tions, which it is impossible to determine with any degree of
certainty.

The weights were more uniform and less uncertain. The pound was everywhere
in use, but it was not everywhere of the same standard (Fig. 201). For
instance, at Paris it weighed sixteen ounces, whereas at Lyons it only
weighed fourteen; and in weighing silk fifteen ounces to the pound was
the rule. At Toulouse and in Upper Languedoc the pound was only thirteen
and a half ounces; at Marseilles, thirteen ounces; and at other places it
even fell to twelve ounces. There was in Paris a public scale called
_poids du roi_; but this scale, though a most important means of revenue,
was a great hindrance to retail trade.

In spite of these petty and irritating impediments, the commerce of France
extended throughout the whole world.

[Illustration: Fig. 197.--View of Lubeck and its Harbour (Sixteenth
Century).--From a Copper-plate in the Work of P. Bertius, "Commentaria
Rerum Germanicarum," in 4to: Amsterdam, 1616.]

The compass--known in Italy as early as the twelfth century, but little
used until the fourteenth--enabled the mercantile navy to discover new
routes, and it was thus that true maritime commerce may be said regularly
to have begun. The sailors of the Mediterranean, with the help of this
little instrument, dared to pass the Straits of Gibraltar, and to venture
on the ocean. From that moment commercial intercourse, which had
previously only existed by land, and that with great difficulty, was
permanently established between the northern and southern harbours of
Europe.

Flanders was the central port for merchant vessels, which arrived in great
numbers from the Mediterranean, and Bruges became the principal depot.
The Teutonic league, the origin of which dates from the thirteenth
century, and which formed the most powerful confederacy recorded in
history, also sent innumerable vessels from its harbours of Lubeck (Fig.
197) and Hamburg. These carried the merchandise of the northern countries
into Flanders, and this rich province, which excelled in every branch of
industry, and especially in those relating to metals and weaving, became
the great market of Europe (Fig. 198).

The commercial movement, formerly limited to the shores of the
Mediterranean, extended to all parts, and gradually became universal. The
northern states shared in it, and England, which for a long time kept
aloof from a stage on which it was destined to play the first part, b