Marseille has rich archives and yet, paradoxically, they have inspired only a small number of studies of its commercial activities and its outreach in the Middle Ages and early modern period. The works available in those days dealt with commercial techniques. Since then, remarkable new interpretations have been proposed of Marseille's commercial structure since the thirteenth century, especially with regard to its position in the Levant, and comparative studies have been started with the great ports of the western Mediterranean, especially with Genoa and Pisa. Marseille was the great embarkation port for pilgrims and Crusaders in the years 1187-90, 1212, 1239 and 1248, and the nodal point for religious orders oriented towards the high sea: Templars, Hospitallers and then Trinitarians.13 It became the war port under Count Charles II, and Robert of Anjou around 1300, but the city was unable to grasp the full profit of its political links with Italy.