Wikipedia
A caphar was a toll, or duty imposed by the Turks on the Christian merchants who carried or sent merchandise from Aleppo to Jerusalem. The toll of caphar was originally created by the Christians themselves, when in control of the Holy Land, for the support of troops and forces who were posted in the more difficult passes, to prevent pillaging from Arabs. But the Turks, who continued and even raised the toll, abused the practice, exacting arbitrary sums from the Christian merchants and travellers. This was on the pretence of guarding them from Arabs, with whom they frequently kept an understanding, and even favored their pillaging.
Category:Transport economics
Usage examples of "caphar".
Shall I war against the Lame One because of the spite of a wandering Caphar vagabond?
I, who have trodden upon kingdoms and humbled sultans, come to my doom because of a cringing trull and a Caphar renegade!
Shall we allow a Caphar to go home and boast among his people that he sat above the Faithful in anything?
None hungered or thirsted in Stamboul that night except the miserable Caphar captives.
And for that reason you broke the truce and murdered a good knight, albeit a Caphar, and burned his castle.
You will waste the fields and the vineyards of the Caphars, you will burn their villages, you will strike down their men with arrows, and lead away their wenches captive.
In the blaze of his magnificence, men would forget that a handful of desperate Caphars behind rotting walls had closed his road to empire.
Were the Caphars to learn now of my intrigue with the emperor, my plans might well come to naught.