Venice and the Ottoman Empire: Crash Course World History #19

In which John Green discusses the strange and mutually beneficial relationship between a republic, the citystate of Venice, and an Empire, the Ottomans--and how studying history can help you to be a better boyfriend and/or girlfriend. Together, the Ottoman Empire and Venice grew wealthy by facilitating trade: The Venetians had ships and nautical expertise; the Ottomans had access to many of the most valuable goods in the world, especially pepper and grain. Working together across cultural and religious divides, they both become very rich, and the Ottomans became one of the most powerful political entities in the world. We also discuss how economic realities can overcome religious and political differences (in this case between Muslims and Christians), the doges of Venice, the sultans of the Ottoman empire, the janissaries and so-called slave aristocracy of the Ottoman Empire, and how money and knowledge from the Islamic world helped fuel and fund the European Renaissance. Also, there's a They Might Be Giants joke.

If you really want to read about Ottoman eunuchs (warning: it's explicit), here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunuch#Ottoman_Empire

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Hi, I'm John Green,

This is CrashCourse:
World History

and today we’re going to talk
about a relationship.

No, not you,

college girlfriend.

No, not that kind of relationship either.

No. STAN,

THIS IS A HISTORY CLASS.

We’re gonna talk about the
relationship between a city,

and an empire,
the Ottomans,

Venice,

and in doing so we will return t
o an old theme in this show:

How studying history can make you
a better boyfriend and/or girlfriend.

Probably or,

Mr. Green,

but I’m not here to judge.

no offense,

but you don’t really seem like an
expert in how to get girls to like you.

Here’s something amazing, Me From the Past.

You know that girl, Sarah, in 10th grade
who’s super super smart?

Yeah, she’s really hot.

She’s like three or four leagues
hotter than I am.

YEAH, I MARRIED HER.

So shut up and listen.

[music intro]

[music intro]

[music intro]

[music intro]

[music intro]

[music intro]

Ten minutes from now,

I’m hoping you’ll understand how
one mutually beneficial relationship,

between the Venetians and the
Ottomans, led to two really big deals:

The European Renaissance

and Christopher Columbus.

Not like his birth,

I mean he wasn’t like a half-Ottoman,
half-Venetian baby,

his travels!

So Venice is a city made up of

hundreds of islands at the
northern tip of the Adriatic Sea,

but walking around it, you
can’t help but feel that the city

is essentially a collection of floating
buildings tied together by some canals.

If ever there was a place
where geography was destiny,

it was Venice.

Venice was literally built
for ocean-going trade.

As you can imagine,

they didn’t have a lot
of natural resources—

except for fish and mustaches—
[sweet!]

so if they wanted to grow,
they’d have to rely on trade.

Let’s go to the Thought Bubble.

So first, Venetians became
experts in shipbuilding.

Remember that when the Crusaders
needed ships

for their crazy Fourth Crusade?

They headed to Venice,

because the Venetians were famous for
merchant ships like the Galley and the Cog.

Not only could they build ships;

they could also sail them to
pleasant locales like

Constantinople and the Levant,

so the Venetians formed trade treaties,
sometimes called concessions,

with the Byzantines,

and then when Constantinople fell
to the Ottomans and became Istanbul,

the Venetians were quick to make
trade treaties with their new neighbors,

famously saying that while
Istanbul had been Constantinople,

the matter of Constantinople
getting the works was

nobody’s business but the Turks.

But even before the Ottomans,

Venice had experience trading
with the Islamic world:

It initially established itself
as the biggest European power

in the Mediterranean

thanks to its trade with
Egypt’s sultan in the

outlandishly lucrative
pepper business.

Can’t blame the Europeans, really.

This stuff is delicious.

Oh, like actual pepper?

Oh, well that’s cool, too,

especially since it masks the
taste of spoiled meat,

which most meat was in the
days before refrigeration.

Due to some awkward…

Crusades…

the Egyptian merchants were
not so welcome in …

Europe.

But they had all the pepper,

because the Egyptians imported it from India
and controlled both the overland and oversea

access to the Mediterranean.

And when others cited moral or
religious opposition to trade,

the Venetians usually found a way

…which is why the whole freaking
town is made of marble.

Thanks, Thought Bubble.

To avoid the sticky situation of having
to consort with the heathen Egyptians,

the Venetians employed a handy story.

This is the Piazza San Marco,

the #1 Destination in the

Entire World for People
Who Like to Be Pooped

on by Pigeons.

It’s also home to this church, which
includes some bronze horses

you may remember that were
looted from Constantinople.

And it contains the body of St. Mark,

the author of the Gospel
According to St. Mark,

who had once been the bishop
of Alexandria, in Egypt.

So naturally, he died there
and was buried there in Egypt,

but the Venetians claimed him as their own
because apparently one time he visited Venice,

and these two merchants hatched a very clever
plan.

They went to Alexandria on business,

stole St. Mark’s body and then
hid it in a shipment of pork,

which the Muslims didn’t check v
ery carefully, because, you know,

they were disgusted by it.

You can even see a version of this on
the mosaics in the Basilica of St. Mark

complete with the Muslims shouting an
Arabic version of

“ewww gross.”

Then, forever after,
the Ventians were like,

“Listen, we HAVE to trade with these guys.
We use it as a secret way to ferry saint bodies

out of Egypt. We don’t WANT to become fantastically
wealthy.

It’s just a necessary byproduct
of our saint-saving.”

So what did Venice import?

Lots, but notable for us,
they imported a lot of grain,

because if you have ever been to Venice,

Then you might have noticed that it
is basically made out of marble and

therefore difficult to farm.

The Ottomans, on the other hand,

had abundant grain,

even before they conquered Egypt and
its oh-so-fertile Nile River in 1517.

Also,

while trade was certainly the lynchpin
of Venice’s economic success,

they had a diverse economy.

They also produced things
like textiles and glass.

And in fact Venice is still known for its
glass, but they couldn’t produce it without

a special ash that they used to make the colors.

And you’ll never guess where
the ash came from.

The Ottomans.

Am I making you a better boyfriend yet?

You have to add to your partner’s life.
You have to color their glass.

That sounds like a euphemism.
but it’s not--

BACK TO HISTORY.

One last thing about Venice
that makes it special,

at least for its time.

Venice was a republic,

not a monarchy or,

god forbid, an empire

So its leaders were elected,
and had to answer to the populace,

well at least the property-owning
male populace.

The ruler was the doge

and he got to live in a very nice
house and wear a funny hat.

The Sultan of the Ottoman empire

also got to live in a nice house
and wear a funny hat,

[not unlike Caddyshack-era
pro golfers]

but there the similarities end.

To begin,

the Ottomans were an empire
that lasted from around

1300 CE until 1919,

making it one of the longest-lasting
and richest empires in world history.

The Ottomans managed to blend their pastoral
nomadic roots with some very un-nomadic empire

building, and some really impressive architecture,

like this

and this

and this,

making them very different from,
wait for it,

the Mongols.

[Screaming horns of fur-collared mayhem ensue]

The empire,
or at least the dynasty,

was founded by Osman Bey,
and Ottoman is a Latinization of Osmanli,

which basically means like the
House of Osman.

No, Stan,

House,

y-, yes.

Oh my Gosh.

The Ottomans were greatest in the
15th and 16th centuries

under two famous sultans:

First, Mehmet the Conqueror
ruled from 1451 to 1481

and expanded Ottoman control
to the Balkans, which

is why there are Bosnian Muslims today.

But Ottoman expansion reached
its greatest extent under

[counted 4 ottomans during height
of our living room empire…]

Suleiman the Magnificent,

who ruled from 1520-1566.

He took valuable territory in
Mesopotamia and Egypt,

thus securing control over the
western parts of the Asian trade –

both overland and oversea.

He also defeated the
king of Hungary and

laid siege to Vienna in 1526.

And he turned the Ottomans
into a huge naval power.

Also, judging from his hat,

he had the largest brain
in human history.

The Ottomans basically
controlled about half of

[Or an alien from the movie
Mars Attacks! Hmm...]

what the Romans controlled,

but it was much more valuable

because of all the Indian Ocean trade
you’ll remember from last week.

So all this land brought a lot of wealth,
but it needed to be ruled.

The Ottomans could have
followed the Roman model,

where you send out
generals and nobles to

rule over conquered territories,

or they could’ve demanded the
allegiance of client kings

like the Persians, or

developed a civil service system
like the Chinese,

but instead, they created an
entirely new ruling class,

a system some historians call

a slave aristocracy.

So if you are a King,

one of your main problems is
hereditary nobles, because

they always want to replace you, and
they don’t want to give you your money,

& they want their ugly sons to marry
your gorgeous daughters, etc.

One way to deal with this problem is
to make them part of the government

so they feel included and shut up.

Another way is to kill them.

[Not very sportsman-like there, Vizzini.]

That’s what they usually do in Russia.

The Ottomans just bypassed the problem of
hereditary nobles altogether by creating both

Ahh!

Putin!

[Much less scary when all topless
and wanna-beefcakey atop a horse]

I’m whispering so Putin doesn’t hear me.

an army and a bureaucracy from scratch so
they would be loyal only to the Sultan.

How?

The devshirme,

a program in which they
kidnapped Christian boys,

converted them to Islam, and
raised them either to be

members of an elite military
force called the Janissaries,

or bureaucrats who would collect
taxes and advise the Sultan.

Incidentally, which of those
gigs would you prefer?

Because I think that says a
lot about you as a person.

Either way, you weren’t
allowed to have kids,

which prevented the whole
hereditary nobles problem,

and also ensured that the Ottoman
government would contain

quite a lot of Eunuchs.

[Professional Euchre players?]

Originally eunuchs probably
only served as harem guards,

for obvious reasons,

[Harem girls love to play Euchre
during their idle time?]

but emperors quickly realized that they would
be more reliable than nobles as advisors and

administrators because their loyalties were
less likely to be divided.

Oh,

it’s time for the Open Letter?

An Open Letter to Eunuchs,

But first,

let’s see what’s in the
secret compartment today.

Oh,
its a blow up globe.

See what quitting smoking will
get you Me From the Past?

Hey there Ottoman Eunuchs,

How’s it hanging?

I’m just kidding, that was mean.

Listen, there’ve been eunuchs all
around this great planet of ours.

But you’re special.

I’m not going to give you the details
why, because they’re horrifying.

I’m just going to put a link to
an article in the video info.

You started out being harem guards,
Ottoman Eunuchs,

which is kind of an obvious gig for you,

but then you expanded.

As had happened in China,
you made yourselves indispensable,

and you were often the center
of palace intrigue.

In fact, few people in the
Ottoman Empire were

as wealthy and important as
many of you were.

Way to turn lemons into lemonade.

[Perhaps making an omelet from
broken eggs is more fitting?]

I’m sorry,

I shouldn’t have brought up lemons.

Best wishes,
John Green

[…or the huevos. Sorry!]

This system eventually broke down
as Janissaries (who had guns)

lobbied to be allowed to have families.

But until that happened,

the Ottomans system using a mix of
eunuchs and slave administrators

to run everything worked incredibly well.

But to return to the relationship between
the Ottomans and the Venetians:

After the Ottomans captured Egypt,

they pretty much controlled the flow
of trade through the Mediterranean,

but the Venetians had and centuries
of experience as mariners,

and also lots of boats.

Speaking of ships,

I ship these guys:

So the Ottomans were content to
let the Venetians do all the like,

[But not as much as Damon and Elena]

trading and carrying of goods, and
they just made their money from taxes.

And that worked because both

Venice and the Ottomans
added value to the other.

Healthy relationships—

listen up, Me From the Past—

aren’t about extracting value;

they have to be mutually
beneficial to work.

And boy, was that a mutually
beneficial relationship.

Venice became super rich,

For instance,

and being super rich was a prerequisite for
the European Renaissance because all that

art and learning required money, which is
why Venice was a leading city at the beginning

of the Renaissance before being

eclipsed by Florence, Rome, and

say Rotterdam.

I don’t know,

Also, this relationship established firm
connections between

Europe and Islamic world,

so ideas could flow again—

especially old Greek ideas Muslims
had preserved and built upon.

I mean,

I guess those connections had
existed for a long time, but

Crusades aren’t a great way
to exchange ideas.

But perhaps the most crucial result of

the Venetian and Ottoman control of trade
was that it forced other Europeans

to look for different paths to the
riches of the East.

And that fueled huge investments
in exploration.

The Portuguese sailed south and east
around the tip of Africa,

and the Spanish went west,

believing that the Indies and China were
much closer than they turned out to be.

Thanks for watching.

I’ll see you next week.

Crash Course is produced and directed

by Stan Muller,

our script supervisor is

Danica Johnson.

The show is written by

my high school history teacher Raoul Meyer

and myself.

Our graphics team is ThoughtBubble,

Last week’s Phrase of the Week was:
"Unfortunately they didn't have pizza."

If you want to suggest future phrases of the
week

or guess at this week’s

you can do so in comments

where you can also ask questions about
today's video that will be answered

by our team of historians.

Thanks for watching CrashCourse.

And as we say in my hometown,

don’t forget Context is everything.

[giddily glides gracefully out of frame]