Trade Networks and Cultural
Diffusion
600-1450
A New Era in Trade
• Trade exploded on the world scene
between 600 and 1450.
• Trade was aided through better boats,
better roads, monetary systems, lines of
credit, and accounting methods.
• People began to keep records and lend
money which established a business trade
relationship.
Major Trade Routes
• Mediterranean Trade: between western Europe,
the Byzantine Empire, and the Islamic Empire
• The Hanseatic League
• The Silk Road (1200-1600)
• Land routes of the Mongols
• Between China and Japan
• Between India and Persia (Indian Ocean Trade)
• Trans-Saharan trade routes between west Africa
and the Islamic Empire
Hanseatic League
• Collection of city-states in the Baltic and North
Sea regions of Europe
• Banded together in 1241 to establish common
trade practices, fight off pirates and foreign
governments, and make a trade monopoly
• More than 100 countries joined
• Created a substantial middle class in northern
Europe
• Set a precedent for large, European trading
operations that affected the Dutch and English
Silk Trade
• Connected China to the Mediterranean
cultures
• Established in the early Roman Empire
• Used heavily during the reign of the
Mongols (1200-1600)
• Carried silk, porcelain, paper, food, and
religious ideas
• Spread Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity
Indian Ocean Trade
• Between 600 and 1450, the Persians and
the Arabs dominated I.O.T.
• The trade routes connected ports in
western India to ports in Persian Gulf,
which in turn were connected to ports in
eastern Africa.
• Boats were resilient to large waves
• Used the monsoon seasons and direction
of winds to schedule their voyages
Indian Ocean Trade (cont.)
• This route tended to be safer than
Mediterranean Trade because there was
less warfare
• Sailors often married the local women at
the ends of their trade routes, so cultures
spread and intermixed rapidly
Sub-Saharan African trade
• The Bantu people spread their culture
throughout sub-Saharan Africa during their
migrations.
• Religion (Christianity) was spread along the
trade routes from Ethiopia to sub-Saharan
Africa.
• By the fifteenth century the spread of Islam was
associated with the spread of literacy.
• Islamic learning centers were established along
the trade routes during the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries.
A Global Network?
• After 1200 the world was very interconnected
• If you link the trade routes, goods could make
their way from England to Persia to India to
Japan.
• Goods could travel from Muscovy to Mali
• The network was a web of interconnected but
highly-independent parts.
• No one person managed it, but all major
civilizations (except those in the Americas)
were a part of it.