A. D. Ill I. 



^^7 



oi" their country, and in general commerce : fo that in every refped 

 they were a moll vaUuible colony, whether confidered as a barrier 

 againll an enemy, or as tlic firfl founders ot the manufadure of fine 



woollen goods in England*, [i^^/or. Wig. p. 655. — W. Mnlinjh.f. 89 b 



Gir. Cambr. p. 848, ed. Camd.'] 



May 22' — Henry V, emperor of Gennany, being at Verona, gave 

 the duke of Venice a charter, alcertaining the dominions of the republic 

 on the main land of Italy, and difcriminating them from his own Italian 

 territories, among which he reckons Luca, Pifa, and Genoa, though 

 ihefe cities had generally a(51ed as independent fovereign republics long- 

 before. He prohibits his fubjeds from diftrefling any Venetian veflel 

 branded or wrecked on any part of his coafts, or from harbouring fu- 

 gitive flaves belonging to the Venetians. He gives them liberty of tra- 

 veling by land or on the rivers in all his dominions, and in return re- 

 quires for his own fubjeds only the liberty of the lea and the mouths of 

 the rivers in the Venetian territories. The charter (which is very long 

 for that age) contains many other privileges granted to the Venetians, 

 fuch as the unmolefted property of eflates, liberty of pallurage, cutting 

 wood, &c. in his dominions. [^Re/pub. Vend. p. 440.] 



1 1 1 5— If we may believe the exaggerated flander (for fuch he intend- 

 ed it) of Donizo, \Vita Matildis comitijjce, c. 20. ap. Muratori Script. V. iv} 

 Pifa was now polluted by the relort of Pagans, Turks, Libyans, Par- 

 ihians, and Chakkeans. It is one of the few pleafmg circumllances oc- 

 curring in the hiftory of mankind, that fo much focial and beneficial 

 intercourfe fubfifted at this time to offend this tefi;y monk. 



The citizens of Pilli had their full Ikare of the advantages derived by 

 the trading communities of Italy from the Holy war. Tancred prince 

 of Antioch in the year 1108 engaged, in confideration of the afliftance 

 furniflied by the Pilans in fubduing the Greeks of Laodicea, to give 

 them a place in that city, and a ftreet in Antioch, and to grant immu- 

 nity from cuftom to their fliipping with liberty to come and go at their 

 pleafure. The fucceeding princes of Antioch, the kings of Jerufalera, 

 and other Chriftian princes who had acquired, or expected to acquire, 

 territories in Alia, gave many charters to the Pifans, between the years 

 1 108 and 1 216, containing iimilar grants of very ample privileges and 

 payments, made or promifed. [Original charters in MuratorPs Antiq. V. 

 ii, coll. 905-918.] 



1 1 20 — But the Pifans were not without their fhare of the calamities 

 of the times. Their city was laid in afhes, and their illands of Sar- 

 dinia and Corfica taken from them, by the Saracens. The illands were 

 recovered by the affiftance of the Genoefe. But the divifion of the 

 conqueft, with probably the exafperation of commercial jealoufy, im- 



* This was the laft colony of any coiifequence fettled in Great Britain, till the bigotry of Louis XIV 

 fent over the colony of French proteilant filk-weavers in the year 1685. 4. 



