A, D. 1301. 467 



The redudions of the current money, from which the princes blindly 

 expeded great advantages, were ruinous to themfelves and the land- 

 holders, and produdive of unfpeakable confufion and embarraflrncnt in 

 commerce and dealings of every kind. Le Blanc, the hiflorian of the 

 French money, goes fo far as to afcribe the vidlories of the Englifli in 

 France to the impoverifhed ftate of the French gentlemen, occafioned 

 by the diminution of the money ; for, fays he, ' a knight reduced to 

 * poverty, and ill equipped, is already vanquiQied.' 



The manufadures of Flanders in time recovered from the fanguinary 

 check they received in the war between the rival fons of the countefs Mar- 

 garet in the middle of the thirteenth century ; and, in confequence of 

 their profperity, the wool of England again found its ufual ready market. 

 , Flanders being the feat of the befl manufadures to the northward of 

 the Alps and Pynensean mountains, and confequently crowded with 

 people, the greateft agricultural exertions were neceflary to make the 

 fields as produdive as poffible ; and the encouragement afforded by fo 

 numerous a population was a mod powerful ftimulus to the induftry 

 and ingenuity of the farmers. It is generally allowed, that the other 

 countries of the weft part of Europe have been inftruded in agriculture 

 and horticulture by the Flemings, and have been earlier or later in 

 their improvements in thofe arts, in proportion to their intercourfe with 

 thofe fuperior cultivators. Literature and the polite arts were alfo 

 more flourifhing in Flanders than in the neighbouring countries, dur- 

 ing the profperous ages of their manufadures and commerce. So true 

 is it, that plenty and politenefs are produced and nourifhed by the gen- 

 ial influence of well-direded induftry *. 



The firft interruption to the profperity of the Flemifli manufadures 

 proceeded from the rigour of fome regulations of the halls, which were 

 intended for preferving the charader of the manufadures and guarding 

 againft frauds, but chiefly operated as compulfive laws, to confine the 

 manufadures to the cities, arid fubjed them to the trammels of mono, 

 polizing corporations. The confequence, however, as generally hap- 

 pens with compulfive laws in matters of trade, was the reverfe of what 

 was intended by the legiflators ; for many of the manufadurers, in order 

 to avoid the reftraints, fettled in the villages, from which they were 

 driven out by the wars between France and Flanders, and forced to take 

 flicker in Tienen and Louvain in Brabant, where they were alfo ham- 

 in the Appendix, which exhibits them in one clear more poHflied and improved than the other natives 

 chronological view. of Britain, and our own dayly obfcrvation of the 



* In our own illand we have the teftimony of vail difference between the diftrjds which are the 

 Diodorus Siculus \_L. v, § 22] and Cxfar, [&//. feats of commerce and manufadures, and thofe 

 Call. L. v,cc. 13, 14] that the people of Corn- which are 1 emote from their invigorating iufluence, 

 wall and Kent, as having the chief commeicial in- in the cultivation of the earth, and the politenels 

 tercourfe with the contiaent in antient times, weic and comfortable fubfiftence of the people. 



