I have often regretted that there is no map of France divided into fiefs, in the same manner as we have one divided into departments, arrondissements (circles), cantons, and boroughs, in which all the fiefs were denoted, with their extent, relations, and successive changes. If by the aid of such a map we could compare the state of France before and after the crusades, we should perceive at a glance how many fiefs had disappeared, and to what extent the great and middle fiefs had increased. This was one of the most important results of the crusades. And even when the small proprietors preserved their fiefs, they ceased to live so isolated as formerly. The possessors of large fiefs became centres, around which the small ones flocked and passed their lives. During the crusades they had found it necessary to range themselves under the banner of the wealthiest and most powerful, and receive assistance from him. With this chief they had lived, partaken his fortunes, and shared his adventures. When they returned home, this sociability and habit of associating with the superior became fixed in their manners. So, whilst we perceive the great fiefs enlarged after the crusades, we likewise find that their owners held a much more considerable court than theretofore in their castles, and had about their persons a great number of gentlemen, who preserved their small domains, but no longer shut themselves up in them. The extension of the great fiefs, and the creation of various centres for society, instead of the dispersion and isolation previously existing, were the two greatest effects of the crusades within the folds of feudalism. As to the burghers, a result of the same nature is instantly perceptible. The crusades were the means of creating large towns. Petty inland commerce and industry had been insufficient to form boroughs such as the great towns of Italy and Flanders. Their rise was owing to commerce upon an extensive scale, maritime commerce, and particularly that between the East and the West. Thus it was the crusades which gave to maritime commerce the strongest impulse it had ever received. {151} Upon the whole, when we look to the state of society at the conclusion of the crusades, we find that that tendency to dispersion and dissolution, that movement to universal localisation, if I may be permitted so to speak, which had preceded that epoch, had ceased and been replaced by a tendency of a contrary nature, by a movement to centralisation. Everything was disposed for junction and amalgamation. The smaller existences were absorbed in the greater, or grouped around them. In this direction society marched, to this object were its advancements pointed.