Askia Muhammad

Toure, King of the

Songhai 1493-1529

Comparative Monarchy
Western Europe (France)
And

Africa (Songhay)

Louis XIV, King of France

1638-1715
 Gaining Power
Video 5 mins.
 France (1450 – 1790)
 Defeated England in 100 Years’
War – extended area of control
 Used money and army to
consolidate power
 Had a huge army with a cavalry
 Used marriage to secure  Songhai (15th & 16th centuries)
alliances
 Used feudal obligations to  Sonni Ali the Great – led army of
ensure loyalty horsemen, and fleets of canoes.
 Great military leader, with a keen
understanding of tactics on land and
water
 Askia Muhammad Toure extended
Songhay’s frontiers across the
middle Niger to include Mali, and
eastward to the Hausalands
 Political Structure
 France  Songhai
– Disbanded Estates General – Created a bureaucracy to control
– Controlled nobility – isolated distant provinces
at Versailles  Established court system
– Began using bureaucratic – Appointed loyal administrators,
systems nobility and family members to
 Royal officials (intendants) help rule newly conquered
were middle class sent to provinces.
help regional – Songhai was a more centralized
administration empire than its predecessors of
 Royal judges Ghana and Mali
 Tax collection – Stationed troops in provinces to
 Used power of Church to maintain loyalty and security
support monarchy – Vassal states were intimidated by
– Created French colonies in army and paid tribute
Africa, the Americas, and Asia
Louis XIII Louis XIV

Richelieu Mazarin
 Social Structure
France
 Three estates: those who pray,
fight, and work
 The first estate, the church,
owned a third of the property and
collected about 40% of the
revenue.
 The second estate, the nobility,
paid no taxes as they served the
state by offering the king their
lives in military service.
 The third estate, those who
worked, paid the bulk of the
taxes. Wealthy bourgeois
remained members of the third
estate
 Monogamy enforced by Catholic
Church
Songhai
 Based on a caste system, those with
links to the imperial family were
considered to be leaders and owned
domestic slaves
 The citizen caste primarily worked in
the agricultural industry or within the
military. They had the option to
change their social standing by
earning their way into elite society via
apprenticeships, religious training or
working for the civil service.
 Slaves were the lowest class of
society and were often traded,
although they could sometimes
obtain their freedom and become
part of the citizen caste.
 Polygamy, multiple wives
 Economics
 France
– Agricultural-based manorial
system with some serfs
becoming tenant farmers
 Use of crop rotation and new
technologies improves output
– Reduced internal tariffs to
stimulate trade
– Revival of trade, growth of
urban centers, artisans and
guilds regulated
– Paris - main city, capital,
center of trade
– Mercantilist economy based
on colonialism
 Songhai
– Agricultural villages (80% of pop.)
– Small farms, no larger than 10
acres owned by individual
families
– Soil conservation, crop rotation
and irrigation make marginal
lands productive
– Trans-Saharan trade in gold,
kola nuts, slaves for textiles,
horses, salt and luxury goods
– Julla (merchants) formed
partnerships to carry out trade in
the region
– Standardized weights and
currency
– State protected merchants
– Book trade - Timbuktu
– Port cities on Niger River
 Leo Africanus - Timbuktu 1510
 "Here there are many doctors, judges, priests
and other learned men, that are well
maintained at the king's cost. Various
manuscripts and written books are brought
here out of Barbarie and sold for more money
than any other merchandise. ..
The coin of Timbuktu is of gold without any
stamp or superscription, but in matters of
small value, they use certain shells brought
here from Persia, four hundred of which are
worth a ducat and six pieces of their own gold
coin, each of which weighs two-thirds of an
ounce."
 Culture
 France
– Edict of Nantes, granting  Songhai
toleration to protestants, repealed – Used Islamic practices as an
by Louis XIV, who persecuted
Huguenots
– Jews also targeted
– Cathedral building as a symbol of
power
– Catholic scholarship called
scholasticism
– King had cult-like following
Romanesque and Gothic
invaluable instrument for political
and cultural control.
– Upper classes in society converted
to Islam while remaining tolerant of
lower classes, who retained
traditional animistic beliefs
– Sermons emphasize obedience to
the king
– Muhammad Touré replaced native
Songhay administrators with Arab
Muslims in order to Islamicize
Songhay society.
– Timbuktu = center of Islamic
scholarship
– Appointed qadis to run the legal
system under Islamic legal
principles.
 Culture
 France
– Lavish court at Versailles
– Royal support of arts,
especially music
– Gothic architecture
– Troubadours-traveling story
tellers who often spread
news
– Tapestries showing French
grandeur
– Illuminated manuscripts
– Baroque style and Rococo
– Strictly Catholic
Apotheosis of King
Louis XIV
 Songhai
– Lavish court at Gao
– Allowed regional and ethnic
differences in provinces
– Griots – oral story telling and
singing historians
– Hajji brought back arts science,
education, goods language and
promoted assimilation with
indigenous populations
– Mosque architecture unique style –
mud mosques
– Masks, gold work
 Duke de Saint-Simon: “Life at
Versailles,” from his Memoirs, 1704.
 “Not only did he [Louis XIV] expect all
persons of distinction to be in continual
attendance at Court, but he was quick to
notice the absence of those of inferior
degree; at his lever (rising), his coucher
(retiring), his meals, in the gardens of
Versailles (the only place where the
courtiers in general were allowed to follow
him), he used to cast his eyes to right and
left; nothing escaped him, he saw
everybody….”
Astronomical manuscripts from Timbuktu
 France / Songhai Comparison
 Write a thesis paragraph and one body
paragraph in response to the following
prompts:
 30 points:
 Thesis – address prompt (2pts) and have
three comparative categories (9pts)
 Paragraph – topic sentence that is a direct
comparison (5pts), 3 pieces of evidence
(9pts) and analysis –”This happened
because…”(5pts)
 Due next Monday
 1st period: Evaluate the similarities in social and economic systems
in a European and an African empire between ca. 1450 and ca.
1750.
 2nd period: Evaluate the similarities in economic and political
systems in a European and an African empire between ca. 1450
and ca. 1750.
 4th period: Evaluate the similarities in political and cultural systems
in a European and an African empire between ca. 1450 and ca.
1750.
 5th period: Evaluate the similarities in economic and cultural
systems in a European and an African empire between ca. 1450
and ca. 1750.
 6th period: Evaluate the similarities in political and economic
systems in a European and an African empire between ca. 1450
and ca. 1750.
 7th period: Evaluate the similarities in economic and cultural
systems in a European and an African empire between ca. 1450
and ca. 1750.