This introductory and at the same time comprehensive study attempts to outline the current state of research regarding the claim that globalism was already well underway during the pre-modern period. Much depends, of course, on the definition, the evidence, and the theoretical concepts, as the many controversies indicate which are examined here and contrasted and compared with a wide variety of concrete historical, literary, and art-historical examples or concrete cases. Undoubtedly, the discourse on globalism also in earlier periods before the twenty-first century carries strong political undercurrents, but this essay endeavors to approach the topicsine ira et studio, and simply to reflect on what is possible at the moment to claim regarding global perspectives and where we ought to be careful in our historical investigations. The various literary texts and historical documents from the fields of arts, commerce, medicine, science, etc. introduced and discussed here will hopefully illustrate convincingly that we are justified in accepting the notion of pre-modern globalism, and this even well prior to ca. 1500, if we cast our investigative net as far as possible and pursue innovative comparative and interdisciplinary research.
For quite some time now, scholars have debated the validity or usefulness of the concept of globalism in the pre-modern world, prodded along in that endeavor by their colleagues in the modern fields of economics, history, social-and cultural studies, religion, and anthropology, not to forget literature.1 Unquestionably, the twenty-first century is deeply characterized by many aspects characteristic of globalism, as illustrated by trade connections, diplomatic relationships, international political alliances, and communication now facilitated by the internet, email, social media, etc. There are good reasons to trace those developments not much further back than maybe to the late twentieth century, while everything before then appears to have been national, parochial, local, introspective, and limited, as many historians have claimed with the purpose of drawing clear demarcation lines separating epochs, in whatever form defined, leaving the pre-modern era, so to speak, in the dust of history. Poets, philosophers, architects, and scientists from the late antiquity exerted a deep influence on the Middle Ages; and those from the medieval era, met with much interest well into the early modern age. It is not uncommon, however, to reach a workable compromise when the turning point of ca. 1500 is accepted as the beginning of globalism, although I would question even that separation line.2 The other challenge is also what we mean by ‘global,’ when the case often concerns ‘only’ contacts or exchang
