THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD SYSTEM IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

JANET ABU-LUGHOD

Northwestern University

y the middle of the thirteenth century the Occident (Western Europe) and the Orient (as far as China) were linked together through a system of trade and, to a much lesser extent, production that had begun to form into what might be termed a "world system" rather than a set of imperial systems. I Not unlike today, the nodes that were linked together were central places and port cities, rather than whole countries. The geographic nexus of this system was the Muslim heartland through which items of exchange had to move, either overland across the great so-called silk route or primarily via the sea, transiting the region from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean and then beyond, via either the Arab/Persian Gulf or the Red Sea. By then, goods originating in the Middle and Far East were being sold in European fairs, and Europe was exporting in exchange raw materials, metals, and woolen textiles. Such trade was being conducted by merchants from highly diverse regions, speaking quite different languages and in touch with one another not only physically but by written instruments. "Capitalistic" institutions were well established in the sense that: (1) there existed conventional ways for credit to be extended and then paid off (Udovitch, 1967; de Roover, 1948; Sapori, 1970; Yang, 1952); (2) there were developed techniques for pooling capital and risks and for sharing profits and losses (Byrne, 1930; Udovitch, 1970; Lopez, 1976); and (3) production for export had begun to reo organize the way goods were produced and exchanged in the domestic economies of East and West (Laurent, 1935; Nicholas, 1971; Shiba, 1970).2 Significantly, this development was considerably more ad vanced in China and the Arab world than it was in Europe. Granted, this system of commercial "capitalism" was scarcely the labor-defined version described by Marx, 3 nor was the "psychology" of modern capitalism described by Weber (1904-5) yet in existence. 4 Indeed, if one depends upon those criteria, a capitalist world system certainly did not predate the sixteenth century, which is Wallerstein's (1974) position. s However, by those criteria I suspect that even the sixteenth century is too early a date, for heightened productivity

Studies in Comparative International Developments I Winter 1987-88

through technolQgi.cal/institutional cha,llges .had not yet occurred on a grand scale. Regardless of the details, however, we must recognize that all three theorists have taken the same end point, namely, the system of capitalism that eventually developed in Western Europe. From this outcome they then reason backward to origins. This, it seems, raises a basic methodological problem in historiogra. phy. One must acknowledge, of course, that in all history the outcome defermines the narrative that hist6rians construct-a narrative of events that appear to lead inexorably toward that outcome. The in cisive comment ofOermaine Tillion, written in a very different con text, is striking. Sbe remarks (1983: 20) that "as we all know, events must run their course befof(lbecoming history, so that alltrue history exists only by virtue of its conclusion, and begins its historical career from there."6 If this is indeed correct, then beginmng with a different outcome at a different moment in time will lead us to a different account of the prior to be explained; Rather sequence and a.different set than taking the outcome of the later industrial revolution for granted and then trying to explain "its causes," one can start at a different end point and try to reconstruct history retrospectively from there. By doing this, a revisionist view of "what occurred" will emerge. Before presenting my alternative hypothesis, however, one needs to clear away a few natural and expected objections. First, this author has no intention, in this article, of entering a fniitless argument concerning the "origins" of "trile" or "modern"capitallsm. The debate between a Weberian definition of modern capitalism, Which depends upon an attendant "psychological" attitude, and a Tawney (1926) definition of modern capitalism, based upon the existence of "modern" institutions of rationalbookkeeping and credit,1 is the last analysis not a good guide for research. I am less interested in definitional debates than in capturing what did exist during the time period in question. Furthermore, this author shall not try to defend a position that claims. that the scale of excbange in the thirteenth century represented a sufficient "threshold;' to allow one to claim a "wotld system." I admit in advance that, in comparison to the sixteenth century, tbe scale of production and trade in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth cen turies Was not large (althou.gh it was}arger than in the fifteenth cen but that is. hardly a fair measure.lncomparisonwitb the scale of international commerce today, the miniSCUle exchanges of the six teenth century wither away into obscurity. The important comparison is not with the future but with tbe past.

Abu-Lughod

Did a significant jump in trade occur in the thirteenth century? And did it tie together many developing areas? Most medievalists claim that it did. Lopez (1976: 93-94) notes:
At first glance, if we compare the patterns of trade in the Commercial Revolution to those in the Industrial Revolution, certain differences will strike us ... All proportions are almost unbelievably smaller. Luxury products ... tend to playa more important role than commodities for mass consumption. Many ... business men show greater interest in enlarging profit margins . . . than in enlarging the number of sales.... Still the volume of exchanges ... [is] impressive ... [TJhe sea trade of Genoa in 1293 was three times as large as the entire revenue of the Kingdom of France in the same year.

The same could be said for the radical increase in the scale of international trade observed in Sung China. Mark Elvin (1973: 171-72) describes the thirteenth century expansion of China's international trade, noting that by then China was exporting
copper and iron goods, porcelain, silks, linens, chemicals, sugar, rice and books, and receiving in exchange spices and other exotic items. Parts of the Chinese rural economy became directly linked to production for the overseas market.

I will not belabor this point. There was more than enough going on in the thirteenth century-in Europe, in the Middle East, and in the Far East-to justify an investigation. Our intellectual problem is not to identify the origins of the twentieth century but rather to evaluate the state of the world system that did exist by the thirteenth century. This brings us to the guiding hypothesis of my research.
HYPOTHESIS

By about 1250 A.D., East and West were becoming evenly balanced on a fulcrum in a system which was already taking impressive steps toward integration. Hegemony could have developed in either direction and, at that time indeed, it appeared more likely that Asia, rather than Europe, would be dominant, since it was more developed, technologically and institutionally. In short, there was nothing inevitable about the "Rise of the West:'8 And yet, 150 years later, the balance had tipped. Western gains outweighed Asian advances. And by the sixteenth century, Europe had not only conquered the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic but had gained control over the Mediterranean Sea (see especially the works of Braudel, 1972; Chaunu, 1979; Chaudhuri, 1985), thus sealing a world

Stlldies In Compuative International Developmellts / Winter ,1987418

hegemony that, from the point of view of the thirteenth century, was certainly not foreordained;
A REFORMULATION OF THE QUESTION

From thi.s vanUlge point, a question somewhat different from that of most historical sociologists arises. AlmostitllWestern writing bas been both Eurocentric and written from the hindsight ofthe nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It has Wsed the question, crudely parapltrased: What was so special about the West that made it, rather than some other region, the "master" of the world system? Put this way, the question has aself-congratuIatory ring. It looks into the qualities of the West to accountforits success. By.contrast, then, it judges the other contenders as deficient insofar as they lacked the characteristics of the West. 9 This is a loaded question because it takes for granted the inevitability of the outcome. Certainly, a different question would be as legitimate, namely: What interfered with the expected development of the East which prevented it from translating its existing strengths into further growth? Some Western scholars have, indeed, posed these questions, but the form of their answer has been equally Eurocentric. Certain characteristics of Eastern cultures are criticized as preventing further development- IO Thus, after-thefact explanations are advanced which blame the stagnation of the Chinese economy on its strong imperial system (in contrast to the spatial anarchy of forgetting all the while that it was the strength of the imperial system that had led to China's advanced state throughout history and that European strength did not really translate into world power until the state began to playa more active protectionist role. II Similarly, the failure of the Arab world to move onto a Western version of capitalism is. attributed to thedeleterious effects of the region's religion, Islam, which set up barriers to the accumulation of capital. This explaDation similarly ignores the fact that merchant capitalism developed in this !'ejjon along. with the religion (Rodinson, 1974; Goitein, 1967; 1958; Fischel, 1958; Wiet, 1955; Ashtor, 1983; Lambton, 1962) and indeed controlled international trade for many centuries. In short, most explanations for why the balance tipped in favor of Europe cite internal strengths in the West and internal weaknesses in the East to account for the outcome. This form of explanation is scientificallyinadequate because it fails to consider the geopolitical-demo-

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graphic context within which societies develop and evolve, rise and fall. However, Western scholars have been content with this inadequate explanation because it tends to be self-serving. We can test this by examining how different are Western explanations for the fall of Rome. For the latter, two types of explanations are seen as moving together-both internal decline and external threat. And yet, when the rise of the West and the fall of the East are considered, the external explanations-such as the expansion and then breakup of the Mongol Empire (Grousset, 1939; Boyle, 1977) or the spread of the Black Death, inter alia-are, with the notable exception again of McNeill (especially 1976), forgotten or downgraded to peripheral issues. My own work begins with the hypothesis that the crucial reorganization of the world system that occurred between 1250 and 1400 was at least as attributable to systemic geopolitical and demographic causes as . it was to any cultural characteristics inherent in East or West. Differences in cultural systems were sufficient to allow differences in the forms that industrialization might have taken, but were not sufficient, in themselves, to account for the presence or absence of development. 12 There is very little written on the world system at that time. Most of the attempts to view the international picture, viz. the important contributions of BraudeI (1973; 1982-84) and Eric begin with the year 1400. Despite the fact that the sources are more meagre before that date, we.shall try to describe it because it was at that time that the outcome, already predictable by 1400, remained in Question.
THE MAJOR OUTLINES OF THE SYSTEM IN 1250-1350

It is impossible to grasp the shape of the world system as it wavered on the fulcrum of the second half of the thirteenth century without some mechanism of selection. One can therefore choose to examine this system through a comparative analysis of a sample of cities located along the major world trade routes that ran from northwest Europe to China. The accompanying map shows schematically the shape of the subsystems that, linked together, made up the world system, and it also shows the locations of the cities being studied in detail. One might reasonably ask-why study cities rather than whole societies? The answer is simple. In comparative work it is important to compare commensurables. While China, the Arab world, and the territories in the Khanates of Central Asia were organized into empires, the boundaries of these units were characterized chiefly by their elas-

Studies in Comparative International Developments / Winter 1987-88

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...

THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD SYSTEM IN THE 131li CENTURY

SHOWING SlIISYSTEMS I TtI'IOUGH VI

Abu-Lugbocl

ticity. In contrast, their central places had greater continuity; they tended to playa more permanent role in the world system than did the states and empires that rose and fell around them. Furthermore, in the western region, the state or national system had not yet become the unit of action (Anderson, 1974). Indeed, the only commensurate units found in all places, albeit enjoying varied degrees of autonomy, were cities. In addition, while most cities exist only by virtue of the wealth generated in the rural areas around them, the key to the thirteenth was long distance trade which alcentury commercial world lowed some entrepots (notably on the Arabian Peninsula and along the Straits of Malacca) to exist without any agrarian hinterland l4 and gave to other cities a second economic base that supplemented the agrarian one. In many instances, this trade became the key to industrialization, a third and growing economic base in many of the cities we are considering. (We find, for example, that the demand for good quality wool to provision the expanding textile industry of Flanders strengthened the links between English and Flemish cities, just as imported raw silk was originally essential to produce the Middle Eastern brocade called Damask, after Damascus.) Thus, whether cities were integrated into imperial systems or not, they constituted links in the chain or rather the network of international commerce. I decided to study cities strategically positioned in the growing world system of the thirteenth century not only because they make logical units for analysis and comparison but because they are of intrinsic interest, since this author's view of the world has always been through the urban lens. By focusing on a limited sample of cities, patterns that the full canvas might otherwise obscure can hopefully be clarified. The set of cities being examined includes:
I. The four towns ofthe periodic Champagne Fairs-Lagny and Bar-sur-Aube, which had one fair each per year, and Provins and especially Troyes, which hosted two. 2. The Flemish textile-trade towns, especially Ghent as an example of a producer city and Bruges as an example of an international trading center. 3. The key sea-trading city states of Genoa and Venice, locked in a bitter competitive battle to become the "hinge" (McNeill, 1974, used this term as a descriptor of Venice) between Europe and the Orient; both struggled to control Constantinople, the Black Sea, and thence the overland connections to the East; both were rivals to monopolize the spice trade that moved through Egypt in the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries. 4. The great overland caravan centers through Central Asia, especially Samarkand and Bukhara. 5. The urban-based system that had Baghdad as its core, Aleppo/Antioch as its

10

Studies in Comparative Internatiooal Developments / Winter 1987-88 western link to the and Blwaas its outlet to the Arab/persian Gulf. Aleppo and Baghdad Were also keytilke-ofTPoints for the overlluld route. The urbanbased system that had Cairo as its core, Alexandria as its link to the Meditertallean and, 011 the 59l1t11east, the E,edSea ports that led toward . the African Horn and to the Il!diI!n Ocean and beyolld. The porthoines of the great Persian/Arab traders: Sirat; Hormuz, Oman, HadralllRut, Kisb and,' by mid-thirteenth century, especially Aden. The port cities along the western coast of India, including Cambay, Quilon, and Calicut. The regionaJong the Straits of MaJacca Which, while not "urbanized" in the conventional sense of the term, contained a shifting series of specialized trading posts cO.ntrolled by Hindu rulers; these played a central role in mediatilli with China. The city the l!IIlest city in the world in the thirteenth century, which Was the capital city oftbe southern Sung dynasty, serVed by an international port.

6. 7. 8. 9.

10.

THE METHOD OF PAIRED AND MOVING COMPARISONS

The statement that the world was balanced on a fulcrum is more than a metaphor. If one were to describe the world system in 1250 one would have to say that it consisted of a series of interlinked and overlapping subsystems which at that moment were in rough balance. The chief research question being posed is: What happened to disturb this system? One thing thatis certain is that given the complexities and the numerous subsystems, no single factor could have been responsible for the change. Rather, one suspects that the. overall shift can best be accounted for as the resultant vector created when the smaller subsystems underwent reorganization. Therefore, one can approach the larger question by studying what was happening to the subsystems and to their relationships with one another. My current assumption is that the world system in the thirteenth century consisted of some seven or eight interlocking subsystems, roughly sketched on the map. The kingpin of the entire system lay at the land t>ridge between the eastern Mediterranean apd the outlets to the Indian Ocean on the south and between .the Mediterranean and Cent{al Asia (subsystem III). This area had been a heartland during earlier periods of imperial expapsion (viz. from the origin of man's first "urban" societies down to Hellenic and Romap times) but it took on renewed significance in the early centuries .ofIslamic hegemony. By the tenth century, the sealirtks from the Persian Gulf aU the way to east Africa, west India, and then on to the Indian archipelago, and even China were fully established, as is evidenced by the works of the Arab

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It

geographers and the travel accounts of Arab sailors and traders (see inter alia, the texts translated and reproduced in Gabriel Ferrand, 1913; Tibbets, 1981; see also Hourani, 1951). By the end of the eleventh century the Crusades intensified the contacts between Western Europe and the Arab world, which stimulated demand in Europe for Eastern products. The twelfth century saw the Fertile Crescent and Egypt reunited under the Ayyubids, always a good sign for the political and economic strength of that region. By mid-thirteenth century, with the defeat of the seventh Crusade under St. Louis, the Arab world had regained much of its autonomy, although further incursions from the east (the so-called Mongols) were already "compensating" for the reduced Western pressures. From this core region, the world system linked outwards in two directions. To the west (subsystem II), the central "hinge" on which the world system balanced was the link between Italy (and especially Venice) and the eastern Mediterranean. There were two paths westward: one from the Arab world which controlled the sea passages to the east, the other from the shrunken Byzantine state which controlled access to significant land routes across Asia. (In the mid-thirteenth century Venice itself ruled Constantinople.) From Italy, especially Venice but also Genoa, the linkage also went to (peripheral) northern Europe which, in the early thirteenth century, was fully dependent upon Italian traders for its trade with the Orient (subsystem I). To the east, the central "hinge" on which the world system balanced was the Indian Ocean where Arab traders controlled access to India (subsystem IV) and then to the Hinduized Straits of Malacca (subsystem V) which, in turn, acted as an intermediary for China (subsystem VI). (See, among other sources, the classic, albeit highly prejudiced, work of W. Heyd, 1885-1886, as well as the new and remarkable book by Chaudhuri, 1985.) Finally, there was at least one but perhaps two subsystems that organized overland traffic between Turkey/Iraq/Iran and northern China, passing through the territories of the various Tartar/Mongol empires (subsystem VII), finally reaching Constantinople. When the large system tipped, it was because the Mediterraneannorthwestern European links deepened and diversified while the link between the eastern Mediterranean and the Orient began to fray in places and was rudely torn in others. That change, which began to occur by the end of the thirteenth century with the fall of the "Crusader" enclaves on the Syro-Palestinian coast, intensified by the mid-fourteenth century (Ashtor, 1983). Precipitating factors included:

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SllIcIles in Comparative InteraatlonaJ Developments / WilMer,1987..88

(1) the Black Death; beginning 134751, which decimated city populations in the Levant-Egypt-Italy core system more harshly than in any of the other subsystems; and (2) the fierce rivalry among the various Mongol khanates in Central Asia which, in the latter part ofthe fourteenth century, clearly interfered with the overland connection from Constantinople. This was the link that had strengthened during. the preceding century due to the earlier Pax Mongolica. While these events caused a decline in the heartland, they did not immediately break up the system. Indeed, it appears that both peripheries grew stronger, despite or perhaps even because thecentnU liriks were fraying. The fifteenth century was a period of renewed growth and expansion in certain parts of Europe, in Ottoman Turkey and the Orient. And yet, by the first decade of the sixteenth century the Mediterranean was being bypassed. Portuguese successes in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, the immobilization of both Hindu and Muslim trade intermediaries, and the withdrawal of the Ming dynasty from the external trade that had characterized the Sung and Yuan periods (Lo, 1954-55; 1958), all served to interrupt a system that had operated for more than five hundred years. It was thisgeQpolitical shift, more than either religious or cultural changes later in that century, that sealed the fate of the Orient Therefore, most of the reasons for the "rise of the West" were already in place by the opening of the sixteenth century, before the defeat of the Ottoman fleet and before the appearance of Weber's "Protestant Ethic." The term "fulcrum" or balance can be applied not only to the system as a whole but also to the various subsystems of cities whose fates often bore an inverse relationship to each other. The remainder of this article, then, will layout the main lines of these reorganizations. In the middle of the thirteenth century one of the obvious facts was that the Europelln subsystem; WlIS lin important trensformanon-one which would affect developments in the. larger one. the periodic fairs that were being held in the towns of Troyes, Provins, LlIgny, and Bar-sur-Aube, the so-called Champagne Fairs whi<;p operBrie (see lIted under the protection of the Counts the five-volume chronicle of Troyes by T. Boutiot,1870-iO; the Gies' 1969 popularized but fascinating book on. life in Troyes in 1250 A.D.; Mesqui on Provins, 1979; and the works of Cbllpin, 1937; Bautier, 1953; Bourquelot, 1865-67; and Alengry, 1915, on the fairs themselves) were among the key links between northwestern Europelln cities and the Italian trading states. There were, at that time, no direct links

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13

between northern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean, much less any direct contacts with the Orient. Thus, producers from the Flemish textile towns had to journey to the Champagne Fairs to exchange their wares for the wines of France or the silks and spices of the East. By the end of the thirteenth century, however, Bruges had become a world market port,. when the Genoese made their direct sea connection with the North Sea via the Atlantic. This bypass of the Champagne Fairs, to which merchants from Italy had to come laboriously over the Alps or up the rivers against the flow and from which the Flemish merchants had been banned for political reasons, led eventually to an irreversible decline in the towns which had hosted the fairs. While the fairs continued into the early fourteenth century, by the middle of that century the Italian merchants had ceased entirely to frequent them. IS By then, the North Sea route had become the major one. Similarly, the cities of Venice and Genoa were continually in competition with one another for markets, both on the European continent and the East. In this competition, control over Constantinople, which guarded access to the northern overland route, was absolutely crucial. In general, Venice maintained the advantage, thanks to the affiliation it had from earliest days with the Eastern Roman Empire (Lane, 1974; Norwich, 1982; Cessi, 1981). This, plus her location on the east coast of Italy, ensured her dominance over the eastern Mediterranean. As Renouard notes in his classic work (1969: I, 131):

.,

From its origin, Venice played the role of intermediary between the Orient and the West. In the East, the Venetians boughtthe products of the Northern countries: the furs and the products of the Russian steppes, cereals and slaves; the products of central and tropical Asia: spices, jewels, precious stones, silk and luxury cloth; the products of the Byzantine and of anterior Asia: fruits, alum, silken stuffs, all luxury items.

They exchanged the items they brought to Europe for the woolen and linen cloths manufactured in Flanders and France, for metals and ore from Germany and England, for woods and slaves from Dalmatia, and the like. Indeed, when Constantinople threatened to reduce the monopolistic position Venice had over the inland route, Venice reacted promptly and decisively. In connection with the fourth crusade, boats and men were collected at Venice, from which they set sail for the Fertile Crescent. At the last minute, however, they were deflected for a surprise attack on Constantinople. The result was that, between 1204 and 1261, the Republic of Venice actually ruled Constantinople, and it is said that the Venetian colony in Constantinople "rivalled in size the settlements around the Rialto" (Lane, 1974: 69).

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Studies in Com)lllllltive International Developments / Winter ,1.'-88

Even after Constantinople's autonoroy was restored, Venice remained the over the eastern trade tIlrough that city until the'Genoese destroyed the in CoustantinQPle, thereby gaining control over ,commerce in the Black Sea, in the Crimea, and in the, Caspian, The rivalry to power back and forth between the two throughout the thirteenth and-fourteenth centuries. 16 Genoa's true power; however, came froro her etforts to devd,op alternate routes via the Atlantic, first to reach the North Sea and the Baltic and, eventually; to reach India and China. That,Columbushailed from Genoa was scarcely accidental; his was the obsession or the century. The Middle East subsystem was also undergoing a radical change during the second half of the thirteenth century, a$bift which turned on the rivalry between Baghdad and Cairo. At the beginning of the thirteenth century the dominant route to the Orient still passed through Antioch, Aleppo, and overland to, Bagbdad, before moving either ellJtward on the overland route or southward to Basra" the gateway to the Persian-Arab Gulf and thence to the Indian Baghdad.'shegeroony Was unquestioned and was vllli$ted by the fact that the Caliph,hiror;elfwas located there. While the Kurdish folloWjM'S of Saladin hadturned Qackthe Crusadtlts andcontI'QUed virtually all of the Fertile Crescent as well as Egypt, t1:Iey were still not considered supreroe, nor was the trade route via the, Red Sea the dominant one. The fulcruro image fits this situation well, for between 1250 and 1260 the,balance tippe(l. the transition in froro the AyyUbids to the rule of the Bahri MlUlliuks was ,begun in 1250; the interim period was completed by '1260 with the consolidation of their rule. During the same period, Baghdad experienced a precipitous The M.ols sacked Baghdad in 1258 and, to protect Islaro, the Abbasid Caliph was hastily removed to Cairo. The symbolicpresenceofth,e Caliphate in Cairo during subsequent contributed to the relative importance(Jf that city to the Arab world. Significantly, it wasal this time that the, Red Sea route to the Indies and beyond took on greater importance; The Red Sea, .while not. as easilynavjpted as.the PerillaJl Gulf; the Indian Ocean when the Gulf was closed or in hostile hands,17 The Mamluk state and its roerohant class, together with theirtradingPlU't. ners, the Venetians,. gained an increased monopoly over tant spice trade (Richards, ed., 1970; 1971; Ashtor, 1956, 1983; Labib, 1965; callen, 1964; Wiet, 1955). . Key figures in the interchange between the Middle Eastern heartland

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15

cities and the Indian Ocean were the Arab/Persian seafaring traders who worked out of a succession of small ports on the coasts of the Persian Gulf or at key strategic points at the base of the Arabian Peninsula guarding access to either the Gulf or the Red Sea (Tibbets, 1981). Exactly which of these ports/strategic points were important at which time was dependent on the shape of the larger system of transit. As we have already noted, in the earlier period the Persian Gulf was the dominant passage to the Indian Ocean. When this was so, Siraf (on the Persian littoral of the Gulf) and later the island of Kish and the port of Muscat on the southeastern tip of the Peninsula, where the Gulf and the Indian Ocean meet, were indispensable anchorage (and tribute) points on the way to India and China (Heyd, 1885). But when Baghdad was sacked by the Mongols, Basra's access to its northern hinterland was truncated. The port of Aden then took over as the chief entrepot mediating the trade between Cairo-Alexandria and points northwest and the Indian Ocean and points east. IS The shift from Baghdad to Cairo "caused" the shift from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea which, in turn, affected the seafaring principalities that carried trade to Asia. Furthermore, which of the cities on the Indian subcontinent waxed or waned was the result, in part at least, of whether the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea was the major path from the Middle East. Cambay to the north flourished when such traffic exited and entered primarily through the Persian Gulf; ports of the Malabar coast farther south, especially Quilon and Calicut, became more important when ships used the Red Sea. By the middle of the thirteenth century, Chola traders on the southeast coast ofIndia were also important intermediaries between the south Asian mainland and the Arab traders who controlled the routes in the western Indian Ocean. From India the sea transit connected with China through the Straits ofMalacca. While the route never deviated (no alternative pathway has ever been discovered), the site and relative importance of the particular entrepot along the straits which controlled passage and exchange tended to vary. On occasion, the key entrepot was on the east coast of Sumatra (e.g., Palembang and other capitals of the kingdom of Srivijaya) while at other times it was on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula, e.g., Kalab and then, after 1400, at the newly founded town of Malacca itself (Wolters, 1967; 1970; Sandu and Wheatley, 1983; Rockhill, 1914). There seems to have been no "necessity" causing these shifts which responded more to local power than to either strategic or commercial reasons. On the contrary, whether the Hinduized princedoms along the Straits (Coedes, 1964) handled trade or not depended mostly

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Studies in Comparative International Developments / Winter 1987-88

upon the Chinese. The states of the Straits played important roles as intermediaries whenever the Chinese expelled foreign (Arab) traders or drew back into their borgers. When the Chinese merchants the area of the .Straits and navy were more outgQing and became less significant as a necessary POrt of interchange. 19 There is an histo.rical anomaly in this region. The thirteenth century is a lacuna in our knowledge of the Straits o.f Malacca; either trade through the Straits had temporarily declined or the needed documents have not yetbcen recovered. In any case, documentation and apparent trade both pick up by 1400. One possible explanation for why the region of Srivijaya seems to have undergo.ne an eclipse just when the pace of international sea trade quickened in the thirteenth century is that China itself took over the commercial functions formerly performed by the Malay chiefdoms. As yet, this author knows little about central Asia (subsystems VII and VIII) to make a similar analysis, and yet major shifts were occurring there due to the activities o.fthe nomadic groups loosely classified as "Mongols." The breakup,. during the fourteenth century, of the Pax Mo.ngolica established by Ghengis Khan in the thirteenth century (Boyle, 1958; 1971; 1977) was certainly the factor that deflected more and more trade to the sea route who.se gateway was Egypt. Certainly,. the shift of the. center of gravity in China from. the interior (near Xian) to the southern coastal regio.n, while begun considerably earlier than the thirteenth century, was the beginning of a phase in Chinese civilization that led eventually. to Mongol rule in the north, centered at Karakorum and Khan-Bl!Wc (Peking), while the southern Sung took to. the sea.. Until it too fell to Mongol rule, Hangchou was perhaps tbelarg4ijst city in the world (see Gernet, 1962, which describes life in "on the eve" of the Mongol conquest), and may have remained so even after its conquest. The thirteenth century is acknowledged to be a time of important economic develcmments in China: the breakup of estates, the rise of capitalistic-cum-state commerce (Shiba, 1970), significant techbeginning of a new industrial phase with highly developed metallurgy (Hartwell, 1967; Needham, 1970: 107-112), and a new phase of long distance trade complete withbilnki1!lg, instrllJillents o.f credit, and even paper money (Shiba, 1970; Elvin, 1973; Chou, 1974:104-5; Yang, 1952). It was at this time that the Sung became. a true not only in trade but by gunpowder were mQunted on their in sea warfare; ships (Lo, 195.4-55), belying the Western position that China used her

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17

gunpowder only to produce fireworks. In short, during the second half of the thirteenth century it was far more likely that China would become the first nation to industrialize along capitalist lines than that Europe would assume that role. 20
THE DILEMMA

Toward 1300 Europe was a mere upstart and living at a standard far inferior to that enjoyed in the regions to her east. China had long developed metallurgy and industrialized production as well as significant military might. Throughout the next century she was to behave quite aggressively, sending forays as far as the east coast of Africa and in general flexing her muscles in the Indian Ocean arena. The Middle East, despite its periodic eruptions, was also enjoying a period of prosperity and power, once the Crusader incursions ceased. The early fourteenth century was one of effiorescence in the region, with most cities growing beyond the walls that had previously contained them. The unification of Egypt and the Fertile Crescent under the Mamluks led to significant strength-sufficient to hold the Mongol invaders at bay. (In 1400 Ibn Khaldun was present when a stand-off "peace treaty" was signed with Timurlane.) And yet, something happened to reverse this situation. At this point I cannot say with certainty what it was. But as noted earlier, some of the answer is to be found in the Black Death epidemic and its differential effects on "core" and "peripheral" regions (Gottfried, 1985; McNeill, 1976); part of the answer is possibly to be found in Central Asia. And certainly the coup de grace came from the maritime achievements of Spain and especially Portugal at the turn of the fifteenth/sixteenth century. But why the latter were so successful remains to be explained. What weaknesses in the old balance allowed the interlopers to destroy a pattern which had persisted for many centuries? The answer to that question remains the ultimate aim of my research.
NOTES
Support received from Northwestern Univetsity and the Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research is gratefully acknowledged here. The author is indebted to Jack Goldstone, Immanuel Wallerstein, and William McNdU for their comments on an earlier draft of this article. I. This distinction is crucial, since empires governing regions date back to the foundation of true cities in the fourth millennium, and a claim for an imperial, if partial, "world systemn could actually be made several earlier times, e.g. the Greeks under Alexander and, of course, Rome which at its peak held under its sway virtually aU of the world known to it. A world

18

Studies in Comparative InternatiOlllll Developments / WiBter 198NJ8

system is not incompatible with the fact that ittieq w,wther subsystems of lOOIiely-related "empires," nor is tbe idea incompatible fact that it was core cities. not whole regions or 4 countries," that constituted the soinewhatdiilembodied nodes of tile SYStem. By the thirteenth century in example, the importers ofwool and the owners of looms on the one hand, and tbe fuUers and weavCtl on the Othet; were sep8l'a1il'l! into two classes, a fact not unrelated to expanding production (Nicliolas, 1971, iNer alla). EDgiish wool was being imported, .and finished cloth was being exported to the Fairs ofCbalnpllgne, and to Italian cities such as Florence, Pisa, Genoa, and Venice. The. same was evi<l\il!!IY happening in China wbere mass or at least "masser" production for tile market (including the export market) was supplementing the strong internal market, particularly for silk cloth and for other items as well. Butthen, one must aIlI(I aeknowl. tiult .the type offeudalism found (in the Middle East and ChiiJii) wasqllite different from that which Marx posittidas univetisal. It me as partiClllarly search{orimcientanal<!&ues totheftOle$tant.Ejhicand thus to assume that there was only One possible P'!th to "mooemca.pitalism." Weber routinely made a clear distinctiOtrbetween "pre-mooem capitalism.. and "modern capitalism." While in his essayS on thePl'otestailt Ethic he to base this distinction on llSychic in Economy and Society the distinction is clearly based more on institutiol'ili1alld culturillcriteria. In no way is this comment froID the enormous contribution that world system's theory hll$ made to selllil'ili1 work was, indeed.. a direct stimulus to my studY. I sI1ouIdfiote,heni tiullWaUerstein's criteria forthi: existenee of "modem capitalism ate someWhaldift'eient i'tomthase of either Marx or weber. In more scholl\l'ly pojnt isml\de, inler alia. by Si&!eY. (1962},and even more COSCI1t1y by theOl1lch scb'llJlt, J.C. van Leur. tbe compilation and tl'll!ls\!ltion of his earlier Writings (1955)' esPecltiJly Chapter I, in which he stresSeS haw Eurocentric history distons anddefoJ1m5other histories. Tawney's critique of the WebeI:ian thesi! in Religion and the Rise ol(;apilplism (1926) is merely the first in a serie$ ofstudies tIiIIt lu\Ve addmsed this debate. Wbereas1llwney pl80es the origin of Cl!PitalWn in century ItSly, we mU$!note that a tarae bo!Iy of literature exists to demonstn\tethat the instruments of credit used Oy the Ibllian$ actually borrowed from the for exaliiple;thecollection of dqcuIDcots ini..Opei and Raymond, eds.(CitcaI960}'See also RodioSon (1974) and A. Udovitch(1967; 1910).
fi

2.

3.
4.

5.

6.

7.

8. text That(1963) ter ... m.is a fl\VOIite. .. of. .. Am..e.n. '1i8D. .... '. Ia!'s. ......... 'liS... th .. etitle. '. The both..... Of. M...eN...eill ....'s. Cl!!:1.Y IiIm.OUS. aildof a recent byl>aihlelChirot (l98S} latteJ; Weber, claims that the qti8llile. orthe WestWet'e its Blifhedoes so on the basi.s of Western .S(ICODdaty )he effects of the JIIeth. odologjcal dilemma notedabQve.On the other hand, thefol-mer acknOwledges the rernarkablestre!1Sths olthe Fat Eastern world$ that were coaIesciIljl inthethirteenilicentury (MIlNeiill, 479, 485, IIl'dis aWare of many of the tIlat )hem. IJldeec!, in his The Pursuit ofP01+i1r( he. '$y$i1DequivocallY thilt ulitil ISOOChilla waS defili.\teiy the WOrld's foremost power. Another exCePtion to W1!Stetn ethnocentrism is PblUp Cut1llin's Cross-Cultural Trade. ill WorldB/story (1984} 9. Much of the literature on produced by the last oft!leorists operated on a silliUarse1l'other inwhiCb the failures of the Ttiitd W.,tldwere conveniently blamed on their lack of tile achievement motive (McClcHand, 19(7); worse, exceptions to the rule were explained by the presence of a "Protestant-1ilre Ethic" (Bellah, 1957). 10. Viz. even the title of European Expansion and the Counter-Example 01 Asia, 13(}(),16()(). edited by J. Levenson The remar.lcable contributions of Joseph Needham wbo. has detailed the tecl1JlO!ofcaI and advances of China have prOven the latter'ssuperiority. At tile sliJjletime, "Raw" inChinli or
$! , lb o .. .

atti*

(see his 1910; 1954-I985). SchoJatiSliave begun: to questioti iIiIS'ClIsy answer. See, for examplll, tile reviSioJiist al1icleby (19'2). Shrin.8rJijes tbat Needham WlI$ wrollllin stati/li. tIlat Qliiill., knowJe4&e l\1\d technolpgical advances; did not it revdiu!ipn like West (eSpecliilly IOS-I 06). Chinese scholars have always tliken tliliiposition (e.g., Chou, 1974: 99-100).

Abu-Lughod

19

II. See Perry Anderson (1974), inter alia. But there is clear historical evidence of the use of the state even earlier to protect the interests of the mercbJlnt class in almost all "city states" of thirteenth century Europe. The worlc ofLestocquoy (1945; 1952) on the urban patriciates of French, Flemish, and Italian towns orthe time gives ample evidence orthe use of the state to protect and enhance bourgeois interests. On the connections in Ghent, see Nicholas (1971). 12. The "shocking" ability ofJapanese culture to permit that nation to reach the industrial levels of today is sufficient to disprove the "single-path to industrial progress" that is implicit in much of the old literature on modernization/development. 13. Wolf boldly acknowledaes that history written from a Western point of view leaves most of the world's people "without a history," like the "anthropologist's 'primitive contemporaries,'" and that the Eastern accomplishments in empire building and long-distance trade "shaped a world that Europe would soon reorganize to answer requirements of its own" (quoted 1982: This view comes closest to my own assumptions. 14. Two of the cases selected arc not even "cities" in the conventional sense. Rather, they are almost exclusively ports connected to long distance trade: the seafaring ports at the exits from the Red Sea and Persian/Arab Gulf; and the moving entrepots along the Straits of Malacca. Not accidentally, both sets of places are characterized by unstable location in contrast to the remaining more conventional cities. I am grateful to Paul Wheatley (personal communication) who helped me recognize this point. IS. One cannot but wonder whether the Black Death which struck the Italian city states so hard around the middle of the century was not realJy responsible for the disappearance ofltalian merchants from the Champagne Fairs at that time. This is not the explanation given by the scholars of the Champaane Fairs, which may merely be a symptom of the fact that specialists tend to stay too close to their objects of study. More and more I am finding that taking a world view helps me to notice items which regional scholars seem to miss or confuse. For example, objects identified by origin in the oiriginal sources of the time often refer to intermediary points (Chao Ju-Kua, I suspect that foreign merchants often gave misleading information about the provenance of items in order to protect their monopolies over suppliers. Only by piecing together documents from different regions can one identify 16. Without this rivalry it is possible that we could have missed one of the major sources on the thirteenth century, namely, the Travels ofMarco Polo. A Venetian captured and imprisoned in Genoa, to pass the time Marco Polo recounted his travels to a cell-mate who transcribed them. 17. Significantly, the Portuguese circumnavigation of Africa reduced the importance of both alternative routes until the mid-nineteenth century when, with the building of the Suez Canal, the route that had dominated the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries once again came into preferred use. 18. Heyd (1885) is very explicit about the key role of Aden from the second half orthe thirteenth century on and about the growing significance of the Red Sea-liddah-Qalzum-Cairo-Alexandria route to the Mediterranean but be does not seem to see the cause for its rise. See Vol. 1 (165,378-79) in which he notes the rise of Aden but attributes the decline in the Persian Gulf traffic explicitly to the "fearsome" behavior of the Sultan of the island of Kish. My theory is that there were far more basic causes for this shift. 19. The best sonrces I have found thus far are Chaudhuri's masterly study of the Indian Ocean (1985); the first four chapters of van Leur's Indonesian Trade and Society (1955); the works of Paul Wheatley (1983, which unfortunately focuses on an earlier period; 1961, more relevant; and Sandu and Wheatley, 1983, which begins with the founding of Malacca in 14(0); those of 0.w: Wolters (1967 which ends circa 7th century: 1970, which carries the story to the founding of Malacca in 14(0); Mooketjii's history of Indian Shipping (1962); Toussaint's History of the Indian Ocean (1966); and Coedes' Les hats hindouises d'lndochine et d'lndonesie A good summary of the role of trade in Asia can be found in chapter 6 of Curtin (1984: 20. The control by the Mongols was not to reverse this. Indeed, McNeill claims (1963: 525-26) that "the comparatively high status enjoyed by merchants in the Mongol scheme of things encouraged the shipowners of South China to develop a flourishing trade."

these "errors."

REFERENCES

For technical reasons, accents and diacritical marks have been omitted.
(Ed.)

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Studies iu Comparative InterJlatioual Developments / Winter 1981088

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des

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