FONDAZIONE ISTITUTO INTERNAZIONALE DI STORIA ECONOMICA F.

DATINI PRATO

RELIGIONE E ISTITUZIONI RELIGIOSE NELLECONOMIA EUROPEA. 1000-1800 RELIGION AND RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS IN THE EUROPEAN ECONOMY. 1000-1800
Atti della Quarantatreesima Settimana di Studi 8-12 maggio 2011 a cura di Francesco Ammannati

Firenze University Press 2012

INDICE
Domenica 8 maggio APERTURA DEI LAVORI ERIK AERTS, La religione nelleconomia. Leconomia nella religione. Europa 1000-1800 ........................................................................................................... pag. Luned 9 maggio TRA DOTTRINA E PRATICA DELLA VITA QUOTIDIANA: FINANZA & CAPITALE / BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE OF EVERYDAY LIFE: FINANCE & CAPITAL Relazioni GIACOMO TODESCHINI, Usury in Christian Middle Ages. A Reconsideration of the Historiographical Tradition (1949-2010) .......................................................... pag. MARKUS A. DENZEL, The Curial Payments System of the Late Middle Ages and the Sixteenth Century: Between Doctrine and Practice of Everyday Life ....... JOHN MUNRO, Usury, Calvinism and Credit in Protestant England: from the Sixteenth Century to the Industrial Revolution........................................... JUAN M. CARRETERO ZAMORA, Les Collectories de la Monarchie Hispanique et la banque Italienne aux XVIe-XVIIe sicles (1506-1614) ........................................... Comunicazioni JORDI MORELL BAGET, Searching the Veros Valores of Some Religious Centres of Barcelona (About the Ecclesiastical Subsidy of 1443) ...........................pag. DAVID KUSMAN, Le rle de lglise comme institution dans la contractualisation des oprations de crdit en Brabant, XIIIe-XVe sicle................................................

119 131 155 185

207 227

Marted 10 maggio TRA DOTTRINA E PRATICA DELLA VITA QUOTIDIANA: FINANZA & CAPITALE / BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE OF EVERYDAY LIFE: FINANCE & CAPITAL Comunicazioni MAREK SO, Die Rolle der kirchlichen Institutionen im Geldumlauf zwischen Stadt und Umland. Das Herzogtum Breslau im Sptmittelalter .......................................... pag. ELISA SOLDANI, DANIEL DURAN I DUELT, Religion, Warfare and Business in Fifteenth-Century Rhodes.......................................................................................... GIOVANNI CECCARELLI, Concezioni economiche dellOccidente cristiano alla fine del medioevo: fonti e materiali inediti ............................................................ MORITZ ISENMANN, The Administration of the Papal Funded Debt: Structural Deficiencies and Institutional Reforms ...................................................... FABIENNE HENRYOT, La qute franciscaine aux XVIIe et XVIIIe sicles : thories et pratiques dune conomie de lEvangile .................................................... PRESTON PERLUSS, From Alms to Investments: Monastic Credit Structures in 17th and 18th Century Paris.........................................................................................

249 257 271 281 293 307

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DEVELOPMENT

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Marted 10 maggio RELIGIONE E SVILUPPO ECONOMICO / RELIGION AND ECONOMIC Relazioni RICHARD D. ORAM, Breaking New Ground: the Monastic Orders and Economic Development along the Northern European Periphery c.1070 to c.1300 ...............pag. STEPHANE BOISSELLIER, Capitaux ecclsiastiques, croissance conomique et circuits piscopaux dans la formation du Portugal, XIe-XIIIe sicles................... MURAT IZAKA Long Term Causes of Decline of the Ottoman/Islamic Economies ........................................................................................ CTIA ANTUNES, FILIPA RIBEIRO DA SILVA, In Nomine Domini et In Nomine Rex Regis: Inquisition, Persecution and Royal Finances in Portugal, 1580-1715 ....
DEVELOPMENT

331 345 361 377

Mercoled 11 maggio RELIGIONE E SVILUPPO ECONOMICO / RELIGION AND ECONOMIC Relazioni MONICA MARTINAT, Un modello cattolico di sviluppo economico? La riflessione teorica e la pratica degli scambi nellEuropa mediterranea (secc. XVI-XVIII) .......pag. THIJS LAMBRECHT, Nine Protestants Are to Be Esteemed Worth Ten Catholics. Representing Religion, Labour and Economic Performance in Pre-Industrial Europe c. 1650-c. 1800 ..................................................................................................................

413 431

Comunicazioni HANNELORE PEPKE-DURIX, Lconomie monastique bourguignonne en qute 451 d'organisation rationnelle (XIIe-XVe sicles) ................................................................pag. ANTONIO JOS MIRA JDAR, La propiedad agraria eclesistica en Valencia en la baja Edad Media. Rentas, gestin de la tierra y explotacin campesina.......... 465 GUIDO ALFANI, Reformation, Counter-reformation and Economic Development from the Point of View of Godparenthood: an Anomaly? 477 (Italy and Europe, 14th-19th Centuries).......................................................................... LOREDANA PANARITI, Non si acquista la scienza se non si studia. La componente ebraica nel sistema assicurativo triestino .......................................... 491 MARIA GRAZIA DAMELIO, MANUEL VAQUERO PIEIRO, Devozione e risorse monetarie: aspetti del finanziamento degli edifici religiosi tra Medioevo e et Moderna .......... 499 ROMINA TSAKIRI, Listituzione della cessione dei monasteri ortodossi nella Creta dei secoli XVI e XVII ed il suo contributo alle attivit economiche degli ambienti circostanti ................................................................................................ 511 SAMIA CHERGUI, Institutions religieuses des habs : nature, fonctionnement et impact sur les investissements immobiliers en Alger ottomane ............................................. 529 MANON VAN DER HEIJDEN, ELISE VAN NEDERVEEN MEERKERK, ARIADNE SCHMIDT, Religion, Economic Development and Womens Agency in the Dutch Republic .. 543 MARIA CIELA, Between Religious Law and Practice. The Role of Jewish Communities in the Development of Town's Economy in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 563 the 17th and 18th Centuries.............................................................................................. MARA DOLORES MUOZ DUEAS, La formacin de un discurso secularizado sobre el sistema econmico de la Iglesia: la cuestin del diezmo en Crdoba, 1750-1820 .. 575 585 NICOLAS LYON-CAEN, Les jansnistes, le commerce et largent au 18e sicle ........

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IX

Gioved 12 maggio RELIGIONE E CONSUMI / RELIGION AND CONSUMPTION Relazioni PHILIP SLAVIN, Church and Food Provisioning in Late-Medieval England, 1250-1450: Production Costs, Markets and the Decline of Direct Demesne Management...... pag. Comunicazioni TIMOTHY P. NEWFIELD, Epizootics and the Consumption of Diseased Meat in the Middle Ages..........................................................................................................pag. LAUREANO M. RUBIO PREZ, OSCAR FERNNDEZ ALVAREZ, Religion, Culture and Eating: Believes, Consumption Ways and Collective Practices in the Northwest of Spain from the 16th to the 18th Centuries ..................................................................... ISABEL DRUMOND BRAGA, Les familles de chrtiens nouveaux et la possession dobjets religieux (XVIIe et XVIIIe sicles) ................................................................................. BRECHT DEWILDE, JOHAN POUKENS, Confraternities, Jansenism and the Birth of a Consumer Society in 17th-18th-Century Leuven .................................................. Gioved 12 maggio MOBILIT E MIGRAZIONE: PERSECUZIONE, PELLEGRINAGGI E TURISMO RELIGIOSO / MOBILITY AND MIGRATION: AGGRESSION, PILGRIMAGE AND RELIGIOUS TOURISM Relazioni DAVID JACOBY, The Economic Impact of Christian Pilgrimage on the Holy Land, Eighth-Sixteenth Century a Long-Term Overview ................................................. pag. CHRISTOPHE DUHAMELLE, Plerinage et conomie dans lEmpire au XVIIIe sicle ................................................................................................................

597

619 641 655 671

697 713

Comunicazioni JUDICAL PETROWISTE, Plerinages et essor commercial dans les pays occitans 729 mdivaux (XIe-XIIIe sicle)........................................................................................... pag. FEDERICO PIGOZZO, I denari dei pellegrini. Oblazioni votive e istituzioni ecclesiastiche nellItalia centrale alla fine del XIV secolo ................................................................... 743 CLMENT LENOBLE, Investimenti religiosi, civici ed economici. Diritto e teologia in alcuni aspetti degli scambi tra mercanti italiani e frati minori (Avignone secc. XIV-XV) . 755 MICHAEL A. PENMAN, The Economics of Faith: Approaches to Monastic Saints Cults in Medieval Scotland........................................................................................................ 765 YVES JUNOT, Les migrants, un enjeu? Pacification religieuse et relance conomique de part et dautre de la frontire entre la France et les Pays-Bas espagnols (c. 1580-c. 1610) ............................................................................................................... 779 MARIA MARTA LOBO DE ARAUJO, Les plerinages au Sanctuaire de Notre Dame de Porto de Ave en tant que moteurs de changement : la dynamisationde lconomie 793 locale (XVIIIe sicle) ........................................................................................................ MARIA 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 ...........................................................................................................................

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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 installation of their headquarters on it, the Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem made the island the hub of their activities.1 Although their main task was initially welfaretype functions, the Hospitallers in the East, as a military order, gradually assumed a more active role in the defense of Christianity and the redemption of captives. Nevertheless, during this century, with the exception of participation in some projects of crusade or with local leagues, the Order took no active offensive policy but rather a prudent attitude, focusing on 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 Dodecanese and, more generally, in the East was threatened by repeated attacks that put a strain on the political, diplomatic, military and economic skills of the Order: the Mamluk and Ottoman military expeditions of 1440, 1444 and 1480, the war of 1502-1503, and finally the siege of 1522 that resulted in the abandonment of the island and the permanent Ottoman occupation in 1523. The financial needs of the Order of St. John were constrained by several factors. The first of these was the need to defend itself from attacks that came suddenly from the surrounding territories and the need to organize both the offensive operations with a constant character typical of the border such as privateering as well as other military expeditions consistent with the role that Latin Christendom and the Papacy attributed to the Order and that justified its Eastern and European possessions. Second, the Order also 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 projects conducted here and reflected in the drafting of paragraphs: Elisa Maria Soldani drafted section 1 The Knights and the management of economic resources of the Dodecanese and section 3 Between Rhodes and ultramarine domains: the relationship of Hospitallers and Florentine merchant-bankers while Daniel Duran i Duelt was responsible for section 2 The CatalanAragonese 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 Marino under the supervision of Anthony Molho and at the IMF-CSIC in Barcelona as part of the research group La Corona de Aragn en el Mediterrneo bajomedieval. Interculturalidad, mediacin, integracin y transferencias culturales directed by R. 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 in Rhodes and the Hispanic presence on the island. The authors thank Professor Marie A. Kelleher's review of the English version of this text. 1 For a bibliography on the Order in the Holy Land, Cyprus and then to Rhodes: J. R ILEY-SMITH, The Knights of St John in Jerusalem and Cyprus c. 1050-1310, London 1967; A. LUTTRELL, The Hospitallers in Cyprus, Rhodes, Greece and 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 State on Rhodes and its Western Provinces, 1306-1462, London 1999; IDEM, Studies on the Hospitallers after 1306: Rhodes and the West, London 2007; The Hospitallers, the Mediterranean and Europe: Festschrift for Anthony Luttrell, K. B ORCHARDT, 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 auf Rhodos (1421-1522), Mnster 2001.

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logistical needs) essential to lend cohesion to a fragmented Latin Christianity and to pressure 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 administrative structures and policies of the Orders headquarters in Rhodes (known as the Convent), the urgent need for money in Rhodes, combined with a patrimonial structure characterized by great heterogeneity and geographical dispersion, prompted the improvement of the Orders financial mechanisms and a transformation of its approach to economic problems. The mastership of Jean de Lastic (1437-1454) saw major changes in taxation and exploitation of economic resources. Merchants, bankers and even ship captains gradually 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 as important as that of Rhodes while overcoming the limitations due to its patrimonial structure to cover their defensive needs? In this essay we attempt to answer this question in terms of practice and in the light of relations that the Knights maintained with two distinct groups of merchants: the Catalan-Aragonese and the Florentines. The funding of permanent military actions carried out by the Order in the Eastern Mediterranean was based on a traditional system of collecting, as special measures to find the finances 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 commanderies in the West that formed an international organization with interests throughout in Latin Europe. This network of priories was important both as a financial resource and for the recruitment of men. Deposit takers at the local level, through letters of attorney issued by the General Treasurer, were in charge of collecting responsiones and other taxes and transmitting them to Rhodes.2 During the fifteenth century the Order pledged a reform of the sampling system in order to make it more rigorous and regular and thus increase the total amount of contributions transferred from the western territories to Rhodes. The Hospitallers had to administer a vast and fragmented set of territorial possessions and to transfer men and money to support their operations in the East. They also had to cope with expenses related to the fortifications and reconstruction of places that had been subject to raids, pay the salaries of guards, put up the ships and supplies, and provide funding for the passagium of knights from the western domains of the Order who had been recalled to Rhodes. Finally, they had to pay the costs of nearly continuous embassies sent to boost 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 derived primarily from the financial contribution of Western commanderies and priories, and resources from the Orders Eastern dominions, including tax revenues.3 Although funds from the West were the mainstay of the Order, they could hardly meet urgent and unforeseen expenses such as those caused by military threats in the first decades of the fifteenth century. 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 in general by J. SARNOWSKY, Ibid., pp. 469-582 and IDEM, The Rights of the Treasury: the Financial Administration of the Hospitallers 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 on certain priorities, such as that of Catalonia P. BONNEAUD, Le prieur de Catalogne, le couvent de Rhodes et la couronne dAragon 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 Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, in International Mobility in the Military Orders (Twelfth to Fifteenth Centuries): Travelling on Christs Business, 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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played a key role. The same island of Rhodes, situated at the point of connection between different political and ecological areas, enjoyed a strategic commercial position at the intersection 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 a military-monastic order. The island was also characterized by a multicultural presence: a multi-national military order, a community of indigenous Greeks, a Jewish community, different groups of Latin merchants (Genoese, Venetians, Catalans, Florentines, Provenals) and Muslims.4 The merchants operated through mechanisms that were in part collective, in that each nation, in order to defend the prerogatives of its members, was directed by diverse institutions that could intervene when difficulties arose, thereby reflecting the balance of power between the different national components of the Order. But these mechanisms were also in part individual, as evident through the direct ties between the Master, the Treasury, and the individual merchants both those who were considered Rhodian 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 of conjunction between different ecological zones and between different routes, with an emporium opened to the sea where mediation organs were made available by the inhabitants and local authorities. The emporium was provided with port infrastructure, storage, housing for sailors and administrative buildings. It operated, not as an organ of a small independent state, but as part of a far-flung empire, and was organized contrary to the manner of Venetian and Genoese domains, in that the possessions of the Order in Latin Europe depended on Rhodes, rather than vice-versa. The security of the island was preserved by the consent of the powers that traded on the sea, by agreements between terrestrial empires, peace treaties and truces achieved through intense diplomatic activity, but especially by the reliance on naval force of the Order itself. With the exception of sugar production in the Cypriot commandery of Colossi and the extraction of sulfur from Nisyros, natural resources represented only a limited source of income for the Order5. On an island as commercially important island as Rhodes, the Hospitallers, as a ruling institution, were not directly involved in trading for profit on their own behalf. Rather, they administered the fiscal interests limited to the collection of customs duties, the port taxes, and the concession contracts with the merchants for the economic resources of the archipelago. The Hospitallers were, in fact, prohibited, on pain of severe penalties, 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. Such
N. VATIN, Rhodes, cit., pp. 44-50. 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 la Mditerrane 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 fratres non exerceant mercimonia. Indecorum et grave quidem censeri debet, qui religionis professioni ac fidei catholice tuitioni, 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, hoc est emere et vendere res mercantiles lucri gratia in Stabilimenta Rhodiorum militum: due Statuten de Johanniterordens von 1489/93, J. HAECKER, J. SARNOWSKY eds., 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.
5 4

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loans were obtained from merchants on the island, either voluntarily or by force, and were generally guaranteed by the possessions of the Order. Master Jean de Lastic authorized a large number of loan contracts with Rhodian and Latin merchants and with the Jews of Rhodes, claiming to resort to such extraordinary measures pro supportandis et subveniendis necessitatibus incumbentibus ratione classis et guerrarum Theucrorum. The loans extracted from the Jews did not specify the interest; the loan contracts give only si occurreret. But we know that similar contracts with Latin merchants specified interest rates of around 20-22% annually, a factor 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 prohibition on the commercial activities. Between 1440 and 1450, the Order was not only dedicated to business as the sale of stock of spices, but the purchase from the Mamluk sultan took place through the mediation of a Muslim merchant from Valencia, Galip Ripoll.7 The spices were sold to Latin merchants on the island who paid in advance with the promise of delivery a year later. If the spices were not delivered as agreed, the advance payment would be 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 on the island. In this respect, a resource available to them and that could be an attractive source of revenue for the merchants who frequented the island was the farming of various taxes imposed directly or indirectly on trade and commerce.9 The development and consolidation of Rhodes as a major port of trade in regional and international long-range transport meant that the resources involved in transit and marketing of boats, people, and goods were on the rise, and that farming taxes on these resources was a way for merchants to achieve rapid and regular income in cases of extreme necessity. The use of credit was another area in which the Order partnered with merchants during this period; merchants played a very active role in 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 only on the island or in the Eastern Mediterranean, but also more broadly on the main commercial and financial centers of Latin Europe. Finally, Rhodes also became considerably important from the standpoint of military strategy during the fifteenth century: it was, in fact, a place where international trade was inextricably tied to the economy of the crusade, the economy centered on these border military operations, now aimed at containing the Mamluk and Ottoman advance, rather than on reconquering territories. The knights, either with their own fleet or through privateering licenses, raided Mameluk ships, capturing loot and prisoners who then could be exchanged for Christian captives. Rhodes particular logistical situation meant that the Master did not prevent members from paying and arming vessels together with the merchants. Documentation attesting to these activities appears as early as 1413, and shows that the only requirement 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.10
7 About him Servodio Peccator notaio in Venezia e Alessandria dEgitto (1444-1449), ed. F. R OSSI., 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. APELLNIZ RUIZ DE GALARRETA, Vasallo del rey, mercader del sultn. La carrera de Galip Ripoll / Ghalib inb Rufail, in Un Mar de Leyes. 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. S ARNOWSKY, Macht und Herrschaft, cit., pp. 447-454. 10 A. LUTTRELL, The Earliest Documents on the Hospitaller Corso at Rhodes, 1413 and 1416, in Mediterranean Historical Review, 10, 1995, pp. 177-188.

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Operations like these promoted a business of looting that attracted merchants and their patrons, and that needed to be controlled. The corsair activity of the Catalans, especially, had the potential to compromise the Hospitallers position, especially after 1451, when Kastellrizo 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 their attacks.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 fourteenth century 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 important Eastern Mediterranean market of the fifteenth century.12 The importance of Rhodes for the Eastern trade of Barcelona and Majorca in particular explains why in the fifteenth century 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 prolonged periods of time, and coming to act as links between those who were passing through and other eastern merchants. This was the case, for example, of the Barcelonans Antoni Savall and Guillem Alegre in the early decades of the fifteenth century, and Pere Viastrosa, Jaume Sesavasses, Jaume Ballester, Pere Roig, Joan Alba, Gabriel Mart in mid-fifteenth century; or the 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 a few definitively established his residence on the island. On May 8, 1433, Master Fluvi and the Convent, celebrating the General Chapter in Rhodes, conceded to the Majorcan Joan Cartal, a Masters householder who was at that time residing in Rhodes (burgensi civitatis nostre Rhodi), the possession known as Lebanque, located in the district of Parambolino, with vinyards, gardens, salt marshes and other areas, as a reward for services rendered and the devotion shown to the aforesaid Master.14 In effect, the merchants relation with members of the Order could favor them. In that sense, the election of two Catalan Masters, Antoni de Fluvi (1421-1437) and Pere Ramon Sacosta (1461-1467), and the growing power and number of knights coming from Spanish priories in the fifteenth century, and especially from the priory of Catalonia and the Castellany of Amposta, helps to explain the increasing presence of Catalan-Aragonese merchants in Rhodes, as does the political influence of Alfonso the Magnanimous in the Mediterranean even if this latter factor was not always to the benefit 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). Coleccin documental, 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 SyriePalestine (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. 641642; O. VAQUER, El comer martim de Mallorca, 1448-1531, Palma de Mallorca 2001, p. 77; J. S ARNOWSKY, Macht und Herrschaft, 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 de la 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, in Els Catalans a la Mediterrnia oriental a lEdat Mitjana: jornades cientfiques de lInstitut dEstudis Catalans, ed. M.T. F ERRER I MALLOL Barcelona 2003, pp. 155-185.

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These merchants and patrons were characterized by their intense activity along the Eastern Mediterranean, as in the case of Guillem Portella or Bernat Llopis in the second quarter of the fifteenth century, who not only traded and sailed to and from Rhodes, but also 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 to ancillary or complementary activities, such as Guillem Plans, a broker who was active in the 1430s.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 of this is the existence of a chapel of the Catalans in Rhodes, to which Barcelonas Consuls of the Sea sent an altarpiece in 1432, furnished with liturgical objects bearing the heraldic symbols of the donor city.18 This model of community organization offered support to its members and a stronger base of support to merchants who, with few exceptions, did not belong to large companies or enjoy significant commercial or economic power. Another factor favoring the presence of the Catalan-Aragonese in Rhodes was the vast collection 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 like cereals, 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 the royal economic policies affected the relationship that the merchants of this nation established with the Order, characterized by the provision of a certain type of services. The first assignments that could easily be delegated to these merchants concerned the granary provisioning of the island and the supply of any goods on the whole. In this sense, the CatalanAragonese were especially active in organizing the shipments for the transport of grain from Sicily.19 But they also inserted themselves in the market for freight and transport in the ser16 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 la Mediterrnia a la Baixa Edat Mitjana, Barcelona 1999, pp. 27-51; IDEM, Tension et equilibre dans les petites communauts d'occidentaux Constantinople: L'exemple des Catalans au XVe sicle, in M. BALARD, A. DUCELLIER, Migrations et diasporas mdieterranennes (Xe-XVIe sicles). Actes du colloque de Conques (octobre 1999), Paris 2002, pp. 97-103. The Valencian Bernat Llopis was active in Rhodes, Venice and Costantinople: ARCHIVIO DI STATO DI VENEZIA (ASV), Notai di Candia, B. 104, Not. Nicol Gradenigo, 2, f. 29v. It seems that Rhodes was his base of operations, where he had installed himself just before September 10, 1433, when he is described as mercatore nunc in castro de Rodes moram trahenti , ARXIU HISTRIC DE PROTOCOLS DE BARCELONA (AHPB), Pere Pau Pujades Manuale 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 of Ferrante 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 CIUTAT DE BARCELONA (AHCB), Lletres Closes 28-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 ciutat de Rodes, BIBLIOTECA DE LATENEU BARCELONS (BAB), ms. 32, f. 46v; AHCB, Lletres comunes originals 22-XI1500 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 e XV, Trapani 1959, pp. 13-29; M. ALIBRANDI, Messinesi in Levante nel Medioevo, in Archivio Storico Siciliano, Serie III, XXI-XXII, 1971-1972, pp. 97-110; C. MARINESCU, La politique orientale, cit., pp. 47-48; D. DURAN I DUELT, De lautonomia a la integraci: la participaci siciliana en el comer oriental als segles XIV i XV, in M. T. F ERRER I MALLOL, J. MUTG I VIVES, La Corona catalanoaragonesa i el seu entorn mediterrani a la Baixa Edat Mitjana, Barcelona 2005, pp. 6599, 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 salmas of grain to the cities of Heraklion and Rhodes to be sold by order of the monarch. Those involved in the sale of wheat were Antoni Amat and Joan Gras, and we retain a part of the accounting associated with this issue currently under study, ACA, Cancelleria, reg. 2.581, f. 65r-v and ARCHIU DEL REGNE DE VALNCIA (ARV), MR 9.818; J. GUIRAL-HADZIIOSSIF, Valencia, puerto mediterrneo en el siglo XV (1410-1525), Valencia 1989, pp. 122-123. In 1434 Apollonius Borzay undertook a tour of various places of the Eastern Mediterranean, including Rhodes, aboard a ship captained by Bernat Lloren, to sell the kings wheat 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 island, but also linking Rhodes to other areas of the Mediterranean.20 However, their participation 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 CatalanAragonese agents in military actions, as in 1444, when the galleys of the Catalans Ferrer Bertran and Jofre Sirvent, merchants both closely connected to the island, were chartered together with the ships of Graci de Montsoriu and Jaume de Vilaragut, and four others armed by the Order, made up the squadron of eight ships that participated in operations to lift the Mamluk siege.21 The other major activity that Catalan-Aragonese merchants were involved in was the circulation 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), Catalan and Majorcan merchants were converted into the Orders lenders, paying large amounts of money to the Master, the Convent and occasionally to some of the brethren.23 The great merchant-banking families of Barcelona or Mallorca, however, were, unlike their Florentine contemporaries, not especially involved in this sort of business with the Covent and the Treasury, and such cases should thus be regarded as exceptional. One prominent example was Bartomeu de Parets, a merchant from Barcelona belonging to one of the major families protagonizing the trade with the Eastern Mediterranean in the second half of the fifteenth century a family that at that time numbered among its ranks the Catalan consul in Methoni, Amador Parets.24 Apart from a few exceptions like Parets, however, moneylending and tax-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 their own account, rather than on behalf of large companies.25

3. Between Rhodes and ultramarine domains: the relationship of Hospitallers and Florentine merchant-bankers
It has been rightly argued that the presence of Florence in the East had peculiar characteristics when compared to other merchant groups. The Florentines could boast of much more recent activity in an area where Venetians and Genoese had centuries earlier consoli20 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 la Corona de Aragn, 2, Barcelona 1962, pp. 383-390384. This activity, of course, transcended the domains of the Crown of Aragon, and Catalan-Aragonese patrons had been offering their services to the Hospitallers in many other 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. DEL TREPPO, 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, 491492, 508-510, 569-571, 579. About the Parets family and their ties with Eastern Mediterranean, M. D EL TREPPO, I mercanti 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 Instituto Municipal 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. NARBONA VIZCANO, 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 their major cities. In this scenario, only the supercompanies the Bardi, Peruzzi and Acciaiuoli in the fourteenth century and the Medici family in the fifteenthhad reasons and sufficient means 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 CatalanAragonese, Florentines in Rhodes were not characterized by widespread market penetration: the big companies were not flanked by smaller companies or individuals who could provide services related to trading activities such as brokers, artisans or captains. The Florentines, then, could not rely on either of a set of territories located in the Mediterranean or a navy such as that of the the Catalan-Aragonese. This, despite the efforts of the Republic to initiate a program of state-sponsored navigation after the purchase of Porto Pisano in 1421, introducing tax concessions to promote overseas trade and maintaining diplomatic ties 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 characteristics different from the other merchant groups. For these large merchant-banking companies, the key to accessing the Order, and thus Rhodes, was the Papal Curia.28 It is no coincidence that the first to enter into relations with the Hospitallers were the companies Bardi, Peruzzi and Acciaiuoli and later Alberti e Medici. It is also significant that in the beginning of the fourteenth century Cyprus, a correspondent of the Peruzzi had been present at the negotiations in order to conquer Rhodes between the then-Master of the Order Foulques de Villaret and a Genoese pirate.29 The importance of the Curia as an intermediary is further evidenced by the fact that the Pope intervened in several instances in favor of the bankers to ensure the fulfillment of the debts incurred by the Hospitallers, or to authorize the Order to mortgage or to sell assets to meet payments. In some cases, in fact, the Knights came to borrow remarkable sums from these companies : in 1320 the Knights had debts of a total of 500,000 florins to the Bardi and Peruzzi banks, for money lent to a rate of about 6%. These debts put a strain on the resources of the Order when, Peruzzi and Bardi banks failed between 1343 and 1346, they lost about 360,000 florins. What stands out in these initial contacts between the Hospital and Florence is that, in many cases, the correspondents of banks that operated on the island ended up being included in the ranks of the Order. The relationship with the Florentine merchant-bankers further intensified in the midfifteenth 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 e dei Peruzzi, Florence 1926; S. BORSARI, Lespansione economica fiorentina nellOriente cristiano sino alla met del Trecento, in Rivista 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 del Trecento, in Archivio Storico Italiano, 166, 2008, pp. 53-68; and lately F. APELLNIZ, Transgressing Boundaries in Cross-Cultural Trade: Lower-Rank Merchants in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean, Paper presented to The fifty-sixth annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Venice, 8-10 April 2010: Thursday, 8 April, Archivio di Stato, 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. GOLDTHWAITE, The Economy of Renaissance Florence, Baltimore 2009, pp. 182-202 starting from the statement that At the beginning of the fifteenth Century Florentines 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 we refer to the classic study di Y. RENOUARD, Les relations des Papes dAvignon et des compagnies commerciales et bancaires de 1316 a 1378, Paris 1941. 29 A. LUTTRELL, Interessi fiorentini nelleconomia e nella politica dei Cavalieri Ospedalieri di Rodi nel Trecento, in Annali della 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 priories. The reinforcement under the government of Jean de Lastic of the law relating to bills of exchange, the reorganization of the Treasury and the role of deputy officers, the delivery of rights by the receptor, and the conservation of the assets of the General Treasury all reflects the financial crisis that the Order was undergoing at that time.30 Along with the stricter rules, control mechanisms were also strengthened. To prevent fraud, bills of exchange and Treasury assignments had to be sent (expeditas) by the Master and by the General Treasurer with the bulla communi plumbea and, moreover, beginning 1449, a college of seven auditors, 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 fact that, 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 the island and to find an effective method to transfer resources collected in the Western domains in an orderly and constant way led the Hospitallers to turn once again to one of the big banks of that time: the Medici. Cosimo de Medici was appointed general of the depository with the approval of Pope Nicholas V, meaning that each preceptory paid the amounts due to the General Treasury into the coffers of the Medici bank branches located throughout Europe. Cosimo and his associates cashed the responsiones and other charges which the priors 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 the Order in Rhodes. The Medici branches also backed the speakers and the boards of auditors traveling through Europe in those years with the task of inspecting the accounts of the preceptories and making the system more efficient. The remainder would have been transferred to the General Treasury with the help of the company of Bernardo Salviati and Ugone Peruzzi, the Medici representatives on the island at that time.33 The prestige and the material interests derived from these operations would not have been Cosimo de Medicis only motivation to accept the assignment. A few years later, in fact, the Medici explored the possibility of entering into the Levant trade for themselves and thus 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 di Cosimo and Piero de Medici, signed a limited partnership engaging for 500 florins di suggello to be allocated to trade on the island of Rhodes. The general partner in charge of the operation on the island at that time was Bernardo di Marco di messer Forese Salviati.34 Salviati had 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
30 We 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. H URTUBISE, Une famille-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 this company 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 Medieval History, 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 the citizenship 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 Master for alum from Phocaea and other areas of the Black Sea passing through Rhodes.36 Nevertheless, 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 decision taken by the last meeting of the chapter and ordered him to deposit the funds his priory owed the Treasury into the two branches of the Medici bank.37 Negotiations between the Order and Cosimo de Medici were later concluded in June 1450. The priors of Saint Giles Raimond Richard and Pisa Giuliano del Benini had been sent at the Roman curia to meet Cosimo. On that occasion, to carry out the affairs of the Master and the Convent the two lieutenants received 12,000 gold chamber florins from the Medicis Roman affiliate, ex causis veri, puri, amicabilis et gratuiti mutui, with the promise that the money would be returned at 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 de Medicis florentini, Master Jean de Lastic confirmed the terms of contract established in the name of Order by his lieutenants with the Florentine Cosimo de Medici, defined our general depositary 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 October 13, 1450. From that moment on for the next three years, the preceptors would have deposited 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 cameras and all the ultramarine preceptories, and those owed to the Master or the General Treasury by third parties, whether laymen or members of other religious orders. In addition to the timing of transfer 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 camera) or an equivalent sum calculated on the exchange rate on the day Cosimo was elected: 36 aspers of Rhodes currency. For each transaction, the Medici bank would retain a commission of 7.40% as compensation for the risk they took in the transfer of large sums of money over long distances (Tabs. 1 and 2). The Orders chapter, which met every five years, assessed the accounts of each preceptory by calculating the amount of revenue due and sent back to each preceptory a certified copy of the accounts. Since the appointment of Cosimo as general depositary, the records of the Hospitaller chancellery regularly registered the assignments of the responsiones and of the other rights of the Treasury from distinct priories that the Master and the General Treasurer 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 correspondents of the Medici, who had sent them through bills of exchange drawn by the Treasurer and sent in quadruplicate, by four distinct routes. Although Venice would have been the natural choice as a market for money transfers for the merchants involved in the Levantine trade, and for engaging in currency speculation,
36 AOM 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. 129142 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 money from 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 suspend their activities until the signing of the Peace of Lodi (April 9, 1454).39 During that period, the See of Avignon, the city of central importance in the Hospitallers collection network, 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 avoid the aforesaid bills of exchange being returned, the Master and the Convent allowed Zampini and Peruzzi to pay the bills of exchange presented to them even if they were not in possession of money of the Order, using money borrowed from others. The Knights undertook to pay a total interest that did not go beyond the 4000-5000 ducats. The document explicitly mentioned the maximum interest that the Treasury would have shouldered, but does not specify 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 to collect and pay subsidies to the Christian princes in the fight against the Turks. Those destined for the King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary were sent by bills of exchange in Venice and beyond paid to agents of the king or transferred by merchants who were operating in Hungary.41 In this case, however, the decision suggested by the Pope, to entrust the finances of the Hospitallers to a banker romanam curiam sequens assumes the character of a sort of commissioner, motivated by the situation of the Order: a time when the knights, driven by necessity, were too compromised by their relationship with the merchants trading with the island, accepting high interest rates and openly recording them in the documentation of the 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 attacks) 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 obtained 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 military pressure from its enemies, the Master and the Convent were forced to refine and rethink the economic management of their resources in the Orders Eastern territories and to improve 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 due to the rapprochement occurred with the merchant world in the middle decades of the fifteenth 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 added another 2% for his service (pro suo labore), AOM 363, f. 160(161)r. For other examples, see J. S ARNOWSKY, Macht und 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 aliarum personarum 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 RCHIVIO SEGRETO VATICANO (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 dependency that was established between the Convent and the merchants in concrete moments: a compromise 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 groups and companies who visited the island was articulated in different ways. Viewed in this context, the respective roles of Catalan-Aragonese and Florentines are critical: the former offered the Order services ranging from credit, transport or supplies, acting mainly in a joint form in the shadow of a monarchy with extensive interests throughout the Mediterranean; the latter acted through the great families and companies, tightening relations with the Knights, as mediated by the Papal Curia. The main peculiarity of the relation of the Florentines with the Hospitallers was a significant amount of incorporation in the ranks of the Order of relevant representatives of the business and financial world, most prominently the merchant-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 Bank or of the Agent Authorized to Issue the Bills Correspondents

Kingdom of Spain and of Navarre Catalonia Kingdom of England Flanders, Scotland and Low Germany Kingdom of France, Aquitaine, Alverne, Burgundy, Champagne and Saint-Gilles High Germany, Hungary and Bohemia

Valencia, Barcelona Barcelona London Bruges Avignon, Montpellier, Toulouse and others

Filippo Pierozzi Filippo Pierozzi Piero de Medici, Gerozzo de Pigli & co. Piero de Medici, Gerozzo de Pigli & co. Michele Arnolfini Avignon: Francesco Sassetti, Giovanni Zampini & co. Montpellier: Antonio di Bernardo Cannigiani Venice: Pierfrancesco de Medici & co. Filippo dAgostino and brothers Giovanni Rucellai and Giovanni di Francesco Strozzi Bartolomeo Buonconti Filippo Strozzi & co. Benedetto Guasconi Medici of the Papal Curia Venice: Pierfrancesco de Medici & co. Filippo dAgostino and brothers Giovanni Rucellai and Giovanni di Francesco Strozzi Venice: Pierfrancesco de Medici & co. Filippo dAgostino and brothers Giovanni Rucellai and Giovanni di Francesco Strozzi Milan: Heirs of the Castagnoli Antonio da Castagnolo and brothers Piero de Medici & co.

Bohemia and Venice

Capua and Barletta Messina Rome (Urbe romana) and Pisa

Naples Palermo Florence and Papal Curia

Venice

Venice

Lombardy

Venice and Milan

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

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

Filing date in the bases of the bank May, June and July August, September and October November, December, January February, March, April Time set for transfer to Rhodes 2/3 at 4 months from the last day of July through November 1/3 at 6 months through January At 6 months through April At 6 months through July At 6 months through October