The Turkish conquests had forced the principal trade of the East into restricted channels, and Christian successes were responsible for the increasing difficulties under which the commerce of the western Mediterranean was carried on. The expulsion of the Moors from Spain, which was completed by the conquest of Granada, was followed by an extraordinary development of national vigour and material prosperity in many parts of the peninsula; but the exiled population aroused the sympathy of their co-religionists in Africa; an increase of marauding expeditions by sea ensued, and the difficulties of merchants who trafficked with Morocco were seriously aggravated.
On every side, the old lines of distant trade were greatly modified by political changes; and the prosperity of the towns, which had risen into greatness as centres of commerce, was shaken at its very foundations, while rural and urban districts alike long continued to show the desolation caused directly and indirectly by the Black Death. From this brief survey of the nature of the revolution and the causes which occasioned the decay of the old order, we may now turn to look for the first signs of reconstruction. No part of Europe had been more ruthlessly devastated than France, during the fourteenth century and the earlier part of the fifteenth; but a turning-point was reached at last, and the reviving prosperity of the country shaped itself upon new lines. Control of industry and commerce was now exercised by national rather than civic authority, while the financial and commercial business of the realm was no longer left to Italians and other strangers, but was organised by native merchants of enterprise and resource. In this new class one figure is preeminent; no other French merchant attained to wealth at all comparable to that of Jacques Coeur of Montpellier; and few experienced such a sudden reverse of fortune as he suffered when the royal master whom he had served so faithfully imprisoned him and allowed him to die in exile. Apart from these elements of romance, the story of Jacques Cceur’s rise is interesting because of the important part which he took in the political life of France. By helping to reorganise the finances of the realm he brought the Crown and the bourgeoisie in all parts of the country into much closer relations, and contributed to the remodelling of economic life and to the rise of one great nationality. His extraordinary commercial prosperity, though transitory, helps us to understand the circumstances under which a merchant class came into prominence in lands where the active trade had hitherto been prosecuted by aliens; the rapid rise of one man to a pinnacle of greatness as a merchant prince throws considerable light on the opportunities for forming capital and investing it available in his day.
Jacques Cosur’s work as a statesman had a permanent value for his country; he was for a time the most influential of the royal advisers; he did much to improve the financial administration, and instituted a reform of the coinage. There can be little doubt, when we regard his position, his preponderating influence, and his financial ability, that the creation of the permanent tattle was due to his initiative. During the Hundred Years’ War France had been subjected not only to the ravages of her enemies, but to pillage by her undisciplined soldiery, who were unpaid and had no other means of obtaining supplies. With the view of removing the excuse for these outrages, the Crown, at the meeting of the Estates in 1439, announced its intention of maintaining a standing army; and the taille became a permanent source of income which was practically levied at the royal pleasure. The project answered the immediate expectations of those who devised it; the regular troops, well-disciplined and restrained from the habitual pillage which had proved the ruin of France, expelled the English, and helped to bring large districts of the old Burgundian kingdom within the boundaries of France. But the ulterior effects of the measure were far more important; the basis on which French finance rested was altered so as to place it on a firmer footing. The main resources of the feudal monarchs had been drawn from the royal estates and supplemented by occasional aids; but the institution of a permanent faille now furnished to the Crown a regular income from taxation} which was defrayed by the trading and industrial as well as the agricultural classes. The French Crown had been mainly dependent for its revenue on the landed classes; but it henceforth became the direct interest of the King to watch and promote the welfare of industry and commerce. As a result of this financial policy extraordinary pains were taken in regard to the supervision and direction of industrial life. The corps-de-metier were revived in one town after another, but they were not permitted to retain the old status of mere municipal institutions; they were brought into direct relations with the Crown, so that they became part of a centralised system for the administrative control of the whole of French manufactures. This centralisation and over-regulation came in time to be baneful to industrial interests; but at the outset it was a natural result of the efforts of the royal authority to foster material prosperity. Under Charles VII the foundations were laid of that bourgeois policy which was pursued more thoroughly, and in defiance of the expressed disapprobation of the nobility, by Louis XI. We shall be better able to gauge the importance of this change when we come to examine the special character of the subsequent revival of French prosperity in the time of Henry of Navarre.
The far-reaching influence exercised by this fiscal change contrasts curiously with the instability of the great commercial connexion established by Jacques Coeur. He desired to open up a direct trade with the East, and succeeded in obtaining numerous concessions not only from the French Crown, but also from the Pope, and from Muslim Powers in Egypt and Syria. These privileges secured to him the monopoly of many lines of profitable trade; he is said to have had no fewer than three hundred factors at various points on the eastern Mediterranean. This great commercial fabric, however, rested on concessions personal to Jacques Coeur and his representatives; and, on his fall from favour, the whole structure collapsed. Montpellier was the principal seat of his business, and the town enjoyed a period of extraordinary prosperity through the trade which he brought to it; but this brief efflorescence seems to have had little abiding influence on the future of French commerce. The main interest attaching to the career of Jacques Coeur as a merchant lies in the illustration which it furnishes of the possibilities open in the early fifteenth century to men who had the capacity to use them.
At first sight, the conditions of life in that age appear to have been such as to make it impossible to understand how great fortunes could have been amassed. If the career of Jacques Cceur had been absolutely unique, it might be sufficient to say that he was able to take advantage of a great monopoly and to trade at an enormous rate of profit; but he did not stand entirely alone. His case was not altogether solitary; though, like William de la Pole and William Canynges, he was preeminent among a considerable number of wealthy men. It is not easy to see how this class could have come into being in so many places during this particular period; but this difficulty must be faced. An increasing scarcity of the precious metals would seem to have involved a steady fall in prices; so that, apart altogether from the effects of war and pestilence, the monetary conditions were singularly unfavourable to successful trade. Commerce between Europe and Asia was carried on by means of a constant drain of silver from the West; there was . no other suitable commodity for export in return for silks and spices, nor was the stock of bullion being adequately replenished from European mines. The trade with Morocco did not result in an importation of African gold, but involved an additional demand on the European supply of silver. It appears that the value of silver was steadily rising from the middle of the fourteenth century onwards, though the fall of prices was not so great as might have been expected; a counteracting influence was at work which affected the currency and prices in much the same way as an additional supply of silver bullion; there seems to have been a greatly increased rapidity of circulation. Money was not laid by in hoards to the same extent as formerly; and masses of bullion, which had been stored for public or private purposes, were being regularly utilised. The treasure of the feudal monarchs had been withdrawn from circulation for years; Charles V of France had accumulated a reserve of not less than 17,000,000 livres. But the Kings who borrowed from Jacques Co3ur and his contemporaries were less thrifty; they only obtained money when they had need to spend it, and there was no reason that it should