NAVIGATION DURING THE ROMAN EMPIRE—THE RISE OF VENICE AND GENOA—THE CRUSADES—THEIR EFFECT UPON COMMERCE—WEDDING OF THE ADRIATIC—CREATION OF THE FRENCH NAVY—INTRODUCTION OF EASTERN ART INTO EUROPE—MAPS OF THE MIDDLE AGES—REMOTE EFFECT OF THE CRUSADES UPON GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.

We have taken the birth of Christ as a point of departure in the history of navigation, merely because of the prominence of that event in the annals of the world, not on account of any connection that it has with the chronicles of the sea. So far from that, the first five centuries of the Christian era are an absolute blank in all matters which pertain to our subject. The Roman Empire rose and fell; and its rise and fall concerned the Mediterranean only. Not even Julius CÆsar, the greatest man in Roman history, has a place in maritime records; unless, when crossing the Adriatic in a fishing-boat during a storm, his memorable words of encouragement to the fisherman, "Fear nothing! you carry CÆsar and his fortunes!" are sufficient to connect him with the sea. Neither Pompey, nor Sylla, nor Augustus, nor Nero, nor Titus, nor Constantine, nor Theodosius, nor Attila, can claim part or lot in the dominion of man over the ocean. And so we glide rapidly over five centuries.

Upon the invasion of Italy by the barbarians, A.D. 476, the Veneti, a tribe dwelling upon the northeastern shores of the Adriatic, escaped from their ravages by fleeing to the marshes and sandy inlets formed by the deposits of the rivers which there fall into the gulf. Here they were secure; for the water around them was too deep to allow of an attack from the land, and too shallow to admit the approach of ships from the sea. Their only resource was the water and the employments it afforded. At first they caught fish; then they made salt, and finally engaged in maritime traffic. Early in the seventh century their traders were known at Constantinople, in the Levant, and at Alexandria. Their city soon covered ninety islands, connected together by bridges. They established mercantile factories at Rome, and extended their authority into Istria and Dalmatia. In the eighth century they chased the pirates, and in the ninth they fought the Saracens. At this period Genoa, too, rose into notice, and the Genoese and the Venetians at once became commercial rivals and the monopolists of the Mediterranean.

And now Peter the Hermit, barefooted and penniless, inveighing against the atrocities of the Turks towards Christians at Jerusalem, exhorted the warriors of the Cross to take up arms against the infidels. He inspired all Europe with an enthusiasm like his own, and enlisted a million followers in the cause. The passion of the age was for war, peril, and adventure; and fighting for the Sepulchre was a more agreeable method of doing penance than wearing sackcloth or mortifying the flesh. The First Crusade, a motley array of knights, spendthrifts, barons, beggars, women, and children, set out upon their wild career. Then came the Second, the Third, and the Fourth. Crusading was the amusement and occupation of two centuries. Two millions of Europeans perished in the cause before it was abandoned. A few words concerning its effect upon the civilization of Europe are necessary here, in direct pursuance of our subject.

During their stay in Palestine the Crusaders learned, and in a measure acquired, the habits of Eastern life. They brought back with them a taste for the peculiar products of that region,—jewels, silks, cutlery, perfumes, spices. A brisk commerce through the length and breadth of the Mediterranean was the speedy consequence. Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Venice, covered the waters of their inland sea with sails, trafficking from the ports of Italy to those of Syria and Egypt. In every maritime city conquered by the Crusaders, trading-stations and bazaars were established. Marseilles obtained from the kings of Jerusalem privileges and monopolies of trade upon their territory. Venice surpassed all her rivals in the splendor and extent of her commerce, and it was for this that the Pope, Alexander III., sent the Doge the famous nuptial ring with which, in assertion of his naval supremacy, "to wed the Adriatic." The ceremony was performed from the deck of the Bucentaur, or state-galley, with every possible accompaniment of pomp and parade. The vessel was crowned with flowers like a bride, and amid the harmonies of music and the acclamations of the spectators the ring was dropped into the sea. The Republic and the Adriatic, long betrothed, were now indissolubly wedded. This ceremony was repeated from year to year.

The Normans, the Danes, the Dutch, imitated the example of the Italians, or, as they were then called, the Lombards, but were rather occupied in conveying provisions to the armies than in trading for their own account.

It was during the Crusades that the French navy was created. Philip Augustus, who, on his way to Syria, and thence home again, could not have remained insensible to the advantages of possessing a strong force upon the ocean, formed, upon his return, the nucleus of a national fleet, for the purpose of defending his coasts either against pirates or foreign invasion.

While the necessity of transporting articles from the East to supply the demand thus created in the West gave a stimulus to commerce and navigation, manufactures were encouraged and developed by the operation of the same cause. The Italians learned from the Greeks the art of weaving silk, which soon resulted in the weaving of cloth of gold and silver. They learned to mould glass in a multitude of new and curious forms. From the manufactories of Syria, where stuffs were made of camels' hair, improvements were introduced into the manufactures of Europe, where they were woven of no other material than lambs' wool. Palestine also suggested to crusaders returning home the advantages of windmills for grinding flour. Arabia furnished the art of tempering arms and polishing steel, of chasing gold and silver, of mounting stones in rich and massive settings. Constantinople furnished the Christians with many splendid specimens of ancient art,—groups, statues, and the Corinthian horses, and thus awakened European taste.

Nearly all the Gothic monuments of Europe which still excite the admiration of the tourist owe their existence to this communication with the Greeks by means of the Crusades, and to the wonder which seized the Frank and Lombard at the sight of the churches and palaces of Byzantium. The Europeans carried back with them the architecture of the Saracens. Saint Mark's at Venice was built from the plans, and under the direction, of an unbeliever. The Cathedral and Spire of Strasburg, with their gigantic and yet delicate proportions, the Minster of Amiens, the Sainte Chapelle of Paris, were constructed in close imitation of the chef-d'oeuvres of Eastern art. Painting upon glass was also brought from Constantinople, and the early painters of Christendom were speedily employed in tracing in colors, upon the windows of abbeys and cathedrals, the exploits of the Crusaders and the triumphs of the Cross.

From the Arabs and the Greeks, too, the Europeans received their first lessons in the natural and exact sciences. Imperfect and incomplete as were the astronomy, the botany, the mathematics, and the geography of the Arabians, they were far in advance of the same professions as understood and practised in Europe. The languages were improved and enriched by the association and exchange of ideas into which English, Germans, Italians, and French were forced. The confusion of tongues, which was as complete as at Babel, was somewhat corrected by the harmony of interest and oneness of purpose which animated all, of whatever name and lineage, who gathered around the Sepulchre.

It is obvious, therefore, that the effect of the Crusades, so far as it is the object of a work like the present to trace and delineate it, was to give the people of Europe a new motive for maintaining an intercourse with the people of Asia. They had seen their superior civilization, and sought to introduce it among themselves. They had learned to appreciate their skill in the arts, and resolved to acclimate those arts at home. They had accustomed themselves to many articles of luxury, which had become articles of necessity, and which it was now essential, therefore, to transport from the Levant, from the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf, to the Bay of Venice and the Gulf of Genoa. There was a demand, in short, in the West, for the products, the manufactures, the arts, of the East. Here was the origin of the immense Eastern commerce which now fell into the hands of the Genoese and Venetians, and which, resulting from the Crusades, compelled us to the digression we have made. It is not our purpose, however, to refer more at length to this commerce, as it was carried on upon seas which had been navigated for twenty centuries; and we must hasten forward to the period when new paths were laid out over the immensity of the waters.

A map, published just anterior to the First Crusade, fully displays the ignorance which then prevailed in geographical science. The sea, as in the age of Homer, is made to surround the world as a river, the land being divided into three parts, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Africa and Asia are joined together in the South, and the Indian Ocean is an inland sea. Asia is as large as the other two continents combined. On the east there is a small spot indicated as the position of the Garden of Eden by the words Hic est Paradisus. Europe and Africa are separated from Asia by a long canal, which may be either the Nile or the Hellespont. Africa is still considered the land of mystery and fable: its northern part only is considered inhabitable, the south being even unapproachable, on account of the torrents of flame poured on it by the sun. The Frozen Ocean, the Baltic, the White Sea, and the Caspian, are all united. The Northern regions are represented as forming one single island. Scandinavia is made the birthplace and residence of the Amazons, the famous women-warriors to whom antiquity had given a home in the Caucasus.

We shall, in due order, proceed to show that the indirect and remote effect of the Crusades, and of the intercourse produced by them between two totally separated regions, was to induce the Discovery of America, the Doubling of the Cape of Good Hope, and the Passage of the Straits at the southern extremity of Patagonia,—results due to Columbus, Vasco da Gama, and Magellan, every one of whom were seeking, in the voyages which have rendered them immortal, another passage to the Indies than that held by the Italians—so far as they could prosecute it in vessels upon the Mediterranean. But, before we can proceed from the coasting enterprises of the Lombards upon the land-locked waters of their inland sea, to the daring ventures of the Portuguese and Spaniards upon the raging billows of the Tropical and South Atlantic, we must turn for a moment to the North of Europe, and inquire into the maritime achievements of the Anglo-Saxons and the Northmen during the Dark and Middle Ages.