The Law of Civilization and Decay: An Essay on History

by Brooks Adams

To sell timber for ships, and iron for swords, to the Saracens, was a mortal sin in children of the Church; but such a sin was as nothing beside the infamy of kidnapping believers as slaves for infidels, who made them soldiers to fight against their God. Charlemagne and the popes after him tried to suppress the traffic, but without avail. Slaving was so lucrative that it was carried on in the streets of Rome herself,[126] and in the thirteenth century two thousand Europeans were annually disposed of in Damietta and Alexandria, from whom the Mamelukes, the finest corps of soldiers in the East, were recruited.

Thus a race grew up in Italy, which differed from the people of France and Germany because of the absence of those qualities which had caused the Germans to survive when the inhabitants of the Empire decayed. The mediæval Italians prospered because they were lacking in the imagination which made the Northern peoples subservient to the miracle-worker, and among mediæval Italians the Venetians, from their exposed position, came to be the most daring, energetic, and unscrupulous. By the end of the eleventh century their fleet was so superior to the Greek, that the Emperor Alexis had to confide to them the defence of the harbour of Durazzo against Robert Guiscard. Guiscard attacked Durazzo in 1081, at the time of the revolution which immediately preceded the debasement of the Byzantine coinage; and the demonstration that Venice had already absorbed most of the carrying trade, seems to prove that, during the last half of the eleventh century, the centre of exchanges had a pronounced tendency to abandon Constantinople. Moreover, the result of the campaign showed that the Venetian navy was the strongest in the Mediterranean, and this was of vital moment to the success of the crusades twenty years later, for, without the command of the sea, the permanent occupation of Palestine would have been impossible.

After the capture of Jerusalem in 1099, almost the first operations of Godfrey de Bouillon were against the Syrian ports; but as he controlled too small a force to act alone, he made a treaty with Venice, by which, in consideration of two hundred ships, he promised to cede to her a third part of every town taken. Baldwin made a similar arrangement with the Genoese, and, as the coast was subdued, the Italian cities assumed their grants, and established their administrations. In the end the Venetians predominated at Tyre, the Genoese at Acre, and the Pisans at Antioch. Before the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, the spices, drugs, brocades, carpets, porcelains, and gems of India and China, reached the Mediterranean mainly by two routes. One by way of the Persian Gulf to Bagdad, up the Euphrates to Rakka, and by land to Aleppo, whence they were conveyed by caravan either to Antioch or Damascus. Damascus, beside being the starting-place of caravans for Mecca and Egypt, and the emporium for the products of Persia, had important manufactures of its own. Its glass, porcelain, steel, and brocades were famous, and it was a chief market for furs, which were highly prized throughout the Middle Ages, when heating was not understood.

The second route was by water. Indian merchants usually sold their cargoes at Aden, whence they were taken to a port in Upper Egypt, floated down the Nile to Cairo, and bought by Europeans at Damietta or Alexandria. The products of Egypt itself were valuable, and next to Constantinople, Cairo was the richest city west of the Indus.

What Europe gave to the Orientals in return is not so well known; but, beside raw materials and slaves, her woollens were much esteemed. At all events, exchanges must have become more favourable to her, as is proved by the increased supply of the precious metals.

Why the short period of expansion, which followed upon the re-establishment of the silver standard in the West, should have been succeeded by a sharp contraction is unknown, but the fact seems proved by the coinage. In the reign of Charlemagne a silver pound of 7680 grains was made the monetary unit, which was divided into 240 denarii, or pence.[127]

For some time these pence were tolerably maintained, but as the empire of Charlemagne disintegrated, they deteriorated until, by the end of the twelfth century, those coined at Venice were but a quarter of their original weight and three parts alloy.[128] After Hattin a new expansion began, in which Venice took the lead. The battle was fought in 1187, and some years later, but probably before 1200, the grosso was struck, a piece of fine silver, of good weight, which thereafter was maintained at the standard. Half a century later gold appeared. Florence coined the florin in 1252, Venice the ducat in 1284, and between the two dates, Saint Louis issued his crowns.

The return of the precious metals to the West indicated a revival of trade and a change in the form of competition. Instead of the imagination, the economic faculty began to predominate, and energy chose money as its vent. Within a generation the miracle fell decisively in power, and the beginning of this most crucial of social revolutions is visible in the third crusade, the famous expedition led by Philip Augustus and Cœur de Lion.

These two great soldiers probably learned the art of fortification at the siege of Acre, the most remarkable passage of arms of the Middle Ages. The siege is said to have cost one hundred thousand lives, and certainly called forth all the engineering skill of the time. Guy de Lusignan, having been liberated by Saladin soon after Hattin, wandered about the country, abandoned and forlorn, until at last he sat down before Acre, in 1189, with a force inferior to the garrison. There he was joined by the kings of France and England, who succeeded in capturing the city after a desperate defence of two years. An immense booty was taken, but the clergy complained that two secular princes had embezzled the heritage of God. On the other hand, the troops had not received the usual assistance from miracles; for though assaults were delivered almost daily, none were worked, and the Virgin herself only appeared once, and then so quietly as to arouse no enthusiasm.

After the surrender Philip went home, while Richard remained in command. The whole country had been overrun, only a few strongholds like the Krak des Chevaliers and Tortosa held out; and Richard, far from following the example of the first crusaders, who marched straight for the relics at Jerusalem, turned his attention to re-establishing the centres of trade upon the coast.