The commercial success of the states of Italy induced the inhabitants of northern Europe to attempt similar enterprises. In the thirteenth century the seaports on the Baltic were trading with France and Britain, and with the Mediterranean. The commercial laws of Oleron and Wisbuy (on the Baltic) regulated for many ages the trade of Europe. To protect their trade from piracy, Lubec, Hamburg, and most of the northern seaports, joined in a confederacy, under certain general regulations, termed the _League of the Hanse Towns_; a union so beneficial in its nature, and so formidable in point of strength, as to have its alliance courted by the predominant powers of Europe. ‘For the trade of the Hanse Towns with the southern kingdoms, Bruges on the coast of Flanders was found a convenient entrepôt, and thither the Mediterranean merchants brought the commodities of India and the Levant, to exchange for the produce and manufactures of the north. The Flemings now began to encourage trade and manufactures, which thence spread to the Brabanters; but their growth being checked by the impolitic sovereigns of those provinces, they found a more favorable field in England, which was destined thence to derive the great source of its national opulence.’ THE TURKS――FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. We have already seen the weakness of the empire of Constantinople at the time of the Crusades; we have seen the city sacked and the government seized by the champions of the cross. The Greeks regained their empire in the year 1261, but in a mangled and impoverished condition. For nearly two centuries it continued in a similar state. Andronicus, son of Michael Palæologus, who had restored the Greek empire, allowed himself to be persuaded that as God was his protector, all military force was unnecessary; and the superstitious Greeks, regardless of danger, employed themselves in disputing about the transfiguration of Jesus Christ, when their unfortunate situation made it necessary that they should have been studying the art of war, and training themselves to military discipline.