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The Mediterranean as a Laboratory of Globalisation: The Franco-Ottoman Cloth Trade, 1683-c.1715

Project description

The trading of cloth: understanding why it flourished

France and the Ottoman Empire have had a long, satisfactory, diplomatic relationship. In the 1700s, France dominated western European trade with the Ottoman Empire. Some credit this to Jean-Baptiste Colbert’s influence over the Franco-Ottoman trade in woollen cloth. With a focus on the cloth trade, the EU-funded GlobalMed project seeks to shed light on why this trade bloomed. In doing so, the project will investigate the significance of trade in influencing the state’s global commercial policy and industrial development. GlobalMed’s work will provide new insights on the rise of the Atlantic World.

Objective

In the early 1700s, France overcame English and Dutch competition to become the Ottoman Empires main European trading partner. To date, historians have focussed on Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIVs (in)famous minister, and his influence on the crucial Franco-Ottoman trade in woollen cloth. Yet they have neglected the boom in this trade after Colberts death in 1683, overseen by Jean-Baptiste de Lagny, the director general of commerce from 1686 to 1700.

By treating the Mediterranean as a laboratory of globalisation, GlobalMed asks why this trade flourished. Moreover, it explores the trades significance in influencing the states global commercial policy, analysing how Frances Levantine success shaped its engagement with (non-)colonial markets overseas. In this way, the project will challenge current orthodoxies on the rise of the Atlantic world by reconsidering the early modern states role as a motor of globalisation and industrial development.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.

Coordinator

UNIVERSITEIT LEIDEN
Net EU contribution
€ 187 624,32
Address
RAPENBURG 70
2311 EZ Leiden
Netherlands

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Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost
No data
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