Medieval trade networks
imgur.com
imgur.com
This was not just in the middle ages, but reaching as far back as the Roman Empire.
There were a handful of individuals who made similar trips though - aside from the famous ones like Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta, there's also a few envoys sent on behalf of the Franco-Mongol alliance.[2]
Or the Spaniards who went to the court of Timur: “Timour Beg turned to the knights who had seated around him… and said, ‘Behold! here are the ambassadors sent by my son the king of Spain, who is the greatest king of the Franks, and lives at the end of the world.’” [3]
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/28/495821834...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Mongol_alliance
[3] https://resobscura.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-spaniard-in-samark...
> Clavijo recorded his entrance to the capital in great detail, noting the stores of “silks, satins, musk, rubies, diamonds, pearls, and rhubarb” carried from China
Today, to me, rhubarb seems so mundane, and so British. And yet just a few hundred years ago, it was an exotic wonder from the east. Rather than from Yorkshire:
Wikipedia says it was known simply as "pie plant" in the US in the 19th century.
Although strawberry-rhubarb pie is a common combination, I recall pies of my childhood being rhubarb alone.
There might have been a flow of goods, but it's doubtful there was free of movement of people, both as a practical matter of surviving a long journey, and having to explain oneself to authorities. The few documented adventurers and ambassadors travelled with an entourage, and news of their arrival often preceded them -- which was often necessary to avoid hostilities.
There was a robust black market of tributaries coming in but not quite making it all the way to the palace.
The question is Middle man.
And in this disintermediation getting rid of middle man has means. But if the middle man is really in the middle, not sure you want to do it too openly. They would be in the way.
But if the middle man visits both sides ... Mongolian whilst you do not think they are tradesman (army is a kind of export actually but). They do not go to both sides. In fact it seems the famous one go to the other side is actually via Mongolian empire.
Examples include Venetian and Florentine trading posts in Beijing/Dadu and other cities in the Mongol Empire, Caucasians living in Xinjiang, and so on.
The issue has more to do with the lack of written records than anything else. Given how little we know about contemporary kingdoms and empires in other parts of the world, I wouldn't be surprised if there were significantly more Europeans in China and SE Asia, and at least a handful of East Asians in Europe and the Near East, during that time.
Exactly. Until 300 years ago, unless you were a nobleman or a religious scholar, you likely didn't know how to write (bar a few numbers you might have required for trading activities). Long trips were tiring and extremely dangerous; travellers were, more often than not, hard men doing a hard job, mercenaries, fugitives, "rolling stones", and so on. These people didn't care for poetry, so to speak. Even Marco Polo didn't actually write anything -- he dictated to a fellow inmate who (somewhat miraculously) happened to be a professional writer, when they really had nothing else to do while imprisoned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Roman_relations
And I'm sure we'll only ever know at best maybe a tenth of what happened. (Wild guess.)
Update: there is a list if sources on the picture itself, I tried to look for it in the text at first. However, it doesn't save the work from being evidently incorrect.
Sources are cited. Maybe we all should question your ability to read ;)
The reason for why Arkhangelsk is there has been explained by earlier replies.
Names are misspelled. Sometimes it was my fingers that moved too fast, and sometimes i've experienced sources spelling names differently.
If i have omitted significant trade routes i would be happy to receive some notice.
This is a continuous passion project of mine, and i'm happy to improve it. I have already gotten a lot of good feedback, all from cities being placed in the wrong order to misspellings.
The purpose of the map is to make it interesting and engaging for people to look at. It's also meant as a road map to navigate the trade/communication networks of the old world that you otherwise could only get from overly general maps. It's a mammoth task, and i appreciate all help i can get.
And thank you for your calm response!
Instead of putting the settlements in quotes i should rather find another way of describing their lack of known name. There were trade links and settlements that were involved in international trade but that remains unnamed, simply referring to areas or islands. I wanted to depict these links as well.
The objective with the map is to not start from a smaller part of the world, but to remedy the fact that the maps out there are either local and detailed, or global and general. I want to strike a balance between the two, and the only way i can do that is to publish and republish my map for constant reviews, which is why i appreciate your effort of correcting the map.
This is a side passion project of mine that has been revised constantly during 2 years, there are other versions of this map out there significantly less accurate. And i plan to keep updating this project, because i think its usefulness definitely outweighs the drawbacks of small errors. Spelling errors are however a big drawback, and as you say, will make the map look less reliable.
You said earlier that i missed some major trade routes, do you have any of these in mind that i can work with?
I don't know the guy who put this map up here for crowdfunding. I was just told by someone that it was up here. I just like to track down wherever this map goes to see who comments on it in order for me to improve it. I give this map out for free to anyone who asks and have no commercial interest.
Thank you again for your response.
First of all, this is great work, and fascinating!
Suggestion: for the "named roads", I think it'd be a good addition to actually add the names of the roads.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/8kf22u/new_version...
It's probably one of the few places on the net that exists almost purely for curiosity and isn't full of inane arguments. Well worth checking out. You can spend hours on it. Hopefully exposure to stuff like this helps people realize how interconnected we all are and have been.
It's like (today or 18th century, does not matter) some African dude showing up in the middle of a busy European city center yelling "I discovered Europe!"
I fear I've mangled the analogy, in the original it also was pretty clear what was meant, of course the explorer discovered it from a European perspective. The original storyline included the self-important and presumptuous attitude of the Europeans that made it seem like there was nothing there of any consequence or sophistication.
Another story was about the African drums [0], ow they actually work, that saying "drums talking" was not a figure of speech, but that that actually was exactly what they were doing! The drumming follows some aspects of how you would actually speak the words (the languages are tonal), "The pitch of the drum is varied to mimic the tone patterns of speech". Since lots of information is lost most words are ambiguous, they compensate by embedding every word in a context, saying (drumming) longer phrases instead of one word for disambiguation. And they could just talk over long distances relaying information faster than anything the Europeans had at the time (like semaphores).
Imagine you self-fund your own voyage to Mars. You descend into a cave and find a city full of humanoid Martians. Do you think it would be inappropriate for you to exclaim, "I discovered Submartia!"?
Go medieval enough, and South Africa is about as remote as Mars.
Hint: Don't stop after the second sentence.
I know I know, reading is hard in the Twitter age. Sorry for writing more than two sentences.
The comment you are angry at is directly related to yours and provides a valid counter example.
You've come across a great way to start a conversation with 'dang though. The mods here really don't like comments like this, trust me. I've been on your side often enough. I would tone it down.
And of course, the same is true for South America - which was obviously disconnected from other continents, but still hardly a desert.
There are "lost" tribes that still don't trade much; it doesn't seem impossible, especially if in times of famine/drought there were violent clashes over basic resources.
And the value of trade matters, too. It's not just sub-Saharan Africa that seemed like a backwater. Most of Europe was a backwater, too, outside of Italy and Constantinople (which is only half-European, really). Trade routes were weak there because they just didn't have much to offer in exchange for the valuable silks, porcelain, spices, and other luxury goods of the East. The Vikings were the only big traders of Europe, and their primary product was slaves, captured from impoverished backwaters like Great Britain and Germany.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/eftu4fak6efngfr/AAAWuj-oJ5AmOn_O7...
Perhaps was it what pushed them into their huge head start into the age of sail ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Staple
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_the_Staple
Calais isn't even featured in the map.
You can still find "wool churches" from this period, although assigning a single date to a church that was assembled over centuries is a futile exercise.
But if you're looking at before that, then Calais was less relevant.