00:07Welcome!
00:08Why were the Eastern Asian groups, such as China, ignored by Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance?
00:14Let's find out.
00:18This question requires some nuance.
00:21It's more accurate to say that direct contact and knowledge were extremely limited and filtered,
00:26but not due to a lack of interest.
00:27Powerful geographic, political, and technological barriers made sustained interaction nearly impossible.
00:34Here's a breakdown of why direct engagement was so rare.
00:38Physical Distance
00:39The sheer physical distance between Western Europe and China was immense,
00:43filled with some of the world's most formidable natural barriers,
00:46such as the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayan Mountains,
00:49the deserts of Central Asia, such as the Gobi, also known as the Taklamakan,
00:53and the vast steppes of Central Asia.
00:55These were not just empty spaces.
00:58They were controlled by often hostile intermediary empires and nomadic confederations,
01:03making the overland Silk Road perilous, slow, and expensive.
01:08As trade developed, which it always does, the primary method of moving goods between China
01:13and Western Europe was traveling overland on the Silk Road.
01:16There were many branches of this road, but any of them were a notoriously slow, expensive,
01:21and dangerous route, primarily because the regions they passed through were not uninhabited,
01:25but rather controlled by hostile intermediary empires and formidable nomadic groups,
01:30including the Mongols, the Turks, and various Muslim Khanates.
01:34The trade of Chinese goods to Europe, such as silk, porcelain, and later spices,
01:39was an indirect and complex process.
01:42A long chain of intermediaries controlled the exchange.
01:46The goods moved from Chinese merchants through Central Asian and Persian traders,
01:50then Arab traders, and finally to Venetian or Genoese merchants in the Mediterranean,
01:55was lengthy and complex.
01:57This process meant that each middleman drove up the price and filtered information.
02:02As a result, by the time silk reached Europe,
02:05its true origin was mysterious as well as very expensive.
02:09Europeans held only vague, often mythical ideas about Cathay or Ceres, the land of silk.
02:15There was much political instability along the route.
02:19For much of the early and high Middle Ages,
02:22there was no single political entity ensuring safe passage.
02:25The fall of the Roman and Han Chinese dynasties disrupted earlier tenuous connections.
02:30Also, the rise of Islam in the 7th century created a civilizational and religious barrier.
02:36While Muslim caliphates were efficient traders,
02:39they became a political and religious rival to Christian Europe,
02:42further complicating direct travel.
02:44It wasn't until the Mongol Empire, 13th to 14th centuries,
02:48unified much of Eurasia under the Pax Mongolica,
02:51that safe travel from Europe to China became feasible.
02:55For much of the Middle Ages, Europe was preoccupied with internal challenges,
02:59including recovering from the Roman Empire's collapse,
03:02defending against Viking and Magyar invasions,
03:05and managing frequent local warfare.
03:07Also, Europe was significantly less advanced than China.
03:11China held a massive advantage in wealth and key technologies.
03:15For example, paper, printing, gunpowder, and navigation.
03:19Consequently, Europe had little that China desired,
03:22resulting in a severe trade imbalance that was largely funded by European gold and silver.
03:28European military and political energy was concentrated on crusading efforts in the Near East,
03:34not on expansion or trade in the distant Far East.
03:37The Mongol era complicated the development of travel.
03:41The Mongols were a nomadic people from the steppes of Central and East Asia,
03:45known for creating the Mongol Empire,
03:47which became the largest contiguous land empire in history.
03:50The period of the Pax Mongolica is the key exception that highlights the normal barriers.
03:56When the Mongols unified the Silk Road,
03:58which created a brief window where safe travel from Europe to China finally became feasible,
04:03allowing figures like Marco Polo to reach the court of the Mongol ruler of China, Kublai Khan.
04:08When direct contact finally occurred, European missionaries,
04:13such as the Jesuit priest Francis Xavier,
04:15and merchants traveled all the way to the Yuan Dynasty court in China,
04:19where Kublai Khan was the Mongol ruler.
04:22The connection between the two cultures, European and East Asian,
04:26caused knowledge to increase.
04:28Accounts like Marco Polo's travels gave Europeans their first detail
04:32if sometimes exaggerated,
04:34look at the advanced civilization of Cathay.
04:37This window slammed shut when in the 14th century,
04:40the Mongol Empire fractured,
04:41the Black Death disrupted trade,
04:43and the Ming Dynasty overthrew the Yuan Dynasty in 1368
04:47and turned inward, adopting an isolationist foreign policy.
04:50At the same time, the Ottoman Turks arose,
04:54cutting off the overland routes again.
04:56So, to answer the question in the title of this video,
04:59ignored is the wrong word.
05:01The Chinese were not so much ignored as they were inaccessible and obscured.
05:06Europeans craved Chinese goods, for example, silk and porcelain,
05:10but could only get them through long, expensive, indirect routes.
05:13They lacked the geographic knowledge,
05:16naval technology, and political access to establish direct contact.
05:20China, for its part, saw itself as the Middle Kingdom,
05:23largely self-sufficient in viewing distant Europe
05:25as a backward periphery of little interest.
05:29This state of unknowing and indirect trade
05:31is precisely what drove the European Age of Exploration in the 15th century.
05:37Europeans, spurred by Marco Polo's tales
05:39and desperate to bypass the Muslim and Venetian middlemen,
05:42sought a direct sea route to the sources of wealth in the Indies,
05:45a quest that led to the voyages of Vasco da Gama,
05:48Columbus, and ultimately,
05:49the direct European-Chinese contact of the 16th century.
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