Eastern Trade and the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages: Pegolotti's Ayas-Tabriz Itinerary and Its Commercial Context

ISBN-13: 9780754665168 / Angielski / Twarda / 2019 / 438 str.

Tom Sinclair

Opis

This is a study of an itinerary incorporated in the famous trading manual compiled by the Florentine banker Pegolotti. The route runs between Ayas in Cilicia through the territory of the Seljuks in Asia Minor and the lands of the Il-Khanids to Tabriz in Iran and the itinerary itself likely originates in the 1320s. Tom Sinclair explains the significance of this route as the largest avenue of east-west trade in the period from the late 1250s to 1337, when Ayas was destroyed by the Mamluks, and sets it in the broader context of the trade between Europe and the Middle East and China during the later Middle Ages. He then traces the route itself, as it makes what seems a great detour north from the Mediterranean across the Taurus mountains up into the heart of Eastern Turkey and thence into Iran, in order to avoid the dangers of the Mongol-Mamluk wars further south. Fixing the route depends heavily on establishing the previous Roman itineraries and tracing the Roman roads on the ground, which also enables a number of ancient and medieval locations to be identified for the first time. In addition, the author also considers the measures taken by the Turkish and Mongol authorities to manage the route, including the flow of coin and precious metals along it.

O autorze

Thomas Sinclair was a professor of Turkish History at the Department of Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies in the University of Cyprus. He is the author of Eastern Turkey: An Architectural and Archaeological Survey (4 volumes, 1987-90) and writes principally on economy and administration in Armenia during the late pre-Ottoman and early Ottoman periods.