Travelling and Trading Through Mamluk Territory: Chancery Documents Guaranteeing Mobility to Christian Merchants

The article offers an overview of the documents adopted by the Mamluk chancery to allow European traders to enter and travel through the sultanate for the purpose of carrying out
commercial activities. The study re-evaluates some historiographical ideas concerning the
amān (safe-conduct). This term has often been used by scholars to designate a specific – in
fact the only – document conferring freedom of movement on non-Muslims visiting a medieval
Muslim state. Contrary to this received idea, the author demonstrates that the Mamluk chancery
resorted to different kinds of written instruments (truces, letters, decrees) to ensure that
European merchants could move freely around its domains.
The analysis of these documents led me to address some theoretical issues related to the
interaction between the Mamluks and their diplomatic interlocutors. Deconstructing the use of
significant terms such as “treaty” or “privileges”, I redefine some significant aspects such as the
relations between the Mamluk government and the Europeans and the nature of the commercial
rights granted to the European trading communities operating in cities like Alexandria.