Early European History Part 97

GENOA

Genoa, located on the gulf of the same name, possessed a safe and s.p.a.cious harbor. During the era of the crusades the city carried on a flouris.h.i.+ng trade in both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. After the fall of the Latin Empire of Constantinople [23] the Genoese almost monopolized Oriental commerce along the Black Sea route. The closing of this route by the Ottoman Turks was a heavy blow to their prosperity, which also suffered from the active compet.i.tion of Venice.

SITUATION OF VENICE

Almost alone among Italian cities Venice was not of Roman origin. Its beginning is traced back to the period of barbarian inroads, when fugitives from the mainland sought a new home on the islands at the head of the Adriatic. [24] These islands, which lie about five miles from the coast, are protected from the outer sea by a long sand bar. They are little more than mud-banks, barely rising above the shallow water of the lagoons. The oozy soil afforded no support for buildings, except when strengthened by piles; there was scarcely any land fit for farming or cattle-raising; and the only drinking water had to be stored from the rainfall. Yet on this unpromising site arose one of the most splendid of European cities.

VENETIAN COMMERCE

The early inhabitants of Venice got their living from the sale of sea salt and fish, two commodities for which a constant demand existed in the Middle Ages. Large quant.i.ties of salt were needed for preserving meat in the winter months, while fish was eaten by all Christians on the numerous fast days and in Lent. The Venetians exchanged these commodities for the productions of the mainland and so built up a thriving trade. From fishermen they became merchants, with commercial relations which gradually extended to the Orient. The crusades vastly increased the wealth of Venice, for she provided the s.h.i.+ps in which troops and supplies went to the Holy Land and she secured the largest share of the new eastern trade.

Venice became the great emporium of the Mediterranean. As a commercial center the city was the successor of ancient Tyre, Carthage, Athens, and Alexandria.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VENICE AND THE GRAND Ca.n.a.l]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CAMPANILE AND DOGE'S PALACE, VENICE The famous Campanile or bell tower of St. Mark's Cathedral collapsed in 1902 A.D. A new tower, faithfully copying the old monument, was completed nine years later. The Doge's Palace, a magnificent structure of brick and marble, is especially remarkable for the graceful arched colonnades forming the two lower stories. The blank walls of the upper story are broken by a few large and richly ornamented windows.]

VENETIAN POSSESSIONS

Venice also used the crusading movement for her political advantage. The capture of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade extended Venetian control over the Peloponnesus, [25] Crete, Rhodes, Cyprus, and many smaller islands in the eastern Mediterranean. Even before this time Venice had begun to gain possessions upon the Italian mainland and along the Adriatic coast. At the height of her power about 1400 A.D. she ruled a real empire.

[26]

VENETIAN SEA POWER

The commerce and possessions of Venice made it necessary for her to maintain a powerful fleet. She is said to have had at one time over three thousand merchant vessels, besides forty-five war galleys. Her s.h.i.+ps went out in squadrons, with men-of-war acting as a convoy against pirates. One fleet traded with the ports of western Europe, another proceeded to the Black Sea, while others visited Syria and Egypt to meet the caravans from the Far East. Venetian sea power humbled Genoa and for a long time held the Mediterranean against the Ottoman Turks.

THE "QUEEN OF THE ADRIATIC"

The greatness of Venice was celebrated by the annual ceremony of "the wedding of the sea." The doge, (that is, "duke.") or chief magistrate, standing in the bows of the state barge, cast a ring of gold into the Adriatic with the proud words, "We have wedded thee, O sea, in token of our rightful and perpetual dominion."

VENICE DESCRIBED

The visitor to modern Venice can still gain a good impression of what the city must have looked like in the fourteenth century, when s.h.i.+ps of every nation crowded its quays and strangers of every country thronged its squares or sped in light gondolas over the ca.n.a.ls which take the place of streets. The main highway is still the Grand Ca.n.a.l, nearly two miles long and lined with palaces and churches. The Grand Ca.n.a.l leads to St. Mark's Cathedral, brilliant with mosaic pictures, the Campanile, or bell tower, and the Doge's Palace. The "Bridge of Sighs" connects the ducal palace with the state prisons. The Rialto in the business heart of Venice is another famous bridge. But these are only a few of the historic and beautiful buildings of the island city.

198. GERMAN CITIES: THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE

CITIES OF SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL GERMANY

The important trade routes from Venice and Genoa through the Alpine pa.s.ses into the valleys of the Rhine and Danube were responsible for the prosperity of many fine cities in southern and central Germany. Among them were Augsburg, which rivaled Florence as a financial center, Nuremberg, famous for artistic metal work, Ulm, Stra.s.sburg, and Cologne. The feeble rule of the German kings compelled the cities to form several confederacies for the purpose of resisting the extortionate tolls and downright robberies of feudal lords.

CITIES OF NORTHERN GERMANY

It was the Baltic commerce which brought the cities of northern Germany into a firm union. From the Baltic region came large quant.i.ties of dried and salted fish, especially herring, wax candles for church services, skins, tallow, and lumber. Furs were also in great demand. Every one wore them during the winter, on account of the poorly heated houses. The German cities which shared in this commerce early formed the celebrated Hanseatic [27] League for protection against pirates and feudal lords.

MEMBERs.h.i.+P OF THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE

The league seems to have begun with an alliance of Hamburg and Lubeck to safeguard the traffic on the Elbe. The growth of the league was rapid. At the period of its greatest power, about 1400 A.D., there were upwards of eighty Hanseatic cities along the Baltic coast and in the inland districts of northern Germany.

HANSEATIC "FACTORIES"

The commercial importance of the league extended far beyond the borders of Germany. Its trading posts, or "factories," at Bergen in Norway and Novgorod in Russia controlled the export trade of those two countries.

Similar establishments existed at London, on the Thames just above London Bridge, and at Bruges in Flanders. Each factory served as a fortress where merchants could be safe from attack, as a storehouse for goods, and as a general market.

INFLUENCE OF THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE

The Hanseatic League ruled over the Baltic Sea very much as Venice ruled over the Adriatic. In spite of its monopolistic tendencies, so opposed to the spirit of free intercourse between nations, the league did much useful work by suppressing piracy and by encouraging the art of navigation.

Modern Germans look back to it as proof that their country can play a great part on the seas. The Hanseatic merchants were also pioneers in the half-barbarous lands of northern and eastern Europe, where they founded towns, fostered industry, and introduced comforts and luxuries previously unknown. Such services in advancing civilization were comparable to those performed by the Teutonic Knights. [28]

DECLINE OF THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE

After several centuries of usefulness the league lost its monopoly of the Baltic trade and began to decline. Moreover the Baltic, like the Mediterranean, sank to minor importance as a commercial center, after the Portuguese had discovered the sea route to India and the Spaniards had opened up the New World. [29] City after city gradually withdrew from the league, till only Hamburg, Lubeck, and Bremen remained. They are still called free and independent cities, though now they form a part of the German Empire.

199. THE CITIES OF FLANDERS

COUNTY OF FLANDERS

In the Middle Ages the Netherlands, or "Low Countries," now divided between Holland and Belgium, consisted of a number of feudal states, nominally under the control of German and French kings, but really quite independent. Among them was the county of Flanders. It included the coast region from Calais to the mouth of the Scheldt, as well as a considerable district in what is now northwestern France. The inhabitants of Flanders were partly of Teutonic extraction (the Flemings) and partly akin to the French (the Walloons).

FLANDERS AS A COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL CENTER

Flanders enjoyed a good situation for commerce. The country formed a convenient stopping place for merchants who went by sea between the Mediterranean and the Baltic, while important land routes led thither from all parts of western Europe. Flanders was also an industrial center. Its middle cla.s.ses early discovered the fact that by devotion to manufacturing even a small and sterile region may become rich and populous.

FLEMISH WOOL TRADE

The leading industry of Flanders was weaving. England in the Middle Ages raised great flocks of sheep, but lacking skilled workmen to manufacture the wool into fine cloth, sent it across the Channel to Flanders. A medieval writer declared that the whole world was clothed in English wool manufactured by the Flemings. The taxes that were laid on the export of wool helped to pay the expenses of English kings in their wars with the Welsh, the Scotch, and the Irish. The wool trade also made Flanders the ally of England in the Hundred Years' War, thus beginning that historic friends.h.i.+p between the two countries which still endures.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BELFRY OF BRUGES Bruges, the capital of West Flanders, contains many fine monuments of the Middle Ages Among these is the belfry, which rises in the center of the facade of the market hall. It dates from the end of the thirteenth century. Its height is 352 feet. The belfry consists of three stories, the two lower ones square, and the upper one, octagonal.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOWN HALL OF LOUVAIN, BELGIUM One of the richest and most ornate examples of Gothic architecture Erected in the fifteenth century The building consists of three stories above which rises the lofty roof crowned with graceful towers. The interior decoration and arrangements are commonplace.]

BRUGES, GHENT AND YPRES

Among the thriving communities of Flanders three held an exceptional position. Bruges was the mart where the trade of southern Europe, in the hands of the Venetians, and the trade of northern Europe, in the hands of the Hanseatic merchants, came together. Ghent, with forty thousand workshops, and Ypres, which counted two hundred thousand workmen within its walls and suburbs, were scarcely less prosperous. When these cities declined in wealth, Antwerp became the commercial metropolis of the Netherlands.

FLANDERS AND FRANCE

During the fourteenth century Flanders was annexed by France. The Flemish cities resisted bravely, and on more than one occasion their citizen levies, who could handle sword and ax, as well as the loom, defeated the French armies, thus demonstrating again that foot soldiers were a match for mailed cavalry. Had the cities been able to form a lasting league, they might have established an independent Flanders, but the bitter rivalry of Ghent and Bruges led to foreign domination, lasting into the nineteenth century. [30]

THE CITIES AND CIVILIZATION

The great cities of Flanders, Germany, and Italy, not to speak of those in France, Spain, and England, were much more than centers of trade, industry, and finance. Within their walls learning and art flourished to an extent which had never been possible in earlier times, when rural life prevailed throughout western Europe. We shall now see what the cities of the Middle Ages contributed to civilization.

STUDIES

1. Indicate on the map some great commercial cities of the Middle Ages as follows: four in Italy; three in the Netherlands; and six in Germany.

2. Why does an American city have a charter? Where is it obtained? What privileges does it confer?