What a piece of work is a man?
How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty
In form and motion how express and admirable
In action how like an Angel, in apprehension how like a
God
The Beauty of the World!
W. Shakespeare -- Hamlet
So how do we get from
the Archaic to the Modern? The patterns
of the Archaic World from our view seem to point out certain tendencies,
certain values, those five fundamental features we described in the
introduction that are different from other patterns -- the values we take for
granted today -- which began to develop around 1500. But what can get us there? What is so compelling as to bring a new set
of values to human populations? The
simple passage of time? Our
species has existed for a long time, so how and why did patterns happen to
begin to change within the last five hundred years. This question is relatively recent in
scholarship, as old assumptions (that people are just people wherever they are
and they basically want, and expect, the same things out of life) are examined
within the spectrum of new ideas. Our
assumption is that people are not just people, and though each culture has
peculiar habits, more significantly, they also share certain general features
that informs their consciousness. And it
is that change in consciousness that we describe generally as the facets of
different worlds, which would need to somehow change to get us from Archaic to
Modern patterns. But what could alter
human consciousness? And not just with
one person who can trip on some hallucinogen and claim to see into the spirit
world, but over whole populations?
Something profound has to happen, and we will look for the possibilities
of new experience and new frames of referencing which might fundamentally
change patterns of human abundance and human knowledge. And we believe the Bard was right, that for
the expression of human kind to become so noble in reason, form and faculty will need to go through a
profound change in order to alter the basic values of human communities.
Most
Historians do acknowledge that within the last five hundred years there have
been many profound changes which characterize the Modern Era. They perhaps don't try and find general
patterns of human consciousness the way we do, but to each his own --
interpretation that is. Usually, these
profound changes coincide with developments occurring in Europe, especially
when trying to define the course of Western Civilization. Most importantly, the Renaissance is used to
describe the beginnings and birth of the Modern ideal. And that may very well be true, for as we
will see the Renaissance is at the very least a beginning of a new valuation of
human life, and an era that sees the development of new identity systems which
revolve around individual being. Not
perhaps individuated, yet, but emphasizing new patterns all the same. And the Renaissance is big, it does change
things, it does lead to the possibilities of a changed human consciousness, but
in order to understand the possibilities of that change we need to understand
first how and why the Renaissance came into being. Most scholars seem to view the Renaissance as
a European event, and therefore look for causation within European development. This may be right, the Europeans may have
(magically) re-invented themselves, and we'll discuss that possibility, and the
traditional interpretations of other texts in the course of developing our
argument. But before we do that, we'll
take a little diversion to somewhere outside the European world. Our premise, for this chapter, is that change
occurred, and that for change to occur new forms and new expressions must be
relatable to both cause and effect in the progression of events. Therefore, it will be our contention that the
changes in the European world which spawned the Renaissance were stimulated by
external causes. Those causes we believe
began with the rise and development of Islam.
Argument
note: How and why, as you should assume,
must necessarily be based on logical assumptions. They have to make sense.
For the centuries that Europeans
lived in the filth and squalor of the Middle Ages, the Islam flourished. Islam encompassed the most advanced societies
in the western world in technology, in medicine, in learning -- in hygiene. More importantly over its long history, from
the time of the Prophet Mohammed in the 7th century to the 15th century, Islam
developed possibilities which might alter the basic structures of human
society, and possibly lead to alterations in human consciousness. Islam did not create the Modern World, nor
are modern values a function of Islamic cultures. In fact, most of Muslim populations today
live by Archaic values. But Islam did
form a foundation for a change in values, both for itself and for other
regions, which its growth, both cultural and economic, affected.
After
initial unity the world of Islam was dominated by regional empires which were
based primarily on ethnic relationships.
Gone were the days of the Prophet's ideal of cross-cultural unity, and
the people of Islam, like the people of Christendom fell back on what is most
comfortable to the human species, corollary of Rule #3, promote one communal
identity to the detriment of another.
Gooooooo humans.
Islam and the Beginning of the Modern
World
Islam,
both as a religion and as a cultural perspective, developed in the Near East in
the vacuum of power and cohesion in the Mediterranean world following the
collapse of the Roman Empire in the 400s.
While the Eastern (Byzantine) Empire remained until the 1400s and
attempted to carry on the legacy of Augustus, it was a pale imitation at its
best. The Eastern Empire rarely exerted
the sort of unifying dominion over the Mediterranean and Near Eastern World
which Rome did, and therefore, economically and politically opportunity existed
for some people or power to take advantage of the situation. Arabia formed the heart of a new empire which
would grow to encompass lands from Europe across North Africa and deep into
Asia. This new empire, based on Islam,
would also transform the world through the introduction of new technologies,
new ideas and new economic systems.
These systems ultimately laid the foundation for the type of wealth and
knowledge which would lead to a change in consciousness, but not in the world
of Islam itself, instead the beneficiaries would inhabit the lands of the old
empire, which was centered on Rome.
Argument
Note: Two things: first, we have our introductory paragraph,
which, as you can notice, accomplishes two things. We explain the variables we will explore, the
rise of Islam and its cultural and economic impact, and also that Islam will
eventually aid in the possibilities of the Modern World to come (that's our
thesis, anyway). The second feature of
the paragraph is thematic, a way of writing which brings a nice current to the
way the words are written. Rome is
mentioned in the first sentence, and then we moved away from it to describe our
purpose. Then we finish with the use of
Rome, not the historical empire, but with Rome as a representative concept, ebb
and flow, rolling with the tide.
The second thing we need to
mention, and you can keep this in mind when writing, we can't explain all there
is to know about Muslim society -- and we won't -- What we need to do is bring
forth information that will help us get to where we want to go, which is
understanding the formation of the Modern World. Historians very often frame information
through omitting stuff that does not fit with their overall argument. And that is o.k. Just make sure you do explain the relevance
of the material you do use.
The Arabian region, as well the
Levant and Syria, where Islam first flowered included both Christians, Jews,
and animists, what our culture sometimes calls Pagans in the centuries before
the Prophet Mohammed. Most of the land
in Arabia is inhospitable to the formation of agricultural societies; after
all, it's a desert. The desert climate
of Arabia directly contributed to how and why Islam developed. Prior to the coming of the Prophet Mohammed,
the tribes of the desert were nomadic. Few
population centers existed, and there were also few areas of fertile land,
after all, this was the desert. Therefore,
Arabs were historically non-agricultural, dependent on trade for their
resources and like most pre-modern peoples, fought amongst themselves. Keep in mind fighting is bad for
business. The Arabs were also
polytheistic animists who worshiped the spirits of the earth and found particular
importance in trees, caves and large stones.
Veneration for such forms makes perfect sense if you think about it in
an environment that is made up of a lot of sand. From a supernatural understanding typical of
the Archaic world an oasis, a spring, or a landmark of the world must be a holy
place -- hence the shrine of the Ka’bah in Mecca today, which houses a black
stone. Of course, where there are many
gods there is more chance for fighting.
Enter the Prophet. Mohammed ibn
Abdallah, the founder and prophet of Islam, lived from 570-632 and came from a
merchant family of Mecca during a time of intense trade competition between
towns and clans. The future prophet was initially
raised by his maternal grandfather who was part of the powerful Koresh clan,
though he was also raised by a paternal uncle, Abu Talib. The senior most uncle on his paternal side,
who by tradition might have taken over the raising of the orphaned Mohammed,
declined, but nonetheless, this Uncle al-Abbas will be the forbear of a future Muslim
dynasty known as the Abassids. Under Abu
Talib, Mohammed learned of trade and commerce, and also got his first taste of
competition as the Koresh went to war with a rival clan, the Hawazin, around
580 c.e. Warfare was an endemic part of
life in the peninsula where resources were scarce, and the experience of
warring clans, some of whom are aligned with outsiders, the Byzantines and the
Persian Sassanian Empire, most definitely colors Mohammed's early years.
Marrying
well was one avenue of success in the Archaic world. Mohammed married into a wealthy mercantile family
for whom he worked. Khadijah, the
prophet's first wife, was fifteen years his senior, though the strength of
their bond is often portrayed by the fact that Mohammed took no other wives
while she was alive. The couple had four
daughters which survived infancy, though neither of their two sons made it to
adulthood. The only daughter who has
children was Fatima, whose name will later be the inspiration for a ruling
dynasty in Egypt. Being able to trace
lineage, or at least ascribe heritage, to the family of the prophet will be a
recurring theme in the Islamic societies, as you might expect in the Archaic
World.
Mohammed
managed the commercial interests of his wife's fortune. Trade brought him into contact with
monotheistic Jews, and Trinitarian and monophysitic Christians, both of which
had traditions of book centered religion and an Abrahamic lineage. Arabic tradition does ascribe their origin to
the biblical figure of Abraham, though this tradition fell into disuse prior to
Mohammed, only to be resurrected by the prophet to form the basis of his new
religion.
Islam
was based on similar principles to that of both Judaism and Christianity. Most importantly, the Prophet spread his
divine words in the hope of unifying the people of Arabia. Unity is good for their primary mode of life
which is trade and the expansion of markets.
Mohammed began having revelations in 610 in which he received the words
of the Holy Koran from the angel Gabriel.
Even more so than Judaism, which developed a negative tribal code with
the 10 commandments (thou shallt not what thou shallt do), and Christianity,
whose original message was adopted for a subject people to foster group
cohesion (seek ye first the kingdom of God and its righteousness, love those
who hate you), Islam developed a positive, personal mode of faith that was not
tied to formal church organization or hierarchy, but involved individualized
discipline and ritual. Of course, much
of the ritual was done as a group, but let's see what sense we can make out of
the major tenets of the religion if we are interpreting with an eye to
possibilities.
Argument note:
Some scholars who seek a secular understanding of historical
developments rationalize the inspiration behind divine revelation in purely
human terms, especially when it is a religious system not predominant within
their society. While this is an accepted
scholarly practice it is perhaps better not to overtly doubt the possibilities
of the divine of other cultures, just as you might not want it done for your
own. We can assess the motivations,
causes and effects of figures like Jesus and Mohammed without denying their
connection with God, or with their interpretation of God. Though if we were in the Archaic world, such
intellectual tolerance would not be necessary.
The
Sophistication of Islamic Culture
Where Islam spread, so too did a
variety of ideas and products. In the
diffusion of technology the Muslims introduced to the West the compass from
India, and passed along their own innovation of the astrolabe, both of which
would become instrumental to the new world economy which revolved around
trans-Atlantic trade. Interestingly
enough the Chinese had a leg up technologically on the West, but their values
inhibited using it to extend their own knowledge and resource base outside a
limited sphere of influence. Ah, Archaic
values. Chinese Imperial policy was
highly xenophobic and commerce was seen as a despicable pursuit, and so few
Chinese spread westward.
One
such mariner was the eunuch admiral Zheng He, who in the first decades of the
fifteenth century was sent by his master, the emperor of China, on an
expedition that took him to the East Indies, India and into the Persian
Gulf. The Junks (Chinese ships), which
were five times as large as Columbus' Santa
Maria, were impressive enough, but that was all the mission was supposed to
accomplish -- impress the rest of the world.
Quite a communal attitude, one apparently not shared by the Arabs and
other Muslims who were growing rich in trade, picking up such bargains as
gunpowder and sugar from the Far East.
Besides
technology Islam also caused a diffusion of learning. To keep better books the Muslims spread their
numeral system. To be a good Muslim,
unlike animistic peoples, who depended on divining and mythology, and Christianity,
which depended upon group ritual, Muslims read the Koran which meant that
converts had to become literate in Arabic.
A boon for business, no doubt, as across the Trans-Saharan and
Trans-Asian networks some commonality could be found in Arabic script. Muslims, therefore, established schools and
universities which led to developments in science and a preservation of the
geometry and philosophy of Antiquity (Persia, Greece and Rome).
Like
Europe during the Renaissance, the world of Islam toyed with humanistic
notions, perilously challenging traditional conceptions of God, tradition, and
communal values. Avicenna (980-1037), a
Persian-Turkic scholar of Shiite leanings become noted for his work in medical
research and the compilations of medical terms and drawings, drawn from ancient
writers, such as Hippocrates and Galen.
Avicenna's most enduring work was The
Canon of Medicine. But Ibn Sina,
Avicenna's name in the Muslim World, was most influential, at least by how he
affected subsequent European philosophy, for incorporating the Platonic forms
into his vision of Islam. Similar to
Plato, Avicenna related the creative power of Allah to that of the "Prime
Mover" of Plato, a force which created but then left the rest up to that
creation in ways that would have made sense to the West African tradition of
Chuku. But this was very unsettling to
the mass of Muslims, and other philosophers, who believed that the will of
Allah defined and controlled all acts of life, and hence was not ready to
accept human inspiration as the defining factor for understanding the
geo-physical world.
Hold
on to your supernatural. It was apparent
to some Muslim philosophers that too much reliance on the Ancients brought
about a rationalism inconsistent with faith.
The most influential Muslim philosopher who stood opposed to the
rational insights of Avicenna was al-Ghazali who lived from 1059 to 1111. Abu Hamid Mohammed al Ghazali didn't like the
rationalist trend of those associated as faylasufs, and instead was drawn more
towards the emotional expression of another Islamic sect, Sufism, a form of
mysticism. Al-Ghazali in this sense was
an anti-Platonist and anti-Aristotelian because he believed that the will of
Allah governed all things, and not rationally based laws or definitions. Why does the sun set? Because of the will of Allah, not because of
the rotation of celestial spheres, gravity and stuff like that. Logic is only useful, reasoned individualized
interpretive thought is only useful, if it explains the omnipresent reality of
Allah. Al-Ghazali had a great impact on
reinforcing Sunni orthodoxy, and gave weight to Shariah (Muslim Law) as the
basis for civil law -- supernatural over secular.
The
flowering of philosophy in the late Abbasid period seen in the works of
Avicenna and Al-Ghazali was also found in the works of a Spanish born thinker
by the name of Ibn Rushd. Ibn Rushd (1126-1198)
made an even greater impact on Europe, where he was known as Averroes. Averroes most significant Christian disciple
was another philosopher with an A name, which makes it easy to remember, Thomas
Aquinas, the Catholic saint of knowledge.
The Andalusian Averroes reconciled Muslim beliefs with Greek thought,
particularly Aristotle, because he found a way to explain how the truth of
Allah could only be enhanced by seeking rational truth.
Truth
was truth, and if ultimate truth came from Allah, all pursuits of truth
confirmed the will of Allah. Aquinas was
able to read Latin translations of Averroes and the European worked under
similar constraints as his Islamic influence.
To deny the supernatural knowledge of a religious system, as Averroes
and Aquinas knew would lead to severe penalties; they had to satisfy the
powerful, Islamic Orthodoxy and the Roman Church, that their work fulfilled the
rule of the divine of the temporal.
Aquinas rationalized philosophy as a means to understanding
"secondary causes" which supported the "primary cause" of
God as understood by theologians.
Unfortunately, Averroes was to free thinking and was banished from the
seat of Moorish power in Cordoba in 1195.
Aquinas lived more happily ever after.
Philosophy
and the development of complex systems of logic and reasoning, both important
to understanding the Koran were coupled with advances in Mathematics. The Islamic World made strides in the
development of Algebra, Trigonometry, and Optics, the study of refraction,
transmission and speed of light, which in turn led to advances in physics and
astronomy. To make such computations the
numerical system of the Muslim world included zero and decimals. The work in algebra and trigonometry by poet
and mathematician Omar Kayyam (1038-1131) lade the foundation for astronomers
such as Nasir al-Din in the 13th century.
Nasir al-Din worked from models of the universe from ancient Greek
astronomers, like Ptolemy, and his calculations laid the foundation for
explaining the movement of celestial bodies in the solar system. Without such work Copernicus and Galileo
would not have been so star struck.
Being
a practical bunch, all this science also needed achievements applicable to the
market place. Muslim science led to
gains in chemistry, and figuring out how to make such useful items as sulfuric
acid, to break stuff down, and carbonate of soda, to help when the tummy has
broken down. The Muslims began and
spread the first real hospital system, by which they were the first to diagnose
stomach cancer, treat eye disorders, understand infectious disease, and promote
personal hygiene. While the Europeans
were bleeding people (to death), Muslims in Africa and Arabia were separating
diseased patients into separate wards, keeping a medicinal dispensary and
medical library at treatment centers, as well as using hospitals as training
centers where licensed physicians taught would-be doctors. Physicians, like Razi (865-930), discovered
the difference between small pox and measles which lead to different treatments
on a much more sophisticated scale than the merely keeping the “Aristotelian
Humors” in balance. During the
Renaissance the scientific investigations of the Islamic world provided
Europeans with a foundation for their own scientific investigations.
All
this science and mathematics did have applications in architecture and
engineering as well. Muslims, by the
nature of a religion with no formal priesthood or infrastructure similar to the
Catholic Church, banded together in cities, which dotted the Islamic map from
Asia to Spain. The center piece of most
cities was the mosque, and secondarily, palaces of the leadership. Their architecture featured vaults, pillars,
domes and asymmetrical symmetry.
Architecture was probably the greatest artistic expression of the Muslim
world, since it was blasphemy to paint a lot of iconic images, as was prevalent
in Christendom.
Argument Note:
There are a lot of interesting things about the historic world of Islam
that need to be included besides a direct connection to the Rise of the Modern
World. The cultural achievements of
Islam are important to know in their own right, but these attributes can also
round out an essay topic on the connection of Islam with the rest of the
West. Think as you read how you can find
a place to make this information relevant?
Part of the answer to that might be through comparing the cultural
features of the Islamic World with what you know has become incorporated (maybe
from Europe or Africa) in our society, and then maybe how that incorporation
may reflect modern values. By doing this
you create links between various topics and are able to show cause and
effect. You should get a sense of what
we mean from the following paragraphs and the commentary that goes with them.
The Empire
of Islam and the Foundation of the West
By 750 an Islamic empire stretched
from Persia to Spain and by the 800’s Arabs and other near eastern converts
were trading with West Central Africa for commodities like gold, iron, and palm
oil, and also with China for silk, spices, and new technology. The Arabs also figured out the process of
refining cane, and soon began growing sugar in Persia, the Levant and on
islands throughout the Mediterranean.
Everyone loves sugar and the Arabs found lucrative markets for the stuff
in Europe and North Africa. Of course,
sugar was just one of many commodities traded in the Muslim world and though it
was highly profitable was not the most commonly produced good.
Sugar,
in both literal and figurative terms, however, was explanatory of two major
phenomena that would eventually change the Muslim world. Since sugar needed to be grown and refined to
make the best profit margin, the Muslim world needed non-Muslim labor to work
the fields, and they got that labor in the overland trade on the Sahara. Into the Muslim world beginning in the ninth
and tenth century came millions of slaves from East and West Africa -- and many
through the imperial complexes of Ghana and Mali. Sugar, as a symbol for Asiatic trade and
intercourse, also helped to create markets in Europe (which helped vault
Italian trading cities like Venice and Genoa into prominence), and helped to
cause an interchange, which brought new groups into the Muslim Arab world. These groups, to which we now refer, did not
really come to make a buck, but rather came to conquer. Conquering hordes from Central Asia, and
minor bands of ill equipped soldiers from Europe from the 11th to the 14th
centuries forever altered patterns of cultural, economic and political
development in the Muslim World, and arguably inhibited the possibilities of
modern values being first established in the Middle East. Maybe even more interesting, without the
profound alteration of the Muslim world from the 12th century into the 15th,
Christopher Columbus would have never met Santa Maria.
Argument Note:
Here we have a dual thesis, and maybe even a duel thesis, two ideas, and
ideas that seem to be competing. But
what is important is that in both we have very specific statements of purpose
which lead us to arguable interpretive points.
In some ways we can break those sentences down to really understand just
what such a point could and maybe should look like from your professor's point
of view. Notice each has a defined, and
specific "Who, What, When and Where" in the statement, but let's
break one down more explicitly.
"Conquering hordes from Central Asia," this is a
"Who", for which we could have just said Natural nomadic peoples of
Mongol-Turkic ethnicity, but it certainly does not have as snappy a literary
feel as Conquering hordes.
"What" is kind of dually explained in the phrases conquering
horde and "altered patterns," and not only that it helps to describe
another essential element we need in our thesis patterns -- "How and why." We also need something relatable, arguable,
and interesting which explains the "Significance" of our
statement. We ought to have a reason why
we are bothering to write the essay, or taking up the reader's time with our
thoughts. The significance in the first
thesis is "inhibited the possibilities of modern values," and in the
second the same idea is expressed, through Chris Columbus as our figurative
device -- though we also mean it quite literally. We could further break down the ideas behind
these portions relating to significance, and explain them within the context of
our paper, and particularly in our conclusion, as to how our ideas of
"inhibited the possibilities of modern values" was a short term
reality, related to a specific series of events, and also related to long term
development. "All in a nice neat
package," said Homer Simpson. But we'll
let you draw your own conclusions for now
The expansion of the empire through
conquest and the solidification of trade routes with Africa and Asia created an
abundance of resources, which flowered in the 9th through the 12th century in
philosophy, mathematics, art, and the growth of abundant cities, but it also
alerted peoples on the fringes of empire to new possibilities. Nomadic peoples from central Asia, most
significantly at first, the Seljuk and Ottoman Turks, and later the Mongols,
swept in swords blazing into the Muslim controlled territories, establishing
empires of their own. At the same time,
pressure came from the West, as Europeans, who were making money with the
economic expansion of Islam affecting their own markets, sponsored a series of
Crusades to "take back the Holy Land," or for interpretive purposes,
to get a share of the loot. And as we
know with conquest, comes booty, and everybody likes booty.
The
Seljuk Turks began making a significant impact on the Muslim world in the 10th
century by carving out spheres of influence in Asia Minor, now known as
Turkey. Nomadic peoples, of the Natural
World no less, eventually converted to Sunni Islam, and took over the Abbasid
caliphate. In 1055 they seized Baghdad,
and even meted out a little punishment on the Byzantines who they defeated at
the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 to solidify their control of Asia Minor. Not only did this throw a wrench into the
Arab-Persian monopoly on power in the world of Islam, it also caused
Christendom to stretch its neck and cast its eye on Muslim held positions in
Europe and even in the Levant.
The
era of the Crusades is not merely an event revolving around armed men with
swords and crosses attempting to secure passage to the holy sites of
Christendom in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth. Actually, the armed conflicts from 1095 to
1270 entailed a much larger strategic agenda by Christendom on many fronts to
combat the growth of Islam and to take control the Mediterranean economy. The Seljuks for their part helped this along
by destabilizing the caliphate, and opening a window of opportunity of which
the Christians took full advantage.
Spanish
Christian armies began a series of campaigns that would last until 1492 to take
the Iberian Peninsula from the heirs of Tariq.
French Norman knights swept into the Mediterranean and seized the (sugar
growing) island of Sicily in the 11th century.
The first Norman King of Sicily was crowned in the early 1100s as Roger
I. Not a great name for a king, but he
certainly was smart enough to keep producing the agricultural commodities of
the island's Muslim heritage, like grapes, olives, citrus fruit, and sugar
cane. He had a little help from
investment capital provided by the mercantile interests of Venice and other Italian
cities, and his kingdom eventually began importing their own labor supply
through the Byzantine Empire (controlled in the 11th century by Crusaders and
the Venetian navy).
Venetian
ships also helped to move Crusader armies to the Levant, and into Byzantine
territory. The Levant was, of course,
the site of major Christian holy places, like the Church of the Sepulcher in
Jerusalem, and that must have been why they sailed? Yeah.
The Levantine ports were also major embarking stations for goods coming
out of the Muslim world, and a nice growing area for crops, like sugar. If Jerusalem had not been located there, the
Crusaders, and their Italian transports, would have moved it. The motives might have been purely religious
from the perspective of the Roman Pope, Urban II, who called for the initial
military expedition in 1095, but the Crusades degenerated into a frenzy of
wealth grabbing. In 1204 the Crusaders
bypassed the Levant altogether and sacked Constantinople, after which they kept
control of this most precious port for sixty odd years. Constantinople, and the Byzantine Empire,
never fully recovered, and remained an entrepot of Italian investment and trade
until its conquest at the hands of another Central Asian people in 1453.
The
Ottoman Turks, conquerors of Constantinople, followed their Seljuk cousins into
the Muslim world in the late middle ages, but did not make a splash of their
own until after the greatest land empire of all time chopped up the Islamic
empire at the hands of another Central Asian group, the Mongols. The Mongol chieftain, Temujin, who later took
the title Genghis Khan meaning Great Ruler, was able to unite the tribal units
of his people by 1206, and fashion them into a fearsome fighting force. In the early 13th century the armies of the
Great Khan controlled China, and tore into the Middle East. By the time of his death in 1227 Genghis
ruled an empire from China to Russia, and his successors added the heart of
Islam with the capture of Baghdad in 1258.
The
Golden Horde of the Mongol, as the mass of light cavalry was sometimes called,
seemed an invincible, and rapacious force.
And the Mongols were brutal on a scale that was vicious even by Archaic
standards. Try and fight them, and if
you are defeated they will slaughter your whole city. Give up and they'll just bleed you dry
through taxation; probably a better option.
The only thing that saved Europe from dread, devastation, and
destruction was because a successor to Genghis died and the Mongol army in
Hungary turned back so it could take part in choosing a new Great Khan. Japan was saved only by the intervention of a
divine wind. While most of Islam fell to
the Mongols, An Egyptian army was able to stem the tide at Ain Jalut in the
Levant near Nazareth. In one of
histories most significant battles, the Muslim armies fought off the invaders
keeping North Africa safe from Mongol conquest.
By
the fourteenth century, however, conquest had turned to regional competition as
the Mongol empire fragmented and regional Khans sought to assert their own
power. The Khan in China converted to
Buddhism and the Khans of central Asia and the Middle East converted to
Islam. Here Mongol power was superceded
by the rising power of the Ottomans who controlled the Near East by the dawn of
the 14th century. It would eventually be
opposed as the main power in the Islamic world by the revival of Persian power
under the Safavid Empire. In the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Ottoman Sunnis and the Shiite Safavids
would duel over control of Iraq, and for control of the cultural voice of
Islam. Of course by this time the Mongol
and Turkic invasions had ushered in militaristic governments, bordering on what
we might call totalitarian -- and with this the possibilities for individual
emancipation, despite a growing independent merchant class, was over. No Modernity for you.
Argument Note:
Sometimes you have to play to your crowd. Your professor appreciates a well turned
phrase -- though usually not a colloquialism.
Alliteration is a nice literary form to use every once in a while, which
was twice used in the subsequent paragraph.
Word patterns which start with the same sound or letter such as
"dread, devastation, and destruction" (not the greatest example of
alliteration), or "fashion them into a fearsome fighting force,"
(better) can be appealing to a reader, especially stuffed shirt
professors. As a side, it was during
this period that coffee from Africa began making its way into the Muslim
economy. In the fifteenth and sixteenth
century, particularly in Egypt, coffee shops became havens for talk of rights
and liberties in a way very much similar to that of coffee shops in the British
colonies of North America in the eighteenth century. The Ottomans put a stop to such coffee talks.
The Grounding of the Modern Economy: Africa and Europe
The Trans-Saharan Trade Network
expanded from the beginning of the 8th century under the control of the empire
of Ghana. The strategic location of the
West Central African empire near the great bend of the Niger River afforded the
Kings of Ghana great wealth. Wealth, and
its accumulation and production, is a highly significant thing -- it changes
everything, and it brought West Africa into contact with the commercial world
of Islam. The trade partnership of these
societies increased the wealth and power of both regions through the trade of
African metals (gold, silver and iron), minerals and spices, such as salt and
pepper, for Near Eastern and Indian tapestries and cloth, agricultural produce,
like palm oil, tubers, plantains, for finished products, and also a growing
trade in human slaves, mostly for domestic service at first, but later for
agricultural work in the Muslim world.
Goods going from West to East, Ghana to Morocco to Arabia, and East to
West from India to Arabia, Arabia to the Magreb all in a corridor of trade that
was more expansive than anything anyone had ever known.
Over
the next three centuries trade increased, wealth grew forming the basis of a
merchant class in the Muslim world, and ideas and learning of a variety of
pursuits were exchanged and expanded.
Arabic and other Muslim traders of the Near East established contacts
with the Far East, China and India initiating trade in spices (good as
preservatives and to add flavor to food), silks and useful items, most notably
gunpowder and the compass. Expanding
markets, expanding technology, expanding their understanding of the
geo-physical universe, but also expanding the horizons of human being.
The
Trans-Asian trade brought sugar, the single most significant commodity, into
the Islamic world. Over the 9th, 10th
and into the 11th sugar production and distribution grew through Muslim
merchants, and not just in the traditional lands of the Koran, but especially
in newly conquered, formerly Christian areas, such as Cyprus, coastal Spain,
and Sicily. Slavery was not a sin, but
controlling the labor of a fellow follower of the Prophet was. As a labor source the Muslims relied on their
trading partners in West Central Africa to supply them with non-Muslim
agricultural slaves. Apart from
squabbles between sects, spin-off emirates, business was good; in fact better
than good, it was the envy of the world.
What
brought Europe back into prominence from a long extended sleep after the fall
of Rome was economic expansion. This
expansion was in consequence with economic growth brought about by Islamic
trade, and by the introduction into European markets of products, which were
wealth creating luxury items, like sugar.
Part of this expansion was initiated in the form of religious
crusades. Out of these Crusades
Europeans, most notably the Italians merchants of Venice, Genoa and other trade
cities, were not only exposed increasing commerce, but also to the learning of
the East and Byzantium.
Trade
with Asia and the Middle East began in earnest during the Crusade Period
through Byzantium, and then just a hop, skip, and a jump to the lands of the
Great Khan and the riches of Xanadu. In
Xanadu did he decree a stately pleasure dome, to paraphrase Coleridge down to
his sunless sea, but it was not measureless caverns that merchant adventurers,
of which Marco Polo was but one, came to find.
No, this merchant of Venice more than likely established trade links by
which he could market the products of foreign lands back home in Italy. His was a story not really of adventure, or
exploration, but of merchant capitalism in its infancy. Overland trade with the certainly jump
started growth and development in the south of Europe, at the same time Europe
found it cost effective to push the Moors out of former Christian lands. It was not a coincidence that the
"Reconquista," as a general term for European forays into previously
Islamic dominated regions, and trade routes, came at the same time Europe
became connected to the realities of an expanding market economy from Asia to
Africa.
Investment
and increased development in Italy certainly enhanced economic growth in
Northern Europe, particularly in the cities of the Low Countries, like, Amsterdam,
Antwerp, and Brussels. The thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries would see market development in a host of northern
cities, such as those in the Germanys who formed a trade alliance known as the
Hanseatic League, which traded a lot of boring items such as wool, wheat, and
wood. Well, other items were included
metal manufactured items, textiles, and other food commodities, but the
question to ask is does it get us to the Modern World, could these commodities
have made the difference in changing the very consciousness of man? Let's see.
Most
European economic historians place heavy emphasis on the interplay between
Northern cities, such as those of the trade league named for the German city of
Hansa, but the pattern of economic growth found there did not extend a new
philosophy towards wealth creation, as distinct from wealth accumulation, upon
which basic value structures could be changed.
The modest accumulations of excess wealth made possible by the "Agricultural
Revolution" mentioned earlier did cause markets to expand, and between the
Hanseatics, the Low Countries, Northern France and even England, there was a
tidy economy in the North Sea. These
historians also connect the north with the south of Europe. The developing northern markets of the 13th
and 14th century may have been bigger than ever before, but they reinforced
conservative patterns compatible with Archaic values, or at least the same
patterns established by the Vikings in the 9th and 10th centuries. The goods speak louder than words, according
to Fernand Braudel, who lists the types of commodities traded in northern
fairs: mostly agricultural goods, mostly
low value and small profit, mostly subsistence oriented, with little wealth
creation. What was really stirring the
pot (and it was a copper kettle in which sugar could be refined, like those the
Venetians supplied to Sicily in the 13th century, according to Charles
Verlinden) was the development of commercial and financial systems in Italy
involving more speculative cash crops.
These crops didn't supply sustenance, they brought much more. Sugar, wine, olives, and goods from the East
didn't keep you alive, but they did make life worth living (if you could afford
these commodities and most could not).
Part
of our whole idea is to seek a chain of causation to what we know will fire the
Modern Economy, and help to bring meaning to the germination of new
values. That economy takes hold in the
Atlantic world, and revolves around non-European crops, sugar, coffee, tobacco,
and tea. The wealth created from these
crops changes the post 16th century world.
Sugar by itself was not the most abundant commodity in Europe, but it
led to an unprecedented expansion of wealth beginning with the Muslims and into
the Atlantic Economy. Those Italian
cities, chiefly the rivals Venice and Genoa, began trading in useless luxury
items, like sugar, but practicality does not necessarily rule the market place,
and those items, which would make the Atlantic economy rich, would also form
the basis for the Renaissance, the African Slave Trade and the United States of
America. Of course Italian commercial
capitalism was made possible through the labor of others. Like the Moors before them, European
operations in former Arabic sugar growing regions in Mediterranean, like
Sicily, Sardinia and other islands needed a supply of labor. To placate their demand they worked through
their own trade partners. Knowing
nothing of the sub-Saharan kingdoms which supplied the Muslim World, the first
European slave exports came from Russia through the doddering Byzantine
Empire. Then in the middle of the 15th
century, as wealth poured into Venice, Genoa, Florence, Pisa, Rome, the world
changed -- 1453.
Interaction
with the west continually weakened Byzantium, and the fourth crusade actually
brought an end to the empire for a while.
But it wasn't just the Europeans, sponsored by Venetians and Genoans who
were after the prime bit of real estate upon which Constantinople was built. The capital of the Byzantines held sway over
the waterway between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, and also between the
also by land between Europe and Asia Minor.
The Turks wanted this land too. Mehmed
II led a campaign of over 100,000 soldiers which was rebuffed for a time by the
9,000 troops under the final Byzantine emperor.
He died defending one of the gates into the city from the onslaught of
Ottoman warriors, but it wasn't infantry that did in Constantinople, it was
cannon. Cannon adopted from technologies
of the East, brought to bear military fashion on the thick walls of Rome's past
glory, which had protected Constantinople since the before the 8th
century. Now it was gone. Constantinople was renamed Istanbul, and the
Turks became giants in the affairs of the Mediterranean. Italian investment and production in the
Eastern Mediterranean was forced to find new lands, new labor sources, and new
paths to the East.
Traditionally,
the fall of Constantinople was seen by modern historians as a great boon to
Western Europe, because Greek scholars who carried on the Platonic and
Aristotelian traditions fled westward and revived old school Greek learning
among the monks of Italy and France. Of
course, many of the thinkers in Western Europe were already familiar with Plato
and Aristotle through the writings of Averroes, and other Spanish scholars,
like Maimonides, a Jewish philosopher who lived in Moorish Spain. Besides, living standards and accumulation of
wealth had grown in the Western Europe that by 1453 extensive resources were
already being devoted to science, art and philosophy. Byzantium's scholars fleeing west was hardly
what made 1453 the most important year of the last millennium. Instead it made possible the founding of
America. Yes, that America.
But before we make the
American connection we want to backtrack a bit to explain a little about the
Italians of the late Middle Ages and their connection to economic growth. Always looking for new markets, the conquests
of the Muslim empire brought them into contact with the peoples of Southern
Europe, especially Italian city-states of Venice, Genoa, Florence and
Pisa. Merchants in these towns bought
into the Trans-African/Asian trade and sold commodities throughout Europe. The sale of exotic luxury items helped
kick-start, and provide serious value, for peripheral trade networks to the
North and West, particularly in Belgium, but also in England, France and the
Germanic States.
Certainly the communal
mind of the Archaic Italian merchant was not to be out done by the
Infidel. The mercantile states of Italy
soon wanted a larger share of the market, and as they grew more powerful
economically they were able to enhance their military and naval capacity (even
if they had to pay mercenary forces to accomplish their objectives), enough so
that they moved into the sugar growing regions of the Eastern
Mediterranean. The Italians possessed
capital, but did not have a labor supply, and they were not in any sort of
economic, political or otherwise relationship with the Arabs labor source, West
Central Africa. Not to fear, the
Byzantines were able to supply the Italians with slaves from the Crimea. We already explained this part, but what was
really interesting is that all of this commercial activity was creating new
business forms; commercial capitalism was developing financial capitalism --
banking, insurance, stocks, bonds and exchanges, eventually anyway.
To make their economic
endeavors more efficient, and to increase profits, the Italians created a
sophisticated banking system to facilitate capital investment. One of the most
important, and most powerful, was the Medici family of Florence who helped
propel Italian hegemony over the Eastern Mediterranean and over the sugar
market. The brains behind the operation
in the middle of the 15th century was a financial genius by the name of
Bartholomeu Marchione. Marchione was not
the only financial officer involved in the expanding trade centers of
Italy. Hundreds of other men managed the
financial matters of several Venetian, or Genoan, or Pisan family
concerns. Marchione's task was to make
sure that investment and dividends kept flowing, just like the flow of slaves
from Byzantium, and growing trickle of sugar to the markets of Europe. He also scouted for new areas to set up
operations, sending Italian seafarers throughout the Mediterranean to set up
shop. This is capitalism in its infancy,
and at its finest: research and
development, investment strategies, market development, labor procuration,
profit management (creative bookkeeping), and reinvestment (hide the
profit). It was all going so nicely.
Then came 1453. No more Byzantium, no more labor supply and
no more holdings in the Eastern Mediterranean.
But the beauty of capitalism is that it does not have to be limited by a
particular physical boundary. Marchione
knew he could set up anywhere but in 1453, the Turks had limited his interests
to the West. In fact the Venetians
wouldn't totally secure the Mediterranean from the Turks until the Battle of
Lepanto in 1571 -- if then. But Italian
investors, most notably Marchione were aware of possibilities, and he found his
answer because of what the Portuguese had been up to for the previous 50 years.
After unifying their
Kingdom and defeating the Moors by the 1300s, Portugal was looking seaward to
get some of those exotic items, and build wealth through trade for itself (well
at least for the monarchy). The efforts
were spawned through the stunted ambition the youngest son of King John I (r. 1385-1433). If you are the youngest of four heirs to the
throne, you better find something to do.
Henry the Navigator (1394-1460), as this son is known to history,
devoted his life to navigation and geography, and built a school and
observatory to train sailing men. The
efforts of Henry culminated in the development of the caravel, an ocean going
vessel with a wide hull more suitable for open ocean sailing than the sleek
galleys of the Arabs and Italians.
Muslim centers of learning, since conquered in Spain and Portugal, also
provided a rich supply of charts and maps from antiquity. Henry undoubtedly knew what the Ancient
Greeks and Egyptians knew ... the earth was round. Unfortunately, sailors under Henry were based
their assumptions of earth's continents on the Hellenistic model of the astronomer
Ptolemy, who did not include the Americas in his cartographic predictions.
Henry was kind enough
to list out for posterity his reasons for setting men adrift on the deep blue
sea, as recorded during the reign of his brother Eduardo: zeal for the service of God and the King,
establish trade with populations of Christians in Africa (if findable), oppose
the Moors, look for Christian allies, make converts, the “Inclination of the
Heavenly Wheels,” which Henry believed to be the most important of all, though
exactly what he meant is lost. If we
examine these reasons we can get a sense of some of Henry's Archaic values, and
the motivation of the Portuguese in general.
The first of Henry's
reasons seems to be derived from the proper etiquette, but it is not without
some significant meaning. The very
communal essence of his society is explained here, as his will is subordinate
to the representatives of his community, his identity is derived through both
temporal and supernatural powers, and his definition of self is ultimately
fulfilled by someone else. The
subsequent reasons reinforce these parameters.
Henry is not in business for himself -- in fact, he does not exist in his
reasons. Perhaps the most interesting
distinction Henry makes is the importance of religion as the defining quality
of friend or foe, and not something like race or ethnicity. The African kingdoms know to the Portuguese
may have included Mali, but it is more likely that Henry refers to Ethiopian
Christian kingdoms who did carry on (limited) correspondence with European
monarchies. The Ethiopians were having
trouble with invading Muslims as well.
And as to the inclination of Heavenly Wheels? Well, your guess is as good as any, though
given what we assume of the Archaic world, this could be a statement regarding
fate.
And so Henry's sailors
began the most popular dance of the 15th century, Portugal’s "Caravel
Crawl." Of course it wasn't a dance, like
dancing in a club, more so circular jaunts out into the unknown and then back again. Each time the loop would expand until the
ship sailed into something. These forays
into the Atlantic paid dividends as the Portuguese were able to find
uninhabited and inhabited semi tropical islands, great for growing, olives,
grapes, other fine Mediterranean products, and oh yeah, sugar. In 1419 the caravels found Madeira, in 1431
the Azores with the Canaries coming shortly thereafter. By 1455 Henry’s sailors had navigated well
down the coast of Africa to Cape Verde and the islands adjacent, and in 1460
they reached the Bight of Benin. Both in
Benin and Cape Verde the Portuguese established trade contacts with local
Kings, just as they attempted to do each place they stopped along the way. The Kings liked European glass, cloth, and
goods, and the Portuguese were thrilled with the Africans gold and silver, palm
oil and spices. There is evidence that
the first slave trading took place around 1434 with North African Moroccans,
since at this time evidence first appears of African slaves, mostly as household
servants, arriving in Portugal. Most of
the principalities the Portuguese encountered were only secondary or tertiary
contributors to the Trans-Saharan markets, though as trade increased over the
centuries, commerce was siphoned off the Sahara in favor of the costs.
But here is where our
story gets interesting. You can almost
picture Marchione and others like in him no less, sitting in a dark candle lit
villa in Florence pouring over business reports and other news. He hears of the fall of Constantinople and
without a panic he began negotiating leases with the Portuguese King to put his
new found lands to good (tasting) use.
The system of Italian sugar production would soon turn Portugal’s new
island empire into paradise ... or rather sugar plantations. He sent several of his lieutenants to scout
the area, set up the necessary cultivating and refining equipment, and gain
access to a labor supply while he set up the financing in his new digs in
Portugal. Several Italian investors
began taking up residence in Portuguese cities, and they weren't there to learn
the language. Portugal was the center of
operations from which sailors from Italy and Portugal maintained markets, and
secured labor contracts with African princes.
One such seafaring corporate drone was a Genoan sailor by the name of
Cristoforo Colombo. And that should send
bells off in your memory, and if it doesn't, then here goes. Ding Dong.
The Eastern
Mediterranean may have been lost to the Infidel, but trade soon stabilized in the
West and Portugal, and Italian investors, as well as African Kings were getting
rich, not only off of the profit of sugar, but also on the backs of their
African workers. By 1486 what was left
of the Benin Empire began trading with Portugal, and it seems that there is
evidence of limited attempts by Spain as early as 1470 to secure African trade
partners and sources of slaves. The
center of the slave trade was at the Portuguese Castle at Elmina off the Gold
Coast, and in Benin at the Castle of San Jorge where Africans brought captures
to be sold to the Portuguese. By the
1500s, since demand kept rising, the means by which slaves were procured became
increasingly lawless. But don’t forget,
this was not the only slave trade going on, and it was still pretty minor at
that. Slaves still crossed the Sahara
and went as far away as India: note in 1486 East African slaves in the kingdom
of Gaur in India revolted and placed their own leader on the throne. This
kingdom did not last long; however, as a new Muslim Empire called the Moguls
rose in the early 1500s and unified India.
And as for Spain, they were still dealing with the Muslim Kingdom of
Grenada in the 1470s and 1480s to have much investment capital for sugar,
slaves, and trade.
Most research by modern
historians on the economic development between Africa and Portugal revolves
around the labor supply because of its connections to the later Trans-Atlantic
slave trade. But these economic
patterns, which eventually expanded
across the Atlantic in the 16th century, brought unprecedented wealth to the
crowns of Portugal and Spain, and by extension a growing merchant middle-class
in the port cities of Europe. And Portugal and their eventual partner/competitors, Spain (the
kingdoms were merged in favor of Spain for much of the 16th century), kept looking for new markets, as well
as routes to old markets, which would by pass the Middle East. An end run around the Ottomans was
good for business in many ways. But these were hardly voyages of discovery
in the sense of fulfilling some sort of scientific, or otherwise benign,
curiosity. That's every bit as whack as the idea that
these Europeans had evil murderous objectives -- from our point of view almost
everything done in the Archaic World is murderous and evil. Mostly, these journeys were forays into a capitalist future.
Bartholomeu Dias sailed to the Cape of
Good Hope in 1487 and Vasco de Gama in
1497 completed the task of reaching
the Indian Ocean, and the lands of rugs, silk and spices. Of course the Muslim overlords of the East
weren’t too happy, and sought to
keep out the Infidel. A beautiful thing about the Archaic
mentality -- everyone's godless (and to be smited) to everyone else. War
erupted between the Europeans,
and the Ottoman and Mogul Empires in 1509-1515 in the Indian Ocean. The European commander, Alfonso De
Albuquerque, seized important coastal towns, Goa and Calicut, and established a
permanent fortress at Macao, and the Euros won.
By 1492, the Spanish states of Castille and
Aragon united by their leaders,
Ferdinand and Isabella, drove
the remaining Muslim rulers out of the Iberian Peninsula and added Granada to
their Kingdom. Ferdinand and Isabella
wanted to increase Spain’s role in the economic expansion, which the Portuguese dominated. He had been studying some of Henry’s Ptolemaic
maps and was sure he could open a better route to trade with China and India
across the Atlantic rather than round the Horn, of Africa that is. And new routes also bring the potential for
new land on which to raise ... sugar, or other high priced cash crops.
John II of Portugal turned a
down a proposal by Cristoforo Colombo to sail west to get to the East. The ambitious Colombo had been turned
down by Spain in the late 1480s, but after Grenada fell, a new opportunity for
investment had arrived. The pitch was
made, and the Spanish invested what they could, which was a limited amount
seeing how they had just finished a war against their mortal (or immortal)
religious enemy, the Moors. No, it
wasn't a side deal between Columbus, as we know the Genoan Cristoforo, and the
Spanish Queen. No, instead this was a
clear policy choice, prompted by ambition.
And so Colombo (Colon in Spanish, Columbus in Latin) set sail with the
Santa Maria, the Santa Clara, and the Santa name lost to history.
In the fifty years after Columbus made that first voyage, the Spanish set up shop
in the Caribbean replicating old Italian economic practices of sugar
plantations. The Spanish initially tried
to enslave the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean islands, but the population
did not survive the process. Without
hesitation, without moral reservation, laborers
were shipped from Africa. The Portuguese realized the potential of the New World, and established large plantations in Brazil. To promote a friendlier business climate Pope
Alexander VI divided the world between
the two kingdoms by the Treaty
of Tordesillas ... And America was born.
More
important than the birth of America, if anything can compare to that, are the
consequences of this economic development.
Of course, the most direct consequence is the expansion of these
economic processes in the Atlantic World, the development of the Trans-Atlantic
slave trade, depopulation, colonization, Revolution! But more significant than that, at least for
the purposes of understanding from where the Modern World came, this economic
expansion provided the wealth behind two very important things: the development of (an increasingly
autonomous) merchant class, and huge investment in Europe's infrastructure,
including investment in art and science .... You guessed it, all this sugar
stuff brought about the Renaissance, and that wasn't just a re-birth of
antiquities, it was the birth of the Modern.
Argument Note:
You should take some time to peruse other texts and scholarly works on
the causes and origins of the Renaissance.
Incorporate these into your thinking as to how and why events occurred,
and also you can reflect on how values might change based upon those
interpretations. You will likely notice
that from other perspectives the Renaissance magically appeared in Italy in the
14th or 15th century, and led to marvelous costly works of art (they don't
really say magic, but they may as well).
Here's the problem: just like with politicians, most historians
don't show how they are going to pay for what they promise (this is partially
because historians of economics, slavery and the Renaissance seldom work
together). The Renaissance took a lot of
wealth, and not the kind that could be scraped together through indigenous
economic practices, and established products developed in the previous 1,000
years. Art, science, architecture --
they take money, and lots of it. That
money was built on changing market practices (capital investment and mass
production leading to mass consumption and capital investment) based on
products that produce wealth, create demand and change mentalities. Money from commercial capital adventures,
like those made in sugar, not only paid for the Renaissance, but wealth and
prosperity (because people like the esteem, and comfort of it) paved the way
for people to redefine how they would view themselves, and, eventually, how
they would view others.
List
of Sources
David Brion Davis, “Looking at Slavery from a
Broader Perspective,” AHR 106 (February 2001)
David Brion Davis, Slavery and Human Progress (New York 1984).
M.A.
Cook, edit. Studies in the Economic
History of the Middle East: From the Rise of Islam to today (London 1970)
Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The
Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624-1713 (Published
for the Omohundro Institute of Early American Hist, 1972)
David
Eltis "Europeans and the Rise and Fall of African Slavery in the Americas:
An Interpretation," AHR 98 (December 1993)
R. Stephen Humphreys, Between
Memory and Desire: The Middle East in a Troubled Age (Berkeley, 1999)
Joseph C. Miller's presidential address,
"History and Africa/Africa and History," AHR 104 (February
1999)
Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American
Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (New York, 1975).
William D. Phillips, Jr., Slavery from Roman
Times to the Early Transatlantic Trade (Minneapolis, 1985)
Maya Schatzmiller, Labor in the
Medieval Islamic World (London, 1994)
Ivan Van Sertima, They Came Before Columbus (New York, 1976)
Alden T. Vaughan and Virginia Mason Vaughan,
"Before Othello: Representations of Sub-Saharan Africans," William
and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 54 (January 1997)
Charles Verlinden, L'esclavage dans l'Europe
médiévale, Vol. 1: Péninsule Ibérique, France (Bruges, 1955); Vol.
2: Italie, Colonies italiennes du Levant, Levant latin, Empire bysantin
(Gent, 1977); The Beginnings of Modern Colonization: Eleven Essays with an
Introduction, Yvonne Freccero, trans. (Ithaca, N.Y., 1970).
