Going into part three of this reading, I found a lot of interesting material that was covered. I learned about the Commerce and Culture, China and the World, and The Worlds of European Christendom. Each topic was different but they all seemed to be very important.
In the first part of the reading, the Commerce and Culture, there was a lot discussed. Besides trade and silk roads, what I really found interesting was disease in transit. Along with the growth of the silk roads, came disease. Along with the trade routes, disease also spread. Major populations such as the Afro-Eurasian had diseases develop but were able to deal with them, and in some cases the people even became immune to them. I thought that was pretty interesting, that they became immune to certain disease but when they came in to contact with other humans and were exposed to unfamiliar diseases there was little immunity. Small pox was a disease that impacted both the Roman Empire and the Han dynasty. It impacted both drastically that it contributed to their political collapse. Another big disease was the Black Death, and the bubonic plague. Both killed so many the book even said the bubonic plague kill 10,000 people per day for forty days according to a historian. I can’t even imagine that happening in our lifetime. We are lucky that we have vaccinations available for us now.
Continuing along, the China and the World, in this chapter I found foot binding to be fascinating. It was during the tenth or eleventh century C.E, beginning with dancers and courtesans, foot binding was associated with a new image for female beauty. Foot binding consisted of wrapping young girl’s feet, breaking the bones of the foot, which caused intense pain. Confucian believed that foot binding kept women restricted to the “inner quarters”. I think the whole foot binding is horrible, for women to even think that foot binding (the concept) would be considered to be beautiful. But I guess I can believe it, women even now are consistently being told what is considered to be beautiful and many do whatever it takes to be beautiful, which is sad. But what came out of the Song Dynasty was that women were able to improve their lives. Women were to control their own dowries; they received education, so that they could raise their sons well and create good fortune for their family.
Lastly, The Worlds of European Christendom, what I found interesting in this chapter was the distinction between reason and faith. During this time Christian thinkers wanted to separate the teaching of religion from the ideas of Plato and Aristotle. Though after the collapse of the Roman Empire, the church had little access to what was written by the Greeks. The church was afraid that Greek philosophy could expose somewhat of the truth about Christianity. But in the late eleventh century, a monastic school in France, students asked their teacher, to show them proof of the existence of God. But not the type of proof you would find in the bible or other sources of divine revelation. Many did not like the thought of human reason. Bernard of Clairvaux said that “Faith believes. It does not dispute”, which I understand where his question is coming from. But just like the French students, I find myself, as a catholic, asking the same questions. I thought that it was interesting that even back then people were question faith, and using reason to really understand why things are so.
I really learned a lot in the readings. Even though there was a lot covered I felt that it was important to show what I found interesting.
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