Reading Response Week 3

Reading Response 3

This week, both in lecture and in our readings, we learned about the Mediterranean as a contact zone. Through trade, large-scale industry, banking, political relations, and the changing structures of regions (from 14^th century city-states, to 15^th century territorial states, to 16^th century empires), the Mediterranean remained a place of cultural encounters between the East and the West. As Wright wrote, “there were two Mediterraneans- East and West, Turkish and Spanish, Islamic and Christian”. This week we learned more about the nuanced relationships between the East and West, as well as Western Europeans in the East and the Jews in Venice.

As we talked about in class, in the 16^th century, “Western Education” made the Ottoman Empire more accustomed to a diverse environment; the West was becoming more powerful, and dominating the East. Constantinople had many Genoese people and, as explained in the Fleet reading, Ottoman-Genoese relations were “based very firmly on mutual interest”; in the Ottoman Empire, many Catholics were converting to Islam and migrating to Ottoman lands as the places they were from were overpopulated. This worked out for the migrants who had access to the Ottoman market, and the Ottoman Empire needed skilled laborers, so it was a mutually beneficial relationship. When the Genoese left the Ottoman market, Fleet alludes that it was on their own accord.

With the fall of Constantinople, Venice became one of the richest cities in the known world; it was a wealthy, “superior” city. Venetian merchants were found all over the world, and Jewish moneylenders were confined to ghettos in Venice, which we learned in detail about during Thursday’s lecture. Though Venice was enjoying this great success, not a lot of people were moving from the East to the West because the West was more intolerant. Christian intolerance pervaded the Western world, as depicted by the ghettoization of the Jewish moneylenders in Venice. This was not the only example of Western intolerance; we learned about Catholic intolerance in the Spanish Inquisition in the 15^th century when Jews and Muslims were ordered to either convert to Catholicism or leave Spain. I would also argue that Christian intolerance has a legacy that has resulted in Christian privilege today. In America, for one example, (but also in much of the Western world), the Christian faith has carries benefits that other religions do not. American Christians have their religious holidays exempted from work schedules, they can freely discuss their religion and assume that, even if their company is not Christian, they will be educated about the Christian faith. It makes me wonder if the Christian intolerance of the 14^th and 15^th centuries actually set the precedence for the acceptance of Christian values into law, societal norms, etc; in the Western world.  

 As Western values became increasingly dominant, those who refused to accept them were feared and driven out of the West. For example, as we discussed in lecture and read in Braudel’s chapters, the Moriscos “represented the clash of civilizations”.  In denying the superiority of Western civilization, Moriscos challenged and threatened the Spanish Empire by not assimilating. They were repressed during the Spanish Inquisition, and they were driven out during the great expulsions of 1609-1614. The Jewish merchants of Venice experienced similar repression in their confinement in the Ghetto, and this exemplifies the reason that few Easterners went to the West; it was not a good place to be for those who didn’t fit into Western ideals of civilization and morality. Throughout the 14^th through 16^th century, these historical relationships paved the way for the political and economic conditions that exist today.