1. Galleons and Caravans Dr Julia McClure
The world around 1300
Galleons and Caravans
Dr Julia McClure

2. 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?

3. Lecture Structure
Part 1: Representations of the world c 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

4. What did the world look like around the year 1300?

5. Hereford Mappa Mundi c. 1285

7. Al-Idrisi Mappa Mundi, 1154
Image from (08/06/2015)

8. Kangnido World Map, Korea, 1402

9. Image from http://cartographic-images

10. Opicinus de Canistris, Italy, 1344

11. 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

12. What where the characteristic features of the world around 1300?
Populations
Regions
Polities
Religions
Socio-cultural structures
Connectivities
Dominant narratives of change

13. World Populations c. 1300
world population estimated c million
China – c. 100 million
Rest of Asia – c. 50 million (Japan – 10 million)
Europe – c. 80 million
Africa - ?
Americas – up to 100 million?

14. World populations today
World 7.5 billion
China 1,382,323,332
Europe 738,957,004 

15. Global Polities c. 1300

16. Late Medieval Europe

17. Avignon, Papacy away from Rome 1309 to 1377

18. Byzantine Empire

19. 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

20. Islamic Empires

21. Baghdad, sacked by the Mongols 1258

22. Ottoman Empire founded in 1299

23. East Asia: Song Empire Confucianism Shared writing system Banknotes
Pig iron
Gas lit streets
Watermills
Porcelain
Arts & material culture

24. East Asia: The Rise of the Mongol Empire

25. East Asia: The Khanates Split 1259 - 1294

26. 1206 – 1260 Mongol Empire is a unified entity
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

27. East Asia: Yuan Dynasty

28. Africa in the Middle Ages

29. Timbuktu flourished 12th – 16th centuries (hub for merchants and Islamic scholars

30. Timbuktu on 1375 Catalan Atlas

31. Great Zimbabwe constructed 11th – 15th Century

32. India in the Middle Ages

33. (Simple) Overview of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica

35. 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?

36. 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?

37. 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 – c Venice
C – c Antwerp
C – 1800 Amsterdam
C – 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’

38. 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

39. 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?

40. 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?)

41. 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

42. European World System Before European Hegemony (1250-1350)

45. 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)

46. 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)

47. 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?

48. 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?