The Pax Mongolica had a profound effect on Eurasian trade, transforming the overland trade routes from dangerous, unreliable passages into some of the safest and most heavily used arteries of commerce in the medieval world. The transformation was the result of a number of specific institutions that the Mongols created in the course of their conquests, and it had far-reaching consequences for the political, cultural, and economic life of Eurasia.
The Volume of Trade
The most obvious effect of the Pax Mongolica was a dramatic increase in the volume of trade. The overland trade routes of Eurasia had been disrupted for centuries by political instability, warfare, and the general decline of the major empires that had previously protected them. The Pax Mongolica revived the routes and made them safer than they had been in living memory, and the volume of goods moving along the routes increased dramatically in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.
The most striking evidence of the increase in trade is the appearance of Asian goods in European markets. Chinese silk and porcelain, which had been luxury items in the Roman world, became widely available in Europe for the first time in the thirteenth century. Indian spices and precious stones, which had been expensive and rare in medieval Europe, became more common and more affordable. The demand for Asian goods in Europe was a major driver of the trade, and the European merchants who participated in the trade — the Genoese, the Venetians, the Pisans — became some of the wealthiest people in medieval Europe.
The Routes of Trade
The Pax Mongolica also affected the routes of trade. The major overland routes — the Silk Road and its various branches — became safer and more heavily used, and a number of new routes were opened up. The most important of the new routes was the route that connected the Mongol heartland to the Black Sea via the Caucasus. This route, which had been dangerous and unreliable before the Mongol conquests, became a major artery of trade in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, and the Italian merchant colonies of the Black Sea — Caffa, Sudak, Tana — became major centers of trade.
The maritime trade routes also flourished under the Pax Mongolica. The Mongol naval power in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean was a major factor in the safety of the maritime routes, and the trade between China and the Middle East by sea increased dramatically. The most important of the maritime routes was the route from the South China Sea to the Persian Gulf, which carried large quantities of Chinese silk and porcelain to the markets of the Middle East.
The Cost of Trade
The Pax Mongolica also had a significant effect on the cost of trade. The safety of the routes and the predictability of the system of weights and measures reduced the costs of transport, and the imperial guarantee of safe conduct for travelers reduced the risks of doing business. The result was a significant reduction in the cost of long-distance trade, and the prices of Asian goods in European markets fell substantially in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.
The reduction in the cost of trade was not, however, evenly distributed. The cost of transport on the overland routes remained high, and the prices of Asian goods in European markets remained substantial. The cost of the maritime trade was lower, but the maritime trade was also more vulnerable to political disruption. The balance between overland and maritime trade shifted over the course of the Pax Mongolica, and the maritime trade became increasingly important in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.
The Participants in Trade
The Pax Mongolica also affected the participants in trade. The traditional long-distance traders of the medieval world — the Sogdians, the Uyghurs, the Jews, the Armenians, the Greeks, the Italians — all continued to participate in the trade, but the Pax Mongolica opened up new opportunities for merchants from other parts of Eurasia. The most important of the new participants were the Chinese merchants, who began to participate in the long-distance trade in larger numbers than ever before. The Chinese merchants established trading colonies in Central Asia, the Middle East, and the Russian steppe, and the Chinese presence in the long-distance trade was a major feature of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.
The Italian merchants — particularly the Genoese and the Venetians — were also major participants in the trade. The Italian merchant colonies of the Black Sea and the Levant were major centers of trade, and the Italian merchants established a near-monopoly on the maritime trade between Europe and the Middle East. The most famous of the Italian merchants was Marco Polo, who spent more than two decades at the court of Kublai Khan and who wrote an influential account of his experiences.
The End of the Pax Mongolica
The Pax Mongolica began to break down in the mid-fourteenth century, and the breakdown had a major effect on trade. The Black Death, which swept across Eurasia in the 1340s, killed millions of people and disrupted the trade routes that had made the Pax Mongolica possible. The collapse of the Ilkhanate in 1335 and the Yuan Dynasty in 1368 removed the two khanates that had been the principal guarantors of the peace. The rise of the Ming Dynasty in China, the Timurid Empire in Central Asia, and the Grand Duchy of Moscow in Russia created new political configurations that were less favorable to long-distance trade.
The end of the Pax Mongolica was a major turning point in the history of Eurasian trade. The overland trade routes became more dangerous and less heavily used, and the center of economic gravity shifted from the interior of the continent to the maritime periphery. The age of exploration that began in the fifteenth century was, in a sense, a response to the breakdown of the Pax Mongolica: the European voyages of discovery were attempts to find new routes to the east that did not depend on the overland trade routes that had been disrupted by the collapse of the Mongol peace.
Sources
- David Morgan, The Mongols (2nd ed., Oxford, 2007).
- Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the West, 1221–1410 (London, 2005).
- Timothy May, The Mongol Conquests in World History (London, 2012).