By the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Byzantine reconquest of 1261 had made its mark on Latin expansion in the Aegean and the Balkans. With the treaty of Nymphaion on 13 March 1261, Michael VIII Palaiologos (1258–82) granted the Genoese access to the Black Sea. Similar access was granted to the Venetians in the years that followed, and their principal conquests since the Fourth Crusade were recognised. A chain of trading posts and ports of call thus stretched along the main sea routes and was dominated by the Italian maritime republics; Andronikos II Palaiologos (1282–1328) had abandoned the maintenance of a Byzantine fleet as too costly (see above, p. 810). At the heart of this nexus of great trade routes, leading from Italy to Constantinople and the Black Sea, Cyprus and Lesser Armenia, Syria and Alexandria, was the Aegean. Control of its coasts and islands became a vital necessity for the Italian maritime republics and the object of frantic competition; from this sprang the three ‘colonial’ wars between Genoa and Venice in the course of the fourteenth century. Their only result was a de facto carve-up of the Aegean: Venice had the western and southern coastline, with Messenia, Crete and Negroponte, Genoa the eastern coasts with Chios, Lesbos and the islands of the northern Aegean, while the Catalans would disrupt this Italian maritime and commercial hegemony through their seizure of the duchy of Athens and rapid development of piracy.

‘Nothing that grows in the sea is perfect or noble. It is filled with caves and sand and endless mud.’ Socrates, to whom Plato attributes these words, would have been stunned if he had been able to travel forward in time to Venice, Lübeck, Constantinople or Alexandria in the late Middle Ages. In all these cities he would have seen intense maritime activity, bales of goods on the wharves, crowds of people around outbound ships, an aristocracy of businessmen grown rich by trade, mighty palaces overlooking the sea, as well as docks and warehouses, armouries and dealers, brokers and notaries. Where else did this fortune originate but from the exploitation of the sea? That is what this publication seeks to understand and illustrate, by untangling the strands of complex networks and exploring the interactions between space and time in a dialectic that could, in a Braudelian approach, be the basis for the research of all our collaborators. It leads us from the Mediterranean, mother of all civilisations, to pre- and post- Mongolian China, from the northern seas to America's pre-Colombian societies, and through the Middle Ages that, while it may not be considered important in all regions of the world, is nonetheless typically defined as the period from the 4th to the 15th century. While stopping short of obsessively seeking out superficial similarities between the regions studied, the hypothesis of the critical role of maritime activity in the rise of human communities deserves to be tested.

A successful investigation into the role of the sea in history and in the birth of modern capitalism would not have been possible without the cooperation of many experts. More than seventy medievalist historians responded to our invitation, from Western Europe and Russia, China, India, Japan, North America and the Caribbean. We asked each of them to reflect on the link between the exploitation of the sea and the prosperity of the cities, nations and States that turned to the high seas for essential resources such as salt and fish, but also for commercial and cultural interactions, and as a means both of transportation and supply.

« Dans la mer, il ne naît rien de précieux, rien de parfait : ce ne sont que des cavernes, du sable, et, partout où il y a de la terre, une boue et une vase profonde ». Socrate, auquel Platon attribue ces propos, aurait été bien étonné s'il avait pu, par une vision anticipatrice, survoler les siècles, se rendre à Venise, à Lubeck, à Constantinople ou à Alexandrie dans les derniers temps du Moyen Âge. Partout dans ces métropoles une activité maritime intense, des ballots de marchandises sur les quais, un grouillement d'hommes autour des navires en partance, une aristocratie d'hommes d'affaires enrichis par le commerce, de puissants palais dominant la mer, vers laquelle se tournent docks et entrepôts, arsenaux et bancs des changeurs, courtiers et notaires. D'où provient cette fortune, sinon de l'exploitation de la mer, que le présent ouvrage cherche à comprendre et à illustrer, en démêlant les fils de réseaux complexes, en suivant les interactions entre les milieux géographiques et l'écoulement des siècles, dans une dialectique espace–temps, qui, selon un schéma braudélien, pourrait constituer l'articulation d'une recherche menée par tous nos collaborateurs ? Elle nous entraîne de la Méditerranée, mère des civilisations, à la Chine pré- et post-mongole, des mers nordiques aux sociétés pré-colombiennes d'Amérique, à travers le Moyen Âge qui, s'il n'a pas la même signification dans l'ensemble du monde, peut être néanmoins considéré de manière traditionnelle, comme étant la période qui s'étend du IVe au XVe siècle. Sans rechercher de manière obsessionnelle des similarités superficielles dans les régions étudiées, l'hypothèse d'un rôle décisif de l'activité maritime dans l'essor des communautés humaines mérite d'être testée.

Pour mener à bien cette enquête réhabilitant le rôle de la mer dans l'histoire et dans la création du capitalisme moderne, il a fallu faire appel à des compétences multiples. Plus de soixante-dix historiens médiévistes ont répondu à notre appel, venus non seulement d'Europe occidentale, mais aussi de Russie, de Chine, de l'Inde et du Japon, de l'Amérique du Nord et des Caraïbes

L'intérêt ou le désintérêt des individus, des groupes sociaux et des États médiévaux pour les entreprises maritimes ne peut se comprendre que par l'analyse de la perception que ceux-ci ont eue de la mer. Une perception double, antithétique, loin d'être immuable au fil des siècles. La mer offre en fait un double aspect : d'un côté, elle est l'empire du mal, un symbole de mort et demeure de monstres redoutables prêts à engloutir navires et passagers ; de l'autre, elle offre aussi des beautés émouvantes, est une voie vers la découverte et le rêve et une source de bonheur et de richesse.

Les textes littéraires aussi bien que les récits de voyage et de pèlerinage font de la mer par excellence « le lieu de la peur, de la mort et de la démence » (J. Delumeau) : un topos constamment repris par des auteurs très divers, mais qui exprime une réalité vécue par tous les marins, les marchands ou les pèlerins qui ont rencontré une « grande et horrible fortune », pour reprendre l'expression d'Ogier d'Anglure, et ont couché par écrit leurs souvenirs. À la terreur primale de l'engloutissement dans les abîmes sans fond, s'ajoute celle, très prégnante, du risque d'une mort sans sépulture consacrée, qui compromet le salut de l'âme. Aussi la peur « jamais exorcisée » (C. Deluz) l'emporte de loin dans les récits de voyage et de pèlerinage, marqués aussi par la superstition des auteurs face à de mauvais présages. Dès le IXe siècle, Bernard le Moine, puis maître Thietmar (1217) et Willibrand d'Oldenbourg (1211), sans s'attarder sur les conditions de la navigation, racontent leurs effrois devant la fureur houleuse de la mer. Le pilote et les marins sont impuissants devant les éléments déchaînés. Ils ne peuvent que prier le Ciel pour que la bourrasque cesse. Beaucoup s'en remettent à Dieu, à la Vierge et aux saints dans ces moments où la vie ne tient qu'à un fil. Ogier d'Anglure (1395), Niccolò da Poggibonsi (1346–1350), Frescobaldi (1384), Nompar de Caumont (1418), tous ont vécu la tempête comme une approche de la mort.

The extent to which individuals, social groups and states took an interest in maritime undertakings in mediaeval times can only be gauged by analyzing the way in which they perceived the sea. It was a twofold, antithetical perception, and one which, over the centuries, was by no means immune to change. The duality of the sea was, indeed, quite real. On the one hand, it was the empire of evil, a symbol of death, a realm of fearful monsters, ever ready to devour ships and their passengers. On the other hand, it was also a place of poignant beauty, a pathway leading to discovery and dreams, a source of felicity and wealth.

In literary texts and travellers' and pilgrims' tales, the sea is depicted, first and foremost, as ‘a place of fear, death and madness’ (J. Delumeau): this toposwas routinely echoed by a wide range of authors, but it expressed a reality experienced by all the sailors, merchants and pilgrims who, as Ogier d'Anglure put it, met with a ‘great and dire fate’ and then committed their recollections to paper. Alongside the primal dread of being engulfed in the bottomless depths of the sea was the intense fear of dying without a proper Christian burial, a fate which put the salvation of the soul at risk. ‘Enduring fear’ (C. Deluz) was thus a dominant theme in travellers' and pilgrims' tales, which also reflected their authors' superstitious responses to bad omens. As early as the 9th century, Bernard le Moine, followed by Magister Thietmar (1217) and Willibrand of Oldenburg (1211), without dwelling on sailing conditions, told of how the stormy seas had struck fear into their hearts. The pilot and the sailors were powerless against the raging elements of nature. All they could do was pray for the howling winds to pass. Many beseeched God, the Holy Virgin and the saints for help in those moments when life hung by a thread. All of them – Ogier d'Anglure (1395), Niccolò da Poggibonsi (1346–1350), Frescobaldi (1384), Nompar de Caumont (1418) – felt that the storm had brought them to the brink of death.

By the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Byzantine reconquest of 1261 had made its mark on Latin expansion in the Aegean and the Balkans. With the treaty of Nymphaion on 13 March 1261, Michael VIII Palaiologos (1258–82) granted the Genoese access to the Black Sea. Similar access was granted to the Venetians in the years that followed, and their principal conquests since the Fourth Crusade were recognised. A chain of trading posts and ports of call thus stretched along the main sea routes and was dominated by the Italian maritime republics; Andronikos II Palaiologos (1282–1328) had abandoned the maintenance of a Byzantine fleet as too costly (see above, p. 810). At the heart of this nexus of great trade routes, leading from Italy to Constantinople and the Black Sea, Cyprus and Lesser Armenia, Syria and Alexandria, was the Aegean. Control of its coasts and islands became a vital necessity for the Italian maritime republics and the object of frantic competition; from this sprang the three ‘colonial’ wars between Genoa and Venice in the course of the fourteenth century. Their only result was a de facto carve-up of the Aegean: Venice had the western and southern coastline, with Messenia, Crete and Negroponte, Genoa the eastern coasts with Chios, Lesbos and the islands of the northern Aegean, while the Catalans would disrupt this Italian maritime and commercial hegemony through their seizure of the duchy of Athens and rapid development of piracy.

A REPUBLIC that does not possess the art of war is deprived of that which makes it a republic. Thus spoke Doge Matteo Senarega, at the end of the sixteenth century, in a debate that involved all the ruling groups of Genoa at the time. Was it necessary to create a real state fleet, capable of making the power of the Republic respected and of preserving its liberty, or was it better to leave matters in the hands of private ship-owners from whom the state could charter services in case of a foreign threat, imperial naval obligations, or corsairs who dared to attack the vessels of la Superba?

The imbalance between public naval forces and private ones was a constant feature of Genoese history. The galleys of the state counted for little compared to the fleets that the great familial clans could assemble, especially at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Was this a consequence of the Genoese individualism so dear to Roberto Lopez, or was it due to a delayed development toward a modern state, leaving Genoa slow to put into place the means of defence necessary for its survival? To explain the reason for these disproportions it is necessary to determine the importance of Genoese naval forces raised during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is also necessary to evaluate the frequent, often debated, efforts to construct a real state fleet and, finally, to demonstrate the conditions which were required for such efforts to establish a fleet to be realised.

at the beginning of the fourteenth century, the consequences of the Byzantine reconquest of 1261 on the expansion of Latins into the Aegean and the Balkans were clearly felt. Michael VIII Palaeologus had opened access to the Black Sea to the Genoese by the Treaty of Nymphaeum, and to the Venetians in the years that followed, and recognised the principal conquests made by the latter after the Fourth Crusade. A chain of ports of call and trading-posts stretched along the main sea routes, since Andronikos II had abandoned the maintenance of a Byzantine fleet as too costly. The Aegean Sea was thus at the heart of the great trade routes which led from Italy to Constantinople and the Black Sea, Cyprus and Lesser Armenia, Syria and Alexandria. Control of the islands and coasts became a vital necessity for the Italian maritime republics and the object of frantic competition between them: from this sprang the three ‘colonial’ wars between Genoa and Venice in the course of the fourteenth century. Their only result was a de facto sharing of the Aegean: Venice had the western and southern coasts, with Messenia, Crete and Negroponte, Genoa the eastern coasts with Chios and Mytilene, while the Catalans were to come to disturb Italian maritime and commercial hegemony through their domination over the duchy of Athens and the rapid development of piracy.