This primitive form of insurance developed quickly. It became insurance as we understand it to-day. Thus in the “Chronyk Van Vlaenden”--an ancient history--it is written:-- “On the demand of the inhabitants of Bruges, the Count of Flanders permitted in the year 1310, the establishment in this town of a Chamber of Assurance, by means of which the Merchants could insure their goods, exposed to the Risks of the Sea, or elsewhere, in paying a stipulated Percentage. But, in order that an Establishment so useful to Commerce might not be dissolved as soon as formed, he ordered the laying down of several Laws and Regulations which the Assurers as well as the Assured, are bound to observe.” Bruges was at this period the very capital of the commerce of the North. It was the great storehouse, the chief market and the main sea-port of that far-flung League. It was no uncommon thing for a hundred and fifty tall ships to enter on a single tide into Sluys, the outer harbour of Bruges. The first definite ordinances concerning marine insurance, however, came from a very different part of the world. The Magistrates of Barcelona, certainly on four separate occasions during the 15th Century, formulated Rules which were one and all intended to prevent the over insurance of unseaworthy ships--a growing scandal and danger of those times. The Barcelona trade was mainly with the Ports of Italy; and the Grand Council of Venice, before the century was over, followed in the footsteps of Barcelona. The Venetian Decree starts by declaring that, owing to the perverse nature of mankind, people _will_ quarrel about money matters, and proceeds to deal with such very modern dangers as that arising from carrying an excessive cargo on deck. Ordinances issued in Venice were certain to find their way into England, for the Italians, or Lombardy men as they were called, had already gained a solid footing in England, and indeed were actually carrying commercial war into the very camp of the Stillyard. The attack of the German Emperor upon the Pope in the first half of the 13th Century, and the influence of the Crusades, which brought to England in Italian Fleets spices, carpets, silks and other luxuries from the East, were the chief causes of the Italian invasion. With the expulsion of the Jews by Edward the First, their position was greatly strengthened, for, in their turn, they became the usurers. We find the Lord Mayor, at the King’s command setting aside for them a district of London in which to reside--the district now known as Lombard Street--and so powerful did they become that even though their unpopularity made them objects of continual attacks by the populace and continual Petitions for their expulsion to successive Kings, they were only dislodged in the end by their own fears for their personal safety.