The French provinces which border on the Mediterranean Sea partook in the advantages which it offered. Not only Marseilles, whose trade had continued in a certain degree throughout the worst ages, but Narbonne, Nismes, and especially Montpelier, were distinguished for commercial prosperity.[q] A still greater activity prevailed in Catalonia. From the middle of the thirteenth century (for we need not trace the rudiments of its history) Barcelona began to emulate the Italian cities in both the branches of naval energy, war and commerce. Engaged in frequent and severe hostilities with Genoa, and sometimes with Constantinople, while their vessels traded to every part of the Mediterranean, and even of the English Channel, the Catalans might justly be reckoned among the first of maritime nations. The commerce of Barcelona has never since attained so great a height as in the fifteenth century.[r]
Their manufactures.
The introduction of a silk manufacture at Palermo, by Roger Guiscard in 1148, gave perhaps the earliest impulse to the industry of Italy. Nearly about the same time the Genoese plundered two Moorish cities of Spain, from which they derived the same art. In the next age this became a staple manufacture of the Lombard and Tuscan republics, and the cultivation of mulberries was enforced by their laws.[] Woollen stuffs, though the trade was perhaps less conspicuous than that of Flanders, and though many of the coarser kinds were imported from thence, employed a multitude of workmen in Italy, Catalonia, and the south of France.[t] Among the trading companies into which the middling ranks were distributed, those concerned in silk and woollens were most numerous and honourable.[]
Invention of the mariner's compass.
A property of a natural substance, long overlooked even though it attracted observation by a different peculiarity, has influenced by its accidental discovery the fortunes of mankind more than all the deductions of philosophy. It is, perhaps, impossible to ascertain the epoch when the polarity of the magnet was first known in Europe. The common opinion, which ascribes its discovery to a citizen of Amalfi in the fourteenth century, is undoubtedly erroneous. Guiot de Provins, a French poet, who lived about the year 1200, or, at the latest, under St. Louis, describes it in the most unequivocal language. James de Vitry, a bishop in Palestine, before the middle of the thirteenth century, and Guido Guinizzelli, an Italian poet of the same time, are equally explicit. The French, as well as Italians, claim the discovery as their own; but whether it were due to either of these nations, or rather learned from their intercourse with the Saracens, is not easily to be ascertained.[x] For some time, perhaps, even this wonderful improvement in the art of navigation might not be universally adopted by vessels sailing within the Mediterranean, and accustomed to their old system of observations. But when it became more established, it naturally inspired a more fearless spirit of adventure. It was not, as has been mentioned, till the beginning of the fourteenth century that the Genoese and other nations around that inland sea steered into the Atlantic Ocean towards England and Flanders. This intercourse with the northern countries enlivened their trade with the Levant by the exchange of productions which Spain and Italy do not supply, and enriched the merchants by means of whose capital the exports of London and of Alexandria were conveyed into each other's harbours.
Maritime laws.
The usual risks of navigation, and those incident to commercial adventure, produce a variety of questions in every system of jurisprudence, which, though always to be determined, as far as possible, by principles of natural justice, must in many cases depend upon established customs. These customs of maritime law were anciently reduced into a code by the Rhodians, and the Roman emperors preserved or reformed the constitutions of that republic. It would be hard to say how far the tradition of this early jurisprudence survived the decline of commerce in the darker ages; but after it began to recover itself, necessity suggested, or recollection prompted, a scheme of regulations resembling in some degree, but much more enlarged than those of antiquity. This was formed into a written code, Il Consolato del Mare, not much earlier, probably, than the middle of the thirteenth century; and its promulgation seems rather to have proceeded from the citizens of Barcelona than from those of Pisa or Venice, who have also claimed to be the first legislators of the sea.[y] Besides regulations simply mercantile, this system has defined the mutual rights of neutral and belligerent vessels, and thus laid the basis of the positive law of nations in its most important and disputed cases. The king of France and count of Provence solemnly acceded to this maritime code, which hence acquired a binding force within the Mediterranean Sea; and in most respects the law merchant of Europe is at present conformable to its provisions. A set of regulations, chiefly borrowed from the Consolato, was compiled in France under the reign of Louis IX., and prevailed in their own country. These have been denominated the laws of Oleron, from an idle story that they were enacted by Richard I., while his expedition to the Holy Land lay at anchor in that island.[z] Nor was the north without its peculiar code of maritime jurisprudence; namely, the Ordinances of Wisbuy, a town in the isle of Gothland, principally compiled from those of Oleron, before the year 1400, by which the Baltic traders were governed.[a]
Frequency of piracy.
Law of reprisals.
There was abundant reason for establishing among maritime nations some theory of mutual rights, and for securing the redress of injuries, as far as possible, by means of acknowledged tribunals. In that state of barbarous anarchy which so long resisted the coercive authority of civil magistrates, the sea held out even more temptation and more impunity than the land; and when the laws had regained their sovereignty, and neither robbery nor private warfare was any longer tolerated, there remained that great common of mankind, unclaimed by any king, and the liberty of the sea was another name for the security of plunderers. A pirate, in a well-armed quick-sailing vessel, must feel, I suppose, the enjoyments of his exemption from control more exquisitely than any other freebooter; and darting along the bosom of the ocean, under the impartial radiance of the heavens, may deride the dark concealments and hurried flights of the forest robber. His occupation is, indeed, extinguished by the civilization of later ages, or confined to distant climates. But in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a rich vessel was never secure from attack; and neither restitution nor punishment of the criminals was to be obtained from governments who sometimes feared the plunderer and sometimes connived at the offence.[] Mere piracy, however, was not the only danger. The maritime towns of Flanders, France, and England, like the free republics of Italy, prosecuted their own quarrels by arms, without asking the leave of their respective sovereigns. This practice, exactly analogous to that of private war in the feudal system, more than once involved the kings of France and England in hostility.[c] But where the quarrel did not proceed to such a length as absolutely to engage two opposite towns, a modification of this ancient right of revenge formed part of the regular law of nations, under the name of reprisals. Whoever was plundered or injured by the inhabitant of another town obtained authority from his own magistrates to seize the property of any other person belonging to it, until his loss should be compensated. This law of reprisal was not confined to maritime places; it prevailed in Lombardy, and probably in the German cities. Thus, if a citizen of Modena was robbed by a Bolognese, he complained to the magistrates of the former city, who represented the case to those of Bologna, demanding redress. If this were not immediately granted, letters of reprisals were issued to plunder the territory of Bologna till the injured party should be reimbursed by sale of the spoil.[d] In the laws of Marseilles it is declared, "If a foreigner take anything from a citizen of Marseilles, and he who has jurisdiction over the said debtor or unjust taker does not cause right to be done in the same, the rector or consuls, at the petition of the said citizen, shall grant him reprisals upon all the goods of the said debtor or unjust taker, and also upon the goods of others who are under the jurisdiction of him who ought to do justice, and would not, to the said citizen of Marseilles."[e] Edward III. remonstrates, in an instrument published by Rymer, against letters of marque granted by the king of Aragon to one Berenger de la Tone, who had been robbed by an English pirate of 2000l., alleging that, inasmuch as he had always been ready to give redress to the party, it seemed to his counsellors that there was no just cause for reprisals upon the king's or his subjects' property.[f] This passage is so far curious as it asserts the existence of a customary law of nations, the knowledge of which was already a sort of learning. Sir E. Coke speaks of this right of private reprisals as if it still existed;[g] and, in fact, there are instances of granting such letters as late as the reign of Charles I.