1 Voyages of discovery

Source 4

A king receives a precious gift: two bags of peppercorns. Miniature from the Livre des Merveilles du Monde, the French translation of the travels of Marco Polo, circa 1410-1412.

Subquestion

Spice of life

In the Middle Ages, Europe had trading contacts with merchants from the Middle East and North Africa. These merchants traded in products such as silk, precious stones, sugar (produced from sugar cane) and also spices, which were very popular in Europe. Spices were used in the preparation of food, not to preserve meat or to disguise rotting, but because people liked to improve the taste of dishes with pepper, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and other flavours.

Spices and other exotic wares were also used as a health tonic and to make perfume and medicines. Moreover, by using spices, people could show how rich they were. A pound of pepper cost as much as a whole pig.

Caravans from the East

Spices and goods such as silk and sugar came from East Asia and were very expensive. Caravans transported the merchandise over land. A famous trade route, the Silk Road, stretched all the way from China to the Middle East. On a long route like this, each merchant took care of a section of the journey. When he had completed his section of the route, he sold his products on to another merchant who then did the same. This process was repeated until

Source 5

A recipe to combat the stench of plague

To combat the foul smell of plague, wealthy men may benefit from a perfume made from the following ingredients: agarwood and amber (2 drachmas each), best quality myrrh and frankincense (1 ounce), camphor, storax, dried rose petals (2 drachmas), sandalwood from Makassar, eucalyptus leaves (1 ounce). Grind them together with resin or with rosewater from Damascus in which camphor has been dissolved. This mixture can then be used to make pills or tablets.

Paraphrased from: Regiment de preservació de la pestilència, from 1348, the year of the plague.

the products reached the merchants in Europe. The merchants of Venice were mainly responsible for buying many valuable goods from the eastern Mediterranean and bringing them to Europe. Merchants then transported the Asian merchandise over land to Western Europe. In the fourteenth and fifteenth century, merchants from Genoa dared to transport these profitable products over the sea to Bruges. At the time, Bruges was the most important port in Northwestern Europe. All these intermediate steps drove prices sky high. The merchants from the Middle East benefited most from this chain of trade.

Source 7

Merchants in Baghdad

In Baghdad they make silk and gold brocade fabric with birds and other animals embroidered on them. It is the largest city in the region. Through the middle of the city flows a huge river [the Tigris], on which you can sail all the way to the Indian Ocean, so there is a constant coming and going of merchants with their wares. The merchants who travel to the Indies navigate the river till they reach a town called Khism, on the Indian Ocean. Between Baghdad and Khism lies the city of Basra, where the best dates in the world are grown.

Paraphrased from: Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo (Il Milione), circa 1298-1299.

Source 8

Paper money

You should know that the great khan orders a special kind of currency to be produced about which I will tell you now. He causes the bark to be stripped from mulberry trees and made into paper that resembles cotton. When ready for use, he has it cut into pieces of different sizes which are given different values. All these notes bear the seal of the great khan. When produced in large quantities, this paper currency is circulated in every part of the grand khan’s dominions. Pearls, gold, silver, precious stones and every other type of merchandise must be paid with that money. The great khan often orders everyone who has gold or silver or another precious commodity to take it immediately to the mint [the place where money is made] to exchange it for the paper currency, which the merchants gladly accept as they can use it to make purchases everywhere. This trade provides the great khan with a remarkable amount of revenue.

Paraphrased from: Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo (Il Milione), circa 1298-1299.

Marco Polo

In the thirteenth and fourteenth century, the Mongol Empire rose to power in the lands east of Europe. It extended from the Black Sea to China. The steppe peoples in the region were united and lived in peace. This made the roads safer and caused trade to flourish. This benefited European merchants who were importing products on the Silk Road. Some even dared to travel far into the east themselves. Around 1270 brothers Niccolò and Maffeo Polo, merchants from Venice, decided to cross the Black Sea to do business. From there they travelled on and after a long journey they arrived at the court of Mongol emperor Kublai Khan. They were received with full honours, because the khan had never seen a Westerner before.

The brothers talked endlessly about Europe, about the pope and Christianity. The khan, who was a curious man, ordered them to bring oil from the lamp that burned at the tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem on their next visit. Two years later the brothers undertook the same journey again. This time they were accompanied by Niccolò’s son Marco. Upon their arrival, the Venetians were taken into service as envoys of Kublai Khan. In that capacity, they stayed for many years at his court and made many voyages through Asia, accounts of which were later written down by Marco.

His journal, which is full of wonderful stories about strange places and peoples, later made Marco Polo very famous, but his contemporaries found his accounts hard to believe. There were no other western sources about these areas and very few people were prepared to travel long distances. Europeans were isolated from Asia and Africa. That was reinforced by a shift in the balance of power around the Mediterranean.

Around the Mediterranean

In the area around the eastern half of the Mediterranean Sea, a mighty empire arose in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: the Ottoman Empire. It was ruled by the successors of Sultan Osman, the leader of one of the Turkish tribes which had gradually conquered the ancient Byzantine Empire. When the Byzantine capital Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, the city became the seat of Ottoman rule. Thereafter, the territory and the power of the sultans increased. While the Ottoman fleet dominated the Mediterranean Sea, the sultan expanded his empire in the Balkans and North Africa. The Ottomans also controlled the trade routes along which eastern merchants brought luxury goods from Asia. When the Ottomans stopped expanding their territory, an age of peace and prosperity dawned across their empire. For the states, principalities and kingdoms of Western Europe, this was both a positive development and a threat. On the one hand the founding of the Ottoman Empire brought stability to the countries around the Mediterranean Sea and in the Middle East. This had a favourable effect on trade and was particularly beneficial to Venice, the main merchant city in the Mediterranean. On the other hand, the Europeans always had to battle with the advancing Ottoman armies and European merchants were paying sky-high prices for luxury goods from the east which could only be bought through the Ottomans. For European merchants this was an incentive to seek new trade routes, so they could start importing luxury goods directly.

In search of the Indies

In their quest for new trade links, to buy spices and other luxury goods, the Europeans tried to reach the Indies. The Indies was the name they gave to the area far to the east and southeast of Europe: it covered present-day Asia, particularly Southeast Asia, but also included parts of source 11

Africa. Over land the Europeans could only reach the Indies through hostile Ottoman territory. That is why they went in search of a sea route. For this purpose, they used a new type of ship. During their battles against the Ottomans on the Mediterranean Sea, the Genoese had designed a very effective new vessel called the caracca (carrack, in Dutch: kraak). Cannon could be positioned on the bow and the stern of a carrack and the ship was sturdy enough to sail long distances. They were also big enough to carry a lot of cargo. The merchants believed that they could use the carrack to reach the Indies. Meanwhile, knowledge about navigating the seas had grown thanks to contact with Arab sailors. Instruments like the astrolabe and the compass were used to set a course and navigate by the stars. People were well aware that the world was round and that the continents were surrounded by vast seas, so they knew it must be possible to reach the Indies by ship. But Europeans still had a lot to learn about the precise location of countries, oceans and continents. Their knowledge of the world was limited and was often mixed in with fantastic tales. People believed that spices and precious stones were there for the taking in the Indies.

The islands of Java and Sumatra in the Indian Ocean Spices come from islands in the Indian Ocean. Ships from many countries sail these waters. They are also home to creatures called Sirens. A Siren is half woman, half fish. Another type Siren is half woman, half bird. The island of Java has many plants and trees which produce all the precious spices of the Indies like nutmeg, galangal, and cinnamon. The Tartars call Sumatra Magno-Caulij. It is the easternmost island in the Indian Ocean. The people who live here look different to all the others. The mountains are home to men who are extremely tall, like giants. They are very dark and have little reason. If they capture a foreign man, they eat him. This island has two summers and two winters, so the flowers and plants there bloom twice a year. It is the last of the islands in the Indian Ocean and it is rich in gold, silver and precious stones. Paraphrased from: the Catalan Atlas from 1375-1377.