<P> In the High Middle Ages, Venice became wealthy through its control of trade between Europe and the Levant, and began to expand into the Adriatic Sea and beyond . Venice was involved in the Crusades almost from the very beginning; 200 Venetian ships assisted in capturing the coastal cities of Syria after the First Crusade, and in 1123 they were granted virtual autonomy in the Kingdom of Jerusalem through the Pactum Warmundi . In 1110, Ordelafo Faliero personally commanded a Venetian fleet of 100 ships to assist Baldwin I of Jerusalem in capturing the city of Sidon . </P> <P> In the 12th century, the republic built a large national shipyard that is now known as the Venetian Arsenal . Building new and powerful fleets, the republic took control over the eastern Mediterranean . The first exchange business in the world was started in Venezia, to support merchants from all over Europe . The Venetians also gained extensive trading privileges in the Byzantine Empire, and their ships often provided the Empire with a navy . In 1182 there was an anti-Catholic massacre by the Orthodox Christian population of Constantinople, with the Venetians as the main targets . </P> <P> Venice was asked to provide to the transportation of the Fourth Crusade, but when the crusaders could not pay the chartering, the doge Enrico Dandolo offered a delay in the payment, in exchange of their aid to recapture Zara (today Zadar), which had rebelled against Venetian rule in 1183, placed itself under the dual protection of the Papacy and King Emeric of Hungary, and had proven too well fortified for Venice to retake alone . </P> <P> Upon accomplishing this in 1202, the crusade was again diverted to Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, called by the legitimate emperor Alexios IV Angelos, who offered to the Crusaders 10,000 Byzantine soldiers to help fight in the Crusade, maintain 500 knights in the Holy Land, the service of the Byzantine navy (20 ships) in transporting the Crusader army to Egypt, as well as money to pay off the Crusaders' debt to the Republic of Venice with 200,000 silver marks . </P>

How did the venetian city-state gain its wealth in the fourteenth century