The weights were more uniform and less uncertain.  The pound was everywhere in use, but it was not everywhere of the same standard (Fig. 201).  For instance, at Paris it weighed sixteen ounces, whereas at Lyons it only weighed fourteen; and in weighing silk fifteen ounces to the pound was the rule.  At Toulouse and in Upper Languedoc the pound was only thirteen and a half ounces; at Marseilles, thirteen ounces; and at other places it even fell to twelve ounces.  There was in Paris a public scale called poids du roi; but this scale, though a most important means of revenue, was a great hindrance to retail trade.

In spite of these petty and irritating impediments, the commerce of France extended throughout the whole world.

[Illustration:  Fig. 197.—­View of Lubeck and its Harbour (Sixteenth Century).—­From a Copper-plate in the Work of P. Bertius, “Commentaria Rerum Germanicarum,” in 4to:  Amsterdam, 1616.]

The compass—­known in Italy as early as the twelfth century, but little used until the fourteenth—­enabled the mercantile navy to discover new routes, and it was thus that true maritime commerce may be said regularly to have begun.  The sailors of the Mediterranean, with the help of this little instrument, dared to pass the Straits of Gibraltar, and to venture on the ocean.  From that moment commercial intercourse, which had previously only existed by land, and that with great difficulty, was permanently established between the northern and southern harbours of Europe.

Flanders was the central port for merchant vessels, which arrived in great numbers from the Mediterranean, and Bruges became the principal depot.  The Teutonic league, the origin of which dates from the thirteenth century, and which formed the most powerful confederacy recorded in history, also sent innumerable vessels from its harbours of Lubeck (Fig. 197) and Hamburg.  These carried the merchandise of the northern countries into Flanders, and this rich province, which excelled in every branch of industry, and especially in those relating to metals and weaving, became the great market of Europe (Fig. 198).

The commercial movement, formerly limited to the shores of the Mediterranean, extended to all parts, and gradually became universal.  The northern states shared in it, and England, which for a long time kept aloof from a stage on which it was destined to play the first part, began to give indications of its future commercial greatness.  The number of transactions increased as the facility for carrying them on became greater.  Consumption being extended, production progressively followed, and so commerce went on gaining strength as it widened its sphere.  Everything, in fact, seemed to contribute to its expansion.  The downfall of the feudal system and the establishment in each country of a central power, more or less strong and respected, enabled it to extend its operations by land with a degree of security hitherto unknown; and,