The World's History (Volume 7); Western Europe to 1800 Paperback - 2201

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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: settle in Constantinople. In spite of religious differences ever since the ninth century Venice also had been engaged in active trade with the cities of Egypt and Syria. The prosperity of Venice was due primarily to her favourable geographical situation, and this advantage remained to her so long as the Mediterranean continued to be the centre of the world's commerce. The Venice of the Middle Ages controlled an exceptionally extensive sphere of distribution. Situated at the northern end of the Adriatic Sea, the city was within a short journey of the Alpine passes; the rich plain of the Po lay behind it, the western coast of the Balkan peninsula and the approaches to the lands of the Save and the Danube before it. The two political parties of the city, the Byzantine and the Italian, represented two complementary commercial interests: the importation of commodities from the East and the exportation of merchandise into the various neighbouring regions of consumption. Moreover, both the eastern and the western empire courted the favour of Venice, which adroitly balanced between them; and thus, at an early age, the Venetians obtained the right of unrestricted trade with both. When the Byzantines lost southern Italy to the Normans they showered favours upon Venice, nominally subject but practically independent, in order to win her alliance. In fact, the constant grasping for territory of the Normans threatened the Venetians also, and they had defeated Robert Guiscard at Durazzo in Albania; the Emperor Alexius I (Comnenus) granted them the right of commerce, duty free, with the whole of the eastern empire (1082). In former days the Venetians had been compelled to pay two solidi on the entrance of every ship into port, and fifteen on its departure. From this time forth their position in r...