A History of the Philippines

by David P. Barrows

Development of Modern Language.—Thus commerce and trade grew up in Europe, and, with trade and city life, greater intelligence, learning, and independence. Education became more common, and the universities of Europe were thronged. Latin in the Middle Age had been the only language that was written by the learned class. Now the modern languages of Europe took their form and began to be used for literary purposes. Italian was the first to be so used by the great Dante, and in the same half-century the English poet Chaucer sang in the homely English tongue, and soon in France, Germany, and Spain national literatures appeared. With this went greater freedom of expression. Authority began to have less weight.

Men began to inquire into causes and effects, to doubt certain things, to seek themselves for the truth, and so the Renaissance came. With it came a greater love for the beautiful, a greater joy in life, a fresh zest for the good of this world, a new passion for discovery, a thirst for adventure, and, it must also be confessed a new laxity of living and a new greed for gold. Christian Europe was about to burst its narrow bounds. It could not be repressed nor confined to its old limitations. It could never turn backward. Of all the great changes which have come over life and thought, probably none are greater than those which saw the transition from the mediæval to the modern world.

Routes of Trade to the Far East

Trade with the East.—Articles of Trade.—Now we must go back for a moment and pursue an old inquiry further. Whence came all these beautiful and inviting wares that had produced new tastes and passions in Europe? The Italian traders drew them from the Levant, but the Levant had not produced them. Neither pepper, spices, sugarcane, costly gems, nor rich silks, were produced on the shores of the Mediterranean.

Only the rich tropical countries of the East were capable of growing these rare plants, and up to that time of delivering to the delver many precious stones. India, the rich Malaysian archipelago, the kingdom of China,—these are the lands and islands which from time immemorial have given up their treasures to be forwarded far and wide to amaze and delight the native of colder and less productive lands.

Routes of Trade to the Far East.—Three old sailing and caravan routes connect the Mediterranean with the Far East. They are so old that we can not guess when men first used them. They were old in the days of Solomon and indeed very ancient when Alexander the Great conquered the East. One of these routes passed through the Black Sea, and across the Caspian Sea to Turkestan to those strange and romantic ancient cities, Bokhara and Samarkand. Thence it ran northeasterly across Asia, entering China from the north. Another crossed Syria and went down through Mesopotamia to the Indian Ocean, A third began in Egypt and went through the Red Sea, passing along the coast of Arabia to India.

All of these had been in use for centuries, but by the year 1400 two had been closed. A fresh immigration of Turks, the Ottomans, in the fourteenth century came down upon the scourged country of the Euphrates and Syria, and although these Turks also embraced Mohammedanism, their hostility closed the first two routes and commerce over them has never since been resumed.

Venetian Monopoly of Trade.—Thus all interest centered upon the southern route. By treaty with the sultan or ruler of Egypt, Venice secured a monopoly of the products which came over this route. Goods from the East now came in fleets up the Red Sea, went through the hands of the sultan of Egypt, who collected a duty for them, and then were passed on to the ships of the wealthy Venetian merchant princes, who carried them throughout Europe. Although the object of intense jealousy, it seemed impossible to wrest this monopoly from Venice. Her fleet was the strongest on the Mediterranean, and her rule extended along the Adriatic to the Grecian islands. All eager minds were bent upon the trade with the East, but no way was known, save that which now Venice had gained.

Extent of Geographical Knowledge.—The Maps of this Period.—To realize how the problem looked to the sailor of Genoa or the merchant of Flanders at that time, we must understand how scanty and erroneous was the geographical knowledge of even the fifteenth century. It was believed that Jerusalem was the center of the world, a belief founded upon a biblical passage. The maps of this and earlier dates represent the earth in this way: In the center, Palestine, and beneath it the Mediterranean Sea, the only body of water which was well known; on the left side is Europe; on the right, Africa; and at the top, Asia—the last two continents very indefinitely mapped. Around the whole was supposed to flow an ocean, beyond the first few miles of which it was perilous to proceed lest the ship be carried over the edge of the earth or encounter other perils.