Table Of ContentBirmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies
EASTERN TRADE AND THE
MEDITERRANEAN IN THE
MIDDLE AGES
PEGOLOTTI’S AYAS-TABRIZ ITINERARY AND ITS
COMMERCIAL CONTEXT
Thomas Sinclair
Eastern Trade and the Mediterranean in the
Middle Ages
At the end of the High Middle Ages in Europe, with buying power and economic sophistica-
tion at a high, an itinerary detailing the toll stations along a commercial artery carrying east-
ern goods (from China, India and Iran) towards Europe was compiled, and later incorporated
in the well-known trading manual of the Florentine bank official Pegolotti; Pegolotti was
twice stationed in the city of Famagusta in Cyprus, which lay opposite the city of Ayas where
the land route ended. The Il-Khanid capital, Tabriz in Iran, attracting expensive merchandise
such as spices and silk from a variety of origins, was the road’s starting-point.
To demonstrate the importance of the route in its own time, parallel and contemporary
routes in the Black Sea and the Levant are traced and the effect of trade on their cities noted.
To compare the Ayas itinerary (1250s–1330s) with previous periods, the networks of com-
mercial avenues in the previous period (1100–1250) and the subsequent one (1340s–1500)
are reconstructed. In each period, the connection of east–west trade with the main move-
ments of the European economy is fully drawn out, and the effects on the building history of
the three main Italian cities concerned (Venice, Genoa and Florence) are sketched.
Attention then turns to the Pegolotti itinerary itself. The individual toll stations are identi-
fied employing a variety of means, such as names taken from the Roman itineraries (Peutinger
Table and Antonine Itinerary) and archaeological data; this allows the course of the track to
be followed through diverse topography to the city of Sivas, then across plains and through
passes to Erzurum and finally to Tabriz. A picture is drawn of the urban history of each major
city, including Sivas, Erzurum and Tabriz itself, and of the other towns along the route.
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), contributed three sheets to
the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (2000) and has published numerous
articles, including many in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd edition; he writes principally
on economy and administration in Armenia during the late pre-Ottoman and early Ottoman
periods.
Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies
General Editors
Leslie Brubaker
Rhoads Murphey
John Haldon
Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies is devoted to the history, culture and archaeol-
ogy of the Byzantine and Ottoman worlds of the East Mediterranean region from the fifth to
the twentieth century. It provides a forum for the publication of research completed by schol-
ars from the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies at the University of
Birmingham, and those with similar research interests.
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit https://www.routledge.com/series/BBOS
Byzantium and the Emergence of Muslim-Turkish Anatolia, ca. 1040-1130
Alexander Daniel Beihammer
Cyprus Between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (ca. 600–800)
An Island in Transition
Luca Zavagno
A Tenth-Century Byzantine Military Manual: The Sylloge Tacticorum
Translated by Georgios Chatzelis and Jonathan Harris
Writing about Byzantium
The history of Niketas Choniates
Theresa Urbainczyk
Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies
University of Birmingham
Eastern Trade and the
Mediterranean in the Middle Ages
Pegolotti’s Ayas-Tabriz Itinerary and its
Commercial Context
Thomas Sinclair
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 Thomas Sinclair
The right of Thomas Sinclair to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
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trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sinclair, T. A., author.
Title: Eastern trade and the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages : Pegolotti’s
Ayas-Tabriz itinerary and its commercial context / Thomas Sinclair.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. | Series:
Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman studies; 25 | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019035212 (print) | LCCN 2019035213 (ebook) | ISBN
9780754665168 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429348112 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Commerce–History–Medieval, 500-1500. | Trade
routes–Asia–History–To 1500. | Trade routes–Europe–History–To 1500.
Classification: LCC HF395 .S56 2020 (print) | LCC HF395 (ebook) | DDC
382.095/04–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019035212
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019035213
ISBN: 978-0-7546-6516-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-34811-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies Volume 25
To my wife Mary and my two daughters Ioanna and Sophia
Contents
List of Illustrations viii
Author’s preface ix
Markings, transliteration and symbols xii
PART A
Introduction 1
1 The documents and the routes 3
2 The commercial background 29
PART B
The Ayas-Tabriz Itinerary 165
3 Ayas to Sivas 167
4 Sivas to Erzincan 194
5 Erzincan to Erzurum 239
6 Erzurum to Tabriz 257
PART C
Conclusions 285
Conclusions 287
Appendix I: Ottoman routes of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries
in the Sivas–Erzurum sector 301
Appendix II: Coins 330
Bibliography 373
Maps 395
Index 423
Illustrations
Figures
4.1 Nicopolis–Satala–Zimara. Tabula Peutingeriana. 205
4.2 Nicopolis–Satala–Zimara. Tabula Peutingeriana and Itinerarium Antoninum. 206
Maps
A1 Pre-Ayas. Asia Minor and Armenia: principal routes 396
A2 Pre-Ayas. Northern Iran; extension of route to Central Asia 398
A3 Pre-Ayas. Egypt, Arabia, Syria, Iraq, India 399
A4 Ayas period. Asia Minor and Armenia: principal routes 400
A5 The Mediterranean: Italian cities in relation to Egypt, Syria, Black Sea 402
A6 Ayas period. Iran, routes, including Hormuz, Khurasan, Central Asia 403
A7 Ayas period. Hormuz route and Inner Asia route 404
A8 Ayas period. Sea routes: Egypt, Arabia, Iran, India 405
A9 Ayas period. Caucasia: Georgia, Arran, Shirvan 406
A10 Post-Ayas. Ayas period. Asia Minor and Armenia: principal routes 408
A11 Post-Ayas. Land routes in Iran, Central Asia, Inner Asia 410
B1 Ayas to Sivas. Regional context 411
B2 Ayas to Sivas 413
B3 Sivas to Pürk 414
B4 Pürk to Erzincan 415
B4a Detail of map B4 416
B5 Erzincan to the Erzurum plain 417
B6 The Erzurum plain 418
B7 Erzurum to Üç Kilise 420
B8 Üç Kilise to Khoy 422
Author’s preface
The preparation of this book began in the summer of 2001, when I was staying in the German
Archaeological Institute in Istanbul in order to work in the Başbakanlık Arşivi. In the eve-
nings and at weekends I was able to read in the Institute’s extensive library in extraordinarily
quiet conditions: the library was closed during the summer except to staff and guests staying
in the Institute. Moreover at that time guests had completely free access to the book stacks.
I was able to put maps, atlases and texts out on the broad, white tables and, knowing the
Pegolotti itinerary and the ancient itineraries well, was able to solve most of the outstanding
identification problems in both.
My original intention was to write an article concerning exclusively the identification
of places and roads in Pegolotti and the two ancient itineraries. I presented such an article
to Anatolian Studies, whose editor was Prof. Bryer (who sadly has recently died). When it
turned out that the length of the “article” was 40,000 words, it seemed that an article was
more or less ruled out. However Prof. Bryer suggested that I expand the short introduction,
which covered among other things the itinerary’s commercial role, and so bring the “article”
to monograph length. Independently I had concluded that descriptions of the major cities
along the route (Sivas, Erzincan, etc.) and of the lesser cities (such as Akşehir/Pürk) were
needed: without such descriptions a misleading impression would have been given of the
cities’ relative size and of the commercial impact exerted on them by the road. Comparisons
with the periods preceding and following the Ayas–Tabriz itinerary were already in the “arti-
cle”, but expanding this aspect of the work necessitated the description of several additional
routes and the investigation of all the routes’ complexities on an increased scale. I then
accepted that a study of trade flows requires a study of coins, a giant and unusual undertak-
ing, even within the limits I had set myself.
Chapter II, which concerns the whole commercial background to the Pegolotti itinerary,
is based to a large extent on the secondary sources. It is in the chapters concerned with the
course of the Pegolotti itinerary (which I still regard as the kernel of the book), in the analy-
sis of trade flows along the Ayas–Tabriz line itself, and of course in the study of the coins,
that I put in a special effort on the primary sources. With these exceptions the investigation
of the international commercial element on the basis of primary sources went beyond my
own interests as a student of Turkish and Armenian history, and I hope in future to collabo-
rate with experts on the late medieval trade of Italian and other European mercantile cities.
Given the long chronological scope and wide geographical reference of the present book, it
was inevitable that those parts which concern the political and social history strictly of Asia
Minor and Armenia should likewise be based mostly on secondary sources. This aspect,
however, I hope to address in future by means of a more complete reading of the primary
sources. Practicality demanded that the examination of coins here be confined to mints lying
