ABSTRACT
The broader historical context within which this creative and innovative contribution to the social organization of the production of agricultural exports took place - and also to man's inhumanity to his fellow man - was the First Crusade and the unintended impetus it was to give to the economic revival of Europe. When the Christian
1. Paper presented at the conference "East or West: Sugar Cane in the Mediterranean in the VI to XVI Centuries", Motril, Spain, September 17-22,1990.
