re the very names of the
centres and leading routes of this trade as it was established in those
days, with its outlook upon the Mediterranean and the distant East! Far
up in the North we see Wisby, on the little isle of Gothland in the
Baltic, giving its name to new rules of international law; and the
merchants of the famous Hansa towns extending their operations as far as
Novgorod in one direction, and in another to the Steelyard in London,
where the pound of these honest "Easterlings" was adopted as the
"sterling" unit of sound money. Fats and tallows, furs and wax from
Russia, iron and copper from Sweden, strong hides and unrivalled wools
from England, salt cod and herring (much needed on meagre church
fast-days) from the North and Baltic seas, appropriately followed by
generous casks of beer from Hamburg, were sent southward in exchange for
fine cloths and tapestries, the products of the loom in Ghent and
Bruges, in Ulm and Augsburg, with delicious vintages of the Rhine,
supple chain armour from Milan, Austrian yew-wood for English long-bows,
ivory and spices, pearls and silks from Italy and the Orient. Along the
routes from Venice and Florence to Antwerp and Rotterdam we see the
progress in wealth and refinement, in artistic and literary
productiveness. We see the early schools of music and painting in Italy
meet with prompt response in Flanders; in the many-gabled streets of
Nuremberg we hear the voice of the Meistersinger, and under the low
oaken roof of a Canterbury inn we listen to joyous if sometimes naughty
tales erst told in pleasant groves outside of fever-stricken Florence.

[Sidenote: Effects of the Mongol conquests.]

[Sidenote: Cathay.]

[Sidenote: Carpini and Rubruquis.]

[Sidenote: First knowledge of an eastern ocean beyond Cathay.]

With this increase of wealth and culture in central Europe there came a
considerable extension of knowledge and a powerful stimulus to
curiosity concerning the remote parts of Asia. The conquering career of
Jenghis Khan (1206-1227) had shaken the world to its foundations. In the
middle of that century, to adopt Colonel Yule's lively expression,
"throughout Asia and eastern Europe, scarcely a dog might bark without
Mongol leave, from the borders of Poland and the coast of Cilicia to the
Amur and the Yellow Sea." About these portentous Mongols, who had thus
in a twinkling overwhelmed China and Russia, and destroyed the Caliphate
of Bagdad, there was a refreshing touch