authenticity.

In Manuel's treaties with the Genoese and Pisans, the republics bind
themselves never to engage in hostilities against the empire; but, on
the contrary, all the subjects of the republics residing in the
Emperor's dominions become bound to assist him against all assailants;
they engage to act with their own ships, or to serve on board the
imperial fleet, for the usual pay granted to Latin mercenaries. They
promise to offer no impediment to the extension of the empire in Syria,
reserving to themselves the factories and privileges they already
possess in any place that may be conquered. They submit their civil and
criminal affairs to the jurisdiction of the Byzantine courts of justice,
as was then the case with the Venetians and other foreigners in the
empire. Acts of piracy and armed violence, unless the criminals were
taken in the act, were to be reported to the rulers of the republic
whose subjects had committed the crime, and the Byzantine authorities
were not to render the innocent traders in the empire responsible for
the injuries inflicted by these brigands. The republicans engaged to
observe all the stipulations in their treaties, in defiance of
ecclesiastical excommunication or the prohibition of any individual,
crowned or not crowned.

Manuel, in return, granted to the republicans the right of forming a
factory, erecting a quay for landing their goods, and building a church;
and the Genoese received their grant in an agreeable position on the
side of the port opposite Constantinople, where in after-times their
great colony of Galata was formed. The Emperor promised to send an
annual of from four hundred to five hundred gold bezants, with two
pieces of a rich brocade then manufactured only in the Byzantine empire,
to the republican governments, and sixty bezants, with one piece of
brocade, to their archbishops. These treaties fixed the duty levied on
the goods imported or exported from Constantinople by the Italians at 4
per cent.; but in the other cities of the empire, the Pisans and Genoese
were to pay the same duties as other Latin traders, excepting, of
course, the privileged Venetians. These duties generally amounted to 10
per cent. The republics were expressly excluded, by the Genoese treaty,
from the Black Sea trade, except when they received a special license
from the Emperor. In case of shipwreck, the property of the foreigners
was to be protected by the imperial authorities and respected