Unit 2 Networks of Trade 1200-1450

Constantinople

City founded as the second capital of the Roman Empire; later became the capital of the Byzantine Empire, center for regional trade

Hangzhou

Capital of later Song dynasty; located near East China Sea; permitted overseas trading; population exceeded 1 million.

Ibn Battuta

Moroccan Muslim scholar, the most widely traveled individual of his time. He wrote a detailed account of his visits to Islamic lands from China to Spain and the western Sudan.

Junk

A very large flatbottom sailing ship produced in the Tang and Song Empires, specially designed for long-distance commercial travel.

Kashgar

a central trading point where the Eastern and Western Silk Roads met.

Khanate

one of several separate territories into which Genghis Khan's empire was split, each under the rule of one of his sons

Lateen Sail

triangular sail that made it possible to sail against the wind; used in the Indian Ocean trade

magnetic compass

Chinese invention that aided navigation by showing which direction was north

Mansa Musa

Emperor of the kingdom of Mali in Africa. He made a famous pilgrimage to Mecca and established trade routes to the Middle East.

Marco Polo

Venetian merchant and traveler. His accounts of his travels to China offered Europeans a firsthand view of Asian lands and stimulated interest in Asian trade.

Margery Kempe

Wrote the Book of Margery Kempe - considered the 1st autobiography in the Eng. language. Chronicles her pilgrimages to holy sites in Europe and Asia. Claimed to have vision that called her to leave the vanities of the world (saw vision of Christ).

Mongol Empire

an empire founded in the 12th century by Genghis Khan, which reached its greatest territorial extent in the 13th century, encompassing the larger part of Asia and extending westward to the Dnieper River in eastern Europe.

Pax Mongolica

The period of approximately 150 years of relative peace and stability created by the Mongol Empire.

Samarkand

During the silk roads, influential captial city, a wealthy trading center known for decorated mosques and tombs.

Songhai

a West African empire that conquered Mali and controlled trade from the 1400s to 1591

Stern Rudder

a small piece of wood in the back so that you can steer a large vessel more effectively.

Swahili

Bantu language with Arabic loanwords spoken in coastal regions of East Africa.

Timbuktu

City on the Niger River in the modern country of Mali. It was founded by the Tuareg as a seasonal camp sometime after 1000. As part of the Mali empire, Timbuktu became a major major terminus of the trans-Saharan trade and a center of Islamic learning.

Urdu

A Persian-influenced literary form of Hindi written in Arabic characters and used as a literary language since the 1300s.

Uyghur alphabet

one of Genghis Khan's attempts to unify his empire included directing a scribe to adapt the Uyghur alphabet to represent Mongol - alphabet still used in Mongolia

White Lotus Society

Secret religious society dedicated to overthrow of Yuan dynasty in China; typical of peasant resistance to Mongol rule

Zheng He

An imperial Muslim, entrusted by the Ming emperor Yongle with a series of state voyages that took his gigantic ships through the Indian Ocean, from Southeast Asia to Africa.