7. The “Decline” of the Central Asian Caravan Trade

The central Asian caravan trade linking Europe, the Middle East, and China, which had developed as early as the Han dynasty (206 b.c.–a.d. 220), began to decline during Sung (960–1279) times and truly collapsed in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. It flourished during the Han and T'ang (618–907) dynasties, but the turbulence in northwest China during the Sung period disrupted trade along the so-called Silk Roads. In the Mongol era (midthirteenth to midfourteenth centuries), trade across Eurasia witnessed a resurgence that continued through the first century or so of Ming (1368–1644) rule. By the late Ming, however, the long-distance trade between China and the Middle East and Europe had dwindled to a trickle.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine sixteenth century Netherlands business organisation and accounting practices, then the most advanced in Western Europe, to test Sombart's theory that scientific double entry bookkeeping was an essential prerequisite for the development of modern capitalism and the emergence of the public corporation during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Rather than being a development of Paciolian bookkeeping, double‐entry bookkeeping in sixteenth century Netherlands was grounded in northern German (Hanseatic) business practices.Design/methodology/approachSixteenth century Dutch business records and Dutch and German bookkeeping texts are used to establish that north German Hanseatic commercial practices exercised the greatest influence on The Netherlands' bookkeeping practices immediately prior to the development of the capitalistic commercial enterprise in the first years of the seventeenth century.FindingsContrary to Sombart's thesis, scientific double‐entry bookkeeping was rarely used in sixteenth century Netherlands, which became Europe's most sophisticated commercial region during the late sixteenth century and early seventeenth century. Instead, extant commercial archives and the numerous sixteenth century accounting texts suggest that Hanseatic business practices and agents' (factors') bookkeeping were the dominant influence on northern Netherlands' business practices at this time. The organisation and administrative practices of Netherlands' businesses prior to the seventeenth century, especially their decentralised structure and lack of a common capital, were founded on Hanseatic practices that were considerably different to the best Italian practice of the time.Research limitations/implicationsNorth German influences on Dutch accounting and business practices have significant implications for social theories of the development of capitalism, notably that of Bryer, that assume the use of a scientific (capitalistic) form of double‐entry bookkeeping was essential to the development of capitalism from the seventeenth century. This is tested in a subsequent paper which examines the accounting practices of the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost‐Indische Compagnie or VOC) which was founded in 1602 at the very cusp of modern capitalism. The research presented here was partially constrained by the scarcity of transcriptions of original sixteenth century bookkeeping records.Originality/valueThe vigorous debate in the accounting history literature about the dependence of modern capitalism upon a scientific (capitalistic) form of double entry bookkeeping prompted by Sombart has been mainly concerned with England. This paper introduces into the debate material which documents the accounting and business practices of the most commercially advanced region of Europe in the late sixteenth century and the influence of Dutch bookkeeping texts.

To date, most scholarly studies of Sino-Korean relations during the Ming have focused on the turbulent events of the late fourteenth century and the periods of crises during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Less attention has been devoted to the maintenance of Ming-Chosôn relations and the resolution of relatively minor incidents during the intervening two centuries. More attention to the ongoing management of Sino-Korean relations during this period of peace and general amity is necessary. Not only was the period of the fifteenth and the majority of the sixteenth centuries more typical of Ming-Chosôn relations than the heightened tension and suspicion that marked the early fourteenth and late sixteenth centuries. Further, close study of these ongoing relations reveal much about how East Asian diplomacy was actually conducted.

Bernard Bailyn's Barbarous Modernity

The economic role of Jews in Christian Europe changed profoundly from the Middle Ages to the early modern period. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Sephardic Jews—the descendents of those who had been expelled from the territories of the crown of Castile and Aragon in 1492, or of those who, after seeking refuge in Portugal, were forced to convert to Catholicism in 1497—formed increasingly stable communities in Venice, Livorno, Hamburg, Amsterdam, and London (after 1656). They were eventually tolerated in Bordeaux and other towns in southwestern France, and slowly set foot in the Dutch and English Caribbean. In the late seventeenth century, they also established small enclaves in Levantine and North African ports. Unlike medieval Jewry or other early modern segments of Jewish society in Europe, Sephardic merchants did not engage in petty credit and retail sale. Instead, many among them were largely involved—each with varying degrees of success—in long-distance trade, international finance, and the processing and manufacturing of colonial goods (especially sugar, tobacco, and diamonds). For most Sephardim, credit operations were closely linked to commerce, but for a few, such as Gabriel de Silva (ca. 1683–1763) in Bordeaux, private banking was their sole occupation.1

The erection of Christian sacred shrines and places of worship is a historically complex phenomenon. It goes back to the very early beginning of Christianity. These concrete manifestations despite substantial differences due to time and place share common elements. As an object of research it cannot, of course, be isolated from its cultural context. Especially in early modern times the revival or erection and installation of a place of worship and devotion was always a product of various factors: intellectual activity, topographic and administrative organization, and pastoral, theological, and often political endeavors.1 This essay tries to outline aspects of this phenomenon vis-a-vis an important shrine neglected by international research: the Grotto of St. Paul at Rabat in Malta, the center of the Pauline cult in the island. Since it can be claimed that there has been cultural continuity in the Christian Mediterranean from the period of late Antiquity, the time of the Fathers of the Church, up to the beginning of the nineteenth century (with the possible exception of the Arab period), where does the sacred Pauline shrine in Malta fit in this picture? I Traveling to visit Christian cult centers is a phenomenon known since the fourth and fifth century when Christianity finally established itself as the dominant religion in the Mediterranean. Those self-imposed exiles, those peregrinations and often dangerous voyages were undertaken for the sake of purification of the soul and spiritual salvation. In many cases also material ends and the desire to break away from the dependence on the ruling class mattered. Places of miracles, martyrdom, death, and resurrection and burial sites of holy men and women of Christianity caused Jerusalem, Rome,2 and Santiago de Compostela3 to become the most important pilgrimage centers of the Christians. This pilgrim traveling continued into the early medieval period and grew considerably in extent in high and late medieval times.4 However, during the time of the Reformation, especially in the third and fourth decades of the sixteenth century, pilgrimages fell into disrepute in Protestant countries although they retained their popularity in the Roman Catholic countries of southern Europe, in spite of the attacks by Luther, Melanchthon, and Erasmus. Nevertheless, the Roman Catholic Church was becoming highly aware that the people were not rallying behind a mere theological formula any more. As an answer, they made efforts to renovate and re-establish concrete objects of veneration and cult. The initial revival of places of devotion in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century was far from random but part of a carefully planned program of Catholic policy. Although it had existed before the specific revival in the first decades of the seventeenth century, the movement of the Pauline cult in the Mediterranean island of Malta had a direct connection with the Counter-Reformation program of the Catholic Church, with its roots in the Council of Trent. Architecture, art, and literature had to state the 'grandeur' and importance of the Catholic Church in order to attest the truth of the Faith. Art had to visualize this spiritual program and helped to develop a baroque style which was now highly visual. A most significant part of this ecclesiastical program was the revival of the holy traditions of the pilgrimages and their aims by rebuilding or extending old monuments in a baroque style, thereby practically creating new ones. However, not in every case of the revival or new installation of centers of Christian devotion in the late sixteenth century or the beginning of the seventeenth century can the main and only motive be traced back to the concept of the Counter-Reformation. This paper tries to single out the special case of the increase of the Pauline devotion in the sixteenth century in the island of Malta. The example presented by the shrines of St. Paul in Malta and the Grotta di S. …

This article discusses developments among Jurchen tribes on Chosŏn Korea’s northeast frontier during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. By the sixteenth century, it is often argued, Chosŏn court officialdom had thoroughly internalized Sinocentric ideology, and this caused them to despise Jurchens as barbarian outsiders. By exploring court debates and poetry related to Jurchen uprisings in northern Hamgyŏng, however, this essay argues that Sinocentric ideology was only one factor in sixteenth-century Chosŏn views of the Jurchens. The long-established relationship of certain Jurchen groups with the Chosŏn court and the important role that Jurchens played in Chosŏn’s defense also influenced Chosŏn attitudes. Even Sinocentric ideology, whereby Jurchens were considered inferior barbarian outsiders, could be used rhetorically to call Chosŏn officials to treat their Jurchen inferiors with paternalistic concern.

French actors mediated North African cultures and shaped French perceptions of others in the Mediterranean world during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Francophone intermediaries experienced predominantly Muslim cultures as consuls, diplomats, military officers, naval captains, merchants, travelers, and prisoners in North Africa and across the Mediterranean during this period. This article reconsiders issues of race and conflict in the early modern Mediterranean by globalizing Francophone sources on the figure of the “Moor” and the conceptual space of the “Barbary Coast” in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. After introducing French cultural intermediaries in the Mediterranean, the article analyzes their depictions of North Africans through conflict narratives, geographic works, and ethnographic descriptions. New evidence of racial distinctions in the early modern French Mediterranean suggests that conflict reshaped French understandings of Muslims and produced racialized conceptions of “Moors.” This finding supports recent historical interpretations of race as a category of differentiation already articulated and operative in the early modern world.

This chapter discusses the historiography of relations between Africans and Europeans, and among Africans, on the Senegambia/Upper Guinea Coast and in the Cabo Verde Islands in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. While social domination was connected with slave or free status, “racism” and a “racial” approach do not accurately explain it. Prevailing scholarly interpretations of “racism” in Early Modern Europe are contested as prone to an ahistorical and teleological approach. An alternative to the idea of an underlying “racism” or “racisms” as a constant across historical periods and common to many diverse cultures would be a focused and historically contextualized study of the manner in which societies categorized people and then either did or did not ascribe characteristics to members of the resultant groups.

This chapter presents a sufficient documentary base for drawing out a comprehensive picture of Western trade and merchants in the Ottoman Mediterranean in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. An essential aspect of the Western presence in the Ottoman Mediterranean was the institution of the consulates, which were part and parcel of the evolution of the capitulatory regime. In comparison with Venice and England, France had a mixed process of appointing consuls in the Levant. According to the simplistic interpretation of the diplomatic text of the capitulations, the appointment of consuls was a right reserved to the king of France, usually exercised by the ambassador in Constantinople. Imperial commands dispatched to the local authorities of Aleppo and Egypt which were copied into the Manuscrit Turc 130 bring to light three circumstances that caused the appointment of a new consul. Keywords: Aleppo; Consular Jurisdiction; Egypt; France; French Capitulations; French consul

This article examines the wealthier inhabitants of Croydon in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, focusing on differences in wealth, ownership of property and social relationships. Using wills and subsidy lists, four broad categories of people were identified: gentlemen, yeomen, tradesmen and craftsmen and widows. There was no simple gradation of wealth between these groups; although gentlemen were generally among the richest subsidy payers, yeomen and tradesmen could also figure. In terms of social relationships and the ownership of property, there were differences. Gentlemen tended to marry within their own social group, appoint other gentlemen as overseers in their wills and were more likely to own land outside Croydon. The social relationships of yeomen and tradesmen/craftsmen were more focused on the town itself, as were their land purchases. Two groups of individuals can therefore be seen, not one homogenous entity as some scholars have argued.

P. G. Maxwell-Stuart, Satan's Conspiracy: Magic and Witchcraft in Sixteenth- Century Scotland, East Linton, Tuckwell Press, 2001, pp. 225, pb. £16.95, ISBN 1862321361; Lizanne Henderson and Edward J. Cowan, Scottish Fairy Belief: a History, East Linton, Tuckwell Press, 2001, pp. xi + 242, pb. £14.99, ISBN 1862321906; Lawrence Normand and Gareth Roberts, Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI's Demonology and the North Berwick Witches, Exeter, Exeter University Press, 2000, pp. 454, pb £16.99, ISBN 08589388X, hb £47.50, ISBN 0859896803Scotland always figures in any general survey of witchcraft in these isles because of the stress which is, rightly or wrongly, placed on the figure of James VI. His central role in the North Berwick witch trials in the early 1590s, coupled with the publication of his Daemonologie later in the decade, place him as a central figure in the debates of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Because of this it has been postulated that he was a driving figure in the witch-hunts of the 1590s in Scotland, and was subsequently instrumental in fuelling similar events after his accession to the English throne in 1603. Although two English editions of the Daemonologie were put to press in the year he took the throne and there was subsequent public interest in the subject, James himself can not really be charged with fuelling interest in witchcraft after he came to the throne of England. As James Sharpe points out, 'A closer examination of James's track-record in instances of witchcraft while king of England . . . reveals that his attitudes were far removed from the propensity for rabid witch-hunting that has been attributed to him'.1James's presence, perhaps unsurprisingly then, is keenly felt in all the books under consideration here, and two of them - Maxwell-Stuart's Satan's Conspiracy, and Normand and Roberts's Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland - closely engage with the question of James's role in the North Berwick trials and the subsequent witch hunts. In the former it is considered as part of a survey of magic and witchcraft in the later sixteenth century, while the latter is solely concerned with the trials themselves; and in both books Daemonologie is convincingly shown to have had its genesis in the trials which preceded its composition. However, neither paint the picture of James as the instigator of the witch-hunts that followed in Scotland, but rather see them as driven not by the king but the Kirk. Of course the events at North Berwick no doubt lingered in the minds of the populace and had some bearing on what followed, but it was by no means part of a personal quest by James. Indeed the publication of Daemonologie actually marks the end of the witch trials, with James disbanding all the standing commissions to try witchcraft in August 1597, only a few months after the book was published in Edinburgh.James's treatise is one of the key texts for any study of Renaissance occult works in English, and Lawrence Normand and the late Gareth Roberts have certainly provided scholars of witchcraft with a very important and useful resource by reproducing not only the text of Daemonologie, but also Newes from Scotland, and transcripts of the dittays as well as the examinations, confessions, and depositions of those accused of witchcraft. The latter are not found in Pitcairn's Ancient Criminal Trials and appear here in print for the first time. I am also much pleased to find they have even reproduced all the illustrations that accompanied Newes from Scotland. The texts themselves are richly annotated and thorough bibliographic descriptions are provided. I do however have two complaints with the edition. Firstly the documents themselves are not indexed in the bibliography, but only the introductions to the documents and the essays on the context, which together form the first part of the volume. Indeed even when dealing with the secondary material the Index is not as complete as one might wish it to be: for example the entry for 'Hemmingsen' makes no reference to his debates with King James in Denmark, which are mentioned in the text on pp. …

Summary When dealing with philosophical questions such as the choice of a world system or the substance of heaven, some sixteenth-century astronomers, including Tycho Brahe and Christophe Rothmann, devised more accurate experimental setups so that they could refine their celestial observations. With this desire to listen to nature arose new questions, in particular that of atmospheric refractions, the understanding and resolution of which became decisive to guarantee the best accuracy. However, to solve such practical problems, it was necessary to consider their philosophical and theological background, as well as the knowledge of optics inherited from the medieval period. We examine this heritage and its transmissions through the works of Peter Ramus's assistants, especially Jean Pena and Friedrich Risner. From this first survey, we try to analyse the lively debate on atmospheric refractions in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries by exploring the argumentative structure, the philosophical background, and the epistemological grounds of the discourse of authors such as Tycho Brahe, Christoph Rothmann, and Johannes Kepler.

Performing the Sea: Fortune, Risk, and Audience Engagement in<i>Pericles</i>

Scholars of the madrigal have often emphasized Torquato Tasso’s role in the emergence of a serious musical manner that differed sharply from the widespread canzonetta style of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. This emphasis is grounded in Tasso’s endorsement of musical gravitas in the dialogue La Cavaletta from the mid-1580s, as well as in some settings of Gerusalemme liberata, the musical style of which matched the heroic tone of the poetry. Tasso, however, produced many poems that were suitable to lighter musical styles. In particular, he wrote several short strophic compositions of light tone, that is, canzonetta poems. Numerous composers set these as such or as canzonetta madrigals, the hybrid genre that became popular in the late sixteenth century. This poetic-musical repertoire counters Tasso’s and scholars’ emphasis on gravitas and prompts a reconsideration of his impact on music that takes into greater account his substantial contribution to lighter genres.