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220 THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. ers of this period, but imply a corresponding amount of knowl- edge on the part of those whom they hoped to find as readers. But it was in the great body of the people that the most hope- ful signs were to be found. The municipal spirit developed among the Greek race had leavened the populations of Con- stantinople and the chief cities under Byzantine rule. The government of the municipalities had never been altogether surrendered by the people. The education given by the wide- spread commercial habits of the merchants was developing the intelligence of the people, with the result that they were never so intolerant in religious matters as the people of the West, and w^ould never have tolerated among them a feudal sj-stem. Commerce, indeed, was the great glory of the Byzantine Empire. Commerce, with all its advantages and veiopment of all its drawbacks, was the characteristic feature of e empire. ^^^^^ Homc. The wcaltli, the luxury, the tolerance, the development of household and of ecclesiastical art were largely due to commerce. The neglect of the public weal, the lessening of interest in the management of public affairs, the abandonment of the wealthier classes to effeminacy and idleness, and the low ideal w^hich was thus presented to the poorer classes, w^as largely due to the enormous increase of wealthy families w^iich commerce had enriched. Had the external foes of the New Eome been fewer or had she been able to overcome them, there is reason to believe that Europe might have seen the development of a State in which there would have been an amount of material comfort associated with family life such as is hardly yet to be found in any Eu- ropean country. Side by side with this there would have been an intellectual activity which would have enabled the empire to preserve the foremost rank among European na- tions. On the Bosphorus would have been the capital of an empire which for twelve centuries after Christ had preserved an unbroken tradition of order, of good government, of knowl- edge of Greek literature, of commercial prosperity, of literary and artistic development. The imperial city had bridged over the dark centuries of turmoil w^hich intervened between the pagan civilizations and those of Christianity. While the na-