レヴァント更紗とアルメニア商人 : 捺染技術の伝播と東西貿易

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Origins and processes of introduction of cotton-printing industry, which played a predominant part in the formation of modern capitalism in eighteenth-century Europe, have not been well known. Cotton-printing with wood-blocks was not, as it is vulgarly said, invented in Europe. A French document recently discovered and studied by Paul-Raymond Schwartz proves that it was practised in India from time immemorial. Extending his investigation to the countries of Western Asia, Schwartz presumed that the technics of cotton-printing had been transmitted firstly from India to Persia and Levant, and then to Europe by way of the Mediterranean. But he could not find sufficient proofs to conclude, especially with regard to the level of Levantine technics. The four samples of Turkish products of the eighteenth century, which I discovered myself in the Archives departementales des Bouches-du-Rhone at Marseilles, clear away all the doubts. Known under the name of chafarcanis, and manufactured principally at Diyarbekir, these printed fabrics prove not only the high level of Levantine dyeing technics, but also, by their colors, designs and size of a piece which resemble remarkably to those of the Indian jafracanis, the intimate relations between Levantine and Indian cotton-printing industries. It is indubitable that the fabrication of chafarcanis had been introduced from India to Turkey by the Armenian merchants in the course of the seventeenth century. Having a strong base at New Julfa, and monopolizing the export of Persian silk, the Armenians dominated the commercial affairs between Persia and India on the one hand, between Persia and Turkey on the other hand, and played a major part in the East-West trade by the Levantine routes. Supplying the Indian workers with Persian madder which was a basic dyestuff, they controlled most of the export of painted and printed goods from the Mughal Empire to the Levant as well as to the Malay archipelago. It was by this powerful network of Armenian merchants that the technics of cotton-printing were transmitted from east to west. The same technics were introduced by the same hands into Europe in the second half of the seventeenth century. The first European manufactories of printed cottons were founded at Marseilles and Amsterdam by the help of Armenians and possibly other Levantine technicians. Thence this new industry was spread to the whole Europe. As far as transmission of technics and contact of civilizations were concerned, the Mediterranean routes kept therefore their superiority over the oceanic routes of the Cape of Good Hope on the very eve of the Industrial Revolution.
政治経済学・経済史学会の論文
1986-04-20

著者

深沢克己
九州大学

レヴァント更紗とアルメニア商人 : 捺染技術の伝播と東西貿易

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