. The same year he was trying to recover 2⅔ pounds of Sicilian gold coinage, a formidable sum at the time, from a Genoese who had absconded with the money in Sicily while Genoese ambassadors were negotiating a treaty with its king.50 He was away nearly two years in the East, leaving Eliadar at home to manage a triangular trade network linking Genoa, Fréjus and Palermo.
After his return from the East, Solomon looked westwards, trading with Majorca and Spain as well as Sicily and his old favourite, Egypt, where he invested very substantial amounts of money. One document describes a roundabout voyage he commissioned that was typical of the more ambitious ventures of the time: ‘to Spain, then to Sicily or Provence or Genoa, from Provence to Genoa or Sicily, or if he wishes from Sicily to Romania [the Byzantine Empire] and then to Genoa, or from Sicily to Genoa’.51 Great Genoese patricians eagerly invested money in Solomon’s expedition to Egypt, ignoring a clause in the documents that implied the ship might be sold in Egypt. For not merely did the Italians send timber to the shipyards of Alexandria, they sent whole ships, ready for use in the Fatimid fleet. Solomon was at the peak of his success; although he was an outsider, his daughter Alda was betrothed to the son of a powerful member of the Mallone clan. Solomon had his own notary to record his business, and documents grandly speak of the ‘court of Solomon’, suggesting that he lived in a lavish style. Like Romano Mairano, however, he lay at the mercy of political changes over which he had no control. Having made friends with the king of Sicily in 1156, Genoa was forced in 1162 to abandon what had been a very lucrative alliance that gave access to vast amounts of wheat and cotton; the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa was breathing down the necks of the Genoese, and they felt obliged to join his army of invasion directed against Sicily. Ansaldo Mallone broke off the advantageous engagement between his son and Solomon’s daughter. Suddenly the business empire of Solomon and Eliadar seemed very fragile.
However, some contact with Sicily was still possible. In September 1162, a few months after the Genoese abandoned Sicily for Germany, Solomon received the emissaries of an eminent Sicilian Muslim, ibn Hammud, the leader of the Muslim community in Sicily, who advanced him funds against the security of an ermine mantle, silver cups and other fine goods. A Sicilian Arab writer eloquently said of ibn Hammud: ‘he does not suffer his coin to rust’. He was very wealthy: taking advantage of accusations that he was disloyal, the king of Sicily fined him 250 pounds of gold, an enormous fortune.52 Contacts such as these enabled Solomon to stay in business, but conditions were bleak for someone with his interests and expertise. Quarrels between Genoa and the king of Jerusalem inhibited trade to the Holy Land, and access to the eastern Mediterranean was rendered more difficult by the breach with the king of Sicily, whose fleets controlled the passages between the western and the eastern Mediterranean. Like other Genoese merchants, Solomon and his wife now turned from the eastern to the western Mediterranean, trading with the important port of Bougie in what is now Algeria. Solomon must have died some time around 1170. His ambition of anchoring himself to the Genoese patriciate by a marriage alliance had been frustrated by political events. Until he and his heirs entered the ranks of the patriciate, his position would always be fragile. The land he acquired outside Genoa was worth only £108 of Genoese silver, and his wealth was mainly built on cash, loans, investments and speculations, whereas the wealth of the city aristocracy was firmly rooted in urban and rural property. It was this that gave them the staying-power that men such as Solomon of Salerno and Romano Mairano lacked. And yet it was by working together that the patricians and the merchants created the commercial revolution that was taking place.
5
Ways across the Sea, 1160–1185
I
There are no diaries or log-books of sea captains from the twelfth century, but there are vivid accounts of crossing the Mediterranean written by Jewish and Muslim pilgrims journeying from Spain to the East. Benjamin of Tudela was a rabbi from a town in Navarre, and he set out on his travels around 1160.1 The aim of his diary was to describe the lands of the Mediterranean, large areas of Europe, and Asia as far as China, in Hebrew for a Jewish audience, and he carefully noted the number of Jews in each town he visited. His book reports genuine travels across the Mediterranean, through Constantinople and down the coast of Syria, though his descriptions of more remote areas beyond the Mediterranean are clearly based on report and rumour, which became more fantastic the further his imagination ventured. He evidently did go to Jerusalem, though, and expressed his wonderment at the supposed tomb of King David on Mount Zion. As Christian passions about the Holy Land became more intense, the attention of Jewish pilgrims was also directed there, under the influence of the crusaders whom they scorned.2 Benjamin’s route took him down from Navarre through the kingdom of Aragon and along the river Ebro to Tarragona, where the massive ancient fortifications built by ‘giants and Greeks’ impressed him.3 From there he moved to Barcelona, ‘a small city and beautiful’, full of wise rabbis and of merchants from every land, including Greece, Pisa, Genoa, Sicily, Alexandria, the Holy Land and Africa. Benjamin provides precious and precocious evidence that Barcelona was beginning to develop contacts across the Mediterranean.4 Another place that attracted merchants from all over the world, even, he says, from England, was Montpellier; ‘people of all nations are found there doing business through the medium of the Genoese and Pisans’.5
It took four days to reach Genoa by sea from Marseilles.6 Genoa, he wrote, ‘is surrounded by a wall, and the inhabitants are not governed by any king, but by judges whom they appoint at their pleasure’. He also insisted that ‘they have command of the sea’. He was thinking here of piracy no less than trade, for he mentioned
their raids on Muslim and Christian lands (including Byzantium), and was impressed by the booty they brought back. Two days’ journey away lay Pisa, but the Genoese were constantly at war with the Pisans, who, he claimed, had ‘ten thousand’ towers in their city from which they fought one another.7 He travelled to Bari, but found it desolate, following its destruction by King William I in 1156 (of which more later).8 He crossed to Corfu, which he said was also under Sicilian rule at this time, and then, full of energy, he tackled overland routes by way of Thebes to Constantinople, returning to the Mediterranean only when he reached Gallipoli. From there he hopped across the islands of the Aegean, and then over to Cyprus, where he was shocked by the behaviour of some ‘heretical Jews called Epikursin [Epicureans], whom the Israelites have excommunicated in all places’, for their Sabbath day excluded Friday night but included Saturday night.9 Their presence is a reminder that within the eastern Mediterranean a myriad of small sects still flourished – as Benjamin travelled down the coast of Lebanon he encountered a more dangerous sect, the Ismaili Assassins, but he was able to avoid them and to reach Gibellet, one of the Genoese bases in the Levant, governed, as he rightly observed, by a member of the noble Embriaco family. He was fascinated by the discovery there of an ancient temple, with a statue seated on a throne and two female statuettes at each side. This was evidence of ancient pagan practices with which the ancient Israelites had contended, but there were modern pagans too, he believed: setting off again, he had to pass the territory of the Druze warriors, whom he described as lawless pagans, supposedly practising incest and swapping wives among themselves.10
Benjamin reached Egypt at some stage in his travels, and was very impressed by the harbour facilities at Alexandria: there was the lighthouse, which could be seen from 100 miles away, and there were the merchants from all over the world: ‘from all the Christian kingdoms’, including Venice, Tuscany, Amalfi, Sicily, from Greece, Germany, France and England, from Spain and Provence, and from many Muslim lands, such as al-Andalus and the Maghrib.11 ‘Merchants of India bring thither all kinds of spices, and the merchants of Edom [Christendom] buy from them.’ Moreover, ‘each nation has an inn of its own’.12 Benjamin travelled back by way of Sicily, and his description of the glories of the Sicilian court will be mentioned in the next chapter.
II
Benjamin might be described nowadays as an antiquarian. He was fascinated by ancient buildings in Rome, Constantinople and Jerusalem. His compulsion to list every Jewish community he encountered was matched by an eye for detail and a fascination with the many peoples he encountered. When writing about the Holy Land he not surprisingly turned himself into a guide to the Jewish shrines and graves of the rabbis in Jerusalem, Hebron and Tiberias, and left the Christian holy places out of the account. His private purpose in travelling was most likely to visit the Holy Land as a pilgrim, and yet his other interests kept surfacing. Much the same is true of Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Jubayr, who wrote about twenty-five years later.13 He was born in 1145 in Valencia, but became the secretary to the governor of Granada, who was the son of the Almohad caliph, ‘Abd al-Mu’min. Notwithstanding his excellent Almohad credentials, the governor liked a tipple, and insisted that ibn Jubayr should try some wine. Ibn Jubayr was mortally afraid of disobeying his master, and for the first time in his life drank alcohol. But once the governor realized how upset his secretary had become, he filled the cup seven times with gold coins.
Ibn Jubayr decided that the best use for this money was to pay for his journey to Mecca, and he set out in February 1183; he was away from Spain for over two years.14 In Ceuta he found a Genoese ship ready to sail to Alexandria. The first leg took him back along the coast of al-Andalus, as far as Denia, from where the boat struck out to Ibiza, Majorca and Minorca, reaching Sardinia a fortnight after leaving Morocco: ‘it had been a crossing remarkable for its speed’.15 It was also a voyage across political boundaries: from Almohad Morocco to the Balearics, ruled by the inveterate enemies of the Almohads, the Sunni Almoravids, and up to Sardinia, where Pisan sea power reigned supreme. Yet it was not man but nature that posed a threat. A great storm arose off Sardinia, but eventually ibn Jubayr’s ship reached Oristano, in western Sardinia, where some passengers disembarked to take on supplies; one, a Muslim, was distressed to see eighty Muslim men and women who had been put up for sale as slaves in the marketplace.16 Ibn Jubayr’s ship took advantage of a favourable wind to slip out of harbour. This was a mistake. Another tempest arose, so fierce that the ship could not use its mainsails, and one of these was then ripped by the strong wind, along with one of the spars to which the sails were fixed. ‘Christian sea-captains who were present, and Muslims who had gone through journeys and storms at sea, all agreed that they had never in their lives seen such a tempest. The description of it diminishes the reality.’17 Yet even in this foul weather they reached their target, Sicily, for the ship was following what is often called ‘the route of the islands’, a westward route that took best advantage of the currents and winds.18 Had they lasted, the north-westerly winds of the winter would have favoured their journey, but the weather in early spring was unpredictable as the prevailing winds changed direction.19 They skirted Sicily, observing Etna, and headed for Crete, where they arrived at night about four weeks after setting out from Ceuta. From there they jumped across the Libyan Sea to North Africa, and on 29 March the lighthouse of Alexandria came into distant view. The whole journey took thirty days, which was not excessive compared to journeys recorded in the Genizah letters.20
There were tribulations on land as well as on the high sea. When they arrived in Alexandria customs officials boarded, and personal details of each passenger were written down, as well as a list of all the cargo. The Muslims were made to pay the charitable tax known as the zakat, even if all they possessed was the provisions they needed for the hajj. Another eminent passenger, Ahmad ibn Hassan, who was a physician from Granada, was led under guard to the government offices, to be interviewed about what was happening in the West, and to answer questions about the goods being carried on board. This questioning of important passengers was standard practice in the Mediterranean ports – ibn Jubayr submitted to even closer questioning when he arrived in Palermo on his way back to Spain.21 Then the passengers were subjected to humiliating searches by excessively thorough customs officers:
The Customs House was packed to choking. All their goods, great and small, were searched and confusedly thrown together, while hands were thrust into their waistbands in search of what might be within. The owners were then put to oath whether they had anything else that had not been discovered. During all this, because of the confusion of hands and the excessive throng, many possessions disappeared.22
If only, ibn Jubayr complained to himself, this had been brought to the attention of the just and merciful sultan Saladin: he would surely put a stop to such behaviour.
Yet ibn Jubayr greatly admired Alexandria. Today, very little remains above ground of either the ancient or the medieval city. Even in ibn Jubayr’s time, underground Alexandria was more impressive than Alexandria above ground: ‘the buildings below the ground are like those above it and are even finer and stronger’, with wells and water-courses that ran below the houses and alleys of the city. In the streets, he observed great columns ‘that climb up and choke the skies, and whose purpose and the reason for whose erection none can tell’; he was told that they were used by philosophers of past times, but was convinced that they were part of an astronomical observatory. Memories of the Library of Alexandria had turned into fables. He was enormously impressed by the lighthouse; there was a mosque on its top level, where he went to pray. He heard that there were up to 12,000 mosques – in other words, a very great many – whose imams received their salary from the state. As befitted a great city of the Islamic world, it was full of madrasas, hospices and bath-houses; the government supervised a scheme under which the sick were visited at home and were then reported to physicians, who were answerable for their care. Two thous
and loaves of bread were distributed each day to travellers. When public funds were inadequate for this, Saladin’s own funds covered the cost.23 Taxes were very low, though the Jews and Christians had to pay the standard dhimmi taxes. Ibn Jubayr was strangely fulsome in praise of the Ayyubid sultan, whose Sunni Islam was some way removed from Almohad beliefs, and whose relations with the Almohads were not easy.
From Alexandria ibn Jubayr made his way down the Nile to the Red Sea and Mecca, and he returned to the Mediterranean only in September 1184, coming down to the coast from Damascus and over the Golan Heights to Acre in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. He passed through lands inhabited by Muslims but owned by Franks: Tibnin, he says, ‘belongs to the sow known as queen who is the mother of the pig who is lord of Acre’, that is, to the Queen Mother of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem.24 Firmly resolved to resist temptation, ibn Jubayr and his fellow-pilgrims entered Acre on 18 September, and he expressed the fervent hope that Allah would destroy the city. Here too visitors were sent to the Customs House, whose great courtyard offered space in which to accommodate newly arrived caravans; there were stone benches at which Christian clerks sat, and they spoke and wrote in Arabic, dipping their pens in inkstands made of ebony and gold. They worked for a tax-farmer who paid the king a vast sum of money for the concession of running the Customs House. This was standard practice in the medieval Mediterranean, and the building ibn Jubayr visited was almost certainly the Khan al-‘Umdan, a substantial arcaded structure arranged around a court that still stands close to the harbour, though largely rebuilt in the Turkish period.25 There was space on the upper floors in which to store goods once they had been checked, but the customs officers were thorough, and even inspected the luggage of those who said they were not carrying any merchandise; by contrast with Alexandria, ‘all this was done with civility and respect, and without harshness and unfairness’.26