Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/228

200  only by s, through es easily defended by practised  against  who had never plied an, the  refugees could look in peace on the desolation which swept over ; their s, their s, their treasures were safe from ; and stretching their  over the , they found in it  and , and in the rich possessions of  and territory which it opened to them, more than compensation for the fat lands and inland s which had long been their home. The traded with, , , and. They became s of the, and of , , and other s of the. The of  with, though spoken of, was probably never great. But the s of the 12th and 13th centuries against the in  extended her repute more widely east and west, and increased both her  and her commercial resources. It is enough, indeed, to account for the grandeur of that in course of centuries, from the security of her position, the growth and energy of her, and the regularity of her  at a period when these sources of prosperity were rare, she became the great emporium of the —all that , , and  had been in a former age on a scene the most remarkable in the  for its  and facilities of ,—and that as  and other parts of the  became again more settled her commerce found always a wider range. The  of the   is deeply interesting, were this the proper place to do more than glance at the fortune of commerce and the circumstances and conditions under which it attains its grandest success. The built from the largest of the s to the opposite  became the &ldquo;,&rdquo; or famous  of, whose transactions reached farther, and assumed a more consolidated form, than had been known before. There it was where the first public was organized; that  were first negotiated, and funded  became transferable; that  became a, and  an. Nor must the effect of the example of on other  of  be left out of account. , following her steps, rose into great prosperity and power at the foot of the, and became her rival, and finally her enemy. ,, , many other s of , and herself, long after her fall, were encouraged to struggle for the preservation of their  , and to foster , , and , by the brilliant success set before them on the ; but , from the early start she had made, and her command of the , had the commercial pre-eminence.

The state of things which arose on the collapse of the presents two concurrent facts, deeply affecting the course of —(1)the ancient seats of and  were undergoing constant decay, while (2)the energetic s of  were rising into more  forms and manifold vigour and copiousness of life. The fall of the of  prolonged the effect of the fall of the ; and the advance of the  over,, , , over  and other possessions of  in the , over the richest s of , and finally across the  into the  s of , was a new irruption of  from another point of the , and revived the calamities and disorders inflicted by the successive invasions of , , and other. For more than ten centuries the naked power of the was vivid and terrible as flashes of  over all the seats of commerce, whether of ancient or more modern origin. The of, in organizing the open country under  and  subordinated in  and  under a  to each other and to the , must have been well adapted to the necessity of the times in which it spread so rapidly; but it would be impossible to say that the  was favourable to , or the extension of. The commercial spirit in the, as in preceding ages, had to find for itself places of security, and it could only find them in s, armed with powers of and defence, and prepared, like the  s themselves, to resist violence from whatever quarter it might come. , in her best s, had founded the system, and when this system was more than ever necessary as the  of  and s, its extension became an essential element of the whole an. s formed themselves into s for, and out of s not infrequently arose commercial s. The , founded as early as 1241, gave the first note of an increasing between countries on the  and in northern , which a century or two before were sunk in isolated. From and, commanding the  of the , it gradually spread over 85 s, including , , and  in the south, and , , and  in the north. The last trace of, long of much service in protecting , and as a means of , passed away the other  in the erection of the new , but only from the same cause that had brought about its gradual dissolution—the formation of powerful and  s—which, while leaving to the free  their , were well capable of protecting their mercantile interests. The of  found lasting strength and security from other causes. Their foundations were laid as literally in the as those of  had been. They were not easily attacked whether by or, and if attacked had formidable means of defence. The, which had been opened to the in 1282, carried into the s and s of  the  of the s of the , of the , and of the south of , and what the s did for  from without the  and the  did for  and  from the interior. By the in 1579  became an independent, and for long after, as it had been for some time before, was the greatest centre of   in. The rise of the power in a low country, exposed to the most destructive, difficult to  or even to inhabit, affords a striking illustration of those conditions which in all times have been found specially favourable to commercial development, and which are not indistinctly reflected in the mercantile  of , preserved by its  position from hostile invasions, and capable by its  and  to protect its goods on the s and the  of its  in foreign s. The progress of  and productive  in the , though not rising to much international , was very considerable both in quality and extent. The s of, which had no claim to rival or  in   or , developed a degree of , opulence, and refinement commanding the admiration of modern times; and if any  of trans- , when  had already attained some greatness, could have seen it 500 s afterwards, the many strong s of , , and the , the great number of their , the  of their s and s, and their various cunning workmanship might have added many a brilliant page to his. Two centuries before had discovered any, or knew even how to utilize her most valuable , and was importing goods from