Pub Date : 2021-05-18DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341538
J. Bhattacharya
An increasing optimism at the prospect of “shared prosperity” has revived attention on ancient historical routes such as the Southern Silk Road compelling us to rethink notions of the “centre” and the “periphery” in comprehending binaries of nation-states and agencies of globalization. This article focuses on revisiting circulatory movements and networks from the past across land and sea between Bengal delta and China in strengthening the networks and a new alignment of communities and economic possibilities. It explores some of the lesser-studied historical routes in the region and different dimensions of “place making” in the popular imagination and new synergies to redefine the Bengal-China connections.
{"title":"Old Routes, New Dreams: Reminiscences of the Southern Silk Road and Bengal-China Connectivities","authors":"J. Bhattacharya","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341538","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341538","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000An increasing optimism at the prospect of “shared prosperity” has revived attention on ancient historical routes such as the Southern Silk Road compelling us to rethink notions of the “centre” and the “periphery” in comprehending binaries of nation-states and agencies of globalization. This article focuses on revisiting circulatory movements and networks from the past across land and sea between Bengal delta and China in strengthening the networks and a new alignment of communities and economic possibilities. It explores some of the lesser-studied historical routes in the region and different dimensions of “place making” in the popular imagination and new synergies to redefine the Bengal-China connections.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46605200","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-18DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341536
Mahmood Kooria
This article examines the Bengal–China connections between the Ilyās Shāhī and Ming dynasties in the early fifteenth century across the Bay of Bengal and South China Sea. It traces how law played a central role in the cultural geography and diplomatic vocabulary between individuals and communities in foreign lands, with their shared understanding of two nodal points of law. Diplomatic missions explicate how customary, regional and transregional laws were entangled in inter-imperial etiquette. Then there were the religious orders of Islam that constituted an inner circle of imperial exchanges. Between the Ilyās Shāhī rule in Bengal and the Ming Empire in China, certain dimensions of Islamic law provided a common language for the circulation of people and ideas. Stretching between cities and across oceans the interpolity legal exchanges expose interesting aspects of the histories of China and Bengal.
{"title":"Regimes of Diplomacy and Law: Bengal-China Encounters in the Early Fifteenth Century","authors":"Mahmood Kooria","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341536","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341536","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article examines the Bengal–China connections between the Ilyās Shāhī and Ming dynasties in the early fifteenth century across the Bay of Bengal and South China Sea. It traces how law played a central role in the cultural geography and diplomatic vocabulary between individuals and communities in foreign lands, with their shared understanding of two nodal points of law. Diplomatic missions explicate how customary, regional and transregional laws were entangled in inter-imperial etiquette. Then there were the religious orders of Islam that constituted an inner circle of imperial exchanges. Between the Ilyās Shāhī rule in Bengal and the Ming Empire in China, certain dimensions of Islamic law provided a common language for the circulation of people and ideas. Stretching between cities and across oceans the interpolity legal exchanges expose interesting aspects of the histories of China and Bengal.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44474700","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-18DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341535
Yiwen Li
By reinterpreting a set of correspondence between Chinese and Japanese monks, this article gives a “thick description” of a lumber transaction between a prestigious monastery in Hangzhou, China, and a newly established monastery in Hakata, Japan. Examining the network connecting the two monasteries shows that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Hakata-based Chinese merchants sought patronage and connections from powerful religious establishments in both China and Japan, whose political patronage conferred economic privileges. The quest for gaining trade profits, spreading Buddhist teachings, and enhancing political authority drove all the parties together and formed a religio-commercial network linking China and Japan.
{"title":"Integrating Faith and Profit: The Religio-Commercial Network Spanning China and Japan, 1100-1270","authors":"Yiwen Li","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341535","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341535","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000By reinterpreting a set of correspondence between Chinese and Japanese monks, this article gives a “thick description” of a lumber transaction between a prestigious monastery in Hangzhou, China, and a newly established monastery in Hakata, Japan. Examining the network connecting the two monasteries shows that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Hakata-based Chinese merchants sought patronage and connections from powerful religious establishments in both China and Japan, whose political patronage conferred economic privileges. The quest for gaining trade profits, spreading Buddhist teachings, and enhancing political authority drove all the parties together and formed a religio-commercial network linking China and Japan.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45117147","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-18DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341537
Nanny Kim, Yang Yuda
A donation stele discovered in the 1980 records that the community of the Fulong silver mines raised some 4500 liang of silver to build a temple dedicated to the God of Wealth in 1814. The site in a remote mountain range in northern Yunnan evidently was a prosperous and populous mining town. Yet it appears in no government record. Centered on the case study, this paper provides insights into social self-organization of communities and the structures within the Qing government that allowed the operation of mines that were registered with the local governments and submitted taxes yet kept out of the communications with the central government. The analysis contributes a specific example of communal governance structures and explains the two layers in late imperial administration, one which was official and documented in gazetteers and central records, and another which was customary and usually undocumented.
{"title":"Mining off the Map: Fulongchang and Silver Mines in the Qing Empire’s Far Southwest","authors":"Nanny Kim, Yang Yuda","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341537","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341537","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000A donation stele discovered in the 1980 records that the community of the Fulong silver mines raised some 4500 liang of silver to build a temple dedicated to the God of Wealth in 1814. The site in a remote mountain range in northern Yunnan evidently was a prosperous and populous mining town. Yet it appears in no government record. Centered on the case study, this paper provides insights into social self-organization of communities and the structures within the Qing government that allowed the operation of mines that were registered with the local governments and submitted taxes yet kept out of the communications with the central government. The analysis contributes a specific example of communal governance structures and explains the two layers in late imperial administration, one which was official and documented in gazetteers and central records, and another which was customary and usually undocumented.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46708295","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-03-16DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341533
K. Hammond
{"title":"The Politics of Religion in the Japanese Empire: Responses to and Reflections on Michael Laffan’s “The Forgotten Jihad under Japan”","authors":"K. Hammond","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341533","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341533","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44689033","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-03-16DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341534
C. Schayegh
{"title":"A Comment on Michael Laffan’s JESHO Lecture","authors":"C. Schayegh","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341534","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341534","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46052156","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-03-16DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341531
T. Kynn
The pirate attack by Henry Every in 1695 on a Mughal ship carrying travelers returning from pilgrimage to Mecca has received some attention by historians trying to fit this incident into a larger history of European piracy using mainly the English sources related to the incident. Drawing from this literature the aim of the present paper is to combine it with the Mughal Persian material available to demonstrate what this incident reveals about the early modern hajj – which is to say, pilgrimage to Mecca – and the makeup of the Mughal-sponsored ship carrying pilgrims and goods between Mecca and Surat. A previously unstudied Mughal letter related to the incident, by the captain of the Mughal ship in question, reveals the ways in which the Mughal Empire understood this encounter with European piracy and provides evidence for why the Mughal Empire was so quick to place the blame for this attack upon the English and the East India Company.
{"title":"Pirates and Pilgrims: The Plunder of the Ganj-i Sawai, the Hajj, and a Mughal Captain’s Perspective","authors":"T. Kynn","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341531","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341531","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The pirate attack by Henry Every in 1695 on a Mughal ship carrying travelers returning from pilgrimage to Mecca has received some attention by historians trying to fit this incident into a larger history of European piracy using mainly the English sources related to the incident. Drawing from this literature the aim of the present paper is to combine it with the Mughal Persian material available to demonstrate what this incident reveals about the early modern hajj – which is to say, pilgrimage to Mecca – and the makeup of the Mughal-sponsored ship carrying pilgrims and goods between Mecca and Surat. A previously unstudied Mughal letter related to the incident, by the captain of the Mughal ship in question, reveals the ways in which the Mughal Empire understood this encounter with European piracy and provides evidence for why the Mughal Empire was so quick to place the blame for this attack upon the English and the East India Company.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44838198","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-03-16DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341528
M. Greene
Monasteries and the records they produced are a promising source base for writing a history of the mountains of the western Balkans. These mountains are, by and large, absent from accounts of the Ottoman presence in the Balkans and, as with mountainous areas more generally, are often considered to exist outside of the main historical narrative. Using the example of a monastery that was founded in the Pindus mountains in 1556, I argue that the monastery’s beginnings are best understood within the context of the Ottoman sixteenth century, even as due regard for Byzantine precedent must also be made. In addition, I pay close attention to the monastery’s location, for two reasons. First, this opens up a new set of questions for the history of monasteries during the Ottoman period; to date most studies have focused on taxation, land ownership and the relationship to the central state. Second, the monastery’s location offers a way into the environmental history of these mountains at the Empire’s western edge. This article aspires to extend the nascent field of Ottoman environmental history into mountainous terrain.
{"title":"History in High Places: Tatarna Monastery and the Pindus Mountains","authors":"M. Greene","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341528","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341528","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Monasteries and the records they produced are a promising source base for writing a history of the mountains of the western Balkans. These mountains are, by and large, absent from accounts of the Ottoman presence in the Balkans and, as with mountainous areas more generally, are often considered to exist outside of the main historical narrative. Using the example of a monastery that was founded in the Pindus mountains in 1556, I argue that the monastery’s beginnings are best understood within the context of the Ottoman sixteenth century, even as due regard for Byzantine precedent must also be made. In addition, I pay close attention to the monastery’s location, for two reasons. First, this opens up a new set of questions for the history of monasteries during the Ottoman period; to date most studies have focused on taxation, land ownership and the relationship to the central state. Second, the monastery’s location offers a way into the environmental history of these mountains at the Empire’s western edge. This article aspires to extend the nascent field of Ottoman environmental history into mountainous terrain.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46322886","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-03-16DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341529
Jennifer Grayson
Economic historians describe the emergence of Jewish court bankers presiding over a central state bank in Abbasid Baghdad as significant for the global history of finance. This paper, however, re-evaluates these figures in light of new insights about court cultures and institutions in the medieval Islamicate world. It argues that they should be understood primarily as middlemen in tax collection. They performed favors for individual viziers, but likely never held official titles or appointments at al-Muqtadir’s court. Rather, it was precisely their outsider status relative to elite Abbasid social networks that accounts for the longevity of their careers.
{"title":"“Unable to Dismiss Them”: Re-assessing the Jewish “Court Bankers” of Abbasid Baghdad, 908–932","authors":"Jennifer Grayson","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341529","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341529","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Economic historians describe the emergence of Jewish court bankers presiding over a central state bank in Abbasid Baghdad as significant for the global history of finance. This paper, however, re-evaluates these figures in light of new insights about court cultures and institutions in the medieval Islamicate world. It argues that they should be understood primarily as middlemen in tax collection. They performed favors for individual viziers, but likely never held official titles or appointments at al-Muqtadir’s court. Rather, it was precisely their outsider status relative to elite Abbasid social networks that accounts for the longevity of their careers.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42232565","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-03-16DOI: 10.1163/15685209-12341530
Romain Thurin
In the late 11th century, two mysterious “Roman” embassies visited China and offered tribute to the Song Dynasty. This paper seeks to reopen the argument surrounding the identity of the Roman embassies. The question enjoyed intense discussions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before interest waned thereafter. Relying on a broad range of underused sources, this paper re-assesses the two most widely acknowledged theories that associate the embassies with the aims of the Byzantine pretender Nikephoros Melissenos and of the Seljuk prince in exile Sulaymān ibn Qutlumush.
11世纪末,两个神秘的“罗马”大使馆访问中国,向宋朝进贡。本文试图重新展开关于罗马大使馆身份的争论。这个问题在19世纪末和20世纪初受到了激烈的讨论,之后人们的兴趣减弱。根据大量未被充分利用的资料,本文重新评估了两种最为广泛认可的理论,这两种理论将大使馆与拜占庭伪装者Nikephoros Melissenos和塞尔柱流亡王子Sulaymān ibn Qutlumush的目标联系起来。
{"title":"China and the Two Romes. The 1081 and 1091 “Fulin” Embassies to the Song Empire","authors":"Romain Thurin","doi":"10.1163/15685209-12341530","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685209-12341530","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In the late 11th century, two mysterious “Roman” embassies visited China and offered tribute to the Song Dynasty. This paper seeks to reopen the argument surrounding the identity of the Roman embassies. The question enjoyed intense discussions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before interest waned thereafter. Relying on a broad range of underused sources, this paper re-assesses the two most widely acknowledged theories that associate the embassies with the aims of the Byzantine pretender Nikephoros Melissenos and of the Seljuk prince in exile Sulaymān ibn Qutlumush.","PeriodicalId":45906,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44027903","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}