e: Intro

ts peopled by red men; of Africa they knew only the northern coast; and in respect of Asia a thousand absurd tales passed current. The unexplored waste of waters that constituted the Atlantic Ocean was, to many ignorant Europeans of the fifteenth c

ering-veritably "Europeanizing"- the whole globe. Although religion as well as commerce played an important role in promoting the process, the movement was attended from the very outset by so startling a transformation in the routes, meth

rue nature and significance, we must first turn aside to ascertain how our European ancestors actually lived about the year 1500, and what work they did to earn their l

IN THE SIXTE

between Sixteenth-cen

-d

d their wealth, not by the quantity of stocks and bonds they held, but by the extent of land they owned. Farming was still the occupation of the vast majority of

miliar methods of tillage. He would discover, moreover, that practically each farm was self-sufficing, producing only what its own occupants could consume, and that consequently there was comparatively litt

ral Classes: Nobi

y, France, or England, one was sure to find the agricultural population sharply divided into two social classes-nobility and peasan

e: The N

feudal tenure, that is to say, they had a right to be supported by the peasants living on their estates, and, in return, they owed to some higher or wealthier nobleman or to the king certain duties, such as fighting for him, [Footnote: This obligation rested only upon lay noblemen, not upon ecclesiastics.] attending his court at specified t

h his family crest; he had servants and lackeys, a footman to open his carriage door, a game-warden to keep poachers from shooting his deer, and men-at-arms to quell disturbances, to aid him against quarr

for the Pre?minenc

ies and likewise against marauders and bandits of whom the land had been full. Then fighting had been the profession of the nobility, And to enable t

served king, country, or common people in the traditional manner. At least in the national monarchies it was the king who now had undertaken the defense of the land and the preservation of peace; and the nobleman, deprived of his old occupation, had little else to do than to hun

e: The P

gs who had to toil for their bread in the sweat of their brows and who were deemed of ignoble birth, as social inferiors, and as stupid and rude. Actu

fdom and the M

and the die out in western Europe, but at the opening of the sixteenth century most of the agricultural laborers in eastern and central Europe, and even a considerable

ll agricultural communities nowadays. The serf was not a slave, because he was free to work for himself at least part of the time; he could not be sold to another master; and he could not be deprived of the right to cultivate land for his own benefit. He was not a hired man, for he r

gations of the

encies to draw a cord of wood from the forest to the great manor- house, or to work upon the highway (corvée). (2) The serf had to pay occasional dues, customarily "in kind." Thus at certain feast-days he was expected to bring a dozen fat fowls or a bushel of grain to the pantry of the manor-house. (3) Ovens, wine-presses, gristmills, and bridges were usually owned solely by the nobleman, and each time the peasant used them he was obliged to give one of his loaves of bread, a sh

e: Free-

property to a tenant and, in return, exacting as large a monetary payment as possible-was then unknown. But there was a growing class of peasants who were spoken of as free-tenants to distinguish them from serf- tenants. These free-tenants, while paying regular dues, as did the others, were not compelled to work two or three days every

e: Hired

all claim to their own little strips of land on the manor and to devote their whole time to working for fixed wages on the fields which were cultivated for the nobleman himse

ote: M

it out among particular peasants, furnishing each with livestock and a plow and expecting in return a fixed proportion of the crops, which in France usually amounted to one-half. Peasants who made su

teady Declin

nd who naturally worked for themselves far more zealously than for him. For this reason many landlords were glad to allow their serfs to make payments in money or in grain in lieu of the performance of customary labor. In England, moreover, many lords, finding it profitable to inclose [Footnote: There were no fences on the old manors. Inclosing a plot of ground meant fencing or hedg

trian landowners retained their serfs until the nineteenth century; the emancipation of Russian serfs on a

Servile Obligations a

he still had to pay annoying fees for oven, mill, and wine-press. Then, too, his own crops might be eaten with impunity by doves from the noble dovecote or trampled underfoot by a merry hunting-party from the manor-house. The peasant himself ventured not to hunt: he was precluded even from shooting the deer that devoured his garden. Certain other customs prevailed in various localities, conceived orig

ce of "Three-field S

The waste-land, which could be used only for pasture, and the woodland on the outskirts of the clearing, were treated as "commons," that is to say, each villager, as well as the lord of the manor, might freely gather fire-wood, or he might turn his swine loose to feed on the acorns in the forest and his cattle to graze over the entire pasture. The cultivable or arable land was divided into several-usually three-great grain fields. Ridges or "balks" of unplowed turf divided each field into long parallel strips, which we

ages of Three-field

anuring or by rotation of crops; and, although every year one-third of the land was left "fallow" (uncultivated) in order to restore its fertility, the yield per acre was hardly a fourth as large as now. Farm implements were of the crudest kind; scythes and sickles did the work of mowing machines; plows were made of wood, occasionally shod with iron; and threshing was done with flails. After the grain had been harvested, cattle were turned out indiscriminately on the stubble, on the supposition that the fields were common property. It w

easant Life

nth, of the annual crops.] of the manor must have left the poor man little for himself. Compared with the comfort of the farmer today, the poverty of sixteenth-century peasants must have been inexpressibly distressful. How keenly the cold pierced the dark huts of

f the middle ages. The serf, at any rate, had the open air instead of a factory in which to work. When times were good, he had grain and meat in plenty, and possibly wine or

[Footnote: Usually very different from the higher clergy, who had large landed estates of their own, the parish priests had but modest incomes from the tithes of their parishioners and frequently eked out a living by toiling on allotted patches of ground. The monks too were ordinarily poor, although the monastery might be wealthy, and th

al Isolation a

other villages was unnecessary, unless there were no blacksmith or miller on the spot. The roads were poor and in wet weather impassable. Travel was largely on horseback, and what few commodities were carried from place to place

y distrusted all novelties; it always preferred old ways to new; it was heartily conservative. Country-folk did not discover America. It was the enterprise of the cities, with

E OF THE COMMER

Trade and

uries, more merchants traveled through the country, ways of spending money multiplied, and the little agricultural villages learned to look on the town as the place to buy not only luxuries but such tools, clothing, and shoes as could be manufactured more conveniently by skillful town artisans than by clumsy rustics. The towns, moreover, became exchanges where surplus farm products could be marketed, where wine could be bartered f

Freedom of

e: Town

nage their market; they wished to have cases at law tried in a court of their own rather than in the feudal court over which the nobleman presided; and they demanded the right to pay all taxes in a lump sum for the town, themselves assessing and collecting the share of each citizen. These concessions they eventually had won, and each city had its charter, in which its privileges were enumerated and recognized by the authority of the nobleman, or of the king, to whom the city owe

e: Merch

ld or the merchants' company. In the year 1500 the merchant gilds were everywhere on the decline, but they still preserved many of their earlier and more glorious traditions. At the time of their greatest impo

r Functions of th

ote: S

honor to a patron saint, in giving aid to members in sickness or misfortune, attending funerals, and al

te: Pro

as a freeman. The protection of the gild was accorded also to townsmen on their travels. In those days all strangers were regarded as suspicious persons, and not infrequently when a merchant of the gild traveled to another town he would be set upon and robbed or cast into prison. In such cases it was necessary for the gild to ransom the imprisoned "brother" and, if possible, to punish

te: Reg

ootnote: The octroi is still collected in Paris.] Moreover, a conviction prevailed that the gild was morally bound to enforce honest straightforward methods of business; and the "wardens" appointed by the gild to supervise the market endeavored to prevent, as dishonest practices, "forestalling" (buying outside of the regular market), "engrossing" (cornering the market), [Footnote: The idea that "co

102 towns had merchant gilds by the end of the thirteenth century. [Footnote: Several important places, such as London, Colchester, and Norwich, belonged to the small minority without merchant gilds.] On

ecline of Me

ent, they lost their power by the revolt of the more democratic "craft gilds." In England specialized control of industry and trade by craft gilds, journeymen's gilds, and dealers' associations gradually took the place of the general supervision of the older merchant gild. After suffering the loss of its vital functions, the

ndustry: the

urteenth centuries, the craft gild sometimes, as in Germany, voiced a popular revolt against corrupt and oligarchical merchant gilds, and sometimes most frequently so in England-worked quite harmoniously with the merchant gild, to which its own members belonged. In common with the merchant gild, the craft gild had religious and social aspects, and like the merchant gild it insisted on righteous dea

trade were properly trained. The apprentice was usually selected as a boy by a master-workman and indentured-that is, bound to work several years without wages, while living at the master's house. After the expiration of this period of apprenticeship, during which he had learned his

wise, the methods of manufacture; it might prohibit night-work, and it usually fixed a "fair price" at which goods were to be sold. By means of such provisions, enforce

rtial Decay o

entrance fees and qualifications. Struggles between gilds in allied trades, such as spinning, weaving, fulling, and dyeing, often resulted in the reduction of several gilds to a dependent position. The regulation of the processes of manufacture, once designed to keep up the standard of skill, came i

icular industry. Thus the rich drapers sold all the cloth, but did not help to make it. On the other hand it became increasingly difficult for journeymen and apprentices to rise to the station of masters; oftentimes they remained wage-earners for life. In order to better their condition they formed new associations, which in England were called journeymen's or yeomen's companies. These new organizations were symptomatic of inju

: Life in

a very vague way to an extraneous potentate; some merely paid annual tribute to a lord; some were administered by officers of a king or feudal magnate; others were

through suburbs, farms, and garden-plots, for the townsman still supplemented industry with small-scale agriculture. Usually the town itself was inclosed by strong walls, and admission was to be gained only by passing through the gates, where one might be accosted by soldiers and forced to pay toll. Inside the walls were clustered houses of every descr

age for the town, but there was likewise no public water supply. In many of the garden plots at the rear of the low-roofed dwellings were dug wells which provided water for the family; and the visitor, before he left the town, would be likely to meet with water-sellers calling out their ware. To guard against the danger of fires, each municipality encouraged its citizens to build their houses of stone and to keep a tub full of water before every building; and in each district a special official was equipped with a proper hook and cord for pulling down houses on fire. At night respectable town-life was practically at a standstill: the gates were shut; the curfew sounded;

O THE COMMERC

tion. And the fortunes of town-life have ever depended upon the vicissitudes of trade and commerce. So the reviving commer

ival of Trade

bsequent conflicts between Mohammedans and Christians, so that during several centuries the old trade-routes were traveled only by a few Jews and with the Syrians. In the tenth century, h

h the crusaders with transportation and provisions, and their shrewd Italian citizens made certain that such services were well rewarded. Italian ships, plying to and from the Holy Land, gradually enriched their owners. Many Italian cities profit

of the luxury and opulence of the East. Not infrequently they had acquired a taste for Eastern silks or spices during their stay in Asia Minor or Palestine; or they brought curious jewels stripped from fallen infidels to awa

mmodities of

very thing to add zest to such a diet, and without them the epicure of the sixteenth century would have been truly miserable. Ale and wine, as well as meats, were spiced, and pepper was eaten separately as a delicacy. No wonder that, although the rich alone could buy it, the Venetians were able annually to dispose of 420,000 pounds of pepper, w

John Maundeville: "And if you wish to know the virtues of the diamond, I shall tell you, as they that are beyond the seas say and affirm, from whom all science and philosophy comes. He who carries the diamond upon him, it gives him hardiness and manhood, and it keeps the limbs of his body whole. It gives him victory over his enemies, in court and in war, if his cause be just

camphor and cubebs from Sumatra and Borneo; musk from China; cane-sugar from Arabia

which the West could not rival-glass, porcelain, silks, satins, rugs, tapestries, and metal-work. The tradition of Asiatic supremacy in these man

and a balance, therefore, always existed for the European merchant to pay in gold and silver, with the result that gold and silver coins grew scarce in the

Oriental Tr

either side of the Ural hills down across the steppes of Turkestan and the desert of Arabia to the great sandy Sahara. Through the few gaps in this desert barrier have

uth of the Persian Gulf, thence to the mouth of the Tigris, and up the valley to Bagdad. From Bagdad caravans journeyed either to Aleppo and Antioch on the northeastern corner of the Mediterranean, or across the desert to Damascus a

xandria. By taking advantage of monsoons,-the favorable winds which blew steadily in certain seasons,-the skipper of a merchant vessel could make the voyage from India to Egypt in somewhat less than three months. It was often possibl

mous cities on the western slope of the Tian-Shan Mountains. West of Bokhara the route branched out. Some caravans went north of the Caspian, through Russia to Novgorod and the Baltic. Other caravans passed th

cities of Asia Minor, Persia, and Russia.] especially Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Florence, although Marseilles and Barcelona had a small share. From Italy trade-routes led through the passes of the Alps to all parts of Europe. German merchants from Nuremberg, Augsburg, Ulm, Regensburg, and Constance purchased Eastern commodities in the markets of Venice, and sent them back to the Germanies, to England, and to the Scandinavian count

iculties of Eur

ith hardship; it was expensive. Feudal lords exacted heavy tolls from travelers on road, bridge, or river. Between Mainz and Cologne, on the Rhine, toll was levied in thirteen different places. The construction of shorter and better highways was blocked often by nobles who feared to lose their toll-rights on the old roads. So heavy was the burden of tolls on commerce tha

n the seas there was still greater danger from pirates. Fleets of merchantmen, despite the fact that they were accompanied usually by a vessel of war, often were assailed by corsairs, defeated, robbed, and sold as prizes to the Mohammedans. The black flag of piracy flew over whole f

ote: V

Each city attempted to protect its own commerce. A great city-state like Venice was well able to send out her galleys against Mediterranean pirates, to wage war against the rival city of Genoa, to make tre

ic League. Towns in th

in the markets of Bruges, London, and Venice; they returned with wheat, wine, salt, metals, cloth, and beer for their Scandinavian and Russian customers. The German trading post at Venice received metals, furs, leather goods, and woolen cloth from the North, and sent back spices, silks, and other commodities of the East, together with glassware, fine textiles, weapons, and paper of Venetian manufacture. Baltic and Venetian trade- routes crossed in the N

OF EXP

paniards and Portugues

tuguese had developed much the same taste for Oriental spices and wares as had the inhabitants of central Europe, and they begrudged the exorbitant prices which they were compelled to pay to Italian merchants. Moreover, their centuries-long crusades against Mohammedans in the Iberian peninsula and in northern Africa had bred in them a stern and zealous Christianity which urged

Geographica

the earlier middle ages, had been enriched by the Franciscan friars who had traversed central Asia to the court of the Mongol emperor as early as 1245, and by such merchants and travelers as Marco Polo, who had been attac

y's works in the fifteenth century, learned men asserted that the earth was spherical in shape, and they even calculated its circumference, erring only by two or three thousand miles. It was maintained repeatedly that the Indies formed the western b

te: Nav

ompass card in the fourteenth. Latitude was determined with the aid of the astrolabe, a device for measuring the elevation of the pole star above the horizon. With maps and accurate sailing directions (portolani), seamen could lose sight of l

he Portugues

1460), who, with the support of two successive Portuguese kings, made the first systematic attempts to convert the theories of geographers into proved fact. A variety of motives were his: the stern zeal of the crusader against the infidel; the ardent proselyti

uarter of a century after the initial efforts of Prince Henry, Denis Diaz reached Cape Verde, he thought that the turning point was at hand; but four more weary decades were to elapse before Bartholomew Diaz, in 1488, attained the southernmost point of the African coast. What he then called the Cape of Storms, King John II of Portugal in a more optimistic vein rechristened the Cape of Goo

ion of Old Trade-R

Oriental trade. In confirmation of this opinion, it should be remembered that the Portuguese had begun their epochal explorations long before 1500 and that Christopher Columbus had already returned from "the Indies."] These Turks, as we have seen, were a nomadic and warlike nation of the Mohammedan faith who "added to the Moslem contempt for the Christian, the warrior's contempt for the mere merchant." Realizing that advantageous trade relations with such a people were next to impossible, the Italian merchants viewed with consternation the advance of the Turkish armies, as Asia Minor, Thrace, Macedonia, Greece, and the islands of the ?gean were rapidly overrun. Constantinople, the heart of the Eastern Empire, repeatedly repelled the M

Loss to t

ended their burdensome restrictions and taxes over those regions likewise. Eastern luxuries, transported by caravan and caravel over thousands of miles, had been expensive and rare enough before; now the added peril of travel and the exactions of the Turks bade fair to deprive the Italians of the greater part of their Orie

ote: C

ry, 1492). In August, 1492, he sailed from Palos with 100 men in three small ships, the largest of which weighed only a hundred tons. After a tiresome voyage he landed (12 October, 1492) on "San Salvador," one of the Bahama Islands. In that bold voyage across the trackless Atlantic lay the greatness of Columbus. He was not attempting to prove a theory that the earth was spherical-that was accepted generally by the well informed. Nor was he in search of a new continent. The realization that he had discovered not Asia, but a new world, would have been his bitterest disappoint

ote: A

l with a Portuguese expedition bound for India was so far driven out of his course by equatorial currents that he came upon Brazil, which he claimed for the king of Portugal. Yet America was named for neither Columbus, Cabot, nor Cabral, but for anoth

t Circumnavigat

yond the Isthmus of Panama, it was thought that a few days' sail would bring one to the outlying possessions of the Great Khan. Not until Magellan, leaving Spain in 1519, passed through the straits that still bea

ng through or around the Americas. Such were the attempts of Verrazano (1524), C

NT OF COLON

ote: P

fleets rounded the Cape year by year to gain control of Goa (India), Ormuz, Diu (India), Ceylon, Malacca, and the Spice Islands, and to bring back from these places and from Sumatra, Java, Celebes, and Nanking (China) rich cargoes of "spicery." After the Turkish

guese royal house, but Portugal had neither products of her own to ship to Asia, nor the might to defend her exclusive right to the carrying trade with the Indies. The annexation of Portugal to Spain (1580) b

note:

l [Footnote: A bull was a solemn letter or edict issued by the pope.] attempting to divide the uncivilized parts of the world between Spain and Portugal by the "papal line of demarcation," drawn from pole to pole, 100 leagues west of the

lures the search for wealth was prosecuted with vigor. During the next half century Haiti, called Hispaniola ("Spanish Isle"), served as a starting point for the occupation of Puerto Rico, Cuba (1508), and other island

fore the arrival of Europeans.] confederacy of Mexico, was overthrown in 1519 by the reckless Hernando Cortez with a small band of soldiers. Here at last the Spaniards found treasures of gold and s

standard waving over almost half of Europe, and all America (except Brazil), Philip II of Spain by conquering Portugal in 1580 added to his possessions the Portuguese empire i

eared more serious when we remember that the high-handed and harassing regulations imposed by short-sighted or selfish officials had checked the growth of a healthy agricultural and industrial population in the colonies, and that the bulk of the silver was going to support the pride of grandees and to swell the fortunes of German speculators, rather than to fi

e and manufacture had expanded enormously in the sixteenth century in the hands of the Jews and Moors. Woolen manufactures supported nearly a third of the p

x on commodities bought and sold, was increased until merchants went out of business, and many an industrial establishment closed its doors rather than pay the taxes. Industry and commerce, already diseased, were almost completely killed by the expulsion of the J

000,000 worth of wool to feed its looms; but as a commercial and financial center, the Flemish city of Antwerp had taken first place. In 1566 it was said that 300 ships and as many wagons arrived daily with rich cargoes to be bought and sold by the thousa

in Chapter III, the governors appointed by King Philip II in the second half of the sixteenth century lost the love of the people by the harsh measures against the Protestants, and ruined commerce and industry by

Moreover, during the war Dutch sailors had captured most of the former possessions of Portugal, and English sea-power, beginning in mere piratical attacks on Spanish treasure-fleets, had become firmly established. The finest part of North Am

: Dutch S

g for tons of gold." In the sixteenth century they had built up a considerable carrying trade, bringing cloth, tar, timber, and grain to Spain and France, an

lands their own. By 1602, 65 Dutch ships had been to India. In the thirteen years-1602 to 1615-they captured 545 Portuguese and Spanish ships, seized ports on the coasts of Africa and India, and established themselves in the Spice Islands. In addition to most of the old Portuguese empire,-ports in Africa and India, Malacca, Oceanica, and Brazil, [Footnote: Brazil was more or less under Dutch control from 1624 until 1654, when, through an uprising of Portuguese colonists, the country was fully recover

the Hanseatic (German) merchants, who had incurred heavy losses by the injury to their interests in Antwerp during the sixteenth century. Throughout the seventeenth c

gs of English and F

), Davis (1585-1587), Hudson (1610-1611), and Baffin (1616) to explore the northern extremity of North America, to leave the record of their exploits in names of bays, islands, and straits, and to establish England's claim to northern Canada; while the search for a northeast passage enticed Willoughby and Chancellor (1553) around Lapland, and Jenkinson (1557-1558) to the icebound port of Archangel in northern Russia. Elizabethan England had neither silver mines nor spice islands, but the de

Cartier (1534-1535) pushed up the Saint Lawrence to Montreal, looking for a northwest passage, and demonstrating that France had no respect for the Spanish claim to all America. After 1535, however, nothing

otives for C

pressed on to divide the new continents among them, to conquer, Christianize, and civilize the natives, and to send out millions of new emigrants to establish beyond the seas a New England, a New France, a

ote: R

ustine (St. Augustine), the Holy Saviour (San Salvador), the Holy Cross (Santa Cruz), or the Holy Faith (Santa Fé). Fearless priests penetrated the interior of America, preaching and baptizing as they went. Unfortunately some of the Spanish adventurers who came to make fortunes in the mines of America, and a great number of the non-Spanish foreigners who owned mines in the Spanish colonies, set gain before religion, and imposed crushing burdens on the natives who toiled as slaves in their mines. Cruelty and forced labor decimated the n

h to the Indians. Quite different were the religious motives which in the seventeenth century inspired Protestant colonists in the New World. They came not as evangelists, but as religious outcasts

line of the Ha

he mournful plight of the older commercial powers-the German and Italian city-states. As for the former, the Hanseatic League, despoiled of its Baltic commerce by enterprising Dutch and English merchants, its cities restless and rebe

: Decay o

vant, and the Turkish sea-power grew to menacing proportions, until in 1571 Venice had to appeal to Spain for help. To the terror of the Turk was added the torment of the Barbary pirates, who from the northern coast of Africa frequently descended upon Italian seaports. The commerce of Venice

HE COMMERCIA

s simply the discovery of new trade-routes; but, as it is difficult to separate explorations from colonization, we have used the term "Commercial Revolution" to include both. By the Commercial Revolution we mean that

olitico-economic doctrinemercantilism-the result of the transference of c

Nationalism

strongly developed, and centralized governments were perfected; these nations carried the national spirit into commerce. Portugal and Spain owed their colonial empires to the enterprise of their royal families; Holland

e: Merca

e wealth of their subjects, European monarchs proceeded upon the assumption that if a nation exported costly manufactures to its own colonies and imported cheap raw materials from them, the money paid into the home country for manufactures would more than counterbalance the money paid out for raw materials, and this "favorable balance of trade" would bring gold to the nation. This economic theory and the system based upon it are called mercantilism. In order to establish su

Chartered

nd (in 1602), France (in 1664), Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, and Prussia each chartered its own "East India Company." The English possessions on the Atlantic coast of America were shared by the London and Plymouth Companies (1606

nd, if the enterprise were a difficult one, a company might be supported by royal subsidies. The Dutch West India Company (1621) was authorized to build forts, maintain troops, and make war on land and sea; the government endowed the company with one million florins, sixte

Financial

The "Regula

omplished with the limited resources of a few individuals, it was necessary to form large companies in which many investors shared expense and risk. Some had been created for European trade, but the important growth of such companies was for distant trade. Their first form was the "regulated company." Each member would contribute to the general fund for such expenses as building forts; and certain rules would be ma

The Joint-s

rtional to his share in the general treasury or "joint stock." The idea that while the company as a whole was permanent each individual could buy or sell "shares" in the joint stock, helped to make such "joint-stock" companies very popular after the opening of the seventeenth century. The English East India Company, organized as a regulated company in 1600, was reorganized piecemeal for half a century until it acquired the form of a joint-sto

ote: B

French and German money-lenders and money-changers became famous. Since the coins minted by feudal lords and kings were hard to pass except in limited districts, and since the danger of counterfeit or light-weight coins was far greater than now, the "money-changers" who would buy and sell the coins of different countries did a thriving business at Antwerp in the early sixteenth century. Later, Amsterdam, London, Hamburg, and Frankfort took over the business of Antwerp and developed the institutions of finance to a higher degree. [Footnote: The

ionaire bankers and banking houses with many of our instruments of exchange such as the bill of exchange. Such was the revolution in bus

: New Com

fragile caravels and galleys of a few centuries before. The cargoes they carried had changed too. The comparative cheapness of water-transportation had made it possible profitably to carry grain and meat, as well as costly luxuries of small bulk such as spices and silks. Manufactures were an important item

ote: S

us. The Spaniards began early to enslave the natives of America, although the practice was opposed by the noble endeavors of the Dominican friar and bishop, Bartolomé de las Casas. But the native population was not sufficient,-or, as in the English colonies, the Indians were exterminated rather than enslaved,-and in the sixteenth century it was

cts on Industry

trol of the newer and more powerful merchants who conducted a wholesale business in a single commodity, such as cloth. Capitalists had their agents buy wool, dole it out to spinners and weavers who were paid so much for a given amount of work, and then sell the finished product. This was called the "

ts. Countries were now more inclined to specialize-France in wine, England in wool-and so certain branches of production grew more important. The introduction of new crops produced no more r

Significance of Com

s the change of trade-routes), such as the decline of Venice and of the Hanse, the formation of colonial empires, the rise of commercial companies, the expansion o

olution possesses a mo

ropeanization

ica, Asia, and America, founding empires greater and more lasting than that of Alexander. The colonists of Europe imparted their language to South America and made of North America a second Europe with a common

ase of Wealth, Know

ts many peoples, products, and peculiarities, tended to dispel the silly notions of medieval ignorance; and the goods of every land were brought for the comfort of the European-Ameri

The Rise of th

hants, and shop-keepers,-intelligent, able, and wealthy enough to live like kings or princes. These bourgeois or townspeople (bourg = town) were to grow in intelligence, in wealth, and in pol

ONAL R

ks in English Industrial History, 11th ed. (1912), ch. vii-xiii; H. D. Traill and J. S. Mann (editors), Social England (1909), Vols. II, III; H. de B. Gibbins, Industry in England, 6th ed. (1910), compact general survey; William Cunningham, The Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times, 5th ed., 3 vols. (1910-1912), a standard work; H. D. Bax, German Society at the Close of the Middle Ages (1894), brief but clear, especially ch. i, v, vii on towns

icultural Labourer, trans. by Ruth Kenyon (1908), an excellent work, particularly Part I on the development of the class of free laborers from that of the medieval serfs. Valuable for feudal survivals in France is the brief Feudal Regime by Charles Seignobos, trans. by Dow. Useful for social conditions in Russia: James Mavor, An Economic History of Russia, 2 vols. (1914), Vol. I, Book I, ch. iii. See also Eva

onomic History and Theory, with elaborate critical bibliographies. For town-life and the gilds: Mrs. J. R. Green, Town Life in England in the Fifteenth Century, 2 vols. (1894); Charles Gross, The Gild Merchant, 2 vols. (1890); Lujo Brentano, On the History and Development of Gilds (1870); George Unwin, The Gilds and Companies of London (1908), particularly the interesting chapter on "The Place of the Gild in the History of Western Europe." A brief view of English town-life in the later middle ages: E. Lipson, An Introduction to the Economic History of England, Vol. I (1915), ch. v-ix. On town-life in the Netherlands: Henri Pirenne, Belgian D

Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, La colonisation chez les peuples modernes, 6th ed., 2 vols. (1908), the best general work in French; Charles de Lannoy and Hermann van der Linden, Histoire de l'expansion coloniale des peuples européens, an important undertaking of two Belgian professors, of which two volumes have appeared-Vol. I, Portugal et Espagne (1907), and Vol. II, Néerlande et Danemark, 17e et 18e siècle (1911); Alfred Zimmermann, Die europaischen Kolonien, the main German treatise, in 5 vols. (1896-1903), dealing with Spain and Portugal (Vol. I), Great Britain (Vols. II, III), France (Vol. IV), and Holland (Vol. V). Much

a (1898), and, by the same author, The Spanish Dependencies in South America, 2 vols. (1914). With special reference to Asiatic India: Mountstuart Elphinstone, History of India: the Hindu and Mohametan Periods, 9th ed. (1905), an old but still valuable work on the background of Indian history; Sir W. W. Hunter, A Brief History of the Indian Peoples, rev. ed. (1903), and, by the same author, A History of British India to the opening of the eighteenth century, 2 vols. (1899-1900), especially Vol. I; Pringle Kennedy, A History of the Great Moghuls, 2 vols. (1905-1911). With special reference to African exploration and colonization in the sixteenth century:

. G. Bourne, Spain in America, 1450-1580 (1904), Vol. III of "American Nation" Series, excellent in content and form; W. R. Shepherd, Latin America (1914) in "Home University Library." pp. 9-68, clear and suggestive; Sir Arthur Helps, The Spanish Conquest in America, new ed., 4 vols. (1900-1904). A scholarly study of Columbus's career is J. B. Thacher, Christopher Columbus, 3 vols. (1903-1904), incorporating many of the sources; Washington Irving, Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, originally published in 1828-1831, but still very readable and generally sound; Filson Young, Christopher Columbus and the New World of his Discovery, 2 vols. (1906), a popular account, splendidly illustrated; Henry Harrisse, Christophe Colomb, son origine, sa vie, ses voyages, 2 vols. (1884), a standard work by an authority on the age of exploration; Henri Vignaud, Histoire critique de la grande entreprise de Christophe Colomb, 2 vols. (1911), destructive of many commonly accepted ideas regarding Columbus; F. H. H. Guillemard, The Life of Ferdinand Magellan (1890); F. A. MacNutt, Fernando Cortes and th

(1912); George Unwin, Industrial Organization in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1904); G. Cawston and A. H. Keane, Early Chartered Companies (1896); W. R. Scott, The Constitution and Finance of English, Scottish, and Irish Joint-Stock Companies to 1720, Vol. I (1912); C. T. Carr (editor), Select Charters of Trading C