R. Nisbet Bain - The Cambridge Modern History

The constant wars of the latter half of the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries were another disruptive force and proved fatal to the maintenance of the highly organised system of medieval times. In the countries which were the scene of frequent warlike operations, immense mischief was done to agriculture; it is difficult to understand how a rural population should have survived in France at all, when we read of the ravages of the English armies, and the devastations caused by the factions. The chronic disorder not only affected tillage and the food-supply, but rendered internal trade so insecure that it was practically suspended altogether. What had been a prosperous kingdom, with many well-organised cities, and with fairs that were frequented by merchants from all parts of Europe, was reduced to utter desolation and ruin. Similar results attended the Hussite Wars in Bohemia, and, to a lesser degree, the Wars of the Roses in England; the Italian cities must also have found their intercivic hostilities a serious drain on their resources. Venice and Genoa had carried on a long-protracted struggle about Chioggia; Pisa was at length forced to succumb to Florence, and Milan gradually established her superiority over her neighbours. Doubtless, to many districts the wars brought profit as well as loss; Swiss and Italian mercenaries often engaged in fighting as a regular trade, in which much booty was to be obtained; and successful cities might recoup themselves for their outlay by securing new avenues of commerce at the expense of their rivals. Still the fact remains that war was a disturbing element; the instability introduced by it into all the relations of’ life was irreconcilable with the maintenance of the old industrial system or old trading connexions. The countries which for any considerable period enjoyed a relative immunity from external war, such as Flanders, the duchy of Burgundy, the Rhineland, and Bavaria, made rapid progress, while others failed to regain the prosperity they had enjoyed before the Black Death, or sank into deeper and deeper decay. The most obvious and important commercial result of the Wars in France was seen in the diversion of the traffic between Italy and Flanders from the Rhone valley, so as to increase the intercourse over the Alps and by the valley of the Inn. Augsburg, Nürnberg, and the cities of the Rhine-land came to be for a time on the great highway of Europe; while there was also increased maritime communication between the Mediterranean and the Low Countries by the Straits of Gibraltar and the English Channel.

Other political causes affected the more distant trading connexions of European cities. The union of the northern kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden under Queen Margaret consolidated the opposition to the monopoly asserted by the Hanse League over the commerce of the North; while the rise of the power of Poland, and her successful contests with the Teutonic Order, interrupted the lines of its Eastern communications. When in 1477 Ivan, Czar of Russia, brought Novgorod into complete subjection and it ceased to be an independent city, the merchants of the Hanse League lost their footing at the point where they had established connexions with traders who were engaged in traffic with the East.

There were other movements in eastern Europe which seriously affected the course of merchandise. The advancing power of the Turks destroyed the commercial colonies on the Black Sea, and interrupted the trading intercourse in the Danube valley; in the latter half of the fifteenth century the commerce between East and West was almost entirely confined to the Egyptian and Syrian routes; Venice was the chief depot on the northern side of the Mediterranean for Eastern spices, and the centre from which these highly-valued commodities were distributed to Germany, Flanders, and the North.

The Turkish conquests had forced the principal trade of the East into restricted channels, and Christian successes were responsible for the increasing difficulties under which the commerce of the western Mediterranean was carried on. The expulsion of the Moors from Spain, which was completed by the conquest of Granada, was followed by an extraordinary development of national vigour and material prosperity in many parts of the peninsula; but the exiled population aroused the sympathy of their co-religionists in Africa; an increase of marauding expeditions by sea ensued, and the difficulties of merchants who trafficked with Morocco were seriously aggravated.

On every side, the old lines of distant trade were greatly modified by political changes; and the prosperity of the towns, which had risen into greatness as centres of commerce, was shaken at its very foundations, while rural and urban districts alike long continued to show the desolation caused directly and indirectly by the Black Death. From this brief survey of the nature of the revolution and the causes which occasioned the decay of the old order, we may now turn to look for the first signs of reconstruction. No part of Europe had been more ruthlessly devastated than France, during the fourteenth century and the earlier part of the fifteenth; but a turning-point was reached at last, and the reviving prosperity of the country shaped itself upon new lines. Control of industry and commerce was now exercised by national rather than civic authority, while the financial and commercial business of the realm was no longer left to Italians and other strangers, but was organised by native merchants of enterprise and resource. In this new class one figure is preeminent; no other French merchant attained to wealth at all comparable to that of Jacques Coeur of Montpellier; and few experienced such a sudden reverse of fortune as he suffered when the royal master whom he had served so faithfully imprisoned him and allowed him to die in exile. Apart from these elements of romance, the story of Jacques Cceur’s rise is interesting because of the important part which he took in the political life of France. By helping to reorganise the finances of the realm he brought the Crown and the bourgeoisie in all parts of the country into much closer relations, and contributed to the remodelling of economic life and to the rise of one great nationality. His extraordinary commercial prosperity, though transitory, helps us to understand the circumstances under which a merchant class came into prominence in lands where the active trade had hitherto been prosecuted by aliens; the rapid rise of one man to a pinnacle of greatness as a merchant prince throws considerable light on the opportunities for forming capital and investing it available in his day.

Jacques Cosur’s work as a statesman had a permanent value for his country; he was for a time the most influential of the royal advisers; he did much to improve the financial administration, and instituted a reform of the coinage. There can be little doubt, when we regard his position, his preponderating influence, and his financial ability, that the creation of the permanent tattle was due to his initiative. During the Hundred Years’ War France had been subjected not only to the ravages of her enemies, but to pillage by her undisciplined soldiery, who were unpaid and had no other means of obtaining supplies. With the view of removing the excuse for these outrages, the Crown, at the meeting of the Estates in 1439, announced its intention of maintaining a standing army; and the taille became a permanent source of income which was practically levied at the royal pleasure. The project answered the immediate expectations of those who devised it; the regular troops, well-disciplined and restrained from the habitual pillage which had proved the ruin of France, expelled the English, and helped to bring large districts of the old Burgundian kingdom within the boundaries of France. But the ulterior effects of the measure were far more important; the basis on which French finance rested was altered so as to place it on a firmer footing. The main resources of the feudal monarchs had been drawn from the royal estates and supplemented by occasional aids; but the institution of a permanent faille now furnished to the Crown a regular income from taxation} which was defrayed by the trading and industrial as well as the agricultural classes. The French Crown had been mainly dependent for its revenue on the landed classes; but it henceforth became the direct interest of the King to watch and promote the welfare of industry and commerce. As a result of this financial policy extraordinary pains were taken in regard to the supervision and direction of industrial life. The corps-de-metier were revived in one town after another, but they were not permitted to retain the old status of mere municipal institutions; they were brought into direct relations with the Crown, so that they became part of a centralised system for the administrative control of the whole of French manufactures. This centralisation and over-regulation came in time to be baneful to industrial interests; but at the outset it was a natural result of the efforts of the royal authority to foster material prosperity. Under Charles VII the foundations were laid of that bourgeois policy which was pursued more thoroughly, and in defiance of the expressed disapprobation of the nobility, by Louis XI. We shall be better able to gauge the importance of this change when we come to examine the special character of the subsequent revival of French prosperity in the time of Henry of Navarre.