Mobility and Wax Trade in the Black Sea Region: The Merchants of Kilia, 1360-1361
Abstract
This article, based on Genoese, Moldavian, Wallachian, and Transylvanian sources, combines a topical subject like mobility with the trade of an indispensable commodity like wax, which, in the Middle Ages, was used in candle making and shipbuilding and was even employed in pharmacy. Specifically, the Author aims, first, to analyse and explain the presence of a dynamic group of merchants, coming from different countries and involved in the wax trade, in the Genoese colony of Kilia, and second, to compare the case of Kilia to that of Caffa – Genoa’s most important Black Sea colony, where wax was one of the main exports. The results of the research show that, compared to Caffa, fourteenth-century Kilia was a more recent and promising wax market, not monopolised by the Italians, but open also to traders from other countries, such as Armenians, Greeks, and Hungarians.