the mediterranean and asia 449
China and India unquestionably occupy the most important places within the Old
World’s system or set of systems. China’s territorial scale, cultural unity, commercial
vitality, vast agricultural base and exceptionally long history of imperial statehood
made it the largest engine room, the more so because its resources were coveted
throughout that world. Owing to its distant location, the Mediterranean and Europe
were late to benefit from its litany of prized goods, inventions and ideas: paper, print-
ing, gunpowder, compass, cast iron, coke as fuel, lacquer, millet, triangle-shaped
ploughshare, rice cultivation, salt cultivation, sericulture (silk), banknotes, hydraulic
powered bellows, blast furnaces, ephedrine, fireworks, gas cylinders, hand cannons
and horse collars. To feed the immense demand in the domestic and foreign markets,
medieval Chinese peasants substituted making silk or hemp for farming, or for work-
ing in the manufacture of paper, porcelain and iron tools (Bentley, 1998: 244). India’s
influence over Eurasia was also immense. Lynda Shaffer has coined the term “south-
ernization” to express the way the Indian subcontinent shaped the course of world
history. Aside from inventing mathematical numerals, various technologies and most
of the major eastern religions, India served as the world’s source of cotton and cotton
textiles, and as the center for the trade in sugar, pepper and other subtropical and
tropical spices. Although many spices and sugar were derived from south-east Asia,
Indian merchants were mainly responsible for the world trade in such commodities,
and Indians invented granulated sugar, which made the product a portable commod-
ity (Shaffer, 1994: 7). Indians also pioneered the sea routes that linked the Indian
Ocean and the South China Sea, thus giving the rest of the Old World the most
efficient and cheapest access to such Chinese goods as silk.
From a Mediterranean standpoint, West Asia and Egypt each performed the role of
gatekeeper. The most important access point was Egypt, which controlled movements
from the Indian Ocean via the Red Sea, and the cities that at different times served as
the major terminus for caravan trails emanating from the Persian Gulf or overland
routes from Iran and central Asia. The Arabs, as Shaffer points out, were responsible
for extending the effects of “southernization” to the Mediterranean, especially the
Muslim Mediterranean, which from the eighth century included North Africa, Spain
and large islands such as Sicily and Crete. Aside from sugar, the Arabs introduced cot-
ton and citrus fruits, which thrived in the Mediterranean heat. Overall, “southerniza-
tion” led to more intensive agriculture and greater productivity in the Muslim half of
the Mediterranean world (Shaffer, 1994: 13–14). Just as important were irrigation
technologies and techniques, especially the qanat system of gravity-flow tunnel wells,
which the Muslims introduced throughout their domains, including Spain, and which
led to a “green” revolution that greatly enhanced productivity in the Mediterranean.
The revolution made some Mediterranean regions more capable of cultivating rice,
sugar and cotton (Burke, 2009: 86–88).
Most economic historians agree that the Mediterranean suffered long-term
decline from the third century ce, and that the Arab conquests of the seventh
and early eighth centuries exacerbated the problem (Wickham, 2005; compare
McCormick, 2001; Valérian, this volume). Throughout the rest of the Middle Ages,
however, the fortunes of the Christian Mediterranean often hinged on access to the
richer Muslim half. Italy’s urban resurgence from the ninth century had to do with
the renewed intensification of exchanges with the east. By the eleventh century,
improvements in sailing technology (for example, three-masted sailing vessels),