388 



THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



easy passage from Cicero ; translate it into English, as nearly as 

 possible, word for word ; to-morrow, put your English back into 

 Latin, and then, comparing your Latin with Cicero's Latin, 

 correct the former by the latter, taking it for granted that you 

 are wrong when you differ from him. The steady and constant 

 pursuit of this practice would in due time suffice to make you ' 

 a good Latin scholar ; and those to whom a thorough knowledge j 

 of Latin is indispensable must not grudge the time that it will 

 involve, nor the perseverance it will demand. 



INDUSTRIAL AND POLITICAL HISTORY 

 OF COMMERCE. 



CHAPTER XXVI. COMMERCE OF THE NETHERLANDS 



(continued). 



SOUTH NETHERLANDS. 



THE early history of Flemish commerce may be considered as 

 being divided into three eras. 



The first is in the year 862, when Baldwin III. induced Frisian 

 weavers to settle in Ghent, already a busy city, and thus laid 

 the foundation of a staple industry. He wisely instituted annual 

 fairs or markets, where no toll was taken for goods, and thus 

 gave great encouragement to trade. 



The second is connected with Count Baldwin IV., who in 

 1203 led the fifth Crusade, and turning aside to the conquest 

 of Constantinople, was raised to the throne of the Eastern 

 Empire, thus bringing the Flemings into communication with 

 countries hitherto unknown. 



The third period was that of the Burgundian princes, Philip 

 the Good, Charles the Bold, and Maria. It was Philip the 

 Good who established the Order of the Golden Fleece, the first 

 industrial decoration known. 



The Flemings laboured under the disadvantage of a short 

 coast-line and a want of harbours. Although the land was well 

 watered and suited for inland navigation, the mouths of all the 

 rivers were in the North Netherlands, where transport was 

 hampered by town dues. Flanders and Brabant were, however, 

 more fertile than Holland, and being so near to France, the 

 agricultural resources of the country afforded more profitable 

 occupation for the inhabitants. Manufactures, also, were earlier 

 established, and took a wider growth than in Holland. 



While liberal principles prevailed, the Flemings continued to 

 enrich themselves. Commerce at first was passive on their part; 

 they had few vessels of their own, but foreign ships came to 

 their harbours. Italian merchantmen visited Bruges in the 

 year 1300, and Venetian vessels followed a few years after- 

 wards. Genoa, Florence, Ancona, Bologna sent gold and silver 

 lace, silk, cotton, camlets, pearls, oil, and alum ; Venice sent 

 spices, drugs and dyes, furs, cottons, and silks. Wines from 

 France, and sugar, yarn, and dye-wooda from Catalonia, were 

 subsequently imported. It may be interesting to note here the 

 striking contrast between the navigation of those days and that 

 of our own. The Catalans occupied six months, the Genoese 

 seven, and the Venetians eight, in making their voyages to and 

 irom their respective ports and Flanders. 



A considerable amount of active trade was eventually carried 

 on. Floris Berthold, a Flemish merchant, who was described as 

 " richer in gold and silver, gained by means of his great traffic 

 in merchandise, which he sends away by sea and land, than any 

 one else in the world," dispatched his own ships to Alexandria, 

 Cairo, and Syria. Bruges held the rank of a city in the seventh 

 century. It was the chief trading town of the Netherlands ; 

 the emporium of the Hanseatic League, and the centre of the 

 overland German traffic, by which goods from the Mediter- 

 ranean and the East were exchanged for the raw produce of 

 England, Norway, Denmark, North Germany, and Russia. 

 Treaties of commerce were signed by it with Spain, Portugal, 

 Ireland, Scotland, England, the Hanse Towns, Venice, Genoa, 

 and Aragon. At the end of the thirteenth century its citizens 

 numbered nearly 200,000. 



Merchants were attracted to Bruges by the freedom of its 

 markets and the humanity of its government. Shipwrecked 

 mariners received kind attention, piracy was checked, and friendly 

 relations were sought with all foreign states, especially with 

 England. By these means the city nourished, and on occasions 

 flf state tho citizens were able to display such magnificence in 

 dress, that Philip IV. cf France exclaimed, when the chief 



burghers and their wives were presented to him and his consort 

 Johanna, in 1301, " These ladies are not burghers' wives, but 

 six hundred queens." 



Manufactures of lace, silks, muslins, damasks, and woollens 

 employed the inhabitants, and these, together with corn, flax, 

 and hemp, were the chief domestic exports. Wool, cotton, 

 timber, and wine constituted the bulk of their valuable imports. 

 The port of Bruges was at first Sluys, but in the twelfth century 

 docks were constructed, capable of holding a thousand sail, at 

 the village of Damme, now a fertile plain not far from the sea. 



The immense trade and flourishing manufactures of Bruges 

 declined through the altered and selfish policy of its rulers, guild- 

 masters, and others, who bound down the different industries by 

 so many restrictive dues and regulations, that contentions of tea 

 arose. Political contests with tho reigning prince, Philip of Bur- 

 gundy, hastened the decay, and during the war between Flanders 

 and Germany, at the end of the fifteenth century, the harbour 

 became silted up from neglect. 



Ghent was third in importance of the Flemish cities, though 

 at one time as densely inhabited as Bruges and Antwerp. It 

 is referred to as a city in the seventh century, and was of much 

 importance in the twelfth as a manufacturing centre. The course 

 of its history resembles that of Bruges, both in the efforts made 

 to trammel trade and in its frequent intestine commotions. Ita 

 guild of weavers was 40,000 strong the boldest trading corpora- 

 tion in Europe, and for tho prosperity of the city ever too ready 

 to test their strength. Other towns in the vicinity of the three 

 great industrial centres just described partook of the same- 

 character. Such were Courtray and Ypres, in West Flanders ; 

 Oudinarde, in East Flanders ; Louvaine, in South Brabant ; and 

 Mechlin (Malines), in Antwerp. Lille or Byssel was, above all 

 these secondary towns, distinguished for the lucrative character 

 and magnitude of its industries. At a festival of the Duke of 

 Burgundy, in 1454, the lords of the chamber were dressed in silk, 

 and the shield-bearers in satin of Lille make, while the citizens- 

 adorned themselves with robes of gold and silk, trimmed with, 

 costly furs. 



Antwerp existed as a small republic in the eleventh century.. 

 It succeeded to a good deal of the trade lost by Bruges, and at- 

 tained an even greater population. From its superior facilities 

 for reaching the sea by the estuary of tho Scheldt upon which it 

 stands, it became a great commercial as well as a manufacturing 

 city, so that the business of a month in Antwerp eventually 

 doubled that of a year of tho best days of Venice. Textures of 

 flax, wool, and silk were manufactured, as well as carpets, of a 

 kind valued for their colours and fineness of texture; their 

 weapons and cutlery, gold, silver, and bronze metal- work ranked 

 high for quality ; the most eminent tanners and sugar refiners 

 were also to be found here. Antwerp attracted commerce by 

 easy customs' dues, and obtained the name of tho " Market of the 

 World," which it did not lose even after the discovery of America 

 and the route to India round the Cape. Goods were borne to. 

 its stores from cast, west, north, and south, by land and by sea, 

 The following is the scheme of its customs' charges : 



For every ship entering the harbour, 4 stivers. 



Sack of wool, bale of peltry or lined leather, 1 cwt. of groceries : $ 

 pfennings = stiver. 



Bale of cloth, 1 stiver. 



Bale of silks or pressed linen, 8 pfennings = ^ stiver. 



CHAPTER XXVII. GERMAN COMMERCE. 

 BY German commerce is meant the traffic of the regiona of 

 the Danube and tho Ehine. During the Eoman oocupotion it 

 had steadily expanded. The vine was cultivated in the reign of 

 the Emperor Probus, 276 to 282, at which time grain was im- 

 ported from Britain. For several years, however, after the fall 

 of the Eoman empire, commerce cannot bo said to have existed 

 in Germany. Security and peace are necessary to stimulate 

 labour and trade. Not, therefore, until the nations began to be 

 settled, and to be illumined with the light of Christianity, did 

 husbandry spread and the natural resources of the land become 

 utilised. Germany is indebted for its earliest prosperity to the 

 monks, whose quiet retreats, already referred to, were the sanc- 

 tuaries of learning and the abodes of industry. Charlemagne, in 

 the intervals of war, turned his far-sighted policy towards the 

 improvement of agriculture and handicrafts. He made the nuns 

 fill up their time with spinning, and settled on his own numerous 



