ABSTRACT
It was under the influence of the great merchants who carried on the export or carrying trade that the mechanism of commercial operations was perfected. Means of information
multiplied, in the shape of manuals and treatises on business, exchange, and jurisprudence, as well as accounts of journeys. The systems of account by double entry and of trade-marks which could be granted and transmitted made their appearance. The great commerce collected a whole army of clerks, porters, couriers, commissioners, interpreters, and messengers for its service. It organized meeting-places-bourses or exchanges-splendid buildings such as those of Genoa, Venice, Palma, Valencia, and Bruges. It had its representatives at the courts of princes, and its special justice, which was swifter than that of the ordinary tribunals; it elaborated a special merchant law, which took the place of canon law and approached more nearly to the civil law.
