his ransom to raise,—­to pay for in hard cash, and not in land:  as in the case of Richard of England, when, on his return from Palestine, he was imprisoned in Austria,—­and it took to ransom him, as some have estimated, one third of all the gold and silver of the realm, chiefly furnished by the clergy.  But where was the imprisoned baron to get the money for his ransom?  Not from the Jews, for their compound interest of fifty per cent every six months would have ruined him in less than two years.  But the village guilds had money laid by.  Merchants and mechanics in the towns, whom he despised, had money.  Monasteries had money.  He therefore gave new privileges to all; he gave charters of freedom to towns; he made concessions to the peasantry.

As the result of this, when the baron came back from the wars, he found himself much poorer than when he went away,—­he found his lands encumbered, his castle dilapidated, and his cattle sold.  In short, he was, as we say of a proud merchant now and then, “embarrassed in his circumstances.”  He was obliged to economize.  But the feudal family would not hear of retrenchment, and the baron himself had become more extravagant in his habits.  As travel and commerce had increased he had new wants, which he could not gratify without parting with either lands or prerogatives.  As the result of all this he became not quite so overbearing, though perhaps more sullen; for he saw men rising about him who were as rich as he,—­ men whom his ancestors had despised.  The artisans, who belonged to the leading guilds, which had become enriched by the necessities of barons, or by that strange activity of trade and manufactures which war seems to stimulate as well as to destroy,—­these rude and ignorant people were not so servile as formerly, but began to feel a sort of importance, especially in towns and cities, which multiplied wonderfully during the Crusades.  In other words, they were no longer brutes, to be trodden down without murmur or resistance.  They began to form what we call a “middle class.”  Feudalism, in its proud ages, did not recognize a middle class.  The impoverishment of nobles by the Crusades laid the foundation of this middle class, at least in large towns.

The growth of cities and the decay of feudalism went on simultaneously; and both were equally the result of the Crusades.  If the noble became impoverished, the merchant became enriched; and the merchant lived, not in the country, but in some mercantile mart.  The crusaders had need of ships.  These were furnished by those cities which had obtained from feudal sovereigns charters of freedom.  Florence, Pisa, Venice, Genoa, Marseilles, became centres of wealth and political importance.  The growth of cities and the extension of commerce went hand in hand.  Whatever the Crusades did for cities they did equally for commerce; and with the needs of commerce came improvement in naval architecture.  As commerce grew, the ships increased in size and convenience;