The second half of the thirteenth century CE was a period of crisis and waning in the Crusader period. The final loss of Jerusalem in 1244, the failure of the French king Louis IX in his campaigns against Egypt and Tunisia, internal conflicts and the conquest of parts of the kingdom by the Mamluk rulers beginning in the 1260’s resulted in the collapse of the kingdom that came to an end with the conquest of Akko in 1291 CE. On the other hand, for the Italian mercantile cities such as Venice, Genoa, Pisa and Florence this was a period of unprecedented economic prosperity and expansion into the eastern Mediterranean basin. Italian merchants increased their presence in the coastal cities of the Crusader kingdom, established numerous “inns” in Egypt, and made inroads into the markets of Syria and Armenia.


Did these contradictions have any influence on the means of payment during this period and if so, how?


In the lecture I will review the evidence for the use of money in the Latin and Muslim East at the end of the thirteenth century in comparison with the monetary developments that occurred in Western Europe, while at the same time considering the historical and archaeological research.