Manuele Zaccaria’s Report on the Fleet in Outremer after the Fall of Acre (1292–1293): Jacques de Molay, the War of Curzola, and Genoese-Cypriot Conflict

Abstract

After the fall of Acre in 1291 the Christian West was unable to recover the Holy Land and the Muslim East could not continue its advance and conquer quickly the kingdoms of Armenia and Cyprus. This does not mean that great efforts were not made on both sides to reverse the tide of, or capitalize on, recent events. A brief document now bound among miscellaneous materials at the end of Reg. Aven. 54 illustrates the measures that the papacy took to protect Cilician Armenia and Cyprus and to lay the foundations for a future reconquest in Syria. The document, discovered by Jean Richard and published here, is the report that the Genoese Manuele Zaccaria drew up for the Roman Curia concerning his maintenance of the papal fleet in Outremer in 1292–93. In addition to providing details about the number of ships and men, their points of origin, and their terms of service, the report sheds new light on the movements of the last Templar master, Jacques de Molay, contextualizes the decline of Cypro-Genoese relations within the conflict between Venice and Genoa, and fills in some gaps in the narrative of the naval arms race with the Mamluk sultanate. Most important, the impression resulting from the report is in contrast with much modern historiography, for, relying on hindsight and falling into teleology, too many specialists on the Middle Ages and even on the crusades continue to assert repeatedly that after the fall of Acre the Holy Land was definitively forgotten and abandoned by the West.

In memory of Jean Richard (1921–2021)