Samarkand in the fifteenth century

[hyarrowen]

I have two European travellers over-wintering in Samarkand in the 1420's.

Where could they go to socialise, get news, tell stories, play chess? Would it be a coffee-house, a tea-house, a caravanserai, an inn?
Did street life go on into the evening, or was there a curfew?

How about established Christianity in the city? I've found out a little bit about

Comments

[hurryupslowly]

Where are the travellers from?

It's just a guess, but there is also a possibility that their opportunities for socialisation were kind of limited. I've been reading this book about Venice from the 11th to the 15th centuries. It says that basically Venetian merchants trading in the Middle East and Central Asia had their own palaces/compounds at the time, and they were confined to those by the sultans/princes/local rulers. I think they weren't allowed to socialise with the population at large, because the local rulers wanted to control them/limit the opportunities for espionage/this kind of thing. I don't know about Samarkand, though, the book mentioned Damascus and what is nowadays Crimea.

[hyarrowen]

One's French, the other's English. But they've arrived at Samarkand via India and China by the old Silk Route, so have had some chance to become integrated into the trading community... I guess I'm leaning towards a caravanserai as a centre for socialising, then! But it's interesting that the local rulers were suspicious of foreigners and took active measures to confine them; quite why they thought backwards Europeans could be a threat is intriguing!

[randomstasis]

Spies and subversives. Who stole trade secrets and smuggled them out, made outside alliances, and wrote everything down, including how many soldiers and how they were equipped, supplied, transport, approach routes, weak points-you noticed how clearly de Clavijo described the defenses, water supply and layout of each city, right? and noted where the treasury was kept, and who had access? and the fact that his embassay was rushed through the countryside because if Timur found out, the prince that invited them would be executed? and the big fake where they brought all the women along with the army and dressed them up as soldiers? the merchants were even worse- at least you knew who the embassy was working for!

[hyarrowen]

Eh heh. I was noticing descriptions of the landscape, and the speed they travelled at, and the fact that they looked at churches wherever they went... I'm going to have to re-read his account, obviously! And I winced at the part where they were late for a feast...with Timur of all people, aargh!

[randomstasis]

hurryupslowly makes a good point. You might also check out Marco Polo- he tends to tell a lot of stories, and may have something to say about Samarkand, possibly even a reason why the Polos didn't go there?

this one-Narrative of the Embassy of Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo to the Court of Timour, at Samarcand, A.D. 1403-6 would definitely be worth a look He gives little detail, but does discuss the Christians, and what he saw of the palace. I also got the impression that they were somewhat confined; they don't seem to have been allowed to buy their own supplies on the journey, for instance, relying on the authorities for that, but they were an embassy, not merchants. There are several hints to that- you may be able to extrapolate general policy by reading about other cities too. http://books.google.com/books?id=ZVkMAAAAIAAJ&pg=PP11&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false

[hyarrowen]

Marco Polo, thank-you, I'll check him out. And I hadn't thought of looking at other cities; I'll do that. Plenty of big, sophisticated cities in Central Asia to choose from, after all!

[randomstasis]

;) the cities may change, but the travellers don't, so much. They tend only to write it down when something seems odd to them, so if you can establish what's normal you are way ahead of the game.
Here's polo's travels and hte interior of a caravanserai, since you were wondering where they might go to play chess, etc. http://www.archive.org/stream/marcopolo00polouoft/marcopolo00polouoft.txt http://www.traveldudes.org/node/2774/gallery

[corvideye]

Of course, you do have to take Polo with a large grain of salt, since he may or may not have even existed... but he does provide some vivid imagery.

[randomstasis]

A more modern translation ;http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/clavijo/cltxt1.html

Of the nations brought here together there were to be seen Turks, Arabs and Moors of diverse sects, with Christians who were Greeks and Armenians, Catholics, Jacobites and Nestorians, besides those [Indian] folk who baptize with fire in the forehead, who are indeed Christians but of a faith that is peculiar to their nation....
All these viands and victuals are there set out in a decent cleanly manner, namely in all those squares and open spaces of the town, and their traffic goes on all day and even all through the night time.
partial text;Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354, tr. and ed. H. A. R. Gibb (London: Broadway House, 1929) http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1354-ibnbattuta.asp

[randomstasis]

babur's memoirs described many of the buildings present inthe 1420s that were later destroyed, including the caravansery on the Registan http://www.archive.org/stream/baburnama017152mbp/baburnama017152mbp_djvu.txt http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/babur/babur1.html http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/babur/babur1.html#insamark

Everyday life in the Ancient Arab and Islamic world By Nicola Barber, Manuela Cappon might be helpful too, and worth noting many of the Timurid palaces seem to be built on the same general plan.
http://www.oxuscom.com/Timurid_Architecture.pdf

[hyarrowen]

Thank-you so much... Babur's memoirs look very useful - and include a description of Fergana, which I'd been going to handwave, so yay! And that caravanserai looks lovely and if they were all like that I can see why traders lived the life they did.

Also, life going on 24/7 in Samarkand - good, that's exactly what I'd been hoping for.

[randomstasis]

heh, don't forget to calculate the dates of Ramadan, al-Eid, etc., when everything will change, shut down for the daylight hours, etc.
apropos the many fountains mentioned- in Kathmandu, the fountain in the central market was very much a social center- getting water, doing laundry, and a storyteller was always hanging around. The newspaper was posted on a nearby wall, and people would read it out loud to everybody hanging out there, too. Very common anywhere you go in medieval times- one of those things the travellers wouldn't mention, because it was normal and expected.

[hyarrowen]

heh, don't forget to calculate the dates of Ramadan, al-Eid, etc., when everything will change, shut down for the daylight hours,

Aargh, yes. Atheist here, I have trouble taking the religion of my own culture into account! And I'll have to try and figure out what the date-shifts might entail, from the Gregorian to the Julian calendars (or was it the other way round? *googles*)

The fountain is an idea I'll definitely be using, thank-you!

[corvideye]

You might find some stuff on this site:

http://www.silk-road.com

[hyarrowen]

Book-marked, thank-you!

[corvideye]

Also here's a reading list from Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project site:

http://www.silkroadproject.org/Education/Resources/BooksforAdults/tabid/340/Default.aspx

[hyarrowen]

Bookmarked that as well, thank-you! Sounds of the Silk Road looks especially interesting, and the State Library has it.