Hospitaller Malta and the Mediterranean Economy in the Sixteenth Century

Author(s):  
Joan Abela
2012 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-53
Author(s):  
Edmund Burke

There is something seriously flawed about models of social change that posit the dominant role of in-built civilizational motors. While “the rise of the West” makes great ideology, it is poor history. Like Jared Diamond, I believe that we need to situate the fate of nations in a long-term ecohistorical context. Unlike Diamond, I believe that the ways (and the sequences) in which things happened mattered deeply to what came next. The Mediterranean is a particularly useful case in this light. No longer a center of progress after the sixteenth century, the decline of the Mediterranean is usually ascribed to its inherent cultural deficiencies. While the specific cultural infirmity varies with the historian (amoral familism, patron/clientalism, and religion are some of the favorites) its civilizationalist presuppositions are clear. In this respect the search for “what went wrong” typifies national histories across the region and prefigures the fate of the Third World.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-47
Author(s):  
Janken Myrdal

This article analyzes all extant agricultural treatises produced before the sixteenth century throughout Eurasia, in order to highlight their importance for the study of agricultural praxis, their significance for constructing a transnational intellectual history of the medieval globe, and their relevance for the development of pragmatic literacies. Such texts emerged both in China and around the Mediterranean before 200 BCE, and somewhat later in India, but few have been preserved and many are difficult to date. Thereafter, the medieval transmission of agricultural knowledge moved via several different regional trajectories and traditions, with Anglo-Norman England becoming a fourth and largely independent birthplace of the agricultural treatise genre during the thirteenth century. The proliferation of these texts becomes evident throughout Eurasia around 1000 CE and increases further from the fourteenth onward. Throughout this longue durée, the contents of these treatises reflect real changes in agricultural technologies, dominant crops, and climate.


1962 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 450-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Wansbrough

I N 1508 the Mediterranean port of Bādis, located on the coast of the Rīf on approximately the same meridian as Malaga, shared with Salé and Azemmour on the Atlantic the distinction of being the only Moroccan ports not occupied by either the Spanish or Portuguese. Subject to the Wattasids at Fās, at about the beginning of the sixteenth century Bādis had been granted by the reigning Wattāsidto a cousin, who for some years ruled almost independently there. Because of its geographical situation the port was of considerable interest to the Republic of Venice, two of whose merchant fleets had occasion to call there in the course of their voyages along the coasts of the Mediterranean.Venetian interest in Bādis is illustrated by two Arabic documents: a treaty and its covering letter addressed by the Amīr of Bādis to the Doge of Venice, written in the year 1508 and concerning the establishment of commercial relations. The originals of these two documents are preserved in the Archivio di Stato di Venezia (ASV) where also, in the Libri Commemoriali, transcripts of their contemporary Italian translations are to be found. These translations are reproduced here together with the Arabic texts.


Rough Waters ◽  
2010 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Silvia Marzagalli ◽  
James R. Sofka ◽  
John J. McCusker

In his path-breaking study of the sixteenth-century Mediterranean world, Fernand Braudel identified the “invasion” by Atlantic ships and merchants as one of the major, long-lasting events in the history of the Mediterranean Sea in early modern times.2 According to Braudel, the arrival of English, Flemish and French Atlantic vessels and their captains began discretely in the early sixteenth century as a result of an increased Mediterranean demand for cheap transport services. Within a few decades, however, northern Europeans evolved from a complementary to a commanding position in the region. Atlantic shipping and trade came to dominate the most lucrative Mediterranean trades, and the Atlantic powers steadily imposed their rules and politics on Mediterranean countries, progressively subordinating the region to Atlantic interests. Their ...


1987 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-276
Author(s):  
Michael E. Williams

NOT FAR from Cadiz there is an English property that has remained Catholic for close on five hundred years. Its history goes back to pre-reformation days, indeed to the thirteenth century when the port of Sanlucar de Barrameda was recaptured from the Moors by the Guzman family who later became the Dukes of Medina Sidonia. Strategically Sanlucar was an important port because it was at the mouth of the Guadalquivir and as well as capturing the Seville trade it also commanded the traffic from the Mediterranean to Northern Europe and eventually it was the point of departure for ships leaving for the New World. Among the various nations using the port the English were conspicuous and their merchants were granted various privileges by the Dukes of Medina Sidonia during the fifteenth century. By the early sixteenth century there is evidence of a sizeable colony in the town; in fact the English were the largest single group of foreigners and many English names appear in the baptismal registers as both parents and godparents. At least one of them held high public office in the town. On the accession of Henry VIII to the throne of England, the situation further improved as he abandoned the neutrality of his father and allied himself with Spain against France. So it was that in 1517 a new charter of privileges for the English merchants in Sanlucar was drafted. A grant of land by the river was made so as to provide a chapel and a burial place for Englishmen. The chapel was dedicated to St. George and it was to be looked after by a confraternity. The chaplain was to be appointed by the Bishops of London, Winchester and Exeter, since it was from these dioceses that most of the merchants came. Although there have been rebuildings, this site has remained English ever since.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 542-565
Author(s):  
F. Özden Mercan

Abstract During the sixteenth century Genoa became a significant ally of the Habsburg Empire. Shared political, commercial, financial, and strategic factors tied the Genoese patricians firmly to Spain. However, their alliance was by no means permanent. The relations between the Genoese and the Spanish crown were not without tensions and conflict. In the mid-sixteenth century, the combination of various factors set the stage for Genoa to reconfigure its alliances in the Mediterranean. Having fallen victim to the Habsburg and Valois conflict and being torn between the two, Genoa was forced to resort to an alternative imperial power, the Ottoman Empire, to protect its integrity and independence, as well as to engage in the Levant trade. This article focuses on this moment of crisis in Genoa and analyzes how it led the Genoese to consider shifting their alliance from the Habsburgs to the Ottomans, who were the former’s most compelling rival in the Mediterranean. Although the Genoese endeavor ultimately ended in failure, the idea of a potential alliance with the Ottomans and the efforts Genoa invested in its diplomatic negotiations provides insight into the strategies a small state used to survive at a time when imperial rivalry over the Mediterranean was escalating.


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