View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, Vol. 3

by Henry Hallam

Rapid progress of English trade.

This opening of a northern market powerfully accelerated the growth of our own commercial opulence, especially after the woollen manufacture had begun to thrive. From about the middle of the fourteenth century we find continual evidences of a rapid increase in wealth. Thus, in 1363, Picard, who had been lord mayor some years before, entertained Edward III. and the Black Prince, the kings of France, Scotland, and Cyprus, with many of the nobility, at his own house in the Vintry, and presented them with handsome gifts.[c] Philpot, another eminent citizen in Richard II.'s time, when the trade of England was considerably annoyed by privateers, hired 1000 armed men, and despatched them to sea, where they took fifteen Spanish vessels with their prizes.[d] We find Richard obtaining a great deal from private merchants and trading towns. In 1379 he got 5000l. from London, 1000 marks from Bristol, and in proportion from smaller places. In 1386 London gave 4000l. more, and 10,000 marks in 1397.[e] The latter sum was obtained also for the coronation of Henry VI.[f] Nor were the contributions of individuals contemptible, considering the high value of money. Hinde, a citizen of London, lent to Henry IV. 2000l. in 1407, and Whittington one half of that sum. The merchants of the staple advanced 4000l. at the same time.[g] Our commerce continued to be regularly and rapidly progressive during the fifteenth century. The famous Canynges of Bristol, under Henry VI. and Edward IV., had ships of 900 tons burthen.[h] The trade and even the internal wealth of England reached so much higher a pitch in the reign of the last-mentioned king than at any former period, that we may perceive the wars of York and Lancaster to have produced no very serious effect on national prosperity. Some battles were doubtless sanguinary; but the loss of lives in battle is soon repaired by a flourishing nation; and the devastation occasioned by armies was both partial and transitory.

Intercourse with the south of Europe.

A commercial intercourse between these northern and southern regions of Europe began about the early part of the fourteenth century, or, at most, a little sooner. Until, indeed, the use of the magnet was thoroughly understood, and a competent skill in marine architecture, as well as navigation, acquired, the Italian merchants were scarce likely to attempt a voyage perilous in itself and rendered more formidable by the imaginary difficulties which had been supposed to attend an expedition beyond the straits of Hercules. But the English, accustomed to their own rough seas, were always more intrepid, and probably more skilful navigators. Though it was extremely rare, even in the fifteenth century, for an English trading vessel to appear in the Mediterranean,[] yet a famous military armament, that destined for the crusade of Richard I., displayed at a very early time the seamanship of our countrymen. In the reign of Edward II. we find mention in Rymer's collection of Genoese ships trading to Flanders and England. His son was very solicitous to preserve the friendship of that opulent republic; and it is by his letters to his senate, or by royal orders restoring ships unjustly seized, that we come by a knowledge of those facts which historians neglect to relate. Pisa shared a little in this traffic, and Venice more considerably; but Genoa was beyond all competition at the head of Italian commerce in these seas during the fourteenth century. In the next her general decline left it more open to her rival; but I doubt whether Venice ever maintained so strong a connexion with England. Through London and Bruges, their chief station in Flanders, the merchants of Italy and of Spain transported oriental produce to the farthest parts of the north. The inhabitants of the Baltic coast were stimulated by the desire of precious luxuries which they had never known; and these wants, though selfish and frivolous, are the means by which nations acquire civilization, and the earth is rendered fruitful of its produce. As the carriers of this trade the Hanseatic merchants resident in England and Flanders derived profits through which eventually of course those countries were enriched. It seems that the Italian vessels unloaded at the marts of London or Bruges, and that such part of their cargoes as were intended for a more northern trade came there into the hands of the German merchants. In the reign of Henry VI. England carried on a pretty extensive traffic with the countries around the Mediterranean, for whose commodities her wool and woollen cloths enabled her to pay.

Commerce of the Mediterranean countries.

Amalfi.

The commerce of the southern division, though it did not, I think, produce more extensively beneficial effects upon the progress of society, was both earlier and more splendid than that of England and the neighbouring countries. Besides Venice, which has been mentioned already, Amalfi kept up the commercial intercourse of Christendom with the Saracen countries before the first crusade.[k] It was the singular fate of this city to have filled up the interval between two periods of civilization, in neither of which she was destined to be distinguished. Scarcely known before the end of the sixth century, Amalfi ran a brilliant career, as a free and trading republic, which was checked by the arms of a conqueror in the middle of the twelfth. Since her subjugation by Roger king of Sicily, the name of a people who for a while connected Europe with Asia has hardly been repeated, except for two discoveries falsely imputed to them, those of the Pandects and of the compass.

Pisa, Genoa, Venice.

But the decline of Amalfi was amply compensated to the rest of Italy by the constant elevation of Pisa, Genoa, and Venice in the twelfth and ensuing ages. The crusades led immediately to this growing prosperity of the commercial cities. Besides the profit accruing from so many naval armaments which they supplied, and the continual passage of private adventurers in their vessels, they were enabled to open a more extensive channel of oriental traffic than had hitherto been known. These three Italian republics enjoyed immunities in the Christian principalities of Syria; possessing separate quarters in Acre, Tripoli, and other cities, where they were governed by their own laws and magistrates. Though the progress of commerce must, from the condition of European industry, have been slow, it was uninterrupted; and the settlements in Palestine were becoming important as factories, an use of which Godfrey and Urban little dreamed, when they were lost through the guilt and imprudence of their inhabitants.[m] Villani laments the injury sustained by commerce in consequence of the capture of Acre, "situated, as it was, on the coast of the Mediterranean, in the centre of Syria, and, as we might say, of the habitable world, a haven for all merchandize, both from the East and the West, which all the nations of the earth frequented for this trade."[n] But the loss was soon retrieved, not perhaps by Pisa and Genoa, but by Venice, who formed connexions with the Saracen governments, and maintained her commercial intercourse with Syria and Egypt by their licence, though subject probably to heavy exactions. Sanuto, a Venetian author at the beginning of the fourteenth century, has left a curious account of the Levant trade which his countrymen carried on at that time. Their imports it is easy to guess, and it appears that timber, brass, tin, and lead, as well as the precious metals, were exported to Alexandria, besides oil, saffron, and some of the productions of Italy, and even wool and woollen cloths.[o] The European side of the account had therefore become respectable.

The commercial cities enjoyed as great privileges at Constantinople as in Syria, and they bore an eminent part in the vicissitudes of the Eastern empire. After the capture of Constantinople by the Latin crusaders, the Venetians, having been concerned in that conquest, became, of course, the favoured traders under the new dynasty; possessing their own district in the city, with their magistrate or podestà, appointed at Venice, and subject to the parent republic. When the Greeks recovered the seat of their empire, the Genoese, who, from jealousy of their rivals, had contributed to that revolution, obtained similar immunities. This powerful and enterprising state, in the fourteenth century, sometimes the ally, sometimes the enemy, of the Byzantine court, maintained its independent settlement at Pera. From thence she spread her sails into the Euxine, and, planting a colony at Caffa in the Crimea, extended a line of commerce with the interior regions of Asia, which even the skill and spirit of our own times has not yet been able to revive.[p]