The mediaeval knight was a country squire and was rarely forced to pay for materials in money.His estates produced everything that he and his family ate and drank and wore on their backs.The bricks for his house were made along the banks of the nearest river.Wood for the rafters of the hall was cut from the baronial forest.The few articles that had to come from abroad were paid for in goods-in honey-in eggs-in fagots.But the Crusades upset the routine of the old agricultural life in a very drastic fashion.Suppose that the Duke of Hildesheim was going to the Holy Land.He must travel thousands of miles and he must pay his passage and his hotel-bills.At home he could pay with products of his farm.But he could not well take a hundred dozen eggs and a cart-load of hams with him to satisfy the greed of the shipping agent of Venice or the inn-keeper of the Brenner Pass.These gentlemen insisted upon cash.His Lordship therefore was obliged to take a small quantity of gold with him upon his voyage.Where could he find this gold?He could borrow it from the Lombards, the descendants of the old Longobards, who had turned professional moneylenders, who seated behind their exchange-table (commonly known as"banco" or bank)were glad to let his Grace have a few hundred gold pieces in exchange for a mortgage upon his estates, that they might be repaid in case His Lordship should die at the hands of the Turks.
