Stefan K. Stantchev – författare

Spiritual Rationality: Papal Embargo as Cultural Practice offers the first book-length study of embargo in a pre-modern period and provides a unique exploration into the domestic implications of this tool of foreign policy. Based on a large and varied body of archival and printed, papal and secular sources, this inquiry covers Europe and the broader Mediterranean from c. 1150 to c. 1550. During this time of an increasing papal role within Christian society, the church employed restrictions on trade with Muslims, pagans, ''heretics'', ''schismatics'', disobedient Catholic communities and individual Jews in order to facilitate papally-endorsed warfare against external enemies and to discipline internal foes. Various trade bans were originally promulgated as individual responses to specific circumstances. These restrictions, however, were shaped by the premise that sin and the defense of the decorum of the faith and Christendom condoned, or even required, papal intervention into the lives of the laity and by the text-based approach of popes and canonists.Papal embargo, consequently, was not only the sum total of individual trade bans but also a legal and moral discourse that classified exchanges into legitimate and illegitimate ones, compelled merchants to distinguish clearly between themselves as (Roman) Christians and a multitude of others as non-Christians, and helped order symbolically both the relationships between the two groups and those between church and laity. Papal embargo''s chief relevance thus lay within Christian society itself, where it functioned as an intangible pastoral staff. While sixteenth-century developments undermined it as a policy tool and a moral discourse alike, papal embargo inscribed the notion of the immorality of trade with the enemy into European thought.

The later Middle Ages and the early modern period were important and overlapping historical moments for both Venice and the Ottoman Empire, yet the two--both the periods themselves and the Republic and Empire more generally--have often been considered in isolation. Seeking to understand better this interrelated transition, Venice, the Ottomans, and the Sea offers for the first time an integrated view of trade and sea power that transcends the overworn paradigms of trade--the Ottoman territories as a land of opportunity--and crusade--the Ottomans as a military threat--to uncover the complex interplay between economic structures and political decision making that shaped the period between the end of Venice's most devastating war with Genoa in 1381 and the Ottoman conquest of Mamluk Egypt in 1517.Drawing on the full range of available Venetian sources, as well as Ottoman, Genoese, Florentine, and papal materials, the book clarifies the trajectory of Venice's trade with the Ottomans, the evolution of Venetian defensive measures in the Balkans and of Venetian naval warfare, Venice's attempt to aid the Byzantine Empire in 1453, the dynamics of the Venetian-Ottoman war of 1463-79, and the interconnections between Venice's social and political structures and its Italian and Ottoman politics. In so doing, it offers a comprehensive analysis of Venetian-Ottoman relations, ranging from macro to micro scales, and across matters of economic, political, and military history. From a broader Mediterranean perspective, this highlights the intersections of political, social, economic, and technological factors behind accelerated historical change in the late medieval and early modern periods and offers a case study in the ways in which a Mediterranean elite maintained its privileged position over time.

The later Middle Ages and the early modern period were important and overlapping historical moments for both Venice and the Ottoman Empire, yet the two--both the periods themselves and the Republic and Empire more generally--have often been considered in isolation. Seeking to understand better this interrelated transition, Venice, the Ottomans, and the Sea offers for the first time an integrated view of trade and sea power that transcends the overworn paradigms of trade--the Ottoman territories as a land of opportunity--and crusade--the Ottomans as a military threat--to uncover the complex interplay between economic structures and political decision making that shaped the period between the end of Venice's most devastating war with Genoa in 1381 and the Ottoman conquest of Mamluk Egypt in 1517. Drawing on the full range of available Venetian sources, as well as Ottoman, Genoese, Florentine, and papal materials, the book clarifies the trajectory of Venice's trade with the Ottomans, the evolution of Venetian defensive measures in the Balkans and of Venetian naval warfare, Venice's attempt to aid the Byzantine Empire in 1453, the dynamics of the Venetian-Ottoman war of 1463-79, and the interconnections between Venice's social and political structures and its Italian and Ottoman politics. In so doing, it offers a comprehensive analysis of Venetian-Ottoman relations, ranging from macro to micro scales, and across matters of economic, political, and military history. From a broader Mediterranean perspective, this highlights the intersections of political, social, economic, and technological factors behind accelerated historical change in the late medieval and early modern periods and offers a case study in the ways in which a Mediterranean elite maintained its privileged position over time.

The later Middle Ages and the early modern period were important and overlapping historical moments for both Venice and the Ottoman Empire, yet the two--both the periods themselves and the Republic and Empire more generally--have often been considered in isolation. Seeking to understand better this interrelated transition, Venice, the Ottomans, and the Sea offers for the first time an integrated view of trade and sea power that transcends the overworn paradigms of trade--the Ottoman territories as a land of opportunity--and crusade--the Ottomans as a military threat--to uncover the complex interplay between economic structures and political decision making that shaped the period between the end of Venice's most devastating war with Genoa in 1381 and the Ottoman conquest of Mamluk Egypt in 1517. Drawing on the full range of available Venetian sources, as well as Ottoman, Genoese, Florentine, and papal materials, the book clarifies the trajectory of Venice's trade with the Ottomans, the evolution of Venetian defensive measures in the Balkans and of Venetian naval warfare, Venice's attempt to aid the Byzantine Empire in 1453, the dynamics of the Venetian-Ottoman war of 1463-79, and the interconnections between Venice's social and political structures and its Italian and Ottoman politics. In so doing, it offers a comprehensive analysis of Venetian-Ottoman relations, ranging from macro to micro scales, and across matters of economic, political, and military history. From a broader Mediterranean perspective, this highlights the intersections of political, social, economic, and technological factors behind accelerated historical change in the late medieval and early modern periods and offers a case study in the ways in which a Mediterranean elite maintained its privileged position over time.