EXPANSION OF CHRISTENDOM 319 The Kingdom of Jerusalem was important for its trade as well as its holy places, especially so long as it touched the Red Sea waterway to the Far East and also in- Their tercepted the caravan routes from Cairo to commercial Damascus. The Italian cities which aided the lmpor ance crusaders — Genoa, Pisa, and later Venice — received quar- ters of their own in coast towns and exemptions from tolls. In these quarters they had their own courts; in fact, such Italian trading settlements were practically colonies ruled by their mother cities. Through the Assizes of Jerusalem, a code of law of the
- middle of the twelfth century, we are well informed con-
! cerning the constitution of the Kingdom of Jeru- The Assizes I salem, which had a form of government that of J erusalem j could be found only in the Middle Ages. It was a sort of J ideal feudal state, as one might expect from the fact that a
- feudal army had founded it. Just as Baldwin had seized
! Edessa for himself and Bohemond had taken Antioch, so j the lesser lords of the crusading host seized various strong- 1 holds along the route before Jerusalem was reached and cap- 1 tured. Therefore the new-made king found his vassals al-
- ready in possession of their fiefs and his power considerably
! limited in consequence. Besides a central feudal court ! there were over a score of feudal courts in the various fiefs
- of the kingdom. We have seen, however, that the humbler
crusaders could make their wishes felt on occasion, and we i shall see in the next chapter that this was a period of the growth of towns and of the acquisition of political rights by townsmen. Therefore it is not surprising to find an inde- pendent class of burghers recognized in this new kingdom alongside of the feudal nobles. Indeed a burgher might rise to knighthood, while feudal nobles were forbidden to acquire property in the towns. There were thirty-seven local courts for burghers as well as a central court of this type. There were also independent church courts, and the military crusading orders came to have large powers in the kingdom. Not very many Westerners settled permanently in the
