Galleons and Caravans Dr Julia McClure The world around 1300 Galleons and Caravans Dr Julia McClure
What did the world look like in 1300? Why has 1300 been seen as a turning point for global history? Seminar Question: Was 1300 a turning point in global history?
Lecture Structure Part 1: Representations of the world c. 1300 Part 2: What characterised the world c. 1300? - World populations - Global polities Part 3: What are the meta-narratives of change? Part 4: Was 1300 a turning point in global history? - Economic revolution and world systems debate Conclusion
What did the world look like around the year 1300?
Hereford Mappa Mundi c. 1285
Al-Idrisi Mappa Mundi, 1154 Image from https://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/scienceislam/trade.php (08/06/2015)
Kangnido World Map, Korea, 1402
Image from http://cartographic-images
Opicinus de Canistris, Italy, 1344
What do these c. 1300 global projections show us? We should not take maps at face value There were (and are) many ways of representing the world, and that how we imagine the world reflects a certain world view Scale and orientation all matter, and centres of power were identified in different ways That cartographic and geographic knowledge was produced in different parts of the world
What where the characteristic features of the world around 1300? Populations Regions Polities Religions Socio-cultural structures Connectivities Dominant narratives of change
World Populations c. 1300 world population estimated c. 300-400 million China – c. 100 million Rest of Asia – c. 50 million (Japan – 10 million) Europe – c. 80 million Africa - ? Americas – up to 100 million?
World populations today World 7.5 billion China 1,382,323,332 Europe 738,957,004
Global Polities c. 1300
Late Medieval Europe
Avignon, Papacy away from Rome 1309 to 1377
Byzantine Empire
Emperor Constantine I presents a representation of the city of Constantinople as tribute to an enthroned Mary and Christ Child in this church mosaic. Hagia Sophia, c. 1000 1453 Fall of Constantinople
Islamic Empires
Baghdad, sacked by the Mongols 1258
Ottoman Empire founded in 1299
East Asia: Song Empire Confucianism Shared writing system Banknotes Pig iron Gas lit streets Watermills Porcelain Arts & material culture
East Asia: The Rise of the Mongol Empire
East Asia: The Khanates Split 1259 - 1294
1206 – 1260 Mongol Empire is a unified entity 1271 -1368 Khanate of the Yuan dynasty, of the Great Khan (China, Mongolia, Tibet, Manchuria) 1260 – 1335 Ilkhanate (Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, parts of Anatolia and Tran-Caucasia Chaghadaid Khanate, central Asia before Tamerlane 1260 – 1480 Golden Horde, northwestern Eurasian Steppe
East Asia: Yuan Dynasty
Africa in the Middle Ages
Timbuktu flourished 12th – 16th centuries (hub for merchants and Islamic scholars
Timbuktu on 1375 Catalan Atlas
Great Zimbabwe constructed 11th – 15th Century
India in the Middle Ages
(Simple) Overview of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica
Recap of key transitions of global polities Byzantine Empire: 1095 start of Crusades, 1094 Eastern Schism, 1453 fall of Constantinople China: 1271 establishment of Yuan Dynasty, 1279 Mongol defeat of Song Dynasty Islamic world: 1258 Mongol sack of Abbasid capital of Baghdad, decline of Seljuks, rise of Mamluks, 1299 founding of Ottoman Empire Mongol Empire: 1259 – 1294 fragmentation into Khanates Europe?
1300 as turning point in Europe meta-narratives of change Urbanisation The transformation of institutional landscape: rise of the universities (11c.), rise of the mendicants (13c.), city states Mercantilisation / monetarisation / (demise of feudalism?) commercial revolution History of capitalism?
1300 as a threshold in the history of capitalism? Not industrial capitalism (nineteenth century) but merchant capitalism Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th – 18th Century (London: Collins, 1984) 13 – 14th century, Champagne fairs C. 1380 – c. 1500 Venice C. 1500 – c. 1560 Antwerp C. 1600 – 1800 Amsterdam C. 1800 – 1929 London 20th c. New York ‘the true originality of the Champagne fairs lay not in the goods they exchanged, but in the money markets and the precocious workings of credit on display’
Was 1300 a turning point in economic history Was 1300 a turning point in economic history? How European is that story? Development of Fiscal Infrastructure in the late Middle Ages Christian vs Islamic contribution to finance Double entry book keeping and banking develops in Italian city States Arabic – Indian numerals, adopted in Europe from the East around 1200 Zakat
Was 1300 a turning point? 1. economic revolution? Significant transformations and contributions to financial and legal infrastructures Later changes: 1346 and impact of black death (Brenner Debate) Importance of socio-cultural factors Earlier changes?
Was 1300 a threshold for global history? 2. World Systems debate World Systems Analysis: Immanuel Wallerstein vs Janet Abu Lughod Gunder Frank (500 or 5000?)
World System 1250 - 1350 Archipelago of world cities Long range trade routes (sea and land) Variety of commodities exchanged (limited but substantial) Europe did not dominate and not inevitable that it would 8 subsystems, 3 regions
European World System Before European Hegemony (1250-1350)
Common Traits of Abu Lughod’s world-systems regions Invention of money and credit Mechanisms for pooling capital and sharing risk The accretion of merchant wealth independent of the state Features not the result ‘unique European inventiveness’ in sixteenth century System breaks down (decline of Pax Mongolica, Black Death, militant Mamluks)
Problems with 1300? A European threshold entangled with the Renaissance? What are the meta-narratives? Break down of medieval world system and rise of Europe Beginning of a European divergence? – urbanisation, mercantilisation, history of capitalism? What are the alternatives? (coordinates / narrative frameworks)
Recap Different representations of the world produced in different parts of the world c.1300 Mongol empire transforms political makeup of Asia in thirteenth century, Pax Mongolica facilitates trade, fragmentation into Khanates leads to new polities Economic revolution? Threshold in world-systems analysis? Eurocentric coordinate?
Conclusion Was there a ‘world system’ by 1300? How connected was the world in 1300? What divided the world in 1300? Did religion connect or divide? How important is economic change in shaping global history? How important is political change in shaping global history?