Talk:Europeans in Medieval China

Untitled
This page repeats itself.

Raynorli (talk) 06:21, 25 February 2013 (UTC)this topic is quite vague because no formal definition of "Medieval China" could be found in references. Maybe the author means "Medieval Europeans in China"?
 * I concur with the above comment entirely, Medieval being a European cultural and historical term. Moreover, it is also misleading if it suggests that China was in a similar cultural period of its history.  Imagine if Chinese persons' visit in this period were described as "Chinese in Yuan Europe"?  Chinese readers would understand the time stamp that is intended, but still.


 * I was not the one to start this article or to name it, but I did raise it to Good Article status. That being said, I wouldn't mind if we moved the page to something like "Medieval Europeans in Imperial China" or simply "Medieval Europeans in China", which avoids labeling China during the Yuan period as "medieval". Calling Yuan-dynasty China "medieval" is indeed a misnomer, since it applies an irrelevant Eurocentric term. Let's build consensus on this first, though, because we should use caution in moving articles once they've achieved "Good" status. -- Pericles of Athens  Talk 21:37, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
 * You should perhaps inform the editors of the Taipei-based journal Early and Medieval Chinese History they're getting it all wrong. Johnbod (talk) 00:59, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry for butting in, but I notice that the EMCH defines their scope as "from antiquity to the Song era" (上古至宋代) on their blog. _dk (talk) 22:18, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Timothy Reuter in the article "Medieval: another tyrannous construct?", in The Medieval History Journal', 1 (1998), pp. 25–45, notes that "it does seem that the term ‘medieval’ is, indeed, in general and unproblematised use in a number of contexts outside its original one of European history." Although there is no consensus that the Yuan period is "medieval", I think the title of the article is in fact pretty clear. There are several English books with "in [Early] Medieval China" in the title. I doubt anybody is going to think the article is about China under the Han or the Qing. Srnec (talk) 22:21, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

heh! Touche. Those are good, solid academic-based arguments for keeping the title as is. I always assumed this label was frowned upon in the field of Sinology, but judging by these various book titles (from scholarly presses no less), I might have to reconsider that assumption. Pericles of Athens Talk 13:38, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It's certainly not ideal, but I think there is a need for some term for the period, and no obvious alternatives. One difficulty is defining when China stops being medieval, and why. Johnbod (talk) 01:52, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Source
could any one tell me more about the source: "Roux, p.465" ? Perhaps a full name, book title, pushing date, etc...? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.67.20.130 (talk) 00:16, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It's a French history of the Mongol empire from the early 1990s. May be a source of inaccuracies - more recent academics preferred (I recall an article I read in the early 2000s that suggested there was a community of Italian merchants established at the eastern terminus of the silk road prior to Polo - unfortunately I don't recall where I read it.) Simonm223 (talk) 18:32, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Yu Hong's Tomb (AD 592)?

 * "http://anthropology.net/2007/05/28/archaeological-evidence-supplemented-with-genetics-for-yu-hong" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.8.98.118 (talk) 11:59, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

There is absolutely nothing special about this blog story you've decided to share. We already know that Indo-European Iranian-speaking peoples lived in northwest China, centuries before this tomb was made for that matter. Aside from the Tocharians, whose language formed its own separate branch in the Indo-European family, there were the Yuezhi, Saka, Wusun, and later on the Sogdians. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of the "Western Regions" in Chinese history (starting in the 2nd century BC) knows about these peoples. They are not the subject of the article, though, since we are not talking about the ancient Iranian peoples in China. The subject of this article is about people from medieval Western Europe proper living in China from the 13th to 14th centuries. Pericles of Athens Talk 13:57, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Copy-edit
User:Rajmaan and I have made some serious expansions to this article and cited everything that was missing citations. However, this article could use a thorough sweep for grammar, spelling, organization, tidiness, etc., by someone with editing experience and a good set of eyes. Perhaps one day this could even be listed as a "good" article! It certainly has a lot of substance to it now. Thanks in advance to whoever decides to copy-edit this. Pericles of Athens Talk 17:28, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * In the meantime I've placed a copy-edit tag at the top of the talk page here. Hopefully someone will respond to that. All the best. Pericles of Athens  Talk 17:29, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, great job! I will give it a checkover later. One question I did have concerns the picture of the Deva King of the South: it is a nice picture (I took it), and the description is informative, and it would be perfect for an article on Multiculturalism under the Yuan dynasty, but it seems to me that it has no direct relationship to Europeans in Medieval China, and does not really belong in the article. BabelStone (talk) 18:20, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi User:BabelStone! Yeah, the artwork is certainly pretty, but that's not the entire reason I added the picture. I wanted to demonstrate not only how multicultural the Yuan Empire was but also to demonstrate that relics of the old capital, Khanbaliq, still stand to this day. The Ming and Qing era fortifications, temples, pagodas, and Forbidden City + imperial palace dwarf the amount of architecture from the Liao and Jin eras (a handful of pagodas, including one dated all the way back to the Tang period). I'm not sure if that reasoning needs to be included in the image description, though. My thinking was that it would kinda speak for itself as showing the monumental architecture that once existed in old Khanbaliq. Pericles of Athens  Talk 17:42, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Congratulations once again for developing this fascinating page -- I read it simply for pleasure and very much appreciate the work and smarts that went into it.
 * I would add a couple of points or suggestions for the further editing in the drive for "good article", however.
 * In line with the helpful explanation of "medieval," at some place in the lead, note that there was no "Europe" as such at this time; maybe just a single mention of "what is now called Europe" would be enough to flag the issue.
 * The bare urls in the References section are a minor but easily fixed issue.
 * In many cases, the reference to a chapter in an edited volume is given only to the editor and volume. This is like citing a journal article with only the name of the journal. Readers need to know who wrote the article or chapter.
 * For a complete reference, the Encylopedia template is just the thing. It is misleadingly titled, but the description is "used to create citations for articles or chapters in edited collections such as encyclopedias and dictionaarticles or chapters in edited collections such as encyclopedias and dictionaries, but more generally any book or book series containing individual sections or chapters written by various authors, and put together by one or more editors." The basic form is




 * Cheers and renewed thanks! ch (talk)
 * Hi User:CWH! To address your points:
 * 1) Yes, perhaps a better word would be "Christendom", but I think a useful link to the article on the Middle Ages would be enough to give readers an understanding of what is being discussed here. Do you think there should be a greater distinction between the Roman Catholic "Latin" West and the Greek Orthodox Byzantine Empire?
 * 2) Yep, I'll hop right on those URLs. Didn't even really notice them, to be honest.
 * 3) I have introduced the lion's share of new citations, with User:Rajmaan right behind me, but I can't speak for all the citations and I haven't checked them all. I can only speak on my own behalf and guarantee that anything I brought to the article included full reference info. To be honest fixing all the citations using the template you've provided would be a much better system, one that I've already used in the past for featured articles like Tang dynasty and such (or, if I remember correctly, someone pressured me to change them to that format, lol). In either case that task seems pretty daunting. I'd need a little bit of help with that! That sounds almost as time-consuming as hunting down the sources and writing the article itself.
 * All in all great suggestions. Thanks for replying! Pericles of Athens  Talk 17:38, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I am still grateful,, this time for your timely response. I made a couple of edits, but don't want to get in your way or of other editors who may already have plans. But notes #93-100 need to reflect the fact that Cordier (1967), Yule (1915), Hakluyt Society (1967), Cordier (1967), and Yule (1998) are all the same work, known as "Yule and Cordier"; in the cases of notes 96, 98, 99, and 100, to the same page. This makes Wikipedia look amateurish!


 * The citation should be to the original edition, not to photo-reprints, in order that readers can know whether it reflects recent scholarship (as a 1998 date would imply). I assume that you did not make this blunder, but you should clean up this sort of thing as you develop the article.
 * The problem could be avoided by using the sfnb/ harv system, which would ask for both editors of an edited work. Also makes the notes easier to follow. ch (talk) 04:21, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Good points as usual. As for the sfnb/ Harvard system, perhaps I'll try to tackle that later this week. It's going to take a long time to convert all the citations as such, though. Also, about Marco Polo in Yangzhou, I wasn't hinting that he was the governor, only that the manuscripts of his book do not all contain the same account, some saying that he was and others that he simply lived there. I didn't think the claim was controversial the way I framed it, but you're perhaps right that it's tangential and not as noteworthy as the point you've brought up about the salt industry. Good job! Cheers. Pericles of Athens  Talk 18:24, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I haven't changed the citations to sfnb/Harvard system yet, but I've listed all the sourced that have been used in the references section. With that I think the article could pass as a "good" one, but later on, if it were to be a featured article, it would certainly need the sfnb/Harvard system (to be honest, I'm exhausted from combing through all those sources and adding them to the ref section...if someone wants to convert all the citations as well then be my guest). Pericles of Athens  Talk 13:20, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
 * It's a complete myth that FAC requires or prefers any particular citing system - though individual reviewers may express a preference, which should be ignored. But the cites do need to be consistent and give all appropriate information. I & many others at FAC actually dislike sfn. Johnbod (talk) 13:37, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

I have placed a tag at the top of the talk page here to facilitate a copy-edit of the article. Hopefully someone answers the call and helps tidying up some parts of the article. The GA candidacy is still open. I'm not sure why there is such a long delay for that, but since it's taken this long a copy-editor will more than likely come around before a reviewer does. Pericles of Athens Talk 13:18, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Title
The article begins "Europeans in Medieval China were those in China during the second half of the 13th century and the first half of the 14th century (from 1246 to around 1350), during the rule of the Mongol Empire,...". "Medieval China" is a term some, but not me, object to per se, partly because defining it is not obvious. But nobody defines it as just this 105 year period. Would not "Europeans in Mongol China" or "Yuan", "under the Mongol Empire" etc be better? The article itself looks impressive - congrats! Johnbod (talk) 16:37, 7 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi User:Johnbod!
 * Seeing how "medieval" and "Middle Ages" are terms that often apply only to Europe in a sense that an era existed between the end of Late Antiquity (fall of the Western Roman Empire) and the 14th-15th century "rebirth" of Western civilization during the Renaissance (although even the latter term is one that was coined in the 19th century by historian Jules Michelet). I didn't invent the title of this article, but perhaps a better one would be "Medieval Europeans in China" to signify that we're talking about medieval-era Europeans in mid Imperial-era China (from the beginning of the unified Sui dynasty in 581 to the start of the Ming dynasty in 1368). I don't really object to the present title but a really simple fix would be to just move the word "medieval" in front of the word "Europeans", I think. Pericles of Athens  Talk 17:29, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * But there's still the problem that the European MA lasted some 1,000 years, & you're only talking about 105 of them. And the coda "Renewed contacts during the Ming" then becomes more of a problem, as that might be medieval China, but they certainly aren't medieval Europeans. Johnbod (talk)
 * Good points. How exactly do you think it should be worded? To avoid any and all ambiguity? I'm most certainly not trying to define the Middle Ages as being confined only within the late 13th and early 14th centuries; obviously that would be a preposterous statement. Does it really come across that way? If so feel free to edit those first few sentences to make things clearer, if you must. I can't really think of how to make it more lucid and concise without getting too wordy. As for the last section about the Ming, the 16th century straddles the the late medeival and Early Modern period, and this is when the Portuguese arrive by ship. It's more of a conclusionary section to wrap things up and demonstrate what happened to Sino-European relations following its virtual termination around 1368 with the start of the Ming period. The reader shouldn't leave this article and be left wondering what happened next, essentially. Pericles of Athens  Talk 03:10, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with the last section, just the article title. Given the initial "background" and the final Ming section, you might just just call it something like "Early European visitors to China", since it can claim to cover antiquity to the Ming. Or go with the main topic: "Europeans in Mongol China" or "Yuan", "Europeans in China under the Mongol Empire" etc, as suggested above. Those seem the best options. Johnbod (talk) 10:27, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I certainly like all of those alternate titles! I'm just not sure which one would be the best, though. Perhaps we should try to reach some sort of consensus, taking a vote here on the talk page among editors about an official page move with a new title. The one that's perhaps my least favorite suggestion is the "Early European visitors to China", since the heart of the article is about the Yuan period, whereas the "background" and "Ming" sections at the beginning and end, respectively, are simply there to provide greater context. The suggestion "Europeans in China under the Mongol Empire" is perhaps the best one since the Yuan Dynasty wasn't officially established until 1271, and there were Europeans visiting and living in China before that date (including the Polo family). Pericles of Athens  Talk 11:59, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I'd be fine with that. Johnbod (talk) 00:55, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Comment: If the main topic is only about the 13th and 14th century, should not the article mentions the sub-periods High Middle Ages (11th to 13th century) and Late Middle Ages (14th and 15th century)? Because the first 6 centuries of the Middle Ages seem to be out of scope entirely. Dimadick (talk) 14:26, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Good point. "Medieval" is a bit too vague, whereas the article could aptly be named "Europeans in China during the High and Late Middle Ages." However, that sounds a bit too wordy and it would also implicate that China also belongs to this sort of Western periodization (which it does not, the preferred terms being mid to late Imperial China). At the very least some mention of the High and Late Middle Ages could be made in the intro, to clarify things. Pericles of Athens  Talk 18:28, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Mandeville
Should Mandeville really be mentioned with the other travelers in the lede? As far as we know he just based everything off other sources, most prominently Odorico. I would suggest putting him in a separate sentence as someone who influenced European ideas about China, rather than together with people who appear actually to have been there.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:52, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Totally agreed. I have amended that paragraph to make this point very clear. I hope the new changes are suitable enough. Regards, Pericles of Athens  Talk 20:41, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

The bad title is spilling over
I know that the English Wikipedia isn't responsible for other language Wikipedia's, but in the Vietnamese Wikipedia this page is called "Người châu Âu ở Trung Quốc thời Trung Cổ" and in Indonesian "Orang Eropa di Tiongkok pada Abad Pertengahan" and I know these Wikipedia's heavily rely on translating from here. Anyhow, "Trung Quốc thời Trung Cổ" literally translates into English as "China during the Middle Ages" with "Trung Cổ" (中世) being a literal translation of "Medieval" (Trung (中) = medium, Cổ (世) = aevum).

The problem with this title is that it makes little sense in Chinese historiography which generally uses "Ancient" (Pre-Qin), "Imperial" (Qin-Qing), and "Modern" (1912 onwards) the term "Medieval" is an oddball. Medieval in European historiography begins with the fall of the Western Roman Empire which isn't exactly an event directly relevant to Chinese history. In earlier conversations there seemed to be some consensus regarding changing the title but this wasn't implemented.

I suggest changing it to something like "Medieval Europeans in China" or "Medieval Europeans in Imperial China" as this article still covers the early Ming dynasty but later contacts between Europe and the Ming are not mentioned here. This change would make more sense as "Medieval Europeans" would be historiographic consistent as "Medieval" mostly refers to Western European history and it wouldn't be a stretch to say that Europeans from Medieval Europe are "Medieval Europeans". --Donald Trung (talk) 20:54, 31 January 2021 (UTC)