Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 87.djvu/64

60 commercial cities of lower Austria which at that time, and especially from the sixth to the twelfth century, were the depots and distributing centers of Oriental merchandise. Thither traders from the northernmost and westernmost sections of Europe came to supply themselves with the spices and rareties of the Orient. The Avars, who had settled in the valley of the Danube and who traveled back and forth in the wide valley of their choice, were the principal commissioners between Constantinople and the storing centers of Lower Austria.

At the apogee of Byzantine might the region occupied an eminently central location in the civilized world. In the sixth and seventh centuries from north to south and between east and west the Byzantine Empire was in every sense the country of the core. A large proportion of world commerce carried on between cardinal points of the compass passed through Eurasian waterways. This trade route grew in importance during succeeding centuries. It flourished especially throughout the period in which Italian cities acquired commercial supremacy.

Between the eighth and ninth centuries the commerce of Europe centered at Constantinople "more completely than it has ever since done in any one city." A commercial aristocracy was created in Byzantium as a result of this remarkable trade activity. The body of wealthy merchants rapidly acquired political power, and it became necessary for usurpers to obtain their support. Finlay, basing himself on Theophanes, records the case of Empress Irene, who was obliged to lower the toll levied at the straits of the Hellespont and the Bosporus in order to find favor with the business men of the capital at the time she was preventing her son from reigning.

In the course of the eight crusades between 1096 and 1270 the straits of the Bosporus provided easy passage from Europe into Asia to the soldiers of the cross marching against the infidel. Throughout the two centuries of faith-inspired fighting the nations of the world met in Constantinople. From the very start of the religious movement the bands of crusaders followed the roads provided by nature to this city, there to unite forces before proceeding through Asia Minor to Palestine. The four leaders of the first crusade set the precedent by convening in the Byzantine city. From Ratisbon along the valleys of the Danube, the Morava and Maritza, Godfrey of Bouillon led his host to the shores of the Bosporous. Adhemar of Puy and Raymond of Toulouse, proceeding from Burgundy through northern Italy, western Croatia and Bosnia, also attained the classic strait after crossing Albania, Macedonia and southern Thrace. The army of Bohemond and Tancred left Brindisi and landed in the bay of Valona, whence it was directed across the Balkan peninsula to the Byzantine capital. Robert of Flanders and Hugh of Vernandois marched through central Italy and, taking ship at Bari, crossed to Durazzo, there to begin the overland journey, the first