Marco Polo Was in China: New Evidence from Currencies, Salts and Revenues
The textual heritage of Medieval Latin is one of the greatest reservoirs of human culture. Repertories list more than 16,000 authors from about 20 modern countries. Until now, there has been no introduction to this world in its full geographical extension. Forty contributors fill this gap by adopting a new perspective, making available to specialists (but also to the interested public) new materials and insights. The project presents an overview of Medieval (and post-medieval) Latin Literatures as a global phenomenon including both Europe and extra-European regions. It serves as an introduction to medieval Latin's complex and multi-layered culture, whose attraction has been underestimated until now. Traditional overviews mostly flatten specificities, yet in many countries medieval Latin literature is still studied with reference to the local history. Thus the first section presents 20 regional surveys, including chapters on authors and works of Latin Literature in Eastern, Central and Northern Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas. Subsequent chapters highlight shared patterns of circulation, adaptation, and exchange, and underline the appeal of medieval intermediality, as evidenced in manuscripts, maps, scientific treatises and iconotexts, and its performativity in narrations, theatre, sermons and music. The last section deals with literary “interfaces,” that is motifs or characters that exemplify the double-sided or the long-term transformations of medieval Latin mythologemes in vernacular culture, both early modern and modern, such as the legends about King Arthur, Faust, and Hamlet.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Chinggis Khan and his progeny ruled over two-thirds of Eurasia. Connecting East, West, North and South, the Mongols integrated most of the Old World, promoting unprecedented cross-cultural contacts and triggering the reshuffle of religious, ethnic, and geopolitical identities. The Cambridge History of the Mongol Empire studies the Empire holistically in its full Eurasian context, putting the Mongols and their nomadic culture at the center. Written by an international team of more than forty leading scholars, this two-volume set provides an authoritative and multifaceted history of 'the Mongol Moment' (1206–1368) in world history and includes an unprecedented survey of the various sources for its study, textual (written in sisteen languages), archaeological, and visual. This groundbreaking Cambridge History sets a new standard for future study of the Empire. It will serve as the fundamental reference work for those interested in Mongol, Eurasian, and world history.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Chinggis Khan and his progeny ruled over two-thirds of Eurasia. Connecting East, West, North and South, the Mongols integrated most of the Old World, promoting unprecedented cross-cultural contacts and triggering the reshuffle of religious, ethnic, and geopolitical identities. The Cambridge History of the Mongol Empire studies the Empire holistically in its full Eurasian context, putting the Mongols and their nomadic culture at the center. Written by an international team of more than forty leading scholars, this two-volume set provides an authoritative and multifaceted history of 'the Mongol Moment' (1206–1368) in world history and includes an unprecedented survey of the various sources for its study, textual (written in sisteen languages), archaeological, and visual. This groundbreaking Cambridge History sets a new standard for future study of the Empire. It will serve as the fundamental reference work for those interested in Mongol, Eurasian, and world history.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Chinggis Khan and his progeny ruled over two-thirds of Eurasia. Connecting East, West, North and South, the Mongols integrated most of the Old World, promoting unprecedented cross-cultural contacts and triggering the reshuffle of religious, ethnic, and geopolitical identities. The Cambridge History of the Mongol Empire studies the Empire holistically in its full Eurasian context, putting the Mongols and their nomadic culture at the center. Written by an international team of more than forty leading scholars, this two-volume set provides an authoritative and multifaceted history of 'the Mongol Moment' (1206–1368) in world history and includes an unprecedented survey of the various sources for its study, textual (written in sisteen languages), archaeological, and visual. This groundbreaking Cambridge History sets a new standard for future study of the Empire. It will serve as the fundamental reference work for those interested in Mongol, Eurasian, and world history.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Chinggis Khan and his progeny ruled over two-thirds of Eurasia. Connecting East, West, North and South, the Mongols integrated most of the Old World, promoting unprecedented cross-cultural contacts and triggering the reshuffle of religious, ethnic, and geopolitical identities. The Cambridge History of the Mongol Empire studies the Empire holistically in its full Eurasian context, putting the Mongols and their nomadic culture at the center. Written by an international team of more than forty leading scholars, this two-volume set provides an authoritative and multifaceted history of 'the Mongol Moment' (1206–1368) in world history and includes an unprecedented survey of the various sources for its study, textual (written in sisteen languages), archaeological, and visual. This groundbreaking Cambridge History sets a new standard for future study of the Empire. It will serve as the fundamental reference work for those interested in Mongol, Eurasian, and world history.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Chinggis Khan and his progeny ruled over two-thirds of Eurasia. Connecting East, West, North and South, the Mongols integrated most of the Old World, promoting unprecedented cross-cultural contacts and triggering the reshuffle of religious, ethnic, and geopolitical identities. The Cambridge History of the Mongol Empire studies the Empire holistically in its full Eurasian context, putting the Mongols and their nomadic culture at the center. Written by an international team of more than forty leading scholars, this two-volume set provides an authoritative and multifaceted history of 'the Mongol Moment' (1206–1368) in world history and includes an unprecedented survey of the various sources for its study, textual (written in sisteen languages), archaeological, and visual. This groundbreaking Cambridge History sets a new standard for future study of the Empire. It will serve as the fundamental reference work for those interested in Mongol, Eurasian, and world history.
The article provides the definition of money, discusses the history and functions of money, theoretical aspects of crypto assets, and identifies potential ways for the development of cryptocurrency markets. The connection between faith and the transition of cryptocurrencies to a new quality - money is given.
Keywords: money, currency, crypto asset, cryptocurrency, faith
In the period 1450–1900, Europeans travelled to places both near and far, encountering landscapes and people. These encounters changed the world. New contact zones influenced how Europeans perceived themselves and the "other", and transformed the circulation of knowledge, objects and ideas, both locally and globally. Travelogues, which are relics of these processes, come in different shapes and sizes. Each of them has been shaped by an endless number of factors, but portrays a unique "reality". These "realities" varied widely, both diachronically and synchronically, but during the modern period an increasing volume of travel literature was produced all over Europe and became more and more accessible to all parts of society.
China's rise as the world's second-largest economy surely is the most dramatic development in the global economy since the year 2000. But China's prominence in the global economy is hardly new. Since 500 BCE, a dynamic market economy and the establishment of an enduring imperial state fostered precocious economic growth. Yet Chinese society and government featured distinctive institutions that generated unique patterns of economic development. The six chapters of Part I of this volume trace the forms of livelihood, organization of production and exchange, the role of the state in economic development, the evolution of market institutions, and the emergence of trans-Eurasian trade from antiquity to 1000 CE. Part II, in twelve thematic chapters, spans the late imperial period from 1000 to 1800 and surveys diverse fields of economic history, including environment, demography, rural and urban development, factor markets, law, money, finance, philosophy, political economy, foreign trade, human capital, and living standards.
China's rise as the world's second-largest economy surely is the most dramatic development in the global economy since the year 2000. But China's prominence in the global economy is hardly new. Since 500 BCE, a dynamic market economy and the establishment of an enduring imperial state fostered precocious economic growth. Yet Chinese society and government featured distinctive institutions that generated unique patterns of economic development. The six chapters of Part I of this volume trace the forms of livelihood, organization of production and exchange, the role of the state in economic development, the evolution of market institutions, and the emergence of trans-Eurasian trade from antiquity to 1000 CE. Part II, in twelve thematic chapters, spans the late imperial period from 1000 to 1800 and surveys diverse fields of economic history, including environment, demography, rural and urban development, factor markets, law, money, finance, philosophy, political economy, foreign trade, human capital, and living standards.
This article is the first in the series of planned publications with translations of separate chapters from a Chinese historical-geographical description of foreign lands Daoyi zhilüe (“A Brief Description of Island Barbarians”, 1349/1350) written during the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368). The first four chapters of the treatise which describe policies on the eastern sea route from China are included in this work. The article offers the first translation of these chapters into Russian, accompanied by detailed historical commentary. Apart from that, in the research part of the article the author has briefly analyzed the order of the chapters in the treatise and compared it with the previous sources of similar nature. The translations are an important source for studying various aspects of the history of the Penghu islands, Taiwan and the Philippines in the 14 th century AD.
This miscellaneous volume aims to commemorate the Iberian and European celebrations about Magellan that started in 2019. Specifically, the volume commemorates: the person and the image of Magellan on earth (celebrating the 500 years of his circumnavigation of the Earth) and in the universe (remembering the two Magellanic clouds); the Eddington’s journey and the Apollo XI flight to the moon, through many essays that investigate the concept of travel in its several attitudes (explorative, scientific, philosophical, introspective, literary) in Sciences and Humanities, from ancient to contemporary ages, in an intercultural perspective, following a thematic scheme and a cronological one as well, if it is possible.
This is the second of two volumes on the Sung Dynasty, which together provide a comprehensive history of China from the fall of the T'ang Dynasty in 907 to the Mongol conquest of the Southern Sung in 1279. With contributions from leading historians in the field, Volume 5, Part Two paints a complex portrait of a dynasty beset by problems and contradictions, but one which, despite its military and geopolitical weakness, was nevertheless economically powerful, culturally brilliant, socially fluid and the most populous of any empire in global history to that point. In this much anticipated addition to the series, the authors survey key themes across ten chapters, including government, economy, society, religion, and thought to provide an authoritative and topical treatment of a profound and significant period in Chinese history.
El gran trayecto terrestre y marítimo, identificado de manera general como La Ruta de la seda, constituye una compleja red de vías comerciales basadas en el negocio de la seda china y otros muchos productos, hace ya XXII siglos, expandido por toda Asia, parte de Europa y África. Vinculaba China con Mongolia, India, Persia, Arabia, Siria, Turquía, Europa y África. Las diversas rutas se inician en la ciudad de Chang'an (hoy Xi'an) en China. En su recorrido transitan por Karakórum (Mongolia), el Paso de Khunjerab (China y Pakistán), Susa (Persia), el Valle de Fergana (Tayikistán), Samarcanda (Uzbekistán), Taxila (Pakistán), Antioquía (Siria), Alejandría (Egipto), Kazán (Rusia) y Constantinopla (hoy Estambul en Turquía) a las puertas de Europa, llegan hasta los reinos hispánicos en el siglo XV, en los confines de Europa y a las actuales Somalia y Etiopía en África nororiental.
Un testimonio especial de este proceso en las postrimerías del siglo XIII es el veneciano Marco Polo (1254-1324), quien tiene la oportunidad de convivir y recordar muy diversos contactos culturales, independientemente de los enfoques de las diversas versiones que se han realizado de su memoria de viajes. El hecho que Marco Polo haya recorrido de muy variada manera las rutas marítimas y terrestres de la seda hasta los confines de China le otorga plena actualidad en el contexto internacional cuando la iniciativa china de La Franja y la Ruta adquiere un alcance mundial y un enfoque mucho más amplio en esta nueva era.
Coping with the World. How Medieval Latin Authors Described the Size and Density of World’s Population This paper takes a dual approach to the topic of medieval demographic thinking between the 13th and 15th century. In a first step, the analysis focusses on travel accounts (e. g. those of John of Plano Carpini, William of Rubruk and Marco Polo) and their depiction of foreign regions and populations. Many Latin Christian travellers shared the impression that the Mongolian steppe was only sparsely populated, quite in contrast to the urban centres in eastern China, which they described in great detail. While most travellers were fascinated by the densely populated areas of the East, other authors and cartographers (e. g. Bartholomeus Anglicus, Roger Bacon, Andreas Walsperger), who did not travel themselves, reacted rather pusillanimously. The paper analyses their rather theoretical statements in a second step. It shows that the huge number of Non-Christians worried those who stayed back. They felt that ‘Christianity’ was under threat. Even more, they equated Christianity with Europe and compared ‘their’ part of the earth to the (infidel) continents of Africa and Asia. Thus, the knowledge that the travellers gained on their journeys was stripped of its admiring character and condensed into a much more negative and anxious point of view. The empirical experience might have given the impulse to think afresh about the distribution of the population of the world, but it was not necessary for the interpretation of this observation. The paper serves as a case study about how knowledge was adapted and interpreted in quite different contexts.
This study investigates the emergence and development of business partnerships established by the Mongols and their merchant partners, ortoqs, in the Middle Ages. Ortoqs are known to have conducted trade and money-lending with the capital invested by their partners. This study shows that the contractual arrangements of Mongol–ortoq partnerships closely resembled medieval partnership contracts, such as mudharaba, inan, societas and commenda. Sophisticated concepts of liability in relation to investments and loans were developed in Mongol–ortoq partnerships, promoting trade and investment to facilitate the commercial integration of the Mongol Empire.
This is the second of two volumes on the Sung Dynasty, which together provide a comprehensive history of China from the fall of the T'ang Dynasty in 907 to the Mongol conquest of the Southern Sung in 1279. With contributions from leading historians in the field, Volume 5, Part Two paints a complex portrait of a dynasty beset by problems and contradictions, but one which, despite its military and geopolitical weakness, was nevertheless economically powerful, culturally brilliant, socially fluid and the most populous of any empire in global history to that point. In this much anticipated addition to the series, the authors survey key themes across ten chapters, including government, economy, society, religion, and thought to provide an authoritative and topical treatment of a profound and significant period in Chinese history.
Introduction The Sung dynasty (960-1279) was an age of learning. Although condemned by its critics for slighting the military while esteeming the civil, the esteem that the Sung emperors and their ministers undeniably gave to learning had impressive results. Such were the Sung contributions in poetry, prose, painting, philosophy, scholarship, mathematics and scientific thought that it is not too much of an overstatement to say that Sung learning constituted the primary intellectual legacy for subsequent dynasties, to be accepted, adapted, challenged, and at times rejected, but never ignored. This cultural effloresence was a complex phenomenon. Prerequisite for it were the political stability of the Sung (especially the Northern Sung, 960-1127); dramatic advances in agriculture, technology, and commerce; demographic and urban growth; and especially the spreading use of printing, all of which are discussed elsewhere in this volume. Sung examinations (kung-chü) and schools, however, provided its immediate cause and socio-institutional context. When in 977 the second emperor, T’ai-tsung (r. 976-97), radically expanded the examination system, passage through which qualified one for service in the government, he created a demand for learning which was to have a profound impact upon the outlook and lifestyle of the upper classes, indeed of the entire society. And when, beginning in the 1020s and 1030s, first local officials and then the central government began establishing government schools in prefectures (chou, fu) and counties (hsien), they created centers of Confucian learning which, in addition to providing instruction for at least some of those desiring it, served also as ceremonial centers, libraries, and at times printing enterprises. Indeed, the structural and organizational features of these schools can be seen to have set the pattern for the government schools of the late imperial period.
Marco Polo's Le Devisement du Monde (end of the thirteenth century) is one of the earliest, longest and more detailed travelogues of the Middle Ages. Widely read, the text not only describes the travels of its protagonist, but equally furnishes a comprehensive overview of Mongolian culture, society and territories. This article analyses the categories Marco Polo uses in order to describe the Khan's realm and his exercise of power. The author rarely uses the notion of emperor in his narrative, although he clearly recognises the Khan's claim to universal rule. The reasons behind this reluctance can be explained in several ways. First, Marco Polo became acquainted with the main languages in the regions under Mongolian rule; it might thus have seemed natural to him to use the 'correct' titles. Second, the French vernacular word 'empire' might have been reserved, in his mind, for the rulers of the 'Roman Empire' (in the Latin West and/or the Greek East). Finally, it seems that Marco Polo sought to ascribe to the Khans a kind of power and authority that surpassed even the might of the emperors in Europe, and this specificity could best be expressed by using a Mongolian title that, finally, was not entirely synonymous with the notion of empereur. All in all, these observations imply that the Devisement du Monde can be read not only as a travel narrative, but also as a treatise on the understanding of imperial power.
Since their first publication in 1922, two Islamic inscriptions formed an essential basis of the early history of Islam in Champa. Recently, however, they have been shown to have originated, not from Southeast Asia, but from Tunisia. It is clear that either there was an error regarding their provenance, or it was deliberately falsified. The implications of this are discussed, and the remaining evidence of early Islamic presence in Champa is reassessed. It is suggested that there is now no good evidence of any Islamic presence there until after the sixteenth century. In relation to this issue, the maritime links between China and the Islamic world are examined, as also are other examples of possible falsification of history.
This article will shed new light on the already crowded area of Marco Polo research, by examining the perspective of Polo, his direct observation of Kublai Khan and Yuan China, as revealed in The Travels of Marco Polo. The paper analyses the sources of Polo’s perspective on the people he encountered on his travels in foreign lands. It argues that Polo’s ideas were shaped by his cultural background, personal experience and his own interests. Then it examines how the work presents Kublai Khan himself, as well as the Yuan empire’s monetary system, its waterway trade and its ethnic policy. The result of this investigation shows that Polo was an acute observer; he pointed out occasions of misrule despite his adoration of Kublai Khan.
As the first European to claim that he travelled to China and back, Marco Polo is a celebrated traveller who described the multicultural society of Eurasia in the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries ad . However, his famed account, the Travels of Marco Polo , contains many unsolved mysteries which have generated discussion among historians, while an archaeological approach has been even less convincing because the material that may link to Marco Polo is very rare. A recent re-analysis of Chinese ceramics from a wide geographical area ranging from southern China to the Indian Ocean provides some archaeological support: it suggests that a Chinese porcelain jar housed in the Treasury of San Marco in Venice dates to the era of Marco Polo and is associated with his journey to China.
If we were asked to recall a coastal city of early modern China, most of us would choose Shanghai, Canton, Xiamen, or Macau. These port cities became famous for facilitating trans-regional sea trade that linked the Qing Empire to the rest of the world. Attentive observers know that all of these cities are located on the Southeast China coast, by which we mean the coastal areas south of Shanghai. Taking Shanghai as the dividing line between the northeastern and southeastern coastlines, the port cities of the south are far more likely to be familiar to us than are those of the north. I consider this phenomenon (i.e. the focus on the coast of early modern China) to be a “Southeast China centrism.” And although we might all concede that some southeastern seaports were vital to transoceanic interactions, it is shortsighted to ignore the northern port cities and the role they played in connecting China with the maritime world. In this article I investigate the importance of Northeast China's port cities by focusing particular attention on the less familiar coastal seaport of Dengzhou. By detailing and examining the political and economic importance of this port city in the early modern period, I will show that Qing China's northeastern coast was no less important than the southeast. Even if China's northern port cities might not have been as economically vibrant as those in the south, we should not overlook their functions and histories. Indeed, they also attained unique patterns of political and economic development throughout the long eighteenth century.
The Relevance of Monetary History and Numismatics for Social and Economic History: The Case of East Asia - Volume 61 Issue 2 - Jan Lucassen
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