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.
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