Download PDF | (Routledge revivals) John Block Friedman, Kristen Mossler Figg - Trade, travel and exploration in the Middle Ages_ An encyclopedia-Routledge (2017).
756 Pages
Introduction
Trade, Travel, and Exploration in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia is an introduction to the history of travel, exploration, discovery, and mercantile activity in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the New World. We have sought to present in a single, convenient reference work important information and_ perspectives on travel, trade, and exploration, much of which is currently to be found only in monographs and scholarly articles. These sources are often difficult to access, principally because a good deal of work on the subject has been written in languages other than English, but also because they are not intended for use by readers without specialized knowledge.
The subject matter we treat here is complex and vast, and we therefore make no claims for completeness. We hope, however, to have provided a balanced, informative, and up-to-date reference work that, although primarily directed toward students and the general reader, will also provide a useful starting point for investigation by scholars in various disciplines.
The 435 entries by 177 contributors range from brief mentions of an issue (around 100 words) to probing studies of concepts (more than 5,000 words). Shorter entries provide ready reference, while longer entries give overviews of major movements, peoples, economic developments, concepts, and technologies.
The encyclopedia has a cross-disciplinary focus that promotes the integration of historical, scientific, and literary perspectives, provides a synthetic view of parallel developments in East and West, and encourages immediate connections—through a detailed system of “See also” cross-references—among topics, writers, and geographical areas often viewed in isolation. Though experts in the subjects here covered will be familiar with the basic information and bibliography contained in some articles, they will find, through the bibliography at the end of each entry, information from disciplines other than their own that is indispensable for general orientation, careful interpretation, and further study. A general bibliography at the end of the encyclopedia contains materials frequently referred to in individual entries in abbreviated form, as well as a variety of titles that have appeared since the project was undertaken and entries were first submitted in 1995. The index at the end of the volume—tied to the crossreferencing system already mentioned—is designed to encourage exploration of the various aspects of, and approaches to, a topic.
The terms “travel,” “trade,” “exploration,” and “Middle Ages” all warrant some definition. By “Middle Ages,” we mean the millennium between the fall of the Roman Empire—with the decline of such Roman legacies as geographical speculation, established trade routes, mapmaking, roads, bridges, and navigable waterways—and the so-called “Age of Discovery” at the end of the fié teenth century.
It is a period in which a new conception of the world and mankind’s ability to reach all parts of it was formed. Although we originally conceived this encyclopedia as spanning the period from 525 to 1495 C.E., we found it necessary, in order to provide an appropriate context for major developments, to include some articles (like those on Huns) dealing with a slightly earlier period and a few (like that on Bartolomé de Las Casas) dealing with events and ideas that follow the voyages of Christopher Columbus. We understand “travel” to mean the movements of individuals from their homes to other places, some close and some extremely distant, whether the travel was undertaken for religious reasons (as with pilgrims or ascetics), for personal and political gain (as with merchants or colonizers), out of simple intellectual curiosity (as is demonstrated in the travel reports of Ibn Battiita), or our of a mix of motives (as several entries here indicate was true of European crusaders).
“Trade” involves the exchange of goods for money or barter between or among peoples, usually, though not always, distant. “Exploration” is broadly conceived as an intellectual and practical curiosity which encourages travel, either armchair or actual, on the part of voyagers on land and over water, to learn about or experience regions of the world new to them, though often mentioned in works of the ancient Greek and Roman geographers in sensationalizing and garbled ways. This volume attempts to cover as universal a geographical area as possible, including the Near East, the Far East, Inner or Central Asia, Africa, Scandinavia, and the new worlds of the Americas, as well as purely fabulous regions.
As is to be expected in an encyclopedia, entries are arranged alphabetically. There are blind entries where needed, as in “Arvin, see Center of the Earth.” In the listings of literary works, preference has been given to the names of the authors, whenever known, rather than to the titles of the works. Thus Divisament dou monde will be found under Marco Polo. It has frequently proven problematic to determine what spelling (and diacritics) to use for proper nouns; this has been especially true with names of Mongol rulers (Tamerlane/Timiar), the names of Asian battle sites (which have been transliterated from non-Roman alphabets), and certain commercial terms like “fondaco.”
At the start of the project it was the editors’ intention to use the spellings favored by the author of each entry, but it soon became apparent that there were so many ways to spell Khubilai Khan or Karakorum, and so many variants for the names of cities like Almaligh, that both scholars and general readers would be disoriented by having to face an array of spellings and unfamiliar diacritical marks. We reached a compromise by deciding to include the form of each name most familiar to scholars (usually, in Arabic names, retaining the macron if the name is commonly found without it in English dictionaries) or by choosing the form most likely to be in the Library of Congress and standard reference works. Thus, if a city or a person (Giovanni de Pian di Carpine) has a name widely known to English readers, we have tried to choose the more familiar form of the name (John of Plano Carpini).
A further complicating factor was whether to alphabetize under the given name or the cognomen/surname. When cognomens began to appear, mainly in the eleventh century and later, they were originally loconyms; the personal name remained the individual’s chief identification. By the fourteenth century, family names competed with cognomens in identifying persons. Many people in the later Middle Ages are more readily identified by their surnames than by their personal names (Geoffrey Chaucer). Thus it turned out that many individuals active before the fourteenth century were best alphabetized by their personal names Jordan of Giano), while those who were active later were better alphabetized under their family names (Behaim, Martin). However, the most important guiding principle was common usage for whatever single name was used most often by scholars after first reference (Jordan of Sévérac, but Sacrobosco, John of).
The volume contains illustrations, maps, lists of frequently mentioned leaders, lists of related topics, and a chart showing the sequence of major events and documents. In all cases, our intent is not to be exhaustive, but to add a visual or schematic dimension that will help to clarify unfamiliar topics and inform the reader, especially where other reference books may not cover such specialized details. The Index at the end of the volume is intended to guide users to topics that either lack their own entry or are cited repeatedly throughout the volume.
The bibliographies appended to the entries are not intended to be exhaustive but instead provide reference materials that will enable the student and the scholar to move quickly and confidently into the matter at hand. The nature of our subject is such that many of the topics treated in this work have engaged the attention of writers whose language is not English. While it may seem that there is a great deal of reference material in French, German, Italian, and other languages, this is simply a fact of the state of scholarship on trade, travel, and exploration in the Middle Ages.
A work of this magnitude required the collaboration and cooperation of many persons over the six years of its creation and production. Our deepest gratitude goes in the first place to the many colleagues who graciously gave of their time and knowledge to write the articles that are at the very heart of this undertaking; their names are listed both at the beginning of the volume and after the articles which they contributed. One, Delno C. West, did not live to see his contributions in print.
We are especially grateful to Gary Kuris, formerly of Garland Publishing, under whose aegis this project began, and also Joanne Daniels, who helped us through the early stages of the volume’s development. Richard Steins and Andrea Johnson more recently have given the greatest attention to the production of the book. Errors are ours and not theirs. In addition to writing key articles, several scholars provided special assistance in reviewing lists of entries and defining coverage for specific areas. Our Advisors, Anna-Dorothee von den Brincken, Chandra Richard de Silva, John Parker, J.R. Seymour Phillips, Jean Richard, and Denis Sinor, often contributed in this manner, and some read over entries and offered ideas for additional topics.
We are especially grateful to our fellow editor Scott Westrem, who provided us with ideas for articles in areas in which we had little initial knowledge. He also painstakingly checked facts in the articles and contributed to the occasional rewriting of articles by contributors whose first language was not English. Our collaborating editor, Gregory Guzman, was generous with his vast knowledge of Mongol lore.
The editors wish to thank the many libraries and institutions that granted permission to reproduce items in their collections; individual acknowledgments are provided in the captions. We also wish to thank the Department of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Kent State University Salem Campus for providing research assistance and other services to the editors.
John B. Friedman and Kristen M. Figg
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