contained and each suitable for one day's assignment, should make the series as a whole easily adaptable to the present needs of college classes. The editors have attempted at every point to maintain and emphasize this fundamental flexibility. Maps and diagrams will occasionally be furnished with the text when specially needed but a good historical atlas, such as that of Shepherd, is presupposed throughout. R. A. N. L. B. P. S. R. P. Medieval Commerce, character and limitations. The effect of the Renaissance. Influence of the Crusades. Growth of towns, money economy, bank- ing, new navigation. The decay of feudalism. Rise of monarchy, explorations, ocean trade. Colonies and trading companies. Charters, origin and im- portance. State coinage. Capital. The 16th cen- tury rise in prices. Development of economic ideas. The absolute monarchy and the bourgeoisie. Statism. Colbert; rise to power; personality; aims. His "Offer to France." Reforms, finance, administration. Colbert's economic "theory," his opportunism. Colbert and the "War for Money.” Manufacturing, encouragement, regulation, pater- nalism. Grand Commerce, protectionism, compa- nies, colonies. Development of a French navy. The rise of England to commercial predominance in the 18th century. English institutions and ad- vantages favorable to commerce. The Methuen treaty. The South Sea Company. The Mississippi Bubble. The treaty of Utrecht and the British Colonial Empire. The mercantilist wars of the 18th Century. The war of Jenkins' ear. The Seven provements in the science of navigation. Light- houses, Trinity House, Lloyd's, Insurance. The decay of mercantilism. New economic thought. PAGE THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION I THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION (From 1400 to 1700 is a period commonly called the Renaissance. Historically speaking, this word Renaissance is used to indicate the general change from the civilization which we call medieval to that in which we live, and which we think of as modern. A great many aspects of civilization were altering; ideas and customs which had existed for centuries were dying out and were being replaced by new. Feudalism, for example, was giving way to the strong central government of kings; the Christian church of the West, for centuries united in obedience to the bishop of Rome, began to split up into independent sections; new methods of warfare appeared, in which gunpowder and standing armies were important; new kinds of architecture succeeded Gothic types of building; new forms of painting, sculpture, music and literary expression became common. Knowledge was expanding; people were learning more about many things, from their own bodies to the stars, about anatomy, disease, the earth, the atmos phere, the movements of the heavenly bodies. What we call the spirit of the Renaissance was active; its aspects were eagerness to learn, curiosity, criticism, and enthusiasm for adventure and invention. It is the economic changes of this period 1400 to 1700 which are described by the term Commercial Revolution. Changes are always going on, of course, in commerce as well as in social and political affairs; revolutions are perhaps as frequent in one as in another. But between 1400 and 1700 changes in methods of conducting business, in trading centers, in shipping, in the financial aspects of commerce and in the theories underlying practice were so numerous, so pronounced and so rapid that the total effect seems to have been revolutionary. Undoubtedly the changes which were transpiring in government, religion and culture helped to accelerate and make more thoroughgoing those in commerce. Commerce, like most other phases of civilization, passed, between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, from medieval to modern form and manner. To grasp the character and extent of this Revolution certain aspects of medieval commerce must be noted. From about 400 A. D. to nearly 1000 A. D. there was, in Western Europe, very little trade on what we should estimate as a large scale. Travel and the movement of people from one locality to another were difficult and dangerous. People "stayed put" in the Middle Ages; until the time of the crusades there was very little journeying about. The profound ignorance of geography, of places beyond one's immediate locality, helped to create a fear of strange regions and |