11. 1314: Venetian galleys arrive in Bruges
The Venetian trading galleys, arrived at  Bruges in 1314. For Bruges this could be described both as an annexation and as a new departure. It was an annexation because the southerners effectively captured a development which Bruges might conceivably have been able to manage single-handed. But it was also a new departure in the sense that the arrival of the sailors, ships and merchants of the Mediterranean brought in a wealth of goods, capital, and commercial and financial techniques. Rich Italian merchants came to live in the city, and brought with them consignments of some of the most precious commodities of the time: spices and pepper from the Levant which they exchanged for the industrial products of Flanders.
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