200 DESTINY DISRUPTED
The crusading spirit persisted in part because over the course of the real
crusades, a new motivation had entered the drive to the east: an appetite
for trade goods coming from places like India and the islands beyond
them, which Europeans called the Indies. One of many desirable goods to
be found in India was an amazing product called sugar. From Malaysia and
Indonesia came pepper, nutmeg, and many other spices. Chefs of the High
Middle Ages put spices in everything they cooked--often the same spices
in savories and desserts; they just liked spicesP
The trouble was, the Crusades stoked an appetite for the goods but also
separated European merchants from those goods by creating a belt of anti-
Christian hostility that stretched from Egypt to Azerbaijan. European busi-
nessmen couldn't get past that wall to trade directly with the source: they had
to deal with Muslim middleman. It's true that Marco Polo traveled to China
in this period, but he and his group were just one anomalous band, and Eu-
ropeans were amazed that they had made it all the way there and back. Most,
in fact, didn't believe he had really done it: they called Marco Polo's book
about his adventures "The Millions," referring to the number of lies they
thought he had packed into it. Muslims owned the eastern shores of the
Black Sea, they owned the Caucasus mountains, they owned the Caspian
coastline. They possessed the Red Sea and all approaches to it. Europeans
were forced to get the products of India and the Indies from Muslim mer-
chants in Syria and Egypt, who no doubt jacked the prices up as high as the
market would bear, especially for their European Christian customers, given
the ill will from all that happened during the Crusades, not to mention the
fact that the Farangi Christians had aligned themselves with the Mongols.
What were western Europeans traders to do?
This is where the crusading spirit bled into the exploring impulse.
Muslims straddled the tangle of the land routes that connected the world's
important ancient markets, but over the centuries, unnoticed by Muslim
potentates and peoples, western Europeans had been developing tremen-
dous seafaring prowess. For one thing, Europeans of the post-Crusades era
included Vikings, those invading mariners from the north who were so
good at seafaring, they had even crossed the North Atlantic to Greenland
in their dragon boats. One wave invaded England where the word North-
men slurred into Norman. A few of these then moved to the coast of
France, where the region they inhabited came to be known as Normandy.