Trade after the Fall of the Crusader Kingdoms

The Mamluks followed a conscious policy of not only slaughtering and enslaving the inhabits of the cities they conquered, but then destroying the walls and other architectural features. The point was to make the cities uninhabitable so it would be impossible for a new wave of crusaders to arrive from the West and re-establish a Frankish presence. The impact on trade was devastating.

Once the cities were abandoned, even the buildings that the Mamluks had not torn down fell to ruin. The fountains and aqueducts got clogged with debris and then crumbled away. The untended breakwaters crumbled; the quays cracked and broke up. The roofs collapsed; the winter rains found their way between the paving stones and then the weeds. Trees took root where once the busy markets had displayed all the riches of the orient. Travelers from the early 14th-century describe passing through ghost-towns already being buried in sand-dunes where once the great coastal cities of the Levant stood.

Meanwhile, trade moved elsewhere — for roughly two centuries to Famagusta — and more generally to Damietta, Alexandria and back to Constantinople. Trade also shifted to the Black Sea, and overland routes regained traffic. 

Furthermore, the Pope imposed an embargo on all trade with the Islamic world between 1291 and 1344. Obviously, many merchants evaded or ignored the embargo, but the majority of merchants preferred not to risk excommunication and found new markets. As a result, the overall volume of trade between Europe and the Middle East was significantly reduced. 

Eventually, squatters found the cities the Mamluks had tried to extinguish. Peasants put up a few rough walls in the corner of a former palace to make it habitable. No need for the great, hooded fireplaces, though, cooking could be done as before over a fire in the middle of the room. Traders passing through turned a former church into a tavern or a stables for their horses. Fishermen tied up at the broken quays, dumping dead fish where once the great dromons of the Byzantine Empire and the galleys of the Italian maritime powers had loaded luxury cargoes. Slowly, slowly life returned to the towns, and the ruins were increasingly cannibalized to build new structures more suited to the provincial backwaters these great cities had become.

But trade? The vast exchange of products, technology and ideas that had characterized the Frankish kingdoms of the Levant? It was gone. 

Oh, some of the most precious products — ivory and opium, incense, spices and silk — still found their way to Europe, usually by more expensive routes that affected prices and so depressed demand. The most luxurious of goods could still find their way — just as slaves still moved in the other direction. 

No, what suffered most was the trade in ideas. The Frankish kingdoms at the crossroads of civilizations had been a marketplace not just for commodities and luxury goods, but for technology and ideas as well. Once, tens of thousands of pilgrims who had annually made their way from West to East, exposing themselves to new cultures, new landscapes, new ways of doing things; now they all stayed home. 

The economic impact of the crusader states is an important focus of my history The Holy Land in the Era of the Crusades: Kingdoms at the Crossroads of Civilization, which will be released next year by Pen & Sword.

The Impact of the Crusades on Trade in the Middle East

Prior to the crusades, the coastal ports of the Levant had fallen into a period of neglect and decay. Trade between the various parts of the Seljuk Empire moved primarily overland, as did trade across North Africa. The Mediterranean remained a contested area with Arab pirates from North Africa endangering European and Byzantine shipping — and vice versa. The great trading ports were Alexandria and Constantinople. All that changed with the establishment of the crusader states on the mainland of the Levant (1099–1291) and on Cyprus (1192 —1571). 

These states revived the coastal cities of the Levant, especially Acre, Tyre, and Tripoli, but to a lesser degree Jaffa, Caesarea, Haifa, Sidon, Beirut, and Latakia. Following the fall of Acre to the Mamluks in 1291, Famagusta in Cyprus became the central trading post of the Eastern Mediterranean.

From roughly 1123, when the Venetians destroyed a large Fatimid fleet, until the rise of the Ottomans, the Mediterranean was dominated by Western naval power. In the 12th century, the combination of Byzantine, Sicilian and Italian naval power protected the merchant shipping of Europe, and in the later centuries the Italians, particularly Venice, and the Hospitallers (Knights of Rhodes and Malta) provided this protection.

Meanwhile, trading concessions to the Italian maritime powers (Genoa, Venice, Pisa) had transformed the major Frankish cities into thriving ports for both the import and export of goods. Soon caravans from as far away as India and Ethiopia were making for the ports of the Levant in order to sell their wares. Indeed, even Chinese pottery of the period has been found in archaeological excavations. 

The products passing through the ports of the Middle East were highly diverse. They included such high-value products as pharmaceuticals, spices, silks, cloth-of-gold (also known as siglatin — derived from silk Latin/silk for the Latins), ivory and incense. Other important exports were sugar (mass-produced in factories for the first time under the Franks), honey, soap, glass, pottery, icons, illuminated manuscripts, and jewelry. (Below the ruins of a 13th-century sugar mill at Kolossi in Cyprus.)

Looking more closely at only one of these, textiles, some of the finest cloth known to the medieval world originated in the Near East. Egyptian cotton and linen, both renowned for their quality, were exported through the ports of the Levant as was silk from Damascus. Words familiar to us as types of cloth such as muslin, gauze, and damask derive their names from the cities that first produced them in export quantities, namely Mosul, Gaza and Damascus. 

Glass, on the other hand, was a product produced in the crusader states directly. Beirut was famous for its red glass, Tyre for its white glass. Glass was used in plates for windows, but could also be enameled to create exquisite drinking vessels. Stained glass was likewise used both as decorative windows and in the production of luxury objects such a perfume bottles and chalices. 

When speaking of jewelry, one specialty of the crusader states were mementos of the Holy Land for pilgrims to take home with them. Another product unique to this period in the Middle East were reliquaries, beautiful gold and silver containers for the protection and display of holy relics. 

Coming in through these ports were equally valuable products: fur, timber (a very valuable product in the Middle East due to scarcity), wool, iron, and — shamefully — slaves. While slavery was no longer practiced in Western Europe, the economy of the entire Islamic world was still entirely dependent upon slave labor. This created a nearly insatiable demand for fresh human beings. The Italian maritime powers eagerly developed a highly lucrative trade in humans, buying “barbarians” (non-baptized) captives largely from what is now Russia and selling these in the Arab slave markets of the Middle East — passing through the ports of the Latin East on the way.

Last but not least, there was an enormous “trade” in pilgrims. This religious tourism, which included Jews and Muslims but was predominantly Christian, was a huge boon to the economy of the region. Thousands of ships sailed twice a year bringing tens of thousands pilgrims annually from the West to the Holy Land. Like today, these tourists needed places to stay and eat. They needed tour guides, transportation, and security. They bought souvenirs and shoes, clothes suitable to the climate, and gifts to take back home. If they got sick (and thousands of them did!), they needed medical attention. If they died, they needed burial. Whatever they did, they created employment and income for those already in the Middle East.

Trade volumes and values were so great that Christians and Muslims both were loath to interrupt it — even during hostilities. A Muslim pilgrim to Mecca passing through the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (yes, that was not only possible but common) reported in amazement that even while the military elites were engaged in skirmishing, trade continued uninhibited. (He was writing in the early 1180s.)

Indeed, the value of trade sometimes made the military elites reluctant to engage in warfare at all, since their own revenues derived in large part from taxes on trade, markets, anchorage etc. This was particularly true under the Ayyubid successors to Saladin (1193–1250). Altogether, we know of more than 100 truces between the Franks and Saracens, all designed to end hostilities and allow trade to flow. 

The economics of the crusader states will be a major focus of my forthcoming book: “The Holy Land in the Era of the Crusades: Kingdoms at the Crossroads of Civilizations,” Pen & Sword, 2021. Meanwhile, it provides atmosphere and color in my novels set in the crusader states.

                                             

All books are available in paperback or as ebooks on amazon and Barnes and Noble. Find out more about them at: http://www.helenapschrader.com/crusades.html

                                                                     

 

An Economic Powerhouse: Cyprus under the Lusignans

The importance of Cyprus to the crusader states can hardly be overstated. Cyprus protected the sea lanes to the Levant. It provided a staging ground for offensive action and a place of refuge in defeat. It provided many of the lords and knights of Outremer with the rural estates so important to raising and training both men and horses for medieval warfare. Yet first and foremost it was the wealth of Cyprus, the resources it could put at the disposal of the mainland crusader states, that made it such a valuable addition to the Latin East. Today I look more closely at the components of its economy. 

Ruins of a 13th century Sugar Factory at Kolossi; sugar was an immensely lucrative cash crop throughout the Lusignan period from the start of the 13th century to the end of the 14th.

Cyprus is roughly 3,500 square miles in size, 225 miles long and 95 miles wide, with a coastline 400 miles long. At the time of Richard the Lionheart's invasion (see: http://www.crusaderkingdoms.com/conquest-of-cyprus-i.html), historians estimate the population was at most 100,000 strong. Of that, the vast majority of the population were Greek peasants, with a very small ruling elite of Greek aristocrats, bureaucrats, and clergy.  There were also small communities of foreigners, mostly Armenians, Maronites, Syrian Christians, and Jews. A province of only secondary or tertiary importance to the Eastern Roman Empire ruled from Constantinople, the economic base of Byzantine Cyprus was agriculture with small quantities of commodity exports. 

Richard the Lionheart's conquest leading to the establishment of the Lusignan dynasty on Cyprus two years later initially had little or no impact on the economy. The conquest neither dislocated large numbers of people nor altered the structure of land tenure nor the means of production. For the vast majority of the Cypriot rural population, the change in regime meant only that the landlords changed. Where once the landlords had been (often absentee) Greek aristocrats, after the establishment of Lusignan rule they were Latin noblemen, also often absentee, predominantly from the crusader states. These landlords now held their estates as feudal fiefs with obligations to the crown, but for the peasant little changed. Likewise, Imperial lands became part of the royal domain, but the duties and dues remained the same for the tenants. 

What changed was the explosion in commercial activity. Arguably, this would have happened even without the change in regime. The loss of the interior of the Kingdom of Jerusalem combined with the recovery of the Levantine coast for the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem meant that the Christian cities on the mainland were no longer self-sufficient in food and other products. They were dependent on imports for basic commodities, most of which Cyprus was readily able to provide. Whether this development was inevitable or not, commerce became the face of Lusignan Cyprus and contributed to dramatic economic growth that made the Lusignan period one of the most prosperous in Cypriot history.

Furthermore, the demands of trade triggered a diversification of the Cypriot economy. In addition to its traditional agricultural products of wheat, barley and pulses, Cyprus began to produce -- and export -- carobs, fish, meat, flax, cotton, onions and rice. Minor exports of saffron, nutmeg, pepper, and other spices were also recorded. Last but not least, Cyprus exported salt, a highly lucrative commodity -- so lucrative in fact that the Lusignans maintained a royal monopoly on its extraction. 

More important economically, however, was the move away from the export of raw products toward agricultural processing. As a rule, the more refined a product is, the greater the value and so the greater the profit that can be derived from its sale. Cyprus under the Lusignans produced and exported a variety of processed agricultural goods such as wine, olive oil, wax, honey, soap, cheese and above all sugar. Indeed, the production of sugar on an industrial scale became one of Cyprus' most important sources of revenue. 

Furthermore, under the Lusignans, Cyprus developed entire new industries. The manufacturing of pottery flourished at Paphos, Lemba, Lapithos, and Engomi. Textile production also developed from the mid-thirteenth century onwards including the production of samite, camlets, and silk, and the textiles were often dyed locally, increasing the value-added captured on the island. Other examples of high-value products were the production and export of icons and manuscripts. 

Notably, excavations show that Cyprus employed the cutting-edge technology of the age, notably highly sophisticated waterworks to power its mills and then reuse the water to irrigate surrounding fields. Leading crusades scholar Nicholas Coureas concludes:

The sophistication of Cypriot agriculture is best seen in the Lusignan plantations around Potamia south of Nicosia. The recently excavated system of wells, waterwheels, canals and mills irrigated the fields and processed produce of the royal estate. ("Economy" in Cyprus: Society and Culture 1191 - 1374, editors Angel Nicolaou-Konnari and Christ Schabel [London: Brill, 2005] 113.)

It is no coincidence that this splendid example of first-rate agricultural practices was found on a royal estate. Coureas estimates that as much as one-third of Cyprus' arable land was held in the royal domain. Nor did Lusignan control end there. The Lusignans were more Byzantine than Western in their tight control over the Cypriot economy, building on a system of centralized administration that they inherited from the Byzantines -- including the personnel! 

In contrast to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the kings of Cyprus maintained a monopoly on minting coins and also established kingdom-wide standards for a variety of wares. They instituted some price controls (notably on bread) and maintained control of public highways. Perhaps most important, they granted far fewer privileges to the Italian city-states than did the crusader states on the mainland.

Last but not least, Cyprus was home to a shipbuilding industry and banking, two of the most important economic sectors of the age. The former was concentrated in Famagusta and grew up mostly after the fall of the shipbuilding centers on the Syrian coast, banking was centered in Nicosia, which became a major center for money lending. So much so, in fact, that it attracted the outrage of the Church by the introduction of a variety of shady measures designed to evade laws against usury. Coureas notes that despite the de facto high interest charged, customers were clearly prepared to borrow anyway, a strong indication of just how lucrative commercial activities on Cyprus were in the thirteenth-century. 

This positive picture is marred by the fact that Cyprus clung to Byzantine traditions in another, less admirable, way also: slavery was practiced on the island. While in the 12th and 13th century most slaves were Muslim war captives, as the influence of the Italian city-states grew so did the number of slaves procured from other regions. This was because the Italian city-states were the principle slave-traders of the age, engaged primarily in bringing slaves from northeastern Europe to the voracious slave-markets of the Arab world. After the fall of the mainland crusader states, a major slave market developed on Cyprus itself, a fact that evidently encouraged the purchase and employment of slaves directly on Cyprus particularly in labor-intensive industries such as sugarcane production and viticulture as well as for domestic work. 

In retrospect, the first two hundred years of Lusignan rule was a "golden age" for Cyprus,  characterized by independent government and economic prosperity. Neither Venetian nor Ottoman rule delivered so many benefits nor such high standards of living for the population at large  -- including peasants but excluding slaves -- as did the centuries of Lusignan rule.

 My most recent novels are all set in medieval Cyprus:

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Dr. Helena P. Schrader holds a PhD in History.

She is the Chief Editor of the Real Crusades History Blog.

She is an award-winning novelist and author of numerous books both fiction and non-fiction. Her three-part biography of Balian d'Ibelin won a total of 14 literary accolades. Her current series describes the civil war in Outremer between Emperor Frederick andthe barons led by John d'Ibelin the Lord of Beirut. Dr. Schrader is also working on a non-fiction book describing the crusader kingdoms. You can find out more at: http://crusaderkingdoms.com


 

The Crusader States in the 13th Century - Prospering and Flourishing

Last week I pointed out that the crusader states in the 13^th century are usually portrayed as fragile, vulnerable and tottering on collapse. Yet as historian Stephen Donachie has argued persuasively in a variety of fora, this is a gross exaggeration that reduces nearly a century of history to a single snapshot taken at the end of that hundred years. The fifty years following the arrival of the Third Crusade until the catastrophic defeat of the Frankish army at La Forbie in 1244, was actually a period of comparative prosperity, peace, security and even expansion.

I provided a synopsis of the key events and factors shaping the geopolitical situation in the crusader states between 1190 and 1244 last week. Today I want to look at the economic factors which played a decisive role in the sustainability of the Frankish states in the first half of the 13^th century.

Remains of a 13th Century Sugar Factory - One of Cyprus' Source of Wealth

The reason the crusader states of the early 13^th century were viable, despite the loss of nearly all the inland territory that had sustained the First Kingdom of Jerusalem, can be summed up in one word: Cyprus. Despite the loss of most of Galilee, Samaria, and Palestine, the crusader states on the coast of the mainland were not weak because they could draw on the rich resources in manpower, foodstuffs and finished products of Cyprus.  In terms of prosperity, if not security, Cyprus more than compensated the Frankish settlements in Syria for the territory that remained in Saracen hands.

First and foremost, Cyprus was the bread-basket of the Frankish states. Cereals, particularly wheat and barley, were the principal crops of Cyprus. They were produced in quantities far in excess of domestic consumption, making cereals a major export commodity.

In addition, Cyprus produced and exported cotton, sesame, and olives.  Olives were used in the production of both oil and soap, an important value-added product that brought high margins, particularly when scented with any of the readily available herbs like rosemary or thyme. Sugar production was another important economic activity and contemporary sources claim the best powdered sugar came from Cyprus.  Other coveted agricultural products produced on Cyprus were beeswax, honey, raisins, wine, and almonds. Cyprus was famous for its wine as well, a product that found favor in the royal courts across Western Europe. Last but not least, timber from the abundant and old forests on the island was highly coveted because lumber was needed to build the Italian ships that now dominated the Mediterranean. These products made the Frankish elite on Cyprus very rich indeed.

While unsuitable for long-distance export, the standard of living of the inhabitants of both Cyprus and the crusader states of the Levant was increased by the cultivation and sale of dietary supplements such as oranges, lemons, limes, bananas, pomegranates, mulberries, figs, apples, peaches, walnuts, almonds, and, of course, grapes. Likewise, although game was limited on the mainland due to the density of population, Cyprus still had deer, wild sheep, and boar, as well as hare and rabbit. Domesticated livestock included cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, geese, pigeons.  Horses, donkeys, and camels were all used extensively for transport, and horses were among the exports from Latin Greece.

Nor were all exports agriculture in nature. Silk and silk fabrics, particularly material using spun gold either in the weave or embroidered, were produced in the crusader states. Because the rare porphyria snails which produce purple dye were found only off the coast of Beirut and in the Gulf of Laconia (both under Frankish control in the first half of the 13^th century), this dye or fabrics produced using it were another important source of income. Another popular luxury good produced in Outremer was glass. Tyre was famous for particularly clear glass, Beirut for red glass. Soap, particularly scented soap, was another popular product exported to the West. 

But not all trade was in products produced locally. Immensely important to the prosperity of the crusader states was the transit trade, i.e. trade in goods that originated beyond the borders of the crusader states and was destined for customers likewise beyond Outremer. Beirut, Tyre, and Acre particularly were funnels for goods bound for Constantinople, Italy, Sicily, and Western Europe from as far away as China and India. The lords of Outremer taxed both imports and exports. They charged anchorage and demurrage fees in their harbors. They taxed the goods passing into their cities from landward as well as seaward, ensuring that they profited from the caravans coming from Aleppo, Damascus, and Ascalon as well as the ships from France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire.

The goods passing through were some of the most coveted of the age, ensuring high margins for merchants ― and tax collectors. For example, the famed spices and perfumes of the Orient passed through the ports of the Levant.  So did important pharmaceuticals such as opium. Ivory, incense, and gold were other coveted exports from the lands East of Outremer.  Fur, amber, wool and woolen fabrics, and iron were just some of the products imported from the West and bound for destinations further east. While weapons, to the scandal of Churchmen and Imams alike, passed in both directions.

The combination of expanding borders (i.e. increasing security) and sustained prosperity created an environment in which the inhabitants of the crusader states lived in comparative comfort and, indeed, luxury. Visitors from the West were impressed, not to say astounded or offended, by the lifestyle of the residents. The Lusignan palace in Nicosia inspired admiration and comment for its great throne room, balconies, baths, gardens, menagerie, gold ornaments, tapestries, and clocks. (Hazard, Harry W ed. A History of the Crusades: The Art and Architecture of the Crusader States, p. 175.)  The polychrome marble, mosaics, painted ceilings and indoor fountains at the Ibelin residence in Beirut ignited the wonder of visitors. The hunting dogs, hawks, brightly painted galleys, and livery of the servants and soldiers were other sources of admiration and wonder. In short, wealth and security were the foundation for a cultural flourishing that expressed itself in the construction of magnificent cathedrals, monasteries, palaces and commercial buildings, as well as in the significant writings of the Frankish elite. (See: Baronial Scholars). 

Yet it would be wrong to see the society of the crusader states as fundamentally decadent. The military elites of this society might have enjoyed exceptional luxury of lifestyle, but they remained fighting-men with agricultural holdings (now on Cyprus rather than in Syria) as the foundation of their status and wealth.  They were also engaged in a series of armed conflicts during this period. They actively participated in the Fifth Crusade in Egypt.  After a civil war stretching nearly two decades and involving several military campaigns, they effectively drove the Hohenstaufen Emperors out of Outremer. They participated in the crusade led by Champagne and Cornwall ― and pushed their luck too far in the military operations that ended in disaster at La Forbie.

Far from being a precarious period overshadowed by a sense of doom as most writers would have you believe, this was arguably one of the most pleasant periods in the history of the crusader states. It was not until the rise of Mamluks, with their far more brutal and duplicitous tactics, that the crusader states came again under unremitting and ultimately overpowering attack.

Dr. Schrader's new series is set in the first half of the 13th century. The first book in the series is:

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Dr. Helena P. Schrader holds a PhD in History.

She is the Chief Editor of the Real Crusades History Blog.

She is an award-winning novelist and author of numerous books both fiction and non-fiction. Her three-part biography of Balian d'Ibelin won a total of 14 literary accolades. Her most recent release is a novel about the founding of the crusader Kingdom of Cyprus. You can find out more at: http://crusaderkingdoms.com