The Louvre Abu Dhabi – Part 2b Silk Roads and the Age of Chivalry

The movement of pilgrims, conquerors, and merchants catalysed thriving cultural exchanges. Civilisations in Africa, Asia, and Europe were brought into contact and transformed through the circulation of knowledge, thought and artistic expression.

A melting pot for the cultures of Christianity, Byzantium and Islam, the Mediterranean basin in the Middle Ages served as a focal point for commercial and cultural routes from across Asia and Africa.

While the cities of Venice and Genoa took an active part in these exchanges, the Iberian Peninsula, divided between Islam and Christianity, became a site of rich cultural diversity. Elsewhere in Europe, competition between Christian kingdoms and flourishing trade contributed to economic and scientific development.

At the end of the 15th century, Portuguese navigators explored the coastline of Africa and opened new trade routes to the Indian Ocean while the crossing of the Atlantic fostered contact between Europe and the great civilisations of the Americas.

Silk Roads

The expansion of universal religions paralleled the development of a vast network of cross-continental land and sea routes connecting Africa, Asia, and Europe. This flourishing trade route contributed to the circulation of commodities and artistic and intellectual exchanges.

Asian Trade Routes

The expansion of universal religions paralleled the establishment of vast trading networks between Africa, Asia and Europe. China emerged as one of the main actors in these exchanges and a major hub for innovation in the 7th century, producing world-changing inventions such as porcelain, gunpowder, paper and printing. These technologies were transported to the Islamic world, which lay at the heart of the thriving land and sea routes that supported the silk trade, linking Asia, Europe and Africa.

From the 8th to 10th century, Baghdad witnessed a golden age of the arts and sciences. The caravan routes taken by merchants crossed the paths followed by pilgrims, promoting the spread of new modes of thought and the circulation of exotic materials and luxury items such as ivory, silk and ceramics, incense and jewellery.

The Gold and Silver Roads

Gold and silver were among the most traded materials during the medieval period and enabled technical and aesthetic exchanges eastwards from western Asia. From the Sassanian empire to the Middle Kingdom, creations in gold and silver reflect a flourishing universe of decoration and craftsmanship.

From 1200 to 1300, the Mongol empires made possible the fusion of artistic universes between the Islamic empires and East Asia. The Islamic predilection for abstraction gave rise to stylised plant motifs and geometric forms that can be infinitely extended. Artists and craftsmen infused objects with spiritual force through the repetition of ornamental motifs and the interplay of forms and colours.

The ivory trade

For the record, I am not a supporter of the ivory trade. Thank goodness it is banned in most countries these days.

Appreciated for its rarity and texture, ivory became a major object of commerce between the Byzantine empire, the Arab-Islamic world and the Latin west during the Middle Ages. Imported from Ethiopia and India, this precious material, which is relatively easy to work on, was carved in workshops in the Mediterranean basin.

From the 14th century, the number of workshops increased right across Europe, in particular in Paris, where the quality of production reached a high degree of refinement.

From the Mediterranean to the Atlantic

The Mediterranean basin was the culminating point of the commercial and cultural routes across Asia and Africa. From the 11th century, exchanges increased between the Byzantine Empire, the Islamic world and Christian Europe, in spite of their rivalries and conflicts. While the cities of Venice and Genoa took an active part in these exchanges, the Iberian Peninsula, divided between Islam and Christianity, became a site of rich cultural diversity.

In Europe, competition between Christian kingdoms and flourishing trade contributed to economic and scientific development. At the end of the 15th century, Portuguese navigators explored the coastline of Africa and opened new trade routes to the Indian Ocean. The crossing of the Atlantic and discovery of the American continent created contact between Europe and the Amerindian civilisations, which had until then remained isolated.

East and West : fascination and rivalry

Paradoxically, the period of the Crusades¹ coincided with a growth in trade between the Latin West and the Islamic world. The short-lived Frankish states in the Levant and the increased popularity of pilgrimages to holy places, Jerusalem above all, gave new impetus to the worship and commerce of relics. Many Islamic objects considered as precious – textiles, enamelled glassware, items made of rock crystal – were brought back to Europe to be reused in a liturgical or royal context.

Lords, Kings and Caliphs

Chivalry, in the West, and furusiyya², in the East, were shared models of the accomplished and educated man during the Middle Ages. In the East, furusiyya flourished from 850 to 900 while its equivalent in the West, chivalry, appeared at the beginning of the 1100s. These two facets of a similar social group came into contact in Spain, Sicily and the Middle East in spite of major religious and political rivalries. These encounters fostered productive exchanges and cultural and commercial relations.

Must-See Exhibits

The museum’s growing collection of treasures includes important artworks and artefacts spanning the entirety of human history around the world. Via twenty galleries, journey through twelve chronological chapters as you travel through centuries of world civilisation.

Turban Helmet

Aq-Qoyunlu or Ottoman | Turkey, 1450-1500 | Steel with silver inlays, traces of gold | 61 x 26 x 31 cm | Louvre Abu Dhabi

Armour for a rider and a horse bard

Ottoman period, 1390-1410 | Steel, iron and textile | 216 x 250 x 98 cm | Louvre Abu Dhabi

Footnotes:

1. The Crusades, a series of religious wars, primarily took place between 1096 and 1291, spanning over two centuries. These expeditions were initiated by the Latin Church to regain the Holy Land from Muslim control, with the First Crusade culminating in the capture of Jerusalem in 1099. While the main focus was on the Holy Land, crusades were also launched against other groups considered heretical or threats to the Church, including those within Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades ↩︎
2. Furūsiyya (Arabic: فروسية; also transliterated as furūsīyah, knighthood) is an Arabic knightly discipline and ethical code developed in the Middle Ages. It was practised in the medieval Muslim world from Afghanistan to Muslim Spain, and particularly during the Crusades and the Mamluk period. The combat form uses martial arts and equestrianism as the foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furusiyya ↩︎
3. This horse armour is one of only seventeen examples to survive from the medieval Ottoman period. Made in Turkey, it bears the marks of the Arsenal of St Irene, the Turkish Armouries in Istanbul.
   Because of its lightness, lamellar armour became increasingly popular throughout the Islamic world and particularly in Turkey and India. This rare example of horse armour was probably kept at the St Irene Arsenal until 1839 CE when Sultan Abdulmejid I (1823-1861) ordered its closure and the contents were dispersed.
   https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/horse-armour/tgHBw3a7CgIctA?hl=en ↩︎