Reference: MA, Debin. “The Great Silk Exchange: How the World ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

in London. While European silk weavers continued to rely on raw silk imports from Persia and Levant, Northern Italy and Southern France also emerged as principal producers and exporters of raw silk in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Belfanti 1993: 269-71). Moreover, European silk production technology advanced rapidly from the seventeenth. As argued by Claudier Zanier, European silk reeling technology, with the Italian Tavelle and French Chambon system, and the rigid axle transmission mechanism, probably surpassed that of China in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. 10 Meanwhile, Italians also greatly improved the process of silk throwing although the idea of the twisting-frame - the arrangement and motion of dozens of parallel spindles - probably originated in China, it was rarely used after the Song and Yuan dynasties. In Italy, the twisting frame became a big silk throwing mill of higher capacity in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (Needham 1988: 420-33). In the early eighteenth century, the Lombe brothers in Britain smugg0led this technology out of Italy and developed the famous Derby silk throwing plant, a large-scale water powered, mechanized, manufacturing plant, the earliest institution that resembled a modern factory (Pacey 1990: 106). During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, various experiments and improvements of the silk looms culminated in the invention of the so-called Jacquard loom by the Lyonese Joseph Jacquard in 1804. The Jacquard loom greatly enhanced the previously existing draw-loom - another Chinese invention - by attaching a punched card system, which could handle complicated weaving patterns at greater efficiency. Towards the first part of the nineteenth century, steam power began to be applied to all the 12
production processes, from reeling to throwing and weaving (Federico 1997: Ch. 7). Southern European sericulture also benefited tremendously from advances made in European agronomic, biological and genetic science during this period. European scientists, guided by the methodology and tools of modern experimental science, enthusiastically studied the Chinese and Japanese sericultural texts acquired and translated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Foss 1986; Morris-Suzuki 1992; Zanier 1994: 71-94). Towards the latter part of the nineteenth century, European sericultural technology surged ahead, aided by major discoveries, such as Pasteur’s germ theory and Mendel’s genetic law. The rise of powerful merchant empires on the Iberian Peninsula and in Northwestern Europe marked the formation of a truly global trading system. However, the early intrusion of European navigation into the Pacific waters initially had limited impact on the pattern of the world silk trade. First, although some Chinese silk went directly to Europe on the sea route, Europe by then received its raw silk supply chiefly from Persia largely through the overland route. Secondly, as mentioned earlier, domestic substitution of raw silk production gradually took hold in Southern Europe. Europeans did continue to look eastward for raw silk supply - for diversification, and mostly for a cheaper and lower grade of raw silk. 11 With the establishment of the East India Companies, Britain and Holland began to explore ways of bringing raw silk directly through the Cape Route. In the early seventeenth century, they succeeded in partially diverting the raw silk exports of Iran from the caravan route to the sea route. 12 The search for cheaper raw silk brought the British further eastward along the sea route. After the mid-seventeenth century, the British East India Company started using large-scale imports of raw silk from Bengal. Towards the late 13
Page 1 and 2: Reference: MA, Debin. “The Great
Page 3 and 4: important commodity that traveled a
Page 5 and 6: China arrived in Persia around 106
Page 7 and 8: had it that a Chinese princess marr
Page 9 and 10: Chinese scholars also emphasized a
Page 11 and 12: If the closing of the first phase o
Page 13 and 14: was more favorable, in contrast to
Page 15: increasingly towards the sea route,
Page 19 and 20: growing silk-weaving sector. With t
Page 21 and 22: The success of Chinese silk product
Page 23 and 24: East Asia. Marseilles, Lyon and lat
Page 25 and 26: silk-reeling technology and the fac
Page 27 and 28: Figure 2.1 Westward diffusion of se
Page 29 and 30: important for wheeled transport. Th
Page 31 and 32: goods (McNeill 1971: 1115). As char
Page 33 and 34: “shackled” the overland trade r
Page 35 and 36: (Liu 1996). It was not just a symbo
Page 37 and 38: Pacific Centuries Conference in Mel
Page 39 and 40: Ma, D. (1996). The Modern Silk Road
Page 41: the mouth of the Don) to Cathay is

Reference: MA, Debin. “The Great Silk Exchange: How the World ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?