An Introduction to the History of Western Europe Part 25

In Italy, however, trade does not seem to have altogether ceased.

Venice, Genoa, Amalfi, and other towns appear to have developed a considerable Mediterranean commerce even before the Crusades. Their merchants, as we have seen, supplied the dest.i.tute crusaders with the material necessary for the conquest of Jerusalem. The pa.s.sion for pilgrimages offered inducements to the Italian merchants for expeditions to the Orient, whither they transported the pilgrims and returned with the products of the East. The Italian cities established trading stations in the East and carried on a direct traffic with the caravans which brought to the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean the products of Arabia, Persia, India, and the Spice Islands. The southern French towns and Barcelona entered also into commercial relations with the Mohammedans in northern Africa.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Street in Frankfort-on-the-Main]

[Sidenote: Commerce stimulates industry.]

This progress in the South could not but stir the lethargy of the rest of Europe. The new commerce encouraged a revolution in industry. So long as the manor system prevailed and each man was occupied in producing only what he and the other members of his group needed, there was nothing to send abroad and nothing to exchange for luxuries. But when merchants began to come with tempting articles, the members of a community were encouraged to produce a surplus of goods above what they themselves needed, and to sell or exchange this surplus for commodities coming from a distance. Merchants and artisans gradually directed their energies toward the production of what others wished as well as what was needed by the little group to which they belonged.

[Sidenote: The luxuries of the East introduced into Europe.]

The romances of the twelfth century indicate that the West was astonished and delighted by the luxuries of the East,--the rich fabrics, Oriental carpets, precious stones, perfumes, drugs (like camphor and laudanum), silks and porcelains from China, spices from India, and cotton from Egypt. Venice introduced the silk industry from the East and the manufacture of those gla.s.s articles which the traveler may still buy in the Venetian shops. The West learned how to make silk and velvet as well as light and gauzy cotton and linen fabrics. The eastern dyes were introduced, and Paris was soon imitating the tapestries of the Saracens.

In exchange for those luxuries which they were unable to produce, the Flemish towns sent their woolen cloths to the East, and Italy its wines.

But there was apparently always a considerable cash balance to be paid to the Oriental merchants, since the West could not produce enough to pay by exchange for all that it demanded from the Orient.

[Sidenote: Some of the important commercial centers.]

The northern merchants dealt mainly with Venice and brought their wares across the Brenner Pa.s.s and down the Rhine, or sent them by sea to be exchanged in Flanders. By the thirteenth century important centers of trade had come into being, some of which are still among the great commercial towns of the world. Hamburg, Lubeck, and Bremen carried on active trade with the countries on the Baltic and with England. Augsburg and Nuremberg, in the south of Germany, became important on account of their situation on the line of trade between Italy and the North.

Bruges and Ghent sent their manufactures everywhere. English commerce was relatively unimportant as yet compared with that of the great ports of the Mediterranean.

[Sidenote: Restrictions on trade.]

[Sidenote: Idea of a 'just' price.]

95. A word must be said of the numerous and almost incredible obstacles in the way of commerce in the Middle Ages. There was very little of that freedom which we now regard as essential to successful business. Our wholesale dealers would have been considered an abomination in the Middle Ages. Those who bought up a quant.i.ty of a commodity in order to sell it at a high rate were called by the ugly name of _forestallers_.

It was universally believed that everything had a "just" price, which was merely enough to cover the cost of the materials used in its manufacture and remunerate the maker for the work he had put upon it. It was considered outrageous to sell a thing for more than the just price, no matter how anxious the purchaser might be to obtain it. Every manufacturer was required to keep a shop in which he offered at retail all that he made. Those who lived near a town were permitted to sell their products in the market place within the walls on condition that they sold directly to the consumers. They might not dispose of their whole stock to one dealer, for fear that if he had all there was of a commodity he might raise the price above a just one.

[Sidenote: Payment of interest on money forbidden.]

Akin to these prejudices against wholesale trade was that against interest. Money was believed to be a dead and sterile thing, and no one had a right to demand any return for lending it. Interest was wicked, since it was exacted by those who took advantage of the embarra.s.sments of others. Usury, as the taking of even the most moderate and reasonable rate of interest was then called, was strenuously forbidden by the laws of the Church. We find church councils ordering that impenitent usurers should be refused Christian burial and have their wills annulled. So money-lending, necessary to all great commercial and industrial undertakings, was left to the Jews, from whom Christian conduct was not expected.

[Sidenote: The Jews as money-lenders.]

This ill-starred people played a most important part in the economic development of Europe, but they were terribly maltreated by the Christians, who held them guilty of the supreme crime of putting Christ to death. The active persecution of the Jews did not, however, become common before the thirteenth century, when they first began to be required to wear a peculiar cap, or badge, which made them easily recognized and exposed them to constant insult. Later they were sometimes shut up in a particular quarter of the city, called the Jewry.

Since they were excluded from the guilds, they not unnaturally turned to the business of money-lending, which no Christian might practice.

Undoubtedly their occupation had much to do in causing their unpopularity. The kings permitted them to make loans, often at a most exorbitant rate; Philip Augustus allowed them to exact forty-six per cent, but reserved the right to extort their gains from them when the royal treasury was empty. In England the usual rate was a penny a pound for each week.

[Sidenote: The 'Lombards' as bankers.]

In the thirteenth century the Italians--"Lombards"--began to go into a sort of banking business and greatly extended the employment of bills of exchange. They lent for nothing, but exacted damages for all delay in repayment. This appeared reasonable and right even to those who condemned ordinary interest. Capitalists, moreover, could contribute money towards an enterprise and share the profits as long as no interest was exacted. In these and other ways the obstacles offered by the prejudice against interest were much reduced, and large commercial companies came into existence, especially in Italy.

[Sidenote: Tolls, duties, and other annoyances to which merchants were subjected on land.]

96. Another serious disadvantage which the mediaeval merchant had to face was the payment of an infinite number of tolls and duties which were exacted by the lords through whose domains his way pa.s.sed. Not only were duties exacted on the highways, bridges, and at the fords, but those barons who were so fortunate as to have castles on a navigable river blocked the stream in such a way that the merchant could not bring his vessel through without a payment for the privilege. The charges were usually small, but the way in which they were exacted and the repeated delays must have been a serious source of irritation and loss to the merchants. For example, a certain monastery lying between Paris and the sea required that those hastening to town with fresh fish should stop and let the monks pick out what they thought worth three pence, with little regard to the condition in which they left the goods. When a boat laden with wine pa.s.sed up the Seine to Paris, the agent of the lord of Poissy could have three casks broached, and, after trying them all, he could take a measure from the one he liked best. At the markets all sorts of dues had to be paid, such, for example, as payments for using the lord's scales or his measuring rod. Besides this, the great variety of coinage which existed in feudal Europe caused infinite perplexity and delay.

[Sidenote: Dangers by sea.]

[Sidenote: Pirates.]

[Sidenote: Strand laws.]

Commerce by sea had its own particular trials, by no means confined to the hazards of wind and wave, rock and shoal. Pirates were numerous in the North Sea. They were often organized and sometimes led by men of high rank, who appear to have regarded the business as no disgrace. Then there were the so-called _strand laws_, according to which a s.h.i.+p with its cargo became the property of the owner of the coast upon which it might be wrecked or driven ash.o.r.e. Lighthouses and beacons were few and the coasts dangerous. Moreover, natural dangers were increased by false signals which wreckers used to lure s.h.i.+ps to sh.o.r.e in order to plunder them.

[Sidenote: The Hanseatic League.]

With a view to mitigating these manifold perils, the towns early began to form unions for mutual defense. The most famous of these was that of the German cities, called the _Hanseatic League_. Lubeck was always the leader, but among the seventy towns which at one time and another were included in the confederation, we find Cologne, Brunswick, Dantzig, and other centers of great importance. The union purchased and controlled settlements in London,--the so-called _Steelyard_ near London Bridge,--at Wisby, Bergen, and the far-off Novgorod in Russia. They managed to monopolize nearly the whole trade on the Baltic and North Sea, either through treaties or the influence that they were able to bring to bear.

The League made war on the pirates and did much to reduce the dangers of traffic. Instead of dispatching separate and defenseless merchantmen, their s.h.i.+ps sailed out in fleets under the protection of a man-of-war.

On one occasion the League undertook a successful war against the king of Denmark, who had interfered with their interests. At another time it declared war on England and brought her to terms. For two hundred years before the discovery of America, the League played a great part in the commercial affairs of western Europe; but it had begun to decline even before the discovery of new routes to the East and West Indies revolutionized trade.

[Sidenote: Trade regulated by the towns (thirteenth to fifteenth century), not by nations or individuals.]

It should be observed that, during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, trade was not carried on between nations, but by the various towns, like Venice, Lubeck, Ghent, Bruges, Cologne. A merchant did not act or trade as an independent individual but as a member of a particular merchant guild, and he enjoyed the protection of his town and of the treaties it arranged. If a merchant from a certain town failed to pay a debt, a fellow-townsman might be seized where the debt was due. At the period of which we have been speaking, an inhabitant of London was considered a foreigner or an alien in Bristol, just as was the merchant from Cologne or Antwerp. Only gradually did the towns merge into the nations to which their people belonged.[158]

[Sidenote: The burghers, or commons, become an influential cla.s.s.]

The increasing wealth of the merchants could not fail to raise them to a position of importance in society which they had not hitherto enjoyed.

Their prosperity enabled them to vie with the clergy in education and with the n.o.bility in the luxury of their dwellings and surroundings.

They began to give some attention to reading, and as early as the fourteenth century many of the books appear to have been written with a view of meeting their tastes and needs. Representatives of the towns were called into the councils of the king, who was obliged to take their advice along with their contributions to the support of the government.

The rise of the burgher cla.s.s alongside the older orders of the clergy and n.o.bility, which had so long dominated the life of western Europe, is one of the most momentous changes of the thirteenth century.

General Reading.--GIBBINS, _History of Commerce in Europe_ (The Macmillan Company, 90 cents), the best short account of the subject, with good maps of trade routes. INGRAM, _History of Slavery and Serfdom_ (Black, London, $2.00), especially Chapters IV and V. CUNNINGHAM, _Western Civilization in its Economic Aspects_, Vol. II, Mediaeval and Modern Times (The Macmillan Company, $1.25), is very suggestive. There are several excellent accounts of the economic situation in England in the Middle Ages, which, in many respects, was similar to the conditions on the continent. CHEYNEY, _Industrial and Social History of England_ (The Macmillan Company, $1.40); GIBBINS, _The Industrial History of England_ (Methuen, $1.00), and a more elaborate treatise by the same writer, _Industry in England_ (Methuen, $3.00); CUNNINGHAM, _Outlines of English Industrial History_ (The Macmillan Company, $1.50), and much fuller by the same writer, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce during the Middle Ages_ (The Macmillan Company, $4.00). All these give excellent accounts of the manor, the guilds, the fairs, etc. See also JESSOPP, _Coming of the Friars_, second essay, "Village Life Six Hundred Years Ago."

CHAPTER XIX

THE CULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES

97. The interest of the Middle Ages lies by no means exclusively in the statesmans.h.i.+p of kings and emperors, their victories and defeats; in the policy of popes and bishops; or even in feudalism and Europe's escape from it. Important as all these are, we should have but a very imperfect idea of the period which we have been studying if we left it without considering the intellectual life and the art of the time, the books that were written, the universities that were founded, and the cathedrals that were built.

[Sidenote: General use of Latin in the Middle Ages.]

To begin with, the Middle Ages differed from our own time in the very general use then made of Latin, both in writing and speaking. In the thirteenth century, and long after, all books that made any claim to learning were written in Latin;[159] the professors in the universities lectured in Latin, friends wrote to one another in Latin, and state papers, treaties, and legal doc.u.ments were drawn up in the same language. The ability of every educated person to make use of Latin, as well as of his native tongue, was a great advantage at a time when there were many obstacles to intercourse among the various nations. It helps to explain, for example, the remarkable way in which the pope kept in touch with all the clergymen of western Christendom, and the ease with which students, friars, and merchants could wander from one country to another. There is no more interesting or important revolution than that by which the language of the people in the various European countries gradually pushed aside the ancient tongue and took its place, so that even scholars scarcely ever think now of writing books in Latin.

In order to understand how it came about that two languages, the Latin and the native speech, were both commonly used in all the countries of western Europe all through the Middle Ages, we must glance at the origin of the modern languages. These all fall into two quite distinct groups, the Germanic and the Romance.

[Sidenote: The Germanic languages derived from the dialects of the German barbarians.]

Those German peoples who had continued to live outside of the Roman Empire, or who, during the invasions, had not settled far enough within its bounds to be led, like the Franks in Gaul, to adopt the tongue of those they had conquered, naturally adhered to the language they had always used, namely, the particular Germanic dialect which their forefathers had spoken for untold generations. From the various languages spoken by the German barbarians, modern German, English, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and Icelandic are derived.

[Sidenote: The Romance languages derived from the spoken Latin.]

The second group of languages developed within the territory which had formed a part of the Roman Empire, and includes modern French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. It has now been clearly proved, by a very minute study of the old forms of words, that these Romance languages were one and all derived from the _spoken_ Latin, employed by the soldiers, merchants, and people at large. This differed considerably from the elaborate and elegant written Latin which was used, for example, by Cicero and Caesar. It was undoubtedly much simpler in its grammar and doubtless varied a good deal in different regions;--a Gaul, for instance, could not p.r.o.nounce the words like an Italian. Moreover, in conversation people did not always use the same words as those in the books. For example, a horse was commonly spoken of as _caballus_, whereas a writer would use the word _equus_; it is from _caballus_ that the word for horse is derived in Spanish, Italian, and French (_caballo_, _cavallo_, _cheval_).

As time went on the spoken language diverged farther and farther from the written. Latin is a troublesome speech on account of its complicated inflections and grammatical rules, which can be mastered only after a great deal of study. The people of the Roman provinces and the incoming barbarians naturally paid very little attention to the niceties of syntax and found easy ways of saying what they wished.[160] Yet several centuries elapsed after the German invasions before there was anything written in the language of conversation. So long as the uneducated could understand the correct Latin of the books when they heard it read or spoken, there was no necessity of writing anything in their familiar daily speech. But the gulf between the spoken and the written language had become so great by the time Charlemagne came to the throne, that he advised that sermons should be given thereafter in the language of the people, who, apparently, could no longer follow the Latin. The Strasburg oaths[161] are, however, about the first example which has come down to us of the speech which was growing into French.