Bruges, however, remained the commercial metropolis. It was in direct contact with the sea. Located midway between the Sunt and the straits of Gibraltar, it stored goods arriving from the north and from the south. A new harbor was constructed at Damme and connected with Bruges by a canal, whose powerful moles have been immortalized by Dante in his _Divina Commedia_.[10] The market-place at Bruges was crowded as much as was the Piazza San Marco in Venice. Toward the middle of the thirteenth century Bruges was enjoying trade relations with England, Normandy, Gascony, Spain, Provence, and the Hanseatic cities. In the fourteenth century the development of the harbor reached its climax by the organization of a regular transport service between the Flemish port and Genoa and Venice. The growth of Flemish commerce was increased by the liberal free exchange policy of the counts of Flanders, especially since the time of Baldwin IX (1202). There was no taking advantage of foreign trade, no heavy taxes, no stringent customs. Many privileges were granted to the “Osterlings,” the merchants from Germany. If a war broke out between Flanders and a Hanseatic city, the Osterlings were allowed a period of three months in which to leave the country and to put their belongings in safety. The same privileges were granted to merchants from Poitou, Gascony, and Spain. Necessarily, also, Bruges became a center of financial operations: pawnbrokers from Cahors, Lombardy, Florence, and Sienna flocked to the city in large numbers and soon monopolized all credit operations. The Lombardic pawnbrokers, especially, invaded the whole country between the Meuse and the sea, and it is an astonishing fact that in small cities like Léau (in the neighborhood of Louvain) branch offices of the mighty banking houses of Paris were to be found. The important part played by the circulation of money is also proved by the many coin reforms of that time. The Belgian coins, owing to their excellence and high standard, were imitated in Germany by the Hanseatic cities. At the time of the communes manufacture was even more important than trade. The Belgian provinces became essentially an industrial country: from Douai to Saint-Trond there is not a city which was not connected with the cloth industry. Belgian textures became unequaled in suppleness, delicacy, and beauty of color; they were to be found everywhere throughout Europe, and were exported even to the bazaars of the Orient by vessels from Venice, Marseilles, and Barcelona. It is in the south of Flanders that the art of dyeing seems to have reached the highest perfection. Ypres, Douai, with its famous _écarlate_, and Arras are especially entitled to mention in this particular. The cloth industry was soon introduced farther north, in Ghent and Bruges, and also in Brabant. Brussels, Malines, and Louvain early rivaled the Flemish cities.