Benefits of the Silk Road

The Silk Road benefitted many civilizations and countries with all the different trade opportunities. As described by April Munday in her blog, silk was a very popular trade item on the trade route; it even gave its name to the Silk Road. Silk was considered very valuable, but since the Chinese wouldn't give away their secret on how to make it, the Europeans had to trade with the Chinese to acquire the material. While they weren't given the recipe, they still gained a valuable and prestigous material. Trade was made even more possible when Franscesco Pegolotti created his merchant handbook in 1340. In the handbook, he described how to trade successfully and how to stay safe on certain routes throughout the Mongol empire. This benefitted the traders by allowing them to trade more efficiently, without putting themselves in danger. The handbook didn't only help people that wanted to trade, but it also helped people that were travelling in the area or lived in the area. It helped them become aware of the dangers surrounding them and how to avoid them.

Sources:

Pegolotti, Francesco Balducci. Pegolotti's Merchant Handbook. London, 1916.

This source contributes to my thesis because it provides insights on how to avoid the disadvantages and dangers on the silk road. This was my dates source module because it included dates of when the handbook was published which is important because it shows what was going on when the handbook was published.

Munday, April. "Medieval Silk." WordPress.com. February 24, 2019. Accessed May 15, 2019. https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/84084801/posts/5323.

This source contributes to my thesis because it describes what products were traded and why that was important/beneficial to the Europeans. This was my social media source module because it is a blog post.