Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1901-10-31
SOME EFFECTS OF THE cRUsADEs
International Trade Promoted as Well
as intellectual and Moral Liberty.

Of all the results brought about by
the crusades, as regards the economic
developments Of the countries of west
ern Europe, perhaps the most impor-
tant and the most fruitful in conse-
uuences was the evolution of exchange,
taking place as it did by what might be
called an organic process, says Prof.
HanZ PrutZ in the International Month
ly. For the effect of creating new
markets and of making exchange
easier and more varied, was to make
the previously existing political and
and national boundaries less import
tant as regarded trade and commerce.
While the ultimate result of this evOlu-
ton was to consolidate interests that
had hitherto been foreign or inimiCal
to one another, to unite nation with
nation through bonds at once benef-
cent and lasting, the first effects of
this correlating influence were natur-
ally felt by those smaller communities
that stood in comparatively close con-
nectiOn with one another. Thereby
the freedom of movement, and conse-
quently the productive power Of each
community increased pari passu with
that of the nation at large. Through
this there came about further impOr-
tant changes, not only in the economic,
but also in the political life Of Europe,
which in their turn had a correspond
ling effect upon the commercial growth
Of the countries concerned. Up to this
time we have been discussing the i'm
mediate influences that the crusades
exerted upon the economic life of west
ern Europe through the introduction
of natural products hitherto unknown,
through the dissemination of new lux
uries, the creation of new wants, and
the comparative ease with which the
facilitated circulation of large sums of
money enabled these wants to be
satisfied. When we proceed to treat
the secondary results of these wars,
we find that our investigation does not
yield by any means as certain results.
With what evidence we have, we can
not, in considering them, establish the
connections between the changes TAX
ing place in the west and the eastern
influences that brought them about
whereas, IN the former case, we had
TO do with relations and left traces in
language, and with processes that pro-
duced visible and tangible results in
the shape of the use of foreign mate
rails, the adoption Of foreign dress,
and the imitation of foreign customs
In the case of these secondary results,
moreover it may occasionally be dis
puted, of all the lines of connection
imaginable or actually possible under
the circumstances, which is the right
one, or indeed whether by a post hoe,
ergo propter hoe process we have not
come to postulate courses of develop
ment unwarranted by the facts.
The old foundations upon which, up
to the time, the industrial relations of
the middle ages have rested, were in |
this transition period for the first time |
shaken, overthrown or destroyed, in so |
far that there now existed large |
classes no longer depending for sub |
sistence upon the soil. Changes have |
been introduced thereby into the mode |
Of life, and the great new principle OF
freedom OF person and pro-
perty that had been set forth |
and established, in finance and com
merce alike, with the result of cali
ing into being new social
industrial emancipation, moreover, was
accompanied by an intellectual one.
Though the crusades appear, at first
sight, as the greatest triumph of the
church, they are even more clearly /
seen, when considered from the point
of view of their larger relations and of
their ultimate outcome to be the cause
Of all its fall. Then dropped the veil
the church had blinded the
eyes Of occidental Christendom and
particularly of western Europe. For
he Europeans learned in a measure, I
% see and appreciate how little the &
world corresponded to the picture the J
church had drawn of it, how, On the t
other hand, it supplied multitude of
Kings that were new, beautiful and |
good, and the enjoyment Of which they /
'efused longer to forego. And, while r
these new pleasures, they f
,vercame the prejudices sedulously
ostered by the church, and arrived at | t
| state of intellectual and moral indie v
,endence comparable to that Industrial .
liberty that came to them as the out t
ome of the crusades.