Economic migrants or commuters? A Note on the Crews of Genoese Galleys in the Medieval Mediterranean, 14th-15th Centuries

This paper aims to analyse some late medieval Genoese ship logs and "stipendiariorum monstrae" preserved in the State Archives of Genoa focusing on the geographical origin of the personnel on board. The author highlights the peculiar composition of the crews and their diachronic transformative dynamics, reconsidering their social role in the context of Genoese seafaring life, comparing it with the contemporary Venetian and Catalan-Aragonese context. The presence on board of Genoese galleys of eastern seamen between XIV and XV century seems to be a consequence of the extension of the routes to the Levant. Along these routes, the seafarers were willing to move around to find work, having the security of being able to return to their homes once the service was completed. As such, we are not faced with economic migrants, determined to settle definitively in a new place for survival reasons; rather we find people continually moving, disembarked from one ship in Genoa and ready to re-embark another and return to their homes: they are commuters ante litteram.