Vol. 12 · pages 66–70

45COMMERCIAL RELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE AGES situation had advantages beyond any other harbour town of Italy. Separated from the mainland by the sea and from the open sea by the low fringing walls of its lagoons, surrounded almost entirely by shallows pierced only by a few deep channels, Venice was usually considered by its own citizens, as by foreigners, to be beyond attack. The political troubles of the continent made it a refuge from the time of Attila, and the absence of any maritime rival on the adriatic left open a valuable and extensive field of operations for commerce, for colonization and even for conquest.” 1 Her benevolent neutrality and her allegiance to Byzantine greatly augmented her prosperity for on the decline of the Eastern Empire the whole adriatic coast came under her influence and the chief markets of Byzantine coast, Antioch, Inopuestia, Adana, Tarsus, Attalia, Strobilos Chios, Ephisus and Phoeacea Hiraclea and Selymbria, Chrysopolis, Demetrias, Adrianople, Athens, Thebes, Thissalonica, Negropont, Corinth Corfus, Durazzo etc. were opened for Venician trade. Her commercial policy was very farsighted and wise. She laid down the rule “of siding always with the stronger, especially in maritime struggle” and practised it on many an occasion and this by crushing all her enemies and ingratiating herself into the favour of the strong achieved her greatness. Genoa, another city state came late to share in the oriental trade. 1097 A. D. marks her rise. “The origin of the state as an independent body may be found in a Campagna or political association, founded at the very close of the eleventh century, controlled by consuls freely elected and supported by the bishops of the city against secular lords, such as Oberti.” 2 From 1097 to 1122 she secured important trading concessions and established factories both on the Levantine Coast as well as on the African. Her trade extended to Egypt through Alexandria, to Tunis and to the Southern Coast towns of France and Spain. Origin of Pisa which is similar in nature to that of Genoa dates from 1085. By deeds of arms she succeeded in securing commercial privileges from the Moslems and from the Byzantine 1 Reymond Beazley—“ The Dawn of Modern Geography ”, Vol. II, p. 401. 2 Ibid. Vol. II, p. 419.

46 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Empire. Her commerce was so great that “Western orthodoxy was shocked by the “marine monsters” from the ends of the Earth who thronged the streets of the city ; Pagans, Turks, Libyans, Parthians and Chaldeans defiled the town and blackened (her) walls: here, most of all, was to be seen the triumph of commercialism over all the barriers of Latin exclusiveness over, race, religion and language alike.” 1 None of the Republics secured more concessions and privileges than Pisa and her maritime activity though short was brilliant. The commercial activity of these Republics while in their infancy was greatly fostered by the crusades. We are not at all concerned with the military aspects of the crusades though they were perhaps the greatest of military exploits of the time. The commercial aspect of the crusade is what demands our attention. The sea had its dangers and fears. 2 Hardly any one tried to take a chance. “In that age it might truely be said that no landman went to sea unless obliged to do so, for a voyage was being in prison with the addition charge of being drowned.”3 The importance of water transportation was however demonstrated to the crusaders by the wearisome experience of the landways used in the first Crusade (1096-99); and the marine transportation was in the hands of these Italian Republics. The Crusaders therefore began to indent more and more upon these republics who fed fat on this growing commerce. “By serving the cause of Christaindom they (the Republics) served their own. They multiplied, many times over, their carrying trade ; they largely increased their export and import commerce. Above all, they acquired a privileged, a more than half political, position on the coasts of the Levant, as time went on, they became more indispensible to the crusading princes, they were able to dictate their terms more freely until the main burden of the Holy war rested upon them as the chief holders of power.”4 The Crusades seem to have been looked upon with different perspectives. The Catholic Church had a double motive 1 Reymond Brazley— The Dawn of Modern Geography, Vol. II, pp. 427-428. 2 cf. “Nemesis of nations” p. 219-220. 3 Brasely Vol. II, p. 407. 4 Ibid, Vol. n, p. 407.

47COMMERCIAL RELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE AGES which is well manifested in the words of St. Bernard, respecting the soldiers of the 2nd crusades, when he says, “In that countless multitude you will find few except the utterly wicked and impious, the sacrilegious, homicides, and perjurers, whose departure is a double gain. Europe rejoices to lose them and Palestine to gain them: They are useful in both ways, in their absence from here and their presence there.”1 The discontented noble, the restless who was eager to shun reponsibilities and the criminal and the sinful had their points of view of the crusades and the objectives as had the religiously devout and naturally romantic. But “the cunning traders and sea men of the commercial republics looked on the crusaders with very different eyes from the average catholic lords and labourers of the inland districts: they were not without religious enthusiasm but they cultivated it rather as a useful commodity than as an inevitable state of feeling ; and they felt but little of the blind hatred against Islam, and the passionate veneration for the Gospel sites, which sincerely animated the great body of the warriors and pilgrims they conveyed to Palesttine. Merchantile interest was never absent from the minds of those who governed, bought, or sold in Venice and Pisa, in Genoa and Amalfi.” 2 The results of the Crusades were contrary to expectation. They achieved what was perhaps never intended by the Crusaders and the gain was by no means small. “The heyday of the crusading power on land was also the heyday of the maritime prosperity of many western cities : and at the conclusion of the religious wars the main results of the struggle was to be found in the expansion of the Christain trade, and in the assimilation of no small part of oriental and moorish civilization. For the meeting of east and west in this tremendous conflict, brought little permanent gain to Europe and the Catholic world, in the political sense : Through the medium of commerce, on the other hand it directed the energies of the Christian nations to their true future. The frontal attack of the crusaders was unsuccessful, but the crusading struggle imported a new culture and material prosperity, an increased knowledge, an immensely extended wealth, a restless but obstinate ambition, whose results were seen in the Renaissance of the 1 Quoted by Brasely and Robinson in “ Outlines of European History” Part I, p. 471. 2 Brasely—Vol. II, p. 408.

48 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES the fifteenth and sixteenth century in the great discoveries both of geography and natural science and in the final triumph of European arms and enterprise throughout the world.” 1 The above may strike as an exaggerated description of the enduring effects of the Crusades but there is no doubt that they imparted a liberal education to the Europeans and fostered trade by giving a permanent footing to merchants inlands where the dominions of the Christain rulers had been destroyed. The Italian Republics were immensely rewarded for their help to the Crusaders. Besides many privileges each one acquired “spheres of influence” exclusive of the other anticipating the modern “Spheres of influence” in China. They all rivalled each other for the control of the marts behind the Levants. “The Moselm hinterland to the Crusading Syria possessed four chief markets—Aleppo, Damascus, Hems or Emesa, and Hawath, beyond which lay the still greater marts of Bagdad and the lesser Emporia of Mosul and Bassora or Basra converging the line of the Tigris, Aleppo was a head centre of the trade route from the Abbasside Caliph’s ‘metropolis’ to Antioch and Laodicea on the western side. This route ... Edrisi calls the great avenue of the trade of Irak, Persia and Khorasan, and the silk market of Allepi proved its connection with the still more distant countries of the Far East. Even at the close of the thirteenth century many Venetian traders were residents here for the sake of commerce in Seric goods, as well as in alum. The figments and the pepper found at Antioch by the Crusaders, on the capture of the city, also bore witness to an Indian commerce with the mediterranean by this path, and the elder Sanuto is probably right when he says (at the beginning of the 14th cen.) That in the old time most Oriental goods passed along this way to the Roman Sea.” 2 The rapid movement of troops by Saracens and the Christains did not materially affect the Red sea route to India and Alexandria continued to be the “market of two worlds.” These Italian Republics secured the Oriental commodities and started commerce with “ultra-montane lands in the north of the 1 Brasely, Vol. II, p. 395. 2 Brasely Vol. II, p. 441.

49COMMERCIAL RELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE AGES continent and became “the European stapes of Mediterranean track.” The north was practically in a semi-barbarous condition. The commercial activity in the Baltic was meagre. The Viking was a “half merchant and half pirate”. “So far as we can gather... this commercial activity (in the north) was different from that of the Phoenicians and their Greek initators in two important particulars. It was much less completely organized. The Phoenicians had settled factories at special points, and there were permanent off-shoots of the mother-city in distant lands, and had recognised rights and obligations. But the horse commerce does not appear to have arisen between towns and colonies. The Viking was rather the adventurer who went out to improve his fortunes as best he might, and who it be found a favourable opportunity, established himself on an estate. The Horsemen may have had more aptitude for town life than some of the other Teutons, but they were ready to become cultivators and colonists, and did not confine their energies and trade.” 1 Nay before their conversion to Christianity, the Horsemen were a great menace to peaceful commerce. Considerably after the conversion of the Horsemen to Christainity signs peaceful commerce began to show among the Flemish towns. This had much to do with the wool productions in England. English was exchanged for Flemish fabrics. The Flemish dealers had organized themselves into what is known as “Flemish House of London” and controlled the trade through the “staple” towns. Beyond Flanders the German trade was controlled by the German House. It was a close confederation of a large number of towns of northern Germany. This German Hanseatic League was the most extended commercial organization of middle ages. It gathered the products of the Baltic lands, such as lumber, tar, salt, iron, silver, salted and smoked fish, furs, ambers and certain coarse manufactures which it exchanged for goods brought by the commercial cities of Italy from far off lands. Thus through the agency of these Italian Republics, “the products of Arabia and Persia, India and the East Indian Islands, and even of China, all through the middle ages, as in antiquity, made their way by long and difficult routes to Western Europe. Silk and Cotton, both raw and manufactured 1 William Cunningham—“ Western Civilization” (Modern Times) p. 110.