A. D. 1 154. 327 



kingdom. The bull and the ring were both laid up in the archives at 

 Winchefter, to be produced whenever a favourable opportunity fhould 

 offer. And this was the firfl; Hep towards the union of Great Britain 

 and Ireland. 



At this time Scherif [al Edrifli, a Saracen fubjed of Roger king of 

 Sicily, wrote his Geographical amufevients, which he prefentcd to that 

 prince. He follows Ptolemy in connecSting the fouth part of Africa with 

 the eafl part of Afia; and, if we may judge from the Latin tranflation 

 of his work, he knew little more of the north parts of Europe than that 

 antient geographer did. He relates, that fome of the Saracens of Spain 

 had ventured out upon the Ocean, in order to diicovcr the extremity 

 of the world, and, after eleven days faihng, had turned to the fouthward, 

 and landed in the Canaries, where they learned that a king of one of 

 thofe iflands had alfo been out on a voyage of difcovery, and, after be- 

 ing a month at fea, had lately returned home *. [See Mem. de Vacade- 

 mie, V. xxviii, ^. 524.} 



1 155 — The arrival of the emperor Frederic in Italy ftruck fuch ter- 

 ror into the Gcnoefe, that they fortified their city with unremitting ex- 

 ertion, and even the women and children laboured in conftruding the 

 walls. The remains of thefe walls, far within thofe eredled in the years 

 1327 and 1347, fhow how fmall the city then was in comparifon of the 

 extent it afterwards attained. [Ste/iiz A?i. Gen. ap. Muratori, Script. V. 

 xvii, col. 974-] 



While the Genoefe dreaded a contcfl with the military forces of the 

 emperor of the Weft, whofe dominions were invulnerable by their naval 

 power, the emperor of the Eafl, the fucceflbr of the Roman fovereigns 

 of the world, was courting their friendlhip by a treaty, binding him to 

 pay for ever an annual penfion of two hundred perpers f and two palls 

 (rich robes) to the community, and another of fixty perpers and one 

 pall to the archbifhop, of Genoa, and alfo to give them a factory or 

 comptoir (' fundicum' if), and a church, in his capital city of Conftantin- 



* Can tills be true : Had the Saracens the ufe antient Greece is known with tolerable certainty, 

 of tlie compafs ? Could the Canary king, who that of the Grecian coins of thefe later dark ages 

 finely had no compafs, ever find his own iiTand is, I believe, totally unknown. From the pay- 

 after being a month at fea ? This curious inform- ment of the arrears of a IJmilar tribute to Pifa, in 

 atlon fhows, however, that the notion of the ex- the year 1 172 (which fee), there feems reafon to 

 illence of vveftern lands prevailed in thofe ages in believe, that perperi and byzantii were the fame, 

 feveral countries : and to the fame notion, probab- X ^'^ ^^^ principal commercial citits, fuch as 

 ly, the land called Cokaigne, far in the fea be-weft Conllantinople and Alexandria, the merchants of 

 Spain, owes its imaginary exiftence, as it is de- each trading nation had their own appropriate 

 fcribed in an Englifli poem of the twelfth century, fundicus (called by the Italians y<?n/if(7j;, and by the 

 prefcrved in Hickc's 'Thefaurus linguarum f,picn- Catalans alfuiJtch, the name being apparently 

 Iriona/iiim. Arabic), i;i which they lived and ftorcd their 



■j- Perf>;rl, or hypcrperi, were gold coins (Iruck goods, every individuiil paying a rent for his ac- 



by the emperors of Conftanlinople in this age ; commodatlon. Such, in England, were the Teu- 



[Dii Cange GluJf.Lat. vo. Hyperperus'\ 3.ni\ they tonic gild hall, and, in later times, the Steelyard, 



had alfo other coins called hyxaiUii, Jlyj'mi, and in London, occupied by the merchants of Ger- 



muhakli. But, though the value of the coins of jr.any ; and, in Scotland, the Red hall in Berwick, 



occupied 



