Maritime Commerce In The Mediterranean
In The 10 Th –13 Th Centuries, A Meeting
Place Between Cultures
Author(s)
A. Rona
Abstract
The 12 th century brought an intensification of maritime commerce between Italy,
Spain and the Muslim world. Participation of Jewish traders captured the
attention of many scholars, some claiming that these merchants served as a kind
of middlemen between the Muslims and the Christians, an argument with no
profound basis. Merchants in Italy, Egypt, Tunisia and other Muslim countries
traded regularly without the need for a go-between. The importance of Jewish
traders as a source to understand and follow the \“International Maritime Trade”
lay in the phenomena that Jews have laid aside papers bearing Hebrew
characters. Many synagogues contained a chamber for disposal of such papers,
called Beth Genize (shortened to Genize), literally meaning the House of
Concealment, a very large example of which was found in the synagogue of
Fustat, south of Cairo. Hebrew scripts had been found there, throwing light on
the life of Jews, Arabs and Christians in many aspects of their day-to-day living.
These documents were discovered in the later years of the 19 th century and were
brought to European and American university libraries. These writings served as
an inexhaustible source of study material of Jewish–Arab symbiosis, and in our
case as a means to understand the maritime trade in the Mediterranean.
According to Prof. S.D. Goitein, an important Genize researcher, Jews, Arabs
and Christians sent joint cargos and were partners in business ventures. The
contracts among the traders illustrate outstanding cooperation in many ways such
as sharing cargo spaces in vessels, loans, credit letters and arbitration.
Arbitrations took place before Rabbinical Courts, in Muslim courts before a kadi
according to Muslim Shari´a, or before European Christian courts, with all
courts recognizing verdicts of the others. Some contracts were written in Arabic
with paragraphs in Hebrew side by side. Marine trade around the 12 th century
was carried out with harmony and co-operation despite the religious and cultural
differences of the people involved.
Keywords: Geniza papers of Cairo, maritime commerce 10 th –13 th centuries,
Mediterranean, S.D. Goitein.
Keywords
Geniza papers of Cairo, maritime commerce 10 th –13 th centuries,
Mediterranean, S.D. Goitein.
Related Book
Other papers in this volume
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