In the preceding chapter we have followed the political development of
Venice, and seen that city acquire undisputed supremacy on the water and
then reach out for land conquests as well. We shall now interrupt the
rather depressing story of political wrangles, to consider the commercial
prosperity of the new world-emporium.
“Venice,” says Burckhardt,[b] “recognised itself from the first as a
strange and mysterious creation--the fruits of a higher power than human
ingenuity. The key-note of the Venetian character was a spirit of proud
and contemptuous isolation, which, joined to the hatred felt for the city
by the other states of Italy, gave rise to a strong sense of solidarity
within. The inhabitants meanwhile were united by the most powerful ties
of interest in dealing both with the colonies and the possessions on
the mainland; and forcing the population of the latter, that is of all
the towns up to Bergamo, to buy and sell in Venice alone. A power which
rested on means so artificial could only be maintained by internal
harmony and unity. On the other hand, within the ranks of the nobility
itself, travel and commercial enterprises, and the incessant wars with
the Turks, saved the wealthy and dangerous from that fruitful source
of conspiracies--idleness. A free government in the open air gave the
Venetian aristocracy, as a whole, a healthy bias.”
The Venetian did, in point of fact, seem to differ materially from
his Italian neighbours. We have seen that the city did not come into
prominence until a relatively late period of the Middle Ages. Isolated
geographically, it held aloof from its neighbouring states and never
conceded allegiance to the Western Empire. Nominally, it sought the
protection of Constantinople; but in reality it neither needed nor
received aid from that quarter, and its allegiance to the Eastern emperor
was probably due largely to the harmlessness of his supposed authority.
The seafaring life had developed here, as so often elsewhere, a hardy and
liberty-loving race. The Venetian reminds us strongly of his prototype,
the old-time Phœnician. But in one regard the citizen of Venice proved
even more self-reliant than his prototype: he insisted always on
choosing his rulers; moreover, he not merely elected them, but he held
them amenable to the law. We have seen a striking illustration of this in
the preceding chapter, in the legal execution of the doge Marino Falieri.
Seldom, if ever, has that incident been precisely duplicated. The doge
of Venice, elected for life, was surrounded with all the semblance of
royalty and was to all intents and purposes a sovereign. Yet when this
distinguished incumbent of the office had proven himself disloyal to the
constitution, he was adjudged in practically the same manner with his
associates in crime, and subjected to the same punishment.
Nothing could be more characteristic than the manner in which the
punishment of Falieri was carried out. Up to the very last the doge was
treated with all respect. Even when led out to execution, he was still
clothed in his ducal robes. The mandate of the law was carried out not
in anger, but in sorrow; everything was legal, constitutional; there was
no breach of dignity. A vast concourse of people waited at the door of
the palace to view the corpse; but it was no clamouring mob: it was a
quiet and orderly gathering of citizens. The fall of the sovereign had
come about through no reign of terror such as pertained in latter-day
France, when Louis XVI was executed; no revolution like that which
brought Charles I to the block. The successor to the doge was elected in
precisely the same manner as if the previous incumbent of this office
had died a natural death. In all history, let it be repeated, there is
scarcely a precise parallel for this exhibition of the far-reaching scope
of Venetian justice.
We have now to view the real source of the power of this strange nation;
a power based, as has repeatedly been suggested, upon the old familiar
foundation of commercial prosperity. It was the independence born of this
prosperity that made Venice feared and hated by all the other powers of
Italy--feared and hated, but also admired. We read in Villani[c] that
when in the early part of the fourteenth century Venice condescended
to take common cause with Florence against the tyrant of Milan, the
Florentines regarded it as a singular honour for their country to have
become the confederate of the Venetians, “who, for their great excellence
and power, had never allied themselves with any state or prince, except
at their ancient conquest of Constantinople and Romania.” We learn, on
the other hand, from the Venetians, how some of the wise men of their
city regretted this same alliance with its attendant grasping after
political conquests, on the mainland. A remarkable account has been
preserved to us by Sanuto,[d] of the warning said to have been given to
his people by the doge Mocenigo, who died in 1423, and whose alleged
words we shall quote in some detail, because they furnish us with
statistics that will serve as introductory to our further studies of the
national commerce.
The doge asserted that the trade with Lombardy alone brought into Venice
each year no less than 28,800,000 ducats.[a] “My lords,” he is reported
as saying, “from the infirm state in which I find myself, I judge that I
am drawing near the close of my career; and the obligations under which
I lie to a country which has not only bred me, but has permitted me to
attain such lofty prominence, and has showered upon me so many honours,
have prompted me to call you together around me, in order that I may
commend to your care this Christian city, and persuade you to live in
concord with your neighbours, and to preserve this city, as I have done
to the best of my ability. In my time, 4,000,000 ducats of the public
debt have been paid though 6,000,000 remain, the latter of which were
contracted for the war of Padua, Vicenza, and Verona. We have regularly
paid the half-yearly interest on the funds and the salaries of the
public offices. Our city at present sends abroad for purposes of trade
in various parts of the world 10,000,000 ducats a year, of which the
interest is not less than 2,000,000. In this city there are 3000 vessels
of smaller burden, which carry 17,000 seamen; 300 large ships carrying
8000 seamen; 45 galleys and dromons constantly in commission for the
protection of commerce, which employ 11,000 seamen, 3000 carpenters,
3000 caulkers. Of silk cloth-workers there are 3000; of manufacturers
of fustian, 16,000. The rent-roll is estimated at 7,050,000 ducats.
The income arising from let houses is 150,000. We find 1000 gentlemen
with means varying between 700 and 4000 ducats a year. If you continue
to prosper in this manner, you will become masters of all the gold in
Christendom. But, I beseech you, keep your fingers from your neighbours,
as you would keep them out of the fire, and engage in no unjust wars, for
in such errors God will not support princes. Everybody knows that the
Turkish war has rendered you expert and brave in maritime enterprises.
You have six able captains, competent to command large fleets. You have
many persons well versed in diplomacy and in the government of cities,
who are ambassadors of perfect experience. You have numerous doctors in
different sciences, and especially in the law, who enjoy high credit
for their learning among strangers. Your mint coins annually 1,000,000
ducats of gold and 200,000 ducats of silver, of minor pieces, 800,000.
Of this sum 500,000 go to Syria, 100,000 to the Terra Firma, 100,000 to
various other places, 100,000 to England. The remainder is used at home.
You are aware that the Florentines send here every year 16,000 pieces
of fine cloth, of which we dispose in Barbary, Egypt, Syria, Cyprus,
Rhodes, Romania, the Morea, and Istria, and that they bring to our city
monthly 60,000 (70,000?) ducats’ worth of merchandise, amounting annually
to 840,000 or more, and in exchange purchase our goods to our great
advantage.
“Therefore it behoves you to beware lest this city decline. It behoves
you to exercise extreme caution in the choice of my successor, in whose
power it will be, to a considerable extent, to govern the republic for
good or for evil. Many of you are inclined to Messer Francesco Foscari,
and do not, I apprehend, sufficiently know his impetuous character, and
proud, supercilious disposition. If he is made doge, you will be at war
continually. Those who now possess 10,000 ducats will have only 1000.
Those who possess ten houses will be proprietors of one, and those who
now own ten coats will be reduced to a single coat. You will lose your
money and your reputation. You will be at the mercy of a soldiery. I have
found it impossible to forbear expressing to you thus my opinion. May God
help you to make the wisest choice! May he rule your hearts to preserve
peace.”
Such [says Hazlitt[e]] were the last words of a great and prophetic
statesman. The glaze of death was soon upon those eyes. Those lips were
soon mute. On the 4th of April, 1423, Tommaso Mocenigo expired, leaving
his country more prosperous and opulent than she had ever yet been. Her
treasury was full. Her debt was considerably reduced. The statistics of
her taxation and expenditure exhibited a surplus of 1,000,000 a year. Her
home and foreign trade was flourishing beyond any precedent. No European
power was more highly respected, and the alliance of none was more
eagerly sought and cultivated.[e]
These calculations of Mocenigo are declared by Hallam[f] to be so
strange and manifestly inexact as to deserve little regard; they
are, however, viewed with greater consideration by Daru,[g] and by
Hazlitt[e]. Doubtless they have not the accuracy of the reports of
modern statisticians, yet, as a general statement of what at least
are approximate facts, they have the fullest interest, and the utmost
significance. They furnish a clew to the power and greatness of this
remarkable city; a city which in the year 1422 is said to have had
a population of only 190,000, yet which was the most powerful state
of Italy, and which after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 was the
uncontested world metropolis.
In considering the precise conditions of Venetian commerce and
manufacture it will be well to take at the same time a general view of
the commerce of late antiquity, that the conditions of trade in the East
to which Venice fell heir may be understood.[a]
It was to their political and territorial situation that the Venetians
owed their direction towards commercial operations--the cause of their
prosperity. Fugitives from the Italian continent, refuged in small,
uncultivated, barren islands, without certain communication with the
continent, they saw nothing round them but the sea, in their hands a few
fleeting possessions which they had saved from the general devastation,
but which would soon be lost if work and industry could not fructify them.
Salt was the only product of the soil they trod. Fishery could only
imperfectly provide a subsistence. But this fishery, this salt, became
a means of exchange to provide things necessary for life. Nearly
everything was lacking. The inhabitants of the lagunes were reduced to
seek on the neighbouring continent grain, wood, metals, stone, even
water. Happily for them their neighbours could bring them nothing. These
people, desolated by continual war, were not given to navigation. If at
that time, when so many fugitives took refuge in the lagunes, there had
been near them a commercial maritime town eager to bring them all they
wanted, such a town would have taken from them the few riches they had
brought into the islands, and little by little these fugitives, instead
of creating a country on uncultivated wastes, would have sought safety,
ease, or work with the foreigner. But the rigour of their condition, the
deprivation of all help condemned them to make great efforts, and their
heroic works contributed also to their happiness and glory.
Again, they would hardly have believed it to be a good thing that the
severity of their lot made them exert themselves on the sea. Continually
obliged themselves to seek what was lacking, they necessarily acquired
a habit of braving the ocean. When what they wanted was not to be found
on the neighbouring coast they sought it on the opposite one. Gradually
they noted at what points they could make their purchases or exchanges
with most advantage. These frequent crossings, made on their own account,
furnished occasion for becoming intermediaries for the two Adriatic
shores. These journeys had at first for object only the provisioning
of the islands. The spirit of commerce gave them wider views; their
limits were extended, their means perfected. Art and cupidity essayed
more difficult routes, and it was seen that this new town, placed in a
position so easy to defend, almost on the borders which separate Europe
from Asia, was called to become through the industry of its inhabitants
the principal market for western peoples. Other local circumstances gave
it the means of easy communication with a large number of consumers.
Italy being separated from Germany by the Alps was impracticable for
commerce. A port situated at the end of the Adriatic and the mouth of the
Po would be the natural market for wools, silks, cotton, saffron, oil,
manna, and all the other productions which Italy furnished to Hungary and
Germany.
For the same reason, all that the north had to get from the Levant,
Africa, and Spain had to pass by Venice. Journeys beyond the straits of
Gibraltar towards the eastern coast of Europe then meant a voyage of long
duration. Navigation was so imperfect that the eastern peoples had not
yet learned to seek Mediterranean products, and it was very rarely that
they made expeditions, which meant so much expense, danger, and loss of
time. The result was that the end of the Adriatic Sea was the sole point
of communication with the navigable sea, and Venice was a mart offering
equal security against all enemies and tempests. The Po, the Brenta, and
the Adige seemed to empty into the basin of the lagunes expressly to
offer the Venetians an easy route by which they could take without danger
or great expense all productions demanded by eastern Italy. Also it was
a constant care with this growing republic to assure free navigation and
all kinds of franchise on these waters and their numerous affluents.
About the year 713 the first doge of the republic concluded a peace with
Liutprand, king of Lombardy, which preserved to Venetians commercial
privileges in the ports and lands of this kingdom. Not only were they
exempt, with their neighbours, from all dues, but they held sovereign
rights in perpetuity, and the exercise of these gave them the means of
making themselves a burden to their rivals. One even sees them, in the
fifteenth century, offering to furnish Filippo Maria Visconti, duke of
Milan, with ten thousand foot and ten thousand horse, if he would let
them administer the custom-houses of his capital.
[Illustration: BRIDGE OF THE RIALTO, VENICE]
The republic did not give less attention to keeping the exclusive
privilege of furnishing this continent with products of her own small
territory. She perfected the art of extracting salt, and appropriated,
as far as she could, all the salt beds of her coasts. She prevented
her neighbours from exploiting those they had. The Venetians sold two
qualities of salt--that manufactured by themselves in their lagunes,
called Chioggia salt, and that drawn from the salt beds of Cervia,
Istria, Dalmatia, Sicily, the African coasts, the Black Sea, and even
Astrakhan. All these foreign salts were comprised under the name of
sea-salt or ultramarine salt. The first was of superior quality and
consequently of higher price. The Cervian salt beds belonged to the
Bolognaise. With them the Venetians treated, and, to preserve the
commerce of all the salt from this source, the latter determined the
quantity which should be allowed to be sold, establishing surveillance
even on the place of fabrication. The republic even obtained the right
to transport rocksalt which southern Germany and Croatia took from their
mines. They forced the king of Hungary to close his. The coast people
on the Adriatic were not allowed to send away their salt, while the
inhabitants of Italy could not take any but Venetian salt.
For any subject of the republic to buy foreign salt was a crime. The
house of the offender was razed, and he himself banished forever. Yet
while Venice made this monopoly she furnished all these people, now
her tributaries, with excellent salt at a very low price. Sales were
effected by companies, which undertook to provision such and such a
country. It is almost incredible how much treasure this one branch of
commerce for fourteen centuries procured the Venetians. These privileges
cost some bloodshed. But the defence of their pretensions and the wars
they had to sustain against the corsairs and jealous neighbours put them
under the necessity of forming a military marine. After some centuries
of effort, the flag of St. Mark was seen proudly flying all along the
Mediterranean. Venetian fleets made conquests, the republic founded rich
colonies, extended its navigation and commerce in all then known seas,
and arrogated the sovereignty of the Adriatic Sea. The continual wars
which divided other peoples, their gross ignorance, their almost general
isolation with regard to commerce and navigation, were so many favourable
circumstances which gave the republic time to establish the power of her
marine and the prosperity of her industry quite firmly.
VENICE IN THE LEVANT
After the fall of the Eastern Empire, Venice became mistress of nearly
all the maritime points of that empire, and had immense advantages in all
the Levant markets. Her merchants there enjoyed all the privileges of the
natives, and in every port her ships found not only free harbourage but
special protection. For eight centuries, that is from the epoch when the
Venetians wanted to become conquerors over the Italian lands, legislation
and politics had for their principal object the prosperity of commerce.
Privileges from the foreigner, assured safety with them, facilities for
the moving about of men, goods, and capital, the establishment of banks,
perfecting of money, encouragement of industrial manufactures, a vigilant
but not officious policy, a religious tolerance little known among other
nations, all concurred to make for Venetian commercial greatness.
If to these advantages one adds the possibility of obtaining civic
rights, and considers that a share in sovereignty was attached to
this title, one can imagine what an influx of strangers augmented the
population of Venice and increased its prosperity by bringing capital
and new industries. One can conceive also how citizens of such a state
would be attached to their country, and what would be the strength and
resources of this government. One would feel at the same time that the
republic would lose with regard to all these things when she adopted, or
rather submitted to, an aristocratic government. It has been said that
those of the citizens who arrogated all authority compensated the others
by abandoning to them all the advantages resulting from commerce. Indeed,
this has been given as a mark of disinterestedness and moderation from
the aristocratic classes. But this is an error. It is evident that, in
spite of a prohibitive law, the nobles continued to be merchants until
that epoch when the republic was already shorn of its power and commerce
of its splendour. Instances of this are to be found at every step in
history.
If one reflects on the influence that habits of work, emulation, riches,
travel, and association with foreigners must necessarily have had on
the manners of a people and the development of their intellectual
faculties, one may guess that the Venetians must already have become a
polished nation when other peoples, whom nature seemed to have placed in
a different rank, were still barbarians. One is not surprised to read
in the history of Charlemagne that the lords who composed his court
were astonished to see, at the Pavia fair, valuable carpets, silken
stuffs, gold tissues, pearls, and precious stones spread out by Venetian
merchants. Doubtless these lofty barons very much despised the merchants
and their business, but their pride would be lowered somewhat when Pepin
was beaten by these same men; when European kings found themselves
obliged to ask for Venetian ships to get into Palestine; and when the
Baldwins, the Montmorencies, and the counts of Champagne and of Montfort
contracted alliance with these merchants to conquer and share the empire
of Constantinople.
This superiority of the Venetians over other European peoples--we except
the Tuscans, whose literary glory gives them an infinite ascendency--was
maintained until well into the fifteenth century. All French, German,
and English towns were a formless mass of houses without architecture or
monuments. The lords of these countries lived in melancholy fortresses,
and hardly knew the meaning of luxury and art. At this epoch there was
neither letters nor elegance except in Italy and the part of Spain
occupied by the Moors. It would hardly be just to make out that all these
advantages were derived from one sole cause. Venice no doubt owed her
prosperity partly to the good fortune of having a regular government
long before other nations. But this government which watched over the
preservation of public fortune was not the cause of national wealth;
that was entirely due to commerce. From the eighth century, the commerce
of Venice with the East was sufficiently important to determine her to
remain in alliance with the emperor Nicephorus, in spite of Charlemagne’s
threats.
While, however, the Venetians enjoyed that opulence which is the just
fruit of labour, they were kept by their sumptuary laws within the bounds
of a wise economy--an economy which alone conserves the capital which
feeds commerce and is sole regulator of the price of handiwork. Commerce
has relations with the constitution. In the government of a despot it is
founded on luxury, its only object being to procure the nation all that
can minister to its pride, its luxuries, its fancies; in the government
of many it is generally founded on economy. Standing between the
voluptuous peoples of the East and the uncultivated European nations, the
Venetians imitated the industry of the one and preserved the simplicity
of the other.
During the first centuries of the Venetian Republic, all Europe was in
an uncultured condition. Art had left ancient Italy to pass over to
the empire and ornament the new capital of the world. But when Fortune
arrived unexpectedly with gifts, she found no man ready to receive
them. The peoples to whom Constantine had transported his throne had
a taste for voluptuousness rather than a genius for activity. In this
neighbourhood, a people of high antiquity, enlightened long before
the barbarians of the West, owed to its traditions, its activity, its
conquests, that variety of knowledge and works which distinguished
civilised nations. The Venetians were continually changing the products
of the East against merchandise from all Europe; to form such a chain of
communication was much for a population of fishers. But they carried
their industry even further. They saw that the Grecian Empire received
many useful things from far-off countries and from peoples almost
unknown, but also a multitude of superfluities which were becoming
needful for a society more refined. They established themselves as near
as they could to the source of these objects, and such was the success of
their activity and courage that they became first the carriers and then
the commercial masters of pleasure-loving Constantinople.
The peninsula of the Tauric Chersonese, situated at the end of the
Black Sea, had long been for the great cities of the Hellespont and the
Greek seas what Sicily had been for Rome--an inexhaustible storehouse
assuring subsistence to the population. This peninsula fed Athens, and
paid an annual tribute of 180,000 measures of wheat to Mithridates. It
had abundant salt beds and furnished wools and hides. These objects of
first necessity acquired a new value through the vicinity of a town like
Constantinople. Marco Polo, the Venetian, speaks of a journey made on
this coast by his father towards the middle of the thirteenth century.
The abundance of sequins throughout the East proves that the Venetians
had great commerce there--that their coin was taken confidently, and
that they were obliged to pay for a part of their purchases in ready
money. There is another fact by which one can judge of the great number
of Venetians spread through the Greek Empire. When Manuel Comnenus,
imitating the example of Mithridates, arrested in one day all subjects
of the republic found in the state, the prisons could hardly suffice
to contain them; they had to fill the churches and monasteries. The
difficulty of protecting their establishments in Asia, the jealousy of
the Genoese, and the revolutions of the Eastern Empire, obliged the
Venetians many times to seek new routes to re-establish their constantly
interrupted commercial relations.
The story of the vicissitudes which have changed so often the course of
commerce--that commerce which like a river pours continually into the
West, is one well worthy of attention. It seemed that Europe could not
suffice for herself. The activity of its inhabitants exhausted itself
in a thousand ways which produced needs foreign to its welfare. From
all time they counted eastern merchandise among objects of the first
necessity, and this commerce has occupied the industry of several peoples
more or less fortunately placed.[g]
Let us go back to Roman times, and trace briefly the development of trade
routes.
THE COMMERCIAL FOREBEARS OF THE VENETIANS
The crowd of barbarian people who inundated the Roman Empire at the end
of its existence brought with it the germs of a new life; when Rome
had succumbed, these germs began to develop themselves in all parts of
Europe--races young and vigorous but still half barbarous came, all at
once, into the foreground of history; mingled with the people whom Rome,
up till now, had kept under the yoke, they founded new nationalities;
it was a general transformation in the state, in society, and in the
ways and customs. Nevertheless, this overthrow did not affect all the
conditions of the life of the people in the same degree. In the domain of
commercial life we do not find, on the threshold of the Middle Ages, any
event which approaches in importance the discovery of the sea route to
the East Indies and the discovery of America, events which coincide with
the beginning of the modern epoch, and which have unexpectedly opened new
paths for commerce.
Between antiquity and the Middle Ages the transition was less abrupt; the
commercial intercourse and markets remained, generally, the same as of
old. Since the conquests of Alexander had brought the civilised people of
the West into contact with the remote East, the main currents of commerce
set thitherward, for there was the source of production of those articles
which had become necessary to the insatiable masters of the world. From
the Indies were obtained those spices which the Greeks and Romans put
into their food to heighten its flavour, the greater part of the perfumes
which they sprinkled on their persons and in their apartments, and the
ivory with which they made their precious utensils. China furnished the
silk with which the women, and later on, with the growth of luxury, even
the men of the imperial epoch loved to clothe themselves; for jewels,
the mountains of Persia and India sent their precious stones; the Indian
Ocean, its pearls.
Little by little, this commerce increased to such an extent, that in the
time of Pliny, the Roman Empire expended each year in Asia, in payment of
merchandise obtained from thence, 100,000,000 sesterces (about £800,000),
of which India alone absorbed one-half. In the Middle Ages, the Levant
was still the principal goal of the merchant of the West. The commodities
which later generations brought from America, such as sugar and cotton,
were then obtained from Smyrna, Asia Minor, or Cyprus; condiments from
India, spices and especially pepper, were some of the most highly
appreciated commodities at this period. But if we seek the origin of the
delicate fabrics, or the carpets which were used at the courts and among
the wealthy burghers of the Middle Ages, we have almost always to go to
the East. Thence came the raw material, very often the tissue or the
embroidery, and finally the name of the material.
[Illustration: A VENETIAN BRONZE KNOCKER]
As trade followed the same lines as in ancient days, so the great
commercial routes remained the same. To obtain the products of the
Levant, the merchantmen of the West, not knowing the route by the Cape
of Good Hope, confined themselves to the short voyage through the
Mediterranean or the waters which communicate directly with it. There
they were certain to find, along the shore, markets already famous in
ancient times, Alexandria, Tyre, Berytus, Antioch, Byzantium, Trebizond;
the creation of a new market was a great exception. Merchandise still
arrived at the ports of the Mediterranean or of the Pontus from the
remote East by the old ways of the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf; that
coming from the centre of Asia overland still followed the route we find
already quoted in Greek and Roman geographies from the narratives of the
merchants.
The only elements which had changed in commerce were the mediums;
Italians, Provençals, and Catalans had taken the place of Greeks and
Romans as commercial nations. But, with respect to this, do not let
us forget that the transition between antiquity and the Middle Ages
was gradual. In fact, when the empire was divided into two parts, the
Byzantine half had inherited the commerce of the East as a natural result
of its geographical situation. Having survived invasions, it played the
part of medium in the commercial relations between the West and the East,
until the time when the citizens of the sea-port towns of Italy, southern
France, and Spain were grown strong enough to do without one.
We possess a sufficient number of documents dating from the time of
Justinian (527-565 A.D.) to make a complete picture of the state of the
East at this time, from the commercial point of view. The most remote
countries of Asia with which the Greeks of Byzantium maintained a regular
commerce were also those which furnished the most precious and choice
products. For centuries, the silk industry had flourished in China, but
the secret of it had been so well kept that strangers had never been able
to learn the process of its manufacture. At length there came a time when
another country was able, in its turn, to cultivate this important branch
of industry. This good fortune fell to the lot of the small kingdom of
Khotan, in the centre of Asia, in consequence of the marriage of its
king with a Chinese princess who, it is said, betrayed the secret of her
compatriots and, managing to elude the supervision of the custom-house
officers, brought silkworms, eggs, and the seeds of the mulberry tree
into her new country.
We cannot say with certainty whether, in the seventh century, the
manufacture of silk had already spread from the East to the West, and
passed beyond the borders of Khotan, but we may assume that the greater
part of the silk which the western merchants received came from China.
The Chinese exported their products themselves; but at this time, with
rare exceptions, their ships only conveyed them as far as Ceylon, and
their caravans did not go beyond the frontiers of Turkestan. There other
nations received the precious wares and carried them farther west. But it
is difficult to make a distinction, for the ancient classical writers,
and those of the Byzantine epoch after them, gave the name of Seres, not
only to the producers of silk, but also to the various peoples engaged in
its distribution.
Such a silk-trading nation were the inhabitants of Sogdiana, in the
lowlands of Bokhara, a race distinguished from the remotest times for
their taste and aptitude for commerce. The silk was brought to them by
caravans from China, and they, in their turn, conveyed it either to the
markets of the north of Iran, or to those south of the Caspian Sea. Our
sources of information do not, indeed, positively state this as a fact.
In his chronicle, Theophanes of Byzantium [j] relates that the markets
and ports frequented by the silk merchants had changed masters three
times at short intervals; having originally been in the possession of
the Persians, they were taken from them by the so-called White Huns (the
Yue-thsi or Yuechi of the Chinese), and finally were occupied by the
Turks.
By whatever route the silk was conveyed, the Persians always endeavoured
to receive it first, and they watched jealously that it did not reach
the Romans of the East by any other route than that which traversed
their country or by any other hands than theirs. Nevertheless, a certain
portion of the silk was despatched from China to Ceylon by sea; there
it was transhipped and reached the Persian Gulf by the west coast of
India and the south coast of Carmania. It is obvious that when Chinese
wares followed the sea route, they might escape the Persians, for from
Ceylon it was possible to take them by the south of Arabia and Ethiopia.
Herein lay a danger to the Persian monopoly which the emperor Justinian
contrived to turn to his advantage. The Byzantines found it a great
hardship to be reduced to having no other intermediaries for these, to
them indispensable, articles than the Persians. There was no other nation
with whom they were so frequently at war, and how could they see with
indifference their own merchants supplying their enemies with enormous
sums in payment for the silks they purchased; or how bear patiently the
frequent interruptions to trade due to a state of warfare?
With a view to remedying these inconveniences, the emperor Justinian
attempted in the year 532 to open a road for the silk trade through
Ethiopia; the Ethiopians could, he thought, purchase the silk from the
Indians, and sell it to the Byzantines. Their king, an ally of Byzantium,
allured by the prospect of gain, entered into the emperor’s views. But
when his subjects arrived at the ports which the vessels from India had
just entered, they found the Persians masters of the situation in their
double capacity of neighbours and ancient clients; they were forced
to return empty-handed, and the Persians remained, for the nonce, in
uncontested possession of their monopoly.
When it was proved that the Ethiopians were neither strong nor
enterprising enough to wrest the silk trade from the hands of the
Persians, the problem seemed, for an instant, insoluble. Happily
Justinian succeeded in securing some silkworms’ eggs, brought back by
missionary monks who had penetrated to the heart of the countries which
produced them, probably to Khotan (about the year 552). Thus it is that
the manufacture of silk was introduced into the Grecian Empire, and from
the year 568 Justin II, the successor to Justinian, was able to show it
in full activity to a Turkish ambassador who happened to be at his court.
Many years elapsed, it is true, before sufficient raw silk was produced
in Greece to satisfy the demands of the native industry. For a long time
the greater part of the raw material and the better qualities of silk
had to be brought from China, and the exorbitant claims of the Persian
middlemen to be endured.
But the Persians were not merely transmitters, they were manufacturers
also. Hwen Tsang, who traversed the eastern frontier of Persia at the
beginning of the seventh century, says that the Persians were skilled in
the weaving of silken or woollen stuffs and carpets, and that products of
their industry were highly prized in the neighbouring kingdoms. They were
assisted by foreign workmen, who came to settle in Persia voluntarily
or under coercion from the Asiatic countries subject to Byzantium. By
the adoption of an unwise system of monopoly ruinous to the silk-weavers
of his country, Justinian promoted their emigration in large numbers to
Persia, others were brought there by force by King Sapor II as part of
the spoils he brought back from his victorious campaign in Mesopotamia
and Syria. A tradition current several generations later traced the
origin of the silk manufacture in Tuster, Susa, and other Persian cities,
to the colonies of Greek craftsmen.
To satisfy the luxury of the Sassanidian court, quantities of stuffs of
great value were necessary. When the victorious Greek army, led by the
emperor Heraclius against the Persians, took possession of the royal
castle of Dastagerd, in the year 627, they found there a quantity of
raw silk and piles of silken garments, embroidered carpets, and other
articles of this kind. It is permissible to suppose that they were of
native manufacture. The spoil gained on this occasion comprised other
things worthy of note. Large quantities of spices, evidently of Indian
origin, pepper, ginger, aloes, and aloe-wood (_agallochum_) fell into
the hands of the victors; they were consigned to the flames with the
rest, as it was impossible to carry everything off. Let us add that in
the year 636-637, at the storming of Madain (Ctesiphon), the capital
of the Sassanid Empire, by the Arabs, there were found large supplies
of musk, amber, sandalwood, and enough camphor to freight a ship; this
last produced nowhere but in the islands beyond India. The Arabs were
so ignorant of its uses, that they proposed to use it to flavour their
bread. All this proves to us that the luxury of the Sassanidian court was
one of the principal causes which turned the stream of Levantine commerce
towards Persia.
After the Persians had levied their supplies on the merchandise in
transit, there yet remained enormous quantities which passed directly
into the Byzantine Empire.[h] These goods were brought across Lake
Aral or down the Oxus into the Caspian Sea. From this sea they entered
the Volga, which flows into it, and thence were carried as far as that
place, which is eighteen miles from the Tanaïs. Man had even tried to
dig a canal of communication between the two rivers. Arrived in the
Tanaïs, Asiatic productions thence descended into the Palus-Mæotis,
crossed the Black Sea, and went to fill the stores of Constantinople,
then the most flourishing town in the world. An Armenian king thought of
shortening this journey by avoiding the Volga, Tanaïs, and Palus-Mæotis.
He established direct communication between the Cyrus, which flows
into the Caspian Sea, and the Phasis, which runs towards the end of
the Pontus-Euxinus. The crossing by land was only fifteen leagues. One
hundred and twenty bridges were thrown between the mountains to make this
route practicable for commerce, and these still witness to the greatness,
utility, and difficulties of the enterprise.
So long as commerce followed this route it enriched the maritime towns
of Kaffa, Trebizond, Sinope, and Byzantium, on the Black Sea. The greed
of the Tatars multiplied dangers on this route; they diverted towards
Lake Aral the Gihon and the Sihun, two rivers which discharged into the
Caspian Sea, and thus destroyed one of the communications between India
and Europe. Saracen industry reopened communication with the Red Sea,
Egypt, and Alexandria, and all the Syrian ports became marts for oriental
merchandise. This furnished the opportunity to the Venetian trader.
Never did people destined to rise to such great commercial enterprise
begin under narrower circumstances. The Venetians had no territory. They
were tributary to their neighbours for all necessaries of life, and had
nothing to offer in exchange save fish and salt--natural products, of
which man could not considerably augment the value. Yet, inasmuch as the
profits of this commerce were mediocre, so it was important to extend
them. To increase the consumption of fish, it was necessary to prepare it
in such a way that it would keep; and to have no rivals in the sale of
salt, it was imperative to sell at the lowest price.
The very poor profits that the islanders could make on these two objects
furnished them the means of buying larger products from the neighbouring
coasts. Wood from Dalmatia they made into boats, their islands became
dockyards that provided means of navigation on the neighbouring rivers
and ports. In proportion as the towns of Aquila, Padua, and Ravenna
acquired prosperity, so handicraft became dearer, and the inhabitants
more disdainful of this kind of work. Thus to the Venetians there
resulted not only the advantage of selling objects augmented in value
by their labour, but the still greater one of perfecting themselves in
the art of naval construction, while other peoples did not make similar
progress. Moreover, they always found plenty of material, and could
consequently always increase their marine. Their commerce becoming more
profitable, they transported into their isles other rough products,
higher priced and capable of receiving a still greater value when worked;
flax and hemp to make naval equipage, iron to forge anchors and arms.
These were the things which they bartered for the coveted products of the
East. Growing still richer, they exercised their talents on things more
valuable--wool, cotton, silk, silver, gold, even making a high-priced
ware of such common material as glass.[g]
Indeed, the manufacture of ornamental glass vessels became so
distinctively a Venetian specialty, and one carried to such unrivalled
perfection, that a more detailed reference to this branch of manufacture
may well occupy our attention.[a]
VENETIAN GLASS
The glass manufactories, to believe the Venetian authors, were almost
contemporaneous with the founding of the city itself. A great event which
marked the beginning of the twelfth century was the means of increasing
their prosperity, and contributed to the introduction of art into a
manufacture until then purely industrial. The Venetian Republic had,
in short, participated in the taking of Constantinople by the Latins
(1204), and imbued as she was with the spirit of commerce, she sought
to derive every possible advantage from this victory, in favour of her
dawning manufactures. The glass manufactories of the Eastern Empire were
inspected by agents of the republic, and Greek workmen were allured
to Venice. It is certain that, to date from the end of the thirteenth
century, an uninterrupted series may be produced of acts of the Venetian
government, which prove both the importance of the glass manufactories
from that remote period, and the special interest ever taken by the
state in the cultivation of the art, which, to use the expression of a
Venetian writer, it guarded as the apple of its eye. In this it displayed
great sagacity, since for many centuries the four quarters of the world
were inundated by the various productions of the glass manufactories of
Venice; and the sums of money procured to the republic by this branch of
industry alone would utterly defy calculation.
From the end of the thirteenth century, the manufactories of glass had
so multiplied in the interior of Venice, that the city was incessantly
exposed to fires. In 1287, a decree of the great council prohibited
any manufactory of glass to be established within the city, unless by
the proprietor of the house in which it was to be carried on. As this
exception in favour of the proprietors perpetuated the inconveniences
which the government had endeavoured to guard against, a new decree
was issued on the 8th of October, 1291, by which all the manufactories
of glass still existing in the interior of Venice were ordered to be
demolished and removed out of the city.
It was then that choice was made of the island of Murano, which is only
separated from Venice by a canal of small extent, for establishing in
it the manufactories of glass. In a few years, the whole island was
covered with glass manufactories of various descriptions. But a new
decree of the 11th of August, 1592, modified the rigour of the previous
regulations in favour of the manufactories of small glassware (_fabbriche
di conterie_) for the making of beads, false stones, and glass jewels.
These were now allowed to be set up in the very interior of Venice, with
the sole condition of their being insulated at least five paces from any
habitation.
This favour granted to glass jewelry proceeded from the immense trade in
it carried on by Venice at that period, and the government was careful
in no way to check a branch of industry which extended its relations in
Africa and Asia, and consequently favoured the extension of its navy,
upon which depended the increase of the power of the republic.
The Venetian glass-makers were soon engaged almost exclusively in this
branch of its manufacture, a circumstance which may be accounted for as
follows: About 1250, a Venetian Matteo Polo and his brother Niccolo,
father of the celebrated Marco Polo, were attracted by commercial views
to Constantinople. In 1256 they both visited the khan of Tatary, who
inhabited the banks of the Volga. War having obliged them to leave the
states of Bereke,[19] in which they had been stopping, they passed on to
Bokhara, to the south of the Caspian Sea, and afterwards proceeded to the
court of Kublai, great khan of the Tatars, whose sovereignty extended
over the greater part of Asia. On their return to their own country,
after twenty years’ absence, they found Marco Polo, whom they had left
in the cradle. Their narrations inflamed the imagination of the young
man, who desired to accompany his father and uncle in a new journey, on
which they set out. Marco Polo went with them in 1271. In 1274 he arrived
at the court of Kublai-Khan, attached himself to the service of that
monarch, became governor of one of his provinces, and was trusted by him
with the most important missions.
Extensive travels, and the duties of his high station, filled up the
best years of Marco Polo’s life. On returning to Venice, in 1295, after
having explored the greater part of Central Asia, the shores and islands
of the Indian Ocean, and those of the Persian Gulf, he pointed out to his
fellow-citizens, whose intrepidity as navigators was equal to their love
of enterprise as merchants, the routes they must follow to spread the
productions of European industry over Tatary, India, and even as far as
China; he described the manners of the people who inhabited these immense
regions, and their extraordinary predilection for beads, coloured stones,
and jewels of every description, with which they were fond of adorning
their persons and of decorating their garments. Nothing more was needed
to excite the industrial and mercantile spirit of the Venetians. The
glass-makers particularly devoted themselves more zealously than ever to
the manufacture of beads and glass jewels (_arte del margaritaio_, _arte
del perlaio_), a manufacture which, from that time, formed a totally
distinct branch from that of glass vessels (_fabbriche di vassellami o
recipiendi di vetro e cristallo_). The names of Cristoforo Briani and of
Domenico Miotto have been handed down to us as having been the inventors
of coloured beads (_margarite_), and as having also been the first
glass-makers who turned their attention to the imitation of precious
stones.
This Miotto having been successful in a large speculation he had made
at Bassora, almost all the Venetian glass-makers applied themselves to
the manufacture of these objects, which were soon dispersed over Egypt,
Ethiopia, and Abyssinia, along the coasts of North Africa, over central
Asia, India, and even as far as China.
This commercial movement would necessarily retard during the course
of the fourteenth century, any progress in the manufacture of glass
vessels; in fact, all the information existing upon the glass-making
of Venice at this period refers for the most part only to the making
of the margarite, which were a source of such commercial advantages to
the republic. Carlo Marino quotes a document from which it appears that
a certain Andolo de Savignon, Genoese ambassador at the court of the
emperor of China, obtained from the great council full powers to export
this same glass jewellery to a very considerable amount. We learn also,
from the inventories of the fourteenth century, that at that period
richly ornamented vases of glass were still obtained from the East. Yet
the manufacturers of glass vessels were already endeavouring to procure
the documents most needed for the improvement of their productions. The
learned Morelli has given an extract from a manuscript contained in the
Naniana library, and dating from the fourteenth century, which gives
an account of the processes employed by the Greeks for rendering glass
colourless and spotless, for gilding and staining it, and for covering it
with paintings.
The invasion of the Eastern Empire by the Turks, and the taking of
Constantinople in 1453, which occasioned the immigration of so many
artists into Italy, was beneficial to glass-making, as well as to the
other industrial arts. To date from the fifteenth century, we find
the manufacture of glass vessels taking a new direction. The Venetian
glass-makers borrowed from the Greeks all their processes for colouring,
gilding, and enamelling glass; and the Renaissance having restored a
taste for the fine forms of antiquity, the art of glass-making followed
the movement given by the great artists at that period who rendered Italy
illustrious; and vases were produced in no wise inferior in form to those
bequeathed by antiquity. Coccius Sabellicus,[k] a Venetian historian of
the fifteenth century, affords us evidence of the admiration excited in
his time by the beautiful and varied productions of the Venetian glass
manufactories.
At the end of the fifteenth century, or rather in the first years of the
sixteenth, the Venetian glass-makers distinguished themselves by a new
invention, that of vases enriched with filagrees of glass, either white
or coloured, which twisted themselves into a thousand varied patterns,
and appeared as if encrusted in the middle of the paste of the colourless
and transparent crystal. This invention, which, while it enriched the
vases with an indestructible ornamentation, preserved at the same time
their light and graceful forms, gave a new impulse to the manufactories
of glassware, and caused their beautiful productions to be even more
sought after by every nation of Europe. Accordingly the Venetian
government used every possible precaution to prevent the secret of this
new manufacture from being discovered, or Venetian workmen from carrying
away this branch of industry to other nations.
Already, in the thirteenth century, a decree of the great council had
prohibited the exportation, without the authority of the state, of
the principal materials used in the composition of glass. On the 13th
of February, 1490, the superintendence of the manufactories of Murano
was intrusted to the chief of the Council of Ten, and, on the 27th of
October, 1547, the council reserved to itself the care of watching over
the manufactories to prevent the art of glass-making from being carried
abroad. Yet all these precautions did not appear to have been sufficient,
and the inquisition of the state, in the twenty-sixth article of its
statutes, announced the following decision: “If a workman transport his
art into a foreign country to the injury of the republic, a message
shall be sent to him to return; if he does not obey, the persons most
nearly related to him shall be put into prison. If, notwithstanding
the imprisonment of his relatives, he persists in remaining abroad, an
emissary shall be commissioned to put him to death.” M. Daru, who, in
his _Histoire de la république de Venise_, has given us the text of this
decree, which he had copied from the archives of the republic, adds that,
in a document deposited in the archives of foreign affairs, two instances
were recorded of the execution of this punishment on some workmen whom
the emperor Leopold had enticed into his states.
If the government of Venice thought it needful, on the one hand, to
display all its severity against the glass-makers who should thus betray
the interests of their country, it, on the other hand, loaded with
favours those who remained faithful to its service, and great privileges
were accorded to the island of Murano. From the thirteenth century, the
inhabitants of Murano, for instance, obtained the rights of citizens of
Venice, which rendered them admissible to all the high offices of the
state.[i]
OTHER MANUFACTURES
Needless to say, glass production was not the only manufacturing industry
that flourished in Venice. From an early time there were brass or iron
foundries, or both, in operation there; but much more important forms of
manufacture than these were the making of cloth-of-gold and of purple
dye. These with glass-making were the most ancient, the most extensive,
and the most celebrated of Venetian industries.[a]
[Illustration: KNOCKER FROM THE PALAZZO CRIMANI]
The trade in cloths-of-gold in the form of mantles or _pallii_, for
either sex, was prodigious; and the profit arising to the Venetians
from this source alone was incalculably large; the courts of France
and Germany, and more particularly the former, were among the best
customers of the republic. Charlemagne himself was seldom seen without
a robe of Venetian pattern and texture; and the constant intercourse
which the patriarch Fortunato maintained with the son of Pepin, had at
least the good effect of spreading the knowledge and appreciation of the
manufactures of his country to the banks of the Seine and the Loire.
It was a point of policy which the republic steadily observed from the
beginning, to make every extension of territory, every treaty of peace,
beneficial to her interests as a mercantile power.[e]
The activity of all this industry increased the population, and this
led to increased consumption of every kind, this again leading to new
speculations and returns. The Venetians were no longer satisfied to go
and buy raw materials of the foreigner, but sought to make the country
produce them. Troops of sheep were reared in Polesine, and were sent into
the mountains of eastern Istria. The hill-sides of Friuli were covered
with mulberry trees. An attempt was made to naturalise the sugar-cane in
the isles of the Levant.[g]
THE SLAVE TRADE
But after all it was as a commercial rather than as a manufacturing city
that Venice was really great, and nature intended her for the former,
not for the latter. It was in transporting or bartering with the produce
of other peoples that her chief interest lay. In general, no more worthy
passport to fame could be desired by a people than comes through such
commercial enterprises. There was one phase of commerce, however, which
forms an ugly blot on the otherwise pleasant picture. This is the slave
trade. In carrying out this nefarious business the Genoese and Venetian
merchants found, at one time, an important source of revenue. The chief
market was Egypt.[a]
It appears that the mameluke sultans who governed Egypt from the middle
of the thirteenth century, finding only insufficient resources for
recruiting their armies in a native population little fitted for the
profession of arms, had recourse to another quarter: the purchase of
slaves, natives of the countries of the north. On the other hand, in
order to fill their harems and those of the great men of the court,
female slaves were brought in and were frequently renewed. They therefore
sent agents in search of slaves of either sex wherever they could obtain
them, even from Christian countries--Armenia Minor, for instance. The
religion to which they had belonged was of little consequence; if they
were Christians their new masters soon made converts of them. However,
the Egyptian agents by preference visited the countries where Islam was
the dominant religion, and _vice versa_ the merchants from Mussulman
countries brought troops of slaves to Egypt to sell them. So it was
especially the ports of Adalia and Candelore, situated in that part
of Asia Minor which had been subjugated by the Seleucidæ, which sent
young boys and young girls into Egypt. When Hadrianopolis and Gallipoli
had fallen into the power of the Osmanlis, it was from these two towns
that Greek or Christian vessels started, carrying slaves by hundreds to
Damietta or Alexandria.
But this trade attained its most flourishing condition in the countries
bordering the Black Sea. The development of the power of the mameluke
sultans in Egypt and the propagation of Islam in the great Mongol Empire
of Kiptchak by the khan Bereke had occurred almost simultaneously, and
these events were the occasion of an active exchange of correspondence
and embassies between the masters of the two countries. From this time,
the agents charged with the purchase of slaves for the sultans directed
their search especially towards the northern shores of the Black Sea,
and Sultan Bibars by embassies and presents succeeded in obtaining from
Michael Palæologus, who, it appears, was not aware of the importance of
the concession which he was asked to make, permission to send Egyptian
trading vessels through the Bosporus. Permission was granted only for
one vessel which was to make, once a year, the voyage to the Black Sea,
there and back; but instead of only one there were often two, and their
cargo on the return voyage consisted of slaves destined to reinforce the
sultan’s troops. It must be observed that the condition in which this
region then was could not have been more favourable to the development
of this kind of trade. Although the Tatars were solidly settled in
their empire of Kiptchak, there were still some unsubdued tribes, and
between them the normal state was one of war--skirmishing war in which
Circassians, Russians, Magyars, and Alajans carried off, each in their
turn, Tatar children whom they sold as slaves. Moreover the Tatars
reserved the same fate for the prisoners whom they brought back from
their raids in the Caucasus. And furthermore, among these savage tribes,
when provisions were too dear or taxes too heavy, nothing was more
common than to see parents selling their own children, especially their
daughters. Naturally, it was only the strong, healthy, and well-formed
who were put up for sale. But along the whole of the coast neither the
Tatars nor the tribes whom they had subdued possessed large trading
ports. Kaffa, Tana, etc., were in the hands of the Italians, and so it
happened that the slave trade was concentrated in the Italian marts, and
especially at Kaffa. This latter town was the habitual resort of the
agents charged with the purchase of slaves for the sultans of Egypt; a
certain number of them even lived there permanently.
The Genoese were obliged to permit the embarkation of slaves for Egypt
to take place in their port of Kaffa; if they had placed difficulties
in the way of the sultan’s agents, they would have risked compromising
their own commercial relations with Egypt to the greatest extent, and
even the existence of their colonies. Besides, this trade was severely
controlled by the colonial authorities. Every slave passing through
underwent examination; he was asked if he were Mussulman or Christian. If
he was of the Christian faith or if he expressed a wish to be converted,
the consul of Kaffa ransomed him and kept him in his possession; he
allowed only Mussulmans to leave. Slaves who wished to become Christians
also found a refuge in the bishop’s house, respected by the civil
authorities. Moreover, the government watched with the greatest care that
no inhabitant of Kaffa was carried away into slavery. Finally, there
was a tax upon the slave trade, and the republic of Genoa enforced it
energetically in 1431, in spite of the complaint of Sultan Barsabay, who,
in retaliation, imposed a tax of 16,000 ducats on the Genoese merchants
settled in Egypt.
So, legally, the slave trade was tolerated by the Genoese colonial
authorities only for Mussulmans and on condition that the transport
leaving for Egypt should be carried out by merchants of their religion
and in their own ships. Captains of Genoese ships were formally
forbidden, under pain of heavy fines, to ship mamelukes of either sex
for the purpose of carrying them into Egypt, Barbary, or the parts of
Spain occupied by the Saracens; no Genoese was allowed to take part in
this trade in any manner whatever. In the same way, on the departure from
Tana, the Venetian galleys were forbidden to receive on board Mussulman
or Tatar slaves destined to be sent into Turkish territory. These rules,
however, did not prevent certain Christians from the northern shores of
the Black Sea from sending slaves into Egypt. In 1307, the colonists of
Kaffa themselves stole Tatar children to sell them to the Mussulmans
(that is, to send them to Egypt). In 1371, a certain Niccolo di S.
Giorgio went to Kaffa and gave himself out as a “dealer in slaves.” We do
not know if he traded with Egypt, but, at the beginning of the fourteenth
century, a Genoese, named Segurano Salvago, went himself with slaves of
both sexes to the sultan of Egypt; another, named Gentile Imperiali,
accepted the post of agent for the sultan at Kaffa for the purchase
of slaves. Many Genoese also assisted indirectly in the transport of
slaves to Egypt; the means consisted simply in hiring their vessels for
this purpose to Mussulman slave merchants. Thus the complaints of Pope
John XXII were well-founded, when before the whole world he accused
the Genoese of contributing to increase the power of the infidels by
furnishing them with slaves. Nearly a century later, at Kaffa, Tana, and
other places, Christians and Jews bought Zichians, Russians, Alajans,
Mingrelians, and Abkas and sold them again to the Saracens, with a profit
often ten times as great as the price of purchase. These unhappy people,
who had been baptised according to the Greek rite, were forced to deny
their faith, and might esteem themselves happy if they did not become the
victims of the masters who employed them for their infamous pleasures.
Informed of this scandal, Martin V thundered excommunication against all
the Christians who took part in it, while as for the Jews, he decreed
that those proved guilty of it should be condemned to wear special marks
on their clothes (1425).
In this manner, there arrived every year in the great market of Cairo,
by way of Damietta or of Alexandria, about two thousand mamelukes, whom
the sultan caused to be priced by skilful experts. The subjects who
fetched the highest prices were the Tatars; they were worth from 130 to
140 ducats a head; for a Circassian they paid from 110 to 120 ducats, for
a Greek about 90, for an Albanian, a Slavonian or a Serbian, from 70 to
80. The merchants had the double advantage of making large profits and
of receiving tokens of the sovereign’s gratitude for the services they
rendered to Islam.
The eastern slaves sent towards the northern shores of the Black Sea did
not all leave with the large convoys for Egypt and Mohammedan countries
in general; there are many examples of sale and purchase by members of
the colonies themselves. Among others a certain Fatima may be mentioned,
whose name evidently proclaims her Mussulman origin. She was bought in
the first place by a Genoese, named Nicoloso da Murto, and ceded by him
to the prior of the church of St. Laurence of the Genoese, who sold her
to a third Genoese for the sum of 400 new Armenian _dirhems_; bills
of sale of a similar kind which took place at Famagusta are still in
existence. Those who had taken the habit of having foreign slaves in
their service, during their residence in the colonies of the Levant,
brought the custom back with them, and by their example encouraged others
to introduce into their houses slaves bought at a distance, instead of
hired servants or work-people. No prohibition existed against this, and
the slave trade in itself was not considered disgraceful, provided that
the merchant abstained from trading with Egypt. A Genoese law of 1441
furnishes a decided proof of this. It forbids all captains of large
galleys armed for war, which went to fetch goods from Romania or Syria,
to receive slaves on board, but the reason was that all disposable space
might be reserved for goods, and it makes an exception in the case
where a merchant on board is bringing a slave with him for his personal
service. There were other vessels specially destined to the transport of
slaves, and in respect to them the law took only such measures as were
necessary to prevent crowding, which would have an injurious effect on
the health of the cargo; for example, a vessel with one deck could not
take more than thirty slaves on board, a vessel with two decks not more
than forty-five, and a vessel with three decks not more than sixty.
At this period it was an understood thing that a Christian might, without
scruple, treat as a slave any infidel who fell into his hands; and, for
the greater part, it was precisely the infidels, that is to say the
pagans or Mussulmans who formed the objects of this trade. The majority
of foreign slaves brought to the Occident came originally from the empire
of Kiptchak, situated at the south of Russia, as it now exists, and
belonged either to the Tatar race, the most important one of the country,
or to one of the tribes under its power--tribes generally called by the
same name; the Circassians and the Russians were far less numerous; then
came the Turks and Saracens, a name which was doubtless applied to
the Egyptians and Syrians; and lastly, but in very small numbers, came
Bulgarians, Slavonians, and Greeks. According to the ideas of the time,
it was only in connection with the last named that any doubt could arise
as to the legality of selling them as slaves, for they were Christians;
but in practice men did not inquire too closely. As for those who were
not members of the Christian religion, they were generally converted
shortly after their arrival in the West and then exchanged their
barbarous name for a Christian one; but, in spite of their conversion,
their masters had no scruple in keeping them as slaves, and even in
selling them again.
The very origin of the great majority of these slaves leads to the
supposition that the nations which had colonies on the shores of
the Black Sea, the Genoese and Venetians for example, were also the
nations more especially addicted to trade in slaves. As a matter of
fact hundreds, thousands even, were sent to Genoa and Venice, while
they were far rarer at Pisa, Florence, Lucca, and Barcelona. In 1368
there were such large numbers of them in Venice that their quarrelsome,
undisciplined masses formed an actual danger to the safety of the city.
The Tatars were not brought there separately, but sometimes whole
families of them together. From the seaports the slaves were sometimes
sent into the interior; thus we hear in 1463 of a confectioner of
Vigevano who had a Circassian slave girl, just as Marco Polo had a Tatar
slave at Venice. Merchants from Genoa and Kaffa even took slaves of both
sexes to the court of the German Empire, and the emperor Frederick III
gave them permission to exhibit them for sale.
[Illustration: A VENETIAN STATESMAN]
One of the interesting sides of the question we are now studying is
the proportion of slaves of either sex in different countries; there
was a marked difference in this respect between Egypt and the West. In
Egypt, in spite of a somewhat large demand for female slaves for the
harems, there was a still larger demand for male slaves, for they formed
the chief contingent of army-recruiting; in the West, on the contrary,
preference was given to young girls, and for various reasons: possessing
a more gentle disposition, they more easily adapted themselves to life
in general; then they were more apt than men for the domestic services
required of them; they learned manual work more easily; and lastly, most
of them were the instruments of their master’s pleasure. Which was the
more enviable fate--that of the men slaves in Egypt, or that of the women
slaves in Italy? It would be difficult to say. The former underwent much
rough treatment while they were in the ranks, but they could rise to
high posts in the army, and have sometimes even been seen seated on the
throne of the sultan: the others were treated more kindly; and indeed
their master not infrequently set them free, either during his life or by
his will, but they never occupied a really respected position among the
people.
Youth and health were the two qualities most esteemed; if the slave was
also beautiful, naturally his value increased. M. Cibrario has made
a list of the sales of slaves, the greater number of which occurred
at Genoa or Venice; he found fifty-three in the thirteenth century,
twenty-nine in the fourteenth, and twenty-eight in the fifteenth; he
noted that the prices increased from one century to the other; for
example, in the thirteenth century they varied between 200 and 300 lire;
in the following century bargains struck under 500 lire are rare; the
highest price rose to about 1400 lire; in the fifteenth century the
current price was more than 800 lire; in 1492 at Venice a young Russian
girl was even sold for 87 ducats, that is 2093 lire. In Tuscany, Bongi
found that prices varied from 50 to 75 gold crowns; the two highest
prices were 85 and 132 gold crowns, and they also were paid for Russian
slaves.
The most brilliant period of the slave trade at Genoa and Venice
corresponds to the most prosperous time at Kaffa and Tana. But, in
1395, Tamerlane struck a blow at the colony of Tana from which it never
recovered; then came the taking of Constantinople by Muhammed II; then
this same sultan forbade the Venetians, through the whole extent of his
empire, to transport Mussulman slaves; he only permitted Christian slaves
to be taken. These various blows caused the ruin of this branch of trade;
in 1459, loud complaint was made in the Venetian senate of the increasing
rarity of slaves. However, Felix Fabri estimated that, at the end of
the fifteenth century, there were still at Venice about three thousand
slaves, natives of the north of Africa and of Tatary; he only mentions
Slavonian slaves, without giving the number.[h]
THE DECLINE OF VENETIAN COMMERCE
Venetian commerce was at its height in the fifteenth century, and
Venice was the undisputed business centre of the world, but not long
after this the prosperity of the city began to decline. There was no
very sudden change, but a gradual alteration brought about by changed
exterior conditions.[a] Other European peoples had become commercial,
and naturally ceased to procure from Venice what they could themselves
provide. They became rivals to Venice in every market where the natives
carried on only a passive commerce. Asiatic merchandise changed its
course and no longer flowed into the Adriatic. Finally those arts which
contributed to the perfecting of industry progressed among other nations
so quickly that the Venetians could not keep pace. After the fifteenth
century many causes made the commerce decline pretty rapidly. The first
of these causes was the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, and the
policy of Sultan Suleiman, who, in 1530, undertook to make all Asiatic
merchandise pass by Constantinople, even that coming to Europe by Syria
and Egypt. They had succeeded in making the divan understand that there
was no advantage in making the merchandise take a long détour, resulting
only in augmenting the price without profit to the seller. Direct
communication with Egypt and Syria was allowed, but when the Turks were
masters of nearly all Greece and the Albanian coasts, they accustomed
caravans to arrive there bringing all the divers productions from the
East. Then the Venetians, always prompt to seize on this merchandise
at its landing point, themselves established at Spalato--which offered
a sure and convenient port--a bank, a hospital, and a fair. In the
seventeenth century Spalato became a commercial town more abundantly
furnished than any Levantine port, being particularly well situated to
receive productions from Persia and the Black Sea.
The second cause of decadence was the ill treatment of European merchants
by the Turks, who put a stop to the coming of the large Venetian fleets.
A third was the discovery of America, and of a way to India by the Cape
of Good Hope. A fourth was the ill-directed power of Charles V who, from
the beginning of his reign in 1517, doubled the custom-house duties
payable by the Venetians in his states, making them 20 per cent. on all
goods imported or exported. This was practically a prohibitive tariff.
Moreover Charles formally forbade entry to merchants who did not consent
to stop direct trading with Africa and to bring into his town of Oran
all merchandise they had to sell to the Moors. The new king of Spain
wanted to make of this town, where there were already celebrated fairs, a
central and general mart for all barbarian commerce. The Venetians would
not submit, and had to choose between the commerce of Africa and Spain.
Under the reign of Philip II, son of Charles V, the jealousy of Spanish
ministers against Venetian commerce continued to be shown. Many Venetian
merchants were annoyed in their undertakings, many of their ships were
retained in port or seized in open sea under various pretexts. It became
necessary to take marines on board to protect them against this species
of piracy. Finally, a fifth cause of the commercial decadence was the
loss of the isles of Cyprus and Candia. One is perhaps surprised at the
number of reasons which made for the downfall of Venetian commerce, yet
we have not taken account of the rivalry of Hanseatic towns, leagued
towards the end of the twelfth century. Their ambition was confined to
creating a northern commerce, while that of Venice was to retain that of
the south; the success of one meant partial failure of the other. The
state of navigation was such that it was impossible to make a journey to
the Baltic by the Mediterranean and return in one year. That is why the
town of Bruges had been chosen as an intermediate mart, where merchandise
from north and south could be exchanged.
THE BANK OF VENICE
It remains to say a few words on the Bank of Venice. Its antiquity,
which goes back to the twelfth century, that is further than any other
known bank, proves the priority of the Venetians in all commercial
establishments. This bank was a depot which opened a credit to investors
to facilitate payments and bills of exchange; that is, instead of paying
real money, cheques could be drawn on the bank. Bills on this bank could
be payable at sight, and the bank always justified public confidence. In
the early days there had been plenty of private banks, supported entirely
by public confidence. These were principally held by nobles. Later on the
government profited by suppressing them, in accordance with the law which
forbade commerce to aristocrats, and established a sole national bank,
placing it under the care of a prince, and taking account of all funds
deposited therein. This bank was a depository pure and simple. The banker
held no right of retention or commission and paid no interest. In order
to insure capitalists paying in, it was necessary that the credit of the
bank should be such that notes on the bank should count in business as
real money.
This is how it was managed. First there was an office where cheques
presented were cashed promptly in coin. By proving themselves able to do
this, fewer demands of the kind were made. There were in Venice several
kinds of money. The best was chosen for the bank. It was ruled that it
would only take or pay ducats of full value, whose quality was finer and
alloy less common. It resulted then that drawers of a bill on private
bankers had to run the risk of being paid in money of base alloy, whilst
the holder of credit on the bank was sure of receiving the best value.
This system won bank money a preference over that of current coin and
augmented the credit of the establishment.
Little by little the government introduced the custom of making certain
payments in bills on the bank instead of in coin. It began by admitting
these bills in public depositories without difficulty, and when this
usage was established a law regulated that money would be given at the
bank for bills of exchange, whether from home or abroad, when these
exceeded 300 ducats. It was forbidden to refuse these bills when there
was no contrary convention. This was almost giving them a forced value,
yet no violence was offered to public confidence. Thus specie was
virtually multiplied by making bank bills do duty for it. The value of
these bills being rigorously sustained, and their redemption in the
best coin assured on demand, this convenient form of currency naturally
became popular. As a result, the government found itself in possession
of a large mass of funds which it could use for itself without paying
interest. It would be very difficult to state the amount deposited in
this central commercial bank. It necessarily varied. Towards the middle
of the eighteenth century there were 5,000,000 ducats sterling; at the
end of that century 14,000,000 or 15,000,000.[g]
FOOTNOTES
[19] Brother or son of Batu, grandson of Jenghiz Khan.
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