In the period 1200-1450ce, Europe and East Asia formed and developed slightly similarly in regards to their social construct, yet very differently when focusing on cultural, religious, and political developments between the two. Both regions experienced the upbringing of civilizations oriented on religion, politics, wealth, and cultural integrity that shaped the world we live in today.
Europe, having recently been divided into many tribal kingdoms that were constantly at war with one another over total domination of it, experienced a huge change after kings began consolidating more land and power. Eventually, much of this power was given back to the nobles. This political shift is unlike anything East Asia saw in this time period. Prior to this time period, and extending into it for about 21 years, East Asia had been under the Song Dynasty (960-1276) under a bureaucratic system that had been in China since The Qin Dynasty (221-207 bce). Even though both regions had a change in states and rule, the way in which each changed was drastically different. In Europe, there was conflict between the many feudal lords that fought each other until someone finally had the idea and means of consolidated power. In East Asia, Control shifted from the Song Dynasty to the Mongol Dynasty who, as we’ve established were civilized, had become allies with the Mongols in 1233 to defeat general Wu Xian of the Jin Dynasty. The Mongol (1206-1368) and Song armies eventually defeated the general in 1234ce and around 1276-1279 only a small minority of Song loyalists continued to resist Mongol rule before ultimately being defeated.
The cultural and religious differences between East Asia and Europe during this period were extremely different in a variety of ways. While the Roman Catholic church was a strong continuity in Europe, with Catholicism being the only allowed religion since Europe opposed all others, East Asia has a very different story to tell. During this time, East Asia had a variety of religions present under Mongol rule because of their religious tolerance, allowing those of many religions to practice freely without discrimination. On one hand, you have Catholic artists in Europe who paint mass amounts of pieces portraying their religious figures, whereas Muslims in East Asia refused to do so. Even artistic practice for religion was different between the people in these regions. To add on to that, even the way of life for Europeans was different from that of about 10% of the people in East Asia for a majority of this period. Many conquered peoples held strong Confucian values, and others followed a variety, in some cases even a spectrum of religions. Those who followed these Confucian rules made up 10% of Mongols and often led more strict and direct lives than Europeans who didn’t have a system like this. Europeans often clung to Catholic teachings for religious purposes, whereas Confucians saw Confucianism as a way of life rather than a religion. Interestingly enough, another difference between European and East Asian states was the way they viewed their elders. In East Asia, there was a popular virtue of respect for parents, elders, and ancestors called filial piety, one of many confucian virtues. In europe, we see no widespread respected belief of this manner. The beliefs and practices are fundamentals that show a huge contrast between the culture in Europe and East Asia at this time
When it comes to the similarities of the government and social construct between Europe and East Asia, they are truly only similar in one aspect. This similarity is the act of both states having a structure consisting of emperors ranked at the top, then the noble and wealthier families that often had religious ties ranked right below. Under them were the upper and lower middle classes and then the poor peasants and slaves. In the Mongolian Empire, it was common to find European slaves that were captured in raids and subjected to slavery to sustain the growth of the Mongolian empire.