View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages Part 35

des Inscript. t. xxi. p. 192; and several other works. Guinizzelli has the following pa.s.sage, in a canzone quoted by Ginguene, Hist. Litteraire de l'Italie, t. i. p. 413:--

In quelle parti sotto tramontana, Sono li monti della calamita, Che dan virtute all'aere Di trarre il ferro; ma perche lontana, Vole di simil pietra aver aita, A far la adoperare, _E dirizzar lo ago in ver la stella._

We cannot be diverted, by the nonsensical theory these lines contain, from perceiving the positive testimony of the last verse to the poet's knowledge of the polarity of the magnet. But if any doubt could remain, Tiraboschi (t. iv. p. 171) has fully established, from a series of pa.s.sages, that this phenomenon was well known in the thirteenth century; and puts an end altogether to the pretensions of Flavio Gioja, if such a person, ever existed. See also Macpherson's Annals, p. 364 and 418. It is provoking to find an historian like Robertson a.s.serting, without hesitation, that this citizen of Amalfi was the inventor of the compa.s.s, and thus accrediting an error which had already been detected.

It is a singular circ.u.mstance, and only to be explained by the obstinacy with which men are apt to reject improvement, that the magnetic needle was not generally adopted in navigation till very long after the discovery of its properties, and even after their peculiar importance had been perceived. The writers of the thirteenth century, who mention the polarity of the needle, mention also its use in navigation; yet Capmany has found no distinct proof of its employment till 1403, and does not believe that it was frequently on board Mediterranean ships at the latter part of the preceding age. Memorias Historicas, t. iii. p.

70. Perhaps however he has inferred too much from his negative proof; and this subject seems open to further inquiry.

[613] Boucher supposes it to have been compiled at Barcelona about 900; but his reasonings are inconclusive, t. i. p. 72; and indeed Barcelona at that time was little, if at all, better than a fishing-town. Some arguments might be drawn in favour of Pisa from the expressions of Henry IV.'s charter granted to that city in 1081. Consuetudines, quas habent de mari, sic iis observabimus sicut illorum est consuetudo. Muratori Dissert. 45. Giannone seems to think the collection was compiled about the reign of Louis IX. 1. xi. c. 6. Capmany, the last Spanish editor, whose authority ought perhaps to outweigh every other, a.s.serts and seems to prove them to have been enacted by the mercantile magistrates of Barcelona, under the reign of James the Conqueror which is much the same period. Codigo de las Costumbres Maritimas de Barcelona, Madrid, 1791.

But, by whatever nation they were reduced into their present form, these laws were certainly the ancient and established usages of the Mediterranean states: and Pisa may very probably have taken a great share in first practising what a century or two afterwards was rendered more precise at Barcelona.

[614] Macpherson, p. 358. Boucher supposes them to be registers of actual decisions.

[615] I have only the authority of Boucher for referring the Ordinances of Wisbuy to the year 1400. Beckman imagines them to be older than those of Oleron. But Wisbuy was not enclosed by a wall till 1288, a proof that it could not have been previously a town of much importance. It flourished chiefly in the first part of the fourteenth century, and was at that time an independent republic, but fell under the yoke of Denmark before the end of the same age.

[616] Hugh Despenser seized a Genoese vessel valued at 14,300 marks, for which no rest.i.tution was ever made. Rym. t. iv. p. 701. Macpherson, A.D.

1336.

[617] The Cinque Ports and other trading towns of England were in a constant state of hostility with their opposite neighbours during the reigns of Edward I. and II. One might quote almost half the instruments in Rymer in proof of these conflicts, and of those with the mariners of Norway and Denmark. Sometimes mutual envy produced frays between different English towns. Thus, in 1254 the Winchelsea mariners attacked a Yarmouth galley, and killed some of her men. Matt. Paris, apud Macpherson.

[618] Muratori, Dissert. 53.

[619] Du Cange, voc. Laudum.

[620] Rymer, t. iv. p. 576. Videtur sapientibus et peritis, quod causa, de jure, non subfuit marcham seu reprisaliam in nostris, seu subditorum nostrorum, bonis concedendi. See too a case of neutral goods on board an enemy's vessel claimed by the owners, and a legal distinction taken in favour of the captors. t. vi. p. 14.

[621] 27 E. III. stat. ii. c. 17, 2 Inst. p. 205.

[622] Rymer, t. i. p. 839.

[623] Idem, t. iii. p. 458, 647, 678, et infra. See too the ordinances of the staple, in 27 Edw. III., which confirm this among other privileges, and contain manifold evidence of the regard paid to commerce in that reign.

[624] Rymer, t. ii. p. 891. Madox, Hist. Exchequer, c. xxii. s. 7.

[625] In the remarkable speech of the Doge Mocenigo, quoted in another place, vol. i. p. 465, the annual profit made by Venice on her mercantile capital is reckoned at forty per cent.

[626] Muratori, Dissert. 16.

[627] Bizarri, Hist. Genuens. p. 797. The rate of discount on bills, which may not have exactly corresponded to the average annual interest of money, was ten per cent. at Barcelona in 1435. Capmany t. i. p. 209.

[628] Du Cange, v. Usura.

[629] Muratori, Diss. 16.

[630] Greg. Turon. I. iv.

[631] Hist. de Languedoc, t. ii. p. 517; t. iii. p. 531.

[632] Id. t. iii. p. 121.

[633] Id. p. 163.

[634] Marina, Ensayo Historico-Critico, p. 143.

[635] Martenne Thesaurus Anecdotorum, t. i. p. 984.

[636] Velly, t. iv. p. 136.

[637] The city of Cahors, in Quercy, the modern department of the Lot, produced a tribe of money-dealers. The Caursini are almost as often noticed as the Lombards. See the article in Du Cange. In Lombardy, Asti, a city of no great note in other respects, was famous for the same department of commerce.

[638] There were three species of paper credit in the dealings of merchants: 1. General letters of credit, not directed to any one, which are not uncommon in the Levant: 2. Orders to pay money to a particular person: 3. Bills of exchange regularly negotiable. Boucher, t. ii. p.

621. Instances of the first are mentioned by Macpherson about 1200, p.

367. The second species was introduced by the Jews, about 1183 (Capmany, t. i. p. 297); but it may be doubtful whether the last stage of the progress was reached nearly so soon. An instrument in Rymer, however, of the year 1364 (t. vi. p. 495), mentions literae cambitoriae, which seem to have been negotiable bills; and by 1400 they were drawn in sets, and worded exactly as at present. Macpherson, p. 614, and Beckman, History of Inventions, vol. iii. p. 430, give from Capmany an actual precedent of a bill dated in 1404.

[639] Usury was looked upon with horror by our English divines long after the Reformation. Fleury, in his Inst.i.tutions au Droit Ecclesiastique, t. ii. p. 129, has shown the subterfuges to which men had recourse in order to evade this prohibition. It is an unhappy truth, that great part of the attention devoted to the best of sciences, ethics and jurisprudence, has been employed to weaken principles that ought never to have been acknowledged.

One species of usury, and that of the highest importance to commerce, was always permitted, on account of the risk that attended it This was marine insurance, which could not have existed, until money was considered, in itself, as a source of profit. The earliest regulations on the subject of insurance are those of Barcelona in 1433; but the practice was, of course, earlier than these, though not of great antiquity. It is not mentioned in the Consolato del Mare, nor in any of the Hanseatic laws of the fourteenth century. Beckman, vol. i. p. 388.

This author, not being aware of the Barcelonese laws on this subject published by Capmany, supposes, the first provisions regulating marine a.s.surance to have been made at Florence in 1523.

[640] Macpherson, p. 487, et alibi. They had probably excellent bargains; in 1329 the Bardi farmed all the customs in England for 20_l._ a day. But in 1282 the customs had produced 8411_l._, and half a century of great improvement had elapsed.

[641] Villani, 1. xii. c. 55, 87. He calls these two banking-houses the pillars which sustained great part of the commerce of Christendom.

[642] Capmany, t. i. p. 213.

[643] Macpherson, p. 341, from Sanuto. The bank of Venice is referred to 1171.

[644] G. Villani, 1. xi. c. 49.

[645] Matt. Villani, p. 227 (in Muratori, Script. Rer. Ital. t. xiv.).

[646] Bizarri, Hist. Genuens. p. 797 (Antwerp, 1579); Machiavelli, Storia Fiorentina, 1. viii.

[647] Ricobaldus Ferrarensis, apud Murat. Dissert. 23; Francisc.

Pippinus, ibidem. Muratori endeavours to extenuate the authority of this pa.s.sage, on account of some more ancient writers who complain of the luxury of their times, and of some particular instances of magnificence and expense. But Ricobaldi alludes, as Muratori himself admits, to the mode of living in the middle ranks, and not to that of courts, which in all ages might occasionally display considerable splendour. I see nothing to weaken so explicit a testimony of a contemporary, which in fact is confirmed by many writers of the next age, who, according to the practice of Italian chroniclers, have copied it as their own.

[648] Murat. Dissert. 23.

[649]

Bellincion Berti vid' io andar cinto Di cuojo e d'osso, e venir dallo specchio La donna sua senza 'l viso dipinto, E vidi quel di Nerli, e quel del Vecchio Esser contenti alla pelle scoverta, E sue donne al fuso ed al pennechio.

Paradis. canto xv.

See too the rest of this canto. But this is put in the mouth of Cacciaguida, the poet's ancestor, who lived in the former half of the twelfth century. The change, however, was probably subsequent to 1250, when the times of wealth and turbulence began at Florence.

[650] Velly, t. xiii. p. 352. The second continuator of Nangis vehemently inveighs against the long beards and short breeches of his age; after the introduction of which novelties, he judiciously observes, the French were much more disposed to run away from their enemies than before. Spicilegium, t. iii. p. 105.

[651] 37 E. III. Rep. 38 E. III. Several other statutes of a similar nature were pa.s.sed in this and the ensuing reign. In France, there were sumptuary laws as old as Charlemagne, prohibiting or taxing the use of furs; but the first extensive regulation was under Philip the Fair.

Velly, t. vii. p. 64; t. xi. p. 190. These attempts to restrain what cannot be restrained continued even down to 1700. De la Mare, Traite de la Police, t. i. 1. iii.