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Trade as a factor in peace treaties in the Latin East
| Though the fires of discord burn between the two parties, Muslim and Christian, two armies of them may meet and dispose themselves in battle array, and yet Muslim and Christian travelers will come and go between them without interference… not one of the…merchants was stopped or hindered. (Ibn Jubayr, September 1184)
Over the course of the two-hundred-year history of the Latin Kingdom, both the Muslim and Christian sides recognized the practical importance of trade, at both the civilian and the military-political levels. As reflected in chronicle sources and in descriptions of treaty terms, trade was a predominant factor from the earliest encounters between Crusaders and Muslims in the Latin East. Although both sides traditionally protected merchants during war, it is possible to trace different attitudes towards the inclusion of trade in peace treaties: whereas the crusaders thought it shameful to use trade as a pretext for making peace, for the Muslim side this was considered most acceptable and mercantile interests loomed large in peace treaties between the Muslims and the Italian communes. So important was trade to the economies of both parties to the conflict, that attempts to use the weapon of embargo by both kings and by the papacy usually failed. Indeed, thinking their trade indispensable to the region, the thirteenth-century Frankish colony in Latin East was complacent about its real situation. In the end (1291) notwithstanding the peaceful relations established through trade, religious fervor as well as changes in international trade routes brought the Latin Kingdom down.
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