The map shows only the chief lines of trade, omitting side routes for the sake of clearness. See the text, sect. 96, for description of the uses to which the routes were put.

The southern route, reaching Europe through Egypt, was mainly maritime. It had to contend with two great difficulties: the great stretch of open water presented by the Indian Ocean, and the difficulty of navigation in the Red Sea, on the west coast of which strong north winds blow through much of the year. The first of these difficulties became less serious in the Christian era, as navigators learned to time their voyages to suit the monsoons, the winds blowing at regular seasons in the Indian Ocean. Vessels could leave an Egyptian port in July and reach India by the southwest monsoon in little over two months. The second difficulty was obviated by starting for the East not from the Gulf of Suez but from a point part way down the coast (Berenice), reached by a trip on the Nile and by caravan. This route became of greatest importance at the close of the Middle Ages.

The third route, entirely overland, led from India across the mountains to the River Oxus, where it was joined by a caravan route from China. Branching near Bokhara, one part led to the Caspian Sea and up the Volga, another left the Caspian to the north and reached Europe at the Black Sea (Trebizond, Constantinople). This route traversed high mountain passes and long desert stretches, and was suitable only for the carriage of valuable articles of small bulk. For about two centuries after 1250 it was kept open by the Mongols or Tartars, who lived on good terms with the Christians; then it was blocked by the Turks.

97. Character of the crusades; number of crusaders.—To assign to economic motives the chief part in the crusades would be a distortion of the great movement which marked the life of Europe in the two centuries following 1100. Not hope of gain but vague ideals of this life and the life to come drove hundreds of thousands of men to the perilous journey to the Holy Land from which so few returned. Indirectly commerce had its share in this movement; it had drawn the peoples closer together, stimulated curiosity and broadened interests. Men sought an outlet for their surplus energy, and a relief from the monotony of medieval life; ascetic ideals imposed upon them holy tasks which they could fulfil to the benefit of their souls. The effect can be traced in an increase in the pilgrimages of individuals to holy places. The people of Europe needed only organization and a leader to unite their scattered forces; they found their organization in the church, their leader in the Pope and his delegates, their goal in the delivery of the Holy Sepulcher from the hands of the infidels who were abusing Christian pilgrims.

Any estimate of the numbers who engaged in the crusades must be pure guesswork. The statistics of medieval chronicles, always notoriously inaccurate, seem to reach the acme of unreliability in the figures of the crusaders engaged in the different expeditions. The main body of the first crusade, which started in 1095, was compared in number with the sands of the seashore or the stars in heaven; even moderate contemporaries made it 600,000 or at least 300,000 strong; perhaps it was really 100,000. There were six or eight separate expeditions lasting down to 1270, and we may say that a million men, roughly speaking, and probably many less rather than more, took part.

98. Commercial aspect of the crusades.—Even the transportation of this number of men, with their baggage and equipment, must have been a great stimulus to the growth of Mediterranean shipping. The first crusade went almost entirely by land, but the sufferings and losses were so great that crusaders were driven to the sea route, and this became gradually the regular way of reaching the Holy Land. Italian merchants accompanied the expedition from the beginning, not as real crusaders but as contractors for transportation and supplies, turning both the needs and the successes of the crusaders to their commercial profit. A fleet from Genoa and Pisa accompanied the first crusade along the coast of Syria, selling provisions. The Venetians waited until Jerusalem had been taken; then fitted out a fleet which fought the Pisans, quarreled with the Greeks, and in return for very slight services rendered to the crusaders demanded that in every city captured they should have a market, church, and freedom from taxes. “Whilst the warriors of Christendom were fighting for glory, for kingdoms, or for the tomb of Christ, the merchants of Venice fought for counting-houses, stores, or commercial privileges.” “The other crusaders obeyed the new impulse, the Venetians utilized it.”

The fourth crusade, starting soon after 1200, was fairly captured by the Venetians and turned into a commercial expedition for their profit. When the time for starting came, the feudal knights, improvident as ever, could not pay the sum agreed on for their transportation, and Venice used her power over them as debtors to force them to aid her, first to capture Zara on the Adriatic, a Christian city but a commercial rival, then to take Constantinople itself, the key to the trade of the Black Sea. The crusade accomplished nothing against the infidels; it was merely a means by which Venice built up her commercial and colonial empire at the expense of other Christians.

99. Effect of the crusades on knowledge of the East and of eastern wares.—Aside from the help which the crusades gave the Italians in building up their fleets and in establishing trading posts or colonies in the East, they were of no less importance in extending the market for eastern wares in Europe. The crusaders lost their provincialism, and acquired new fashions (shaving the beard and bathing); they became acquainted with fine stuffs and dyes and were no longer satisfied with the coarse products of home. The European vocabulary was not large enough to give names to the new acquisitions, and we can trace back to this period many words which were borrowed from Arabic, the common language of the Mohammedans: alcove, sofa, mattress, talisman, elixir; many of commercial significance, bazar, tariff, corvette, barracks. Not only the words but the things themselves became native in many cases; the crusades spread in Europe the cultivation of the lemon, apricot, watermelon, rice, and sugar cane. European literature described the marvels of the Orient, the silks of Syria, the tapestries of Persia, the precious stones and perfumes of Arabia; the names of eastern countries became familiar and knowledge of geography widened rapidly.

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

1. Selecting any one among the more important wares, sects. 88-94, write a report on its production, uses, value, and history as an article of commerce. [Encyclopedia; commercial geographies; encyclopedias of commerce and of manufactures, as those by McCulloch, Waterston, Homans, Ure.]