ABSTRACT
In spite of these crises and "growing-pains," European commerce developed in the course of the last century of the Middle Ages, chiefly to the benefit of those states which were most free from attack, or which were the soonest to repair the ruin which had been spread by the scourges of war and of epidemics. It was then that the future commercial organization of modern times took shape. In spite of the deep-rooted prejudices which prevailed on the subject of business enterprise, the needs of consumption and of luxury, as well as the growing profits to be drawn from commercial operations, gave a vigorous impetus to the trading powers— Italy, the South of France, Eastern Spain and Portugal, the Low Countries, and Germany.
