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  • Hi, I'm John Green,

  • This is CrashCourse: World History

  • and today were 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.

  • Were gonna talk about the relationship between a city,

  • Venice,

  • and an empire, the Ottomans,

  • 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,

  • but I’m not here to judge.

  • Mr. Green,

  • 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 youll 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 youll 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.

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

  • The Ottomans basically controlled about half of

  • what the Romans controlled,

  • but it was much more valuable

  • because of all the Indian Ocean trade youll 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 couldve 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.

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

  • Ahh!

  • Putin!

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

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

  • 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, thereve been eunuchs all around this great planet of ours.

  • But youre special.

  • I’m not going to give you the details why, because theyre 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.

  • […or the huevos. Sorry!]

  • Best wishes, John Green

  • 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:

  • [But not as much as Damon and Elena]

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

  • 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 each 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.

  • For instance,

  • Venice became super rich,

  • 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

  • I don’t know,

  • say Rotterdam.

  • 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]

Hi, I'm John Green,

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