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  VI. THE INFLUENCE OF THE RIZE OF THE OTTOMAN TURKS
        UPON THE ROUTES OF ORIENTAL TRADE.

  By ALBERT H. LYBYER,

  _Professor in the University og Illinois_


  [_Reprinted from_ THE ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW, _October_ 1915]

  THE ENGLISH

  HISTORICAL REVIEW

  NO. CXX.--OCTOBER 1915[*]




_The Ottoman Turks and the Routes of Oriental Trade_


Within a period of a little more than two hundred years, from the close
of the thirteenth century to the second decade of the sixteenth, the
rising power of the Ottoman Turks extended the area of its political
control until its holdings stretched north and south across the Levant
from the Russian steppes to the Sudanese desert. The Turkish lands thus
came to intercept all the great routes which in ancient and medieval
times had borne the trade between East and West. Near the time when
the Turkish control became complete, a new way was discovered, passing
around Africa; and within a few years the larger part of the through
trade between Europe and Asia had deserted the Levantine routes and
begun to follow that round the Cape of Good Hope. The causes of this
diversion of trade have not been fully agreed upon. No specific
investigation of the subject appears to have been made. A glance
through works which, being mainly concerned with other subjects, have
alluded to the shifting of the routes of oriental trade about the
year 1500, shows that two incompatible views are prevalent. One of
these holds in general that the advance of the Ottoman power gradually
blocked the ancient trade-routes and forced a series of attempts to
discover new routes; after these attempts had succeeded, the Turks
continued to obstruct the old routes and compelled the use of the new.
The other view finds little or no connexion between the growth of
the Turkish power and the causes of the great discoveries: a set of
motives quite independent of the rise of the Turks led men like Henry
of Portugal and Christopher Columbus to explore the unknown world;
and when the new route to India had been established it was found to
possess an essential superiority for trade, which gave it pre-eminence
until in the nineteenth century the balance was again turned by the
introduction of steam navigation and the opening of the Suez Canal. The
evidence appears to be overwhelmingly in favour of the second of these
views. In the present article, however, without arguing the question
directly, it is proposed to survey the course of oriental trade from
the close of the great Crusades until the eighteenth century, so as to
show the influence of the Ottoman Turks as it emerged historically.

The medieval trade-routes between western Europe and eastern and
southern Asia fall into two groups: the northern, which passed mainly
by land, and the southern, which passed mainly by sea. The former
communicated with central Asia, China, and India through the Black Sea
and Asia Minor, the latter through Syria and Egypt. Each group had
branches which entered Asia near Aleppo and diverged in the direction
of Tabriz and Bagdad. On all routes there were what in America are
compendiously termed ‘long hauls’ and ‘short hauls’; that is to say,
wares which travelled most of the way, as Western silver and coral and
Eastern silk and spice, and wares which travelled only part of the
way, as sugar, cotton, and Arabian gums. It was possible, also, for
merchants who dealt in goods of the former class to travel the whole
road or to go only part of it and sell or exchange their commodities,
which would be carried on by other hands. For most goods the southern
routes, especially that by the Red Sea, were cheaper, because they ran
mostly by sea;[1] but this consideration was less important in the
case of the costlier spices, especially as they were liable to suffer
damage in the holds of ships. It was not so much, however, the question
of expense as political and religious conditions which determined what
routes would be preferred. If merchants are hindered by one route, said
Marino Sanuto the Elder, they find another, like water, and they never
cease seeking a way which will bring them more profit.[2]

At the beginning of the fourteenth century five routes were most in
use: the land road through Tana from the mouth of the Don north of the
Caspian Sea to China; the way through Trebizond to Tabriz and central
Asia; the two roads from Lajazzo (Ayas) at the head of the Gulf of
Alexandretta, one by Tabriz, the other by Bagdad and the Persian Gulf
to India and beyond; and finally the route by the Nile, Kosseir, the
Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean to southern and eastern Asia.[3] The
north road was practicable as far as China for the century between
1240 and 1340, while the Mongol Empire was strong.[4] During this time
foreign merchants, missionaries, and travellers were protected, and
encouraged to traverse the vast Mongol territories freely.[5] These
were still pagan in 1291, though the western divisions turned Moslem
soon after that date. The routes which entered at Trebizond and Lajazzo
nourished the small Christian states of Trebizond and Lesser Armenia,
which served as vestibules to the Mongol lands.[6] Between them lay
Asia Minor, the land of the Turk, broken at the time into ten small
emirates, hostile in the interior to Christian strangers, but dealing
freely at its ports with Western traders, and beginning to develop a
commercial and piratical shipping.[7] Palestine and Egypt were under
the Mameluke sultans, who permitted no foreign Christian to cross their
dominions,[8] but who, as well as their subjects, derived great profit
from a large trade between West and East. Christian cities, especially
Venice, Genoa, and Barcelona, traded regularly at Alexandria.

The popes never forgave the Mamelukes for expelling Western Christians
from the Holy Land,[9] and after repeated efforts they succeeded in
the second quarter of the fourteenth century in reducing Christian
commerce with Alexandria to small proportions. Hence the trade by the
other routes increased, and the prices of comparatively bulky Eastern
wares like pepper and ginger became higher in the West.[10] But the
Mongol empire disintegrated rapidly, first into large states, then into
a multitude of small ones which threatened anarchy. In consequence,
from about the year 1340 the northern through route to China ceased to
be practicable and the ways through Persia became difficult.[11] This
was the first obstruction, or rather breaking up, of the trade-routes,
and in it the Ottoman Turks, who then formed a small though vigorous
principality, had no part. But since all the Levantine routes were now
restricted in one way or another, the Venetians and Genoese appealed to
the pope for assistance; and a system of licences to trade with Egypt
was developed, which in time restored the commerce of the southern
route to its old prosperity. Subject to temporary fluctuations, spices
became comparatively cheap, and the average price changed little,
except for a slight fall, before 1520.[12]

In 1356 the Ottoman Turks established themselves on both sides of the
Dardanelles, and, though they had little shipping they were able to
exercise some influence on the fraction of oriental trade which still
passed through the Black Sea. They also gradually incorporated the
other Turkish principalities in Asia Minor, and with them took over
their trade agreement with Genoa and Venice and their rights to tribute
from certain of the Aegean Islands.[13] Meanwhile in 1375 the Mamelukes
absorbed Lesser Armenia (the ancient Cilicia), and thus brought into
their hands the outlets of the three southern routes, which they held
unmolested for one hundred and forty years. But frequent internal
troubles in Persia disturbed the commerce which passed through Syria,
and a violent alteration of trade-routes was accomplished by Timur,[14]
who plundered Tana and seems to have checked the through trade
from the East to the ports north of the Black Sea. He had definite
commercial aims and made Samarkand a centre for caravans from China,
India, Persia, and the West;[15] but he accomplished no such permanent
political or economic unification of his dominions as had the first
Mongol emperors. At his death in 1405 Persia fell into worse anarchy
than ever, and the northern routes of the oriental trade became as
nearly completely blocked as they ever were.[16] The Turks took no part
in this process, though they suffered from it, both in Timur’s time and
afterwards.

Venice had by now beaten Genoa decisively, and there ensued a century
of comparative stability in the oriental trade. Pearls, silk, pepper,
ginger, nutmegs, mace, cinnamon, and cloves were steadily exchanged in
Syria and Egypt against gold, silver, copper, lead, tin, coral, and the
like.[17] The Mameluke sultan and his subjects took toll of all, and
Venice did most of the carrying and gained most of the profit. While
the value of commodities was multiplied many times in the ‘long hauls’,
it does not seem to be the case that Egypt and Venice took more than
due advantage of the situation.[18] Supply and demand have their effect
even upon monopoly prices.

By about 1450, when the Turks had recovered most of their losses at the
hands of Timur, trade relations were regularly conducted by caravan
between Brusa, the first Ottoman capital, and Aleppo and Tabriz.[19]
Not a few oriental wares followed these routes, and there is some
evidence that Western merchants purchased spices at Brusa.[20] The
capture of Constantinople by Mohammed II in 1453 gave him complete
control of the Straits and a commanding position towards Genoa and
Venice. In the readjustment which followed, the political rights of
these cities at Constantinople were somewhat curtailed, but their
trading privileges were renewed with little change.[21]

The commercial policy of the Turks, now well established, was not at
all one of hostility to trade. They sought indeed to exclude foreigners
from their internal commerce, as well as from the conduct of through
trade while crossing their lands.[22] But such a desire cannot rightly
be counted against them; all states endeavour to protect the pockets of
their subjects. In conquering new regions the Turks regularly renewed
the old commercial treaties with foreign powers, and usually observed
them faithfully.[23] It is true that with them commerce was secondary,
and conquest stood first. But they wished to encourage trade for the
sake of revenue.[24] They fought with Genoa and Venice, not because
these were trading powers, but because they owned lands, cities, and
exceptional rights within the area of Turkish political influence.
With Florence, Ancona, and other commercial cities which had no lands
in the Levant and strove for none relations were uniformly good.[25]
The Turks even confirmed or granted privileges of trade in their
ports beyond what were allowed in the West, and some of their rules
as regards duties were more liberal than elsewhere.[26] But no doubt
generous provisions were not infrequently frustrated in particular
cases by grasping officials, who, by the way, were usually renegade
Christians.[27]

After his conquest of Trebizond Mohammed II came into conflict with
Venice in 1464 and took some of her Levantine territory. War followed
for nine years, in the course of which a new route of Eastern trade was
temporarily opened.[28] The Venetians formed an alliance, both military
and commercial, with the Turkoman Uzun Hassan, and some regions of
southern Asia Minor, which had not been recovered by the Ottoman Turks
since the time of Timur, furnished an opening through which spices
could pass for a short time to Satalia, the present Adalia. Mohammed,
however, annexed the southern regions, inflicted a severe defeat upon
Uzun Hassan, and forced the Venetians to a favourable peace. Soon after
this he took the Genoese possession of Kaffa in the Crimea, subjugated
the Tartars of that neighbourhood, and obtained complete control of
the Black Sea. The trade to the East through that sea was already
practically gone. Some Genoese remained in Kaffa, and the Venetians
obtained sailing and trading rights which were continued formally
for sixty years.[29] But for about three centuries the Black Sea was
used by hardly any other ships than those of the sultan’s subjects.
A considerable trade upon it supplied Constantinople with food and
various raw materials, some of which were exported to the West.[30] The
conquests of Mohammed II undoubtedly contributed in some degree to the
obstruction of the northern routes, but their importance, both in time
and extent, was secondary. What measure of reduction they accomplished
in the Levant trade at the north served to increase the trade along the
southern routes,[31] and we have seen that these conquests accomplished
no discernible permanent elevation of prices in the West.[32]

In the war of Bayezid II with the sultan of Egypt, during the years
1485 to 1491, caused by the latter’s giving asylum to the former’s
brother, Prince Jem, the Turkish troops were thoroughly defeated. The
course of oriental trade through Syria and Egypt was not in the least
molested by the Turks before the year 1516. Along the northern routes,
whose outlets were in their hands, they made no effort to stop the flow
of wares. In times of peace and order in Persia many caravans passed
east and west, exchanging wares from the Aegean Sea even to the far
interior of Asia. There continued also a regular movement north and
south to Aleppo, and thence to Bagdad and Mecca and the East. If the
Turks had hindered oriental trade, they had checked it but slightly.
During their frequent wars commerce was more or less disturbed; but the
wars usually ended in an increase of territory which furnished a wider
commercial opportunity.

Through Egypt and Syria, although disputes about the succession
to the Mameluke throne, occasional visitations of the plague, and
quarrels between natives and Europeans caused the volume of trade to
fluctuate, the old flow of oriental wares was maintained unbroken
down to 1502.[33] That year marks a new epoch. The galleys of Venice
found very few spices at Alexandria and Beirut; in 1504 they found
none at all.[34] The southern trade-routes of the Levant had been
emptied by the purchases of the Portuguese in India. From that year an
average of twelve or more ships left Lisbon annually for the East,[35]
and from 1507 the Portuguese sent fleets to blockade the mouths of
the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.[36] It was a deliberate attempt to
stop permanently the passage of wares along the old southern routes
of oriental trade, made not by Turks but by western Europeans, but it
was not entirely successful. The Venetian galleys which continued to
sail to the Levant usually found some spices to be bought. But the
old certainty was gone, and prices which were low at Lisbon were high
at Beirut and Alexandria.[37] The total quantity of spices which came
by the old routes from the East to Europe was greatly reduced. Venice
sent fewer ships to the Levant and deemed it imprudent to build new
galleys for the Eastern trade.[38] This was the situation when Selim I
overthrew the Mameluke sultans in 1516 and 1517. Instead of blocking
the southern routes further, he adopted the policy which the Mamelukes
had left him. He renewed the old treaties with Venice and the West, and
took over the intention of crushing the Portuguese naval power in the
Indian Ocean by a fleet sent down the Red Sea.[39]

After 1502, then, the carrying of spices from India to the Red
Sea and the Persian Gulf was interfered with by the Portuguese.
Nevertheless, besides the diminished amount of spices which was taken
by the Venetians and others from Aleppo and Alexandria for European
consumption, goods of the same class required in Arabia, Persia,
Turkey, and North Africa continued to travel by the old routes. In fact
this trade appears never to have ceased.[40] The Turkish conquest of
Egypt, far from creating a revolution in the Levant trade, caused only
a temporary disturbance of it, not unlike that caused previously by
the death of one Mameluke sultan and the accession of another.[41] The
real revolution was already accomplished. The beginning of the economic
decay of the Levant and of the decline of Venice and the Mediterranean
trading cities dates, not from the Turkish conquest of Egypt in 1517,
but, if its causes be not traced even earlier, from the doubling of the
Cape of Good Hope by the Portuguese in 1498.

In 1528 Francis I opened negotiations with Suleiman, and French ships
began to compete with those of Venice and Barcelona for spices at
Alexandria.[42] The 10 per cent duty which had been exacted by the
Mamelukes was presently reduced to 5, and later to 3 per cent.[43]
While the Turks despised the Venetians, as men who would endure
indignities rather than lose money, they respected the French, and
these rapidly gained on the Venetians and in time surpassed them in
amount of trade.[44]

In the thirties of the sixteenth century Suleiman undertook two great
projects which were evidently designed to open and secure the southern
trade-routes.[45] He captured Bagdad and the lands at the head of
the Persian Gulf, and he sent a fleet from Suez for an unsuccessful
attempt to expel the Portuguese from Diu in Gujarat. Thirty years
later Turkish power was extended on the east of the Red Sea to Aden,
and another expedition was sent out, which likewise failed to dislodge
the Portuguese from Diu. An active trade continued through Alexandria
and Aleppo; for instance, about the year 1550 most of the rhubarb used
in Europe came through the latter city.[46] It appears that in the last
quarter of the century, when Portugal passed into the hands of Philip
II of Spain, during an era of high prices, much of the prosperity of
the old southern routes returned, and there was a heavy traffic in
spices through the Turkish dominions.[47] But the more energetic Dutch
and English found their way also round the Cape, and rapidly drew the
Western traffic in spices again into that channel. They also opened
commercial relations with the Levant, which rivalled their trade with
the East. In the latter part of the seventeenth century they began
to bring pepper and spices even round Africa to the ports of the
Levant.[48] By this time the Venetian trade had fallen greatly,[49] but
the French maintained a place of commercial supremacy in the eastern
Mediterranean. In the eighteenth century few wares came through from
East to West, though silver passed in no small quantities in the
opposite direction. The coins of Spain, Germany, and Holland helped to
convey to western Europe the products of Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and
Persia; and the same coins served again to bring to Turkey and Persia
the spices, silks, and precious stones of the East.[50] ‘Short haul’
goods continued to move freely and in large quantities along most of
the old routes.[51]

There is evidence to indicate that no one of the shorter routes, had
there been no Turks nor any other nation on their lines to take toll
upon wares, could have competed for the trade of southern Asia with
western Europe against the Cape route. The land transit alone by the
Persian Gulf route seems to have cost more than the sea freight from
India to Europe.[52] A calculation made about the year 1800 shows that
a shipment from India to France by way of the Red Sea would probably
make a profit of 4 per cent., whereas the same consignment if sent
round the Cape would earn from 36 to 48 per cent.; if a Christian power
were in possession of the Red Sea and Egypt the gain by that route
would be not more than 10 per cent.[53] The Red Sea is so straight and
narrow, and so strewn with rocks and shallows, that sailing-vessels
have to wait for favourable winds and waste much time. The Indiamen
were not well adapted to this sea, so that transhipment was customary
at Aden, Mocha, or Jedda. There was always a transit by land, of some
ninety miles at the shortest (from Suez to Cairo), then a passage by
small vessel on the Nile, and another transhipment at Alexandria.
On the other hand the time necessary for a voyage between India and
Europe averaged not much less by the Cape route than by the Red
Sea.[54] Until the invention of the steamship, which could run straight
through the Red Sea without reference to the winds, and the excavation
of the Suez Canal, which eliminated the land transit, the Cape route
seems to have been cheaper than all others for long distance wares.[55]

It appears, then, that in the first of the two views set forth at the
beginning of this article, the relation of the Turks to the change of
the trade-routes has been misconceived. They were not active agents in
deliberately obstructing the routes. They did not by their notorious
indifference and conservatism greatly, if at all on the whole, increase
the difficulties of the oriental traffic. Nor did they make the
discovery of new routes imperative. On the contrary, they lost by the
discovery of a new and superior route. Had there been no way around
Africa the whole story of the Levant since 1500 might have been very
different. In the first place, the Mameluke sultans might have found
in their uninterrupted trade sufficient financial support to enable
them to resist successfully the attack of the Turks in 1516. But if
the Turks had conquered Egypt while the full stream of oriental trade
still ran through it, they must either have been deprived far sooner
than was actually the case of the control of these routes, or they
would have had to accommodate themselves to the great and increasing
trade through their dominions. In the latter case they might have been
forced into adopting modern ways, and into adding to their wonderful
capacity for territorial unification a parallel scheme of organizing
their trade. The decay of the lands of the Levant (neglecting the
hypothesis of climatic change) might have been arrested and reversed.
But there was a Cape route, and for three centuries and a half it took
the bulk of the oriental trade. Selim I and Suleiman, the greatest of
Ottoman conquerors, were powerless in their efforts to bring back the
lucrative flow of Eastern wares. The shifting of the trade-routes was
done, not by the Turks, but in their despite and to their disadvantage.
The desolation of Egypt and Syria, the decline of the Italian cities,
perhaps the very decay of the Ottoman empire itself, are due, not to
them, but to the great discoveries, in which, positively or negatively,
they had no discernible part.

  A. H. LYBYER.




FOOTNOTES:

[*] All rights reserved.

[1] W. Heyd, _Le Colonie commerciali degli Italiani in Oriente nel
Medio Evo_, Venice, 1866-8. ii. 167.

[2] _Liber Secretorum Fidelium Crucis_ (in Bongars, _Gesta Dei per
Francos_, vol. ii, Hanover, 1611), p. 23.

[3] For the first three routes see Comte L. de Mas Latrie, _Privilège
commercial accordé en 1320 à la république de Venise par un roi de
Perse, etc._, Bibl. de l’École des Chartes, xxxi (1870), 79-81. For the
last three routes see Marino Sanuto, _loc. cit._, pp. 3, 4, 22.

[4] W. Heyd, _Histoire da Commerce du Levant au Moyen Âge_, translated
by Furcy Raynaud, Leipzig, 1885, ii. 156 ff., 215 ff.

[5] _Ibid._, ii. 72.

[6] Ibid., ii. 72 ff., 92 ff.; G. Finlay, _Hist. of Greece_, ed. by H.
F. Tozor, Oxford, 1878, iv. 352 ff.

[7] Heyd, _Commerce du Levant_, i. 534 ff., especially 537, 542, 545,
550.

[8] Marino Sanuto, p. 23; Heyd, _Colonie commerciali_, ii. 224;
_Commerce du Levant_, ii. 58, 71, 438.

[9] Heyd, _Commerce du Levant_, ii. 23 ff.; J. Delaville Le Roulx, _La
France en Orient au XIV^e Siècle_, Paris, 1885, pp. 13 ff.

[10] Heyd, _Commerce du Levant_, ii. 188.

[11] _Ibid._, ii. 44 ff., 128, 505.

[12] According to J. E. Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture
and Prices in England_, iii, 518-43; iv. 680-91, Oxford, 1882, the
average price of pepper in England by decades from 1259 to 1580 was
as follows, in shillings per dozen pounds, pence being neglected: for
the thirteenth century, beginning with the seventh decade, 11, 12, 10,
16; for the fourteenth century, 12, 11, 15, 15, 19, 25, 17, 18, 11,
12; for the fifteenth century, 12, 32, 16, 13, 9, 13, 14, 14, 17, 17;
for the sixteenth century, 16, 16, 23, 23, 20, 32, 44, 34. The Vicomte
G. d’Avenel, _Histoire économique de la Propriété, des Salaires, des
Denrées, et de tous less Prix en général, 1200-1800_, 5 vols., Paris,
1894-1912, iv. 482-6, 502-6, 598, gives the following prices for pepper
in France by periods of twenty-five years from 1300 to 1600, in francs
per kilogram; for the fourteenth century, 5.50, 12, 8, 19; for the
fifteenth century, 5, 3, 4.70, 4; for the sixteenth century, 5, 8,
7.50, 12. Both series give only approximate results, since they rest
upon a comparatively small number of data more or less accidentally
preserved. The variations depend not only upon circumstances in the
Levant, but also upon conditions in the lands of production and the
lands of consumption and along the entire intervening route. It will
be seen that the average for the first two decades of the sixteenth
century was a little below that for the previous two centuries. Lowest
of all were the prices in the second quarter of the fifteenth century.
It may be possible to discern here the influence of Jacques Cœur, in
establishing a well-organized direct trade between the Levant and
France.

[13] Heyd, _Commerce du Levant_, ii. 259, 262, 269.

[14] _Ibid._, ii. 266 ff., 377.

[15] Ibid., ii. 505; _Narrative of the Embassy of R. G. de Clavijo to
the Court of Timour_, Hakluyt Society, 1859, pp. 89, 93, 165 ff.

[16] Heyd, _Commerce du Levant_, ii. 427; F. E. do La Primaudaie,
_Histoire du Commerce de la Mer Noire_, Paris, 1848, p. 158.

[17] Heyd, _Commerce du Levant_, ii. 427, 440, 500 ff. For a list of the
wares exchanged in the oriental trade, see G. Berchet, _Del Commercio
dei Veneti nell’ Asia_, Venice, 1869, pp. 13-15.

[18] Heyd, _Colonie commerciali_, ii. 272, note 1, quotes Peschel for
the statement that a quintal of ginger which cost at Calicut 4 cruzados
sold at Alexandria for 11 and at Venice for 16. But G. Priuli (in R.
Fulin’s _Diarii e Diaristi Venetiani_, Venice, 1881, p. 160) says that
one ducat at Calicut mounted to from 60 to 100 ducats in Europe. The
latter statement appears to be exaggerated, since in England, at the
farthest extremity of Europe, pepper could fall as low as 9_d._ the pound
(see note 12). If Priuli be correct, the value of pepper at Calicut in
his time was a farthing or less per pound, or a sou per kilogram.

[19] Heyd, _Commerce du Levant_, ii. 352. Bortrandon de la Brocquière
(Wright’s _Early Travels in Palestine_, London, 1848, pp. 283 ff.) made
the journey by caravan from Aleppo to Brusa.

[20] Heyd, _Commerce du Levant_, ii. 349.

[21] _Ibid._, pp. 308 ff., 316 ff.

[22] They continued the exclusive policy of the Mamelukes in regard to
the trade through Egypt and the Red Sea: Sieur J. Savary, _Le Parfait
Négociant_, Geneva, 1752, p. 837.

[23] J. W. Zinkeisen, _Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches in Europa_,
Gotha, 1840-63, ii. 576, 577, and G. Berchet, _Del Commercio dei Veneti
nell’ Asia_, Venice, 1869, p. 18, mention the renewal of the old
Mameluke treaties with Venice after the Turkish conquest of Egypt in
1517. See references to Heyd in notes 13 and 21 above.

[24] Zinkeisen, _loc. cit._, in a note quotes Paruta to the effect
that in 1517 Selim ‘desiderava l’amicitia de’ Venetiani e che nel
principio del nuovo imperio procurava d’accrescere i traffichi in
quella provincia per particolare utile e commodo di quei sudditi e per
interesse dell’ entrate publiche’.

[25] Heyd, _Commerce du Levant_, ii. 337, 349.

[26] Savary. pp. 770. 707, says that the Turks never required two
payments of duties on merchandise brought to one province and
transported to another, ‘comme il se pratique en boaucoup d’autres
états do l’Europe,’ and that the penalty for false declarations of
weight was not confiscation but correction.

[27] See my _Government of the Ottoman Empire in the Time of Suleiman
the Magnificent_, pp. 30 ff.

[28] Heyd, _Commerce du Levant_, ii. 326 ff.

[29] Q. B. Depping. _Histoire du Commerce entre l’Europe et le Levant
depuis les Croisades_, 1832, ii. 227, 228; P. H. Mischef, _La Mer
Noire_, p. 17. Privileges to navigate in the Black Sea were regularly
granted to Venice by the Porte in treaties before that of 1540.

[30] Heyd, _Commerce du Levant_, ii. 351; Savary, pp. 822, 827.

[31] Heyd. _Colonie commerciali_, i. 479.

[32] See the price averages, above, p. 680, note 12. The absence of
marked influence upon prices exerted by the conquest of Constantinople
by the Turks deserves special attention, since that conquest has been
imagined to have closed the routes of the Levant to such an extent as
to force the western Europeans to seek now routes. If this had been the
case the price of spices must have shown a marked increase between 1453
and 1498, which it did not do. Nor was it the agencies engaged in the
Mediterranean trade which sought the new routes, but Atlantic powers
in no relation with the Turks. It is not even certain that the desire
to profit from a more direct spice trade emerged in the consciousness
of western Europeans before 1490 (see H. Vignaud, _Histoire critique
de la Grande Entreprise de Christophe Colomb_, Paris, 1911, i. 213).
The entire hypothesis seems to be a legend of recent date, developed
out of the catastrophic theory which made the fall of Constantinople
an event of primary importance in the history of mankind. The great
discoveries had their origin in a separate chain of causes, into which
the influence of the Moslems of Spain, North Africa, and the Mameluke
empire entered, but not that of the Ottoman Turks.

[33] R. Fulin, _Diarii e Diaristi Veneziani_, Venice, 1881, pp. 155 ff.
(Dal Diario di Girolamo Priuli, 1494-1512); Marino Sanuto, _Diarii,
1496-1533_, Venice, 1879-1903; _passim._

[34] Fulin, pp. 165, 173, 175.

[35] Faria E. Souza, as epitomized by J. Briggs in his _History of
the Rise of the Mohamedan Power in India_, London, 1829, iv. 501 ff.
Of 114 ships sent in the first ten years 55 returned; Heyd, _Colonie
commerciali_, ii. 277.

[36] Albuquerque took Ormuz in 1507, and made an attempt on Aden in
1513. Lorenzo Almeida was killed while fighting the Mameluke fleet in
1508, and his father destroyed the Egyptian fleet in 1509. Thus began
a long struggle; in which the Portuguese tried to stifle the direct
trade between India and the Levant. See, for a general statement, Heyd,
_Colonie commerciali_, ii. 273.

[37] Fulin, pp. 160, 164 ff.

[38] Marino Sanuto, _op. cit._, xxiv. 22-36.

[39] Sec above, note 23.

[40] A. Vandal, in his _Voyages da Marquis de Nointel (1076-80)_,
Paris, 1900, p. 12, says: ‘La Mer Rouge se ferma totalement vers 1630
et l’Égypte devint une impasse.’ P. Masson, _Histoire du Commerce français
dans le Levant au XVII^e Siècle_, Paris, 1896, pp. i, 386 and 411,
refers to the continuance of this trade (as late as 1670), but he finds
no mention in the records at Marseilles of the importation of spices
from Aleppo and Cairo after 1700. Nevertheless a number of pieces of
evidence can be adduced to show that the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf
were far from being closed, and that if Indian wares rarely passed
through to Europe, this was only because it was not profitable to
purchase them at Cairo and the Syrian entrepôts and ship them westward
in competition with the Cape route. See, for example, Pierre Belon du
Mans, Observations, 1555, pp. 121a, 158b; _Travels of P. Teixeira_
(translated), London, 1852 (Hakluyt Society), pp. 118 ff. et passim
(the Venetians bought at Aleppo in 1605, among other wares, cinnamon,
cloves, nutmegs, and mace); J. de Thévenot (translated), _Travels into
the Levant_, London, 1686, part i, pp. 152 ff., part ii. pp. 72 ff.
F. Vansleb (translated), _The Present State of Egypt_, London, 1678,
pp. 118-27, gives a long list of commodities exchanged between Europe
and Egypt, with their prices, and mentions all the ordinary spices as
purchasable by Europeans in Egypt in 1673. Hasselquist, writing on
the Levant about 1749, describes the caravan trade which was bringing
Indian stuffs and spices from Mecca to Egypt, North Africa, and Syria
(i. 124 ff.), and the Indian trade by the Red Sea and Persian Gulf into
Turkey (ii. 101, 124). Baron de Tott, in his _Mémoires_, Amsterdam,
1784-5, part iv, pp. 54 ff., found Cairo a great entrepôt between East
and West: ‘le choc des ballots marqués à Madras & à Marseille semble
fixer un centre à l’univers.’ C. T. Volney in his _Voyage en Syrie et
en Égypte_, published 1783-5 (i. 189 ff., ii. 138 ff.), describes the
same trade in some detail. G. A. Olivier in his _Voyage dans l’Empire
Othoman, l’Égypte, et la Perse_, Paris, an XII, iii. 327 ff., iv. 273
ff., finds the same double trade active and flourishing, and he states
that after 1498 all the products of the Orient for the use of the
Moslems continued to come through Bagdad and Egypt (iv. 430).

[41] Heyd merely states that no gain accrued to the trade of Syria
and Egypt from the Turkish conquest (_Commerce du Levant_, ii. 546).
Thorold Rogers (_op. cit._, iv. 653-7) affirms that before the
Portuguese discoveries the Turks ‘appear to have blocked every passage
but one’, and that ‘their conquest of Egypt proceeded to block the
only remaining road’, It has been shown that they ‘blocked’ no roads,
that two (through Syria and Egypt) were out of their power until 1516
and 1517, and that they were actually desirous of keeping these roads
open. Rogers finds confirmation of his view in the rise of the prices
of oriental wares after 1520. At first sight he might seem justified.
By twenty-year periods the price of a dozen pounds of pepper in England
in the sixteenth century was 16, 23, 26, and 39 shillings. But the
price of a quarter of wheat, by his own figures, was 6, 7-1/2, 13, and
15 shillings for the same periods. The fact is that pepper and other
oriental wares rose with the general rise of prices in the sixteenth
century, almost certainly caused by the addition to the European stock
of gold and silver from the Americas. The evidence of price cannot be
said to indicate disturbance from the Turkish conquest of Egypt; indeed
it shows singularly little from the doubling of the Cape, which might
be presumed to have caused a noticeable fall in prices.

[42] For light on the beginnings of French trade at this time see
Marino Sanuto, lvii. 267, 436, 503; lviii. col. 86, &c.

[43] Depping, ii. 247.

[44] Masson, pp. xii ff.

[45] Heyd, in his _Commerce du Levant_, ii. 546, says that Suleiman
purposed to centre the spice trade of the world at Constantinople.

[46] Belon du Mans, p. 158 b.

[47] Masson, p. xvi.

[48] _Ibid._, p. 374, shows that the English took pepper and spices to
Alexandretta in 1681. See also pp. 412, 505.

[49] Berchet, pp. 21, 25, explains the causes of this decline.

[50] For this drainage of the precious metals eastward see Masson, pp.
xxxii, 371, 374, 487; Savary, _op. cit._, p. 835; Vansleb, _op. cit._,
pp. 110, 127, 128; Thévenot, _op. cit._, ii. 77, 156. Thévenot says (p.
77), ‘it may be said of Persia, that it is a Kervanserai that serves
for passage to the money that goes out of Europe and Turkey to the
Indies; and to the Stuffs and Spices that come from the Indies, into
Turkey and Europe, whereof it makes some small profit in the passage.’
See also Olivier, iv. 434, and P. Blancard, _Manuel du Commerce des
Indes_, Paris, 1806, pp. 70, 106.

[51] In fact, it may be said that the great discoveries displaced
approximately only about one-third of the traffic along the old routes
through the Levant. Except for the precious metals, the Cape route
finally took practically all of the through exchanges between southern
and eastern Asia and western Europe. But the ‘short haul’ trade between
western Europe and the Moslem lands and between the Moslem lands and
India nearly all passed as before. Masson says, p. ii, note 1, that
about 1682 the Levant trade of England and Holland was almost equally
important with their East Indian trade, while that of France was her
most extensive foreign trade. For the new trade in Arabian coffee, see
_ibid._, 410; Blancard, p. 82 (the coffee that was carried round Africa
was damaged on the long voyage); Olivier, iii. 326. Silks and other
Persian products were brought across Turkey by caravan to Mediterranean
ports; Berchet, 15; Masson, _op. cit._, and Savary,_ passim_; Olivier,
v. 320.

[52] Masson, p. 543.

[53] Blancard, pp. 520 ff.

[54] Blancard, pp. 525, 526, estimates 17-1/2 months for the round trip
via Suez and 20 months via the Cape.

[55] Heyd, _Commerce de Levant_, ii. 552.





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ottoman Turks and the Routes of
Oriental Trade, by Albert H. Lybyer

*** 