a Venetian author at the beginning of the fourteenth century,
has left a curious account of the Levant trade which his countrymen
carried on at that time. Their imports it is easy to guess, and it
appears that timber, brass, tin, and lead, as well as the precious
metals, were exported to Alexandria, besides oil, saffron, and some of
the productions of Italy, and even wool and woollen cloths.[605] The
European side of the account had therefore become respectable.

The commercial cities enjoyed as great privileges at Constantinople as
in Syria, and they bore an eminent part in the vicissitudes of the
Eastern empire. After the capture of Constantinople by the Latin
crusaders, the Venetians, having been concerned in that conquest,
became, of course, the favoured traders under the new dynasty;
possessing their own district in the city, with their magistrate or
podesta, appointed at Venice, and subject to the parent republic. When
the Greeks recovered the seat of their empire, the Genoese, who, from
jealousy of their rivals, had contributed to that revolution, obtained
similar immunities. This powerful and enterprising state, in the
fourteenth century, sometimes the ally, sometimes the enemy, of the
Byzantine court, maintained its independent settlement at Pera. From
thence she spread her sails into the Euxine, and, planting a colony at
Caffa in the Crimea, extended a line of commerce with the interior
regions of Asia, which even the skill and spirit of our own times has
not yet been able to revive.[606]

The French provinces which border on the Mediterranean Sea partook in
the advantages which it offered. Not only Marseilles, whose trade had
continued in a certain degree throughout the worst ages, but Narbonne,
Nismes, and especially Montpelier, were distinguished for commercial
prosperity.[607] A still greater activity prevailed in Catalonia. From
the middle of the thirteenth century (for we need not trace the
rudiments of its history) Barcelona began to emulate the Italian cities
in both the branches of naval energy, war and commerce. Engaged in
frequent and severe hostilities with Genoa, and sometimes with
Constantinople, while their vessels traded to every part of the
Mediterranean, and even of the English Channel, the Catalans might
justly be reckoned among the first of maritime nations. The commerce of
Barcelona has never since attained so great a height as in the fifteenth
century.[608]

[Sidenote: Their manufactu