Old World & New World · Article 3 of 22 · 1347–1492
Crises made older kingdoms reconsider trade and authority
People & builders: Mehmed II (1432–1481); Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1400–1468); Isabella I of Castile (1451–1504); Ferdinand II of Aragon (1452–1516)
A pandemic altered work and wealth
The Black Death spread across much of Europe in 1347–1352, killing a large share of the population. Its pathways were tied to movement around the Mediterranean and wider Eurasian networks. Survivors had to rebuild families, farms and businesses. In some places, labor scarcity strengthened the bargaining position of workers; rulers and landowners responded with wage controls and new regulations. The social outcome differed by region, and the disease did not end after its first devastating wave.
Reduced populations and disputed obligations made older arrangements less reliable. Military and fiscal pressure simultaneously encouraged rulers to find steadier revenues. In Iberia and elsewhere, merchants sought profitable routes and rulers sought alliances, prestige and resources. These pressures did not make Atlantic conquest inevitable. They formed part of the environment in which new expeditions could attract sponsors.
1453 and the politics of routes
In May 1453 Sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople, bringing the Byzantine Empire to an end. The Ottoman state governed an important commercial and political crossroads. It is misleading to say that the conquest simply shut all trade with Asia and forced Europeans to sail west. Mediterranean and overland commerce continued; routes shifted according to taxes, wars, markets and merchants’ decisions.
Around 1450 Gutenberg’s movable-type printing methods made it increasingly feasible to reproduce substantial numbers of books in European cities. Printing helped spread maps, religious disputes and technical arguments, but it depended on readers, financiers, paper and commercial networks. Earlier Chinese and Korean printing technologies had their own long histories. Printing widened the circulation of claims without automatically guaranteeing their accuracy.
The dynastic state financed risk
Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon consolidated political authority in late fifteenth-century Iberia while conducting the Granada war, which ended in January 1492. Their governments also imposed religious conformity through coercive policies and expulsions, notably the 1492 expulsion of Jews who refused conversion. Crown ambitions and exclusions were therefore present at the same moment as the sponsorship of Atlantic voyages.
Europe’s outward expansion was not a clean victory of innovation over a failed past. It combined navigation, fiscal competition and political force with prejudices and ambitions inherited from older kingdoms. Today's disputes about state power and religious freedom retain traces of those transitions.
Dates & turning points
- 1347–1352: The first major wave of the Black Death transforms European labor and settlement.
- 1453: Mehmed II captures Constantinople.
- c. 1450: European movable-type printing expands from Mainz.
- January–October 1492: Granada falls; Castile and Aragon issue expulsion policies; Columbus reaches the Caribbean.