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Cyprus and Ragusa(Dubrovnik) 1280–1450Nicholas CoureasPublished online: 17 Mar 2008.

To cite this article: Nicholas Coureas (2002): Cyprus and Ragusa (Dubrovnik)1280–1450, Mediterranean Historical Review, 17:2, 1-13

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Cyprus and Ragusa (Dubrovnik) 1280-1450

NICHOLAS COUREAS

Ragusa (Dubrovnik) maintained a steady if somewhat limited trade with the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean from the early fourteenth century onwards. Ragusans were involved in trade with Cyprus, initially as transporters of goods but also as traders, and the city had diplomatic contacts with members of the island's Lusignan dynasty and conveyed information about Cyprus to the kings of Hungary. This review of the archival evidence for these commercial and other contacts suggests that its merchants per$ormed a usefil and profitable role in transporting both their own merchandise and that of others and kept the city from becoming embroiled in conflicts either with Cyprus itself or with the powefil nations that had interests on the island.

Although, according to Krkkic, Ragusa did not play an outstanding role in commerce between Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean until the sixteenth century,' it maintained a steady if somewhat limited trade with the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean and in particular with the Mamluk lands of Egypt and Syria from the early fourteenth century onwards. This trade involved the island of Cyprus, which was close to the above lands and had a long-standing Venetian commercial presence dating from the mid-twelfth century, when the island was still under Byzantine rule. The Ragusans operating on Cyprus were subjects of Venice, given that from 1205 until 1358 the city was politically dependent on Venice although enjoying a large measure of internal au t~nomy.~ From the early fourteenth century onwards Ragusans were involved in Cypriot commerce, initially as transporters of goods but also, albeit to a limited extent, as traders. The city of Ragusa had diplomatic contacts with members of the island's Lusignan dynasty, who appear on occasion to have visited it, while the government of Ragusa conveyed information about Cyprus to the kings of Hungary following Venice's cession of the city and the Dalmatian coast to Hungary in 1358. Moreover, Ragusans operating on Cyprus had particularly close relations with Ancona, an Italian city on the Adriatic coast that likewise maintained commercial relations with Cyprus in the fourteenth century.

Mediterranean Historical Review, Vo1.17, No.2, December 2002, pp. 1-1 3 PUBLISHED B Y F R A N K CASS, LONDON

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Ragusan archival materials recording trade and other activities of this Adriatic coastal town are preserved only from the year 1278 onwards. The first known commercial transaction from Ragusa concerning Cyprus is the sale on 6 September 1283 by a Ragusan of his female slave, who originated from Bosnia, to a certain 'Lord Guy', described as the vice- chancellor for the kingdoms of Jerusalem and Cyprus, for the sum of 16 g r ~ s . ~ The inhabitants of Ragusa exported slaves from the Serbian and Bosnian in t e r i~ r .~ Some of these slaves may have reached Cyprus, for a document of 22 April 1300 drawn up on Cyprus by the Genoese notary Lamberto di Sambuceto, who was living and working in Famagusta, the main commercial port of Cyprus, between the years 1296 and 1307, records the emancipation of another female slave named Bona, who was described as originating from Slavonia and as being between 16 and 18 years of age.5 Her owner, Lanfrancus of Mari, was an Italian who may originally have purchased her from Ragusans. Another notarial document, dated 3 November 1300, drawn up by Lamberto di Sambuceto records the receipt of a loan of 100 white Cyprus bezants from Nicholas of Mari by Francese and Anthonius, two Slav brothers who were residents of Famagusta and probably came either from Ragusa itself or from the surrounding area.6 Given that these first contacts between Ragusa and Cyprus involved the sale of slaves, it is worth pointing out that whereas the first slave mentioned was purchased at Ragusa in 1283 by the vice- chancellor of Cyprus, the second was emancipated in 1300 at Famagusta. After the loss of Acre and Tyre to the Muslims in 1291, Famagusta grew in commercial importance, and the establishment of a major slave market there was symptomatic of the town's new significance. In a broader Cypriot context, slaves in fourteenth-century Cyprus were employed extensively both as agricultural labourers and as domestic servants in Famagusta and other Cypriot towns, including the capital, Nicosia, where slaves were also sold. As Arbel has observed, from the 1290s onwards it was no longer necessary for Cypriots to journey to Ragusa, for there was a large slave market at Famagusta and slaves were in demand in the expanding Cypriot e~onomy.~

Most of the documents in Lamberto di Sambuceto's notarial registers concerning Ragusans operating on Cyprus, however, describe the transactions of two Ragusan shipowners, Laurencius and Marinus de Gozo. Their surname is a corruption of the Serbo-Croat name Guce t i~ ,~ and the fact that they have the same surname implies that they may have been related. Laurencius de Gozo was the owner of the ship named the St Mary of Nazareth, and the notarial deeds referring to him show that he had dealings with merchants from Barletta, Florence, and above all Venice. Abulafia has pointed out that merchants from the great trading republics

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CYPRUS AND RAGUSA (DUBROVNIK) 1280-1450 3

such as Venice and Genoa and even, by 1300, Florence, formed partnerships with merchants of smaller trading comrnunitie~.~ The latter often undertook to transport the goods of the former, especially in cases in which the former (the Florentines being a case in point), lacked ships of their own. The activities on Cyprus of the two Ragusan ship-owners mentioned above must be seen in this light.'' According to a notarial deed of 30 October 1300, Laurencius de Gozo was mentioned in the denunciation of the Cretan port authorities forwarded to the Venetian consul at Famagusta, Nicolas Zugno, by the Florentines Ianucius Bartholi of the banking house of Peruzzi and Lipus Bonacursus of the banking house of Bardi. The Florentines had had wheat and oil loaded onto Laurencius's ship, which then sailed for Crete. The authorities on Crete had forcibly unloaded the ship, taking from it 17,386 Cretan measures of wheat without offering due compensation to its Florentine owners. The wheat remaining on board, amounting to 80 salmae in the measures of Barletta, was then sold at the rate of 60 Armenian daremi per modius to a certain Mario Sanudo, whose name indicates that he was a Venetian. The outcome of the case is unknown." Laurencius de Gozo is mentioned again in a notarial deed dated 3 November 1300, this time as a witness along with other Venetians to the sale of a ship by the Venetian Thomas Zoccolo, who was representing the Venetian Raynaldus Balistarius. The ship was sold to three parties for 640 white bezants.I2

Laurencius de Gozo was also involved in the transport of cotton from Cyprus to Venice. In notarial deeds dated 22 December 1300 and 16 January 1301 he is mentioned as having received over 465 white bezants from the Venetian Giacomino Lombardus to deliver four hundredweight of cotton at Venice within eight days of the arrival of his ship. If he failed to do so he was to deliver the value thereof, and as security he pledged eight sacks of cotton (which shows that the cotton he was transporting his own). The first of the two documents, in which the sum Laurencius had received is not specified, was witnessed by Venetians, among them a certain Polus of Ragusa, who is not mentioned elsewhere.13 The second document was witnessed by Arnaldus Feva of Parma and Blasius Petri of Ancona.I4 The Adriatic ports of Ragusa and Ancona had close commercial ties from the twelfth century onwards,I5 and their subjects worked together on Cyprus. Laurencius de Gozo is mentioned in one more notarial deed. On 23 January 1301 he borrowed 2,000 white bezants from Marino of Aleffanto from Barletta, promising to repay him in ducats or gold florins at Trani within 22 days of the arrival there of Marino or his representative. As security he pledged all his goods, including his ship, and the transaction was witnessed by three Venetians including Nicholas Zugno, the Venetian consul at Famagusta. Although the reason for borrowing this money is not mentioned, it may well have been the purchase of cotton.16

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The second Ragusan shipowner mentioned in the notarial deeds of Lamberto di Sambuceto, Marinus de Gozo, is first mentioned in a deed of 23 August 1301 as a witness, along with the Venetian consul Nicholas Zugno and another Venetian, to the part payment of a debt in which the parties involved were likewise Venetian.17 He is also mentioned, however, in no fewer than 14 documents involving the shipment of cotton from Cyprus to Venice, all of which are dated 7 and 8 October 1301. Under the terms of these documents Marinus de Gozo undertook to ship consignments of cotton having a total value of 3 1,794 white bezants to Venice 'or to any better destination', as the deeds stipulate, on behalf of merchants who mostly originated from Laodicea in Latin Syria but included others originating from Antioch and Tripoli.I8 In 10 of the 14 documents the value of the cotton is given in white bezants, while in the rest it is given in Saracen bezants. In one of the latter documents it is stated that one Saracen bezant was worth 3.5 white bezants,Ig and so it is possible to work out the total value of the ship's cargo, which belonged jointly to Marinus and a certain Nicholas Sten.

The creditors advancing the money were mostly merchants of Greek origin from Laodicea (corrupted to 'Lezia' in the notarial deeds). The others included the Templar scribe Symon Mosturius, the two Antiochenes Costas and Manuel the son of Bezia, Bee Aiupo of Tripoli, Saonus the son of Manssour, Guido de Bando, and Guzius de camp^.^' With the exception of the last two they were all, as their names indicate, Christians originating from Latin Syria who had settled on Cyprus as a result of the Muslim reconquest in the second half of the thirteenth century of the towns they had lived in. Among the four debtors who had borrowed the money to purchase the cotton and have it shipped to Venice, one was a spice merchant and burgess of Famagusta named James (mentioned in five of the deeds), a second was Michelinus of Laodicea (mentioned in six of the deeds), a third was Simone de Iosepe of Laodicea, and the fourth was the Pisan Oberto de Ricardo (mentioned in two of the deeds).

As with the creditors, the debtors mentioned in most of these documents likewise originated in Latin Syria, and the cotton itself was probably of Syrian provenance. The papal prohibitions on direct trade with the Muslim lands decreed after the fall of Acre and Tyre to the Muslims in 129 1 resulted in the importation of many Eastern commodities to Cyprus prior to their purchase on the island and despatch to Western E~rope .~ ' As we have seen, however, Italians were also involved as creditors and debtors in the export of cotton from Cyprus, and they are also prominent in the above deeds as witnesses. All except the last two documents included Greeks from Laodicea among the witnesses. Five documents were witnessed, however, by a certain Thomas de Rugerio from Ancona and two by the Pisan Obertus

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CYPRUS AND RAGUSA (DUBROVNIK) 1280-1450 5

de Roberto." The two final deeds were witnessed by Bernard Inardus of Narbonne, John Bizarra, and Balneus de Beluchis." These contracts illustrate the diversity of persons with whom the Ragusan Marinus de Gozo had dealings as well as the value of the cargo he was transporting to Venice on board his ship. They also illustrate in a wider context the important contribution that refugees from Latin Syria were making to the commercial life of Famagusta. With the capture of various towns in Latin Syria from 1265 onwards by the Muslims, refugees from these places fled to Cyprus and settled mainly in Famagusta, the port directly opposite Syria, and Jacoby has pointed out that this city began to develop commercially even before 1291. Caesarea, Arsuf, Jaffa and Antioch all fell to the Muslims between 1265 and 1268, Margat in 1285, and Laodicea itself in 1287. The Greeks of Laodicea mentioned in the registers of Lamberto di Sambuceto must have arrived in Famagusta at that time, and they were prominent in the export of Syrian cotton via Cyprus to Western Europe and especially to Ancona, from where it was distributed throughout Italy.24

Commercial contacts between Cyprus and Ragusa continued throughout the fourteenth century. In a document dated 5 August 1343 a resident of Ragusa named George of Zadar is mentioned as planning to depart on the galleys about to sail for Cyprus in the place of another Ragusan who had undertaken to pay him the sum of twelve hyperpera (the currency of Venetian Crete).25 The galleys mentioned were either Venetian or else the one or two galleys sent by the government of Ragusa every year to the Mamluk lands of Egypt and Syria in the fourteenth century, which might stop at Cyprus en route.26 On 25 August 1359 the Grand Council of Ragusa allowed two merchants, one from Ancona and the other from Cyprus, to export 50 'steres' of barley for the horses on board their ship, giving as a reason 'the old friendship which always existed between us and the Anconitans' .27 The above document is the only reference we have to Cypriot merchants' visiting Ragusa in the fourteenth century, but there may have been others whose visits are unrecorded. There is no record of such regular visits in the documents from the town's published archives.

Ragusan commercial contacts with Cyprus continued after Venice ceded the town and the Dalmatian coast to Hungary in 1358.28 On 13 July 1368 the king of Hungary wrote to the government of Florence requesting it to compel the Florentine John Cambio to reimburse Marinus de Goize (Gucetic), a Ragusan subject of the kingdom, for a ship which had belonged to both of them and which John had sold at Famagu~ta .~~ One wonders whether this Marinus was related to Marinus de Gozo, the Ragusan ship owner who was active in Cyprus in the early fourteenth century, for if this were the case then one could suggest that the de Gozo family had a connection with Cyprus spanning several generations, but the reccurrence

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of a name half a century later constitutes suggestive rather than conclusive evidence. The contents of the above letter suggest that the Florentine John Cambio had purchased half of the ship initially belonging to the Ragusan Marinus Goize, for Florence had no coast. As we have seen, moreover, the Florentines from the start of the fourteenth century were using the services of Ragusan shipowners for their commercial activities on Cyprus and elsewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean. Another document, dated 7 August 1370, alludes to an unnamed Ragusan gentleman lending 50 Venetian ducats to two men who had formed a commercial association with him and were about to journey to Cyprus. The two were to invest 100 ducats of their own in the association, with the profits thereof being apportioned in three equal shares.30

A document dated 4 May 1377 refers to an unnamed Ragusan gentleman who fitted his ship out for Blasius Padovanovic for the transport of merchandise and pilgrims to Jaffa. At Modon, a Venetian enclave in the Peloponnese, Padovanovic was to decide whether to sail to Jaffa via Crete or via Rhodes and Famag~sta.~' This document shows that Cyprus was envisaged in the late fourteenth century as a possible but not a mandatory destination for Ragusan ships sailing to the Eastern Mediterranean. The island is mentioned in a similar fashion at the start of the fifteenth century. A document dated 1 February 1414 records that Michael Calicologos of Rhodes hired out his ship, moored at the port of Lokum near Ragusa, to Manuel de 'Comestabilibus'. This ship was to journey first to Ancona, Bari and Manfredonia on Italy's Adriatic coast, and then proceed to Modon, where Michael was to decide whether he wished to journey to Rhodes, Chios, and Phocaea or to Famagusta in Cyprus.32 In the latter case he would have to pay freight charges of 1.5 ducats per muda of cargo in Romanian measures as opposed to 1 ducat per muda, perhaps on account of the greater length of the journey or because there was a greater risk of piracy in the Eastern Medite~anean.~~

Foreigners played an important role in the economic development of Ragusa, and some of the foreigners resident in Ragusa had commercial dealings with Cyprus. On 18 June 1418 the Genoese Luchinus, acting for his fellow-citizen Benedict Paravisinis, a resident of Ragusa, prepared a bill of exchange to the value of 400 ducats for Gabriel of Palatio. These ducats belonging to Luchinus were lent to Gabriel for a commercial venture involving Cyprus, and Gabriel was obliged to repay Luchinus at Nicosia or Famagusta. As regarded profits, Luchinus was to be entitled to a share of 62.5 per cent and Gabriel to the remainder. Complaints could be lodged in the case of either party's defaulting on its obligations at Cyprus, 'Assyria' (i.e., ports in Syria), Rhodes, and Crete, all of which were standard destinations or ports of call for ships sailing from Ragusa to the Eastern

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Mediterranean. It is unfortunate that the document provides no details with regards to commodities to be bought, sold, or exchanged in the course of this commercial venture.34

Other than the commercial exchanges between Cyprus and Ragusa mentioned above, some diplomatic exchanges between the two places seem to have taken place during the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. On 20 November 1362 four gentlemen from Ragusa were selected to go to greet King Peter I of Cyprus, who had left the island in October and would arrive in Venice early in December on a series of visits to various European capitals aimed at soliciting support for a crusade against Ale~andr ia .~~ Whether the Ragusan gentlemen met the king in Venice or King Peter stopped off at Ragusa on his way there is uncertain, but it is likelier that the Ragusans went to Venice. Two years later, in April 1364, an ambassador of King Peter I visited Ragusa, and the government of the city decided to give him an 'ensenium' (insignium), that is, a banner or shield emblazoned with a coat of arms, with a value of four h~pe rpe ra .~~ Although the document does not specify in what connection the ambassador visited Ragusa, it may well have been related to King Peter's planned crusade. With the death of King John I1 of France, leadership of the crusade had passed to the king of Cyprus. If the king did indeed ask for Ragusan assistance there is no record of him receiving it, and his crusade against Alexandria went ahead in October 1364 with mainly Cypriot forces and some assistance from the Hospitallers of Ragusa valued its trade with Alexandria, and when in 1444 it was asked to participate in a planned crusade against the Mamluks of Egypt who were threatening Rhodes, it refused to do so.38 Ragusans may however, have served in the armies of the kings of Cyprus as mercenaries. A document dated 13 June 1403 records that a certain Paul Masnovich wished to travel to Cyprus in order to serve King Janus in that capacity. He arrived at Ragusa and awaited the Venetian galleys with which the emissary of the king who was entrusted with the recruitment of mercenaries was travelling. The galleys, however, bypassed Ragusa, and so Masnovich eventually returned to Wallachia via Serbia.39 It was shortly before this time that King Janus had tried without success to recapture Famagusta from the Genoese, who had held the port city since 1374, but by July 1403 the king had come to terms with the Genoese after Hospitaller mediation.40

After the cession of Ragusa to Hungary in 1358 the town seems to have played a significant role in the gathering of intelligence about political developments in the Eastern Mediterranean, including Cyprus, for the kings of Hungary. It has been observed that, especially by the mid-fifteenth century, Ragusa's dependence on Hungary was more formal than actual. The Ragusans, however, nonetheless acknowledged Hungarian suzerainty, and the setting up of a statue of the knight Roland in the city's central square

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in 1417 symbolized their loyalty to their protector, the Hungarian emperor Sigismund." The information on developments in Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean conveyed to the rulers of Hungary by the Ragusan government was probably another expression of their loyalty. A document dated 6 December 1395 states that gentlemen from Ragusa were instructed by the city government to go aboard the galley of the son of King James I of Cyprus to speak to him on behalf of their city and ask him for news.42 There is no record of King James' son's visiting Europe in that year, but in late 1395 the king sent his nephew John of Lusignan to Venice to solicit support for the recovery of Famagusta from the Genoese. John was in Venice in December 1395, and the Ragusan notables must have visited him rather than the king's son.43 On 16 February 1410 the government of Ragusa wrote to the king of Hungary informing him that they had learnt from the crew of a large galley from Cyprus that King Janus, who had succeeded King James in November 1398, had concluded an armistice which was to last for ten years - a reference to the peace which the king concluded in that year with G e n ~ a . ~ ~

Diplomatic contacts with the kingdom of Cyprus continued into the fifteenth century. On 1 June 141 1 the government of Ragusa decided to grant the new queen of Cyprus, Charlotte of Bourbon, provisions worth up to 50 hyperpera if she decided to visit Ragusa. Her marriage to King Janus had been celebrated by proxy in 1409, and she arrived in Cyprus sometime before 25 August, the date of her marriage to the king." On 28 March 1416 the government of Ragusa decided to make a gift worth 100 hyperpera to Henry, the titular prince of Galilee and the brother of King Janus of Cyprus, who was then visiting the city. Three Ragusan gentlemen were chosen to receive and accompany the prince. He must have visited the city on his way back from Genoa, where he had gone in February 1416, and he visited it once again in August 1416, receiving another gift of 100 hyperpera from the grand Council of the If indeed King Janus supported his candidature as a husband for Queen Joanna of Naples in 1414, his visits to Ragusa and other Italian cities in the years 1415-16 may have been connected with this.

On 22 October 1436 the Grand Council of Ragusa decided to pay the expenses of 30 hyperpera that the rector of the city had incurred in honour of Cardinal Hugh of Lusignan, uncle of King John I1 of Cyprus. He appears to have visited Ragusa around this time, perhaps on his way to Cyprus, which he visited in 1437 before arranging the marriage of King John to Medea of Montferrat." A document dated 30 May 1440 records a decision by the Ragusan government to grant provisions to the value of 50 hyperpera to the queen of Cyprus, should she alight at Ragusa in the course of her journey to the area.48 There is no record of the queen visiting Ragusa at this

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time, although the queen referred to, Medea, the daughter of the marquess of Montferrat, had married King John by proxy in December 1437 and had sailed from Venice to Cyprus on 27 May 1440.49

During the invasion of Cyprus by the Mamluks, Ragusa served as a conduit for information on events in Cyprus for the king of Hungary, although not all the information conveyed was accurate or even truthful. On 6 August 1426, a month after the invasion had started, the government of Ragusa wrote to the king informing him that although the king of Cyprus had been threatened by the Mamluks, who had prepared a powerful fleet, the Catalans had sent a large fleet to his aid and as a result the Mamluks had called off their invasion. The letter also stated fictitiously that 12 galleys were being readied at Genoa either to assist the king of Cyprus or to defend Genoese Famag~sta.~' A letter to the king of Hungary dated 12 December 1426 gives a more accurate account of the Mamluk invasion of Cyprus and of the calamities resulting from it, citing as its sources letters from Ragusan merchants. The sources mentioned prove incidentally that Ragusan merchants were visiting Cyprus at the time of the Mamluk invasion, but the information regarding alleged Catalan atrocities on Cyprus in the wake of the Mamluk invasion is exaggerated. It appears to have its origin in Catalan attacks on Ragusan shipping taking place at this time, which are expressly referred to. This letter wrongly alleges that the Catalans burnt down the royal palace in Nicosia and pillaged both the city and the island after the Mamluks had done so, stating that the pillaging committed by the Catalans, who had ostensibly come to assist the king, was even worse than that committed by the Mamluks. In reality the accusations levelled against the Catalans refer to the acts of robbery and murder committed by the Italian mercenary captain Sforza and his Spanish troops, who may well have been subjects of the crown of Aragon and were therefore described as Catalans. These did not encompass the whole of Cyprus but were confined to the district of Pa~hos .~ '

More information on the situation on Cyprus was conveyed to the king of Hungary in 1427 in three letters sent by the government of Ragusa between 25 March and 3 1 July. The information regarding the release from captivity of King Janus, his payment of a ransom to the sultan, and his conclusion of a peace treaty and an alliance with him is reliable, although 'vassalage' would be a more accurate term for the new relations between the kings of Cyprus and the Mamluk sultan after the invasion. The information given in June that the sultan was preparing a fleet to attack Hospitaller Rhodes after his successful invasion of Cyprus and that the Catalans and the Genoese were preparing fleets to assist Rhodes proved unfounded, and in July the Ragusans reported that Rhodes, the Genoese and the Catalans were all at peace with the Mamluk sultan (although Mamluk attacks on Rhodes

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did materialisze from 1440 onwards). Just as unfounded was the allegation that King Janus and the Grand Master of the Hospitallers on Rhodes had had an interview with the sultan. It is clear that much of the information reaching Ragusa regarding developments on Cyprus was inaccurate and hear~ay.~'

Trade between Ragusa and the Eastern Mediterranean did not increase in the course of the fifteenth century but continued at the same pace as before, with one to three ships sailing there in certain years and none in others. By the middle of the fifteenth century, however, certain families from Ragusa seem to have attained prominence in this trade. Among those owning ships which sailed to the Eastern Mediterranean were various members of the Kisilicic family, while Michael Lukarevic, Marin Bunic, and the Djurdjevics all purchased spices from Alexandria which were brought back to Ragusa. Sometime after 1432, and with some difficulty, the Ragusans were able to obtain the king of Hungary's permission to trade officially with the Muslims, exporting Apulian wheat and olive oil to Egypt and Syria along with copper, silver, and lead originating from Serbian and Bosnian mines. In addition to buying spices from Alexandria, the Ragusans purchased salt, which served as ballast for their ships.53 Given the importance of salt production in the Cypriot economy at the time, Ragusan ships may well have purchased salt from Cyprus on their way back from Alexandria.

Some of the problems this trade presented are apparent from the documents relating to a journey to Alexandria accomplished by various Ragusan merchants travelling aboard the ship of Mihoc Kisilicic in 1450. In November 1450 Kisilicic was accused by Stephen Djurjevic, Michael Lukarevic, and several other Ragusan merchants of having failed to return to Alexandria from Cyprus, where he had taken an emissary of the Mamluk sultan as he had been ordered to do by the admiral of Alexandria, because he had agreed in secret with the Florentine consul of Alexandria and a Venetian merchant to load a consignment of wheat on board his ship at Cyprus first. As a result of his delay in returning, several Ragusan merchants had undergone a protracted and expensive stay at Alexandria and had eventually been forced to return home on other ships, with considerable losses.54 Many gentlemen and others from Ragusa accused Kisilicic of accepting money from the Mamluks to purchase grain for them at Adalia, a port on the southern Turkish coast, and leaving the Ragusan merchants he had taken to Alexandria stranded at this port, together with their goods, although they had paid in advance for their return journey.55 Other merchants who had journeyed with Kisilicic and the Mamluk envoy to Cyprus accused him of leaving them stranded at Famagusta for 28 days and then on Crete for another month, even though he could have returned to

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Alexandria and picked up the Ragusan merchants remaining there within six

Kisilicic countered these accusations by stating that the admiral of Alexandria, acting in collusion with Stephen Djurdjevic, had forced him to journey to Cyprus. He claimed that Djurdjevic had conducted the Mamluks on board his ship and had then offered to have the sultan's envoy taken to Cyprus aboard the same ship against the wishes of Kisilicic and the other merchants. The admiral had threatened to have Kisilicic flogged if he did not take the sultan's envoy to Cyprus and bring wheat from Cyprus or Adalia on the coast of southern Turkey back to Alexandria, to which Kisilicic eventually agreed after the other Ragusan merchants had implored him to do so. Kisilicic also accused two Ragusan sailors of deserting his ship once it had reached Famagusta in order to board a Venetian ship bound for Venice.57 The three judges of the case, who included a Florentine and a Catalan, finally decided in January 1453 that Kisilicic had indeed acted under duress but that he should compensate Lukarevic for the expenses incurred on his behalf at Alexandria, as well as for the freight, customs, porterage, and storage charges which Lukarevic eventually had to pay when he transported his goods from Alexandria to Famagusta on board a small ship journeying to Cypr~s .~ ' Whether Stephen Djurdjevic and the other merchants who had brought charges against Kisilicic received any compensation is not recorded. From the above it is clear that the problems had arisen on account of the Mamluk sultan's demand that his envoy be taken to Cyprus on board Kisilicic's ship, and that the latter should bring wheat from Cyprus or elsewhere back to Alexandria. However, no complaint was submitted to the sultan in this regard, because the small merchant republic of Ragusa could ill afford to antagonize him.59

In conclusion, it is apparent that the smallness of Ragusa, dependent on Venice from 1205 and, although to a decreasing extent, on Hungary from 1358, precluded it from playing a major role in trade with the Eastern Mediterranean in general and with Cyprus in particular. Yet it also enabled the merchants of the city to perform a useful and profitable role in transporting not only their own merchandise but also that of other and on occasion more powerful merchant communities such as the Anconitans, the Florentines, and the Venetians to and from Cyprus and other destinations in the Eastern Mediterranean, while it saved the city from becoming embroiled in conflicts either with the kingdom of Cyprus itself or with powerful nations that had interests on Cyprus such as Venice, the Kingdom of Aragon, and the Mamluk sultanate. As a result, trade between Ragusa and Cyprus, which began in the early fourteenth century, continued throughout the medieval period and beyond, right up until the abolition of Ragusan independence in the early nineteenth century.60

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NOTES

B. KrCkiC, 'The Role of the Jews in Dubrovnik (Thirteenth-Sixteenth Centuries)', in Dubrovnik, Italy, and the Balkans in the Late Middle Ages, No.21 (London, 1980), p.260. B. KrCkiC, 'Four Florentine Commercial Companies in Dubrovnik (Ragusa) in the First Half of the Fourteenth Century', in Dubrovnik, Italy, and the Balkans in the Late Middle Ages, p.25. B. KrCkiC, Dubrovnik (Raguse) et le Levant au Moyen Age (Paris, 1961), No.34. D. Abulafia, 'The Anconitan Privileges in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Levant Trade of Ancona', in Commerce and Conquest in the Mediterranean, No.13 (Aldershot, 1993), p.553. 'ActCs pass& B Famagouste de 1299 B 1301 par devant le notaire gCnois Lamberto di Sambuceto', ed. C. Desimoni, Archives de I'Orient Latin, 21110 (1884). 'Actes pass& B Famagouste de 1299 B 1301 par devant le notaire gCnois Lamberto di Sambuceto', ed. C. Desimoni, Revue de 1'Orient Latin, 11405 (1893). B. Arbel, 'Slave Trade and Slave Labor in Frankish Cyprus (1191-1571)', Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 14 (AMS Press, 1993), pp.152-3, 157 and 160-63. KrCkiC, Dubrovnik (Raguse), No.273. D. Abulafia, 'The Levant Trade of the Minor Cities in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: Strengths and Weaknesses', in Commerce and Conquest in the Mediterranean, No. 11 (Aldershot, 1993), p. 187. D. Jacoby, 'To Emporio kai he Oikonomia tes Kyprou', Historia tes Kyprou, Vo1.4, Mesaionikon Basileion, Enetokratia, ed. Th. Papadopoullos (Nicosia, 1995), p.411. Notai Genovesi in Oltremare: Atti rogati a Cipro da Lamberto di Sambuceto (3 Iuglio 1300-3 Agosto 1301), ed. V. Polonio, Collana storica di Fonti e Studi (henceforth CSFS) 31 (Genoa, 1982), No.76. CSFS 31, No.84. CSFS 31, No.164. CSFS 31, No.191. D. Abulafia, 'Ancona, Byzantium and the Adriatic, 1155-1173', in Italy, Sicily, and the Mediterranean, 1100-1400, No.9 (Aldershot, 1996), p.206. CSFS 31, No.201. Notai Genovesi in Oltremare: Atti rogati a Cipro da Lamberto di Sambuceto (6 Iuglio-27 Ottobre 1301), ed. R. Pavoni, CSFS 32 (Genoa, 1982), No.54. CSFS 32, Nos.203-7,210-16 and 21 8-19. CSFS 32, Nos.203 and 205-7 (see esp. No.207). See CSFS 32, Nos.206, 207, 213-14, 216, and 218-19 for creditors not from Antioch. E. Ashtor, Levant Trade in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton, 1983), pp.37-42. CSFS 32, Nos.203-7 and 210-1 1. CSFS 32, Nos.218-19. D. Jacoby, 'The Rise of a New Emporium in the Eastern Mediterranean: Famagusta in the Late Thirteenth Century', Meletai kai Hypomnemata, Vol. 1 (Nicosia, 1984), pp. 150-54; Abulafia, 'The Levant Trade of the Minor Cities', p.202. KrCkiC, Dubrovnik (Raguse), No.207. Ashtor, Levant Trade, pp. 108-9 and 143-4. KrtkiC, Dubrovnik (Raguse), No.240. KrkkiC, 'The Role of the Jews in Dubrovnik', p.258. KrCkiC, Dubrovnik (Raguse), No.273. Ibid., No.284. Ibid., No.322. Ibid., No.609. Ashtor, Levant Trade, pp.225-6 and 375-6. KrkkiC, Dubrovnik (Raguse), No.642. Ibid., No.247; P. Edbury, The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 1191-1374 (Cambridge, 1991, repr. 1994), p. 164. KrCkiC, Dubrovnik (Raguse), No.250.

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Edbury, Cyprus and the Crusades, pp.165-7. Ashtor, Levant Trade, p.363. KrkkiC, Dubrovnik (Raguse), NOS 18. P. Edbury, 'He Politike Historia tou Mesaionikou Basileiou apo ten basileia tou Ougou IV mehri ten basileia tou Ianou', Historia tes Kyprou, Vo1.4, Mesaionikon Basileion, Enetokratia, ed. Th. Papadopoullos (Nicosia, 1995), pp. 146-8. M. Frejdenburg, 'The Birth of the Ragusan Republic', Mediterranean Historical Review, 7 (1992), pp.201 and 204-5. KrCkiC, Dubrovnik (Raguse), No.463. Edbury, 'He Politike Historia', pp.142-3. bid., pp.149-50. G. Hill, A History of Cyprus, 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1950-52), Vo1.2, p.466; Edbury, 'He Politike Historia', pp. 15 1-2. KrkkiC, Dubrovnik (Raguse), Nos.622-3; N. Iorga, Notes et extraits pour sewir 12 1 'histoire des Croisades au XVe sidcle, 3 vols. (Paris, 1899-1902), Vo1.2, p.153; Hill, A History, Vo1.2, p.472, n.2. KrkkiC, Dubrovnik (Raguse), No.889; Edbury, 'Hoi teleutaioi Louzinianoi (1432-1489)', Historia tes Kyprou, Vo1.4, Mesaionikon Basileion, Enetokratia, ed. Th. Papadopoullos (Nicosia, 1995), pp.178-9; Hill, A History, Vo1.3, p.498, n.3. KrCkiC, Dubrovnik (Raguse), No.95 1. Hill, A History, Vo1.3, p.523. KrCkiC, Dubrovnik (Raguse), No.727; R. Irwin, 'Hoi eisboles ton Mameloukon sten Kypro', Historia tes Kyprou, Vo1.4, Mesaionikon Basileion, Enetokratia, ed. Th. Papadopoullos (Nicosia, 1995), p. 17 1. KrkkiC, Dubrovnik (Raguse), No.733; Hill, A History, Vo1.2, p.485. KrkkiC, Dubrovnik (Raguse), Nos.739, 743 and 746; Edbury, 'Hoi teleutaioi Louzinianoi', pp.183-4. Ashtor, Levant Trade, pp.242 and 361-3. KrkkiC, Dubrovnik (Raguse), No. 1192. Ibid., No. 1201; Jacoby, 'To Emporio' , p.447. KrkkiC, Dubrovnic (Ragusa), No.1205. Ibid., Nos. 1202 and 1204. Ibid., No.1258. bid. , pp.85-7. Anekdota Engrapha tes Kypriakes Historias apo to archeio tes Ragousas, 160s aionas, ed. Aik. Ch. Aristeidou (Nicosia, 1980).

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