A, D. 1227. 387 



little inferior to the mofl flourifliing of the commercial flates of Italy 

 in commercial enterprife and maritime power *. They traded to every 

 coaft of the Mediterranean ; and the veffels of every nation had been 

 made welcome to Barcelona, their principal port, by a law contained in 

 the code of ufages eftabliflied in the year 1068. But James I, king of 

 Aragon and count of Barcelona, being defirous of giving a preference 

 to the fhipping of his own fubjedls, now made a law, prohibiting all 

 foreign veffels from loading at Barcelona for Alexandria, Ceuta in Bar- 

 bary, or other foreign ports, if there was any veffel belonging to Barce- 

 lona capable and ready to perform the voyage. He alfo ordered, by the 

 fame law, that no foreigner fhould take onboard wine at Barcelona with- 

 out the permifllon of the citizens. This law, which, I prefume, is the 

 earlieft tiavigaiion act known in hiftory or record, was more ftridly en- 

 forced in the year 1268. {Copmany, Mem. hijl. de Barcelona, V. ii, Col. 

 dipl. //>. ir, 34.] 



1228 — Riga, a city on the eaft coafl of the Baltic fea, which was fet- 

 tled by fome merchaiits of Lubeck in the year 1150, was now fortified 

 with a wall, and became a place of confide rable commerce and power. 

 [Ber!ii Rer. Germ. L. iii, p. 239.] 



1229 — Liverpool was at this time a village belonging to the parifh 

 of Walton, to which indeed it continued attached till the year 1699. 

 [^ikifi's Defer, of Mancbejler, p. 332.] The burgeffes now paid the king 

 ten marks for a charter, which declared their town a free burgh for 

 ever, and granted them a merchant gild, together with fome other li- 

 berties f. {^Madox's HiJl. of the excheq. <:. 11, § 2.] 



1230 — The citizens of Brunfwick, though fituated in the heart of 

 Germany, now had, or were at leafl; invited to have, commercial deal- 

 ings with England, as appears from a protedion granted to them by 

 King Henry for the fake of his coufin, their duke. [Fasdera, V. i, p. 317.] 



1 231 — Olaf, king of Mann and the Ifles, having been driven from 

 his dominions by Alan lord of Galloway, implored the affift:ance of his 

 luperior lord the king of Norway. He and his Norwegian and Orkney 

 friends, with eighty fliips coUec^ted in Norway, Orkney, and the Wefl:- 

 ern iflands, arrived in the Firth of Clyde, and attacked the ifland of 

 Bute. But hearing that Alan had a fleet of one hundred and fifty 

 veffels lying at the Ryns of Galloway, they fleered off to the coaft of 

 Kentire, and thence went to Mann, and re-eftablifhed Olaf in his king- 



• Their power was formidable at limes to the In the eleventh year of the fiime king's reign the 



Greek empire and aliiioft every ftate on the coafts village or town (' villata') of Liverpool paid a tall- 



of the Mediterranean. Sec Gibbon, V. xi, p. 347, age of eleven marks fevcu (hillings and eight pcn- 



til. 179I. — Stella, and the other amial'ijls of Genoa. nies. [_^Madox''s Hijl. of the exchequer, c. 17, J 3. J 



f Enfield dates this charter in the year 1227. The flourifliing town of Liverpool may leave to 



\_HiJ}. of Leverpool, p. 9.] Being dated in the decayed communities the poor confolation of ficli- 



thirteenth year of the king's reign, it might be in tious aatiquity. 

 the later end of 1228, but could not be earlier. 3 



3G2 



