Chapter 14 - The Latin West - 1200 - 1500

     The Latin West is defined by historians as the part of Europe that adhered to the Latin rites of Christianity and used Latin intellectually. It was faced with the Great Famine of 1315-17 and the Black Death in 1347 - 51, from which one in three people died.
     After the Black Death, the population began to grow again, labor was equalized, and agriculture was systematized (crop rotations between three fields began). Serfdom began disappearing after the Jacquerie rebellion in France (1358), Wat Tyler's rebellion in London (1381) and the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
     As serfdom disappeared, people began using water wheels for power to grind flour and shape iron, changing the landscape as they did so. The Fourth Crusade (which really wasn't a crusade at all) took place in 1204. It was an assault on Constantinople which allowed Italy to expand its trading powers. As Italian trade expanded, German traders formed the Hanseatic League, providing an economic and defense alliance which peaked in the 1300's. Guilds, associations of merchants, formed in other areas. Trade fairs began occurring in Champagne and wool became an important trade item all over Europe.
     Banking was important in trade, and the largest banks of the time were owned by the Medici family in Florence. They started the practice of checking, which the Fugger family took over from them.
     The European Renaissance began in the mid-1300's. Universities began and practiced scholasticism, which incorporated philosophy and theology into its teachings. Arabic texts were translated, bringing Middle Eastern knowledge into Europe. The European Renaissance also brought about the humanist movement in literature, which focused on poetry, history, languages and ethics, and was able to spread in print. Johann Gutenberg invented the (European form of the) printing press, and there were 10 million books in print in Europe by 1500.
     The European Renaissance brought with it artists like Michelangelo and da Vinci and the theologian Erasmus of Rotterdam, who translated the Bible and corrected its grammar.
     Between 1378 and 1415, the Latin Church was divided when Rome and Avignon (in France) both wanted one of their citizens as Pope. This was known as the Great Western Schism. Things were not going well in politics either. In 1215, King John of England signed the Magna Carta to acknowledge that monarchs were still subject to the law, the church was independent, and nobles were in their positions by heredity. The Hundred Years' War (1337 - 1453) was a series of campaigns over France's throne involving the English and the French.  Joan of Arc fought in this war, thinking she had received a message from G-d. She was captured and burned at the stake as a witch. After the War, Parliament was formed in England, putting a final check on royals' power.
     At this time, the Jews were expelled from many countries. They were allowed to stay in Rome, however, because the pope offered them safety. Spain and Portugal were retaken by Christians, with the last Muslims being expelled in 1502.
 
   

Chapter 13 - Africa & Asia (1200 - 1500)

     The Muslim scholar Ibn Battuta recorded events from all over the Middle East, Africa, and parts of Asia. He wrote that in Africa, people hunted, gathered, herded (the Tuareg people, for example, herded camels), fished and farmed (a majority of the farming he observed was in river deltas). The Delhi Sultanate mastered irrigation, allowing it to spread farming practices further away from the major rivers in the area.
     Mali was built on Islam and trans-Saharan trade.When the Berbers caused Nubia's collapse in 1076 and the Takrur empire (in Western Sudan - it was the first sub-Saharan adopter of Islam) was defeated by Sundiata, the stage was set for the rise to power of Mansa Musa. He ruled Mali from 1312 to 1337 and estqblished a reputation of wealth for the empire.
     After two centuries of success, Mali fell to the Malinke and Tuareg (the camel herders mentioned above). While they were taking over Mali, Muslims were taking over India. When the Sultan Iltutmish ruled, he acknowledged Delhi as a Muslim empire. When he died, his daughter Raziya took over, something which was unheard of at the time. The Sultanate eventually fell due to rebellions in Northern India.
     At this time, India invented its version of the Chinese junk: the dhow. The dhow was a cargo and passenger ship designed to sail in the Arab Sea and facilitate trade, since major trading centers were rising at the time. The Swahili coast, which provided gold, Great Zimbabwe, an empire in what is now (you guessed it!) Zimbabwe (which soon became the capitol of a trading state), and Aden, a port in Yemen, became important trading centers. From Gujarat came cotton and indigo, and Cambay, Calicut, and the Strait of Malacca turned into ports.
     All of this trading brought in many new ideas. Urdu, a literary style of Hindi using Arabic characters, was introduced by travelers and traders all over India. The expansion of Islam brought with it the concept of slavery. Between 1200 and 1500, there were estimated to have been 2.5 million slaves taken out of Africa. Although slavery was on the rise, the social status of women improved, especially in India. The expansion of Islam did not necessarily mean the adoption of Arab gender customs.

Chapter 12 - The Mongols

     The Mongols, a group of nomads in northern Eurasia, were founded by Genghis Khan (known as Temujin) in 1206. Women could rule in the Mongol empire, and different religions were embraced. The Mongols conquered the Tanggut, Jin and parts of Iran under Genghis Khan's rule. His son, Ogodei, took over most of China, his grandson Batu took Russia, and his grandson Guyuk executed the last Abbasid caliph.
     The Yuan empire was formed by Kublai Khan, Genghis' grandson. They destroyed the Song and all of Vietnam due to their military might. They used mounted archers, armies on foot, and flaming projectiles to conquer almost all of Asia within a few decades.
     Marco Polo, on his expedition from Italy, brought more trade between the east and the west. Unfortunately, this trade included diseases - the plague, typhus, influenza and smallpox traveled the trade routes through Eurasia in the 1200's.
     The Ilkhan state was formed by Hulegu, Genghis' grandson, in Persia, and the Batu, another grandson, founded the Golden Horde in what is now Russia. Batu adopted Islam and the Turkish language. Islam conflicted with Mongol ideals, but the philosopher Ghazan converted the empire after showing Islam's advantages. The Ilkhan's poor economy allowed the Golden Horde to become powerful. Timur, a ruler of the Jagadi Khanate (a Khanate is just an empire started by the descendants of Genghis Khan), took over Iran and began to expand his empire, bringing Islam to new areas in Asia along with contributing significantly to mathematics (thinking up decimals and the concept of pi).
     Alexander Nevskii, the ruler of Russia, joined the Mongols in fighting the Teutonic Knights, a group that wanted to Christianize the Slavic people.The Mongols turned on their allies and devastated Russia, but the Russian culture survived. The decline of the Golden Horde moved power away from Kiev and into Novgorod and Moscow. It also paved the way for the rise of the czars, the new rulers of Russia. Ivan III was the first czar, tasking control in 1462.
     The Khans reunited China, making Beijing the capital and putting the Mongols on the top of the class system. They systematized the government and allowed trade routes to grow. Internal problems (mainly rebellions) caused their fall to the Ming in 1368.
     Hongwu, the first Ming emperor, made many anti-Mongol policies that were later reversed by other rulers. Yongle, his successor, reestablished trade and sent explorers to the Middle East by sea. He reestablished Confucian policies and changed the governmental system.
     The invasion of the Mongols devastated Korea. The Yi dynasty took over when the Mongols moved on to Japan. In Japan, the Mongols ended the Kamakura Shogunate and allowed the rise of the Ashikaga (which the Onin War nearly destroyed). The warring state of Annam avoided the Mongols' conquering, and went on to take over the Champa and institute their own Confucian practices.

Chapter 11 - Peoples & Civilizations of the Americas

      The Maya, a people of Guatemala, Honduras, Belize and southern Mexico, took the area over after the fall of the civilization at Teotihuacan. The people there had practiced human sacrifice and built huge pyramids to their gods. The Maya were never a formal state, but they used their power to increase their territory in the Americas. The Maya used slash-and-burn agriculture and "floating fields" on lakes to produce enough food to feed those in their city-states. They decorated a lot of their buildings, some with stories or legends and some with their calendar, which was a brilliant system for the time. They invented a writing system, the concept of zero, and a solar & lunar calendar. The Maya's power declined due to a struggle for resources and wars that were taking place, and many of their cities were left abandoned.
     In c. 900, the Toltec people used military might to create an empire with its capitol at Tula. Their influence spread across Mexico, but they were soon surpassed by the Aztec.
     The Aztecs (Mexica) had the center of their civilization at Tenochtitlan, an island in Lake Texcoco. The Aztecs were a warlike people whose religion demanded that their main god, Huitzilopotchli, be continuously fed human hearts on altars. Despite their sacrificing, they still managed to form connections through trade (some of it was done through forced labor). Women were allowed some roles of power in Aztec culture - they could serve as shamans and rulers (ruling was rare).
     In North America, irrigation practices learned from Mesoamericans and cultivation of corn stimulated the development of the Hohokam and Anasazi. The Anasazi, the more notable of the two, centered their empire in the "Four Corners" states (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona). In Chaco Canyon, they built entire cities with parts of them extending underground.
     The Hopewell (Ohio River chiefdoms) developed because of trade with the Anasazi and Hohokam. They developed their own religious practices and came to build religious mounds all over the Southwest. The Hopewell culture was continued by the Mississippians, who were based in Cahokia (near Saint Louis). Changes in the environment undermined the Anasazi and the Mississippians, leading to their demise.
     The Andes (we're back in South America now!) have varying climates - they have arid coastlines, cold highlands, and dense tropical forests. The cultures developed there based themselves on ayllus (family groups) and mit'as (rotating labor draft systems). From these people, the Moche civilization began in Peru. They had a strong military, good trade connections, and their own religion. The Tiwanaku and Wari peoples used their military power to take over the Moche empire and extended it to Bolivia.
     The Inca developed from a mixture of these peoples, and were able to take over because of their military capability. They used roads, irrigation and terracing to provide their empire with materials, but were weakened by civil wars. These civil wars occurred just as Europeans (mainly Spanish) were arriving, making conquering easier.