4 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



the Gulf, or to prohibit their passage altogether. The neigh- 

 bouring cities and commonwealths were soon compelled to 

 agree to her claim, which was eventually recognised by the 

 other Powers of Europe and by the Pope. The right of Venice 

 to the dominion of the Adriatic, arising in this way by force, 

 became firmly established by custom and treaty ; and even after 

 she had fallen from her greatness and was hardly able to 

 sustain her claim by the sword, it was still for a time admitted 

 by other nations, who looked upon the Republic as forming a 

 useful barrier to the farther extension of the Turk in Europe 

 and as a scourge to the Saracen pirates. 1 On the other side of the 

 Italian peninsula, the Republic of Genoa advanced a similar 

 claim to the dominion of the Ligurian Sea, and some of the 

 other Mediterranean states followed the example in the waters 

 with which they were most immediately concerned. 



Then in the north of Europe, Denmark and Sweden, and 

 later Poland, contended for or shared in the dominion of the 

 Baltic. The Sound and the Belts fell into the possession of 

 Denmark, the Bothnian Gulf passed under the rule of Sweden ; 

 and all the northern seas between Norway on the one hand, and 

 the Shetland Isles, Iceland, Greenland, and Spitzbergen on the 

 other, were claimed by Norway and later by Denmark, on the 

 principle referred to above, that possession was held of the 

 opposite shores. The Scandinavian claims to maritime domin- 

 ion are probably indeed the most important in history. They 

 led to several wars ; they were the cause of many international 

 treaties and of innumerable disputes about fishery, trading, and 

 navigation ; they were the last to be abandoned. Until about 

 half a century ago Denmark still exacted a toll from ships 

 passing through the Sound, a tribute which at one time was 

 a heavy burden on the trade to and from the Baltic. 



Still more extensive were the claims put forward by Spain 

 and Portugal. In the sixteenth century these Powers, in virtue 



1 The possession by Venice of this maritime sovereignty was symbolised each 

 year for many centuries by the picturesque ceremony of " espousing " the Adriatic. 

 On Ascension Day the Doge was rowed to the strains of music in a magnificent 

 gilded state barge, the Bucentaur, to the channel of Lido, where he cast a ring 

 into the water, exclaiming as he did so, " We espouse thee, O Sea, in sign of a 

 real and perpetual dominion" (" Desponsamus te mare in signum veri perpetuique 

 dominii "). The Papal nuncio and representatives of other states assisted at the 

 ceremony. 



