Merchant Crusaders in the Aegean, 1291-1352

An examination of the changing nature of crusade and its participants in the late medieval Mediterranean. The period from the fall of Acre until the end of the Crusade of Smyrna signified a dramatic shift in crusade impetus, as expeditions to liberate the Holy Land were superseded by those aimed at reducing the maritime power of the Turks in the Aegean. With this shift came a change in participation, as the members of the merchant republics of Venice and Genoa, together with the Frankish states