These Acted As Societies
Of Mutual Aid, Gave Dowries To Poor Girls, Caused Masses To Be
Celebrated For Deceased Members, Joined In Public Religious
Processions, Etc., Nor Could Any Craft Be Exercised Except By Members
Of Such A Guild.
(Romanin, I. 390.)
[19] 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.)
[20] "Stracium et omne capud massariciorum"; in Scotch phrase "napery
and plenishing." A Venetian statute of 1242 prescribes that a bequest
of massariticum shall be held to carry to the legatee all articles
of common family use except those of gold and silver plate or
jeweller's work. (See Ducange, sub voce.) Stracci is still used
technically in Venice for "household linen."
[21] In the original aureas libras quinque. According to Marino Sanudo
the Younger (Vite dei Dogi in Muratori xxii. 521) this should be
pounds or lire of aureole, the name of a silver coin struck by
and named after the Doge Aurio Mastropietro (1178-1192): "Ancora fu
fatta una Moneta d'argento che si chiamava Aureola per la casata del
Doge; e quella Moneta che i Notai de Venezia mettevano di pena sotto
i loro instrumenti." But this was a vulgar error.
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