Page:The influence of commerce on civilization (IA influenceofcomme00ellerich).pdf/20

14 and malignant growth of sacerdotalism, paralysing, as it did, the civilization of Northern Europe, gave birth to the Crusades. Here, again, commerce rose to the occasion. The Florentines and especially the Venetians (who threw their whole energy into the trade of the East) financed the Crusaders during the long era of the eight Crusades, on account of their knowledge and practice of the science of exchanges. In fact, the genesis of the science of foreign exchanges—one of the most important constituents in modern commercial operations—began in Italy. At a time when the Northern nations show signs of infancy of commerce merely, Italy was advanced in the art and practice to a most highly developed commercial and financial state. It is to her that we owe our system of book-keeping and the use of bills of exchange; and it is certain that Italy, by keeping her finger on the monetary pulsations of Europe, reaped her harvest from the bi-metallic fluctuations of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Trading to and having constant intercourse with the East, Venice had sent her great traveller, Marco Polo, to the distant realms of India and China. In China he was received by the Great Khan most hospitably, and the Khan was impressed by his skill in acquiring the language of the people of his dominions. Marco Polo visited many cities in China—amongst others, the great city of Chin-Chew, which city had an immense commerce extending to Arabia and the Persian Gulf. He was even, through his friendship with the Khan, made Governor of a province. On the great science of the foreign exchanges I shall have much, I hope, to say later on. We all know the graphic account in "Ivanhoe" of the payment by Gurth to Isaac the Jew of York, in golden Venetian byzants, for the hire of Ivanhoe's horse and suit of armour; and how, if the last piece had "rung a little less truly he would have given it to Gurth". The Jews were also a factor in the Middle Ages as to foreign exchanges—an art, let me say, they have never since forgotten. We also know the plot in Shakespeare's comedy, "The Merchant of Venice," beginning "Three thousand ducats and three months; well." This was on the Rialto, at Venice. The next