How to attain a monopoly...

I had successfully manoeuvred 10 merchants onto all the textiles on the map. I did not gain any form of monetary windfall from this. I had read in multiple posts here in the Citadel alluding to this being a possibility, and yet I got nothing but a measly few hundred florins for my efforts. I have sinced moved my merchants off to silks in Constantinople, and amber in N. Europe.

Is it true that you can monopolize a specific resource, and if so, is there some extra steps that must be taken? like perhaps sitting on said resources for a series of turns, not just one?

You probably misread the posts. You can get the monopoly if you are the only one trading a trade good in a region. If Normandy has two wine and you have one merchant on one of them you will get the monopoly if there is no enemy merchant on the other one.

indeed! I must sheepishly admit to having looked back over my searches, and read a few, and found that out, AFTER I posted. As they say on the streets, ''OOPS MY BAD''.

Are monopolys lucerative? I NEED to learn how to make money in this game! My merchants make less than I do! If it wasn't for the money cheat...I'd have no fun at all!

Somewhat. Your merchant willl get "Monopolist" trait that gives + 1 finance, and your merchan'ts trade will become halved if they're a competing merchant on the resource. As for lucrative income you can try cutting down costs and use a mobile, efficient fighting army.

Actually, the monopolist trait series gives up to +3 finance skill.

Find a region with 2 of the same resource on it. Put a merchant on 1 (or both) of the resources. After a number of turns your merchant's skill will go up, as follows:

From 5 to 9 turns -> Skill +1 (Capitalist)
From 10 to 19 turns -> Skill +2 (Market Controller)
20 or more turns -> Skill +3 (Monopolist)

The actual direct cash gains you get from monopolising a resource seem to be fairly minor. The indirect financial gains you get from having higher skill merchants are much more significant IMO - their finance skill is used as a multiplier for whatever they are trading, plus higher skill merchants are better for taking out enemy merchants with.

Right, having a monopoly gets the relevant merchants the Monopolist trait, which increases their skills and indirectly raises money, but it doesn't directly generate more money off the resource itself.