How the Silk Road Brought Death to Europe

By the year 1500, various new civilizations had both emerged and vanished from the world. They ranged from the earliest ancient civilizations such as Egypt and Sumer to more advanced civilizations such as the Mongols, the Roman Empire, and then Europe. This occurred during a range of 4500 years from 3200 BC to AD 1300. Both the East and the West had been home to various kingdoms and cultures by AD 1500. In order for these cultures to cultivate and flourish, they needed to be involved in systems of contact and exchange. There were many different forms of contact and exchange such as trade, war, etc. There were also many different forms of interaction. The results of cultural contact and exchange before 1500 were negative because they ultimately led to the downfall of many civilizations.

The Mongols' way of contact and exchange had much to do with a need for power. They killed or destroyed everything that got in their way. "Some regions in Iran ...had depended on the sophisticated underground network of irrigation channels [that were destroyed by] the Mongols" (Waugh). The irrigation channels were an essential farming technique. Without them, the process of farming was disrupted, and the people who depended on the system to get their crops struggled. This displays the Mongols' arrogant flippancy and disrespect towards any other civilization besides their own. The Mongols also imposed heavy taxes on their own people to pay for public works such as the Silk Road. They stripped the people of money for something that declined alongside their own civilization. One reason for the decline of the Silk Road was that "European production [of silk] was perfected and passed on" (Gonzales). Because the Mongols traded so much silk with the Europeans, they unintentionally gave them the secret to their silk. This proves that too much contact can cause overexposure to another civilization. The Mongols' violent attempts as well as their eagerness for trade damaged them as a civilization because they caused any opposing force harm as well as the loss of the uniqueness of their most prized possession, silk.

Culture and exchange was a two-way street. The Roman Empire neglected this and constantly took more than they gave. They were always the consumers rather than the producers. Because they took so much, they needed financial support from the publicani to help pay taxes. In a letter written to the Roman governor of the province of Asia from his brother, general dislike for taxes is shown in the words, "to begin with, that [the publicani] are subject to tax at all, which is their greatest grievance" (Reilly 165). The word "grief" shows the bitter view in which the publicani hold. However, taxes were only one component to the fall of the Roman Empire. The Romans were also involved with too much exchange, causing inflation and thus stripping the people of their money. Throughout inflation, the Roman Empire continued to tax their people to the point where the publicani were considered having been "taxed to death". Furthermore, the Roman Empire produced nothing, and by taking more than they could do with, they wasted precious resources such as wood and fuel. The Romans were a prime example of how too much contact and exchange could harm a civilization, or even a vast empire. The amount of contact even within the empire itself became too hard to control which led to a political rebellion. Too many ideas were trying to be expressed, leading to conflicts and struggles for power. When a civilization divides itself, such as Rome did into East and West, it cannot hold itself up. These reasons combined show how even a great empire like that of the Roman Empire can plummet due to excessive contact and exchange.

Disease and death struck Europe in 1348. Because of the siege of Caffa in 1346, the bacteria that caused the Black Death spread even more quickly throughout Europe. Diseased bodies were thrown over the walls of Caffa during the siege, infecting the town almost immediately ("The Black Death"). When the residents of Caffa fled to neighboring cities, they brought the disease with them, hence exchange. People in Europe still needed to trade, so they continued to do so from port to port in Italy. The Plague was a very sinister form of exchange. It was an exchange of malady as opposed to an exchange of ideas or culture. The deaths caused by the Black Death resulted in a huge decline in the population of Europe, and it also caused Europeans to start to question their belief in the Church. The Church was their foundation and for some, it was the sole reason they lived. The ripple of distrust in the Church caused a ripple of unease through the population. This changed things up for Europeans as they learned to depend more on God and less on the Church. One in three people were killed by this disease, and because trade played such a huge role in the spread of the Black Death, exchange became a feared idea as well as contact.

Contact and exchange in the years before 1500 resulted in harmful and damaging consequences for civilizations. Too much contact and exchange showed itself as a bad thing repeatedly. In the Mongol Empire, the destructive ways of contact caused harm to both the opposition and the Mongols themselves because both sides lost more than they gained. In Rome, over-exchange of ideas led to its downfall as well as its habit of consumption over production. Later on in Europe, exchange turned out to be malicious and unwanted rather than seeked out and helpful. Excessive amounts of anything are never good, and in the case of contact and exchange between civilizations and countries before 1500, it showed itself as a detriment to the success of societies.