Episode 8 Medieval Growth and Prosperity

The Middle Ages Around the World

Dr Joyce E Salisbury

Film Review

Favorable climate (due to Medieval warm period) and new agricultural technologies led to an explosion of population, wealth and territorial expansion in the 11th and 12th century (known as the the High Middle Ages).

China

This upsurge of wealth began in China in 960 AD, when the Song dynasty moved it capitol to southern China to escape repeated nomadic invasions. The new coastal capitol Lin’an (now Hangzhou) was ideally suited for China’s thriving maritime trade from India – facilitated by the Chinese invention of the magnetic compass.*

New strains of rice from South Vietnam enabled Chinese farmers to grow two crops a years. This, in turn, opened up new arable land both to landless peasants tea and cotton production for export. Iron production also increased substantially as coal replaced charcoal in the smelting process. Likewise with Lin’an’s heavy emphasis on arts and the sciences, artisans grew almost as rich as merchants.

Currency was introduced as small copper coins punched with square holes that enabled them to be threaded onto strings. To further facilitate trade, in 1024 the Song dynasty introduced paper currency and a central bank system to regulate it.

Europe

With most of the continent organized into centralized kingdoms by 1100 AD, Europe also florished. With the introduction of a padded horse collar that rested on the horse’s shoulders (rather than his neck), it became possible to use horses (who worked faster and longer than oxen) to pull plows. This also enabled the use of heavier plow with a colter** attachment enabling the cultivation of heavy clay.

It also enabled the change from a two-field(one in production, one fallow) to a three-field system (one spring, one fall an one fallow) system and the introduction of legumes, both to replace soil nitrogen and to add protein to peasant’s diets (after they were forbidden to hunt the landlord’s rabbits and other game). It also enabled the diversion of surplus land for sheep production and wool for export, especially after luxuriantly-coated Marino sheep were introduced from Africa via Spain.

After 1000 AD, European harnessed water and wind power (mainly to mill grain), based on Roman technology using gear to convert rotary to vertical motion.***

Between the 11th and 13th century, the European population doubled from 37 to 74 million. Owing to increased iron intake (leaching from iron cooking implements), maternal and infant mortality plummeted and women began outnumbering men.

Peasants were encouraged to move eastward (enabling landlords to expand their lands for sheep), leading to huge swaths of clear cut land in northern Germany to accommodate 3,000 new settlements.

Seljuk Turks

Beginning in the 11th century, Seljuk Turks from the Asian steppes migrated westward and came to dominate the Muslim world. In 1055 they conquered Baghdad, initiating the new title of “sultan” for Muslim leaders.

In 1071, they attacked the Byzantine empire, forcing Constantinople into a negotiated settlement in which they surrendered most of Asia Minor and the Anatolian peninsula (now modern day Turkey).

*The Chinese had been using magnets for divination for centuries.

**A colter (Latin ‘culter’ = ‘knife’) is a vertically mounted component of many plow that cuts an edge about 7 inches (18 cm) deep ahead of a ploughshare

***Windmills first developed in Persia (where the first medieval translation of Greek and Roman classics occurred).

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