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The crusader movement has attracted the attention of historians since its very beginnings. Although the original papal address in which Pope Urban ii called on Christian knights, particularly those from France, to devote themselves to the liberation of the Holy Land (Clermont, 27 November 1095) was not preserved, the various versions of the narrative sources hint at Urban's main goals: the liberation of the Holy Land, especially the places where Jesus was born, lived and was crucified, and the great need for assisting eastern Christians and pilgrims, who had been suffering under the Muslim yoke for generations. The pope's homily promoted the demonisation of Muslims – called Saracens or Turks in the different versions of Urban's discourse – thus imparting not only religious but also moral justification for a holy war against the usurpers of places holy to the Christian faith.Footnote ¹ The different versions of Urban's discourse contain a clear call for a holy war against a faraway enemy across the sea, an action advanced as largely justified by divine will.Footnote ² At this early stage, however, there were no signs of any papal initiative to foster Christian warfare in any other field. More specifically, there is no evidence of a call for a commercial boycott against Muslims.

The avoidance of such an act, and even of its declaration, is rather surprising, since economic warfare had become a well-known tactic by the eve of the First Crusade; that an enemy's strength could be undermined by striking at its economic resources appears to have been a feasible possibility even by medieval standards. The earliest form of economic warfare was based on the elementary idea of starving out opponents through siege or blockade; such a policy was often put into practice by the ancient Israelites and their enemies as exemplified in biblical and Talmudic literature.Footnote ³ As early as the eighth century bc, an Assyrian letter testifies to the attempt to foster an economic boycott against Arabs (sic) by prohibiting the sale of iron to this enemy.Footnote ⁴ Both Greek and Roman political authorities made it clearly understood to those under their occupation that any revolt would lead to all the horrors of retaliation against the civilian population.Footnote ⁵ Throughout the ninth century, the emperors Louis the Pious and Lothair ii each tried, without much success, to prevent Venice's lucrative trade with Syria and Egypt.Footnote ⁶ The Byzantine Empire also adopted a ban on trade of war materials with the Muslims during the reign of John i Tzimiskès, who strove to force this policy on Venice (971). Indeed, trade with the Muslims was prohibited between 969 and 971, though Venetian ships still carried lumber to the Fatimid ports of Mahdia and Tripoli. The Venetian authorities were lenient toward the transgressors in view of the shippers’ modest economic standing and allowed them to transport small pieces of timber.Footnote ⁷ In the Muslim world too there are many examples of economic warfare.Footnote ⁸

Notwithstanding the many precedents for economic boycott before the crusader period, the first evidence of a Christian offensive other than on the battlefield appears only in the second half of the twelfth century, almost seventy years after the council of Clermont. True, Urban ii most probably spoke of liberating the eastern Christians and the holy places from the Turks, who were not then known as a commercial or naval power. As for the Fatimids in Egypt, the leaders of the First Crusade toyed with the idea of allying with them against the Turks. Yet, the gap between the military aspects of the holy war and the absence of any form of economic boycott still calls for consideration. At a Church council held in Montpellier in 1162, Pope Alexander iiiFootnote ⁹ apparently prohibited the delivery of arms, lumber for naval purposes, and iron to the Muslims.Footnote ¹⁰ The pope's initiative achieved a wider audience during the Third Lateran Council (March 1179), which heralded the end of the serious political crisis between regnum and sacerdotium that characterised Alexander's pontificate.Footnote ¹¹ According to the first-hand testimony of William of Tyre, about 300 prelates attended the council,Footnote ¹² among them an impressive delegation from Outremer that included the archbishops of Tyre and Caesarea, the bishops of Bethlehem, Nablus, Acre and Tripoli and the abbot of the Church of Mount Sion.Footnote ¹³ The representatives of the Latin East probably raised the prelates' awareness of the difficult situation overseas and the imperative to reinforce the fight against the Infidel by all possible means. Canon 24, indeed, while clarifying and expanding upon former regulations, also proscribed any trade with the Muslims that might contribute to their war effort. Besides a very severe moral reprimand, culprits were threatened with excommunication and confiscation of their property, and violators who were eventually captured would lose their freedom, to be enslaved by their captors:

The council's emphasis on maritime cities hints at the active trade that Genoa, Venice, Pisa and Marseilles were carrying out with the Muslims at the time.Footnote ¹⁶ Another clause that merits consideration refers to the prohibition on providing services as helmsmen or sailors on Muslim ships. Such a proscription probably hints at the Christians’ relative naval superiority at the time, turning their maritime skills into a sought-after service.Footnote ¹⁷ Further attention should be directed to canon 26, which hints at the prelates’ tendency to isolate Saracens – together with Jews – from the community of the faithful, a trend that reached its zenith a few years later.Footnote ¹⁸

Robert Ian Moore provides a challenging, wide perspective as to the factors behind contemporary church initiatives against different groups in Christian society. In his The formation of a persecuting society, he analysed the roots of persecution in medieval Christendom and its main targets: Jews, lepers and heretics. By moving the emphasis from the persecuted to the persecutors, Moore detected the main beneficiaries of such a policy of persecution; namely, the secular and ecclesiastical powers that were undergoing a process of institutionalisation in parallel with or following significant socioeconomic changes.Footnote ¹⁹ Popes, kings and princes, while looking for recognition and legitimisation, indeed acknowledged the need for some kind of scapegoat towards which they could channel the growing social unrest that endangered their privileged rank and the status quo as a whole. The traditional outsiders thus provided a feasible objective against which psychological fears and social unrest could be manipulated, a course of action that obscured the real promoters and/or beneficiaries behind the process of change.Footnote ²⁰ Surely, the impulse behind the economic boycott of the Muslims was primarily that of military strategy, its focus being the retention/recovery of the Christian strongholds Outremer and on the Iberian Peninsula; it was not simply a reflection of a hardening of hearts against non-Christian communities. Still, as Moore well recognises, the economic factors behind persecution were ideologically justified with a rich lexicon of theological argumentation that the Church found fitting to vent before the faithful in twelfth-century Christendom.Footnote ²¹

This paper aims to complement Moore's theory with an additional case that, from a medieval Christian point of view, associates two of the Devil's main partners: first and foremost Muslims but also Christian merchants who profited from trading with them. It is the premise of this study that the many bans on trade with the Muslims in the crusader period – both in their essence and timing – may clarify another facet of the Christian persecuting society. Furthermore, an analysis of papal policy, and the reactions that it aroused, reveals conflicting attitudes toward Muslims and Islam, thus contributing new perspectives for the study of the crusades.

Although the association of Christians with heretics, lepers and Jews may appear at first glance surprising if not unreasonable, it was formally sanctioned by the bulls coena domini – solemn papal bulls of excommunication pronounced in Rome every Holy Thursday from the thirteenth century onwards. Among the twenty categories of lawbreakers incurring excommunication and necessitating the pope's absolution, heretics were mentioned first, while pirates in the Mediterranean and those who carried weapons and other fighting means to the Turks, Saracens and heretics were assigned the fourth and seventh place, respectively.Footnote ²² Church legislation thus clearly reflects the importance attributed by the papal curia to an economic boycott against the Muslims in the Mediterranean. The question arises, why did papal awareness emerge as to the need to complement the bellum sacrum with a commercial boycott? What was the reaction of contemporaries to this additional aspect of papal policy? Besides those directly affected by the papal bans, in particular commercial centres along the Mediterranean, did the new papal initiative encounter general approval as had originally the holy war itself?

The ban of the Third Lateran Council on commercial dealings with the Muslims, the specification of banned merchandise, as well as the culprits’ severe punishment, gradually became recurrent formulae, in itself a clear testimony of the ineffectiveness of the prohibitions in actual practice. Still, the Lateran legislation became a turning-point in Church history, because of both its recognition of the active trade with the Muslims in war materials and its attempts to stop it by all means. Relying on the Lateran antecedent, an ecclesiastical synod held in Montpellier (1195) re-emphasised the severe measures to be taken against those who dared to cooperate with the Muslims by selling them weapons and/or wood. Going a stage further, the synod also threatened Christian princes who would not enforce ecclesiastical legislation with the same punishment as the offenders, thus creating a precedent that became very effective during the Albigensian crusades.Footnote ²³ The Montpellier prelates filed heretics, but also Catholic pirates and merchants, in the same category as Muslims,Footnote ²⁴ thus increasing the number of those threatening Christendom and, in consequence, justifying their inclusion as targets for persecution. John Gilchrist had clearly outlined such a sociological mechanism when concluding that ‘[it] is not then surprising that during the period of the crusades the knights – the army of God – did little to discriminate between Muslims and other “enemies” of Rome, including Jews’.Footnote ²⁵

The legislation of the Third Lateran Council exerted broad impact in late twelfth- and early thirteenth-century decretals collections and canon law.Footnote ²⁶ A new juridical lexicon gradually emerged to define the crime, the materials involved, the transgressors’ status and their punishment. The clause facto Alexandrie defined illegal commercial activities with the Muslims, whether in the Latin East, the Iberian Peninsula, and/or northern Africa. As to the illicit supplies (‘res prohibitas’), they covered all material that could help the Muslims’ military efforts against Christendom, first and foremost weapons, but also iron, wood, horses, pack animals, slaves, and later on victuals, as well. The designation alexandrini, which appeared in Barcelona from 1317 to 1320, referred to all those who traded with the Muslims in open contravention of the papal bans. Those convicted of ‘facto Alexandrie’ faced excommunication and confiscation of their property, a punishment from which they could be released by the Holy See alone.Footnote ²⁷

The Franks’ defeat at the Horns of Hattin (1187) undoubtedly justified reinforcing the merciless struggle against Muslims on all fronts, the commercial field included. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) provided a most suitable arena to strengthen former regulations while advancing the socioeconomic isolation of Saracens living in Christendom.Footnote ²⁸ In one of the medieval Church's most formidable displays of strength, led by the energetic policy of Innocent iii, the council elaborated detailed plans for the success of the forthcoming crusade, the main aim of which was to liberate the holy places, Jerusalem in particular, and return them to Christian rule. In the broad crusader context, the prelates threatened with excommunication not only corsairs and pirates who dared attack Christian pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land but also anyone who profited through association with the lawbreakers. The council further strengthened previous legislation with regard to the economic boycott:

The council addendum prohibiting ship traffic to Muslim countries for the next four years – thereby increasing the number of vessels available for the forthcoming crusade – indirectly corroborates the large scope of commercial transactions between Muslims and Christians. The imperative to obstruct Mediterranean trade encouraged more rigid measures, such as threatening with excommunication not only shipowners but also sailors, merchants and those who provided the required financial means to effect such trade.Footnote ³⁰ The rhetorical escalation in the Church's approach should also be noted: those trading with the Muslims were accused by the Third Lateran Council of having submitted to ‘cruel avarice’; a few years later they became ‘false and ungodly Christians’. The conclusion is clear: by the beginning of the thirteenth century, with the fiasco of Hattin and the vicissitudes of the Fourth Crusade in the background, it had become clearer that commercial ties between Christians and Muslims, especially in regard to weapons and other war material, should no longer be tolerated.

Thirteenth-century popes repeated the same bans time and again, in itself a clear proof of their lack of efficacy. Honorius iii ordered the archbishop of Genoa to excommunicate all those who traded with the Saracens in weapons, iron and wood, an order that he extended in 1229 to include foodstuffs and horses.Footnote ³¹ The broad ban was reinforced later the same year by his successor to the Holy See, Gregory ix, who enlarged its geographical limits to include the Iberian Peninsula.Footnote ³² Innocent iv, at the First Council of Lyons (1245), placed special emphasis on the harmful influence of ‘corsairs and pirates [who] greatly impede help for the Holy Land, by capturing and plundering those who are travelling to and from it’. The prelates thereupon issued once more the customary ban on the sale of war materials, on ship transport to Muslim countries for four years, and/or on any kind of assistance to the Muslims through the construction of implements of war or service in their galleys.Footnote ³³ It is rather clear, however, that this ban, too, had no effect. Only a year later the pope accused Genoese, Venetian and Pisan merchants of trading in Greek, Bulgarian and Ruthenian slaves, whose final destination was apparently Egypt, which was in constant need of slaves for its army.Footnote ³⁴ Urban iv reiterated previous bans in his letters to the legates in Scotland, England, Castile, Portugal, Navarre and Aragon (1263), thus reflecting a new economic reality where the expanding trade with Muslims was no longer monopolised by the Italian city states.Footnote ³⁵ A year later, the pope asked the patriarch of Alexandria to denounce before the Holy See all those who still traded with the Muslims in open contradiction of previous bans.Footnote ³⁶

The election of Gregory x brought about renewed efforts to advance the Christian offensive overseas.Footnote ³⁷ The delegation from Outremer at the Second Council of Lyons (1274) – with the master of the Temple, William of Beaujeu; the master of the Hospital, Hugh Revel; and John of Grailly, the seneschal of the Latin Kingdom, at their head – undoubtedly increased the prelates’ awareness of the desperate situation overseas.Footnote ³⁸ The Constitutiones pro zelo fidei were intended to strengthen previous legislations, which included the excommunication of corsairs and pirates who harmed pilgrims on their way to and from the Holy Land and a six-year prohibition on transporting war materials and other traffic to the Muslims.Footnote ³⁹ In most cases, however, such prohibitions proved worthless in face of the commercial interests of the Christian flock. The gap between ideology and practice and the conflicting approaches in contemporary society are clearly reflected in the indignation expressed by Prince Edward of England in Acre in 1271 at the Venetians’ trade with Egypt, on the one hand, and the legal considerations argued in defence of such trade by Filippo Belegno, the Venetian bailo in Acre, on the other.Footnote ⁴⁰

The fall of Crusader Acre – with its traumatic consequences – brought about more severe papal regulations with regard to the commercial boycott of the Muslims. On 23 August 1291, barely three months after the Christian defeat, Nicholas iv extended previous proscriptions by rigorously forbidding the export of arms, horses, iron, wood, foodstuffs ‘and any other form of merchandise’ (‘alia quaecumque mercimonia’) to Egypt and Syria, thus implying a total embargo. Violators were to be punished by excommunication and perpetual infamy.Footnote ⁴¹ The pope further envisaged the mobilisation of a fleet – to be provided by the Hospitallers, Templars and the king of Cyprus – to patrol the Mediterranean and arrest those engaged in the contraband trade.Footnote ⁴² Boniface viii and Benedict xi confirmed previous edicts, trying to reinforce the pan-Christian essence of the economic boycott by requesting the trading nations to promulgate similar decrees of their own.Footnote ⁴³ The papal boycott received further impetus during the pontificate of Clement v, who repeated the excommunication sentence against all merchants implicated in contraband trade; they might be absolved only by apostolic mandate, provided they handed in subsidium Terrae Sancte a sum equal to the value of their illegal trade with Islam.Footnote ⁴⁴ Clement also requested that Philip iv enforce the blockade in the southern ports of his kingdom and punish all lawbreakers.Footnote ⁴⁵ Following the papal request, the king of France issued an ordinance forbidding the transport of weapons, horses and foodstuffs to the Saracens (28 August 1312).Footnote ⁴⁶ Clement wrote similar messages to the bishops of Pisa, Genoa, Ancona, Naples, Venice and Brindisi in an attempt to enlist the help of the Italian prelates and, through them, their insubordinate flock in upholding the economic blockade.Footnote ⁴⁷ Still, Clement's successor, John xxii, complained of the continuation of the illicit trade in slaves and war merchandise by Genoese, Pisan and French merchants.Footnote ⁴⁸

Papal initiatives aimed at imposing an economic boycott from the twelfth century onwards were undoubtedly fostered, if not dictated, by the increasing trade with the Muslims in war materiel. The data provided by David Jacoby and others in this regard is illuminating: Pisan, Venetian and Genoese merchants became Egypt's major trading partners, especially in timber, iron and pitch, a state of affairs corroborated by Saladin's testimony and by the very fact that thirty-eight Italian vessels – though they did not all necessarily carry these goods exclusively – were anchored in Alexandria just before the crucial battle at the Horns of Hattin.Footnote ⁴⁹ The large profits inherent in the trade of war materiel and slaves may explain the negative attitude of the Christian maritime powers toward the papal embargo.Footnote ⁵⁰ As claimed by Georges Lagarde, the Italian communes might have combined most fervent religious feelings with no less intense anticlerical tendencies.Footnote ⁵¹ Such ambivalence in the maritime states’ commercial dealings with the Muslims and their changing attitudes toward the papal embargoes throughout the crusader period acquired moreover all the characteristics of a perpetual pendulum.

As early as 1151 – that is, eleven years before the earliest ecclesiastical legislation on this matter – Genoa imposed a ban in all the territories under its rule on the export of arms, oars, lumber and timber to Muslim countries. By the 1170 s, however, Genoa was on excellent terms with Saladin, and the embargo was abandoned. As the years went by, such a shift in policy was not an exception but the rule. In 1224 Venice proscribed shipping war material to Egypt, timber and firewood being explicitly mentioned. Two years later, the city went a step further, empowering a Venetian shipowner to police the Adriatic on its behalf against transgressors, and by the 1280s the Great Council applied severe sanctions against those involved in illegal trade. Similar measures were periodically adopted by the Pisan authorities, as well as by Charles ii of Anjou and Jayme of Aragon. In practice, however, all these procedures remained theoretical declarations of good will, in line with the papal boycott, but they did little to restrict the flourishing trade between southern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean.Footnote ⁵² Venice, insisting on its distinction between res prohibita and permissa, in fact maintained that papal and conciliar prohibitions applied only to strategic materials and that trade in other goods was allowed; it also persevered in a differentiation between Egypt and Syria, the latter supposedly not included in the papal embargo.Footnote ⁵³ Obviously, these were convenient distinctions that suited pressing commercial interests but were not much welcomed in the papal curia. Pope John xxii asked his legate in Italy, Bertrand du Poujet, to denounce as heretical the teaching of a professor of law at the University of Padua who advanced the Venetian position.Footnote ⁵⁴ The temporary setback encouraged Venice to negotiate papal absolutions for those of its citizens who had violated the ban on trade.Footnote ⁵⁵

The dramatic fall of Acre brought about no radical changes; it almost seems that the contrary was true. Although Genoa had formally joined the papal embargo in 1291, the city had renewed its relations with Egypt by 1304, a policy that had been carried on by Venice since 1302.Footnote ⁵⁶ James ii of Aragon renewed his alliance with Egypt in 1292, only one year after the fall of Acre, while the Pisans maintained a consulate in Alexandria as early as 1305. Sylvia Schein thus rightfully concluded that ‘in a period ranging from one to thirteen years the grandiose plan of undermining the Egyptian economy and thereby weakening the arch-enemy of Christendom was falling to pieces’.Footnote ⁵⁷

The enforcement of the papal boycott was largely conditioned by the changing relations of each power with the Holy See but no less by the frequent alterations in papal policy itself. In February 1221 Honorius iii granted to the newly elected patriarch of Constantinople, Matthaeus, the right to absolve those who had been selling timber and other prohibited commodities to the Muslims.Footnote ⁵⁸ Three years later, the pope authorised Aragonese merchants to sell wine surpluses to the Muslims during periods of ceasefire.Footnote ⁵⁹ Gregory ix, too, authorised Iberian merchants to trade with the Muslims under two main reservations: the sale of iron, horses, mules, naval material (and sometimes foodstuffs) was proscribed, and the whole of the income from this trade, or parts of it, was to be devoted to the redemption of Christian captives.Footnote ⁶⁰ Still, Innocent iv allowed the Order of Santiago to buy a Muslim fortress in exchange for foodstuffs and animals, including horses, the sale of which had formerly been forbidden.Footnote ⁶¹ The pope eventually authorised Iberian prelates to issue indulgences to anyone who had contravened the restricted papal ban on trade with the Muslims.Footnote ⁶²

Such concessions were not limited to Christian soldiers in the forefront of the Reconquista. The pope bestowed similar privileges on the patriarch of Constantinople and the doge of Venice, thus not only recognising the malfunction of papal policy but also acting in open infringement of it.Footnote ⁶³ Clement iv continued the policy of leniency, authorising the archbishops of Seville and Toledo and his legate in Sicily to bestow indulgences on those who had conducted illegal trade with the Muslims in exchange for a fine that would be devoted to covering the ever-growing expenses of the Reconquista.Footnote ⁶⁴ Although Nicholas iv had previously declared a total embargo on trade with Egypt (December 1289), a few months later he conceded in part by allowing trade in periods of ceasefire; in doing so, he was following the terms of the renewed truce between the Franks and their neighbours that included free trade. In 1290 he bestowed on the patriarch of Alexandria the same privileges that Clement iv had permitted the Iberian prelates to enjoy, though Nicholas's concession was in fact annulled one year later, in the wake of the fall of Acre.Footnote ⁶⁵

The collapse of the crusader kingdom in 1291 did not put an end to the chronic inconsistency in papal policy. On the contrary, the fines levied on those who contravened papal bans became an important source of income for the Iberian kings and/or the prelates of the Church.Footnote ⁶⁶ As time went by, the prohibitions on trade became a trivial justification for taxation, whether by means of fines and/or special permissions.Footnote ⁶⁷ According to the Cypriot chronicler Leontios Makhairas, the fortunes accumulated by local merchants prior to the Genoese conquest of Famagusta in 1373, were largely the result of the generous papal privileges that exempted the island from the ban on trade with the Muslims,Footnote ⁶⁸ thus reflecting once again the ambivalence of papal policy in a most crucial area of the Mediterranean.Footnote ⁶⁹

The inconsistencies of papal policy, along with the manipulative approach of the maritime powers, justify additional research into the climate of opinion in contemporary society. Research into prevailing attitudes in medieval Christendom is always a challenge because of the nature of the available sources.Footnote ⁷⁰ In the case of the commercial boycott, there is the added difficulty of the lack of satisfactory data in the narrative sources. Thus, although some chroniclers quote in full the legislation of the Third Lateran Council, they neither comment on nor clarify their opinions about the commercial boycott.Footnote ⁷¹ Even such a loquacious chronicler as Matthew Paris, who reported in full the legislation of the First Council of Lyons, including the proscription on trade and the many sanctions against pirates, did not find it necessary to comment on the papal boycott.Footnote ⁷² Such an attitude leaves open to speculation the degree of identification with the goals and justification of papal policy. Moreover, chronicles written in the Latin East, such as the chronicle attributed to Ernoul and that of the so-called Templar of Tyre, refer neither to council legislation nor to the papal attempts to promote the economic boycott.Footnote ⁷³ This state of affairs is further corroborated by Marino Sanudo Torsello, who testified to the lack of publicity of the papal bans, which in his opinion harmed their implementation in actual practice.Footnote ⁷⁴ An exception to the widespread lack of concern are the Annals of Genoa, which emphasise Nicholas iv's efforts to stop the lucrative trade with the Muslims and call attention to the severe measures adopted by this pope.Footnote ⁷⁵

The indifference displayed by narrative sources toward the papal economic boycott warrants further research into the treatises dealing with the recovery of the Holy Land, which acquired much importance from the Second Council of Lyons onwards.Footnote ⁷⁶ At the special request of Gregory x, the Dominicans Humbert of Romans and William of Tripoli, the Franciscan Gilbert of Tournai, and Bishop Bruno of Olmütz discussed in general terms the lessons to be learned from the Christian failures in the Holy Land. While emphasising the crusaders’ moral misdoings, their reports do not however reveal a satisfactory understanding of the many challenges faced by the Latin settlers and crusaders Outremer, first and foremost the flourishing commerce with the Muslims and its consequences.Footnote ⁷⁷ Furthermore, it is not clear whether the suggestion that a special maritime police be created to enforce the economic blockade in the Mediterranean was indeed discussed during the council deliberations. Still, if such a proposal did emerge, it was eventually discarded by the pope, thus leaving most crucial questions open for further elucidation.

As years went by and the Christians' situation in the Latin East became desperate if not hopeless, the recovery treatises became more concrete, reflecting the personal experience of many of their authors, and especially their direct knowledge of the Latin East. Fidenzio of Padua, who travelled extensively in the Latin East as vicar of the Franciscan province of the Holy Land in the 1260s, faithfully reflects the new approach. A few months before the fall of Acre, he produced one of the most elaborate treatises on the situation overseas in which he mentioned no fewer than eleven considerations in favour of a commercial boycott. This action in his view was the best means to ensure Christian control of the Mediterranean and prevent a Muslim attack on Syria and Cyprus which could endanger the chances of the forthcoming crusade. Among the far-reaching results of such a boycott, Fidenzio found special satisfaction in the heavy losses that it would cause to Egypt's economy, in particular the flourishing import of vital war materials and slaves for the Egyptian army. Egypt's substantial income from taxes was also given special consideration, and rightly so, considering a daily revenue of about 1,000 florins in Alexandria alone. Fidenzio further argued that about a third of the cargo of Christian ships remained in Saracen hands because of the heavy customs duties. Lastly, the boycott would cause severe damage to enemy ports and would at the same time give a final blow to piracy in the Mediterranean. A fleet of about thirty galleys, he thought, would be able to enforce the desired blockade.Footnote ⁷⁸

Following Nicholas iv's request for advice, King Charles ii of Anjou wrote his Conseil du roi Charles (1292–4). Both as a crusader and as the nominal king of Jerusalem, Charles was more attentive than other Christian princes to current developments in the Latin East and to the balance of forces there.Footnote ⁷⁹ He recognised Egypt's superiority on the battlefield, a fact that in his view justified turning the Christians’ war efforts to other areas. Charles thus advised focusing on weakening the enemy's economy, especially its ports, Alexandria being the prime target; the conquest of the Egyptian port was, in his opinion, a condition sine qua non for the success of the forthcoming crusade. The king supplied his own estimation of the number of galleys and warriors needed, which he rather optimistically expected to be provided by the military orders, the king of Cyprus and the Holy See.Footnote ⁸⁰

Galvano of Levanto, a Genoese physician attached to the papal court, wrote a Liber sancti passagii christicolarum contra saracenos pro recuperatione Terrae Sanctae, which he dedicated to Philip the Fair. After flattering the king of France as ‘archipugil Jhesus Christi, prothopugnator et promoter fidei ortodoxe necnon et protector catholice ac romane ecclesie’,Footnote ⁸¹ Galvano refers to more specific matters that affect the crusade, such as peace among the Christian princes and the maritime communes, taxation and the expected achievements of the passage Outremer.Footnote ⁸² Unfortunately the fragmentary condition of this manuscript does not allow further conclusions about its author's opinion on the economic boycott.Footnote ⁸³

The dramatic fall of Acre and the expulsion of the Latins from the Holy Land thus left their mark on the nature of the treatises written for its recovery. Although the traditional approach of peccatis nostris exigentibus was not abandoned, it was relegated to a more marginal status; strategic and economic considerations, the commercial boycott among them, gradually took the lead. The implementation of such a boycott found strong supporters among the masters of the military orders, the Templar James of Molay and the Hospitaller Fulk of Villaret, both experienced men of arms with a profound acquaintance with the affairs of the Latin East. They discussed with Pope Clement v plans for the union of the military orders and the prerequisites for the forthcoming crusade.Footnote ⁸⁴

James of Molay, in his short report, analysed the advantages of a great crusade against the limitations of the parvum passagium (pp. 147–8). Focusing on the maritime aspects that would precede the passage Outremer, he advised that ten big ships, provided by Venice, Genoa and other maritime cities, should be devoted to the custodia maris against those malos Christianos, a generic description of both merchants who traded with the Muslims and pirates. He further supported the nomination of Rogeronus, son of Roger de Loria, to captain the Christian fleet, while voicing his fears that the nomination of a member of the military orders might bring about the retaliation of the Italian communes against the Hospital and the Temple and cause both orders great damage. Finally, James urged Pope Clement to implement apostolic authority (‘fortissimam prohibitionem et strictam sententiam, et quod ita facile non absolventur a dicta sententia’) and order Venetian, Pisan and Genoese merchants to stop their lucrative weapons trade with the Moslems, which filled the enemy's coffers and caused great detriment to the Christian army (p. 149).Footnote ⁸⁵

Fulk of Villaret did not mince words in castigating those ‘impious, perverse Christians’ who out of greed and avarice continued to sell weapons, iron and other goods to the Saracens. Instead of employing negative Muslim stereotypes, as was so characteristic of contemporary chroniclers, Fulk approaches the Muslims as ‘wise and devious people’ (p. 605) and ‘prudent’ (p. 608), features that in his view turned them into a most dangerous enemy. Hence the imperative to establish a patrolling fleet of about twenty-five ships – to be provided by the king of Cyprus and the orders of the Temple and the Hospital – as an initial means of ensuring Christian control of the Mediterranean. An additional, stronger fleet of about fifty to sixty galleys, Fulk recommended, should precede the crusade to damage the Saracens' main ports and their chances of resisting the Christian offensive.Footnote ⁸⁶

Though the number of galleys differs, the Armenian prince Hetoum of Corycus – who arrived in the west in 1307 – also advocated an immediate boycott of Egypt and detailed its shortage of war materiel and slaves.Footnote ⁸⁷ For this purpose, he envisaged a fleet of at least ten galleys, under the command of a papal legate, that would impose a blockade and ravage the enemy coasts.Footnote ⁸⁸ The personal expertise in the Latin East of most authors of recovery treatises written at the beginning of the fourteenth century and their direct knowledge of the balance of forces undoubtedly left their mark, which was quite clearly manifested in their widespread approval of papal attempts at an economic boycott, a strategy that had been so ineffective in the previous century.

A notable exception to this view is the Norman lawyer Pierre Dubois, whose De recuperatione Terrae Sanctae (1307) has enjoyed much scholarly attention.Footnote ⁸⁹ Dubois did not specifically refer to an economic boycott among the many strategic, political and socio-economic reforms that he advocated for the recovery of the Holy Land. Despite his awareness of ‘the daily increasing greed of the merchants’ (pt i, c. 67) and of the pernicious influence of the constant wars among Genoa, Venice, Pisa and other communes in Lombardy and Tuscany (pt i, c. 10), Dubois did not advocate the enforcement of a pan-Christian commercial boycott of the kind promoted by the papacy during the previous 150 years.Footnote ⁹⁰ The gap between Dubois and other authors of recovery treatises is not fortuitous; it may well reflect the difference in perception between a Norman lawyer who wrote from a Capetian or, at least, European perspective and his contemporaries, most of whom had personally experienced the misfortunes of the Latin states overseas.

The efforts to renew the crusade and the economic boycott received further impetus at the Council of Vienne (1311–12) under the leadership of Clement v. Following the precedents of the Third and Fourth Lateran Councils, the prelates further restricted public manifestations of Islamic rituals, as well as the freedom of Muslims living in Christendom.Footnote ⁹¹ Once again, representatives from the Latin East took the lead in ensuring the prelates’ attention to most critical issues. The envoys of King Henry ii of Lusignan – Jacques de Casiatis and Simon de Carmandino – pointed to the Achilles heel of the Muslim camp: its chronic lack of war materials – iron, horses, wood and slaves – and its dependence on external resources. Ironically, such resources were being generously provided by Christian pilgrims and merchants – who were termed ‘malos et falsos Christianos’ – through either pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre or the many taxes that they paid on their trade with the Muslims.Footnote ⁹² The representatives of the king of Cyprus therefore urged that not only trade with Egypt but also pilgrimage to the holy places be prohibited, thereby strengthening the economic boycott on an unprecedented scale.Footnote ⁹³ Displaying much devotion to the Church and the pope at his head, the Cypriot king committed himself and his kingdom to providing naval assistance to enforce the embargo against Venetian, Pisan and Genoese merchants who provided Egypt and Syria with war materials and slaves – thus creating the basis for an international Christian fleet devoted to the custodia maris.Footnote ⁹⁴ Guillaume de Nogaret also emphasised the pernicious influence of the sale of weapons and slaves to the Saracens, and saw in the enforcement of the commercial embargo a very important step, even an imperative, to ensure the success of the forthcoming crusade.Footnote ⁹⁵ Although doubt may be cast on the real intentions of Philip the Fair's leading counsellor – who was exonerated ad cautelam for his participation in the Anagni affair pending his participation in the forthcoming crusadeFootnote ⁹⁶– it is reasonable to assume that Nogaret voiced prevailing opinions among the political elite, especially at the Capetian court.Footnote ⁹⁷

The enforcement of the commercial blockade found additional supporters among the friars, both Dominicans and Franciscans, in combination with their continuous efforts to further mission among the Muslims. Calling Catalan, Pisan, Venetian and Genoese merchants not only false Christians but also ‘ministros inferni’, William Adam advocated a pan-Christian effort to put an end to their lucrative trade with the Muslims,Footnote ⁹⁸ whom they provided not only with war materials but also with Christian slaves.Footnote ⁹⁹ He also wanted to stop Christian pilgrimage eastwards, which, he claimed, actually filled the enemy's coffers under the cover of pious reverence.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ Ramon Lull envisaged the division of the Mediterranean between three captains, nominated and supervised by the papal curia; their main aim would be the enforcement of the economic boycott for six consecutive years. Basing themselves in Rhodes and Malta, they would bring about the destruction of the Muslim merchant class and its coastal bases, thus facilitating the forthcoming crusade.Footnote ¹⁰¹

One of the best-known advocates for the recovery of the Holy Land was Marino Sanudo Torsello, who devoted his Liber secretorum fidelium crucis to ways of prevailing over the Infidel. The importance assigned to his treatise may also be assessed by the appointment of a special papal commission (1321) to evaluate it. Sanudo saw the enforcement of a maritime blockade for a period of between two and three years as a condition sine qua non for the success of the crusade. A fleet of at least ten galleys financed by the papal curia should, he thought, put an end to contraband trade in the Mediterranean, and this should be followed by a frontal attack against Egypt by large numbers of foot soldiers and knights.Footnote ¹⁰² Sanudo was able to supply important details on shipping and navigation, which he probably acquired from Venetian merchants.Footnote ¹⁰³ He further provided a detailed list of merchandise that was at the core of the Christian trade with Egypt and listed alternative routes and commodities that would prevent the financial crisis which it was feared might be the outcome of the proposed commercial boycott in Christendom.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ Though his data is not always accurate,Footnote ¹⁰⁵ Sanudo still imparts important insights into the priorities of western trade, which involved, besides the shipping of war materials to Egypt, the transport back to Europe of spices, dyestuffs, aromatics and alum.

The many advocates of the trade boycott against the Muslims in the early fourteenth century – in contrast to the general indifference in the recent past – provide additional perspectives on the effect of papal policy and prevailing trends in medieval Christendom from the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. Neither innovative nor unique, the papal boycott against the Muslims proved to be a complete failure as long as the Latin Kingdom and principalities existed. From the perspective of a Christian persecuting society what was the reason for this failure, especially when compared to the considerable success of actions undertaken at the same time against Jews, lepers and heretics? One may note that the use of the same Augustinian emotional index against all those persecuted – Muslims, Jews, lepers or heretics – transforms negative attitudes towards Muslims into an act of inverted inclusion within the Christian sphere; in other words, using illusionary inclusion in order to exclude. This means that within its inner discourse, Christian society defeated the Muslims, independently of the real outcome on the battlefield. This was not, however, an act of including the Muslims into western Weltanschauung, but a symbolic denial that further served to exclude the easterners altogether. The inverted inclusion of the Muslims thus became the last step on the long march of both including and, at the same time, erasing the Infidel, for it was Christianity that defined the cultural boundaries of the west. It should be noted in this regard that merchants who were involved in the illegal trade with the Muslims were no less threatening to the socio-political elite than Jews, lepers and heretics. Still, the popes, as well as the urban authorities, found no suitable means of prevailing over economic interests. The precarious nature and instability of the papal boycott only undermined the chances of the Italian city-states to restrict, much less to proscribe, the lucrative trade with the Muslims. Such a conflict between ideology and practice was hardly unique to the crusades; it actually characterised the annals of medieval Christendom.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ It might further be argued that acknowledgment of the holy war against Islam was not appealing enough to the flourishing merchant classes for them to forgoe the monetary profits derived from prosperous trade with the Muslims. As a result, both the popes and the urban patriciate, though faithful to traditional ideological principles, eventually surrendered in actual practice to the demands of the new market economy. From the perspective of papal policy, it should be noted that the boycott against an external enemy, in this case the Muslims, was in fact used to advance the interests of the old elites, the papacy at their head, in their fight to preserve their previous privileged status in medieval Christendom. Seen in this light, the failure to implement the boycott in actual practice reflects the weakness of its promoters, who did not succeed in obtaining broad public support for their policy. These failures should be regarded as another facet of the decline in papal leadership in the late Middle Ages and evidence of the alienation of the faithful, in particular the merchant classes, from the traditional ideals that nurtured the crusades.

The persistent failure to enforce an economic boycott and the continuous infringement of this policy may therefore contribute to a new and further understanding of the crusades. The attempts to impose a boycott reflect one of the main ideological premises maintained by the medieval papacy: continuous antagonism between Christianity and Islam. The failure to effectively implement the boycott, on the other hand, mirrors not only the growing conflict between papal-crusader ideology and the economic interests of different sectors in medieval Christendom; it also demonstrates the importance that trade with the Muslims had acquired for the development and growth of Mediterranean cities, with Genoa, Venice, Pisa and Marseilles at their head. Such a paradox may further show that the generally accepted view of a fundamental opposition between Christianity and Islam in the crusader period actually reflects papal ideology while disguising other, no less important, aspects of the crusader movement. The crusades, indeed, represent not only a first stage in the ‘clash of civilisations’; they also, and ironically, paved the way for dialogue and even cooperation between the western and eastern Mediterranean in other than the religious field. The increasing commercial links between maritime communities and Muslim powers thus echo an additional outcome of the crusader movement, that of a bridge between west and east; and as such, they should be reinterpreted.Footnote ¹⁰⁷

Still, the profound transformation of attitudes with regard to an economic boycott that was reflected in its wide, strong support among crusade propagandists in the early fourteenth century in contrast to broad indifference in the near past, calls for further consideration. The vociferous support of a boycott given by some members of the ecclesiastical and political elites may be evaluated as another stage in the long process of acknowledging Christian downfall in the Holy Land. From this perspective, support for the economic boycott appears as a psychological response, a kind of defence mechanism with regard to a long-time enemy who had prevailed on the battlefield. On the other hand, support for the economic boycott hints at an additional front inside Christendom, a confrontation between the traditional elites, especially members of the ecclesiastical order, and the urban merchant classes. In this regard, the authors of the recovery treatises, as much as they acknowledged the balance of forces in the Levant, were actually fighting a lost battle in Europe. They represented a traditional society and economy, which though having received God's blessings, and those of his representatives on earth, was not strong enough to counter the ever-growing exigencies of the new market economy. The attempts at an economic boycott of the Muslims were part and parcel of values, symbols and creeds that had deep roots in the Societas Christiana. Its failure in actual practice does not herald an additional Muslim triumph over Christians, but the victory of the merchant classes, who were paving their way to a new reality, one in which Muhammad and Jesus and the everlasting struggle between them became of secondary importance.