The Silk Roads
And don’t forget that if you treat the custom-house officers with respect, and make them something of a present in goods or money, as well as their clerks and dragomen, they will behave with great civility, and always be ready
to appraise your wares below their real value.
—Italian merchant Francesco Balducci Peglotti (1471)
Learning Objectives
- A: Explain the causes and effects of growth of networks of exchange after 1200.
More than 1,300 years after the first accounts of travel on the Silk Roads,
these fabled routes that had fallen into disuse had revived by the 8th and 9th centuries. As described by merchant Peglotti, the land route of the Silk Roads was vibrant and essential to interregional trade in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Demand for luxury goods increased in Europe and Africa. Chinese, Persian, and Indian artisans and merchants expanded their production of textiles and porcelains for export. Caravans made travel safer and more practical, and the Chinese developed a system using paper money to manage increasing trade. Interregional trade on the Silk Roads flourished.
Think As a Historian: THINK AS A HISTORIAN: IDENTIfY AND DESCRIBE CONTEXT
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Reflect
REFLECT ON THE TOPIC ESSENTIAL QUESTION
1. In one to three paragraphs, explain the causes and effects of the growth of networks of exchange after 1200.
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