6o8 



A, D. I 



394- 



paid to the filliery, fo as to make herrings a confiderable article of ex- 

 portation. 



1396, Odober 25"' — The Genoefe, formerly raifed by profperous com- 

 merce to fuch a height of power and infolence that they pretended to 

 prohibit the neighbouring ftates from navigating the Mediterranean fea, 

 were fo far reduced by their inteftine divifions as to be incapable of 

 conducing their own government, and now furrendered themfelves to 

 the dominion and protedion of the king of France, under which they 

 remained till the year 1409, when the French, unwilling to be at the 

 expenfe of maintaining a Sufficient force in their city, obliged them to 

 refume their independence. [Stella Arm. op. Muratori Script. V. xvii, col. 

 1 1 51. — Muratori Ann. V. xii, />. 473.] 



It was not long before the king of France found himfelf obliged to 

 his new vallals for a piece of fervice, which his own fubjeds could not 

 perform for him. The religious and military ardour of fome of the 

 princes of France and Burgundy had plunged them into a kind of cruf- 

 ade againfl: the Turkifh fultan Bajazet, and in the battle of Nicopolis 

 their own impetuous valour made them his prifoners. In the prefents, 

 lent to the iultan by the king of France to induce hini to ranfom his 

 captives, we have a fpecimen of the mofl valuable manufadures of 

 Europe. They confiiled of fcarlet cloth, fine linen of Rheims, and 

 tapeftry of Arras reprefenting the battles of Alexander the Great. The 

 ranfom was fixed by Bajazet at 200,000 ducats : and the merchants of 

 Genoa became bound for their fovereign in an obhgation for five times 

 the fum, ' a leflbn to thofc warlike times, that commerce and credit are 

 ' the links of the fociety of nations,' [Gibbori's Roman hijl. V. xi,/). 453] 

 and alfo a proof, that the commerce of Genoa was flill very great and 

 refpedable in the eyes of the Oriental princes, who, however, might 

 eftimate it rather by its former fame than its adual ftate at the time. 



1397, Augufl lo"" — We hear of no loans for fome years paft. But 

 there was one made now, the contributors to which were more numer^ 

 ous, and the fums larger, than in any preceding one. Of 193 fubfcrip- 

 tions there were 78 by the clergy, from ^1,000 by the bilhop of Win- 

 chefler down to /,"i3 : 6 : 8 ; 45 by gentlemen from /^4oo by Sir Robert 



P-9''\ 



