Mongols and Ottoman Turks: Threats and Influences

Western Europe, as the locus of historical development and cultural experience focused on in this course, should not obscure the fact that there was much happening outside the region that impacted it. Europe was influenced by active trade between East and West, and also by the exchange of ideas and the movements of those who threatened its territories and kingdoms. Competitions were myriad and real.

Takezaki Suenaga facing Mongol arrows and typical bombs containing gunpowder during the Mongol Invasions of Japan (Moko Shurai Ekotoba, 1281).

Trading routes and activity with East Asia along the overland Silk Road had long been a reality. As the late 13th century progressed, direct contact with India, China, and other trade centers opened up. New and abundant sources of valued goods, such as spices, silk textiles, exotic wood, and ivory were now available to wealthy patrons in Europe’s urban centers.

More than trade goods would find their way to parts of Western Europe, however. In the 12th and 13th centuries a powerful empire emerging from north of the Gobi Desert came in the form of the Mongols. In the 12th century, one tribe of these people of the steppes united under Ghengis Khan (the title of “universal ruler” taken by Temujin). Ghengis Khan and his sons and grandsons united China under their rule and added parts of Russia, and Eastern Europe to their rule. Subsequently, they then controlled important trade routes from China and Central Asia, the Black Sea, and down to the Mediterranean. Although initially brutal, these conquests brought a measure of safety to those traveling those routes. The ultimate result of the Mongol invasions was greater cultural exchange across continents.

The Ottoman Turks were also a nomadic people from central Asia. They began taking territories in Byzantium in the 13th century, conquering it in 1453, one of the most important dates in European history. The culture that emerged was a powerful empire, reaching its peak under the role of Suleiman the Magnificent in the 16th century. The empire stretched its borders to Europe. The gifts of this culture to the West are immeasurable, influencing mathematics, art, and architecture.

Viking Migration into the British Isles and Beyond

A nineteenth-century depiction of the Vikings that invaded the Kingdom of Wessex.

In the late 8th century in sleek fast ships, Scandinavians, or Norse (the Vikings), sailed from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark to attack the coastal areas of England (British Isles), France (Normandy), and Ireland (Frisia), seeking booty and slaves to enrich themselves as well as new lands for settling. In growing numbers, the Danes attacked the Anglo Saxon lands in Britain’s eastern and northern regions, demanding tribute. In time they took residence on Anglo Saxon soil and adopted Christianity.

The invaders brought their language, customs, and legal codes, which mingled with and transformed the lands to which they migrated. Key to their contributions was the Danelaw, which inaugurated the use of juries of peers to settle legal matters. On the British Isles, the prosperity of the Danish settlements soon led to the growth of Jorvik, or York, peaking at a population of some 10,000 inhabitants by the year 1000 CE.

Large numbers also settled in Dublin and Cork in Ireland and established a Hiberno-Norse Kingdom, Scotland and its North Atlantic Islands, as well as the Isle of Man. To the west, they founded Norse colonies on Iceland and Greenland, making their way to the shores of North America by landing on Vinland (Newfoundland, Canada) in a short-lived settlement before being ousted by the inhabitants there.

The Norse set their sights high with regard to territorial and trading expansion. The sailed their sleek, fast raiding vessels across the Baltic Sea, down the Rhine and the Danube Rivers into central Europe as well as the Volga and Dneiper Rivers among the Rus peoples into Russia. Eventually they made their way to Constantinople and the Near East, establishing a series of trading settlements as they moved further eastward. The raiding became trading over time, and as the Vikings successfully settled, they opened up new trading routes (Haywood, 1995).