56 ON THE PROBABLE ORIGIN 
weaving from the East. The woollens of Fries- 
land, which then comprehended all the northern 
parts of the late kingdom of the Netherlands, 
had been celebrated even in the Frankish times, 
and Charlemagne is said to have sent a Frisian 
mantle as a present to a Persian prince.* Co- 
logne appears in the first half of the 11th. century 
as a place of great commerce, trading with the 
cities of the Netherlands, as well as with the 
North, and inland with Germany, and in the 
year 1074 its merchants are reckoned at more 
than 600 (Hiillm. i. 158.) Many causes con- 
spired to produce a great developement both of 
the internal and external commerce of Europe 
about this time. The influence of the Crusades 
on the cities of Italy is a nearly exhausted topic. 
The increasing wealth and power of the Church 
produced an increase of splendour and costliness 
in the performance of its ceremonies. ‘The sees 
of bishops had usually been fixed in cities already 
of magnitude and importance, but they also 
contributed greatly to the increase of population 
and commerce. On the great festivals of the 
church they were the resort not only of the pious 
but of the worldly-minded, and, as at the Pas- 
* This early celebrity of the Frisian woollens, for which Mr. 
Hallam, M. A. i. 367 requires an authority, is mentioned, 
according to Hiillm. i. 221. by the Monachus San-Gallensis. 
ii. 26, 31. 
