Mediaeval and modern history . ng special and valuable privi-leges. Thus, while power and wealthwere slipping out of the hands of thenobility, the cities and towns weregrowing in political importance andmaking great gains in the matter ofmunicipal freedom. The Holy Wars further promoted theprosperity of the towns by giving a greatirnpulse to commercial enterprise. Dur-ing this period Venice, Pisa, and Genoaacquired great wealth and reputationthrough the fostering of their trade bythe needs of the crusaders and theopening up of the East. The Mediter-ranean was whitened with the sails oftheir tr
Mediaeval and modern history . ng special and valuable privi-leges. Thus, while power and wealthwere slipping out of the hands of thenobility, the cities and towns weregrowing in political importance andmaking great gains in the matter ofmunicipal freedom. The Holy Wars further promoted theprosperity of the towns by giving a greatirnpulse to commercial enterprise. Dur-ing this period Venice, Pisa, and Genoaacquired great wealth and reputationthrough the fostering of their trade bythe needs of the crusaders and theopening up of the East. The Mediter-ranean was whitened with the sails oftheir transport ships, which were constantly plying between thevarious ports of Europe and the towns of the Syrian coast. Also,various arts, manufactures, and inventions (among these the wind-mill ^^ and probably the mariners compass) before unknown inEurope were introduced from Asia. This enrichment of the civili-zation of the West with the spoils of the East we may allowto be emblemized by the famous bronze horses that the crusaders. Fig. 26. — A MedievalWindmill. (From anengraving of an abbey andits precincts, dating fromabout the middle of thefourteenth century) 13 Windmills were chiefly utilized in the Netherlands, where they were used topump the water from the oversoaked lands, and thus became the means of creatingthe most important part of what is now the kingdom of Holland. THEIR POLITICAL EFFECTS 145 carried off from Constantinople and set up before St. MarksCathedral in Venice (Fig. 25). The effects of the Crusades upon the social life of the Westernnations were marked and important. Giving opportunity forromantic adventure, they aided powerfully in the development ofthat institution of knighthood which, as we have seen, nourishedmany of the noblest virtues and most exalted sentiments ofmodern society (sec. 109). And under this head must be placedthe general refining influence that contact with the more culturednations of the East had upon the semibarbarous folk of the West
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubje, booksubjectmiddleages
