edict of Alexander III. in 1249, which forbade Scots merchants to export any goods in their vessels, because "some of them had been captured by pirates, and others lost by shipwreck and by seizure in foreign ports." Matthew, of Westminster, in his doleful laments on the decline of England in the fourteenth century, speaks of English ships as in the past, "carrying aromatics and all precious merchandize through the four climates of the world." This is probably a poetic exaggeration, as no record remains of such voyages.
Scotland, as far as can be judged from fragmentary allusions, had as much commerce as England in these times. Inverness ships were in high repute in France, and Matthew Paris notes a wonderful vessel which was built for the Earl of Blois in 1249.[1] In 1281 there was an active fishery on both sides of Scotland; in 1286 Berwick was so flourishing that it is compared with a "second Alexandria," and we are told "that the sea is its wealth, the water its walls." In 1271 an Englishman, Adam de Bedford, who had formed one of a Scots gang of pirates, was executed at Berwick. But during the fourteenth century Scots trade appears to have declined.
At the close of the thirteenth century, Marco Polo's travels attracted some attention, and stimulated the interest in geography. They were followed, late in the fourteenth century, by the pretended voyages and travels of Sir John Mandeville, who professed in the year 1322 to have gone oversea to Asia Minor, and thence to Armenia, Turkey, Persia, Syria, Egypt, Chaldea, and India. His "voyages," however, were almost entirely accomplished on land; though, as the critics have long since abandoned all belief in their credibility, there is no need to discuss them.
In 1304, there is a complaint made by Edward to Erik of Denmark about his treatment of an English ship loaded with wine, which had apparently been seized by the Danish king.[2] Erik replied that he would cause restitution to be made. Sanuto the Venetian, who, in 1321, published a work upon the trade of Europe, does not say anything about English commerce in the Mediterranean, though as he also omits to mention the Catalans, who were undoubtedly traders and travellers of great enterprise, this does not necessarily prove anything.[3] He alludes to the Danish,
