when he can cross the river more conveniently at
another place.[564] These provisions, like most others of that age, were
unlikely to produce much amendment. It was only the milder species,
however, of feudal lords who were content with the tribute of merchants.
The more ravenous descended from their fortresses to pillage the wealthy
traveller, or shared in the spoil of inferior plunderers, whom they both
protected and instigated. Proofs occur, even in the later periods of the
middle ages, when government had regained its energy, and civilization
had made considerable progress, of public robberies systematically
perpetrated by men of noble rank. In the more savage times, before the
twelfth century, they were probably too frequent to excite much
attention. It was a custom in some places to waylay travellers, and not
only to plunder, but to sell them as slaves, or compel them to pay a
ransom. Harold son of Godwin, having been wrecked on the coast of
Ponthieu, was imprisoned by the lord, says an historian, according to
the custom of that territory.[565] Germany appears to have been, upon
the whole, the country where downright robbery was most unscrupulously
practised by the great. Their castles, erected on almost inaccessible
heights among the woods, became the secure receptacles of predatory
bands, who spread terror over the country. From these barbarian lords of
the dark ages, as from a living model, the romances are said to have
drawn their giants and other disloyal enemies of true chivalry.
Robbery, indeed, is the constant theme both of the Capitularies and of
the Anglo-Saxon laws; one has more reason to wonder at the intrepid
thirst of lucre, which induced a very few merchants to exchange the
products of different regions, than to ask why no general spirit of
commercial activity prevailed.

[Sidenote: and of foreign commerce.]

Under all these circumstances it is obvious that very little oriental
commerce could have existed in these western countries of Europe.
Destitute as they have been created, speaking comparatively, of natural
productions fit for exportation, their invention and industry are the
great resources from which they can supply the demands of the East.
Before any manufactures were established in Europe, her commercial
intercourse with Egypt and Asia must of necessity have been very
trifling; because, whatever inclination she might feel to enjoy the
luxuries of those genial regions, she wanted the mean