Editorial note — Chapter III

The trade of Bremen has, as the result of this transportation of emigrants, grown just as that of the Italian sea coast cities by the transportation of the crusaders in the Middle Ages. Here, as in so many other cases, genuine philanthropy, in the long run, moves nearly parallel with real economic advantage. And in fact, the Statuta civitatis Messiliæ of 1228 (IV, 24 seq., 28, 30) contain provisions in relation to the crusaders which forcibly remind one of the modern Bremen laws. Similarly in Venice: Compare Depping, Histoire du Commerce entre le Levant et l'Europe, 284; II, 313 seq.