In the thirteenth century Castilian Spain made a beginning of industrial and commercial life, of which Santiago de Compostela had been perhaps the only representative prior to that date. Laborers united in guilds, just as in other western European lands, working together according to the laws of their guild, and living in the same street. Many of them were foreigners, Jews, or Mudéjares. An export trade of raw materials and wine developed between the towns of the north coast and the merchants of Flanders, England, and Germany, and just at the end of the period the capture of Seville added commercial wealth to Castile, through the trade of that city in the western Mediterranean. Interior commerce still encountered the difficulties which had harassed it in earlier times, but some of them were overcome through the development of fairs to facilitate exchange. Certain days in the year, usually corresponding with the feast of the patron saint of the town, were set aside by important centres for a general market, or fair, on which occasions special measures were undertaken to assure the safety of the roads and to protect all who might attend,--Moslem and Jews as well as Christians. Men naturally travelled in large groups at such times, which was an additional means of security. The season of the fair might be the only occasion in a year when a town could procure a supply of goods not produced at home, wherefore this institution assumed great importance. The increased use of coin as a medium of exchange demonstrates the commercial advance of this period over the preceding. [Sidenote: The intellectual awakening.]