In the European system, Venice was the intermediary between the spice-laden east and the wool-bearing north. England, the wool-growing country of fourteenth-century Europe; Flanders, the home of the weaving industry; the Hanse Towns of Germany and the gradually forming kingdom of France were successively brought face to face with the new medium of currency; and if the story of the gradual adoption of that new medium could be written, it would form one of the most instructive of all chapters of currency and commercial history. As it is, we have only uncertain and scattered data. In the case of Germany--of chief importance in the process by reason of her geographical position midway between the Mediterranean and the north--the first minting of gold in imitation of the Italian states fell in the second quarter of the fourteenth century. Of the two types of gold monies issued by the Emperor Louis IV., surnamed "Bavarian," the first, struck some short time before 1328, was in direct imitation of the florin of Florence. The second, struck some little time later, was a copy of the _écu d'or_ of Philip VI. of France. In 1337 our own King Edward was made vicar-general and lieutenant to the Emperor, with powers to coin monies of gold and silver. He accordingly kept his winter at the Castle of Louvain, and caused great sums of money both of gold and silver to be coined at Antwerp. Two years later, this same Emperor Louis, the Bavarian, granted to the Duke Rainhold of Gueldres the right to mint gold coins, "after the valuation of the gold monies of the Archbishop of Cologne, the Duke of Brabant, and the Counts of Hainault and Holland." In the following year he granted to the free state of Lübeck a similar right--the patent expressly stipulating that their gold coins should not exceed in weight or value the gold florin of Florence. [Sidenote: BEGINNINGS OF A GOLD COINAGE IN GERMANY] Sixteen years later (1356) the general liberty of coining gold was conceded to the seven Electoral Princes by the Golden Bull of the Emperor Charles IV., and subsequently state after state and free town after free town purchased or were granted the right. Even as late as 1372, in the patent granting to Frederick of Nürnberg this so eagerly solicited liberty, the stipulation is made that the gold gulden to be coined should be of as good gold and weight as "the gulden or florin of Florence."