THE REVIVAL OF INDUSTRY AND BANKING. The trading of articles at seaports and at the interior city fairs came first, and this soon worked a revolution in industry. Instead of agriculture being almost the only occupation, and the feeding of the local population the only purpose, with only such arts and industries practiced as were needed to supply the wants of the townsmen, it now became possible to create a surplus to barter at the fairs for luxuries from the outside. Local industries, heretofore of but little importance, now developed into trades, and the manufacture of articles for outside sale was begun. At first manufacturing was very limited in scope, and confined largely to local handicrafts or the imitation of imported articles, but later new and important industries arose--the glass industry in Venice, the gold and silver industry of Florence, the weaving industry at Mainz and Erfurt, and the wool industry of Flanders. The craftsman and artisan, as well as the merchant and trader, were now developed in the towns, and soon became important members of the new social order. As serfs and villeins [32] were set free from the land [33] they came to the towns, adding more members to the new industrial classes (R. 96). From 1200 on there was a great revival of industry in western Europe, and by 1500 merchants and craftsmen had won back the place once held by merchants and craftsmen in Roman life and trade. At Florence a banking class arose, and instead of barter, banks and the use of money and credit were developed. From Florence this system gradually extended to the other commercial cities. Gradually the mediaeval objection to the taking of interest for the use of money, which the Church had forbidden in the early Middle Ages as "usury" and wicked, was overcome, and Italian bankers and merchants led the world in the establishment of that credit which has made modern trade and industry possible. With money once more in general use as a measure of value, the Arabic system of notation in use for commercial transactions, and credit at reasonable interest rates provided as a basis for finance, an era in trade and commerce and manufacturing set in unknown since the days of Roman rule. Order, security, and a wider extension of educational advantages now were needed, and nothing contributed more to securing these than the growth of wealth and manufacturing industries in the towns, and the extension of commerce and the use of money throughout the country. Nothing tends so powerfully to demand or secure these things as the possession of wealth among a people.