Commerce and trade itself was fostered by the Crusades. It wasn't all fighting. The Venetians and other trader city-states, they helped facilitate the movement of arms and people from west to east, but on the way back, they also brought goods to trade, and so they became much, much more powerful. In fact, by the end of the Crusades, as we get into the 14th century, Venice, which is right over here on our map, was considered the richest and most powerful city in Europe. Venice has all of this trader wealth, and it's not just from trade. As you might remember from previous videos, when Constantinople was sacked, it was sacked in part by these Venetian traders, and after that, they built an empire. They broke up the Byzantine Empire and took some of it for themselves, and so it's not a coincidence that as we get into the 14th and 15th century, places like Venice and Florence, famously sponsored by the Medici family, a famous banking family, so once again, these are centers of trade, centers of commerce, became the places where the Renaissance would first flourish and last but not least, as in some ways bloody and dark a time as the Crusades were.