Note 19 — EXPLANATORY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME I. (continued 2)
Henry Yule translation
A few years after Ser Marco’s death (1328) we find the Great Council granting to this Peter the rights of a natural Venetian, as having been a long time at Venice, and well-conducted. (See App. C,
Calendar of Documents
, No. 13.) This might give some additional colour to M. Pauthier’s supposition that this Peter the Tartar was a faithful servant who had accompanied Messer Marco from the East 30 years before. But yet the supposition is probably unfounded. Slavery and slave-trade were very prevalent at Venice in the Middle Ages, and V. Lazari, a writer who examined a great many records connected therewith, found that by far the greater number of slaves were described as
Tartars
. There does not seem to be any clear information as to how they were imported, but probably from the factories on the Black Sea, especially Tana after its establishment.
A tax of 5 ducats per head was set on the export of slaves in 1379, and as the revenue so received under the Doge Tommaso Mocenigo (1414–1423) amounted (so says Lazari) to 50,000 ducats, the startling conclusion is that 10,000 slaves yearly were exported! This it is difficult to accept. The slaves were chiefly employed in domestic service, and the records indicate the women to have been about twice as numerous as the men. The highest price recorded is 87 ducats paid for a Russian girl sold in 1429. All the higher prices are for young women; a significant circumstance. With the existence of this system we may safely connect the extraordinary frequence of mention of illegitimate children in Venetian wills and genealogies. (See Lazari, Del Traffico degli Schiavi in Venezia, etc., in Miscellanea di Storia Italiana, I. 463 seqq.) In 1308 the Khan Toktai of Kipchak (see Polo, II. 496), hearing that the Genoese and other Franks were in the habit of carrying off Tartar children to sell, sent a force against Caffa, which was occupied without resistance, the people taking refuge in their ships. The Khan also seized the Genoese property in Sarai. (Heyd. II. 27.)