Pactum Warmundi (1123)

An agreement between the republic of Venice and Gor-mond (Lat. Warmundus) of Picquigny, patriarch of Jerusalem, who was acting on behalf of King Baldwin II of Jerusalem, then in Turkish captivity.

The pact ensured Venetian naval assistance for the conquest of Muslim Tyre (mod. Sour, Lebanon) in 1124 in return for wide royal concessions, among them exemption from trade taxes, the extension of Venice’s quarter in Acre (mod. ‘Akko, Israel), and her possession of one-third of the city and lordship of Tyre. However, the Pactum Warmundi was promptly superseded by a document issued in 1125 by Baldwin II, considered subsequently as the authoritative charter of privileges in favor of Venice. This charter restricted some previous concessions, yet upheld Venice’s territorial rights and broad exercise of jurisdiction, which provided Venice’s quarters and rural property with a quasiextraterritorial status. Conflicting interpretations of the charter of 1125 occasionally generated tension between Venice and the Crown of Jerusalem.

-David Jacoby

See also: Crusade of 1122-1124; Jerusalem, (Latin)

Kingdom of; Venice

Bibliography

Jacoby, David, “The Venetian Privileges in the Latin

Kingdom of Jerusalem: Twelfth and Thirteenth-Century Interpretations and Implementation,” in Montjoie:

Studies in Crusade History in Honour of Hans Eberhard Mayer, ed. Benjamin Z. Kedar, Jonathan Riley-Smith, and Rudolf Hiestand (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1997), pp. 155-175; reprinted in Jacoby, Commercial Exchange Across the Mediterranean: Byzantium, the Crusader Levant, Egypt and Italy (Aldershot, UK: Variorum, 2005).