with the lasted a week or a fortnight. At the fairs were sold such goods as were brought in from outside towns or from foreign countries-goods that the town itself could not supply. Many of the articles sold at the fairs consisted of luxuries that came from the Orient. For the merchants of Europe were carrying on a Trade thriving trade with Persia and India and China and the islands Orient of the Far East. To the Orient they sent woolen goods, copper, and other metals and received in exchange spices, drugs, dyes, precious stones, silks, and various articles of Oriental luxury. The Mediterranean Sea was the center of the world's commer- Venice cial activity. The commercial metropolis of the world was Venice, which was the place of exchange for much of the trade that passed between the Orient and Europe. Commerce on a grand scale was impossible where the means of communication were so bad as they were in Europe in the fifteenth century. Trade by water was everywhere exposed to piracy, and the vessels in which the goods were carried were small and ill fitted to sustain the heavy gales of the ocean. Trade by land was everywhere exposed to highway robbery, which was so common that it was almost respectable. There were but few roads, and these few were usually in a wretched condition. Sometimes a road was so bad that it required six or eight horses or oxen to draw one of the clumsy wagons of the time. As bridges were rare, the difficulty and danger of crossing streams often proved to be insuperable obstacles to the movement of goods. Worse than all this, there was lacking that indispensable handmaid of commerce, the post-office; there was in all Europe as yet no regularly organized postal system. THE RENAISSANCE Means of cation Communi Revival Culture An outstanding feature of the European background of early The America was the Renaissance, or Revival of Learning, a move- of ment in art and literature which in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries restored to mankind the priceless heritage of Greek and Roman culture which had been buried when the Roman world was overrun by barbarians in the fifth and sixth centuries. For nearly a thousand years after the fall of Rome the minds of Printing New of The Astrolabe the people of Europe seemed to be sleeping. Culture moved in sluggish streams, invention contributed almost nothing to man's wants, civilization seemed to be at a standstill. But with the Renaissance there came more beautiful pictures, more delightful poems, more useful inventions, more comfortable houses. Schools increased in number and among the educated classes the love for books became a passion. Men went hungry and wore ragged clothing that they might buy books. In order to meet the demand for books a wonderful improvement was made in the method of printing. The improvement consisted in the invention of movable types. The exact date of this invention is difficult to determine, and it is equally difficult to tell who the inventor was. We know, however, that the earliest complete book printed on movable types was a Bible which came from the press of John Gutenberg in 1455. By the end of the century the new method of printing was in use in nearly every country of Europe, and books were coming from the presses by the thousands and were being sold at prices lower than had ever before been known. It was at this time that radical changes were made in methods of warfare. The quality of gunpowder improved, and cannons were better made. At the beginning of the fifteenth century cannon-balls were made of stone or lead and weighed only three or four pounds; by the end of the century cannons were hurling balls weighing several hundred pounds. Also the handgun, or musket, was now taking the place of the old-time crossbow. So war was beginning to wear a more terrible aspect. The period of the Renaissance saw remarkable improvements in the art of navigation. For one thing, the mariner's compass Compass; began to appear on the decks of all sea-going vessels. Moreover, the astrolabe-an instrument by which the latitude of a ship could be reckoned-was coming into use. Aided by the compass and astrolabe the mariner could determine with considerable accuracy the precise location of his ship, even though it was out on the trackless expanse of the ocean. Improvements in the art of navigation were never more Geograph welcome than at this time, for the fifteenth century was a Explora was confined chiefly to Europe, southern and middle Asia, and northern Africa. The fifteenth century was not far advanced when an impulse to exploration began to show itself. spirits sailed farther and farther into unknown seas and penetrated deeper and deeper into unknown lands, and by the year 1500 the boundaries of geographical knowledge had extended so far as to include all the continents of the earth. EXERCISES AND REFERENCES 1. European background of early America: Cheyney, 3-79. 2. The growth of commerce and its results: Adams, G. B., 279-312. 3. The Crusades: Adams, G. B., 259-278. 4. The Renaissance: Adams, 364-391. 5. State in the form of a summary the important features of the (A summary of a chapter European background of early America. For example, a may be conveniently prepared by giving in a single sentence the leading thought of each of the paragraphs of the chapter. summary of Chapter I might read as follows: The important countries of Europe at the end of the fifteenth century were Italy, France, England, Spain, Russia, Germany, and Austria. Of these only France, Spain, and England were strong consolidated nations. The prevailing type of government was monarchy. Society was divided into three classes of people: the nobles, the middle class, and the peasants. Education Religion was a powerful force in the lives of the people, the Roman Catholic Church being supreme in almost every country. was confined chiefly to the clergy and favored classes. The population was small and sparse. Almost everybody was engaged in agriculture, manufacturing being in the household stage of development. merce was a simple affair, most of the buying and selling being done in the little shops where articles were manufactured. The roads were bad, vessels were small and ill fitted for ocean voyages, piracy and highway robbery were common. The Renaissance awakened the minds Movable type having of the people and carried civilization forward. been invented, books began to be printed in great numbers. The quality Geographical of gunpowder improved and powerful cannons were made. The mariner's compass and the astrolabe came into general use. exploration took on new life; and soon all the continents of the earth were reached by bold explorers.) Com 2 Where the full name of the author and the full title of the book are not given, In this list the names of authors are arranged in see Reading List (Appendix C). alphabetical order. II EARLY AMERICA What led to the great discoveries and explorations of the fifteenth century? How did it happen that more new countries were discovered by Europeans in that one century than were discovered in all the ages that had gone before? What nations first began to go out to the New World? What was the early history of America? COLUMBUS, CABOT, AND VESPUCIUS The impulse which led men of Europe in the fifteenth century to go out upon unknown waters and find strange coasts was due largely to a pressure of commercial conditions. About the middle of the fifteenth century, the trade which the Mediterranean cities were carrying on with the Orient received a serious check at the hand of the Ottoman Turks, and by the end of the century these barbarians were interfering in a serious manner with trade moving by the old routes between Europe and the Far East. So a search for new routes began. Portugal took the lead and by 1499 Portuguese prows had found a way to the Orient by skirting the African coast and crossing the Indian Ocean. Spain, too, under the leadership of Christopher Columbus, joined in the search. It was the idea of Columbus that Asia could be reached by sailing directly across the Atlantic.1 Accordingly, under Spanish auspices, on August 3, 1492, he sailed westward from Palos, and on October 12 he landed at a little Dis 1 The traditional account of the blocking of trade-routes by the Turks and of the motives that led Columbus to make the voyage of 1492 is no longer fully accepted by all historians. Lybyer tells us that the Turks "were not active agents in definitely obstructing the routes and that "they did not not greatly, if at all, increase the difficulties of the trade," while Vignaud tells us that Columbus set sail from Palos not with the view of discovering westerly route to the Indies, but with the view of finding an island called Antilia, which he believed existed and which he believed he could reach by sailing west. See A. H. Lybyer, The Ottoman Turks and the Routes of the Oriental Trade, in English Historical Review, Vol. XXX; also Henry Vignaud, The Columbus Tradition and the Discovery of America. America covered |