Ch. 1 Many Worlds of the Fifteenth Century

Question 1

Marco Polo

Answer 1

Marco Polo (1254 - 1324) – a Venetian merchant that traveled to Asia for trade and made many remarkable observations on his journeys.

Question 2

Treasure Fleet

Answer 2

TREASURE FLEET – a massive fleet of giant ships from the Chinese city of NANJING, then the most populous city in the world.

Admiral Zheng He (1371–1433), a Muslim from the southwestern region of the empire, led the fleet into the South China Sea and across Southeast Asia reaching the kingdom of Calicut in southwestern India.

• There were many voyages with commercial, diplomatic, and strategic accomplishments.
• These voyages of the treasure Fleet continued into the 1430s.

Question 3

Admiral Zheng He

Answer 3

Admiral Zheng He (1371–1433), a Muslim from the southwestern region of the empire, led the TREASURE FLEET into the South China Sea and across Southeast Asia reaching the kingdom of Calicut in southwestern India.

• There were many voyages with commercial, diplomatic, and strategic accomplishments.
• These voyages of the Treasure Fleet continued into the 1430s.

Question 4

Prince Henry

Answer 4

Prince Henry (1394–1460), a son of the Portuguese king, financed a series of expeditions into the Atlantic Ocean, leading to the establishment of plantations on islands in the Atlantic Ocean and trading posts on the west coast of Africa.

• The wealth these expeditions brought directly to Portugal, including gold from Africa and sugar from Madeira Island, inspired additional expeditions.

Question 5

Caravels

Answer 5

CARAVELS – 15th-century Portuguese vessels much smaller than their immense Chinese counterparts, but better able to maneuver in shallow coastal waters.

Question 6

Vasco de Gama

Answer 6

Vasco da Gama – Captained a fleet of Four Portuguese Caravels and became the first Europeans to round the Cape of Good Hope, Africa’s southern tip, and cross from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean.

Question 7

Afonso de Albuquerque

Answer 7

Afonso de Albuquerque (1453–1515) was a Portuguese nobleman who seized Goa, a city north of Calicut (on the Southwest coast of India), creating Portugal’s base as it attempted to gain a greater share of wealth from the world’s most lucrative commercial crossroads.

• And also to spread Christianity in Asia.
• NOTE: ‘Spreading’ their religion was always a priority with both Christians and Muslims of the day.

Question 8

Afro-Eurasian Supercontinent

Answer 8

AFRO-EURASIAN SUPERCONTINENT – Although it is common to divide the world’s landmass into six or seven continents, prior to 1500, it made historical sense to consider Europe, Asia, and Africa as a single Afro-Eurasian supercontinent across which ideas, commodities, and peoples flowed for thousands of years.

• This is a Primary theme in this course

Question 9

C.E. and B.C.E.

Answer 9

CE – Common Era

BCE – Before Common Era

• These are alternative non-religious notations that are gaining favor used instead of BC (“before Christ”) and AD (anno Domini, “in [the] year of [the] Lord”).
• Even so, the difference between CE And BCE remains the point at which Jesus Christ was allegedly born (aka. day zero in year zero AD (or CE as it were)

Question 10

State vs. Sovereignty

Answer 10

STATE – is the organized exercise of power over a certain territory and the people who live in it.

• If you focus on WHAT governments do (make and enforce laws, raise armies, declare wars, and collect taxes) rather than HOW governments do these things, or how they claim the right to do these things, then you’ve got the basic idea of what a state is.
• To think about STATES is to think about the accumulation, preservation, and use of the power to do these things.

In contrast…

SOVEREIGNTY – is about more than just enforcing your will through violence. It requires LEGITIMACY, meaning that a ruler must not only show the ability to rule but also justify his or her claim to that rule.

• So Sovereignty = Statehood + Legitimacy
• An Entity attempting to act like a STATE is claiming sovereignty. But, in order to actually move from being a STATE, which is simply exerting its superior power, to becoming a SOVEREIGNTY, the entity must show that they are LEGITIMATE leaders for that territory.
  
  • SOVEREIGNTY means the entity is making and enforcing rules for interactions within a given territory and continuously defending against internal and external threats
  • THUS, States, therefore, tend to survive by delivering benefits to enough people to reduce the need for massive or constant physical violence imposed on the entire population.
• Those who claim sovereignty link these demonstrations of HOW they can exercise power to claims of WHY they should be able to do so. This is a claim of LEGITIMACY.

Question 11

Examples of Enduring Political Systems

Answer 11

Rome under the Five Good Emperors (96 CE–180 CE) or…

Han dynasty China (206 BCE–220 CE)

• Both made long-distance travel and commerce easier in many ways.
• Both states built infrastructure to collect and redistribute resources
• Both maintained control over territories and people through the use of legal systems as much as armies.

Question 12

Empire

Answer 12

EMPIRE – is the successful assertion of sovereignty over large expanses of territory in which ethnically, culturally, and religiously diverse peoples live.

• Empires are states in which those who rule act as if only practical considerations—oceans or mountain ranges, for instance—can limit their sovereignty and legitimacy.
• Empires create imbalances among the various peoples and territories under the sovereign’s authority, with some receiving greater benefits from the political and economic system than others.

Question 13

Religion and Legitimacy

Answer 13

For a STATE to become a SOVEREIGNTY, it needed LEGITIMACY.

In the years prior to the 18th Century, religious leaders and centers had the power to confer legitimacy upon a leader. And so, there was fierce competition for religious centers.

• This legitimating power made RELIGION an important tool used by those who aspired to exercise sovereignty.
• This was especially true of Christianity and Islam, both because these religions were extraordinarily successful in attracting followers and because both faiths required their followers to spread their religion by converting nonbelievers.
• From the fourth century on, Christianity became important to empire builders as a faith tradition that could support claims of political authority; Islam emerged with similar characteristics during the seventh century.

Question 14

Christendom and dar al-Islam

Answer 14

Because there were so many factions within each of Christianity and Islam, terms were used to refer to the entirety of Christians (CHRISTENDOM) and the entirety of Islam (DAR AL-ISLAM)) regardless of their divergent beliefs.

Question 15

Biological Old Regime

Answer 15

OLD REGIME (or BIOLOGICAL OLD REGIME) – refers to the fact that there was an incredibly small amount of technological progress for the average person for thousands of years up until about 1500.

• In the year 1150, it took a traveler about 9 days to travel 150 miles over land.
• Traveling over the same land 200 years later, took the same amount of time.
• There was virtually no advancement in technology that significantly improved the lives of these people who lived two centuries apart (For perspective, think of how we live today vs. someone who lived in 1820 – a massive difference).
• In fact, the lack of progress over those 200 years was typical of life prior to the industrial revolution.
• In fact, constraints of daily life had remained steady, rooted in a relationship between energy and human productivity that had changed little since humans first began sedentary agricultural THOUSANDS of years earlier.
• Scholars like Robert Marks refer to these realities, with their enduring constraints on population and productivity growth, as the biological OLD REGIME.

Question 16

Mongol Empire

Answer 16

MONGOL EMPIRE – In the early 1200s the Mongol chieftain Chinggis Khan (ca. 1162–1227) and his heirs, descended from nomads of the Eurasian steppe, built the largest empire ever on the land-mass of Afro-Eurasia.

• Mongol authority came at a high price in lives and resources, as Mongols were portrayed as destroyers of order.
• More recent scholars balance this view with what the Mongols built in its place. Some even use the term Pax Mongolica (Mongolian Peace) to characterize the Mongol Empire at its height, as people, goods, and ideas flowed back and forth across Eurasia, using routes protected by the Mongol military’s highly skilled horsemen, but more importantly by the order imposed by the Mongol khan.
• In China, rebel armies fought the Mongols, laying the groundwork for the rise of the Ming dynasty in the 1360s.

Question 17

Pax Mongolica

Answer 17

PAX MONGOLICA (Mongolian Peace) refers to the characterization of the Mongol Empire at its height in a positive light, as people, goods, and ideas flowed back and forth across Eurasia, using routes protected by the Mongol military’s and by the order imposed by the Mongol khan.

• This is in contrast to the sweeping traditionally negative characterization of the ‘Mogol Hordes’ who brought destruction with them everywhere.

Question 18

14th Century Crisis

Answer 18

The 14th Century (1300s) seemed to be racked with devastation. This is important because rulers and societies of the 15th century were responding to these multiple upheavals that preceded them.

• England and France engaged in a seemingly endless cycle of battles that came to be known as the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453). Armies and leaders from across Europe joined the fighting intermittently.
• More important in shaping lives across a wider landscape, a cooling climate trend affected agricultural production. Ongoing warfare and the changing climate led to frequent and widespread food shortages in the fourteenth century.
• Deprivation, religious disputes, and discontent with rulers drove popular revolts across Europe.
• In the middle of the century of crises arrived the most devastating of them all: the Bubonic plague—known as the Black Death because of its symptoms and lethality—spread from China through oceanic and overland trade networks across much of Afro-Eurasia.
  
  • Historians estimated that the population of Europe fell by 25% from 80 million to 60 million during the era of the Black Death.
    
    • For comparison, that would be like 2 billion people dying today.
    • Covid has so far killed about 1/2,000th of that amount or 0.0005%

Question 19

Ming Dynasty

Answer 19

China reigned as the wealthiest and most populous empire in the world in the fifteenth century. The ruling MING DYNASTY had come to power in 1368 after defeating the Yuan dynasty, which had been established by the Mongol conquerors.

• The new dynasty was called Ming, meaning “bright,” to proclaim that this was a new Chinese empire after two centuries of Mongol rule.
• The imperial palace, known as the FORBIDDEN CITY (still standing as the largest complex of its kind in the world) embodied the new dynasty’s power.
• The strength of the empire varied over time, but there weren’t enough government officials to regularly interact with the population across such a large landmass.
• Instead, China’s strength lay in its commercial vigor and regional autonomy, which yielded an economy that could produce and distribute staple foods within the empire as well as luxury goods like silk and porcelain.
• This was the Dynasty that built the Treasure Fleet captained by Admiral Zheng He.

Question 20

Voyages of Zheng He

Answer 20

Admiral Zheng He, the leader of the Treasure Fleet during the Ming Dynasty was touted as being peaceful.

• The massive fleet boasted 28,000 sailers and boats 400 feet long, many times larger than European ships of the time.
• Scholars have wondered if the (relatively) nonviolent nature of the Treasure Fleet could have created a different future if it had remained standing into the colonial expansion of Europe.
• This type of expansion led by Chinese, might have shaped the world much differently than the often-violent colonial expansions that European nations – led first by Spain and Portugal – would undertake from the end of the 15th century on.
• But the Treasure Fleet ended its voyages in 1433 and no primary source seems to explain why.
  
  • Though it’s probably not a coincidence that Zheng He died in 1433 as the Fleet was returning from Africa – perhaps making it easier for opponents of the Fleet and its purpose (to spread a Chinese World order, though not occupy territory) to scuttle the program.

Question 21

Timurid Dynasty and the Vijayanagara

(Central and South Asia)

Answer 21

TIMURID DYNASTY – founded by Timur, also known as Tamerlane (1336–1405). A Muslim descendant of Mongol rulers, Timur built a vast empire in southwest Asia populated by Mongols, Persians, Kazakhs, Turks, and others.

• Timur’s descendants could not hold the empire together; but in the sixteenth century, one of them (Babur) did succeed in creating a new South Asian Muslim empire, the Mughal.

VIJAYANAGARA – From the fourteenth century through the seventeenth century, much of South Asia was ruled by a Hindu dynasty, the Vijayanagara.

• Determined to keep the power of Muslim rulers from spreading south and to keep other Hindu kingdoms in check.
• Vijayanagara rulers were aided by Muslim mercenaries who trained Hindu warriors in new military strategies and tactics.
• This training would then be used against the (Christian) Portuguese incursions of the sixteenth century.

NOTE: These complex interactions (Religious in-fighting) illustrate the limitations of understanding conflict and expansion as primarily religious in nature.

Question 22

Ottoman Empire

Answer 22

OTTOMAN EMPIRE – Straddled the dividing line between Asia and Europe, serving as a key Afro-European link. As it grew in this strategic location linking South Asia, the eastern Mediterranean, and Europe, the Ottoman Empire could be either a bridge or a barrier for stitching together the northern regions of the supercontinent.

MEHMED II (1432–1481) (The Conqueror) – was one of the Ottomans’ most important sultans. He was Muslim but was neither Arab (from the Arabian Peninsula) nor a speaker of Arabic as his native language. (The same was true for Zheng He, the Admiral of China’s Treasure Fleet)

• This ethnic diversity within Islam shows us that Islam, like Christianity, had evolved into a religion open to all rather than limited to a specific ethnic or linguistic group.
• Mehmed II established separate communities, called MILLETS, organized by religious tradition, whether it be Muslim, Christian, or Jewish.
  
  • For each community, a religious leader appointed by, and therefore most likely loyal to, the Ottoman government made most legal and political decisions.
• In 1453, as sultan, Mehmed orchestrated the conquest of Constantinople, one of the world’s largest cities and a center of Christian authority since the fourth century.

Question 23

Millet

Answer 23

MILLETS were separate communities organized by religious tradition, whether it be Muslim, Christian, or Jewish.

• For each community, a religious leader appointed by, and therefore most likely loyal to, the Ottoman government made most legal and political decisions.
• Mehmed II established Millets across the Ottoman Empire.

Question 24

Christian and Muslim In-Fighting

Answer 24

Neither ISLAM nor CHRISTIANITY was unified (nor are they even now).

• The “Christian authority” in Constantinople did not recognize the pope in Rome – the Orthodox Church split from “Roman” Catholicism in 1054.
• On the Muslim side, the Ottomans laid claim to the traditions of Sunni Islam, which was the largest division within that faith, but by no means universal, the primary divisions being the Sunnis and the Shi’a.
  
  • The key difference between Sunni Islam and Shi`a Islam is that:
    
    • Shi`a Muslims believe that the Prophet Muhammad appointed his son-in-law and cousin, Ali, to be his successor and the first caliph while Sunni Muslims do not.
      
      • Thus, Shi`a Muslims would thus not recognize Sunni claims about a caliphate.
      • This conflict continues to this day.

Question 25

The Hansa

Answer 25

HANSA – a type of economic and political organization. dominated by the members of the Hanseatic League, or Hansa, a commercial and defense arrangement among merchant guilds concentrated in central European cities, but with members as far away as modern-day England and Russia.

• Began in the mid-thirteenth century.
• In some ways, the Hansa acted like a state.
  
  • Ex: The league went to war with the kingdom of Denmark in the fourteenth century and England in the fifteenth century.
• Over time, the merchants of the Hansa ceded their claims of sovereignty and focused on commerce or had their resources confiscated and destroyed.

Question 26

Africa within Afro Eurasia

Answer 26

North Afri-can cities like Tangier, Fez, Tunis, and Cairo connected the Mediterranean world and central Asia to an extensive commercial network in central and West Africa, and all were part of Dar al-Islam (the “Abode of Islam”).

Mali’s Mansa Musa I (ca. 1280–ca. 1337) A Muslim leader who was, perhaps the wealthiest man in the world at the time due to Mali’s extensive gold and salt reserves,

• He completed the HAJJ – the pilgrimage to Mecca that was a central feature of Islamic practice. Because this pilgrimage was a pillar of Islamic faith, Mecca during the season of the hajj brought together people from across the Islamic world.

TIMBUKTU – Under Mansa Musa’s rule, Timbuktu became one of the world’s most important commercial, religious, and political centers, linked by roads across the Sahara to the sea.

• Timbuktu is best known for its famous Djinguereber Mosque and prestigious Sankore University, both of which were established in the early 1300s under the reign of the Mali Empire, most famous ruler, Mansa Musa. … Timbuktu’s greatest contribution to Islam and world civilization was its scholarship.

SONGHAI KINGDOM – Although the neighboring Songhai Kingdom eclipsed Mali’s power (and took control of Timbuktu) by 1400, the region remained a vital center of Islamic learning and scholarship.

• Sonni Ali (r. 1464–1492) expanded the Songhai Empire by conquering neighboring states, making it perhaps the largest West African empire to have ever existed,
  
  • The Songhai state revitalized Timbuktu, encouraging education, contemplation, and the production and collection of texts.
• No state as large as Mali or Songhai developed in East Africa.
• In the Horn of Africa, Christian dynasties continued to claim sovereignty over Ethiopia.

Question 27

Mansa Musa

Answer 27

Mali’s Mansa Musa I (ca. 1280–ca. 1337) A Muslim leader who was, perhaps the wealthiest man in the world at the time due to Mali’s extensive gold and salt reserves,

• Under Mansa Musa’s rule, Timbuktu became one of the world’s most important commercial, religious, and political centers, linked by roads across the Sahara to the sea.
• Timbuktu’s greatest contribution to Islam and world civilization was its scholarship.

Question 28

Hajj

Answer 28

HAJJ – the pilgrimage to Mecca that is a central feature of Islamic practice.

Question 29

Timbuktu

Answer 29

TIMBUKTU – Under Mansa Musa’s rule, Timbuktu became one of the world’s most important commercial, religious, and political centers, linked by roads across the Sahara to the sea.

• Timbuktu is best known for its famous Djinguereber Mosque and prestigious Sankore University, both of which were established in the early 1300s under the reign of the Mali Empire, most famous ruler, Mansa Musa. … Timbuktu’s greatest contribution to Islam and world civilization was its scholarship.

Question 30

Songhai Kingdom

Answer 30

SONGHAI KINGDOM – Mali’s neighboring Songhai Kingdom eclipsed Mali’s power (and took control of Timbuktu) by 1400, the region remained a vital center of Islamic learning and scholarship.

• The Songhai state revitalized Timbuktu, encouraging education, contemplation, and the production and collection of texts.
• Sonni Ali (r. 1464–1492) expanded the Songhai Empire by conquering neighboring states, making it perhaps the largest West African empire to have ever existed.

Question 31

Iberian Peninsula

Answer 31

IBERIAN PENINSULA – is the peninsula that currently houses both Portugal and Spain.

A closer look at the history of this region can help us understand how a new political order emerged in Europe after the Black Death, with larger, more powerful and effective central states under the authority of hereditary monarchs.

• King John I (1357–1433) and his successors are good examples of the monarchs who worked to change the relationships between territory, sovereignty, and material resources in the western regions of the supercontinent from the 1300s - 1500s.
• The Portuguese then claimed several islands in the Atlantic Ocean in the 1430s and soon thereafter began to establish FEITORIAS, fortified trading posts, on the west coast of Africa close to the Songhai Empire.
• Over the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Portuguese established approximately 50 feitorias across Afro-Eurasia to Macau, just off the Chinese mainland.

King Ferdinand (1452 - 1516) and Queen Isabella (1451 - 1504) – were famous for sponsoring the Italian Explorer, Christopher Columbus on his voyage to find a new sea route to India, China, and Japan. At the time, educated people knew the Earth was not flat and so going around the globe to get to the Far East was clever. Of course they did not expect to discover ‘new’ lands blocking their way.

• The conquest of Constantinople (The center of Christiandom at the time) by Ottoman sultan Mehmed II catalyzed the Christian rulers of Iberia to action. So the leaders of the Iberian Peninsula, including Ferdinand and Isabella, declared a new round of warfare on Islam and each other.
• In 1469 Isabella and Ferdinand married, beginning a long process of creating a new kingdom (Spain) while declaring a reconquest of the peninsula from Islamic rulers and demanded that all Muslims and Jews in their kingdoms convert to Christianity or leave, a period known as the SPANISH INQUISITION.
  
  • So it was with both religious fervor and commercial goals that Christopher Columbus and his crews set off into the Atlantic Ocean.

Question 32

Feitorias

Answer 32

FEITORIAS – are fortified trading posts constructed by the Portuguese in Africa and on islands in the Atlantic near Africa.

• They established approximately 50 feitorias across Afro-Eurasia to Macau, just off the Chinese mainland.

Question 33

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella

Answer 33

King Ferdinand (1452 - 1516) and Queen Isabella (1451 - 1504) – were famous for sponsoring the Italian Explorer, Christopher Columbus on his voyage to find a new sea route to India, China, and Japan. At the time, educated people knew the Earth was not flat and so going around the globe to get to the Far East was clever. Of course, they did not expect to discover ‘new’ lands blocking their way.

• The conquest of Constantinople (The center of Christiandom at the time) by Ottoman sultan Mehmed II catalyzed the Christian rulers of Iberia to action. So the leaders of the Iberian Peninsula, including Ferdinand and Isabella, declared a new round of warfare on Islam and each other.
• In 1469 Isabella and Ferdinand married, beginning a long process of creating a new kingdom (Spain) while declaring a reconquest of the peninsula from Islamic rulers and demanded that all Muslims and Jews in their kingdoms convert to Christianity or leave, a period known as the SPANISH INQUISITION.

Question 34

Christopher Columbus

Answer 34

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS – Italian explorer sent by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to find a new sea route to India, China, and Japan.

• At the time, educated people knew the Earth was not flat and so going around the globe to get to the Far East was clever. Of course, they did not expect to discover ‘new’ lands blocking their way.
• It was with both religious fervor and commercial goals that Christopher Columbus and his crews set off into the Atlantic Ocean.

Question 35

Spanish Inquisition

Answer 35

SPANISH INQUISITION – a 15th-century reconquest of the Iberian peninsula from Islamic rulers by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella who demanded that all Muslims and Jews in their kingdoms convert to Christianity or leave.

Question 36

Challenges to Research in the Americas

Answer 36

Although history did not begin for the Americas in 1492, several factors make it hard to study the hemisphere’s past prior to that year using traditional historical research methods.

• First, the indigenous peoples of the Americas kept records in ways that were very different from the Afro-Eurasian empires.
  
  • Ex: KHIPUS were complicated woven memory devices of the Andes Mountains
  • EX: KEROS were the region’s highly decorated drinking vessels.
  • Only in the past few decades have researchers learned how to interpret them.
• In addition, much of the material record of the indigenous American past has been reclaimed by nature.
• Another factor is that the first Europeans who came to the Americas often destroyed the records and other artifacts that did exist.
  
  • Ex: In 1562, a Catholic priest named Diego de Landa (1524–1579) burned twenty handwritten books and thousands of artifacts of the Maya people of the Yucatán Peninsula, which he deemed to be the work of the devil. Ugh!

Question 37

Aztecs

Answer 37

AZTECS – were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico from 1300 to 1521.

TENOCHTITLAN – a City founded in the early 14th Century (Now Mexico City.

• Tenochtitlan grew into one of the world’s largest cities with one of its greatest and most diverse markets for goods.
• The ruler, known as the tlatoani or chief speaker, began to take on godlike aspects: he could not be touched or looked at directly. War became glorified and captured prisoners were sacrificed to the gods. Religious specialists rewrote Mexica history, burning records that contradicted the story they now wanted.

Over the course of the fifteenth century, the MEXICA (People of Mexico) built a system of TRIBUTARY STATES (States that acted like tributaries feeding a river) that supplied human and material resources, which in turn fed further expansion.

• The Mexica performed impressive feats of civil engineering, such as aqueducts to bring fresh water into their city and floating gardens to feed the population, but they did not invest significantly in infrastructure for the region as a whole.
• They did not offer to bring peace either. Instead, the Mexica offered something like endless conquest to other states and peoples in central Mexico,

Question 38

Tributary States

Answer 38

TRIBUTARY STATES – The name given to states that are subordinate to a dominant state. The subordinate states serve the dominant state, acting like tributaries to a larger river, where the river is the dominant state.

• The was the case with the Aztecs of Central Mexico.

Question 39

Inca Empire

Answer 39

INCA EMPIRE – The Incan Empire was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America, the center of which was in the city of Cusco.

• The Inca civilization arose from the Peruvian highlands (Andes Mountains) sometime in the early 13th century. Its last stronghold was conquered by the Spanish in 1572.
• Incans referred to the realm as Tahuantinsuyu (“land of the four parts”).
• The Inca then invested in running an empire, building roads and other infrastructure, and redistributing resources, including labor. Although some modern authors and audiences have romanticized the Inca state as a utopia, it was not.
• Though records suggest that the state was able to do things like providing relief to the empire’s population in times of food shortages, it also had shortcomings like failing to create a clear means of succession, which at times led to disputes, including warfare, over rulership. Conclusion