Until the fourteenth century, Europe benefited greatly from the Silk Route, the trading route that connected Asian countries like China, India, and Japan with Europe. Some of the most important trading goods that were traded along the Silk Route were spices.
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For the Europeans, Spices were extremely important. They used spices to make food additives, preservatives, medicines, perfumes, cosmetic items, and religious rituals. So, spices became indispensable for medieval Europeans. Spices and many other goods mostly came from Asia and Africa through the silk route. Hence, many European nations depended on the silk route heavily for important goods and commodities.
However, due to the outbreak of the Black Plague in the fourteenth century and the defeat of the Byzantine empire by the Ottoman empire in the fifteenth century, the Silk Route was closed to Christians.
Many of the currencies of the medieval ages were silver and gold coins. Europe had used many of these coins to pay for goods from the silk route. Since they were mostly importing goods, gold and silver always flowed out of Europe into the hands of traders of the silk route. As a result, Europe started to run out of its reserves of gold and silver.
Therefore, Europe was in dire need of goods the silk route had previously supplied as well as silver and gold. So, many countries started looking for alternative routes to reach Asia and Africa. Therefore, the monarchs of European countries (first Portugal, and decades later, Spain) started sponsoring voyages to find new routes to the spice lands of Asia.
Hence, inspired by the riches promised by the monarchs, the desire to convert the barbarians in Asia to Christianity, and the fame that comes with being the first person to find the sea route to Asia, many men took to the sea. Columbus wasn’t any different. He wanted all these too. Moreover, he grew up in the Italian port city Genoa. As a kid, he might have seen ships arriving at the port and leaving it and might have fallen in love with sailing. So, Christopher Columbus set sail to find a sea route to Asia.
