at the same time, international legislation came in to protect maritime trade, which was still exposed to great dangers.  The sea, which was open freely to the whole human race, gave robbers comparatively easy means of following their nefarious practices, and with less fear of punishment than they could obtain on the shore of civilised countries.  For this reason piracy continued its depredations long after the enactment of severe laws for its suppression.

This maritime legislation did not wait for the sixteenth century to come into existence.  Maritime law was promulgated more or less in the twelfth century, but the troubles and agitations which weakened and disorganized empires during that period of the Middle Ages, deprived it of its power and efficiency.  The Code des Rhodiens dates as far back as 1167; the Code de la Mer, which became a sort of recognised text-book, dates from the same period; the Lois d’Oleron is anterior to the twelfth century, and ruled the western coasts of France, being also adopted in Flanders and in England; Venice dated her most ancient law on maritime rights from 1255, and the Statutes of Marseilles date from 1254.

[Illustration:  Fig. 198.—­Execution of the celebrated pirate Stoertebeck and his seventy accomplices, in 1402, at Hamburg.—­From a popular Picture of the end of the Sixteenth Century (Hamburg Library).]

The period of the establishment of commercial law and justice corresponds with that of the introduction of national and universal codes of law and consular jurisdiction.  These may be said to have originated in the sixth century in the laws of the Visigoths, which empowered foreign traders to be judged by delegates from their own countries.  The Venetians had consuls in the Greek empire as early as the tenth century, and we may fairly presume that the French had consuls in Palestine during the reign of Charlemagne.  In the thirteenth century the towns of Italy had consular agents in France; and Marseilles had them in Savoy, in Arles, and in Genoa.  Thus traders of each country were always sure of finding justice, assistance, and protection in all the centres of European commerce.

Numerous facilities for barter were added to these advantages.  Merchants, who at first travelled with their merchandise, and who afterwards merely sent a factor as their representative, finally consigned it to foreign agents.  Communication by correspondence in this way became more general, and paper replaced parchment as being less rare and less expensive.  The introduction of Arabic figures, which were more convenient than the Roman numerals for making calculations, the establishment of banks, of which the most ancient was in operation in Venice as early as the twelfth century, the invention of bills of exchange, attributed to the Jews, and generally in use in the thirteenth century, the establishment of insurance against the risks and perils of sea and land, and lastly, the formation of trading companies, or what are now called partnerships, all tended to give expansion and activity to commerce, whereby public and private wealth was increased in spite of obstacles which routine, envy, and ill-will persistently raised against great commercial enterprises.