É. Apor (ed.): Codex Cumanicus. Ed. by Géza Kuun with a Prolegomena to the Codex Cumanicus by Lajos Ligeti. (Budapest Oriental Reprints, Ser. B 1.)
L. Ligeti: Prolegomena to the Codex Cumanicus
PROLEGOMENA TO THE CODEX CUMANICl'S 27 The Pisans had access to the Ilkhan court, and briefly figured among the colonists of the Black Sea until the Genoans had defeated them in a spectacular sea battle, and ousted them from the region. 3 4 Adventurers of Genoan origin, some of them rising to the rank of Mongol envoys, were at the Ilkhan court in great numbers. The most famous of them, Buscarci de Gisolf, visited Philippe le Bel in 1289 and Pope Boniface VIII in 1302, as the delegate to Khan Arghun. 3 5 shed light on the trading activities of ten years. They also include the slave trade, and oddly enough, give the main particulars of each slave sold. The Kaffa records (of these ten years) reveal that the majority of the slaves were 8-10-year-old girls and boys. By way of illustration: Tamara, girl about 12 (p. 127), Camusia, a girl of 12 (p. 147), an Abkhaz girl (p. 150), Cuhina, a white Moslem girl (p. 147), a Cherkess girl of 5 or 6 (p. 157), Achina, a Cherkess girl (p. 164), a 5 —6-year-old Cherkess girl (p. 165), Probius, a Russian slave of 8 or 9 (p. 168), Balaban, a «maniar» slave (p. 178), Aluza, a Cherkess girl of 10 (p. 183), Cali, a Bulgarian girl of around 20 (p. 200), Paulus, «Ugalus», (Genoan: Ungarus), around 30, Cressena, a Bulgarian woman with her sons Manuel and Potarne (p. 220). Miss Driill (pp. 88 — 90) classified the data of 32 of the 74 Genoan documents in tables. A thorough study of each document reveals that there was no slave of Kipehak origin sold in Kaffa One of the reasons is that the Mameluks themselves of Kipehak origin, ruled between 1250 and 1390 under the name Bahri mamlak, and did not require Kipehak replacement, but were succeeded by the Burji mamlüks (1282 — 1517), the descendants of Cherkess and other Caucasian slaves. (D. Avalon, L'esclavage du mamelouk, Jerusalem 1951, in: Oriental Notes and Studies, published by The Israel Oriental Society, No. 1.) One more thing: the Genoan documents in question contain data on slaves sold and bought by private persons. It is in vain to search for traces of the slave trade with Egypt in the records of the Kaffa notaries. It accounted for, as Spuler thinks (Die Ooldene Horde, p. 406), an average of 2000 slaves a year, even as late as 1420. On the slave trade to Egypt and the West, and the role of Kaffa and Tana in this trade, see W. Heyd, Histoire du commerce du Levant II, pp. 555 — 563. Not only individuals, but entire families were carried off the Genoa or Venice, by the hundreds and thousands. This resulted in an actual uprising by involuntary immigrants in Venice in 1368. In the West, a slave often performed the household chores of a domestic servant. Marco Polo's Tatar slave must have been one of them. It is a well known fact that, the role of slaves in Egypt anil Syria was essentially different. They constituted the guards of the Moslem ruler, and wore eventually able to seize power. From slaves, freed slaves and the offspring of these a military elite was born which was carefully trained, groomed and given special privileges. Cf. Godefroy-Demombynes, La Syrie a V epoque des Mamelouks d'après les auteurs arabes, Paris 1923, esp. pp. X —CXIX. F. Quatremère: Makrizi, Histoire des sultans mamlouks de Caire, trad, par —. I-II, Paris 1837-1845. 3 1 Bràtianu, Recherches, p. 251. On August 24th, 1274, a sea battle between the Pisans and Genoans took place in the harbour of Soklaia, about a mile from the coast, which the inhabitants of the city turned out in force to watch. Not only did the Pisans lose the battle, but they were also driven out of the region. 3 5 The name of the Genoan envoy is Muskaril qorfi in the Mongol text containing the messuge of the 1289 delegation. Die Mongol text: Ligeti, Monumenta II, pp. 230 — 231 ; ibidem, further bibliography. The Mongol court title, qorci «quiver bearer», denoted a person belonging to the guards of the khan. On this title, see Doerfer, TMEN I, pp. 429 —
