Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/66

64 which must have been compiled between the years 735 and 766—we find a transcript of a foreign canon, prohibiting Christians from imitating the manners of that people, or partaking of their feasts. The Jews have been the introducers or chief encouragers of foreign commerce, especially in jewellery, articles made of the precious metals, and other such luxuries, in most of the countries of modern Europe.

From this date the history of Anglo-Saxon commerce is again nearly a blank till we come down to the reign of Alfred. Of this illustrious prince it is recorded that he cultivated an intercourse with distant countries, in which he seems to have had in view the extension of commerce as well as other objects. He appears to have kept up a frequent communication with Rome; and his biographer Asser states, that he also corresponded with Abel, the patriarch of Jerusalem, who sent him several valuable presents of Oriental commodities. His embassy to the Christians in India is mentioned, not only by Malmesbury and other authorities of the next age, but by the contemporary compiler of the Saxon Chronicle, who says that Swithelm, Bishop of Shireburn, made his way to St. Thomas, and returned in safety. Malmesbury gives Sighelm as the name of the adventurous bishop, and relates that he brought back from India aromatic liquors and splendid jewels ; some of the latter, the historian says, were still remaining in the treasury of his church when he wrote, in the twelfth century. Sighelm is stated to have left England in the year 883, and to have gone in the first instance to Rome, from which he probably sailed up the Mediterranean to Alexandria, and then made his way by Bassora to the Malabar coast, where it is certain that a colony of Syrian Christians, who regarded St. Thomas as their apostle, were settled from a very early period. Asser relates that he received, on one occasion, as a present from Alfred, a robe of silk, and as much incense as a strong man could carry ; these precious commodities may have been obtained from the East.

But the interest which Alfred took in hearing of remote parts of the earth is most distinctly shown in the accounts