y.

Thus, the early centuries of the Middle Ages seem to have been
completely ignorant of the power of capital. They abound in wealthy
landed proprietors, in rich monasteries, and we come upon hundreds of
sanctuaries the treasure of which, supplied by the generosity of the
nobles or the offerings of the faithful, crowds the altar with ornaments
of gold or of solid silver. A considerable fortune is accumulated in the
Church, but it is an idle fortune. The revenues which the landowners
collect from their serfs or from their tenants are directed toward no
economic purpose. They are scattered in alms, in the building of
monuments, in the purchase of works of art, or of precious objects which
should serve to increase the splendor of religious ceremonies. Wealth,
capital, if one may so term it, is fixed motionless in the hands of an
aristocracy, priestly or military. This is the essential condition of
the patronage that this aristocracy (_majores et divites_) exercises
over the people (_pauperes_). Its action is as important from the social
point of view as it is unimportant from that of economics. No part of it
is directed toward the _negociatores_, who, left to themselves, live, so
to speak, on the fringe of society. And so it will continue to be, for
long centuries.

Landed property, indeed, did not contribute at all to that awakening of
commercial activity which, after the disasters of the Norman invasion in
the North and the Saracen raids on the shores of the Mediterranean,
began to manifest itself toward the end of the tenth century and the
beginning of the eleventh. Its preliminary manifestations are found at
the two extremities of the Continent, Italy and the Low Countries. The
interior seas, between which Europe was restricted in her advance toward
the Atlantic, were its first centres of activity. Venice, then Genoa and
Pisa, venture on the coasting trade along their shores, and then
maintain, with their rich neighbors of Byzantium or of the Mohammedan
countries, a traffic which henceforward constantly increases. Meanwhile
Bruges at the head of the estuary of the Zwyn, becomes the centre of a
navigation radiating toward England, the shores of North Germany, and
the Scandinavian regions. Thus, economic life, as in the beginning of
Hellenic times, first becomes active along the coasts. But soon it
penetrates into the interior of the country. Step by step it wins its
way along the rivers and the natural routes. On this