B.C.) is also proved now to have been in use centuries before his time; certainly in Egypt, and probably in Assyria. The last-named material (parchment) should be more properly included among animal substances,

LEATHER. in the treatment of which the great nations of antiquity were so highly skilled. The dressing of skins was naturally and necessarily one of the earliest manufactures in the world. It was also one of those that was early carried to the greatest perfection. It may be doubted if we have in subsequent times ever reached the degree of excellence in the treatment of leather that was reached by the great nations of antiquity. Their system of manufacture, too, and their appliances, were in this case nearly exactly the same as ours. On the monuments of Egypt every process of tanning and leather-making is represented with perfect distinctness, and "the tanner may be seen sitting amid his pits, surrounded by tools much as they are still used at the present day" (Industrial Curiosities, by A. H. Japp, LL.D.,' chap. "Leather "). Nor can his work have been wanting in that best quality of workmanship—permanence: "In the British Museum real tanned sandals are to be seen, such as are known from paintings and sculptures to have been worn in Egypt 3000 years ago."

The Israelites carried away a knowledge of the leather manufacture with them in their flight from Egypt (2 Kings i. 8); and the classical nations were very familiar with it. It was one, indeed, very widely spread. It is curious to note, then, that it seems always to have suffered under a sort of stigma. The tanners in Thebes were confined to a particular part of the city; those in Jerusalem were not allowed to carry on their occupation within its precincts; and in both Greek and Roman cities special quarters were assigned to the followers of this trade. Whether the reason 1 Fisher Unwin, 1882.

for this stigma was of a supposed sanitary kind, or of a religious kind, we do not know, but it was probably of either. An important result was, that this industry does not appear to have been carried on in government establishments, like so many others, but to have been always in the hands of individuals; and it is said to have been the one in which workmen, associated together in trade societies, were first employed. Now these must have been free workmen. It follows, then, that ancient tanyards - perhaps the tanyards even of ancient Egypt-were conducted upon a principle in all respects similar to the modern factory system -that is, by associated free labour in establishments of definite bounds.

1

1 Tanyards are classed as factories or workshops by our present statute law according as to whether manual only or other motive power is employed in the manufacture; and in either case they are subject to our factory system of regulation.

CHAPTER V.

ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL COMMERCE

The Middle Ages-Movements of Commerce-Ancient Caravan RoutesAncient Maritime Commerce-Hebrew Commerce: Ophir-The Phœnicians The Carthaginians-Classical Commerce-Later Egyptian Commerce Imperial Rome - Constantinople - Arabian Commerce - The Crusades-Venice and Genoa-The Hanse League-The Netherlands— Mediæval Inland Commerce-Fairs.

THE MIDDLE AGES.

THE portion of history commonly called the Middle Ages embraces a period of about a thousand years, between the fifth and the fifteenth centuries, or from the subversion of the western Roman Empire (476 A.D.) to the discovery of America (1492 A.D.)1 It is a period of great gloom and stagnation so far as those countries are concerned in whose history and prosperity we are at the present time most interested, and especially in relation to the subject-matter of this work. The great nations of early antiquity and of the classical age, and the stupendous political and social systems that they had inaugurated and maintained, had then passed away, and their places were occupied by unknown hordes of rude conquerors issuing from unexplored regions of the North, and by a complete confusion of all relations-social, political, and industrial. The arts and manufactures which had been so highly prized by them, and in their hands brought to such perfection, were scornfully ignored or recklessly contemned by these invaders; they either perished

1 From "the invasion of France by Clovis to that of Naples by Charles VIII.," according to Hallam (Middle Ages, chap. ix. part i.)

wholly, or where they survived at all, did so fitfully, at long intervals of time and place, and under altered conditions of production and exchange. A new deluge, but this time confined to the social order, overflowed the civilised world, and once again everything was in confusion, and once again a new start had to be made. The Middle Ages supplied the period of incubation that was necessary to this new start. It was requisite, first, that the disintegrating processes in past systems should be carried to their ultimate developments; and next, that the germs of future systems should be set. For such a purpose the interval of a thousand years' duration, more or less, need not seem an unreasonably long one in view of the prodigious past that was done with, and the portentous future that was in store. Accordingly, within that time, the change from ancient to modern history ran its course; and it is ordinarily remarked of the Middle Ages that, for about one-half its span-say to the tenth or eleventh century-the industrial tendency was ever downwards, and that from about then symptoms of the new birth were seen. The sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries witnessed, perhaps, the lowest depth of this declension; and the next three-including, as they did, the establishment of the Saracen power in Europe, the Crusades, the foundation of the commercial greatness of the Italian republics, and the remarkable development of trade and industry in north-western Europe which eventuated in the establishment of the Hanse League-first began to set a term to it.

For a better comprehension of these and earlier industrial changes we propose to consider very briefly

MOVEMENTS OF

COMMERCE.

in this place the principal routes taken by commerce whilst they were in progress. The direction of commercial routes determines very largely the localisation of industry, as the localisation of industries determines very largely the direction of commercial routes.

Those causes act and react upon each other in a way it is not difficult to point out, and are themselves the results of several other causes whose influences, though more remote, are very familiar factors in human things. From among the latter set of causes that greatly influence the progress of industry or commerce, three principal ones may be isolated as specially operative. The first is a settled and free government; the second a convenient maritime situation; the third the possession of appropriate raw material for trade and manufacture. We shall have occasion to refer to these severally as we trace the main routes of commerce at various times. We shall find that, though often in union, and indeed inextricably intermixed, they are sometimes found separate, and that their separate operation is usually most efficient at very different epochs. In the infancy of society, for instance, while navigation is yet an unfamiliar art, it is the third, modified by obvious topographical considerations, that commonly counts for most; and thus fertile valleys-both on account of the material they provide for sustenance and trade, and the ready ingress and egress they allow-are naturally the first centres of industry, and the easiest paths leading between them are the first highways of commerce. The most ancient commerce on record was conducted accordingly from such centres and along such routes; the most practicable routes, namely, that led to the three great valleys of the Euphrates, Nile, and Indus. Afterwards, however, when the superior highway of the sea becomes available, internal trade is increasingly abandoned, and the movements of commerce, and, therefore, the localising of industry, are more affected by the greater or less proximity to a seaboard. Thus, in the classical age, the industrious nations are found clustering round the shores of the Mediterranean; and we may afterwards note prosperity following pretty generally the coast-line all over the world. Ultimately, with land and sea both fully available, the char