1279

1271 1272 1273 1274 1275 1276 1277 1278 1279 1280

political events

Portugal's Afonso III dies at Lisbon February 16 at age 69 after a 34-year reign and is succeeded by his 18-year-old son, who has led a rebellion against him but will reign as Diniz (the Worker) until 1325.

Sweden's Magnus I Ladulás issues a statute at Alsnö creating the frälse, a lay upper class whose members receive tax-free privileges and social status in return for equipping themselves for military service.

The Song (Sung) dynasty that has ruled much of China since 960 ends with the destruction of a fleet carrying the last young Song pretender. His predecessors have lost control over vast territories in the north and west but have increased trade dramatically along the Chang Jiang (Yangtze) and in coastal regions of the China Sea. The Mongol (Yuan) dynasty founded in 1271 is left in full control of all China.

commerce

China's Mongol (Yuan) emperors will continue the policy begun in the Tang period of collecting taxes twice per year, keeping taxes relatively low, and retaining the government monopoly on salt.

architecture, real estate

The Castel Nuovo is founded at Naples by Charles d'Anjou and will be known to Neapolitans as the Maschio Angiono.

agriculture

The average Chinese family controls about 100 mu (now about seven acres) of land, but about 60 percent of the peasantry consists of small, independent freeholders, and most independent peasant families have only about 20 mu; large estates control much of the empire, especially in the most developed areas of the lower Chang Jiang (Yangtze) delta, where the land is richest, markets are closest, and land values highest. Large landlords find ways to avoid taxation (perhaps 70 percent of the land is tax exempt), obliging small landholders to shoulder most of the tax burden and driving them to become tenant farmers. Chinese sugar cane has become an important cash crop in parts of Sichuan (Szechwan) and Fujian (Fukien) provinces during the Song (Sung) period, replacing staple grain crops.

food and drink

The Chinese government has carefully controlled and supervised tea production during the Song (Sung) period and profited by controlling trade in that commodity.

Chinese during the Song (Sung) period have moved from sitting on the floor when they eat to sitting on chairs and eating from tables, but some people continue to sit on the floor at meals. The rich eat from porcelain dishes, with several being used for each diner. Spoons and eating sticks are the universal utensils.

Rice has become the staple food of China in the Song (Sung) period, accounting for 70 percent of the grain consumed versus 30 percent for wheat and millet (which are grown and consumed, along with sorghum, mostly in northern territories beyond Song control). People in Central and South China eat their rice steamed, boiled, or cooked in a gruel; those in the north eat wheat or millet flour made into noodles, steamed or baked breads, and whole-grain millet cooked into pastes or gruels. The very poor eat coarse grains, chaff, oilseed hulls, and beans of various kinds. Unlike Europeans, who eat cabbage, tubers, and store apples and pears in root cellars, the Chinese in all classes of society eat fresh fruits and vegetables of all sorts, having found varieties that resist cold weather and perfected ways of growing fresh vegetables through the winter even in northern climes, protecting their intensive truck gardens from frost. Not even rich Europeans eat as well in this respect as the great mass of Chinese.

Pork is China's chief meat, but fish, lamb, and kid are also eaten by rich and poor alike (the same word is used for lamb, kid, and mutton); the rich enjoy better cuts and their meat dishes also include horsemeat, beef, rabbit, venison (which may sometimes actually be donkeymeat), chicken, duck, goose, pheasant, quail, and various other wild birds, sometimes owl and magpie. Camel hump is considered a delicacy, served only at the imperial table, but strict Buddhists avoid beef (which is losing popularity as Indian religious influence grows), and many Chinese find beef and mutton abhorrently malodorous.

Sushi made with rice, vinegar, oil, and any meat or raw fish available has become popular in China during the Song (Sung) period but will become better known as a Japanese specialty.

The inventory of the estate of a Genoese soldier lists a basket of macaronis (dried pasta; some historians will suggest that the word is derived from the Greek makar, meaning "blessed," as in sacramental food). While the Chinese have been eating noodles since at least 1100 B.C., lasagna (Marco Polo's term for noodles) has probably been used by the Italians only since the last century, mostly as an extender for soups and, sometimes, desserts; it is considered a luxury food, and will remain so for more than a century (see 1284; 1400).

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