What were the major effects of the voyages of discovery made in the Middle Ages ?

Question

Please give me a link or some important information on it .

Thanks .

Answer 1

which voyages of discovery??

Answer 2

Actually, it's been hypothesized that the Norse were making vast discoveries as early as the mid to late middle ages. But for the most part, the cultures that were doing that didn't continue to thrive. And the cultures that weren't making discoveries weren't because their ships hadn't evolved to such an extent that they could travel great distances.

Answer 3

The Middle Ages are commonly held to have been between 500AD and 1500AD. I take it that you have a 'European' perspective, so we'll ignore the Chinese expeditons of the late 1400's in the Indian (and possibly Pacific Oceans) - except to note that the Chinese fleet of some 200 to 300 ships included ones of 10,000 tons displacement that were up to 300 feet long. Columbus's Pinta was around 60 tons, and eighty feet long.

There were two major 'exploration phases' in the Middle Ages. The first was travellers heading east on the silk road (most famously Marco Polo). The second exploration phase at the very end of the Middle Ages were the great sea voyages of the Spanish and Portuguese, looking for routes to Asia that bypassed the Persion and Arab controlled Middle East. The Spanish went west and accidentally bumped into America. The Portuguese headed south and found a route to India and China via the southern tip of Africa.

The effects - apart from the destruction wrought on the native peoples of America and the eventual subjugation of most of Asia to European colonialism, was the transfer of wealth. There is a theory that there is only so much 'wealth' in the world, and that nations (and empires) have competed over time to control it. When the Portuguese and Dutch started trade routes around the southern tip of Africa they effectively side-lined the Italians, Arabs and Persians who had controlled trade between Asia and Europe up until then. So Portugal and the Netherlands grew rich at the expense of Italy and the Middle East (particularly) which slipped into relative obcurity (until oil..). The Spanish grew incredibly rich by simply plundering Central America. How the Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch 'lost' their monopolies on these trade routes to the British is a story that belongs outside the 'Middle Ages' (as is how Britian basically 'sold' its position of world dominance to the USA in order to fund its involvement in two wars against Germany).

Beyond the simple issue of wealth and power, the more immediate contact between the West and Asia (and China particularly) in the late Middle Ages resulted in some transfer of technology from China to the West - but most of that transfer had taken place earlier via the Arab as a result of trade rather than voyages of discovery.

Essentially the voyages of discovery - starting in the late Middle Ages - brought nearly all the wealth of the world under the control of the Europeans, saw Chinese power in Asia eclipsed, and set the scene for bitter conflict between European powers (Spain, Netherlands, France, Germany and Britain) for control not just of European territory, but for control of those overseas territories and the trade that went with them. This rivalry culminated in the two World Wars of the twentieth century and the eventual eclipse of Europe as a dominant world power by the USA and (for a while) by the Soviet Union. That both are about to be overtaken by China, the world's powerhouse economy between 500AD and 1500AD is a great irony of history.

Answer 4

social effects