Part 185

The condition of the unfortunate refugees, who sought shelter from invading savages on a few small mud banks, barely separated from the shore of their Adriatic coast, did not seem to be a promising one. Nor was it so. While the neighboring parts of Italy were being overrun by Huns, Goths and Lombards in succession, and while the settlement of the barbarous new races was going on over all Southern Europe, in the midst of great disorder and constant war, these islanders and their descendants, for generations, were protected as much by their poverty as by the shallow waters that surrounded them. They had nothing to tempt either plunder or conquest. They lived by salt-making, fishing and fish-salting. They began trade in a small way by exchanging their salt and salted fish for other articles. It grew in their hands from year to year, for they were enterprising, industrious and courageous. Procuring timber on the opposite Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic, they became expert ship builders and sailors. The safety of their situation caused increasing numbers of their Italian fellow countrymen to join them. The islands of the Venetian lagune were, in time, all occupied, and bridges between several of them were built. From the selling of salt and fish to their neighbors, the Venetians went on to more extensive commercial business. By slow degrees, they took the occupation of general merchants, buying goods here and there to sell again. They became friendly with the Greeks on the eastern side of the Adriatic, in Dalmatia and Albania, and this led them into important relations, both commercial and political, with the Byzantine Empire and its capital city, Constantinople. By the time they had gained wealth and consequence enough to attract the notice of their rough neighbors and invite attack, they had also gained strength enough to defend themselves. They took part then in the wars of the Byzantines, rendering valuable services in Italy and elsewhere, and they joined the Greeks in destroying the pirates who infested the Adriatic Sea. The early important trade of the Venetians was with Constantinople, where they enjoyed, for a long period, the peculiar favor of the Byzantine rulers. After the Saracens had mastered Syria and Persia, and taken possession of Alexandria (A. D. 640), Constantinople became the emporium of Eastern trade, adding it to a great traffic which the Byzantine capital had always carried on with the Tartar and Russian territories in Asia and Europe. When the Venetians gained a footing there, as political friends and favored merchants, their fortunes were made. While the Greeks were busy in desperate wars with their Mahometan neighbors, these enterprising Italians took into their own hands more and more of the profitable trade which the Greeks had opened to them. They soon had the handling of Byzantine commerce in western Europe almost wholly. From partners they became rivals, and especially in the Russian traffic, which they drew away from Constantinople, to a large extent, by opening direct dealings with the Russian traders, at a market place established on the Dnieper. From the beginning of the Crusades, in the 11th century, the rise of Venetian commerce and Venetian power was very rapid. The Venetians were prepared, as no other people were, at the time, to furnish fleets, both for transportation and for naval war. They enlisted in the crusading enterprises with a zeal which was not, perhaps, purely pious. Their carrying ships were busy conveying men and supplies; their war galleys were in the front of some sea fighting with the Moslems, and more with Christian rivals; their shrewd politicians were alert, at all points and among all parties, looking after the interests of the republic; their merchants were everywhere ready to improve the new opportunities of trade which these times of excitement opened up. In all directions, and throughout the whole of Europe, new activities were awakened, and especially such as led to a busier trade. The crusaders who lived to return, into France, Flanders, Italy, Germany, and England, brought home with them many ideas which they had picked up in the East, and much new knowledge of oriental products and arts, all of which became widely diffused and produced great effects. The result was to stimulate and improve the industries and to increase the commerce which the Europeans carried on among themselves, as well as to greatly enlarge their demand for the products of the Asiatic world. A new era in European commerce was opened, therefore, by the Crusades, and the Venetians, by their enterprise, their energy and their early experience, took the lead in its activities. They organized the traffic between the East and the West, the North and the South, upon a great scale, and centered the larger part of it in their island city. By sea and by land they managed it with equal vigor. Their merchant fleets were under the protection of the state and made voyages, at regular and appointed times, under the convoy of vessels of war. On the landward side, they arranged an extensive trade with the interior of Germany, Hungary and Bohemia, through the Tyrol and Carinthia. {3708} As the first bitterness of hatred between Christians and Mahometans wore away, they grew willing to trade with one an·other, though the Popes still forbade it. The Venetians were among the first in such willingness. Having many quarrels with the Byzantine Greeks, they were eager to reopen the old eastern market at Alexandria, and did so at the earliest opportunity. From that beginning they spread their trade with Arabs, Moors and Turks, along the whole Mahometan line, in Asia and Africa. But, though Venice took the lead in the reviving commerce of the middle ages and held it substantially to the end of that period of history, she had powerful rivals to contend with, and the strongest were among her near neighbors in Italy. The same commercial spirit was alive in several other Italian cities, which had grown up in the midst of those disorderly times and had contrived to acquire more or less of independence and more or less of power to defend themselves. Amalfi, Genoa and Pisa were the earliest of these in growing to importance, and Florence at a somewhat later day rose to high rank. Florence, which did not become a free city until near the end of the 12th century, gained its subsequent wealth more by manufactures and by banking than by trade. Its chief products were woolens, silk and jewelry, and its money-lenders were everywhere in Europe.

See FLORENCE (pages 1130-1143).

The commercial career of Amalfi was cut short in the 12th century by events connected with the Norman conquest of Southern Italy. Pisa, an ancient city, whose history goes back to Etruscan times, was a considerable seat of trade while Venice was little known; but she fell behind both Venice and Genoa, soon after those vigorous republics were fairly entered in the race. The Pisans prospered highly for some time, by going into partnership or alliance with the Venetians, first, and afterwards with the Genoese; but they quarreled with the latter and were ruined in the wars that ensued. After the thirteenth century Pisa had no commercial importance.

See PISA (pages 2537-2539).

The great rival of Venice was Genoa, a city which claims to be, like Pisa, of more than Roman antiquity. In the trade of the Levant—that is, the eastern ports of the Mediterranean Sea—the Genoese pushed themselves into competition with the Venetians at an early day, and they seemed for some time to hold an equal chance of controlling the prize. During the later part of the 12th century, such unfriendly feelings had grown up between the Venetians and the Byzantine court that the latter transferred its commercial favors to the merchants of Genoa, Pisa and Amalfi, and gave them many privileges at Constantinople. The Venetians were thus placed at a disadvantage in the Bosphorus and the Black Sea; but they did not long submit. In 1204 they persuaded one of the crusading expeditions to join them in attacking Constantinople, which was taken, and the dominions of the ancient Empire of the East were divided among the captors, Venice receiving a goodly share.

See CRUSADES (page 631).

This was a golden era for Venice and she improved it to the utmost. For almost sixty years she triumphed over her rivals completely. But in 1261 her merchants were again expelled from Constantinople and the Black Sea. The Greeks had continued to hold a large part of the ancient domain of the Byzantine Empire in Asia Minor, and now, with the help of the Genoese, they succeeded in retaking their old capital city. The Frank Empire, or Latin Empire as it was differently called, which the Crusaders and the Venetians had set up, was extinguished and the Genoese again took the place of the Venetians as masters of the Byzantine trade, including that of the Black Sea and the Asiatic traffic which was carried on from its ports. But by this time the better disposition to deal commercially with one another had grown up between the Christians and the Mahometans. So the Venetians, when they lost their footing at Constantinople, very promptly went over to Alexandria and made excellent arrangements with the Saracens there, for supplying Europe once more with the commodities of the East, by those easier and shorter ancient routes which Christian commerce had not used for several hundred years. This opening of trade with the Mahometan races, at Alexandria, and elsewhere soon afterwards, may easily have repaid the Venetians for what they lost in the Byzantine direction; but they did not give up the latter. A long series of desperate wars between the competitors ensued, with such shiftings of victory that Venice seemed sometimes to be almost in a hopeless strait; but, in the end, she broke the power of her rival completely. The final peace, which was concluded in 1381, left her quite undisputed]y, for a time, the mistress of the Mediterranean and its trade.

See GENOA: A. D. 1261-1299 (page 1419); and VENICE: A. D. 1378-1379, and 1379-1381 (page 3608).

Both the northward and the southward lines of traffic between Asia and Europe, through Alexandria and through Constantinople, were now chiefly in the hands of the Venetians. Between those great courses were important minor currents of commerce, along caravan routes through Asia Minor and Syria, which they mainly controlled. The trade of the rich islands of the Levant and of Moorish Africa was under their management for the most part, and they found on the northern shores of the Black Sea a commerce with the Russian region which the Genoese had increased while they ruled in those waters. For three quarters of a century the Venetians enjoyed this large extent of commerce with the East. Then the Turks came, besieged and captured Constantinople (A. D. 1453) and spread over the country which they now occupy. For the next two centuries the Venetians were at war with the Turks —defending Christendom in the Mediterranean with little help. At the same time they had to encounter an almost fatal attack from Christian princes who had become jealous of their formidable wealth and power and who united against the republic in the League of Cambrai.

See VENICE: A. D. 1508-1509 (page 3611).

They might have recovered from this attack, for they still held the Mediterranean trade; but a great event had occurred, just ten years before the League of Cambrai, which was more fatal than war, not to Venice alone, but to most of her rivals in trade as well. This was the discovery, by Vasco da Gama, of the ocean passage to the Eastern world around the Cape of Good Hope. The toiling traffic of desert caravans, to Alexandria, to Constantinople, to Tyre, Antioch, Ephesus and Erzeroum, was soon reduced to insignificance. The rich trade of the Indies and of all the farther East—the trade of the silk countries and the cotton countries, of the spice islands, of the pearl fisheries, of the lands of ivory, of ebony, of gold, of precious stones, of fragrant gums, of curious things and curious arts—was quickly swept into a different course—into broader seas than the Mediterranean and into new hands.

{3709}

COMMERCE: MEDIÆVAL. Northern Europe. The Baltic Cities. The Hansa.

The earliest commercial seaports of northwestern Europe had their rise, not on the North Sea, but on the Baltic and the straits which enter it. The Northmen of that region were not alone in the traffic which grew up there, for the Wends (a Slavonic people), who occupied most of the southern shores of the Baltic, east of the Elbe, appear to have stoutly rivalled them from the first. Biorko, on an island in Lake Maelar, Sweden (the inlet upon which Stockholm is situated), was one of the first of the seats of commerce at the North. It is supposed to have been destroyed about 1008. But the most famous was the city of Winet, or Vineta, on the island of Usedom, at the mouth of the river Oder. It may not have been quite as rich and magnificent a town as some would infer from accounts given in early chronicles; but no doubt it was remarkable for the age, in that part of the world, and carried on a large trade. The Swedes and Danes were the destroyers of Vineta, before the middle of the 9th century, and the former people are said to have carried away from it great quantities of marble, brass and iron work, with which they gave splendor to their own newer city of Wisby, then just rising on the island of Gothland. The career of Wisby lasted several centuries and it was prominent in commerce throughout the Middle Ages. All that can be said of that most ancient commerce in northern Europe is gathered from sources which are uncertain and obscure. It is not until the 12th century that much of the real history of trade in the Baltic region opens. In 1140 the modern city of Lubeck was founded, on the site of a more ancient town, known as Old Lubeck, which is supposed to have been a thriving port of trade in its day but which had been utterly destroyed by its rivals or enemies. The new Lubeck established close relations with the Genoese and soon took the lead in the commerce of the north, among a large number of enterprising towns which, about that time, came into prominence on the northern coast and on the rivers which run to it. The city of Hamburg, on the Elbe, lying inland and not very distant from Lubeck, was one of the earliest of these. Like Lubeck, it had suffered destruction, in the constant warfare of the earlier time, and had made a new beginning of existence about 1013. Hamburg had access to the North Sea by the Elbe and Lubeck to the Baltic by the Trave. Trading in different directions, therefore, by sea, they carried on an active traffic with one another, across the narrow stretch of land which divides them,—as they still do to this day. But this inland commerce was greatly disturbed by robbers who infested the country, until the two cities, Lubeck and Hamburg, in 1241, agreed to establish and support in common a body of soldiers for the protection of their merchants. That agreement is believed to have been the beginning of a wide-spread union which afterwards took shape among the commercial cities of northern Europe, and which became powerful and famous in the later history of the Middle Ages, under the name of the Hanseatic League.

See HANSA TOWNS: (pages 1624-1626), and (in this Supplement) GERMANY, 13-15th, and 15-17th CENTURIES.

COMMERCE: MEDIÆVAL. Frisians and Flemings. The early Netherlands.

The two peoples who inhabit the region called the Netherlands—a purely Germanic stock in the north (modern Holland) and a mixed but largely Celtic population in the south (modern Belgium)—have had a history so much in common that it cannot well be divided, though they have differed in experiences as widely as in character. The struggle with nature for a foothold in the lowland itself was harder in the north than in the south, and no doubt that is why the Teutonic Frisians led the way in industrial training. It was among them that the arts of weaving and dyeing were cultivated first to a notable excellence. As early as the age of Charlemagne (8-9th centuries), Frisian robes, of white and purple woolen stuffs, are mentioned among the choice gifts which the Emperor sometimes sent to foreign princes, and even to the great caliph, Haroun al Raschid. In the 9th century, Frisian weavers are said to have been persuaded by an enterprising count of Flanders to settle in his dominions, at Ghent, and introduce there a better knowledge of their art. But if the Flemish people borrowed from the Frisians in this matter, they soon outran their teachers and made the loom their own peculiar property. The shuttle, ere long, was in the hands of a very large part of the whole south Netherland or Belgian population, and they became almost a nation of weavers. The same Count Baldwin of Flanders who brought the Frisian weavers into Ghent established annual markets, or fairs, in various towns, which drew merchants from abroad, promoted trade and stimulated manufacturing industries throughout the country. Woolen, linen, and finally silk looms multiplied to a prodigious extent, and the weavers in all these branches acquired remarkable skill. The working of metals was also learned with great aptness, and Flemish cutlery, weapons and armor became very nearly as renowned as those of Milan and Damascus. Tanning was another valuable art which the Flemings and their Netherland neighbors cultivated, and the tilling of the soil was so industriously pursued that flax, hemp, grain and other farm products were raised quite abundantly for sale abroad. In the north Netherlands—the Hollow-land of the sturdy "Free Frisians" and Batavians, who were afterwards called the Dutch—the hard working energy of the people had been pushed in some different directions. The old trade of weaving was still vigorously carried on, in nearly every important town, and Dutch woolens, damask linens, carpets, velvets, etc., were largely produced and widely sought after; but this industry was never so prominent as it became in the Belgian provinces. The fortunes of the Hollanders were founded to a large extent upon their fisheries, and especially the herring fishery, which assumed great importance in their hands after the middle of the 12th century. Before that time, they appear to have been obliged to seek the herring in other waters than their own—along the shores of England, Scotland and Norway. But some change in the movements of those curiously swarming fish, about the time above mentioned, brought great shoals of them to the Dutch coast, and the herring harvest thereafter was a rich source of gain to the Hollanders. {3710} They discovered some secrets of salting or curing the fish which were very much valued, and the Dutch herring were eagerly bought for all parts of Europe. The making of pottery was another industry to which the Dutch applied themselves with success, and particularly at the town of Delft, which gave its name for many centuries to the common earthenware used in western Europe. In dairy farming and skilful horticulture, or gardening, the Hollanders were superior to all other people at an early time. Wherever sea-fisheries are extensive, sailors and ship builders are trained and ocean navigation and commerce are sure, in time, to be prosperously pursued. It was so with the Dutch. Their Frisian ancestors had suffered so much on their coasts from the harassing raids of the Norse pirates, or Vikings, that they did not figure very early in seafaring enterprise. But they fought the free-booters in their stubborn and stout-hearted way and were able at last to make the harbors of their coast tolerably safe. From that time the seaport towns of Holland grew rapidly, and Dutch merchants and merchant ships, trading with the cities of the Baltic, with England and with Flanders and France increased in number. The Hollanders had an advantage in this matter over their Flemish neighbors of the South Netherlands. They were provided with better harbors and they held the outlets of the great rivers in their hands. This latter was the cause of incessant quarrels between the two peoples. The 15th century found the whole Netherlands, both north and south, in a thriving state, so far as industry and trade were concerned, notwithstanding bad government and disorderly times. The people were counted among the richest in Europe. Many great and wealthy cities had grown up, containing large populations and very busy ones. In the north, there were Dordrecht or Dort, Hoorn, Zierikzee, Haarlem, Delft, Leyden, Deventer, Enkhuizen, Middelburg, Nimeguen, Utrecht, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam, which last named city eclipsed them all in the end, though it was one of the latest to rise. In the south there was Ghent, with forty thousand weavers inside its strong walls, who were always as ready to string the bow as to throw the shuttle, and whose hot-tempered revolts against tyranny and wrong are among the most exciting incidents of history. There was Bruges, which became for a time the great emporium of the commerce of northern and southern Europe, but which lost its importance before the 15th century closed. There was Antwerp, which succeeded to the trade of Bruges and rose to unrivalled rank; and there were Lille, Mechlin (or Malines), Courtrai, Ypres, Louvain, and other towns, all centers of flourishing manufactures, chiefly those of the loom.

COMMERCE: MEDIÆVAL. Trade Routes, west and north from the Mediterranean.