View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages Part 34

[575] Meyer; Froissart; Comines.

[576] It contained, according to Ludovico Guicciardini, 35,000 houses, and the circuit of its walls was 45,640 Roman feet. Description des Pais Bas, p. 350, &c. (edit. 1609). Part of this enclosure was not built upon. The population of Ghent is reckoned by Guicciardini at 70,000, but in his time it had greatly declined. It is certainly, however, much exaggerated by earlier historians. And I entertain some doubts as to Guicciardini's estimate of the number of houses. If at least he was accurate, more than half of the city must since have been demolished or become uninhabited, which its present appearance does not indicate; for Ghent, though not very flourishing, by no means presents the decay and dilapidation of several Italian towns.

[577] Guicciardini, p. 362; Mem. de Comines, 1. v. c. 17; Meyer, fol.

354; Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. i. p. 647, 651.

[578] Blomefield, the historian of Norfolk, thinks that a colony of Flemings settled as early as this reign at Worsted, a village in that county, and immortalized its name by their manufacture. It soon reached Norwich, though not conspicuous till the reign of Edward I. Hist. of Norfolk, vol. ii. Macpherson speaks of it for the first time in 1327.

There were several guilds of weavers in the time of Henry II. Lyttelton, vol. ii. p. 174.

[579] Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. i. p. 412, from Walter Hemingford. I am considerably indebted to this laborious and useful publication, which has superseded that of Anderson.

[580] Rymer, t. ii. p. 32, 50, 737, 949, 965; t. iii. p. 533, 1106, et alibi.

[581] Rymer, t. iii. p. 759. A Flemish factory was established at Berwick about 1286. Macpherson.

[582] In 1295 Edward I. made masters of neutral ships in English ports find security not to trade with France. Rymer, t. ii. p. 679.

[583] Rymer, t. iv. p. 491, &c. Fuller draws a notable picture of the inducements held out to the Flemings. "Here they should feed on fat beef and mutton, till nothing but their fulness should stint their stomachs; their beds should be good, and their bedfellows better, seeing the richest yeomen in England would not disdain to marry their daughters unto them, and such the English beauties that the most envious foreigners could not but commend them." Fuller's Church History, quoted in Blomefield's Hist. of Norfolk.

[584] Rymer, t. v. p. 137, 430, 540.

[585] In 1409 woollen cloths formed great part of our exports, and were extensively used over Spain and Italy. And in 1449, English cloths having been prohibited by the duke of Burgundy, it was enacted that, until he should repeal this ordinance, no merchandise of his dominions should be admitted into England. 27 H. VI. c. 1. The system of prohibiting the import of foreign wrought goods was acted upon very extensively in Edward IV.'s reign.

[586] Stat. 11 E. III. c. 1. Blackstone says that transporting wool out of the kingdom, to the detriment of our staple manufacture, was forbidden at common law (vol. iv. c. 19), not recollecting that we had no staple manufactures in the ages when the common law was formed, and that the export of wool was almost the only means by which this country procured silver, or any other article of which it stood in need, from the continent. In fact, the landholders were so far from neglecting this source of their wealth, that a minimum was fixed upon it, by a statute of 1343 (repealed indeed the next year, 18 E. III. c. 3), below which price it was not to be sold; from a laudable apprehension, as it seems, that foreigners were getting it too cheap. And this was revived in the 32nd of H. VI., though the act is not printed among the statutes. Rot.

Parl. t. v. p. 275. The exportation of sheep was prohibited in 1338--Rymer, t. v. p. 36; and by act of Parliament in 1425--3 H. VI. c.

2. But this did not prevent our importing the wool of a foreign country, to our own loss. It is worthy of notice that English wool was superior to any other for fineness during these ages. Henry II., in his patent to the Weavers' Company, directs that, if any weaver mingled Spanish wool with English, it should be burned by the lord mayor. Macpherson, p. 382.

An English flock transported into Spain about 1348 is said to have been the source of the fine Spanish wool. Ibid. p. 539. But the superiority of English wool, even as late as 1438, is proved by the laws of Barcelona forbidding its adulteration. p. 654. Another exportation of English sheep to Spain took place about 1465, in consequence of a commercial treaty. Rymer, t. xi. p. 534 et alibi. In return, Spain supplied England with horses, her breed of which was reckoned the best in Europe; so that the exchange was tolerably fair. Macpherson, p. 596.

The best horses had been very dear in England, being imported from Spain and Italy. Ibid.

[587] Schmidt, t. iv. p. 18.

[588] Considerable woollen manufactures appear to have existed in Picardy about 1315. Macpherson ad annum. Capmany, t. iii. part 2, p.

151.

[589] The sheriffs of Wiltshire and Suss.e.x are directed in 1253 to purchase for the king 1000 ells of fine linen, lineae telae pulchrae et delicate. This Macpherson supposes to be of domestic manufacture, which, however, is not demonstrable. Linen was made at that time in Flanders; and as late as 1417 the fine linen used in England was imported from France and the Low Countries. Macpherson, from Rymer, t. ix. p. 334.

Velly's history is defective in giving no account of the French commerce and manufactures, or at least none that is at all satisfactory.

[590] Adam Bremensis, de Situ Daniae, p. 13. (Elzevir edit.)

[591] Schmidt, t. iv. p. 8. Macpherson, p. 392. The latter writer thinks they were not known by the name of Hanse so early.

[592] Pfeffel, t. i. p. 443; Schmidt, t. iv. p. 18; t. v. p. 512; Macpherson's Annals, vol. i. p. 693.

[593] Macpherson, vol. i. pa.s.sim.

[594] Rymer, t. viii. p. 360.

[595] Macpherson (who quotes Stow), p. 415.

[596] Walsingham, p. 211.

[597] Rymer, t. vii. p. 210, 341; t. viii. p. 9.

[598] Rymer, t. x. p. 461.

[599] Rymer, t. viii. p. 488.

[600] Macpherson, p. 667.

[601] Richard III., in 1485, appointed a Florentine merchant to be English consul at Pisa, on the ground that some of his subjects intended to trade to Italy. Macpherson, p. 705, from Rymer. Perhaps we cannot positively prove the existence of a Mediterranean trade at an earlier time; and even this instrument is not conclusive. But a considerable presumption arises from two doc.u.ments in Rymer, of the year 1412, which inform us of a great shipment of wool and other goods made by some merchants of London for the Mediterranean, under supercargoes, whom, it being a new undertaking, the king expressly recommended to the Genoese republic. But that people, impelled probably by commercial jealousy, seized the vessels and their cargoes; which induced the king to grant the owners letters of reprisal against all Genoese property. Rymer, t.

viii. p. 717, 773. Though it is not perhaps evident that the vessels were English, the circ.u.mstances render it highly probable. The bad success, however, of this attempt, might prevent its imitation. A Greek author about the beginning of the fifteenth century reckons the Inglenoi among the nations who traded to a port in the Archipelago. Gibbon, vol.

xii. p. 52. But these enumerations are generally swelled by vanity or the love of exaggeration; and a few English sailors on board a foreign vessel would justify the a.s.sertion. Benjamin of Tudela, a Jewish traveller, pretends that the port of Alexandria, about 1160, contained vessels not only from England, but from Russia, and even _Cracow_.

Harris's Voyages, vol. i. p. 554.

[602] The Amalfitans are thus described by William of Apulia, apud Muratori, Dissert. 30.

Urbs haec dives opum, populoque referta videtur, Nulla magis locuples argento, vestibus, auro.

Partibus innumeris ac plurimus urbe moratur Nauta, maris coelique vias aperire peritus.

Huc et Alexandri diversa feruntur ab urbe, Regis et Antiochi. Haec [etiam?] freta plurima transit.

Hic Arabes, Indi, Siculi nosc.u.n.tur, et Afri.

Haec gens est totum prope n.o.bilitata per orbem, Et mercanda ferens et amans mercata referre.

[There must be, I suspect, some exaggeration about the commerce and opulence of Amalfi, in the only age when she possessed any at all. The city could never have been considerable, as we may judge from its position immediately under a steep mountain; and what is still more material, has a very small port. According to our notions of trade, she could never have enjoyed much; the lines quoted from William of Apulia are to be taken as a poet's panegyric. It is of course a question of degree; Amalfi was no doubt a commercial republic to the extent of her capacity; but those who have ever been on the coast must be aware how limited that was. At present she has, I believe, no foreign trade at all. 1848.]

[603] The inhabitants of Acre were noted, in an age not very pure, for the excess of their vices. In 1291 they plundered some of the subjects of a neighbouring Mohammedan prince, and, refusing reparation, the city was besieged and taken by storm. Muratori, ad ann. Gibbon, c. 59.

[604] Villani, 1. vii. c. 144.

[605] Macpherson, p. 490.

[606] Capmany, Memorias Historicas, t. iii. preface, p. 11; and part 2, p. 131. His authority is Balducci Pegalotti, a Florentine writer upon commerce about 1340, whose work I have never seen. It appears from Balducci that the route to China was from Asoph to Astrakan, and thence, by a variety of places which cannot be found in modern maps, to Cambalu, probably Pekin, the capital city of China, which he describes as being one hundred miles in circ.u.mference. The journey was of rather more than eight months, going and returning; and he a.s.sures us it was perfectly secure, not only for caravans, but for a single traveller with a couple of interpreters and a servant. The Venetians had also a settlement in the Crimea, and appear, by a pa.s.sage in Petrarch's letters, to have possessed some of the trade through Tartary. In a letter written from Venice, after extolling in too rhetorical a manner the commerce of that republic, he mentions a particular ship that had just sailed for the Black Sea. Et ipsa quidem Tanaim it visura, nostri enim maris navigatio non ultra tenditur; eorum vero aliqui, quos haec fert, illic iter [inst.i.tuent] eam egressuri, nec antea subst.i.turi, quam Gange et Caucaso superato, ad Indos atque extremos Seres et Orientalem perveniatur Oceanum. En quo ardens et inexplebilis habendi sitis hominum mentes rapit! Petrarcae Opera, Senil. 1. ii. ep. 3, p. 760 edit. 1581.

[607] Hist. de Languedoc, t. iii. p. 531; t. iv. p. 517. Mem. de l'Acad.

des Inscriptions, t. x.x.xvii.

[608] Capmany, Memorias Historicas de Barcelona, t. i. part 2. See particularly p. 36.

[609] Muratori, Dissert. 30. Denina, Rivoluzione d'Italia, 1. xiv. c.

11. The latter writer is of opinion that mulberries were not cultivated as an important object till after 1300, nor even to any great extent till after 1500; the Italian manufacturers buying most of their silk from Spain or the Levant.

[610] The history of Italian states, and especially Florence, will speak for the first country; Capmany attests the woollen manufacture of the second--Mem. Hist. de Barcel. t. i. part 3, p. 7, &c.; and Vaissette that of Carca.s.sonne and its vicinity--Hist. de Lang. t. iv. p. 517.

[611] None were admitted to the rank of burgesses in the town of Aragon who used any manual trade, with the exception of dealers in fine cloths.

The woollen manufacture of Spain did not at any time become a considerable article of export, nor even supply the internal consumption, as Capmany has well shown. Memorias Historicas, t. iii. p.

325 et seqq., and Edinburgh Review, vol. x.

[612] Boucher, the French translator of Il Consolato del Mare, says that Edrissi, a Saracen geographer who lived about 1100, gives an account, though in a confused manner, of the polarity of the magnet. t. ii. p.

280. However, the lines of Guiot de Provins are decisive. These are quoted in Hist. Litteraire de la France, t. ix. p. 199; Mem. de l'Acad.