A. D. 1319. 487 



of Flanders, complaining that many of his enemies of Scotland were 

 favourably received in the earl's dominions, where they obtained fup- 

 plies of men, armour, and provifions, and that many of the Flemings 

 alfo carried provifions, arms, and merchandize, to Scotland : and he 

 earneflly entreated him to prohibit all intercourle with the Scots, who 

 were laid under the fentence of the greater excommunication and an 

 interdid, fo that no good cathoUc could have any intercourfe with fuch 

 excommunicated rebels without involving himfelf in the penalties of- 

 the fame fentence. He alfo informed him, that, though he had hither- 

 to, from friendlhip to him, difmifTed the Flemings, who were taken 

 on their paflage to Scotland, without any punifliment, he fhould in fu- 

 ture ftation a fufficient number of fhips of war to intercept all who 

 fliould prefume to trade with thofe excommunicated rebels, and fhould 

 treat the Flemings as rigoroufly as the Scots. He concluded by admon- 

 ifhing the earl to reftrain his fubjeds from keeping up a damnable and 

 perilous intercourfe, left their folly fhould difturb the harmony and mu- 

 tually-advantageous commerce between England and Flanders, — He alfo 

 wrote letters of the fame import to the duke of Brabant, and to the 

 magiftrates of Bruges, Daan*, Newport, Dunkirk, Ypres, and Mechlin. 

 [Fcedera, V. iii,/". 759-} 



There could be no doubt, tjiat, if the Flemings could have been com- 

 pelled to relinquifh the commerce, and abide the hoftility, of either na- 

 tion, that the trade of the Scots would not have been fo valuable, nor 

 their enmity fo formidable, as thofe of the Englifh. But, as the Ve- 

 netians in the beginning of the twelfth century had their ideas raifed, 

 by commercial intercourfe with various nations, above the apprehenfion 

 of the papal thunder, fo neither were the Flemings, who were now the 

 moft enlightened traders in the weftern parts of Europe, as the Vene- 

 tians had been in the Mediterranean, to be terrified by excommunica- 

 tions, which, they knew, could have little effeft, but what they fome- 

 times derived from the fimplicity of thofe againft whom they were ful- 

 minated f , nor to be prevented by papal bulls, or even the menaces of 

 the Englifh king, from profecuting their commerce with all nations : 

 and they well knew, that the wool, leather, and lead, the defirable ob- 

 jects of their trade with England, muft infallibly find their way to their 

 market, as being the beft one, in fpite of prohibitions and cruifers. 

 Therefor the earl in his anfwer to the king informed him (as he had al- 

 ready told Edward I) that Flanders being a country common to all 

 mankind, he could not deny free accefs to merchants, agreeable to an- 



* I believe, this name ought rather to be Damm, cafion neither the Scots, though they thought it 



a town between Bruges and the fea. decent and expedient to court the pope for a re- 



\ I i^y fomctimes, becaufe the Venetians, in the verfal of his fentence, nor feveral foreign princes 



niftance now alluded to, diTclaimed the pope's au- in nlliar.ce with therB,..paid any attention to it. 

 thority in their temporal afiairs ; ^■^A on this oc-- 



