World Civilizations
Alharbi333 
CORE133CrisesandRecoveryinAfro-Eurasia2.pptxCrises and Recovery in Afro-Eurasia
1300s-1500s ce
Citizens of Tournai bury plague victims, ca 1350s
Focus Questions
Why was the plague so devastating, and what were the key factors in rebuilding societies after it subsided?
What were the major differences among the various regional Islamic dynasties?
How did the disasters of the fourteenth century change Western Christendom?
How did the Ming centralize their authority?
What role did the rise of Asian maritime commerce play around the globe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries?
How and why did the historical development of Japan in the fourteenth and fifteenth differ from that of mainland Eurasia?
The Black Death
The Spread of the Black Death in Asia
The Black Death
The Spread of the Black Death in Europe
Western Christendom after the Black Death
Reactions, Revolts, and Religion
The Plague in Europe – 25-50% population perished, disaster on this scale had enduring psychological, social, economic, and political effects
The Church’s Response – divided at top (multiple popes) and challenged from below, began demanding strict obedience to “true” faith
A Weakening Feudal Order – peasant revolts
State Building and Economic Recovery
Centralizing national monarchies
Dynasty Building and Political Consolidation in Spain and Portugal
Reconquista
The Struggles of France and England
Challenges to royal power and civil war
Reconquista
The Spanish Reconquista (reconquest) was an effort to retake Spain from the Muslim Moors.
At the time, Spain was divided into several small kingdoms:
Castile
Aragon
Granada
Portugal
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The Riots of 1391
Violence & rioting spread to Castille & Aragon
Jewish communities lay
in shambles
- Thousands of Jews were killed
-Jewish quarters were wiped out
- Synagogues were destroyed
- Many converted to Christianity to save their lives
The Spanish Inquisition
The Inquisition had originally been established in the 12th century to find heresy: in the 15th century it was directed against "Judaizers“ but not against Jews
People found guilty of heresy (failure to follow church beliefs) were sentenced in public, tortured, and killed
In 14th c. the Spanish officially sentenced 2,000 people to die, while the Portuguese put 1,400 to death
Iberia in the Fifteenth Century
The Jews of the Iberian peninsula (Spain, Portugal and Navarre) were culturally significant and had gone through a renaissance of sorts under medieval Muslim rule
Small percentage of the overall population were further hit by loss in the late 14th century because of the after-shocks of the Black Death and pogroms and mass violence against Jewish “culprits” in response
As Spanish kings began consolidating former Muslim territories Jews were forced to convert and in 1492 when the last Muslim stronghold fell the Spanish monarchy used its authority and the power of the Church to expel all “foreign” and non-Christian elements from the new Spanish realm
Hundreds of thousands were expelled to other parts of Europe and the world or forced to convert
Also gave rise to new category of Jew – converso or Marrano
Profound discontinuity in Jewish communities, Jewish thought and notions of history
The Expulsion Order
The Expulsion Order was signed by King Ferdinand & Queen Isabella in 1492
Expulsion was necessary to
a) eliminate the heresy
(of New Christians who were influenced by Jews)
b) create a uniform Christian society
The Spanish Exiles
The number of exiles was between 100,000 - 150,000
Most of the exiles went to Portugal
In 1497 most of those exiles were forcibly baptized
Migration and Settlement of Expelled Spanish (Sephardic) Jews
The Trauma of Expulsion
“Because whenever some grave and detestable crime is committed by some persons of a group or community, it is right that such a college or community be dissolved and annihilated…and that those who pervert the good and honest living of the cities and villages, and that by contagion could injure others, be expelled from among the peoples, and even for other lighter causes that are harmful to the states, and how much more so for the greatest of the crimes, dangerous and contagious as is this one.” – Expulsion Edict, Spain 1492
“About the same time there happened a great tumult at Lisbon, raised by the fury and madness of the rabble; in this almost all the Jews, who as we before observed, had been converted to Christianity, were cruelly massacred…The news of this massacre having reached the country, next day above a thousand men from the villages flocked into the city and joined the murderers, and the slaughter was renewed.” – Catholic prelate account of 1506 Lisbon conversion massacre
The Renaissance
The Renaissance was the self-declared break/period (rebirth) of commercial, financial, political and cultural awakening that coincided with the “decline” of the medieval European world
A political and economic movement as much it was as an intellectual and artistic/cultural one
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Origins of the Renaissance
Origins of the Renaissance
Commercial Revolution, 1050-1300
Northern Italian cities grow rapidly due to trade
Genoa and Milan grow due to trade with Middle East and Northern Europe
Venetian Empire, supported by a huge merchant marine grows rich through overseas trade
Increased minting of coins leads to widespread use of cash, which increased volume of international trade
Sugar, pepper, cloves, spices, wines, brocades, tapestries, silks, furnishings, etc.
Radical changes in business procedures
Individual merchants expand into complicated operations
Led by Italian cities
Created a great deal of new wealth
Raised standards of living
Allowed for taxation, allowing for strong, centralized states
Social Order and Cultural Change
An “urban nobility” made fortunes from trade
downturn after religious and civil unrest
Trade decreases
merchants seek to avoid dangerous travel
Emerging underclass rife with violence and crime disrupts trade routes
Looking for alternate investments, merchants turn to art and luxury
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Social order and cultural change
Rise of Vernacular Literature
Fourteenth century
Urban, middle-class movement
Write for a literate laity
Figures include: Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374), Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) in Florence, Geoffrey Chaucer (1342-1400) in London
Royal or noble patronage vital to careers of writers
Increased focus on classical Latin as the language of learning
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Humanism
Studied by scholars, civil servants, notaries, and rich patricians
Attempts to emulate the virtues and learning of the ancients gives rise to humanism
Humanism emphasizes the study of man: history and literature used to help scholars identify with the ancient past
Reject “logic” and abstract language of medieval era for eloquence and style in discourse
Imitate Cicero and other Roman authors
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Humanism
Humanism celebrated the glory of human achievements and was not viewed by humanists as conflicting with their Christian faith
Cosimo de Medici even sponsors the Platonic Academy in Florence
Scholars there argue the concept of immortal soul is Platonic
Ancient wisdom prefigured Christian teaching
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Petrarch, “To Cicero”
Petrarch viewed the 14th Century as a positive and clear break with the “Dark Ages,” celebrating a return/rediscovery of the culture of antiquity (humanism)
You have heard what I think of your life and your genius. Are you hoping to hear of your books also; what fate has befallen them, how they are esteemed by the masses and among scholars? They still are in existence, glorious volumes, but we of today are too feeble a folk to read them, or even to be acquainted with their mere titles. Your fame extends far and wide; your name is mighty, and fills the ears of men; and yet those who really know you are very few, be it because the times are unfavourable, or because men's minds are slow and dull, or, as I am the more inclined to believe, because the love of money forces our thoughts in other directions. Consequently right in our own day, unless I am much mistaken, some of your books have disappeared, I fear beyond recovery. It is a great grief to me, a great disgrace to this generation, a great wrong done to posterity. The shame of failing to cultivate our own talents, thereby depriving the future of the fruits that they might have yielded, is not enough for us; we must waste and spoil, through our cruel and insufferable neglect, the fruits of your labours too, and of those of your fellows as well, for the fate that I lament in the case of your own books has befallen the works of many another illustrious man.
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Humanism & Communications Revolution
Humanistic ideas are helped by the development of moveable type
Johannes Gutenberg, 1440s
Single press could produce volumes at the rate of one thousand scribes
Aided the spread of classical, religious, and political texts
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Renaissance Intellectual Values
Individualism – Belief in the intellectual power and capacity of human beings to think, rather than feel, their way through the world
Revival of Ancient values – By reading and copying ancient texts, Renaissance scholars took on antiquity values like Cicero, Augustus, Plato, Socrates, etc.
Secularism – Such values led Renaissance scholars to focus in on the material world
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Civic Humanism
Florence, 1400-1430
Imitation of ancient Roman rhetoric leads to adoption of ancient ideas
Study of humanities leads to republican ideology
Study of ancient civilization call to public service and political action
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Evolution of the Italian Renaissance
14th Century witnessed the beginnings of remarkable change in Italian society
While northern Europe experienced plague, war, and famine, a new culture emerged in southern Europe.
By the 15th Century this cultural phenomenon influenced northern European culture
Origins
Northern Italian cities (Genoa, Venice, Milan, Florence) went through a period of commercial renewal in the wake of the Black Death
The merging of Italian feudal nobility with the commercial aristocracy of the cities led to a new and powerful social class: the urban nobility
By 1300, members of the urban nobility dominated Italian city-state politics and the “Renaissance” reflects their power, wealth, and values
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Northern Renaissance
Italian influence reached northern Europe and inspired similar values and ideas
Europeans stressed more in the way of social reform
Northern Renaissance Humanists sought to create a “perfect” world
Erasmus: education makes reform possible; Christianity comes from within
“from the effort to align the heart and spirit with worldly values”
focused on developing peaceful kingdoms, based on piety and learning and charity/good works - curbing the power of “Christian” princes, clerical corruption
Thomas More’s Utopian vision
communal world where an equal distribution of goods/services - public schools, communal kitchens, hospitals, nurseries - and no private property or money allowed people to pursue knowledge and natural religions
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Life During the Renaissance
Florence was a major urban region in north Italy with 260,000 people.
“little people” 60% versus the “fat people” 30% and the elite (Medici and friends)
Large wealthy families—why?
Women outnumber men, but suffer from a lack of privileges
Marriageable commodity
Widows gain and lose power
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The Renaissance Artist
Artists gain social status and individual authority in Renaissance culture
Unique effort to prove “creative genius”
Conflict between creativity and patronage—who dictates artistic vision?
The creative environment: long-term service at court, piecework, the workshop
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Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel, 1305
Renaissance Art
Focus on human body, “realistic,” symbolism of secular values set in religious themes, glorification of antiquity, use of new concepts like linear perspective
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Leonardo, Virgin of the Rocks, 1483-86
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Raphael, Madonna and Child, ca. 1505
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Portraits – The Arnolfini Portrait, Jan Van Eyck, 1434
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Portraits - Duke and Duchess of Urbino, 1472
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Donatello, David, ca. 1440
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Andrea del Verrocchio, David c. 1465-1470
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Michelangelo, David, 1501-1504
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Linear perspective
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Raphael’s The School of Athens
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13: Heraclitus (Michelangelo). 14: Plato holding the Timaeus (Leonardo da Vinci). 15: Aristotle R: Apelles (Raphael)
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Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists
On the Mona Lisa:
“seeing that the eyes had that lustre and watery sheen which are always seen in life, and around them were all those rosy and pearly tints, as well as the lashes, which cannot be represented without the greatest subtlety. The eyebrows, through his having shown the manner in which the hairs spring from the flesh, here more close and here more scanty, and curve according to the pores of the skin, could not be more natural. The nose, with its beautiful nostrils, rosy and tender, appeared to be alive. The mouth, with its opening, and with its ends united by the red of the lips to the flesh-tints of the face, seemed, in truth, to be not colours but flesh. In the pit of the throat, if one gazed upon it intently, could be seen the beating of the pulse. And, indeed, it may be said that it was painted in such a manner as to make every valiant craftsman, be he who he may, tremble and lose heart. He made use, also, of this device: Mona Lisa being very beautiful, he always employed, while he was painting her portrait, persons to play or sing, and jesters, who might make her remain merry, in order to take away that melancholy which painters are often wont to give to the portraits that they paint. And in this work of Leonardo's there was a smile so pleasing, that it was a thing more divine than human to behold; and it was held to be something marvellous, since the reality was not more alive”
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Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, 1503-1506
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Islamic Dynasties
The Mongol Legacy and the Rise of New Islamic Dynasties
Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals, and Mali (later, Songhay)
The Rise of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Imperial Rise, 1300-1683
The Conquest of Constantinople
The Tools of Empire Building
Istanbul (Constantinople) and the Topkapi Palace
Diversity and Control
Suleymaniye Mosque
The Janissaries
The Ottoman Bureaucracy
SULTAN
Divans
Social / Military Divans
Heads of Individual Religious Millets
Local Administrators & Military
Landowners / Tax Collectors
Muslims
Jews
Christians
Status of non-Muslims under Ottoman rule
Superior legal status accorded to Muslims
Dhimmis – special protection for “people of the book”
Special taxes
Some restrictions on building, etc.
The Millet system
Semi-autonomous religious communities (Greeks, Armenians, Jews)
Asker (ruling classes)
Sultan/Caliph
Vizier and Pasha
Bureaucracy/civil service
Local notables (ayan)
Ulema –Muslim religious elite
Military – Janissaries (paid standing army loyal to Sultan)
Images of elite women from the late Ottoman Empire
The Multi-Ethnic State
Settled peasants and villagers
Tribes
Some nomadic, some settled
Prominent families
scholars and clerics
Sufi brotherhoods (tarikat)
Merchants, Guilds
Other Ottoman officials in the provinces – judges, governors, financial officials, rural police
16th c. prisoners of war marched to prison at Topkapi Palace.
The Fall of Constantinople, 1453
Topkapi Palace
The Blue Mosque - Istanbul
Central dome of Istanbul’s Blue Mosque
Gunpowder Empires
Military-patronage states –
Chief military leader who relied on sub-leaders for local governance
Nearly all economic resources belonged to military families
Combined dynastic law, local custom, and shari ‘a
Harnessing Gunpowder – Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
After a siege of fort days the fate of Constantinople cold no longer be averted. The diminutive garrison was exhausted: the fortifications, which had stood for ages against hostile violence, were dismantled on all sides by Ottoman cannon; many breaches were opened, and near the gate of St. Romanus four towers had been leveled with the ground…From the lines, the galleys, and the bridge, the Ottoman artillery thundered on all sides; and the camp and city, the Greeks and the Turks, were involved in a cloud of smoke…all is blood, and horror, and confusion.
Some Comparisons
The Ottomans and Safavids both…
“Recruited” military class through slavery
Ottoman janissaries, Safavid ghilman
Created a bureaucracy loyal to central government alone
Laid claim to land (prebendalism)
Ottoman timars, Safavid tiyul
Tried to negotiate conflicts between Islamic and dynastic law
Ottoman janissaries
The Modern World System
The “crisis of the seventeenth century”
Inability of empire to maintain authority within territories
“great inflation” or “price revolution”
Demographic expansion
Dependence on cash
Spanish conquest of New World
Internal politics
From world empires to “world system”
Economic interdependence
Ottoman Empire becomes integrated at periphery
Competition with “merchant republics”
Supplanting of Mediterranean economy for Atlantic economy
Integrated internal market
New Islamic Empires
Mali
Muslim rule in North Africa and the Middle East, stretched back to the development of trade across the Sahara and south of the desert
Such conditions led to more voluntary adoption of Islam in contrast to situations of “forced” conversion by Mongols in Eurasia and Iran
Sundiata, leader of the Malinke, overthrew foreign domination and created the Empire of Mali
Mali’s power rested on agriculture and trade (salt and gold) and so their strength was tenuous
Even so, Mali’s rulers expanded Islam throughout the empire, with Mansa Kankan Musa (r. 1312-1337) doing the most to facilitate its spread
The Mali Empire
New Islamic Empires
Delhi Sultanate
In contrast, the spread of Islam in India was brought on by violence
Northwest India had early on been divided and subject to raids by Muslim Afghan warlords
By the end of the 1100s Delhi was captured by a new Turkish dynastic army and consolidated as the official Sultanate in northern India, as a Muslim state ruled under the caliph of Baghdad
The Sultanate was plagued by internal competition for rule from Turkish elites. These elites relied on terror, military and high taxes to maintain power and wealth
A Hindu empire in the south, internal rebellion and invasion by the Mongol leader Timur in 1398 led to the Sultanate’s demise
Delhi Sultanate
Decentralization and Trade on the Indian Ocean
The wealth of Islamic and Mongol empires increased the volume of trade in Asia, Latin Europe and Africa
When the Mongol Empire collapsed, trade actually increased as decentralization allowed Indian Ocean trade to occupy a more prominent role in connecting Eurasia to Africa (via sea rather than over land)
The Swahili in East Africa and the Gujarat in western Indian thrived because of the new reliance on long-distance Indian Ocean trade
Indian Ocean Trade Routes
As Empires Collapse, the Effects Become Visible
A new kind of Urban architecture had developed under Muslim rule with particular emphasis on places of worship (blending old and new but with a focus on prayer and education)
Such prominence of Muslim religion in society led to the spread of literacy (in sub-Saharan Africa, for instance) and the development of universities for the study of Islamic law, theology and administration
Such change led to a wide gap between rich and poor. Moreover, growth in wealth was accompanied by growth in slavery
For instance, 2.5 million Africans were sent across the Sahara and across the Red Sea between 1200 and 1500
Early Modern Global Trade
The Mongol Imperial System
The ethnically Mongol population numbered only 1.5 million people
Mongols relied on local authorities to manage imperial regions
Once the Mongols conquered a given territory by use of looting, pillaging, etc., their system gave way to an ordered tax/tribute system
At the same time, Mongols used various forms of government in regions based on what they thought would be most appropriate (less “foreign” fostered less resistance)
This included everything from “democratic” local councils to slave systems
In the same way, the Mongols allowed the use of any/all religions particular to different regions
helped spread various non-Eurasian religions like Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism
The Mongol Exchange
Besides political/religious/economic exchanges, the Mongols spread knowledge
Scholars, religious leaders and merchants made their way to various Mongol courts, trading hubs, etc.
At the same time, the Mongols helped spread things like disease, including plague, which affect Europeans via China and Egypt
The Spread of Mongol Culture
Even during its decline, Mongol culture flourished
Developments in history, math, cosmology, art and language
Political ideas about centralization of state authority and “national” identity against Mongol rule also followed Mongol expansion
Mongol Islam and the State
By conquering territory in Azerbaijan, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Iran and even some of Armenia, the Mongols came to rule over a large population of Muslim subjects
Sub-rulers of these regions (Il-khans) used the support of Islam in turn to expand their own power and the boundaries of their “empires” in what is now modern-day Iran/Iraq and Russia
Several Il-khans declared themselves Muslim and such public endorsement of religion in the empire changed its makeup and strengthened the role of religion in the politics of the empire
A sub-khan group overturned the Il-Khan empire in the 1350s and the new Jagadai khanate, led by Timur, began the eventual decline of the Mongol age by attempting unsuccessfully to play on old religious and political Mongol Islamic traditions
Resistance within the Empire
Ruling from afar and based upon the support of sub-leaders (along with haphazard adoption of local politics and cultural traditions) led to division
The Safavids in Iran, the Mamluks in Egypt, the tsars in Russia and others all developed systems of rule that used Mongol structures but united various ethnic groups against the central authority
The Yuan Empire and Ming China
As Mongol authority declined in western Eurasia, the Mongols began focusing attention on China
The capital was moved to Beijing, governments were consolidated with emphasis on census and taxation, commercial activity was managed through corporations and “class” systems arose, putting wealth into Chinese cities and devastating rural populations along the way
Chine Ming “national” resistance against the Mongols in the 1350s led to another revolt. But again, as Mongols were forced out the structures of the system remained in place and were expanded upon
Ming China
Chaos and Recovery – Zhu Yuanzhang has dynastic ambitions
Centralization under the Ming – Rebuilt devastated Chinese society after Mongol rule and Black Death
Imperial Grandeur and Kinship – Extravagant capital reflected grandeur of ruling house; marriage and kinship buttressed power
Building a Bureaucracy – Centralized style of rule
The Forbidden City – The Yongle Emperor (Zhu Di, 3rd Ming emperor) relocated the capital to Beijing, where he began the construction of the Forbidden City, or imperial palace. The palace was designed to inspire awe in all who saw it.
Ming China
Religion under the Ming - “Mandate of Heaven” was attempt to centralize authority through official ritual and rite
Ming Rulership – Complex bureaucracy, emperor as special guardian of subjects
Trade under the Ming – Port cities in East Asia home to prosperous merchants and the point of convergence for vast sea-lanes
Ming deities
Ming Maritime Exploration and Aftermath
Zheng He –
empowered by emperor to venture out to trade, collect tribute and display China’s power to world
1433, empire withdrew support and devoted energies to overland ventures and defense
The Rise of the Warriors in Japan
Counterpoint –
combined court imperial authority with military power of provincial warriors
power shifts to elites in provinces, local samurai warriors (decentralization
Heiji Monogatari Emaki
(Tale of the Heiji Rebellion)
Night Attack on the Sanjo Palace from the Illustrated Scrolls of the Events of the Heiji Era, 13th century
Conclusions
All the dying and devastation from the Black Death necessarily transformed Afro-Eurasia
Political regimes fell, but wide-ranging cultural systems and universal religions persisted
New states had unifying, centralizing visions, but interaction among constituencies mattered whether internally or through reestablishing trade networks
All dynasties faced same problems: establish legitimacy; ensure smooth succession; deal with religious groups; forge working relationships with nobles, townspeople, merchants, and peasants
The new states displayed unprecedented political and economic powers and either perfected techniques for ruling (and ruling over) ethnically and religiously diverse empires or sought to eradicate or subordinate them
