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FONDAZIONEISTITUTO INTERNAZIONALE DI STORIA ECONOMICA F.DATINI

PRATO

RELIGIONE E ISTITUZIONI RELIGIOSENELLECONOMIA EUROPEA. 1000-1800

RELIGION AND RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONSIN THE EUROPEAN ECONOMY. 1000-1800

Atti della Quarantatreesima Settimana di Studi8-12 maggio 2011

a cura di Francesco Ammannati

Firenze University Press

2012


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INDICE

Domenica 8 maggio APERTURA DEI LAVORIERIKAERTS, La religione nelleconomia. Leconomia nella religione.Europa 1000-1800 ........................................................................................................... pag. 3

Luned 9 maggio TRA DOTTRINA E PRATICA DELLA VITA QUOTIDIANA: FINANZA& CAPITALE / BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE OF EVERYDAY LIFE: FINANCE & CAPITAL

RelazioniGIACOMOTODESCHINI, Usury in Christian Middle Ages. A Reconsiderationof the Historiographical Tradition (1949-2010) .......................................................... pag. 119MARKUSA. DENZEL, The Curial Payments System of the Late Middle Agesand the Sixteenth Century: Between Doctrine and Practice of Everyday Life ....... 131

JOHN MUNRO, Usury, Calvinism and Credit in Protestant England:from the Sixteenth Century to the Industrial Revolution ........................................... 155

JUAN M. CARRETERO ZAMORA, Les Collectories de la Monarchie Hispanique etla banque Italienne aux XVIe-XVIIe sicles (1506-1614) ........................................... 185

ComunicazioniJORDI MORELL BAGET, Searching the Veros Valores of Some ReligiousCentres of Barcelona (About the Ecclesiastical Subsidy of 1443) ........................... pag. 207DAVID KUSMAN, Le rle de lglise comme institution dans la contractualisationdes oprations de crdit en Brabant, XIIIe-XVe sicle ................................................ 227

Marted 10 maggio TRA DOTTRINA E PRATICA DELLA VITA QUOTIDIANA: FINANZA& CAPITALE / BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE OF EVERYDAY LIFE: FINANCE & CAPITAL

Comunicazioni

MAREKSO, Die Rolle der kirchlichen Institutionen im Geldumlauf zwischen Stadtund Umland. Das Herzogtum Breslau im Sptmittelalter .......................................... pag. 249ELISA SOLDANI, DANIEL DURAN I DUELT, Religion, Warfare and Businessin Fifteenth-Century Rhodes .......................................................................................... 257GIOVANNI CECCARELLI, Concezioni economiche dellOccidente cristianoalla fine del medioevo: fonti e materiali inediti ............................................................ 271MORITZ ISENMANN, The Administration of the Papal Funded Debt:Structural Deficiencies and Institutional Reforms ...................................................... 281FABIENNE HENRYOT, La qute franciscaine aux XVIIe et XVIIIe sicles :thories et pratiques dune conomie de lEvangile .................................................... 293PRESTON PERLUSS, From Alms to Investments: Monastic Credit Structures

in 17th

and 18th

Century Paris......................................................................................... 307


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INDICEVIII

Marted 10 maggio RELIGIONE E SVILUPPO ECONOMICO / RELIGION AND ECONOMICDEVELOPMENT

Relazioni

RICHARD D. ORAM, Breaking New Ground: the Monastic Orders and EconomicDevelopment along the Northern European Periphery c.1070 to c.1300 ............... pag. 331STEPHANE BOISSELLIER, Capitaux ecclsiastiques, croissance conomiqueet circuits piscopaux dans la formation du Portugal, XIe-XIIIe sicles................... 345MURAT IZAKA Long Term Causes of Decline of theOttoman/Islamic Economies ........................................................................................ 361CTIAANTUNES, FILIPA RIBEIRO DA SILVA, In Nomine Domini et In NomineRex Regis: Inquisition, Persecution and Royal Finances in Portugal, 1580-1715 .... 377

Mercoled 11 maggio RELIGIONE E SVILUPPO ECONOMICO / RELIGION AND ECONOMICDEVELOPMENT

RelazioniMONICA MARTINAT, Un modello cattolico di sviluppo economico? La riflessioneteorica e la pratica degli scambi nellEuropa mediterranea (secc. XVI-XVIII) .......pag. 413

THIJS LAMBRECHT, Nine Protestants Are to Be Esteemed Worth Ten Catholics.Representing Religion, Labour and Economic Performance in Pre-Industrial Europec. 1650-c. 1800 .................................................................................................................. 431

ComunicazioniHANNELORE PEPKE-DURIX, Lconomie monastique bourguignonne en quted'organisation rationnelle (XIIe-XVe sicles) ................................................................ pag. 451

ANTONIOJOS MIRAJDAR, La propiedad agraria eclesistica en Valenciaen la baja Edad Media. Rentas, gestin de la tierra y explotacin campesina.......... 465GUIDOALFANI, Reformation, Counter-reformation and Economic Developmentfrom the Point of View of Godparenthood: an Anomaly?(Italy and Europe, 14th-19th Centuries) .......................................................................... 477LOREDANA PANARITI, Non si acquista la scienza se non si studia.La componente ebraica nel sistema assicurativo triestino .......................................... 491MARIA GRAZIA DAMELIO, MANUELVAQUERO PIEIRO, Devozione e risorse monetarie:aspetti del finanziamento degli edifici religiosi tra Medioevo e et Moderna .......... 499ROMINATSAKIRI, Listituzione della cessione dei monasteri ortodossi nella Cretadei secoli XVI e XVII ed il suo contributo alle attivit economichedegli ambienti circostanti ................................................................................................ 511

SAMIA CHERGUI, Institutions religieuses des habs : nature, fonctionnement et impactsur les investissements immobiliers en Alger ottomane ............................................. 529MANON VAN DERHEIJDEN, ELISE VAN NEDERVEEN MEERKERK, ARIADNE SCHMIDT,Religion, Economic Development and Womens Agency in the Dutch Republic .. 543MARIA CIELA, Between Religious Law and Practice. The Role of Jewish Communitiesin the Development of Town's Economy in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania inthe 17th and 18th Centuries.............................................................................................. 563MARA DOLORES MUOZ DUEAS, La formacin de un discurso secularizado sobre elsistema econmico de la Iglesia: la cuestin del diezmo en Crdoba, 1750-1820 .. 575NICOLAS LYON-CAEN, Les jansnistes, le commerce et largent au 18e sicle ........ 585


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INDICEIX

Gioved 12 maggio RELIGIONE E CONSUMI / RELIGION AND CONSUMPTION

RelazioniPHILIP SLAVIN, Church and Food Provisioning in Late-Medieval England, 1250-1450:

Production Costs, Markets and the Decline of Direct Demesne Management...... pag. 597

ComunicazioniTIMOTHYP. NEWFIELD, Epizootics and the Consumption of Diseased Meat

in the Middle Ages..........................................................................................................pag. 619LAUREANO M. RUBIO PREZ, OSCARFERNNDEZALVAREZ, Religion, Cultureand Eating: Believes, Consumption Ways and Collective Practices in the Northwest ofSpain from the 16th to the 18th Centuries ..................................................................... 641ISABEL DRUMOND BRAGA, Les familles de chrtiens nouveaux et la possession dobjetsreligieux (XVIIe et XVIIIe sicles) ................................................................................. 655BRECHT DEWILDE, JOHAN POUKENS, Confraternities, Jansenism and the Birth

of a Consumer Society in 17th

-18th

-Century Leuven .................................................. 671Gioved 12 maggio MOBILIT E MIGRAZIONE: PERSECUZIONE, PELLEGRINAGGI E

TURISMO RELIGIOSO / MOBILITY AND MIGRATION: AGGRESSION, PILGRIMAGE ANDRELIGIOUS TOURISM

RelazioniDAVIDJACOBY, The Economic Impact of Christian Pilgrimage on the Holy Land,Eighth-Sixteenth Century a Long-Term Overview ................................................. pag. 697CHRISTOPHE DUHAMELLE, Plerinage et conomie dans lEmpireau XVIIIe sicle ................................................................................................................ 713

ComunicazioniJUDICAL PETROWISTE, Plerinages et essor commercial dans les pays occitansmdivaux (XIe-XIIIe sicle)........................................................................................... pag. 729FEDERICO PIGOZZO, I denari dei pellegrini. Oblazioni votive e istituzioni ecclesiastichenellItalia centrale alla fine del XIV secolo ................................................................... 743CLMENT LENOBLE, Investimenti religiosi, civici ed economici. Diritto e teologia in alcuniaspetti degli scambi tra mercanti italiani e frati minori (Avignone secc. XIV-XV) . 755MICHAELA. PENMAN, The Economics of Faith: Approaches to Monastic Saints Cultsin Medieval Scotland ........................................................................................................ 765

YVESJUNOT, Les migrants, un enjeu? Pacification religieuse et relance conomiquede part et dautre de la frontire entre la France et les Pays-Bas espagnols

(c. 1580-c. 1610) ............................................................................................................... 779MARIA MARTA LOBO DEARAUJO, Les plerinages au Sanctuaire de Notre Damede Porto de Ave en tant que moteurs de changement : la dynamisationde lconomielocale (XVIIIe sicle) ........................................................................................................ 793MARIA ENGRACIA LEANDRO, Quand la religion et lconomie se mlent.

Triomphe des croyances au tour du Sanctuaire de Notre Dame da Nazar,triomphe de lconomie locale ....................................................................................... 805

Abstracts ........................................................................................................................... 823


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Maria Elisa Soldani, Daniel Duran i Duelt

Religion, Warfare and Business in Fifteenth-Century Rhodes

At the beginning of the fourteenth century, after the occupation of Rhodes and the in-stallation of their headquarters on it, the Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalemmade the island the hub of their activities.1 Although their main task was initially welfare-

type functions, the Hospitallers in the East, as a military order, gradually assumed a moreactive role in the defense of Christianity and the redemption of captives. Nevertheless, dur-ing this century, with the exception of participation in some projects of crusade or with lo-cal leagues, the Order took no active offensive policy but rather a prudent attitude, focusingon defending and consolidating its position in this area of the Eastern Mediterranean.

During the fifteenth century, the presence of the Hospitallers in Rhodes, in the Dode-canese and, more generally, in the East was threatened by repeated attacks that put a strainon the political, diplomatic, military and economic skills of the Order: the Mamluk and Ot-toman military expeditions of 1440, 1444 and 1480, the war of 1502-1503, and finally thesiege of 1522 that resulted in the abandonment of the island and the permanent Ottomanoccupation in 1523. The financial needs of the Order of St. John were constrained by sever-

al factors. The first of these was the need to defend itself from attacks that came suddenlyfrom the surrounding territories and the need to organize both the offensive operationswith a constant character typical of the border such as privateering as well as other mili-tary expeditions consistent with the role that Latin Christendom and the Papacy attributedto the Order and that justified its Eastern and European possessions. Second, the Orderalso had to support the diplomatic efforts of the Paper Crusade (also subject to cost and

This paper, prepared jointly by the authors, is the result of the union of two parallel research projectsconducted here and reflected in the drafting of paragraphs: Elisa Maria Soldani drafted section 1 The Knights and themanagement of economic resources of the Dodecaneseand section 3 Between Rhodes and ultramarine domains: the relationship ofHospitallers and Florentine merchant-bankerswhile Daniel Duran i Duelt was responsible for section 2 The Catalan-

Aragonese in Rhodes: the power of the group; the introduction and conclusions were written jointly by both authors.

Soldanis work for this article is based on research conducted at the Scuola Superiore di Studi Storici di San Marinounder the supervision of Anthony Molho and at the IMF-CSIC in Barcelona as part of the research group LaCorona de Aragn en el Mediterrneo bajomedieval. Interculturalidad, mediacin, integracin y transferencias culturalesdirected byR. Salicr i Lluch and funded by the MICINN (HAR2010-16361). The research of Daniel Duran i Duelt,meanwhile, has its origin in the commission from the Embassy of Spain in Athens to study the Spanish Inn inRhodes and the Hispanic presence on the island. The authors thank Professor Marie A. Kelleher's review of theEnglish version of this text.

1 For a bibliography on the Order in the Holy Land, Cyprus and then to Rhodes: J. RILEY-SMITH, The Knightsof St John in Jerusalem and Cyprus c. 1050-1310 , London 1967; A. LUTTRELL, The Hospitallers in Cyprus, Rhodes, Greeceand the West, 1291-1440 collected studies, London 1978; IDEM, Latin Greece, the Hospitallers and the Cursades, 1291-1440,London 1982; IDEM, The Hospitallers of Rhodes and their Mediterranean World, London 1992; IDEM, The Hospitaller Stateon Rhodes and its Western Provinces, 1306-1462, London 1999; IDEM, Studies on the Hospitallers after 1306: Rhodes and theWest, London 2007; The Hospitallers, the Mediterranean and Europe: Festschrift for Anthony Luttrell, K. BORCHARDT, N.

JASPERT, H.J. NICHOLSON eds., Aldershot 2007; N. VATIN, Rhodes et lordre de Saint-Jean-de-Jrusalem, Paris 2000; J.

SARNOWSKY, Macht und Herrschaft im Johanniterorden des 15. Jahrhunderts. Verfassung und Verwaltung der Johanniter aufRhodos (1421-1522), Mnster 2001.


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MARIA ELISA SOLDANI, DANIEL DURAN I DUELT258

logistical needs) essential to lend cohesion to a fragmented Latin Christianity and to pres-sure those Latin powers to support the Hospitallers military operations in the East.

After the crisis caused by the Western Schism and the reinforcement of the administra-tive structures and policies of the Orders headquarters in Rhodes (known as the Con-

vent), the urgent need for money in Rhodes, combined with a patrimonial structurecharacterized by great heterogeneity and geographical dispersion, prompted the improve-ment of the Orders financial mechanisms and a transformation of its approach to econom-ic problems. The mastership of Jean de Lastic (1437-1454) saw major changes in taxationand exploitation of economic resources. Merchants, bankers and even ship captains gradual-ly assumed a key role as service providers in the administration of these resources.

How did a military-monastic order manage the resources of an island commercially asimportant as that of Rhodes while overcoming the limitations due to its patrimonial struc-ture to cover their defensive needs? In this essay we attempt to answer this question interms of practice and in the light of relations that the Knights maintained with two distinctgroups of merchants: the Catalan-Aragonese and the Florentines.

The funding of permanent military actions carried out by the Order in the Eastern Me-diterranean was based on a traditional system of collecting, as special measures to find thefinances at times when it had to carry out operations, and therefore timely expenditures,

were put in place. The Master and the Convent oversaw a network of priories and com-manderies in the West that formed an international organization with interests throughoutin Latin Europe. This network of priories was important both as a financial resource andfor the recruitment of men. Deposit takers at the local level, through letters of attorney is-sued by the General Treasurer, were in charge of collectingresponsionesand other taxes andtransmitting them to Rhodes.2 During the fifteenth century the Order pledged a reform ofthe sampling system in order to make it more rigorous and regular and thus increase the to-tal amount of contributions transferred from the western territories to Rhodes.

The Hospitallers had to administer a vast and fragmented set of territorial possessionsand to transfer men and money to support their operations in the East. They also had tocope with expenses related to the fortifications and reconstruction of places that had beensubject to raids, pay the salaries of guards, put up the ships and supplies, and provide fund-ing for thepassagiumof knights from the western domains of the Order who had been re-called to Rhodes. Finally, they had to pay the costs of nearly continuous embassies sent toboost economic and military aid and to call the Christian princes for a crusade against the

Turks. To meet these payments, the Order could rely on their two resources: those derivedprimarily from the financial contribution of Western commanderies and priories, and re-sources from the Orders Eastern dominions, including tax revenues.3 Although funds fromthe West were the mainstay of the Order, they could hardly meet urgent and unforeseenexpenses such as those caused by military threats in the first decades of the fifteenth cen-

tury. In such circumstances, the resources that the knights could have in Eastern dominions

2 For the period analyzed here the Orders sampling system of the resources in the West has been studied ingeneral by J. SARNOWSKY, Ibid., pp. 469-582 and IDEM, The Rights of the Treasury: the Financial Administration of theHospitallers on Fifteenth-Century Rhodes, 1421-1522, in The Military Orders. Vol. II. Welfare and Warfare, ed. H.NICHOLSON, Aldershot 1998, pp. 267-274, and in a local level has been the subject of specific investigations oncertain priorities, such as that of Catalonia P. BONNEAUD, Le prieur de Catalogne, le couvent de Rhodes et la couronnedAragon 1415-1447, Millau 2004, pp. 81-86. On the transfer of resources from western domains see also T.M.

VANN, The Exchange of Information and Money between the Hospitallers of Rhodes and their European Priories in the Fourteenthand Fifteenth Centuries, in International Mobility in the Military Orders (Twelfth to Fifteenth Centuries): Travelling on ChristsBusiness, J. BURGTORF, H . NICHOLSON eds., Cardiff 2006, pp. 35-47.

3 The priories were those of Toulouse, Saint Giles, Auvergne, France, Champagne, Aquitaine, Navarre,

Castile and Leon, Portugal, Lombardy, Venice, Pisa, Rome, Barletta, Capua, Messina, England, Irland, Germany,Bohemia, Hungary, Dacia, Catalonia and the Castellany of Amposta.


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RELIGION, WARFARE AND BUSINESS IN FIFTEENTH CENTURY RHODES 259

played a key role. The same island of Rhodes, situated at the point of connection betweendifferent political and ecological areas, enjoyed a strategic commercial position at the inter-section of routes leading to Constantinople and the Black Sea on the one hand, and Cyprus,Beirut and Alexandria on the other. More importantly, Rhodes was uniquely in that it was

located at the crossroads of major trade routes of the Eastern Mediterranean, and ruled by amilitary-monastic order. The island was also characterized by a multicultural presence: amulti-national military order, a community of indigenous Greeks, a Jewish community, dif-ferent groups of Latin merchants (Genoese, Venetians, Catalans, Florentines, Provenals)and Muslims.4 The merchants operated through mechanisms that were in part collective, inthat each nation, in order to defend the prerogatives of its members, was directed bydiverse institutions that could intervene when difficulties arose, thereby reflecting thebalance of power between the different national components of the Order. But thesemechanisms were also in part individual, as evident through the direct ties between theMaster, the Treasury, and the individual merchants both those who were consideredRhodian and those whose presence on the island was more of a more transitory character.

1. The Knights and the management of economic resources of the Dodecanese

From a commercial standpoint, Rhodes was an organization set in an area ofconjunction between different ecological zones and between different routes, with an empo-riumopened to the sea where mediation organs were made available by the inhabitants andlocal authorities. The emporiumwas provided with port infrastructure, storage, housing forsailors and administrative buildings. It operated, not as an organ of a small independentstate, but as part of a far-flung empire, and was organized contrary to the manner of Vene-tian and Genoese domains, in that the possessions of the Order in Latin Europe dependedon Rhodes, rather than vice-versa. The security of the island was preserved by the consentof the powers that traded on the sea, by agreements between terrestrial empires, peace trea-ties and truces achieved through intense diplomatic activity, but especially by the reliance onnaval force of the Order itself.

With the exception of sugar production in the Cypriot commandery of Colossi and theextraction of sulfur from Nisyros, natural resources represented only a limited source of in-come for the Order5. On an island as commercially important island as Rhodes, the Hospi-tallers, as a ruling institution, were not directly involved in trading for profit on their ownbehalf. Rather, they administered the fiscal interests limited to the collection of customs du-ties, the port taxes, and the concession contracts with the merchants for the economic re-sources of the archipelago. The Hospitallers were, in fact, prohibited, on pain of severepenalties, from transactions that resulted in commercial profit and, at the individual level,

were forbidden to accept loans.6 However, in special cases where liquidity was required, the

Master could allow the Orders Treasury to take out loans for a preestablished sum. Such4 N. VATIN, Rhodes, cit., pp. 44-50.5 Ibid, pp. 13-15, 50-51; J. SARNOWSKY, Macht und Herrschaft, cit., pp. 425-426. On the production and

marketing of sugar in the Eastern Mediterranean see M. OUERFELLI, Production, commercialisation et usages dans laMditerrane mdivale, Leiden 2008, in part. pp. 31-134 e pp. 429-473.

6 A rule of statutes dating back to the Master Antoni de Fluvi (1421-1437) sanctioned: xliiii. Quod fratresnon exerceant mercimonia. Indecorum et grave quidem censeri debet, qui religionis professioni ac fidei catholicetuitioni, cui tota mente obsequi debent, dicati sunt, mercimoniorum negotiationi se sollicita cura ascribere.Prohibemus igitur, ne fratres ordinis nostri, cuiscunque conditionis fuerint, mercimonia exercere presumant, hocest emere et vendere res mercantiles lucri gratia in Stabilimenta Rhodiorum militum: due Statuten de Johanniterordens von1489/93, J. HAECKER, J . SARNOWSKYeds., Gttingen 2007, p. 220. In 1476 they repeated quod negociacio est prohibita

per nostra stabilimenta. On the questions relating to the management of finances, J. SARNOWSKY,Macht und Herrschaft,cit., pp. 512-524.


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loans were obtained from merchants on the island, either voluntarily or by force, and weregenerally guaranteed by the possessions of the Order. Master Jean de Lastic authorized alarge number of loan contracts with Rhodian and Latin merchants and with the Jews ofRhodes, claiming to resort to such extraordinary measurespro supportandis et subveniendis neces-

sitatibus incumbentibus ratione classis et guerrarum Theucrorum. The loans extracted from the Jewsdid not specify the interest; the loan contracts give onlysi occurreret. But we know that simi-lar contracts with Latin merchants specified interest rates of around 20-22% annually, a fac-tor that would have greatly exacerbated the economic difficulties of the knights.

The financial needs of the mid-fifteenth century even led the Master to waive the pro-hibition on the commercial activities. Between 1440 and 1450, the Order was not only dedi-cated to business as the sale of stock of spices, but the purchase from the Mamluk sultantook place through the mediation of a Muslim merchant from Valencia, Galip Ripoll.7 Thespices were sold to Latin merchants on the island who paid in advance with the promise ofdelivery a year later. If the spices were not delivered as agreed, the advance payment wouldbe returned, plus interest, thus rendering the transaction similar to a loan.8

During the fifteenth century, the Hospitallers also tended to increase the tax burden onthe island. In this respect, a resource available to them and that could be an attractive sourceof revenue for the merchants who frequented the island was the farming of various taxesimposed directly or indirectly on trade and commerce.9The development and consolidationof Rhodes as a major port of trade in regional and international long-range transport meantthat the resources involved in transit and marketing of boats, people, and goods were on therise, and that farming taxes on these resources was a way for merchants to achieve rapid andregular income in cases of extreme necessity. The use of credit was another area in whichthe Order partnered with merchants during this period; merchants played a very active rolein anticipating or transferring the sums. It was in this context that some lending practices

were consolidated in conjunction with merchants and bankers who had interests not onlyon the island or in the Eastern Mediterranean, but also more broadly on the main commer-cial and financial centers of Latin Europe.

Finally, Rhodes also became considerably important from the standpoint of militarystrategy during the fifteenth century: it was, in fact, a place where international trade wasinextricably tied to the economy of the crusade, the economy centered on these border mili-tary operations, now aimed at containing the Mamluk and Ottoman advance, rather than onreconquering territories. The knights, either with their own fleet or through privateering li-censes, raided Mameluk ships, capturing loot and prisoners who then could be exchangedfor Christian captives. Rhodes particular logistical situation meant that the Master did notprevent members from paying and arming vessels together with the merchants. Documen-tation attesting to these activities appears as early as 1413, and shows that the only require-ment demanded by the Order was these expeditions be directed against the infidels; once

this was established, members of the Order who wished to participate enjoyed carte blanche.107 About him Servodio Peccator notaio in Venezia e Alessandria dEgitto (1444-1449), ed. F. ROSSI., Venice 1983, pp.

46-47 (doc. 23); .. : , (1421-1453), Rhodes 1995, pp. 540-541 (doc. 210), 682-684 (doc. 293, 294), 692-694 (doc. 301),723-726 (doc. 314, 315), 758-760 (doc. 333); J. SARNOWSKY,Macht und Herrschaft, cit., pp. 374-375; F.J. APELLNIZRUIZ DE GALARRETA, Vasallo del rey, mercader del sultn. La carrera de Galip Ripoll / Ghalib inb Rufail, in Un Mar deLeyes. De Jaime I a Lepanto, ed. D. DURAN DUELT, Barcelona 2008, pp. 147-154 and IDEM, Pouvoir et finance en

Mditerrane pr-moderne: le deuxime tat Mamelouk et le commerce des pices (1382-1517), Barcelona 2009, pp. 127-129.8 .. , , cit., pp. 532-534 (doc. 205).9 It was for example the gabella ponderis farinae, the gabella vini and the several commerchium, J. SARNOWSKY,

Macht und Herrschaft, cit., pp. 447-454.10

A. LUTTRELL, The Earliest Documents on the Hospitaller Corso at Rhodes, 1413 and 1416, in MediterraneanHistorical Review, 10, 1995, pp. 177-188.


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Operations like these promoted a business of looting that attracted merchants and theirpatrons, and that needed to be controlled. The corsair activity of the Catalans, especially,had the potential to compromise the Hospitallers position, especially after 1451, whenKastellrizo came under the control of Alfons the Magnanimous, and his subjects began to

use Rhodes as both a market for their captured loot and as a base of operations for theirattacks.11

2. The Catalan-Aragonese in Rhodes: the power of the group

Rhodes acquired a major role in Catalan-Aragonese trade at the end of the fourteenthcentury and the first decades of the following century. By the end of that period, the island

was no longer merely a step in traditional navigation routes; it had become the most impor-tant Eastern Mediterranean market of the fifteenth century.12 The importance of Rhodesfor the Eastern trade of Barcelona and Majorca in particular explains why in the fifteenthcentury a great number of merchants, or men whose business was connected with the trade

and navigation more generally, installed themselves on the island for more or less prolongedperiods of time, and coming to act as links between those who were passing through andother eastern merchants. This was the case, for example, of the Barcelonans Antoni Savalland Guillem Alegre in the early decades of the fifteenth century, and Pere Viastrosa, JaumeSesavasses, Jaume Ballester, Pere Roig, Joan Alba, Gabriel Mart in mid-fifteenth century; orthe Mallorcans Joan Desms or Pere Pau in the second half of the fifteenth century.13

Although some of those people would spend long periods of time on the island, only afew definitively established his residence on the island. On May 8, 1433, Master Fluvi andthe Convent, celebrating the General Chapter in Rhodes, conceded to the Majorcan JoanCartal, a Masters householder who was at that time residing in Rhodes (burgensi civitatis nostreRhodi), the possession known as Lebanque, located in the district of Parambolino, with vi-nyards, gardens, salt marshes and other areas, as a reward for services rendered and the de-

votion shown to the aforesaid Master.14 In effect, the merchants relation with members ofthe Order could favor them. In that sense, the election of two Catalan Masters, Antoni deFluvi (1421-1437) and Pere Ramon Sacosta (1461-1467), and the growing power and num-ber of knights coming from Spanish priories in the fifteenth century, and especially fromthe priory of Catalonia and the Castellany of Amposta, helps to explain the increasing pres-ence of Catalan-Aragonese merchants in Rhodes, as does the political influence of Alfonsothe Magnanimous in the Mediterranean even if this latter factor was not always to thebenefit of all the Crowns merchant subjects.15

11 C. MARINESCU, La politique orientale d'Alphonse V d'Aragon, roi de Naples (1416-1458), Barcelona 1994, pp.

208-216; D. DURAN DUELT, Kastellrizo, una isla griega bajo dominio de Alfonso el Magnnimo (1450-1458). Coleccindocumental, Barcelona 2003, pp. 16-17, 26-27.

12 D. COULON, Barcelone et le grand commerce d'Orient au moyen ge: Un sicle de relations avec l'gypte et la Syrie-Palestine (ca. 1330ca. 1430), Madrid-Barcelona 2004, pp. 183-199.

13 C. CARRRE, Barcelone centre conomique lpoque des difficults 1380-1462, I-II, Paris-LAia 1967, II, pp. 641-642; O. VAQUER,El comer martim de Mallorca, 1448-1531, Palma de Mallorca 2001, p. 77; J. SARNOWSKY,Macht undHerrschaft, cit., pp. 639-640.

14 . . , , cit., pp. 261-262 (doc. 28).15 On the Catalan-Aragonese Hospitaller presence in Rhodes, besides the works of P. Bonneaud mentioned

in several footnores in this article, see also D. DURAN DUELT, Presencia hispnica en Rodas. A propsito del Albergue dela Lengua de Espaa, in Memries de la Reial Acadmia Mallorquina dEstudis Genealgics i Histrics, 19, 2009,pp. 97-112; A. LUTTRELL, The Island of Rhodes and the Hospitallers of Catalunya in the Fourteenth Century, inEls Catalans

a la Mediterrnia oriental a lEdat Mitjana: jornades cientfiques de lInstitut dEstudis Catalans, ed. M.T. FERRER I MALLOLBarcelona 2003, pp. 155-185.


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These merchants and patrons were characterized by their intense activity along theEastern Mediterranean, as in the case of Guillem Portella or Bernat Llopis in the secondquarter of the fifteenth century, who not only traded and sailed to and from Rhodes, butalso with Constantinople, Pera, Crete, Chios, Cyprus and Egypt, using Rhodes as a base for

their expeditions.16 Others of more modest social and business profile would be directed toancillary or complementary activities, such as Guillem Plans, a broker who was active in the1430s.17 As typical in the places in which the Catalan-Aragonese merchants operated, those

who were present on the island adopted a model of organization by nation. Evidence ofthis is the existence of a chapel of the Catalans in Rhodes, to which Barcelonas Consuls ofthe Sea sent an altarpiece in 1432, furnished with liturgical objects bearing the heraldic sym-bols of the donor city.18 This model of community organization offered support to itsmembers and a stronger base of support to merchants who, with few exceptions, did notbelong to large companies or enjoy significant commercial or economic power.

Another factor favoring the presence of the Catalan-Aragonese in Rhodes was the vastcollection of territories placed under the control of the King of Aragon and the kings own

political influence in the Mediterranean. Those territories provided important resources likecereals, and were also where the Hospitallers had important land possessions. It is clear,then, that the nature of this merchant presence in Rhodes and the strong support of theroyal economic policies affected the relationship that the merchants of this nation estab-lished with the Order, characterized by the provision of a certain type of services. The firstassignments that could easily be delegated to these merchants concerned the granary provi-sioning of the island and the supply of any goods on the whole. In this sense, the Catalan-

Aragonese were especially active in organizing the shipments for the transport of grain fromSicily.19 But they also inserted themselves in the market for freight and transport in the ser-

16 About Guillem Portella, see D. DURAN I DUELT, Monarquia, consellers i mercaders. Conflictivitat en el consolat

catal de Constantinoble a la primera meitat del segle XV, in M. T. FERRER I MALLOL, D. COULON, Lexpansi catalana a laMediterrnia a la Baixa Edat Mitjana, Barcelona 1999, pp. 27-51; IDEM, Tension et equilibre dans les petites communautsd'occidentaux Constantinople: L'exemple des Catalans au XVe sicle, in M. BALARD, A. DUCELLIER, Migrations et diasporasmdieterranennes (Xe-XVIe sicles). Actes du colloque de Conques (octobre 1999), Paris 2002, pp. 97-103. The ValencianBernat Llopis was active in Rhodes, Venice and Costantinople: ARCHIVIO DI STATO DI VENEZIA (ASV),Notai diCandia, B. 104, Not. Nicol Gradenigo, 2, f. 29v. It seems that Rhodes was his base of operations, where he hadinstalled himself just before September 10, 1433, when he is described as mercatore nunc in castro de Rodes moramtrahenti, ARXIU HISTRIC DE PROTOCOLS DE BARCELONA (AHPB), Pere Pau PujadesManuale nonum 1433, juliol, 7

1434, febrer, 18, f. 22v. It is possible that this is the same Bernat Llopis who thirty years later was in the service ofFerrante of Naples and maintained diplomatic contacts with the Turks in Albania, I. SCHIAPPOLI,Napoli aragonese:traffici e attivit marinare, Naples 1972, p. 105 n. 50.

17 ARXIU DE LA CORONA DARAG (ACA), Cancelleria, reg. 2520, f. 1v-2r; ARXIU DHISTRIA DE LA CIUTATDE BARCELONA (AHCB), Lletres Closes28-V-1438 a 1-I-1440, f. 129v-130r.

18

per spatxament de un retaula que s stat carregat sus la nau den Luis Ferrer a obs de la capella dels catalans en la ciutatde Rodes, BIBLIOTECA DE LATENEU BARCELONS (BAB), ms. 32, f. 46v; AHCB, Lletres comunes originals22-XI-1500 a 12-X-1538, n. 69-70 (inventory of jewelry from the chapel of the Catalans in Rhodes).

19 J. SARNOWSKY,Macht und Herrschaft, cit., pp. 394-397; C. TRASSELLI, Sicilia, Levante e Tunisia nei secoli XIV eXV, Trapani 1959, pp. 13-29; M. ALIBRANDI,Messinesi in Levante nel Medioevo, in Archivio Storico Siciliano, SerieIII, XXI-XXII, 1971-1972, pp. 97-110; C. MARINESCU, La politique orientale, cit., pp. 47-48; D. DURAN I DUELT, Delautonomia a la integraci: la participaci siciliana en el comer oriental als segles XIV i XV, in M. T. FERRER I MALLOL, J.MUTG IVIVES, La Corona catalanoaragonesa i el seu entorn mediterrani a la Baixa Edat Mitjana, Barcelona 2005, pp. 65-99, 84. Even King Alfonso the Magnanimous was involved in these operations. For example, in June 1429 Nicolau

Juli, ship captain of the city of Barcelona, led 3.045 general salmasof grain to the cities of Heraklion and Rhodesto be sold by order of the monarch. Those involved in the sale of wheat were Antoni Amat and Joan Gras, and weretain a part of the accounting associated with this issue currently under study, ACA, Cancelleria, reg. 2.581, f. 65r-vand ARCHIU DEL REGNE DEVALNCIA (ARV), MR 9.818; J. GUIRAL-HADZIIOSSIF, Valencia, puerto mediterrneo enel siglo XV (1410-1525), Valencia 1989, pp. 122-123. In 1434 Apollonius Borzayundertook a tour of various places

of the Eastern Mediterranean, including Rhodes, aboard a ship captained by Bernat Lloren, to sell the kingswheat that was that ship's cargo, ACA, Cancelleria, reg. 2.688, f. 174r-v. Still other examples could be cited.


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vice of the Hospital, not only connecting the territories of the Crown of Aragon to the isl-and, but also linking Rhodes to other areas of the Mediterranean.20 However, their partici-pation was not limited exclusively to the transport of merchandise and people through the

wide geographical arc frequented by Catalan-Aragonese ships; the Order also used Catalan-

Aragonese agents in military actions, as in 1444, when the galleys of the Catalans Ferrer Ber-tran and Jofre Sirvent, merchants both closely connected to the island, were chartered to-gether with the ships of Graci de Montsoriu and Jaume de Vilaragut, and four othersarmed by the Order, made up the squadron of eight ships that participated in operations tolift the Mamluk siege.21

The other major activity that Catalan-Aragonese merchants were involved in was thecirculation of money, above all through exchange dealings and bills of exchange.22 In fact,during the fifteenth century (and especially in the middle decades of that century), Catalanand Majorcan merchants were converted into the Orders lenders, paying large amounts ofmoney to the Master, the Convent and occasionally to some of the brethren.23 The greatmerchant-banking families of Barcelona or Mallorca, however, were, unlike their Florentine

contemporaries, not especially involved in this sort of business with the Covent and theTreasury, and such cases should thus be regarded as exceptional. One prominent examplewas Bartomeu de Parets, a merchant from Barcelona belonging to one of the major familiesprotagonizing the trade with the Eastern Mediterranean in the second half of the fifteenthcentury a family that at that time numbered among its ranks the Catalan consul in Metho-ni, Amador Parets.24 Apart from a few exceptions like Parets, however, moneylending andtax-farming were involved merchants of middling profile documents mention Miquel Ros,Rafael Ferrer, Joan and Ferrer Bertran, Pere de Pau, Joan Estela, Graci de Montsoriu,Francesc Llobera, Mart Caralt o Gabriel Tarrag who made successful carrers on theirown account, rather than on behalf of large companies.25

3. Between Rhodes and ultramarine domains: the relationship of Hospitallers and Florentine mer-chant-bankers

It has been rightly argued that the presence of Florence in the East had peculiar charac-teristics when compared to other merchant groups. The Florentines could boast of muchmore recent activity in an area where Venetians and Genoese had centuries earlier consoli-

20 The use of Catalan vessels to transport Hospitallers to Rhodes from the Crown of Aragon is attested from

the early fourteenth century, A. LUTTRELL,Aragoneses y catalanes en Rodas: 1350-1430, in VII Congreso de Historia de laCorona de Aragn, 2, Barcelona 1962, pp. 383-390384. This activity, of course, transcended the domains of theCrown of Aragon, and Catalan-Aragonese patrons had been offering their services to the Hospitallers in manyother areas since at least the final decades of the fourteenth century. For example, Bertran del Lleo, a Valencian

sailor, chartered his galley to serve the Master Juan Fernandez de Heredia to bring him from Rome to Rhodes,ACA, Cancelleria, reg. 1.666, f. 76r.21 C. MARINESCU, La politique orientale, cit., pp. 93-94.22 M. DELTREPPO, I mercanti catalani e lespansione della Corona dAragona nel secolo XV, Naples 1972, pp. 78-92.23 P. BONNEAUD, Le prieur de Catalogne, pp. 153-154; IDEM,Els hospitalers catalans a la fi de ledat mitjana: lorde de

lHospital a Catalunya i a la Mediterrnia, 1396-1472, Lleida 2008, pp. 158-163.24 On the credit activities of Bartomeu Parets, see J. SARNOWSKY,Macht und Herrschaft, cit., pp. 357, 453, 491-

492, 508-510, 569-571, 579. About the Parets family and their ties with Eastern Mediterranean, M. D ELTREPPO, Imercanti catalani, cit., p. 80. In 1486 the consellers of Barcelona appointed Amador Parets consul in Methon, P.

VOLTES BOU, Repertorio de documentos referentes a los cnsules de ultramar y al consulado de mar, conservados en el InstitutoMunicipal de Historia de Barcelona, in Documentos y Estudios, 13, 1964, pp. 23-165111.

25 J. SARNOWSKY,Macht und Herrschaft, cit., pp. 566-573, 577-579; C. CARRRE, Barcelone centre conomique, cit.,II, pp. 641-642; M. DURAN I PUJOL, G. FELIU I MONTFORT,El comer catal amb lilla de Rodes als primers anys del segle

XVI, in R. NARBONAVIZCANO,XVIII Congrs Internacional dHistria de la Corona dArag (Valncia, 2004), Actes, II,Valencia 2005, pp. 1224-1228; ARXIU DEL REGNE DE MALLORCA (ARM), P. P-450, f. 45r-v.


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dated their influence, making the trade with the East the backbone of the economy of theirmajor cities. In this scenario, only the supercompanies the Bardi, Peruzzi and Acciaiuoli inthe fourteenth century and the Medici family in the fifteenthhad reasons and sufficientmeans to establish their own representatives in Rhodes, Cyprus and other locations in the

Eastern Christian Mediterranean.26 Contrary to what has been found for the Catalan-Aragonese, Florentines in Rhodes were not characterized by widespread market penetra-tion: the big companies were not flanked by smaller companies or individuals who couldprovide services related to trading activities such as brokers, artisans or captains. The Flo-rentines, then, could not rely on either of a set of territories located in the Mediterranean ora navy such as that of the the Catalan-Aragonese. This, despite the efforts of the Republicto initiate a program of state-sponsored navigation after the purchase of Porto Pisano in1421, introducing tax concessions to promote overseas trade and maintaining diplomaticties with the Levantine rulers through the mediation of Rhodes and the Duke of Corinth

Antonio Acciaiuoli.27 The Florentine relationship with the Hospitallers then took on charac-teristics different from the other merchant groups.

For these large merchant-banking companies, the key to accessing the Order, and thusRhodes, was the Papal Curia.28 It is no coincidence that the first to enter into relations withthe Hospitallers were the companies Bardi, Peruzzi and Acciaiuoli and later Alberti e Medi-ci. It is also significant that in the beginning of the fourteenth century Cyprus, a correspon-dent of the Peruzzi had been present at the negotiations in order to conquer Rhodesbetween the then-Master of the Order Foulques de Villaret and a Genoese pirate.29 The im-portance of the Curia as an intermediary is further evidenced by the fact that the Pope in-tervened in several instances in favor of the bankers to ensure the fulfillment of the debtsincurred by the Hospitallers, or to authorize the Order to mortgage or to sell assets to meetpayments. In some cases, in fact, the Knights came to borrow remarkable sums from thesecompanies : in 1320 the Knights had debts of a total of 500,000 florins to the Bardi and Pe-ruzzi banks, for money lent to a rate of about 6%. These debts put a strain on the resourcesof the Order when, Peruzzi and Bardi banks failed between 1343 and 1346, they lost about360,000 florins. What stands out in these initial contacts between the Hospital and Florenceis that, in many cases, the correspondents of banks that operated on the island ended upbeing included in the ranks of the Order.

The relationship with the Florentine merchant-bankers further intensified in the mid-fifteenth century, a time when the Hospitallers had a strong need to find financial solutions

26 On the Florentines in the Eastern Mediterranean, see: A. SAPORI, La crisi delle compagnie mercantile dei Bardi edei Peruzzi, Florence 1926; S. BORSARI, Lespansione economica fiorentina nellOriente cristiano sino alla met del Trecento , inRivista Storica Italiana, LXX, 1958, pp. 477-507; M.E. MALLETT, The Florentine Galleys in the Fifteenth Century,Oxford 1967, pp. 63-72; H. HOSHINO, I mercanti fiorentini ad Alessandria d'Egitto nella seconda met del Trecento , in

Sardegna, Mediterraneo e Atlantico tra medioevo ed et moderna. Studi storici in memoria di A. Boscolo, I-III, Rome 1993, II,pp. 257-270; S. TOGNETTI, Cenni sulla presenza dei mercanti-banchieri fiorentini a Famagosta di Cipro nei primi anni delTrecento, in Archivio Storico Italiano, 166, 2008, pp. 53-68; and lately F. APELLNIZ, Transgressing Boundaries inCross-Cultural Trade: Lower-Rank Merchants in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean, Paper presented to The fifty-sixthannual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Venice, 8-10 April 2010: Thursday, 8 April, Archivio diStato, In search of the Venetian Popolani. II : Social and Economic Practices.

27 A. SAPORI, I primi viaggi di Levante e di Ponente delle galee fiorentine, in Archivio Storico Italiano, CXIV, 1956,pp. 69-91. See also the section on Florentine trade with the Levant in R. G OLDTHWAITE, The Economy of RenaissanceFlorence, Baltimore 2009, pp. 182-202 starting from the statement that At the beginning of the fifteenth CenturyFlorentines took a new, aggressive interest in trade in the Levant that largely bypassed Venice, p. 182.

28 On the relationship between merchant-banking companies and Papal Curia in the fourteenth century werefer to the classic study di Y. RENOUARD, Les relations des Papes dAvignon et des compagnies commerciales et bancaires de1316 a 1378, Paris 1941.

29

A. LUTTRELL, Interessi fiorentini nelleconomia e nella politica dei Cavalieri Ospedalieri di Rodi nel Trecento, in Annalidella Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa: Lettere, Storia e Filosofia, 2 ser., XXVIII, 1959, pp. 317-326.


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to meet the need for credit and transfer of resources that were coming from the Latin prio-ries. The reinforcement under the government of Jean de Lastic of the law relating to billsof exchange, the reorganization of the Treasury and the role of deputy officers, the deliveryof rights by the receptor, and the conservation of the assets of the General Treasury all re-

flects the financial crisis that the Order was undergoing at that time.30 Along with the stric-ter rules, control mechanisms were also strengthened. To prevent fraud, bills of exchangeand Treasury assignments had to be sent (expeditas) by the Master and by the General Trea-surer with the bulla communi plumbeaand, moreover, beginning 1449, a college of seven audi-tors, one for each tongue, would be required to check the records of the Treasury once a

week.31 This need to oversee the Orders financial operations was motivated by the factthat, in the chapter held in Rome, Master Lastic had been accused of having squandered the

Treasury funds left to him by his predecessor.32 The strong need to obtain liquidity on theisland and to find an effective method to transfer resources collected in the Western do-mains in an orderly and constant way led the Hospitallers to turn once again to one of thebig banks of that time: the Medici. Cosimo de Medici was appointed general of the deposi-

tory with the approval of Pope Nicholas V, meaning that each preceptory paid the amountsdue to the General Treasury into the coffers of the Medici bank branches located through-out Europe. Cosimo and his associates cashed the responsionesand other charges which thepriors deposited to them: a part of this money was used to compensate the merchants in

Avignon, Genoa, Florence and, until June 1451, Venice who had lent or sold goods to theOrder in Rhodes. The Medici branches also backed the speakers and the boards of auditorstraveling through Europe in those years with the task of inspecting the accounts of the pre-ceptories and making the system more efficient. The remainder would have been trans-ferred to the General Treasury with the help of the company of Bernardo Salviati andUgone Peruzzi, the Medici representatives on the island at that time.33

The prestige and the material interests derived from these operations would not havebeen Cosimo de Medicis only motivation to accept the assignment. A few years later, infact, the Medici explored the possibility of entering into the Levant trade for themselves andthus sharing in the benefits of the alum traffic enjoyed by their representative in Rhodes,Bernardo Salviati. In May 1452, the Medici bank in Florence, in the person of Giovanni diCosimo and Piero de Medici, signed a limited partnership engaging for 500 florins di suggelloto be allocated to trade on the island of Rhodes. The general partner in charge of the opera-tion on the island at that time was Bernardo di Marco di messer Forese Salviati. 34 Salviatihad been in Rhodes at least since the early forties when he and his partners, among others,

were granted rights to exploit the alum mines in the archipelago35 a grant that must not have

30We refer to the passages of the statutes relating to the Treasury published in the Stabilimenta Rhodiorum

militum, cit., pp. 141-155. See also J. SARNOWSKY,Macht und Herrschaft, cit., pp. 512-524.31 ARCHIVI DELLORDINE DI MALTA (AOM), 501, f. 285r-286.32 R. VALENTINI, Un capitolo generale degli Ospitalieri di S. Giovanni tenuto in Vaticano nel 1446, in Archivio

Storico di Malta, VII/2, 1936, pp. 136-168 and P. BONNEAUD,Els hospitalers catalans, cit., pp. 253-260.33 On Salviati as a Medici agent, see also R. DE ROOVER, Il Banco Medici dalle origini al declino, Florence 1970,

pp. 186-187; more generally for the relationship between the Medici and Salviati families, see P. HURTUBISE, Unefamille-tmoin les Salviati, Vatican City 1985, pp. 46-52.

34 ARCHIVIO DI STATO DI FIRENZE (ASF),Mercanzia, 10831, f. 26v (May 24, 1452). The stipulation of thiscompany followed a similar one of 1.000 florins di suggello with Nicholas and Bartolomeo di Piero Capponi, ibidem,f. 27v (May 27 1452).

35 C. WRIGHT, Florentine Alum Mining in the Hospitaller Islands: the Appalto Of 1442, in Journal of MedievalHistory, 36, 2010, n. 2, pp. 175-191. Bernardo Salviati, in 1446, was allowed to take the arms of the Master Lastic,an heraldic insignia consisting of a white bar on a red field, in recognition for services rendered to the Order of

lifting the Mamluk siege and the peace closed later with the Sultan. A few years later, Salviati received thecitizenship of Rhodes. Respectively AOM 358, f. 190r and AOM 364, f. 146r


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been very profitable, since only a few years later Salviati got an exemption from the Masterfor alum from Phocaea and other areas of the Black Sea passing through Rhodes.36 Never-theless, rights over the alum mines opened the possibility for these companies of Florence,even before the discovery of deposits of Tolfa, to decrease their dependence on Genoese in

the supply of alum, a vital stain for the textile industry of the Republic of the Arno.The relationship between the Order and the Medici bank in Florence and Venice dates

back at least to November 1449, when Lastic informed the preceptor of France of a deci-sion taken by the last meeting of the chapter and ordered him to deposit the funds hispriory owed the Treasury into the two branches of the Medici bank.37 Negotiations betweenthe Order and Cosimo de Medici were later concluded in June 1450. The priors of SaintGiles Raimond Richard and Pisa Giuliano del Benini had been sent at the Roman curia tomeet Cosimo. On that occasion, to carry out the affairs of the Master and the Convent thetwo lieutenants received 12,000 gold chamber florins from the Medicis Roman affiliate, excausis veri, puri, amicabilis et gratuiti mutui, with the promise that the money would be returnedat the Roman curia, or to Cosimo and his associates in the city of Florence, or in Rhodes to

Bernardo Salviati and Ugone Peruzzi and partners.38

On January 8, 1452, by an act entitled Confirmatio Depositarie Generalis Magnifici Cosmi deMedicis florentini, Master Jean de Lastic confirmed the terms of contract established in thename of Order by his lieutenants with the Florentine Cosimo de Medici, defined our generaldepositary and of our religion in its own name and those of his associates. These agreements,however, had already been in force since the signing of the original document dated Octo-ber 13, 1450. From that moment on for the next three years, the preceptors would have de-posited in the Medici branches closest to them any money that pertained to the Order,coming from any type of exaction, as well as those funds coming from the camerasand allthe ultramarine preceptories, and those owed to the Master or the General Treasury by thirdparties, whether laymen or members of other religious orders. In addition to the timing oftransfer of funds, detailed by the month of deposit, the Confirmatio stated that payments

were to be made on the island of Rhodes, and either in gold chamber florins (fiorini di cam-era) or an equivalent sum calculated on the exchange rate on the day Cosimo was elected: 36aspersof Rhodes currency. For each transaction, the Medici bank would retain a commissionof 7.40% as compensation for the risk they took in the transfer of large sums of moneyover long distances (Tabs. 1 and 2).

The Orders chapter, which met every five years, assessed the accounts of each precep-tory by calculating the amount of revenue due and sent back to each preceptory a certifiedcopy of the accounts. Since the appointment of Cosimo as general depositary, the recordsof the Hospitaller chancellery regularly registered the assignments of the responsionesand ofthe other rights of the Treasury from distinct priories that the Master and the General Trea-surer assigned to the Medici in order to compensate for the sums advanced from its banks.

At the same time, we see an increase in the number of payment orders addressed to the cor-respondents of the Medici, who had sent them through bills of exchange drawn by theTreasurer and sent in quadruplicate, by four distinct routes.

Although Venice would have been the natural choice as a market for money transfersfor the merchants involved in the Levantine trade, and for engaging in currency speculation,

36AOM 364, f. 146v (march 3, 1453), published in .. , , cit., n. 292, pp.680-682. On alum trade D. JACOBY, Lalun et la Crte vnitienne, in Byzantinische Forschungen, 12, 1987, pp. 129-142 and IDEM, Production et commerce de l'alun oriental en Mditerrane, XIe-XVe sicles, in L'alun de Mditerrane, P.BORGARD,J.-P.BRUN, M . PICON eds., Naples/Aix-en-Provence 2005, pp. 219-267.

37 AOM 361, f. 304r (November 2, 1449).38

AOM 363, f. 186v-187r. The two priors had had official authorization from the Master to borrow moneyfrom merchants or other ecclesiastical and secular persons to finance their missions, AOM 362, f. 155(156)r-v.


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the expulsion of Florentines from Venice in June 1451 forced the Lagoon base bank to sus-pend their activities until the signing of the Peace of Lodi (April 9, 1454).39 During that pe-riod, the See of Avignon, the city of central importance in the Hospitallers collectionnetwork, was the center of the majority of transactions handled by two branch managers

Giovanni Zampini and Verano Peruzzi.On February 24, 1453, because of a series of bills of exchange that were not accepted

and for which the Treasury had had to assume the rechange (ricambio) burden, and to avoidthe aforesaid bills of exchange being returned, the Master and the Convent allowed Zampiniand Peruzzi to pay the bills of exchange presented to them even if they were not in posses-sion of money of the Order, using money borrowed from others. The Knights undertookto pay a total interest that did not go beyond the 4000-5000 ducats. The document explicitlymentioned the maximum interest that the Treasury would have shouldered, but does notspecify the percentage of this interest compared to the total of the sums borrowed.40

In the years following this arrangement, the Medici banks would still be employed tocollect and pay subsidies to the Christian princes in the fight against the Turks. Those des-

tined for the King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary were sent by bills of exchange in Veniceand beyond paid to agents of the king or transferred by merchants who were operating inHungary.41 In this case, however, the decision suggested by the Pope, to entrust the fin-ances of the Hospitallers to a banker romanam curiam sequensassumes the character of a sortof commissioner, motivated by the situation of the Order: a time when the knights, drivenby necessity, were too compromised by their relationship with the merchants trading withthe island, accepting high interest rates and openly recording them in the documentation ofthe chancery. The fact that these transactions sometimes included usurious interest rates(justified by the Master in rhetorical preambles about the need to counter the Turkish at-tacks) had aroused the concerns of the Papacy. In a letter dated November 1450, Nicholas

V ordered a harsh punishment for the brothers who dared to give or to lend money ob-tained through the preceptories and who also dared to do it with the Treasury of the Order,

with the help of merchants, not considering the danger that could ensue for their souls.42

4. Conclusions

In exceptional circumstances, when the Order was particularly vulnerable to militarypressure from its enemies, the Master and the Convent were forced to refine and rethinkthe economic management of their resources in the Orders Eastern territories and to im-prove the methods for collection and transfer of resources from their Western dominions.

This context opens up a major issue that deserves further exploration: Was this change dueto the rapprochement occurred with the merchant world in the middle decades of the fif-teenth century?

39 R. MUELLER, The Venetian Money Market. Banks, Panics, and the Public Debt, 1200-1500 , Baltimore-London,

1997, pp. 284-285; R. DE ROOVER, Il Banco Medici dalle origini al declino (1397-1494), Florence, 1988, pp. 358-359.40 On September 1, 1450, for example, the Master and the Convent acknowledged a debt the Genoese

Bartolomeo Doria of 1.500 ducats, borrowed by the Order at a rate of 20% per annum, to which was addedanother 2% for his service (pro suo labore), AOM 363, f. 160(161)r. For other examples, see J. SARNOWSKY,Machtund Herrschaft, cit., pp. 512-524.

41 R. DE ROOVER, Il Banco Medici, cit., p. 290.42 The Pope expressed his indignation against those brothers who, despite the ban, diversas pecuniarum

summas que ad illos tam eorum preceptoriis quam alias pervenerunt per interpositas merchatores seu aliarumpersonarum manus [] sub damnata fenoris condicione diversis personis et, quod damnabilis fore dinoscitur,

communi tesauro dicti Hospitalis dare seu mutuare presumpserunt in animarum suarum periculum. A RCHIVIOSEGRETOVATICANO (ASV) 393, f. 102v-103v, cited in J. SARNOWSKY,Macht und Herrschaft, cit., p. 513.


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An indicator that this may indeed be the case is the relation of trust and dependencythat was established between the Convent and the merchants in concrete moments: a com-promise of the Order with the merchant world favored a change in the Orders relationship

with the economic resources that it had to manage on either side of the Mediterranean a

compromise that did not go unnoticed by the Pope. This relation with the different groupsand companies who visited the island was articulated in different ways. Viewed in this con-text, the respective roles of Catalan-Aragonese and Florentines are critical: the former of-fered the Order services ranging from credit, transport or supplies, acting mainly in a jointform in the shadow of a monarchy with extensive interests throughout the Mediterranean;the latter acted through the great families and companies, tightening relations with theKnights, as mediated by the Papal Curia. The main peculiarity of the relation of the Floren-tines with the Hospitallers was a significant amount of incorporation in the ranks of theOrder of relevant representatives of the business and financial world, most prominently themerchant-banking companies agents that had operated on the island.


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Tab. 1 List of priories and correspondents of the Medici bank

Priors, Preceptors,Prosecutors or Debtors

Office of the Medici Bankor of the Agent Authorizedto Issue the Bills

Correspondents

Kingdom of Spain and ofNavarre Valencia, Barcelona

Filippo Pierozzi

Catalonia Barcelona Filippo Pierozzi

Kingdom of England London Piero de Medici, Gerozzo de Pigli & co.

Flanders, Scotland and LowGermany Bruges

Piero de Medici, Gerozzo de Pigli & co.Michele Arnolfini

Kingdom of France, Aquitaine,Alverne, Burgundy,Champagne and Saint-Gilles

Avignon, Montpellier,Toulouse and others

Avignon:Francesco Sassetti, Giovanni Zampini &co.Montpellier:

Antonio di Bernardo Cannigiani

High Germany, Hungary andBohemia Bohemia and Venice

Venice:Pierfrancesco de Medici & co.Filippo dAgostino and brothersGiovanni Rucellai and Giovanni diFrancesco Strozzi

Capua and Barletta NaplesBartolomeo BuoncontiFilippo Strozzi & co.Benedetto Guasconi

Messina Palermo -

Rome (Urbe romana) and Pisa Florence and Papal Curia -Medici of the Papal Curia

Venice Venice

Venice:

Pierfrancesco de Medici & co.Filippo dAgostino and brothersGiovanni Rucellai and Giovanni diFrancesco Strozzi

Lombardy Venice and Milan

Venice:Pierfrancesco de Medici & co.Filippo dAgostino and brothersGiovanni Rucellai and Giovanni diFrancesco Strozzi

Milan:Heirs of the Castagnoli

Antonio da Castagnolo and brothers

Piero de Medici & co.

This list of correspondents of the Medici bank is based on a list of around 1455 published by R. D EROOVER, Il Banco Medici, cit., pp. 186-187.


18/18


Tab. 2 Return terms of sums acquired between 1451 and 1452

Filing date in the bases of the bank Time set for transfer to Rhodes

May, June and July 2/3 at 4 months from the last day of July through November1/3 at 6 months through January

August, September and October At 6 months through April

November, December, January At 6 months through July

February, March, April At 6 months through October