The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (mini ebook reader .TXT) π
The Egyptians were islanders, cut off from the rest of the world by sand and sea. They were rooted in their valley; they lived entirely upon its fruits, and happily these fruits sometimes failed. Had they always been able to obtain enough to eat, they would have remained always in the semi-savage state.
It may appear strange that Egypt should have suffered from famine, for there was no country in the ancient world where food was so abundant and so cheap. Not only did the land produce enormous crops of corn; the ditches and hollows which were filled by the overflowing Nile supplied a harvest of wholesome and nourishing aquatic plants, and on the borders of the des
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drove the Arabs out of Syria, killed many pilgrims, stripped
them of all their money, and if they found none outside their
bodies, probed them with daggers, or administered emetics in
the hope of finding some within. When the pilgrims returned,
they related their sufferings, and showed their scars. The
anger of Christendom was aroused. A crusade was preached, and
the enthusiasm which everywhere prevailed enabled the Church to
exercise unusual powers. The Pope decreed that the men of the
cross should be hindered by none. Creditor might not arrest;
master might not detain. To those who joined the army of the
Church, absolution was given; and paradise was promised in the
Moslem style to those who died in the campaign. The tidings
flew from castle to castle, and from town to town; there was
not a land, however remote, which escaped the infection of the
time. In the homely language of the monk of Malmesbury, βthe
Welshman left his hunting, the Scotch his fellowship with
vermin, the Dane his drinking party, the Norwegian his raw
fish.β Europe was torn up from its foundations and hurled upon
Asia. Society was dissolved. Monks, not waiting for the
permission of their superiors, cast off their black gowns and
put on the buff jerkin, the boots and the sword. The serf left
his plough in the furrow, the shepherd left his flock in the
field. Men servants and maid servants ran from the castle.
Wives insisted upon going with their husbands, and if their
husbands refused to take them, went with some one else.
Murderers, robbers, and pirates declared that they would wash
out their sins in pagan blood. In some cases, the poor rustic
shod his oxen like horses, and placed his whole family in a
cart, and whenever he came to a castle or a town, inquired
whether that was Jerusalem. The barons sold or mortgaged their
estates, indifferent about the future, hoping to win the wealth
of Eastern princes with the sword. During two hundred years,
the natives of Europe appeared to have no other object than to
conquer or to keep possession of the Holy Land.
The Christian knights were at length driven out of Asia; in the
meantime, Europe was transformed. The kings had taken no part
in the first crusades; the estates of the barons had been
purchased partly by them, and partly by the burghers. An
alliance was made between Crown and Town. The sovereignty of
the castle was destroyed. Judges appointed by the king
travelled on circuit through the land; the Roman law, from being
municipal became national; the barons became a nobility
residing chiefly at the court; the middle class came into life.
The burghers acknowledged no sovereign but the king: they
officered their own trainbands; they collected their own taxes;
they were represented in a national assembly at the capital.
New tastes came into vogue; both mind and body were indulged
with dainty foods. The man of talent, whatever his station,
might hope to be ennobled; the honour of knighthood was
reserved by the king, and bestowed upon civilians. The spices
of the East, the sugar of Egypt and Spain, the silk of Greece
and the islands were no longer occasional luxuries, but
requirements of daily life. And since it was considered
unworthy of a gentleman to trade, the profits of commerce were
monopolised by the third estate. Education was required for
mercantile pursuits; it was at first given by the priests who
had previously taught laymen only to repeat the paternoster
and the credo, and to pay tithes. Schools were opened in the
towns, and universities became secular. The rich merchants took
a pride in giving their sons the best education that money
could obtain, and these young men were not always disposed to
follow commercial pursuits. They adopted the study of the law,
cultivated the fine arts, made experiments in natural
philosophy, and were often sent by their parents to study in
the land beyond the Alps, where they saw something which was in
itself an education for the burgher mind β merchants dwelling
in palaces, seated upon thrones, governing great cities,
commanding fleets and armies, negotiating on equal terms with
the proudest and most powerful monarchs of the North.
Italy, protected by its mountain barrier, had not been so
frequently flooded by barbarians as the provinces of Gaul and
Spain. The feudal system was there established in a milder
form, and the cities retained more strength. Soon they were
able to attack the castle lords, to make them pull down their
towers, and to live like peaceable citizens within the walls.
The Emperor had little power; Florence, Genoa, and Pisa grew
into powerful city states resembling those of Italy before the
rise of ancient Rome, but possessing manufactures which, in the
time of ancient Italy, had been confined to Egypt, China, and
Hindustan.
The origin of Venice was different from that of its sister
states. In the darkest days of Italy, when a horde of savage
Huns, with scalps dangling from the trappings of their horses,
poured over the land, some citizens of Padua and other
adjoining towns took refuge in a cluster of islands in the
lagoons which were formed at the mouths of the Adige and the
Po. From Rialto, the chief of these islands, it was three miles
to the mainland; a mile and a half to the sandy breakwater
which divided the lagoons from the Adriatic. At high water the
islands appeared to be at sea; but when the tide declined, they
rose up from the midst of a dark green plain in which blue
gashes were opened by the oar. But even at high water the
lagoons were too shallow to be entered by ships β except
through certain tortuous and secret channels; and even at low
water they were too deep to be passed on foot. Here, then, the
Venetians were secure from their foes, like the lake-dwellers
of ancient times.
At first they were merely salt-boilers and fishermen, and were
dependent on the mainland for the materials of life. There was
no seaport in the neighbourhood to send its vessels for the
salt which they prepared: they were forced to fetch everything
that they required for themselves. They became seamen by
necessity: they almost lived upon the water. As their means
improved, and as their wants expanded, they bought fields and
pastures on the mainland; they extended their commerce, and made
long voyages. They learnt in the dockyards of Constantinople
the art of building tall ships; they conquered the pirates of
the Adriatic Sea. The princes of Syria, Egypt, Barbary, and
Spain were all of them merchants, for commerce is an
aristocratic occupation in the East. With them the Venetians
opened up a trade. At first they had only timber and slaves to
offer in exchange for the wondrous fabrics and rare spices of
the East. In raw produce Europe is no match for Asia. The
Venetians, therefore, were driven to invent; they manufactured
furniture and woollen cloth, armour, and glass. It is evident,
from the old names of the streets, that Venice formerly was one
great workshop; it was also a great market city. The crowds of
pilgrims resorting to Rome to visit the tombs of the martyrs,
and to kiss the Popeβs toe, had suggested to the Government the
idea of Fairs which were held within the city at stated times.
The Venetians established a rival fair in honour of St. Mark,
whose remains, revered even by the Moslems, had been smuggled
out of Alexandria in a basket of pork. They took their
materials, like MoliΓ¨re, wherever they could find themβstole
the corpse of a patriarch from Constantinople, and the bones of
a saint from Milan. They made religion subservient to commerce:
they declined to make commerce subservient to religion. The
Pope forbade them to trade with infidels: but the infidel,
trade was their life. Siamo Veneziani poi Cristiani, they
replied. The Papal nuncios arrived in Venice, and
excommunicated two hundred of the leading men. In return they
were ordered to leave the town. The fleets of the Venetians,
like the Phoenicians of old, sailed in all the European waters,
from the wheat fields of the Crimea to the ice-creeks of the
Baltic. In that sea the pirates were at length extinct; a
number of cities along its shores were united in a league.
Bruges in Flanders was the emporium of the Northern trade, and
was supplied by Venetian vessels with the commodities of the
South. The Venetians also travelled over Europe, and
established their financial colonies in all great towns. The
cash of Europe was in their hands; and the sign of three golden
balls declared that Lombards lent money within.
During the period of the Crusades, their trade with the East
was interrupted but it was exchanged for a commerce more
profitable still. The Venetians in their galleys conveyed the
armies to the Holy Land, and also supplied them with
provisions. Besides the heavy sums which they exacted for such
services, they made other stipulations. Whenever a town was
taken by the Crusaders, a suburb or street was assigned to the
Venetians; and when the Christians were expelled, the Moslems
consented to continue the arrangement. In all the great Eastern
cities, there was a Venetian quarter containing a chapel, a
bath-house, and a factory ruled over by a magistrate or consul.
Constantinople, during the Crusades, had been taken by the
Latins, with the assistance of the Venetians, and had been
recovered by the Greeks, with the assistance of the Genoese.
The Venetians were expelled from the Black Sea, but obtained
the Alexandria trade. In the fifteenth century the Black Sea
was ruined, for its caravan routes were stopped by the Turkish
wars. Egypt, which was supplied by sea, monopolised the
India trade, and the Venetians monopolised the trade of Egypt.
Venice became the nutmeg and pepper shop of Europe: not a
single dish could be seasoned, not a tankard of ale could be
spiced, without adding to its gains. The wealth of that city
soon became enormous; its power, south of the Alps, supreme.
Times had changed since those poor fugitives first crept in
darkness and sorrow on the islands of the wild lagoon, and
drove stakes into the sand, and spread the reeds of the ocean
for their bed. Around them the dark lone waters, sighing,
soughing, and the sea-birdβs melancholy cry. Around them the
dismal field of slime, the salt and sombre plain. On that
cluster of islands had arisen a city of surpassing loveliness
and splendour. Great ships lay at anchor in its marble streets;
their yards brushed sculptured balconies, and the walls of
palaces as they swept along. Branching off from the great
thoroughfares, bustling with commerce, magnificent with pomp,
were sweet and silent lanes of water, lined with summer palaces
and with myrtle gardens, sloping downwards to the shore. In the
fashionable quarter was a lake-like space β the Park of Venice
β which every evening was covered with gondolas; and the
gondoliers in those days were slaves from the East, Saracens or
Negroes, who sang sadly as they rowed, the music of their homes
β the camel-song of the Sahara, or the soft minor airs of the
Sudan.
The government of Venice was a rigid aristocracy. Venice
therefore has no Santa Croce; it can boast of few illustrious
names. However, its Aldine Press and its poems in colour were
not unworthy contributions to the revival of ancient learning
and the creation of modern art. The famous wanderings of Marco
Polo had also excited among learned Venetians a peculiar taste
for the science of exploration. All over Europe they
corresponded with scholars of congenial tastes, and urged those
princes who had ships at their disposal to undertake voyages of
enterprise and discovery. Among their correspondents there was
one
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