One of the world’s greatest explorers was Marco Polo. Known for his travels to China, the book he wrote about his expeditions, The Travels of Marco Polo, and his sharing of Asian spices, marked him as a great influence in the 13th century and beyond.
Italy was not tranquil in the 13th century. Famine spread across Europe because of poor harvests. Crops failed because of seasonal floods. In the winter of 1315-1316, the peasants ate the seeds before they could sell them because they were so hungry. Since there was no seed, there were no crops to make seeds the next year.
Another reason for crop failure was the Little Ice Age that began in Europe, in about 1350. The agricultural output declined and several famines resulted in the next few years.
The 13th century was an age of fresh endeavour and high maturity in philosophy, theology, and art. People consider it as the high point of medieval civilization. Pope Innocent III brought in the revival of religious life and culture in the period. He was one of the youngest and most spirited popes to hold the throne of St. Peter. As pope, Innocent helped guide other European rulers and expanded the control of the popes before and after him.
Many believe that women had no rights during the 1200s. Even though men dominated them, they were often treated well. Noble women lived luxuriously and when chivalry was finally introduced, men began to respect them. Men treated women based on their social rank.
Nobility lived a very posh life. They wore very bright clothing made out of silk. Men wore trousers with a long coat. Women wore loose gowns with long tight sleeves and a small belt. Both men and women wore pointed-toe shoes and jewelry.
As a serf child in Italy, they woke up in a small...
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...book about his travels. Marco decided that they would write a book called The Travels Of Marco Polo. The manuscript somehow got passed out of the prison, and it became a huge hit all around Europe. Everybody wanted to read it because rarely any people had been to Asia then, and they wanted to know what it was like.
Marco was released from prison in August of 1299. He fell in love with a woman named Donata Badoer and married her. She was a merchant too and they had three kids together: Fantina, Bellela, and Moreta.
Marco Polo died on January 7, 1324. He had a big impact on the world. Especially on people. Christopher Columbus used Marco’s maps to travel across the ocean. Marco changed they way that people thought about the world because he came back from China with spices, plants and all sorts of cultural differences. Marco Polo was the best explorer of his time.
From 1566 to 1569 he sailed on two slave-trading voyages with his cousin and partner Sir John Hawkins. He is another famous sea dog in his time. They went to Africa and got slaves and sold them to the Western Indians. Portugal and Spain were not happy about this voyage that England made because they were giving Portugal competition with slave trade and ...
There is a debate whether or not Marco Polo truly went to China. The side that does not believe Marco Polo traveled to China has this view because Marco Polo did not mention the Great Wall. In addition, the Chinese culture was not noted of. Being a foreigner, Marco Polo did not write about these strange things such as foot binding, calligraphy and etcetera. Not only that, but Marco Polo did not catch onto and learn the Chinese language due to the time he was there. Also, Marco Polo was not mentioned or documented about directly in the Chinese writings. However, three Venetians were written about.
“Paradise Found and Lost” from Daniel J. Boorstin’s The Discoverers, embodies Columbus’ emotions, ideas, and hopes. Boorstin, a former Librarian of Congress, leads the reader through one man’s struggles as he tries to find a Western Passage to the wealth of the East. After reading “Paradise Found and Lost,” I was enlightened about Columbus’ tenacious spirit as he repeatedly fails to find the passage to Asia. Boorstin title of this essay is quite apropos because Columbus discovers a paradise but is unable to see what is before him for his vision is too jaded by his ambition.
After receiving a job in a minor administrative position for the Mongol ruler, Marco Polo stayed in China for another seventeen years. Throughout this time he wildly traveled across the Chinese land and collected stories about his experiences in the foreign country. His book, The Travels of Marco Polo helped to shape Western European culture, though scholars question the legitimacy behind his stories since he left out many prominent features of the Chinese life.
Christopher Columbus began many of his adventures with preexisting sources and models from well-known philosophers and explores, mixture of inventions, misrepresentations and concealment (Bodmer,10). Despite his knowledge of geography and cosmology, he used models that were complex and contradicting, providing factual and mythical reports of what he could expect to find on the islands he would soon explore. The most detailed information which was creditable based on objectivity and accurate accounts were described by Marco Polo. The book ‘Travels’, would become a resource used by Columbus to compare his discoveries, for here it would reveal actual and potential problems that were identified by Marco Polo (Bodmer, 13,14). According to Polo, land that was located beyond the reach of commercial expeditions would belong to the first man who could reach them, according to the rules of the imperialistic pattern of appropriation (Bodmer, 16). As Columbus’s imagines of finding lands rich ...
What if women never established rights? The world would not be the place it is today if that was the case. Women are able to do just as much as men are and even more. What if men were treated the same way as women were one thousand years ago? They would have felt just as the women did, hurt because the treatment between men and women was unfair. The fact that men and women were not treated equally was wrong in many ways, but that was the way of life during those times. In the British culture, from the Anglo-Saxon to the Renaissance time period, the men were respected on a higher level than women, and women were to always be subservient to men, which were demonstrated throughout many works of literature.
For the purpose of better understanding, I start by providing some background information about each of the two men. Marco Polo was an Italian citizen born into a wealthy Venetian merchant family. His most significant travel experience came in 1271, when he set out with his father Nicolo and his uncle Maffeo on a journey to the court of the Mongol Emperor of China, Kubilai Khan. Polo returned only twenty four years later to his homeland of Venice. On the other hand, Ibn Battuta was a jurist from Morocco who left his native city- Tangier, in 1325, for a journey to the East that would cover a total of seventy-five thousand miles and keep him twenty nine years away from home. In this essay, I will be dealing primarily with the aforementioned ex...
Columbus went on four voyages in his lifetime to the New World accomplishing many great things along the way. Although all the land Columbus had found was already inhabited by other civilizations he was ultimately the first person to lead the permeant European discovery of the New World or better known as
The Middle Ages was a time period from 500 CE to about 1500 CE. During this time, Christianity spread slowly across Europe, and eventually became a dominant religion in the world. Along with the spread of Christianity, the rise of Islam, from a global perspective, was the most important event of this period. In the Mediterranean world, the Middle Ages saw the institutionalization of several monotheistic religions. Islam and Christianity were very deeply rooted in the cultures and societies during this time, and this can be seen in the social hierarchy of medieval Islamic and Christian societies.
Many of the French people were left without homes, food or livestock, they were about to face a harsh winter and were unsure if they had enough seeds to plant crops the following year. The climatic changes that occurred over Europe had drastic consequences for agriculture, resulting in malnutrition which pre-disposed the populace to disease. Inflation increased and famine soon spread across Europe, resulting in many deaths. Around 1339, Europe’s population began to increase, this growth began to surpass the capacity of the land to feed its populace. Therefore, a severe economic crisis began to emerge....
that century, a declining population, shrinking markets, a decrease in arable land and a general
The era of the Middle Ages does not paint a bright picture for many people because it was a dark time in history. The Middle Ages were a terrible time to live in with the grime, debauchery, and disease. The rich were very well off while the poor made it through a hard life. The decline of the Middle Ages was at the end of the fourteenth century because of, “crop failures, famine, population decline, plagues, stagnating production, unemployment, inflation, devastating warfare, abandoned villages, and violent rebellions by the poor and weak of towns and countryside, who were ruthlessly suppressed by the upper classes.”1 Even though the Middle Ages were a time of adversity it did have great growth...
The nobility included people who inherited wealth. They were inclined in cultural endeavors like arts and music. Wealth in this group was transferred from generation to generation.
...e the intellect of the times to figure out how to navigate in the oceans is just as important if not more than his discovery of a new continent. Some would argue this point but from my research, Amerigo Vespucci was truly the founder of modern navigation that brought civilization out of the dark ages to the modern era. He was truly a man of his times.
The fourteenth century was the darkest period in recorded European history. This period saw religious corruption and a great decline in population along with terror and devastation due to war and disease. Although there were many minor calamities, the three major crises were The Great Schism, the Hundred Years' War, and the Black Plague.