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Why leave Europe?

Europe and others...

What was the situation in Europe in the 1000 years before its expansion?
• Europe was internally diverse
• It was disorganized and economically weak
• It was flanked by other more powerful groups

Objectives:

What historical forces produced Europe's explosive expansion in the 15th century?
• Europe and other powers: 400-1400 A.D.
• Forces of change in Europe after 1000 A.D.
• "Triggers" for European exploration
• How Europeans' interactions with others conditioned their interactions with New World People

Europe in 814 A.D.

The Byzantine (yellow) and Islamic Empires (orange) controlled most of the Mediterranean world

Byzantine Influence

Enormous impact on 15th C. and modern Europe
• Ideology of Europe
• preserved classical texts
• basis for Eastern European and Russian ideology -- Eastern Orthodox Church
• Buffered Western Europe from the Islamic Expansion
• Byzantine mercantile machine supplied Europe with goods and generated demand
• Called for the Crusades and thus pulled Western Europe into the battle and forced it to compete in the larger world system

The Islamic World

Europe's "significant other" since the 7th Century A.D.
• Expansion centered on a regional trading center of people with relatively non-complex societies
• Mobilized by an ideology that promoted expansion, Islamic influence spread widely
• Honored scholarship and rapidly became one of the most intellectual sophisticated societies (math, sciences, medicine, arts).

Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula

Spanish people had a centuries-long tradition of battling non-Christians

Alhambra Palace, Grenada, Spain

Moorish Palace and citadel, built beginning in 1248, conquered by Castille and Aragon in 1492

Alhambra Interior

Six centuries of Islamic control had profound impacts on Iberian society
• Iberian people share part of the long tradition of the Moors
• The "reconquest" -- which became centuries of warfare -- strongly influenced the eventual conquerors' culture

Before 1000 A.D.

Europe was the least powerful of the three main players (Islamic World and Byzantine Empire)

The situation in Europe, 500-1000 A.D.

Compared to Byzantium and the Islamic Empire, Europe was the least prepossessing
• Simple agricultural economy
• Land was the primary means of production
• the Villa System", from the Roman model, was still the primary way of organizing land, people, and production

Four important institutions...

What was it about Europe that allowed what was once a relative backwater to attain such global prominence in the 15th Century and after?
• Feudal/Manorial system
• Roman Catholic Church
• The Papacy
• The Monastic Orders

European Institutions

Feudal Manor -- St. Gall Monastery, Switz.

Trends in Europe...

Developments after 1000 A.D. created an increasingly outward-focussed world view
• Increasing population
• Growing political integration
• Growth of the "elite"-- ecclesiastical, military, political
• Expansion beyond the fringes of Europe
• Growing sphere of trade...

European Urbanism

By 1300 A.D., cities had replaced manorial estates as a dominant feature of the landscape
• Milan -- 200,000 people
• Venice, Genoa, Florence over 100K
• Paris over 80,000
• London over 50,000

Growth of Trade

Increasing ranks of the nobility (church, military, and state), and a growing wealth helped generate a demand for luxury goods
• Exotic goods from the Far East
• silk, spices, tea
• Goods from the Near East

Hints of the wider world...

The Crusades, and political events in the Near East made it possible for merchants to go to the east directly...

Marco Polo

• Known for his account of his travels, recorded while in prison in Genoa
• Marco Polo's Route
• With many other Europeans, M.P. travelled to the court of Kublai Khan, and returned to Venice in 1295 (b. 1254- d.1324)

Marco Polo and the Gran Khan

Other (less reliable) accounts

Great interest in the Far East created a market for more exotic tales-- Sir John Mandeville's travels

General causes of expansion...

• Economic impetus to trade, desire for luxury goods
• Desire for land fed by growing populations
• Religious motives: desire to gain converts.

Immediate causes of expansion...

Fall of Constantinople
• Captured by Ottoman Turks in 1453, effectively ending Italian merchants' special trading relationship to the east
• Closing of eastern trade routes
• Europe had had growing demands for goods for centuries, but the supply building

European Merchants' response...

• Diversify
• Families tried other avenues for trade
• North Atlantic
• African Coast
• Eventually... western route across the Atlantic

Ottoman Empire

~1500 A.D.

The Impetus for Exploration

Looks at what prompted Europeans to look to the West

Why Europe headed West

• Trade routes to the east closing
• Islamic control of Constantinople / Istambul
• Rising class of traders
• Increasing population
• Increasing competition between Nobles

European Expansion

Columbus's Journal

Entry for October 11, 1492, from the transcription made by Bartolomé de Las Casas

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comments to Wilson
Created 8/21/98, modified by SMW 8/21/98
©SMW