Evaluate the extent to which urban life across Afro-Eurasia changed in the period circa 1200 to 1450.
Excerpts from historical sources. Cuts are marked with ellipses, and words in brackets were added for clarity.
Document 1
Marco Polo, Venetian merchant who served the Mongol ruler Khubilai Khan, account of the city of Hangzhou (Kinsay), China, c. 1298.
In this we shall speak according to the written statement which the Queen of this Realm sent to Bayan the conqueror of the country for transmission to the Great Kaan, in order that he might be aware of the surpassing grandeur of the city and might be moved to save it from destruction or injury. . . .
The document aforesaid also went on to state that there were in this city twelve guilds of the different crafts, and that each guild had 12,000 houses in the occupation of its workmen. . . .
The people are Idolaters; and since they were conquered by the Great Kaan they use paper-money. . . . Since the Great Kaan occupied the city he has ordained that each of the 12,000 bridges should be provided with a guard of ten men, in case of any disturbance, or of any being so rash as to plot treason or insurrection against him. . . . The Kaan watches this city with especial diligence because it forms the head of all Manzi [southern China]; and because he has an immense revenue from the duties levied on the transactions of trade therein . . .
Document 2
Ibn Battuta, Moroccan Muslim legal scholar and traveler, account of his travels describing his first visit to Cairo in 1326 and his return through Egypt and Palestine in 1348, dictated 1355.
[1326] I arrived at length at Cairo, mother of cities . . . boundless in multitude of buildings, peerless in beauty and splendour, the meeting-place of comer and goer, the halting-place of feeble and mighty, whose throngs surge as the waves of the sea . . . It is said that in Cairo there are twelve thousand water-carriers who transport water on camels, and thirty thousand hirers of mules and donkeys, and that on the Nile there are thirty-six thousand boats . . . laden with goods and profitable merchandise of all kinds. . . . The madrasas [college mosques] of Cairo cannot be counted for multitude. As for the Maristan [hospital] . . . no description is adequate to its beauties.
[1348] We revisited Hebron, and thence went to Gaza, the greater part of which we found deserted because of the number of those who died there of the plague. . . . I then travelled to Cairo, where I was told that the number of deaths during the epidemic rose to twenty-one thousand a day.
Document 3
Visual source
Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Effects of Good Government in the City, fresco commissioned by the Nine, the merchant-dominated council that governed Siena, for the city's town hall, Siena, Italy, 1338–1339.
Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena; Wikimedia Commons, public domainDescribe the image
A wall painting of a crowded, prosperous city seen from above. Tall houses, palaces, and towers of brick and stone, many with balconies and battlements, fill the background. On a rooftop at the top center, workmen carry baskets of building materials and lay the roof of a new building. In the open street in the foreground, a group of richly dressed figures dance in a ring while one plays a tambourine. Behind them, shopkeepers sell shoes and other goods from open-fronted shops, a teacher lectures from a raised desk to seated listeners, and craftsmen work at tables. Mules and donkeys carry bales and loads through the streets, a shepherd drives a flock of sheep toward the city gate, and a woman carries a basket on her head. At the left, a procession of riders on horseback, including a woman wearing a crown, passes through the street.
Document 4
Giovanni Boccaccio, Florentine writer, introduction to The Decameron, a collection of stories, describing the arrival of the plague in Florence in 1348, written c. 1349–1353.
In Florence, despite all that human wisdom and forethought could devise to avert it, as the cleansing of the city from many impurities by officials appointed for the purpose, the refusal of entrance to all sick folk, and the adoption of many precautions for the preservation of health . . . towards the beginning of the spring of the said year the doleful effects of the pestilence began to be horribly apparent . . .
[T]he multitude of the deaths, that daily and nightly took place in the city, was such that those who heard the tale--not to say witnessed the fact--were struck dumb with amazement. Whereby, practices contrary to the former habits of the citizens could hardly fail to grow up among the survivors. . . .
The condition of lower, and, perhaps, in great measure of the middle ranks, of the people shewed even worse and more deplorable; for, deluded by hope or constrained by poverty, they stayed in their quarters, in their houses, where they sickened by thousands a day . . .
Document 5
Ruy González de Clavijo, ambassador of the king of Castile (Spain) to the court of the Central Asian conqueror Timur, account of his embassy describing Timur's capital, Samarkand, 1404.
Thus trade has always been fostered by Timur with the view of making his capital the noblest of cities: and during all his conquests wheresoever he came he carried off the best men of the population to people Samarqand, bringing thither together the master-craftsmen of all nations. Thus from Damascus he carried away with him all the weavers of that city, those who worked at the silk looms. . . . From Turkey he had brought their gun-smiths who make the arquebus, and all men of other crafts wheresoever he found them, such as the silver-smiths and the masons. . . .
So great therefore was the population now of all nationalities gathered together in Samarqand that of men with their families the number they said must amount to 150,000 souls. . . . The population of Samarqand was so vast that lodging for them all could not be found in the city limits . . . and hence they were to be found quartered temporarily for lodgment even in the caves and in tents under the trees of the gardens . . .
Document 6
Ma Huan, Chinese Muslim interpreter who sailed with the Ming admiral Zheng He (Cheng Ho), description of Malacca on the Malay Peninsula from his account of the Ming voyages, begun 1416.
Formerly it was not called a kingdom . . . There also was no king, but only a chief, the country belonging to Siam . . .
In the year 1409 the imperial envoy Cheng Ho brought an order from the emperor and gave to the chief of this country two silver seals, a cap, a girdle and a long robe; he erected a stone and raised the place to a city, after which the land was called the kingdom of Malacca. . . .
There is a large brook passing before the residence of the king on its way to the sea; the king has made a bridge over it, on which he has constructed about twenty pavilions, in which the sale of all kinds of articles is conducted.
The king and the people are Mahomedans and they carefully observe the tenets of this religion. . . .
The place is visited by Chinese merchant-vessels; whenever these come a barrier is made (for the purpose of collecting tolls).
Document 7
Data
Estimated populations of selected cities, c. 1200–c. 1450, from Tertius Chandler's historical estimates as compiled in Meredith Reba, Femke Reitsma, and Karen Seto, "Spatializing 6,000 Years of Global Urbanization from 3700 BC to AD 2000," Scientific Data, 2016. Figures in thousands; all figures are estimates. "No estimate" means the dataset gives no figure for that year.
City | c. 1200 | c. 1300 | c. 1350 | c. 1400 | c. 1450
Hangzhou, China | 255 | 432 | 432 | 240 | 250
Beijing, China | 130 | 401 | 400 | 150 | 600
Samarkand, Central Asia | 60 | no estimate | no estimate | 130 | 75
Vijayanagara, southern India | no estimate | 40 | 100 | 400 | 455
Cairo, Egypt | 200 | 400 | 350 | 360 | 380
Fez, Morocco | 200 | 150 | 125 | 125 | 125
Florence, Italy | 15 | 60 | 40 | 61 | 53
How it's scored
1 ptThesis or claim. A historically defensible thesis that establishes a line of reasoning, in one or more consecutive sentences in the intro or conclusion.
1 ptContextualization. Describe a broader historical context relevant to the prompt: events, developments, or processes before, during, or after the prompt's time frame.
2 ptsEvidence from the documents. One point for accurately describing the content of three documents. Two points for using the content of at least four documents to support the argument.
1 ptEvidence beyond the documents. Use one specific, relevant piece of historical evidence that appears in none of the documents, and explain how it supports the argument.
1 ptAnalysis and reasoning: sourcing. For at least two documents, explain how or why the point of view, purpose, historical situation, or intended audience is relevant to the argument.
1 ptAnalysis and reasoning: complexity. Demonstrate a complex understanding: explain nuance, consider multiple variables, analyze both similarity and difference, or qualify the argument with evidence that cuts against it.
