Part 44 (1/2)

VENICE.--Venice, the most celebrated of the Italian republics, had its beginnings in the fifth century, in the rude huts of some refugees who fled out into the marshes of the Adriatic to escape the fury of the Huns of Attila (see p. 346). Conquests and negotiations gradually extended the possessions of the island-city until she came to control the coasts and waters of the Eastern Mediterranean in much the same way that Carthage had mastery of the Western Mediterranean at the time of the First Punic War.

Even before the Crusades her trade with the East was very extensive, and by those expeditions was expanded into enormous proportions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PALACE OF THE DOGES. (From a photograph.)]

Venice was at the height of her power during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. Her supremacy on the sea was celebrated each year by the brilliant ceremony of ”Wedding the Adriatic,” by the dropping of a ring into the sea.

The decline of Venice dates from the fifteenth century. The conquests of the Turks during that century deprived her of much of the territory she held east of the Adriatic, and finally the voyage of Vasco da Gama round the Cape of Good Hope (1497-8), showing a new path to India, gave a death- blow to her commerce. From this time forward, the trade of Europe with the East was to be conducted from the Atlantic ports of the continent instead of from those in the Mediterranean.

GENOA.--Genoa, on the western coast of Italy, was the most formidable commercial rival of Venice. The period of her greatest prosperity dates from the recapture of Constantinople from the Latins by the Greeks in 1261; for the Genoese had a.s.sisted the Greek princes in the recovery of their throne, and as a reward were shown commercial favors by the Greek emperors.

The jealousy with which the Venetians regarded the prosperity of the Genoese led to oft-renewed war between the two rival republics. For nearly two centuries their hostile fleets contended, as did the navies of Rome and Carthage during the First Punic War, for the supremacy of the sea.

The merchants of Genoa, like those of Venice, reaped a rich harvest during the Crusades. Their prosperity was brought to an end by the irruption of the Mongols and Turks, and the capture of Constantinople by the latter in 1453. The Genoese traders were now driven from the Black Sea, and their traffic with Eastern Asia was completely broken up; for the Venetians had control of the ports of Egypt and Syria and the southern routes to India and the countries beyond--that is, the routes by way of the Euphrates and the Red Sea.

FLORENCE.--Florence, although shut out, by her inland location upon the Arno, from engaging in those naval enterprises that conferred wealth and importance upon the coast cities of Venice and Genoa, became, notwithstanding, through the skill, industry, enterprise, and genius of her citizens, the great manufacturing, financial, literary, and art centre of the Middle Ages. The list of her ill.u.s.trious citizens, of her poets, statesmen, historians, architects, sculptors, and painters, is more extended than that of any other city of mediaeval times; and indeed, as respects the number of her great men, Florence is perhaps unrivalled by any city, excepting Athens, of the ancient or the modern world. [Footnote: In her long roll of fame we find the names of Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Macchiavelli, Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Amerigo Vespucci, and the Medici.]

THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE.--From speaking of the Italian city-republics, we must now turn to say a word respecting the free cities of Germany, in which country, next after Italy, the mediaeval munic.i.p.alities had their most perfect development, and acquired their greatest power and influence.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROBBER KNIGHTS.]

When, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the towns of Northern Europe began to extend their commercial connections, the greatest drawback to their trade was the general insecurity and disorder that everywhere prevailed. The trader who entrusted his goods designed for the Italian market to the overland routes was in danger of losing them at the hands of the robber n.o.bles, who watched all the lines of travel, and either robbed the merchant outright, or levied an iniquitous toll upon his goods. The plebeian tradesmen, in the eyes of these patrician barons, had no rights which they felt bound to respect. Nor was the way to Italy by the Baltic and the North Sea beset with less peril. Piratical crafts scoured those waters, and made booty of any luckless merchantman they might overpower, or lure to wreck upon the dangerous sh.o.r.es. This state of things led some of the German cities, about the middle of the fourteenth century, to form, for the protection of their merchants, an alliance called the Hanseatic League. The confederation eventually embraced eighty-five of the princ.i.p.al towns of North Germany. In order to facilitate the trading operations of its members, the League established in different parts of the world trading-posts and warehouses. The four most noted centres of the trade of the confederation were the cities of Bruges, London, Bergen, and Novgorod.

The League thus became a vast monopoly, which endeavored to control, in the interests of its own members, the entire commerce of Northern Europe.

Among other causes of the dismemberment of the a.s.sociation may be mentioned the maritime discoveries of the fifteenth century, which disarranged all the old routes of trade in the north of Europe as well as in the south; the increased security which the formation of strong governments gave to the merchant cla.s.s upon sea and land; and the heavy expense incident to members.h.i.+p in the a.s.sociation, resulting from its ambitious projects. All these things combined resulted in the decline of the power and usefulness of the League, and finally led to its formal dissolution about the middle of the seventeenth century.

INFLUENCE OF THE MEDIaeVAL CITIES.--The chartered towns and free cities of the mediaeval era exerted a vast influence upon the commercial, social, artistic, and political development of Europe.

They were the centres of the industrial and commercial life of the Middle Ages, and laid the foundations of that vast system of international exchange and traffic which forms a characteristic feature of modern European civilization.

Their influence upon the social and artistic life of Europe cannot be overestimated. It was within the walls of the cities that the civilization uprooted by the Teutonic invaders first revived. With their growing wealth came not only power, but those other usual accompaniments of wealth,-- culture and refinement. The Italian cities were the cradle and home of mediaeval art, science, and literature.

Again, these cities were the birthplace of political liberty, of representative government. It was the burghers, the inhabitants of the cities, that in England, in France, and in Germany finally grew into the Third Estate, or Commons, the controlling political cla.s.s in all these countries. In a word, munic.i.p.al freedom was the germ of national liberty.

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING.

By the Revival of Learning, in the most general sense, is meant the intellectual awakening of Europe after the languor and depression of the first mediaeval centuries. In a narrower sense, however, the phrase is used to designate that wonderful renewal of interest in the old Greek and Latin authors which sprung up in Italy about the beginning of the fourteenth century. We shall use the expression in its most comprehensive sense, thus making the restoration of cla.s.sical letters simply a part of the great Revival of Learning.

SCHOLASTICISM AND THE SCHOOLMEN.--One of Charlemagne's most fruitful labors was the establishment of schools, in connection with the cathedrals and monasteries, throughout his dominions. Within these schools there grew up in the course of time a form of philosophy called, from the place of its origin, Scholasticism, while its expounders were known as Schoolmen.

This philosophy was a fusion of Christianity and Aristotelian logic. It might be defined as being, in its later stages, an effort to reconcile revelation and reason, faith and philosophy. Viewed in this light, it was not altogether unlike that theological philosophy of the present day whose aim is to harmonize the Bible with the facts of modern science.

The greatest of the Schoolmen appeared in the thirteenth century. Among them were Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Thomas Aquinas, and Duns Scotus.

The most eminent of these was Thomas Aquinas (died 1274), who was called the ”Angel of the Schools.” He was the strongest champion of mediaeval orthodoxy. His remarkable work, ent.i.tled the _Summa Theologica_, outlines and defends the whole scheme of Roman Catholic theology.

The Schoolmen often busied themselves with the most unprofitable questions in metaphysics and theology, yet their discussions were not without good results. These debates sharpened the wits of men, created activity of thought and deftness in argument. The schools of the times became real mental gymnasia, in which the young awakening mind of Europe received its first training and gained its earliest strength.

THE UNIVERSITIES.--Closely related to the subject of Scholasticism is the history of the universities, which, springing up in the thirteenth century, became a powerful agency in the Revival of Learning. They were for the most part expansions of the old cathedral and abbey schools, their transformation being effected largely through the reputation of the Schoolmen, who drew such mult.i.tudes to their lectures that it became necessary to reorganize the schools on a broader basis. Popes and kings granted them charters which conferred special privileges upon their faculties and students, as, for instance, exemption from taxation and from the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts. The celebrated University of Paris was the first founded, and that of Bologna was probably next in order.