Liberal Thought in America 135 



survey of the Middle Ages shows plainly an abid- 

 ing antagonism between commerce and the ecclesi- 

 astical spirit. A general connection between the 

 predominance of international trade and the secu- 

 larization of public life is distinctly traceable. On 

 the map of mediaeval Europe one may point out 

 peculiar spots where the Papacy never gained com- 

 plete sway. In some of these, as in Bohemia and 

 southern Gaul, the resistance was due to Mani- 

 chsean heresies brought in from the Eastern Em- 

 pire, giving rise to a kind of mediaeval Puritanism ; 

 in these we do not find a spirit of liberal thought 

 developed, but rather an anti-Catholic fanaticism. 

 The other peculiar spots lie in the great pathway 

 of commerce between the Levant and the northern 

 seas. In the free cities of northern Italy and 

 southern Germany, in the Hansa towns, and in 

 the Netherlands, priestcraft had less sway than 

 elsewhere, and the general tone of thought was 

 more liberal and modern. No city came so com- 

 pletely under the secularizing influences of mari- 

 time commerce as Venice ; and it is significant 

 that the Papacy, at the very pinnacle of its power 

 and arrogance in the thirteenth century, utterly 

 failed in its attempt to force the Inquisition upon 

 that republic of merchants. 



In similar wise, we find the commercial Nether- 



