The Dark Ages: The Travels Of Marco Polo

Since the start of the Dark Ages, Europe and the east were almost completely separated. The cultures were so different they knew very little about each other only hundreds of years after stopping trade. Re-discovering China would have been almost as important and shocking as discovering the Americas. One of the first person to travel to China after the Dark Ages from Europe and write about it was Marco Polo. Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant and trader who was one of the first Europeans to travel into the east and write about his accounts. His book, The Travels of Marco Polo, introduced the west to new places, cultures, animals and more. Many question the accuracy of his accounts since it was written, but many of the facts have been proved.

In the Medieval Ages, almost everyone thought the book was fiction, so much of the information was not used at the time it was published. Although Marco Polo was not influential during his time and his book was interpreted as fiction in his lifetime, he ultimately was important to later generations because he was able to write a book that gives a European account of the Mongol Empire, gives information on trade and trade routes, and helped historians understand European bias.
The main reason why Marco Polo is important to historians is he was born at a time when Europe was emerging from the Dark Ages, opening Europe to trade again, and into an affluent trading family which allowed him to get all the information he did. Around this time, the Silk Road was once again being established connecting the far east to the west partially because of the Crusades. This, however, did not mean there was a large amount of exchange between Europeans and people from the east, especially considering Europe was still just emerging from the Dark Ages. During this time, Europe was mostly shut off from other cultures and new advancements. Historical documents were being forgotten, and the information Europe had about the east was being lost. This allowed for new information to be discovered and old information to be rediscovered. This information could only be discovered at this time in history, where Europe was starting to enter the Renaissance, but many people were still uneducated and illiterate. Polo was born into an affluent trading family that already had some established relationships with the Chinese and allowed for him to be educated and literate. Marco Polo being born in the perfect family and time period allowed him to travel to the east and find new information that would later help and inspire historians, geographers, travelers, traders, and more.
While Marco Polo was able to write his book, which would be influential later, in medieval times, his writings were considered not reputable at all and completely works of fiction. This is not entirely wrong, as he included exaggerations in his writings. He exaggerated facts such as diamond mountains and birds five times as big as men. His book also included information about an island where “The inhabitants are idolaters, and are a most brutish and savage race, having heads, eyes, and teeth resembling those of the canine species.” A lot of this information was not completely made up, but was more misinterpreted such as fifteen foot long snakes with claws and legs that ate people, which sounds much more fictitious than the crocodile he was describing. This made people of his time want to read the book, which is why it sold so many copies for it’s time, but also made it seem unreputable. Another reason that added to why his book was not taken as fact in the medieval times is his book was written in jail with the help of a fiction writer named Rusticiano. This writer added a literary touch which inflated the already exaggerated writings further, with some of the information completely made up. Polo’s writings also described places that he never travelled to that he only heard about through word of mouth mostly from the local people in Asia. This is also hard to believe for many at his time because he never learned Chinese, but much of the information was found to be accurate at a later time. These facts made the book unreputable to medieval people, however, through some fact checking over time, later generations that used it ultimately found it as a useful and mostly reliable source that provided information on many places and important pieces of history.
Even though Marco Polo did not influence many people during his life, his book gave important geographical and historical information to later people, including geographers and modern historians.

The Travels of Marco Polo housed one of the largest collections of evidence on new geography than any other book before this point.His book included many accounts on rivers, mountains, towns, cities, and more that were completely new to Europeans at this time, which is one reason why many people of his time had trouble believing in the information. This information was used in maps later once some parts were confirmed. Marco Polo also measured distances by a day’s journey, or about 30 miles, which turned out to be an accurate way to measure distance for the time and could later be used in maps. One example of a cartographer who used information given by Marco Polo in his book is Abraham Cresques who created the Catalan World Map of 1375. This was one of the most important and useful maps of this time, and it could not have been made without the information Marco Polo gave on the east, as the east had not been traversed and written about more thoroughly yet. Another example of more recent people using information Marco Polo collected in his books is Chinese historians, who have little information on many important events during the time Marco Polo was traveling through the east. An example of one of these events is the Siege of Xiangyang, which was a key battle between the Song and the Mongols that marked the Mongols pushing into the heartland of the Song. Another event Marco Polo wrote about is the Massacre of Ch'angchou, which was another Song and Mongol conflict. Marco Polo also wrote about the attempted conquests of Japan which have few other accurate accounts. Marco Polo’s later influence of these historians and cartographers through his book shows his great importance to

history.
Marco Polo was an important trader in his own town and was one of the first people to write accounts of how trade worked within the Mongol Empire, along with one of the first to write down a large portion of the trading geography, which later helped traders and historians. Polo traveled all the way across the Silk Road, which was almost unheard of for one person to do at this time. Usually, goods would pass from trader to trader along the way and get to the end, but hardly anyone went all the way. There were two main routes along the Silk Road, the North and South, each with many smaller paths branching off of them. On his way to China, he took the southern Silk Road route which started near the Mediterranean coast, went through Mesopotamia and Persia and ended in Balkh. This was the more popular of the main routes. His information given on this route was his most accurate description of the many routes because his writings are all a first person account. However, he also included information about the northern route and many of the smaller paths that he heard about from fellow travelers and traders. This information helped future travelers navigate the Silk Road, but it was not recorded exactly who used his information. In The Travels of Marco Polo, he wrote about the complex communication and trade system in China called the Yām. This system had posts ever twenty five to thirty miles, or a day’s journey, which made it incredibly fast. It even had multiple levels which determined how quickly a message would be received. This was much more complex than any European communication system at the time. Today, Polo is still one of the main and most useful sources of information on this essential Mongol system. Another aspect of trade written in Polo’s book is the currency they used in China during the 1200’s. Paper currency was being used at this time, which later was adopted by all of Western society. At the time, Europe was still using heavy coins and would not use paper until hundred’s of years later. His writings were one of the earliest sources on the efficient currency and helped to influence the spread of paper money into Western society. Without the information about trade in China included in his book, modern historians would know much less on important aspects of Chinese trade in this time.
In addition to trade information, Polo’s book helped modern historians understand the European bias about the Mongol empire at this time when compared to other western writings, and The Travels of Marco Polo included a much less bias European view of the Mongols than other European writing at this time. A large part of Western society in the 1200’s viewed the Mongols and Chinese as barbaric from their experiences with them which shows in the other writings of this time. However, Polo’s writings show a very different and much more accurate view of this complex society. Polo’s writings include information on the grand and elaborate buildings and structures of the time such as about the new city of Taidu, where he says “This new city is of a form perfectly square, and twenty-four miles in extent, each of its sides being six miles.” This city was not only large, but complex. The city was filled with handsome buildings with courts and gardens and was surrounded by walls protecting it. It was built with a degree of precision and beauty that could not be compared to any European city of the time. The Chinese building skills were far more progressed than in Europe, with large colorful palaces with details showing their advanced society. Marco Polo’s writings show a much more accurate view of this empire, including the elaborate and complex parts of the society that other Europeans did not know about. Aspects such as the buildings of this time were not written about in so much detail before his book. They also had advanced paper which allowed for books and paper currency to be much more obtainable that many people did not know about in Europe until reading The Travels of Marco Polo. These aspects of this society would not have had such a detailed and accurate unbiased European view without Marco Polo’s writings.
Marco Polo was one of the first travelers to re-connect Europe and China’s trade route. He was unimportant in his time because his stories were unbelievable to the mostly illiterate and uneducated medieval people, but ultimately later people benefitted from the information he wrote in his book. From this writing, people have learned more about European bias on the Yuan and Song Dynasties and about events that have few other accounts such as the Siege of Xiangyang and the Massacre of Ch'angchou. The Travels of Marco Polo also introduced places in Asia to new people of this time, and gave information on important trade routes of the Silk Road and the Yām communication system being used at the time. This allowed for historians and modern people to know information about a complex and advanced society they would not have had known without Marco Polo and his writings.