EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
More notes at http://tanguay.info/learntracker
C O U R S E
The European Discovery of China
Dolors Folch, Pompeu Fabra University Barcelona
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C O U R S E L E C T U R E European Names for China Notes taken on February 18, 2017 by Edward Tanguay |
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China didn't enter the intellectual landscape in Europe until the end of the 16th century
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Chinese themselves didn't refer to the territory as such
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260 BCE Warring States of China
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Qin
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Wei
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Han
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Chu
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Qi
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Zhao
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Yan
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the center states called themselves Zhongguo
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the cultural and political nucleus of the civilized Chinese world
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1136 AD first European map of Chinese territory
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but did not provide a general name for China
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for the Chinese, China was a cultural entity that was above the political state
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the most common name was "tian xia" meaning "everything under heaven"
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appears mainly in the classical texts
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historical records named China after the reigning dynasty
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Han (206 BCE - 220 CE)
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Tang (618-907)
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Yuan (1271–1368)
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Ming (1368-1644)
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by the 15th century, the Chinese referred to themselves as Da Ming (the Great Ming)
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"Da Ming" and "Da Ming Hai" was the name given for China and the China sea on Matteo Ricci's map
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name for China in the Islamic world
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as-Sin
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travelers who referred to China
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Ibn Battuta
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a medieval Moroccan traveler and scholar, who is widely recognized as one of the greatest travelers of all time
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known for his extensive travels, accounts of which were published in his Travels
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visited most of the known Islamic world as well as many non-Muslim lands
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journeys included trips to North Africa, the Horn of Africa, West Africa, Middle East, India, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and China
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Suleiman I (1494-1566)
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was the tenth and longest-reigning sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1520 to his death in 1566
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in his administration, the Ottoman state ruled over 15 to 25 million people
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Benjamin of Tudela (1130-1173)
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a medieval Jewish traveler who visited Europe, Asia, and Africa in the 12th century
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vivid descriptions of western Asia preceded those of Marco Polo by a hundred years
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talked of vessels coming from Zin (China)
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Marco Polo(1254-1324)
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a Venetian merchant traveller and citizen of the Venice Republic whose travels are recorded in Livres des merveilles du monde
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from an outsider's point of view, there was no one name for China
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China was first known by the West for its products
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silk was seen by the Western world as coming from a place which the Romans named after its product
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silk came from Serica, one of the easternmost countries of Asia known to the Ancient Greek and Roman geographers
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silk retains in most European languages the initial "s" sound
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Serica is to be found in Ptolemy's map of the oikoumene