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<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Hansa Towns, by Helen Zimmern</h1>
<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at <a
href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></p>
<p>Title: The Hansa Towns</p>
<p>Author: Helen Zimmern</p>
<p>Release Date: May 10, 2012 [eBook #39664]</p>
<p>Language: English</p>
<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HANSA TOWNS***</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau, Melissa McDaniel,<br />
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
(http://www.pgdp.net)</h3>
<p> </p>
<hr class="full" />
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p class="center b13"><i>The Story of the Nations.</i></p>
<p class="center p4 b20">THE HANSA TOWNS.</p>
<div class="figcenter">
<img src="images/hanse001a.jpg" width="100" height="118" alt="Logo" />
</div>
<div class="ad p6">
<p class="center">THE STORY OF THE NATIONS.</p>
<hr class="poem" />
<p class="center"><i>Large Crown 8vo, Cloth, Illustrated, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>s.</i><br />
<i>Presentation Edition, Gilt Edges, 5s. 6d.</i></p>
<p>1. <b>ROME.</b> <span class="smcap">Arthur Gilman</span>, M.A.</p>
<p>2. <b>THE JEWS.</b> Prof. <span class="smcap">J. K. Hosmer</span>.</p>
<p>3. <b>GERMANY.</b> Rev. <span class="smcap">S. Baring-Gould</span>,
M.A.</p>
<p>4. <b>CARTHAGE.</b> Prof. <span class="smcap">A. J. Church</span>.</p>
<p>5. <b>ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE.</b> Prof.
<span class="smcap">J. P. Mahaffy</span>.</p>
<p>6. <b>THE MOORS IN SPAIN.</b> <span class="smcap">Stanley
Lane-Poole.</span></p>
<p>7. <b>ANCIENT EGYPT.</b> Canon <span class="smcap">Rawlinson</span>.</p>
<p>8. <b>HUNGARY.</b> Prof. <span class="smcap">A. Vambéry</span>.</p>
<p>9. <b>THE SARACENS.</b> <span class="smcap">A. Gilman</span>, M.A.</p>
<p>10. <b>IRELAND.</b> Hon. <span class="smcap">Emily Lawless</span>.</p>
<p>11. <b>CHALDÆA.</b> <span class="smcap">Z. A. Ragozin.</span></p>
<p>12. <b>THE GOTHS.</b> <span class="smcap">Henry Bradley.</span></p>
<p>13. <b>ASSYRIA.</b> <span class="smcap">Z. A. Ragozin.</span></p>
<p>14. <b>TURKEY.</b> <span class="smcap">Stanley Lane-Poole.</span></p>
<p>15. <b>HOLLAND.</b> Prof. <span class="smcap">J. E. Thorold
Rogers</span>.</p>
<p>16. <b>MEDIÆVAL FRANCE.</b> Prof.
<span class="smcap">Gustave Masson</span>.</p>
<p>17. <b>PERSIA.</b> <span class="smcap">S. G. W. Benjamin.</span></p>
<p>18. <b>PHŒNICIA.</b> Canon <span class="smcap">Rawlinson</span>.</p>
<p>19. <b>MEDIA.</b> <span class="smcap">Z. A. Ragozin.</span></p>
<p>20. <b>THE HANSA TOWNS.</b> By <span class="smcap">Helen
Zimmern</span>.</p>
<hr class="poem" />
<p class="center">
London:<br />
T. FISHER UNWIN, 26, Paternoster Square, E.C.</p>
</div>
<div class="figcenter p10"><a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a>
<img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="338" height="550" alt="VIEW OF HAMBURG." />
<p class="caption">VIEW OF HAMBURG.</p>
</div>
<h1 class="p6">THE<br />
HANSA TOWNS</h1>
<p class="center p4"><span class="s07">BY</span><br />
HELEN ZIMMERN<br />
<span class="s07">AUTHOR OF "A LIFE OF LESSING," "HEROIC TALES FROM FIRDUSI," ETC.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p class="center p4">London<br />
<span class="b12">T. FISHER UNWIN</span><br />
26 PATERNOSTER SQUARE</p>
<p class="center">NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS<br />
<span class="s05">MDCCCLXXXIX</span></p>
<p class="p6 center">
Entered at Stationers' Hall<br />
<span class="smcap">By T. FISHER UNWIN</span></p>
<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright by G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1889</span><br />
(For the United States of America).</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_VII" id="Page_VII"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/king.jpg" width="450" height="108" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<h3 class="p4">PREFACE.</h3>
<hr class="l15" />
<p>In bringing before the public what I believe to be
the first History of the Hanseatic League, it gives
me pleasure to think that the impetus to write it
came from the United States. The work was suggested
to me by my valued friend, Mr. G. H. Putnam,
of New York, a citizen of the country in which the
principle of federation is best understood and most
thoroughly carried out. The Hansa was one of the
earliest representatives of that federal spirit which
will, beyond doubt, some day help to solve many
of the heavy and grievous problems with which we
of the Old World are struggling; but that day is
not yet, and meantime we have much to learn both
from the successes and failures of the past.</p>
<p>I have, of course, assumed in my readers some
knowledge of German History, such as they can
derive from Professor Bryce's inimitable "Holy
Roman Empire," or from Baring-Gould's "Story of
Germany," one of the earlier volumes of this series.</p>
<p>In conclusion, I desire to express my very cordial
thanks to Dr. Otto Benecke, Keeper of the State
Archives of the city of Hamburg, and to my uncle,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_VIII" id="Page_VIII">viii</a></span>
Dr. Carl Leo, Syndic of the same town, for the
generosity with which they have accorded me valuable
assistance in the preparation of this volume. I
have further to thank Miss L. Toulmin Smith for
help in revision of the MS., and for many useful
suggestions. To my sister, Miss Alice Zimmern,
and to Dr. Richard Garnett, of the British Museum,
I am indebted for aid in proof-reading.</p>
<p><span class="left65">HELEN ZIMMERN.</span></p>
<p><span class="smcap">Florence</span>,<br />
<span class="i2"><i>March 1, 1889</i>.</span></p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_IX" id="Page_IX"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/couple.jpg" width="450" height="105" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<h3 class="p4">CONTENTS.</h3>
<hr class="l5" />
<table summary="Table of Contents">
<col width="5%" />
<col width="85%" />
<col width="10%" />
<tr>
<td colspan="2"> </td><td class="tdr"><span class="smcap">page</span></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Preface</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_VII">vii</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2" class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Proem</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a>-<a href="#Page_7">7</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc"><i>PERIOD I.</i></td><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">I.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Dawn of a Great Trade Guild</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_11">11</a>-<a href="#Page_20">20</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdl">Teutonic Merchants, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>—Travelling in Early Times, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>—Origin
of the Guilds, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">II.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Federation</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_21">21</a>-<a href="#Page_29">29</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdl">The Story of "Winetha," <a href="#Page_23">23</a>—The Island of Gothland, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>—"Salt
Kolberg," <a href="#Page_27">27</a>—Unhansing, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">III.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Foreign Trade</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_30">30</a>-<a href="#Page_47">47</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdl">Social Conditions, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>—Enslavement of the Middle Class, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>—Italian
Influences, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>—Burgher Home Rule, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>—League
of the Baltic Towns, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>—The Title "Hansa," <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">IV.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Hansa Fights</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_48">48</a>-<a href="#Page_69">69</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdl">The Herring Fisheries, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>—Waldemar, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>—The First Attack,
<a href="#Page_53">53</a>—Sack of Wisby, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>—Copenhagen Plundered, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>—Punishment
of Wittenborg, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>—The Cologne Federation, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>—Growing
Strength of the League, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>—Flight of Waldemar, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>—Treaty
of Stralsund, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>—A Curious Chapter in History, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_X" id="Page_X">x</a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc"><i>PERIOD II.</i></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">
THE HISTORY OF THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE,
FROM 1370 TO THE PUBLIC PEACE OF 1495,
DECREED IN GERMANY BY MAXIMILIAN I.
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">I.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Lübeck Receives an Imperial Visitor</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_73">73</a>-<a href="#Page_81">81</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdl">
Hesitation of Lübeck, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>—Procession from St. Gertrude's
Chapel, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>—Lübeck Hospitality, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>—Records of the Visit, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">II.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Towns in the Fourteenth Century</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_82">82</a>-<a href="#Page_125">125</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdl">
The Ban of the Hansa, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>—Submission of Brunswick, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>—Prominence
of the Cities, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>—Population of Lübeck, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>—Characteristics
of the Germans, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>—Independence of the
Towns, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>—The Maritime Ports, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>—Exports of the Hansa,
<a href="#Page_97">97</a>—Conditions of Trade, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>—Specie, Credit, and Bills, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>—The
Extent of Mediæval Trade, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>—The Churches and
Religious Buildings, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>—Hanseatic Architecture and Art, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>—Science
and Literature, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>—The May Emperor, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>—Customs,
Restrictions, and Regulations, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>—Luxury in Dress,
<a href="#Page_119">119</a>—The Town Council, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>—The Town-hall, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>—Mediæval
Patriotism, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">III.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Victual Brothers</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_126">126</a>-<a href="#Page_136">136</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdl">
Plunder of Bergen, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>—Stortebeker, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>—Simon of Utrecht,
<a href="#Page_131">131</a>—Execution of Stortebeker, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">IV.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Factory of Bergen</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_137">137</a>-<a href="#Page_147">147</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdl">
History of Bergen, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>—Shoemaker's Alley, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>—Constitution
of the Factory, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>—Barbarous Practices, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_XI" id="Page_XI">xi</a></span></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">V.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Hanseatic Commerce with Denmark,
Sweden, and Russia</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_148">148</a>-<a href="#Page_162">162</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdl">
Skânoe and Falsterbo, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>—The Pious Brotherhood of
Malmö, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>—The Hansa at Novgorod, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>—The Court of St.
Peter, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>—Furs, Metals, Honey, and Wax, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>—The Lombards
<i>versus</i> the Hansa, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>—Ivan the Terrible Sacks Novgorod,
<a href="#Page_161">161</a>.
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">VI.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Commerce of the League with the
Netherlands and Southern Europe</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_163">163</a>-<a href="#Page_178">178</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdl">
The Flemish Trade Guilds, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>—Hansa Factory at Bruges,
<a href="#Page_167">167</a>—Suspension of Trade with Flanders, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>—Trade with
Antwerp, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>—Relations with France, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>—The Hansa in
Portugal and Italy, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>—Italian Culture in South Germany,
<a href="#Page_177">177</a>.
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">VII.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Steelyard in London</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_179">179</a>-<a href="#Page_201">201</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdl">
The Hanseatic Rothschilds, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>—Hanseatics Hated by the
People, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>—Rupture with England, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>—The Key to the
City's Commerce, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>—Description of the Steelyard, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>—Inner
Life of the Factory, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>—The English Conciliated, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>—Depôts
throughout England, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>—The Hansa's Part in
Ceremonies, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>—Religion of the English Hanseatics, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">VIII.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Organization of the Hanseatic League</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_202">202</a>-<a href="#Page_208">208</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdl">
The Diets, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>—Minutes of the Diet's Proceedings, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.
</td></tr>
<tr><td> </td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc"><i>PERIOD III.</i></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE HANSA.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Introduction</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_211">211</a>-<a href="#Page_216">216</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdl">
Decay of the Feudal System, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>—The Thirty Years' War,
<a href="#Page_215">215</a>.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_XII" id="Page_XII">xii</a></span></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">I.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Storm Clouds</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_217">217</a>-<a href="#Page_235">235</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdl">
Charles V. of Germany, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>—Gustavus Appeals to Lübeck,
<a href="#Page_223">223</a>—Cruelty of Christian II., <a href="#Page_225">225</a>—Gustavus Lands in
Sweden, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>—Lübeck Aids Gustavus, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>—Christian II.
deposed, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>—Christian II. Abjures Lutheranism, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>—Christian's
Memory, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">II.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">King Frederick and King Gustavus Vasa</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_236">236</a>-<a href="#Page_239">239</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdl">
"Put not thy trust in Princes," <a href="#Page_237">237</a>—Gustavus Quarrels
with Lübeck, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>.
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">III.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Wullenweber</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_240">240</a>-<a href="#Page_282">282</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdl">
The Religious Movement, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>—Lübeck Espouses Lutheranism,
<a href="#Page_243">243</a>—Max Meyer, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>—Capture of Spanish Ships, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>—Christopher
of Oldenburg, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>—Congress at Hamburg, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>—Wullenweber's
Projects, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>—Disorder in Lübeck, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>—Hostilities
in Denmark, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>—Escape of Max Meyer, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>—Battle
of Assens, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>—Cologne's Reproach, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>—Nicholas
Brömse, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>—Resignation of Wullenweber, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>—Imprisonment
of Wullenweber, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>—The Rack, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>—Unfair Trial,
<a href="#Page_277">277</a>—Execution of Wullenweber, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>.
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">IV.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Hansa Loses its Colonies</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_283">283</a>-<a href="#Page_305">305</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdl">
Emancipation of Sweden, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>—New Route to Russia, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>—History
of Livonia, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>—Livonia Repudiates the Hansa, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>—Ivan
Seizes Livonia, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>—Stupefaction of Germany, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>—War
Against Sweden, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>—Warning of the Duke of Alva,
<a href="#Page_299">299</a>—Bornholm Ceded to Denmark, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>—Embassy to the
Muscovite Court, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>—The League Dissolves, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_XIII" id="Page_XIII">xiii</a></span></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">V.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The League in the Netherlands</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_306">306</a>-<a href="#Page_323">323</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdl">
Causes of Failure in the West, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>—Dissension Among the
Towns, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>—Depôt Established at Antwerp, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>—Dangerous
Innovations, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>—General Insecurity of Commerce, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>—Insubordination
of the Hanseatics, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>—The Antwerp Factory
in Danger, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>—Trade with the Low Countries, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">VI.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The End of the Hansa's Dominion in
England</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_324">324</a>-<a href="#Page_353">353</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdl">
Restrictions on the English Trade, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>—Complaints of the
Londoners, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>—Trade Regulations Broken, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>—Queen
Mary Favours the Hansa, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>—English Grievances, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>—Negotiations
with Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>—Internal Disunion, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>—The
Steelyard Insubordinate, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>—Hamburg Adjusts its
Policy, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>—The Good Old Privileges, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>—Conservative
Lübeck, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>—Seizure of Hanseatic Vessels, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>—Expulsion
of Hanseatics from England, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>—The Steelyard Property,
<a href="#Page_353">353</a>.
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">VII.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Thirty Years' War Kills the League</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_354">354</a>-<a href="#Page_364">364</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdl">
Gustavus Adolphus, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>—Wallenstein's Project, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>—Imperial
Graciousness, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>—The War Storm Breaks, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>.
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdc">VIII.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Survivors</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_365">365</a>-<a href="#Page_378">378</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td> </td><td class="tdl">
"Sic transit gloria mundi," <a href="#Page_369">369</a>—Napoleon and the Three
Cities, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>—Note, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>.
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Epilogue</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_379">379</a>-<a href="#Page_386">386</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Index</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_387">387</a></td></tr>
</table>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/dragon.jpg" width="450" height="107" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_XV" id="Page_XV">xv</a></span></p>
<h3 class="p4">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h3>
<hr class="l15" />
<table summary="List of Illustrations">
<tr><td> </td><td class="tdr"><span class="smcap">page</span></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>VIEW OF HAMBURG</td><td class="tdr"><i><a href="#frontis">Frontispiece</a></i></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>IMPERIAL CROWN OF GERMANY</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo4">4</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>COIN OF CHARLEMAGNE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo7">7</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>PIRATES</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo13">13</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>NORMAN VESSEL FROM BAYEUX TAPESTRY</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo20">20</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>HIGHROAD</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo33">33</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>ITINERANT MERCHANTS</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo36">36</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>SALTERS' HALL, FRANKFORT</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo39">39</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>MEDIÆVAL CITY</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo41">41</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>ROBBER KNIGHTS</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo44">44</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>RATH-HAUS, COLOGNE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo62">62</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>RATH-HAUS, TANGERMUNDE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo66">66</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>SHIPPING HOUSE, LÜBECK</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo76">76</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>GROCERS' HALL, BREMEN</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo84">84</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>RATH-HAUS, BRUNSWICK</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo86">86</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>MÜHLENTHOR, STARGARD</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo88">88</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>BURGHERS AT TABLE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo110b">91</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>GERMAN TRADE LIFE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo94">94</a>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_XVI" id="Page_XVI">xvi</a></span></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>RENSLAU GATE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo97">97</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>CROSSBOW</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo99">99</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>HOHE-THOR, DANZIG</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo108">108</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>HOLSTENTHOR, LÜBECK</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo110">110</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>CHILDREN'S SPORTS</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo115">115</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>DOMESTIC MUSIC</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo118">118</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>MIDDLE-CLASS OCCUPATIONS IN THE FIFTEENTH
CENTURY</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo122">122</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>SHIP-BUILDING IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo128">128</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>HELIGOLAND</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo132">132</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>TOMB OF SIMON OF UTRECHT, HAMBURG</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo135">135</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>JUSTICE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo142">142</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>SHIP AT THE END OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo145">145</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>SEAL OF NOVGOROD</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo162">162</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>STADT-HAUS, BRUGES</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo164">164</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>RHINE BOAT, COLOGNE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo167">167</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>THE PIED PIPER'S HOUSE, HAMELIN</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo172">172</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>FONTEGO DEI TEDESCHI, VENICE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo176">176</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>THE STEELYARD, LONDON</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo180">180</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>BARDI PALACE, FLORENCE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo182">182</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>STEELYARD WHARF, LONDON</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo187">187</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>THE TRIUMPH OF RICHES, BY HOLBEIN</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo197">197</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>SEAL OF LÜBECK</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo205">205</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>PETERSEN-HAUS, NUREMBURG</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo207">207</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>CHARLES V.</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo218">218</a>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_XVII" id="Page_XVII">xvii</a></span></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>CHRISTIAN II.</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo221">221</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>HENRY VIII.</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo249">249</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>SCENE BEFORE A JUDGE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo273">273</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>THE RACK</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo281">281</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>THE HANSA FACTORY, ANTWERP</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo313">313</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>SIR THOMAS GRESHAM</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo327">327</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>RATH-HAUS, MÜNSTER</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo363">363</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>RATH-HAUS, LÜBECK</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo367">367</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>RATH-HAUS, BREMEN</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#illo373">373</a></td></tr>
</table>
<hr class="l15" />
<div class="blockquot">
<p>
[Of the architectural views reproduced in this volume some have been
copied from prints in the British Museum, others from drawings and
photographs in possession of the authoress, and the remainder from
various German authorities. The illustrations of German life and
manners are taken from Otto Henne am Rhyn's "Cultur Geschichte des
deutschen Volkes," to the publisher of which volume our best thanks
are due.</p>
<p>
<span class="smcap left65">T. Fisher Unwin</span>,<br />
<span class="smcap left65">G. P. Putnam's Sons</span>.]</p>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_XIX" id="Page_XIX"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/mapa-550.jpg" width="550" height="392" alt="Dominion of the Hansa" />
<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Dominion of the Hansa</span><br />
<span class="smcap">XIII-XV Centuries</span><br />
T. FISHER UNWIN, 26, PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDON, E.C.</p>
<a href="images/mapa-1000.jpg">View larger image</a>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/king.jpg" width="450" height="108" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<h2>STORY OF THE HANSA TOWNS.</h2>
<hr class="l15" />
<h3 class="p4">PROEM.</h3>
<p>There is scarcely a more remarkable chapter in
history than that which deals with the trading alliance
or association known as the Hanseatic League. The
League has long since passed away, having served its
time and fulfilled its purpose. The needs and circumstances
of mankind have changed, and new
methods and new instruments have been devised for
carrying on the commerce of the world. Yet, if
the League has disappeared, the beneficial results
of its action survive to Europe, though they have
become so completely a part of our daily life that we
accept them as matters of course, and do not stop to
inquire into their origin. To us moderns it seems
but natural that there should be security of intercourse
between civilized nations, that highways should
be free from robbers, and the ocean from pirates.
The mere notion of a different state of things appears
strange to us, and yet things were very different not
so many hundred years ago.</p>
<p>In the feudal times the conditions of life on the
continent of Europe seem little short of barbarous.
The lands were owned not only by the kings who
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">2</a></span>
ruled them with an iron despotism, but were possessed
besides by innumerable petty lordlings and
princelets, who on their part again exercised a rule
so severe and extortionate that the poor people who
groaned under it were in a condition little removed
from slavery. Nay, they were often not even treated
with the consideration that men give their slaves, upon
whom, as their absolute goods and chattels, they set a
certain value. And it was difficult for the people to
revolt and assert themselves, for however disunited
might be their various lords, in case of a danger that
threatened their universal power, they became friends
closer than brothers, and would aid each other faithfully
in keeping down the common folk. Hand in
hand with princes and lords went the priests, themselves
often worldly potentates as well as spiritual
rulers, and hence the very religion of the carpenter's
son, which had overspread the civilized world in
order to emancipate the people and make men of all
nations and degrees into one brotherhood, was—not
for the first time in its history—turned from its
appointed course and used as an instrument of
coercion and repression.</p>
<p>Such briefly was the celebrated feudal system—a
system whose initial idea that the rich man should
protect the poor, that the lord should be as a father
to his vassals, is wise and good, but which in practice
proved itself untenable. Even to-day, after many
centuries and generations, the only European nations
that have wholly succeeded in casting off the feudal
yoke are those in whose history an entirely subversive
revolution, like the French, has taken place. In
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">3</a></span>
others, notwithstanding years of struggle and revolt,
not only its memory, but some of its customs, still
survive; for systems and institutions die hard, and
continue to exercise mischievous power long after their
original force is spent. To this survival can be traced
a large number of the evils that are agitating contemporary
Europe; for example, the wretched state of
Ireland.</p>
<p>That the people of Germany, the country with
which we have chiefly to deal in treating of the
Hanseatic League, was not wholly enslaved and
crushed out of all individual existence by the state
of things that reigned from the Baltic to the Alps in
the early years of its history is due to the two great
factors of memory and heredity. Memory, because
when Tacitus, that most dramatic of historians,
wrote his famous book on Germany, one of the chief
points he noted in this land was that there existed an
equality among the freeborn, an absence of rank and
concentration of power. Heredity, because a love of
individual freedom appears as an inherent quality in
the Teutonic race from their first appearance in historic
legend.</p>
<div class="poem">
<p>"Though the mills of God grind slowly</p>
<p class="i1">Yet they grind exceeding small,"</p>
</div>
<p>sings the poet, and all the ages have confirmed the
experience that might is not suffered to be right for
ever, that vengeance falls and justice asserts itself,
even though the wrong be not righted, or the evil
avenged for many a long year after the sin has
been committed.</p>
<p>"Whom the gods would destroy they first strike
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">4</a></span>
with madness," says the Latin proverb. It was so
with the ambitious rulers of Germany. They were
not content to be sovereigns of their own empire,
they desired also to hold in their hand the reins
of Italy; the bestowal of the title Holy Roman
Emperor by the Pope Leo III. upon Charlemagne
moved their longing and cupidity, so that gradually
they grew more occupied with the business of the fair
peninsula, "the garden of the Empire," as Dante calls
it, than with the condition of their own ruder and
sterner fatherland. Added to this they took to fighting
among themselves, being
divided into two rival factions
which elected opposing
rulers, the result being that
often no one knew who was
head or who was subject.</p>
<div class="figleft"><a name="illo4" id="illo4"></a>
<img src="images/illo4.jpg" width="250" height="233" alt="IMPERIAL CROWN OF GERMANY." />
<p class="caption">IMPERIAL CROWN OF GERMANY.</p>
</div>
<p>Frederick Barbarossa was
the last to uphold the real
authority and power of Germany.
He was a true hero
of romance, one of the
noblest expressions of the mediæval character. When
he died the real empire fell. What remained was but a
semblance and a ruin, and it is little wonder that Germany
plunged henceforth into yet greater anarchy, invented
the legend that peace and prosperity would not
return to her until Frederick Red Beard should come
back to rule, that giant among men, falsely reported
dead, but who, in truth, was merely resting, sunk in
enchanted sleep among the mountains of Bavaria.
There he was waiting the hour when the ravens
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">5</a></span>
should cease to hover around the cloud-capped peak
to emerge surrounded by the trusty Crusaders who
shared his slumbers and restore to Germany the
golden age of peace and strength.</p>
<p>It is claimed by some that Barbarossa has so returned,
that he came back as recently as 1870, but
whether this be fact or no does not concern us here.
What does concern us is, that in the reign of Frederick
Barbarossa we find mentioned, for the first time as a
power in the State, a few of the many German cities
that had arisen under the fostering protection of
Henry the Fowler. Barbarossa found it useful to
encourage the growth of that third estate so needful
to the healthy existence of the body politic. Thus
he could pit them against the nobles when it pleased
him to harass his sometime allies; he could also
draw from them the moneys that are the sinews of
war. In return for such loyal aid the emperor freely
granted municipal institutions, rights and privileges,
exemptions and favours, little realizing that in so
doing he was creating in his own land that very spirit
of independence, that breath of modern individual
freedom, to quench which he was spending his best
years and strength beyond the barrier Alps.</p>
<p>The policy therefore of the "imperial knights" and
"knightly emperors" who preceded and followed
Frederick, while in one way it tended to destroy the
unity of Germany as a political state, in the other
was the means by which the cities of Germany, as
well as those of Northern Italy, acquired that remarkable
independence, that rapid, splendid commercial
and intellectual development that raised them to the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">6</a></span>
condition of almost autonomous communities, and
made them the wonder, glory, and pride of the
Middle Ages. Citizens and burghers became freemen,
and enjoyed the privileges that fell to this lot.
Hence men loved to crowd into the towns, and these
grew up and flourished apace, until they acquired
such power and assumed such proportions as their
first promoters little contemplated.</p>
<p>It was the Lombard league of cities that broke the
might of the Holy Roman Emperors, as the rulers
of Germany loved to style themselves, as they styled
themselves, indeed, long after the Empire, to quote
Voltaire, was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an
Empire.</p>
<p>Ignominiously driven forth from Italy, the German
kings at last turned their steps homeward, where they
looked to reign with their old strength and might,
even though the range of their rule had been circumscribed.
They came back to find that long absences,
internal and external feuds, pretenders and usurpers,
had so weakened their prestige that their subjects had
learnt to trust to themselves rather than to their
sovereign heads. And when they did return, at last,
it was to find themselves confronted with such
another league of cities, as had wrecked their power
abroad, a federation founded for mutual protection
and defence, under whose ægis alone could peace or
shelter be found.</p>
<p>This was the irony of fate indeed. To be sovereigns
of the world, the German emperors had staked
their national existence; staked and lost.</p>
<p>On a murky and disturbed horizon had arisen a brilliant
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</a></span>
star, the star of municipal liberty, helping men
to hope for and aspire towards those better things, to
which it alone could lead them. The political anarchy
of Germany, increased by forty years' interregnum,
not only had given birth but strength to the confederation
of cities directed against the brigandage of the
princes and nobles, which we first meet with under the
name of Hansa, in the year 1241, at a time when both
the Papal and Imperial thrones were vacant, when in
France St. Louis wielded the sceptre and was strengthening
the power of nobles and the church; when in
England Henry III. had enraged the barons by his
fondness for foreign favourites, and when that outburst
was preparing which led to the formation of a popular
faction and upraised the patriot, Simon de Montfort;
a time, in short, when the long struggle even now
waging between the people and their rulers was first
begun in modern Europe.</p>
<div class="figcenter p2"><a name="illo7" id="illo7"></a>
<img src="images/illo7.jpg" width="220" height="109" alt="COIN OF CHARLEMAGNE." />
<p class="caption">COIN OF CHARLEMAGNE.</p>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a></span></p>
<h2 class="p6">PERIOD I.</h2>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/couple.jpg" width="450" height="105" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p class="center p4 b13"><b>I.</b></p>
<h3 class="p4">THE DAWN OF A GREAT TRADE GUILD.</h3>
<p>Whether it be that our forefathers were not so
prompt to put pen to paper as we are, or that they
purposely avoided written words and inclined to
silence from motives of that combined prudence and
love of mystery-making that distinguished the Middle
Ages, the fact remains that of the real origin and
founding of that great federation of industry and
intelligence known to after-years as the Hanseatic
League, we have no accurate knowledge.</p>
<p>We see the tree in full growth, with its widespreading
boughs and branches; of the modest seedling
whence it sprung we are in ignorance. We only know
most surely that some such seed there must have been,
and in this case may with certainty infer that the main
causes of this unique combination were the alliance of
the North German cities among themselves, and the
protective and social alliances formed by German
merchants who met in foreign parts.</p>
<p>It is obvious that there must have been much commerce,
and that it must have played an important part
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span>
before either of these circumstances could have arisen.
Therefore in order fully to understand the importance
and bearing of the League we must begin our story
earlier than its history proper would seem to warrant;
only thus can we thoroughly comprehend why the
Hanseatic alliance in fostering its own interests, in
aggrandizing and enriching itself, was working also
for all humanity, since it created and enlarged the
idea of public right, and thus sowed the seeds of
principles then novel, but on which our modern
civilization is largely founded and with which we
are now so familiar that it is difficult to realize how
matters could ever have been otherwise. Can we
grasp, for example, a state of things when wrecking
was considered a legitimate occupation; when the
merchandise thus thrown on land became the possession
of the strand dwellers and the ship's crew their
legitimate slaves; when barons who deemed themselves
noblemen lay in wait within their strong castles
to pounce on luckless traders, and either deprived them
wholly of their wares or levied black mail under the
name of toll; in short, when humanity towards the
weak and unfortunate was a word of empty sound?
Yet so strongly is the love of enterprise implanted in
the Northman's breast that even these obstacles did
not deter him from the desire to enlarge his experience
and to widen the field of his energies. He
was the kinsman of those adventurous Angles and
Saxons who had not feared to cross the boisterous
German Ocean and to subjugate Great Britain to
themselves; in his veins ran the blood of those
Normans, the scourge and terror of European coasts,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span>
against whom the peoples knew no better protection
than the prayer addressed to Heaven in their despair—"<i>A
furore Normanrorum libera nos Domine</i>," a clause
that survived in their litanies some time after the
cause was no longer to be feared.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo13" id="illo13"></a>
<img src="images/illo13.jpg" width="415" height="550" alt="PIRATES." />
<p class="caption">PIRATES.</p>
</div>
<p>Indeed it is not easy to distinguish the earliest
traders from corsairs. It would seem that as occasion
served they employed their long narrow rowing
ships to scour the ocean or to carry the produce of
the north, above all the much prized amber. It is
thought that they bore it down even to the Bay of
Biscay, nay, perhaps yet further within the Roman
Empire.</p>
<p>Under the intelligent rule of Charles the Great the
activity of the Northman assumed a more pacific
character, and we meet with the idea of merchant
and trade guilds, though the latter were not much
encouraged by the emperor, who feared lest they
should contain in themselves elements of corporate
union and political revolt. But he fostered the
growth of cities; and in those days trade and commerce
filled up even more than at the present day the
daily life of a citizen. In the Middle Ages the expression
"merchant" (<i>mercator</i>, negotiator) was on
the Continent actually held as identical with townsman.</p>
<p>It is curious that the early Teuton regarded
manual labour as unworthy a free man, but did not
extend this feeling to commerce, and trading became
more and more the occupation of the third estate.
We find them on horseback or in ships traversing
many regions to bring their wares to market and to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span>
enlarge their sphere of action, and gradually as their
numbers increased they would meet each other at the
various foreign ports, exchange news, perhaps even
wares, and hold together in that brotherly spirit that
men of one nation and one tongue are wont to feel
towards each other on foreign soil. Disputes and
difficulties with the natives must also have been of
frequent occurrence, for though the merchant, as
bringer of news and novelties, was usually a welcome
visitor at a time when intercourse between nations
can hardly be said to have existed, yet, on the other
hand, he had to reckon with the prejudice that regards
what is strange as equivalent to what is hostile.
Hence the merchants very naturally combined among
themselves at the different ports to protect their common
interests, and endeavoured by all means in their
power to enlist in their favour their own sovereigns
and those of the lands they visited.</p>
<p>Thus in the lawbook of London, under the reign
of Ethelred II. the Unready (978), we come across
the phrase, "the people of the Emperor have been
judged worthy of the good laws, like to ourselves."
This phrase meant that, in cases of wrong done to the
foreigner by the native, the foreigner should enjoy
the protection of the native laws as though he were
a citizen, instead of being treated as heretofore like
an alien. "The people of the Emperor" meant in
this case the Teutonic merchants who traded on the
banks of the Thames long before the German cities
had combined to form their famous league, long
before they had founded their factories in Russia,
Scandinavia, and Flanders.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span></p>
<p>London was their earliest foreign settlement, and
already in the tenth century we find that the Germans
enjoyed the same rights when their ships entered
British ports as those possessed by the English. In
return for this they had at Easter and Christmas to
make a donation of two pieces of grey and one of
brown cloth, ten pounds of pepper, five pairs of
men's gloves, and two barrels of vinegar. The fact
that they thus paid toll in kind and not in money is
entirely in accordance with the ancient usage of
guilds and corporations, and the conditions of mediæval
tenures. Gloves as tokens of good faith and
submission, and pepper, probably because of its
rarity as an Eastern product, were forms of payment
frequent in early days.</p>
<p>After this first mention we find that year by year
the privileges of the German were extended in
England. The kings desired that they should be
treated as subjects and friends, and after Henry the
Lion had married a daughter of Henry II. of
England, the alliance grew yet closer. Thus special
privileges were accorded to them with regard to the
sale of Rhine wine, of the importation of which into
Great Britain we now hear for the first time. It is
evident that the commerce of England was largely in
the hands of these foreigners, a circumstance the
more remarkable when we consider that the English
have now for some centuries been the great traders of
the world.</p>
<p>What hindered the rise of the British in early days
was the feudal system against which the Germans
had rebelled. It was a system incompatible with
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span>
burgher life, with independent industry and enterprise.
For many years the English trade was practically
restricted to the exportation of wool, skins, lead, and
tin. For where there is no middle class there can be
no real commerce, and this fact explains the widespread
power of the German merchants in England.
The lessons they learnt here they carried farther afield;
appearing now as the vanguard of civilization, now
as the pioneers of Christianity, everywhere as traders
desirous to fill their coffers, bearing in mind the
maxim that "union is strength," and clinging closely
to one another for mutual protection and defence.
We must remember that travelling in the tenth,
eleventh, and twelfth centuries was not what it is to-day.
Dangers lurked on all sides for the bold mariner
who ventured forth in ships of small size devoid of
compass, load-line, chart, and chronometer. It was
slow work to make headway under the difficulties put
in the mariner's path by the elements alone, such as
the darkness of night, fogs and storms, shoals, quicksands,
and rocks, to say nothing of the peril from
pirates. The fact, too, that, owing to the want of
maps, they kept as close as possible to land, increased
the risks they ran. Arrived at his destination, the
trader would often have to wait long ere he could find
a purchaser for his wares, for in those days the merchant
himself carried his wares to market; there
were no commission agents at the various ports; there
were no posts, nor was the art of remitting money
understood. In the stormy winter-time, moreover,
neither sailors nor merchants cared to venture upon
the ocean; and owing to the brevity of the northern
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span>
summer it often became needful for them to pass the
bad season at whatever place they happened to be.
Indeed the hazards connected with a winter voyage
were so great, that in the very earliest days of union
it was determined by common consent that no merchants
should send their ships to sea after St. Martin's
Day (November 11th), and that they should endeavour
as far as possible to be in port by Michaelmas
(September 29th). "To sail after Martinmas is
to tempt God," writes an old chronicler. With the
11th of November the winter season commenced for
the Baltic trading fleet.</p>
<p>Curiously enough a similar custom obtains in
Greece to this day. The Greek coasters do not sail
on the seas from December 6th till after the New
Year; during this time the ocean is hallowed for new
trips.<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> The Hanseatics, of course, had to extend the
time of exemption in the northern seas. In the
year 1391 a Hanseatic Diet ordained that no Hanseatic
merchant should sail forth from a western to
an eastern, or from an eastern to a western harbour
between Martinmas and Candlemas (November 11th-February
2nd). The climatic conditions of certain
ports obliged this rule to be extended to St. Peter
in Cathedra (February 22nd), if they were carrying
"precious goods."</p>
<p>It is amusing, however, to find in the older records
an exceptional clause to the effect that herrings and
beer, two of the most important exports of the coast
towns, could not possibly be subjected to these restrictions.
The herring, that much prized fasting dish,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span>
to the preparation and distribution of which the Hansa
attached such value, had necessarily to be despatched
before February 22nd in order that it might arrive at
its destination before Lent. A no less important
reason determined the transport of beer, which was
brewed in most of the export towns, and which might
easily spoil in a more advanced season of the year.
These reasons caused the cities to decide that a ship
laden with beer, herrings, or dried cod, might go to
sea on St. Nicholas Day (December 6th) if it were
ready laden by that date.</p>
<p>But this was the exception. The rule was for the
trader to winter wherever he happened to be. In
the long, cheerless evenings men liked to associate
with compatriots who spoke the same tongue, and
had the same interests and customs. These men
of the Middle Ages were specially distinguished
by their social instincts. They were bound together
also by the element of a common religion, by the
desire to worship together, to fulfil, perchance, some
holy vow made in an hour of great danger, to
bury, with the familiar rites of his own Church and
country, some less fortunate comrade who had expired
on foreign soil. Thus were formed those Guilds, or
Hanse, as they were called, of merchants on alien
soil, clustering, as a rule, around a church erected by
them, and having besides a general living and storehouse
for the safe custody of their goods. There is
nothing strange in the fact that such settlements should
have been formed; what is strange is the power they
acquired in the course of time, until at last, in some
places, they dictated terms to the natives of the country;
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span>
nay, they even made and unmade their rulers, until
in the end their sway extended from Bergen in the
north to Venice in the south, from Novgorod and
Smolensk in the east to York and London in the
west.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo20" id="illo20"></a>
<img src="images/illo20.jpg" width="550" height="331" alt="NORMAN VESSEL FROM BAYEUX TAPESTRY." />
<p class="caption">NORMAN VESSEL FROM BAYEUX TAPESTRY.</p>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/dragon.jpg" width="450" height="107" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p class="center p4 b13"><b>II.</b></p>
<h3 class="p4">FEDERATION.</h3>
<p>The free ocean, owned by no king or ruler, has
from earliest times been the highroad of nations, and
in the life and movement of the last eighteen hundred
years the Baltic takes a scarcely less important place
than the lovelier, more poetical, and oft-sung Mediterranean.
Even to-day it is more frequented than most
of the seas; the traffic through the Sound being second
to that of no other strait.</p>
<p>The Baltic has had its singers too. We need only
turn to the strong, rugged Norse Saga to find that sea
extolled as the nurse of mighty heroes, or the scene of
giant combats; and the wilder element that pervades
these heroic tales is in keeping with the rugged iron-bound
coasts that skirt its waters, which do not invite
the cooing of idyls, nor lap the fantasy in luscious
dreams. Here all is stern life and movement; here
man must fight hand to hand with nature if he would
extort from her even the bare necessities for his daily
nourishment.</p>
<p>The contrast between the North and the South is
nowhere more strikingly seen than in the different
characteristics of the two seas, and the races they have
produced. Nor could these characteristics be better
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span>
illustrated than by a comparison between the great
commercial Republics of Italy and the Hanseatic
federation of Germany. The former, though individually
great, never became a corporate body.
Jealousy and rivalry were ever rife among them,
and in the end they destroyed themselves. Where
nature is kind men can better afford to be cruel, and
need not hold together in such close union. Thus it
was here.</p>
<p>But if the Baltic is at a disadvantage compared with
the Mediterranean in climate as well as in size, it
is not inferior in wealth and variety of its produce.
Mighty rivers, watering many lands discharge themselves
into its bosom, and produce upon their banks
rich and needful products, such as wheat and wool.
In the earth are hidden costly metallic treasures, while
the sea itself is a well of opulence from the number
and diversity of the fish that breed in its waters.</p>
<p>It has been well said that since the days of the
Hansa, possession of the Baltic and dominion of the
sea are synonymous terms. The Hansa, the Dutch,
and the English have necessarily played the first <i>rôle</i>
in the Baltic trade. But the trade dates from an
even earlier time. Thanks to coins accidently
dropped, and after long years unearthed, we learn
that by way of the Volga the Northmen brought
to their distant home the treasures of the far East—spices,
pearls, silks, furs, and linen garments; and
that following the course of the Dwina, the Dnieper,
and the Oder, they found their way to Constantinople,
the Black Sea, and even the Caspian.</p>
<p>Canon Adam, of Bremen, a chronicler of the eleventh
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span>
century, in one of those farragoes of fact and fiction
in which our forefathers read history, tells of a great
trading city at the month of the Oder, "Julin, the
greatest town of heathen Europe."<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> "It is a famed
meeting-place for the barbarians and Greeks<a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> of the
neighbourhood, inhabited by Slavs and other barbarians.
Saxons, too, may live there if they do not
declare themselves Christians; for the town is rich in
the wares of all Eastern peoples, and contains much
that is charming and precious."</p>
<p>This town of Winetha, of whose exact site we
are no longer sure, since it has been destroyed by the
encroachment of the Baltic, was, and is still, a favourite
theme of song and legend with German writers. It is
fabled that it was destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrha,
because of its sins; for its inhabitants had grown hard
and proud and disdainful, trusting in wealth, and despising
God. On fine and calm days mariners can, it
is said, behold the city, with its silver ramparts, its
marble columns, its stirring, richly-dressed population,
leading, beneath the ocean, the life which they led
while their city was still on firm ground. Every Good
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span>
Friday this splendid city, with its towers, palaces, and
walls, is permitted to rise from the ocean, and sun
itself in the daylight, to be again submerged on Easter
Day, by this annual fall recalling to all who might else
forget it the severe justice of God.</p>
<p>The extract given above from the old writer impresses
on us a fact we must bear well in mind, namely,
that the Baltic mainland littoral at the time the
Teutonic merchants began to ply their trade upon its
coast was not a German possession, but inhabited
and owned by a Slavonic people, who clung to their
pagan creed long after their neighbours in the East
and West had become converted to the new religion.
And, as usual to this day, it was the trader who preceded
the missionary, and gave the natives the first
idea of a different code of ethics and morality. In
the missionary's track, as at this day, followed the
soldier, enforcing by the sword the arguments that
reason had failed to inculcate. It was thus that German
merchants had founded on Slavonic soil the
various cities and ports that were later to be the pride
and strength of the Hanseatic Union. Nor did they
rest content with the coast that bounded their own
lands. They traversed the narrow ocean, touching
Finland, Sweden, and Russia, and they established on
the isle of Gothland an emporium, which, in the first
Christian centuries, became the centre of the Baltic
trade, and in which "people of divers tongues," as an
old writer calls these visitors, met to exchange their
products.</p>
<p>A glance at the map will show why this island
assumed such importance. At a time when the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span>
mariner was restricted to short passages, not liking for
long to lose sight of the shore, this spot naturally
made a most favourable halting-place on the road to
Finland, Livonia, or Sweden. It is evident from the
chronicles that the Germans soon acquired and exercised
great power in this island, and that they were
accorded special privileges. Thus Pope Honorius II.
granted them his protection for their town and harbour
of Wisby, in acknowledgment of the part they had
played in the conversion of the pagan nations.</p>
<p>There are many testimonies to the ancient wealth
and commercial importance of the island of Gothland;
among them the amount of Roman, Byzantine,
Anglo-Saxon, and German coins still found on its
soil, as also the number of ruined churches, many
of them of great size and architectural beauty, dotted
over its area. To this day the island, impoverished
and depopulated, owns a church to every six hundred
inhabitants. The churches have fallen into sad
decay, but yet remain to testify of past prosperity
and glory.</p>
<p>As the number of travelling merchants from
various cities increased on its shores, it was natural
that they should hold together more and more in a tacit
offensive and defensive alliance against the aliens,
and that when they returned home from their voyages
they should speak of the mutual benefits rendered
and the help that lay in union. Some influential persons
among them doubtless brought pressure to bear upon
the rulers and magistracies of the various cities to
give their informal union an official character. Thus
much is certain, that after a time the merchants from
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span>
various cities who traded with the Baltic had united
into a federation having a common seal and conforming
to a common law, so that by the middle of the
thirteenth century the Hanseatic League was practically
consolidated, although this name for the association
only occurs later.</p>
<p>So far, however, the Union only exercised rights
abroad. It was from Wisby also that the reaction was
to come for union at home; but this was a little
later, when its strength was well matured and
established.</p>
<p>What really, in the first instance, led the Germans
from their inland towns to the shores of the Baltic
was the desire to benefit by the great wealth that lay
hidden in its waters in the form of fish, which could
be obtained in return for the mere labour of fishing.
At a time when all Europe was Catholic, or of the
Greek Church, and fasts as well as feasts strictly
observed, the sale of fish was an important industry,
and, above all, of salted fish, since our forefathers
were ignorant of the art of preserving these creatures
fresh by means of ice. Now, from the beginning of
the twelfth century until the beginning of the fifteenth,
when they once more altered their course, each spring
and autumn the migratory fish, and especially that
most prolific and valued of fish, the herring, came
in great shoals to the shores of Scania,<a name="FNanchor_4" id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> the isle
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span>
of Rügen, and the coasts of Pomerania, tempting
the inhabitants of the strand and near inland hamlets
out on to the waters to secure these treasures. Nor
had nature herewith ceased her bounties. At certain
points of the littoral there were salt springs, in
which the precious draught could at once be pickled;
and it is certain that the art of preserving the gifts
of the ocean from decay was familiar to the Slav
inhabitants of these districts long before it was known
to those of the German Ocean. Already, in the
eleventh century, "salt Kolberg" was famed as an
emporium for salted herrings; and the words of a
Polish poem of rejoicing at a victory won over its
inhabitants in 1105 are extant to this day. It has
more historical than literary value. "Formerly," so
jubilantly sang the conquerors of the harbour, "they
brought us salt and stinking fish, now our sons bring
them to us fresh and quivering."</p>
<p>Salted herrings became an acknowledged form of
tax or tribute, as also a medium of exchange for
inland produce, and it was the value of these small
fish that really first roused the cupidity of the inland
dweller and caused them to compete with and finally
oust the pagan Slav. And Wisby for a time was
their great emporium, whence they extended their
power, founding among other towns Novgorod on
the Lake of Olm. It was to Wisby that association
dues were paid; it was in Wisby that common
money was deposited. They were kept in the German
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span>
Church of Our Lady Maria Teutonicorum. For the
churches in those times were buildings as much secular
as religious, being not only places of worship, but
also banks, storehouses, market-places, and sanctuaries.
Four aldermen, selected from important cities of the
League, namely, Wisby, Lübeck, Soest, and Dortmund,
had each a key to the common treasure. The rules laid
down in common council, over which these aldermen
presided, and whose execution they enforced, were
stringent in the extreme. For example, according to
an old principle of Teutonic laws, a city was made
responsible if a trader suffered malignant shipwreck
or was robbed of his goods within its domain, and
if these things occurred they were bound to help the
sufferers to recover their goods or safety.</p>
<p>That it was not always an easy task for the towns
to execute this command may be gathered from the
fact that in the earliest times even the Church looked
on flotsam and jetsam as its legitimate dues; indeed,
the revenues of some monasteries and churches were
distinctly founded on this. Even Papal authority,
even excommunication in later days, could not for a
long while break the force of a barbarous and cruel
custom. All the booty the waves cast on the shore
was designated by the well-sounding term of <i>strandgut</i>
(property of the shore), and was regarded as a gift
from Providence. The dwellers on the Baltic shore
held so naïve a belief with respect to this matter
that in their daily prayers they innocently asked God
to give them a good harvest of <i>strandgut</i>.</p>
<p>Lübeck in 1287, demanding from Reval, on the
basis of its treaties, the restitution of stranded property,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span>
is told frankly by the governor of the city that
"however many and long and large letters they may
send him across the seas," yet his vassals would hold
to the rights of their land, and "if," he adds, "on your
letters or your prayers your goods are restored to
you, I will suffer my right eye to be put out."</p>
<p>Still by steady persistence the German cities got
their will, and of course they exercised it first on
members of their union. The defaulting city had to
pay a fine of something like two to three hundred
pounds of our money to the common fund of the
Union, and, in event of a recurrence, was threatened
with expulsion from the community. This punishment
was called <i>unhansing</i>, and it was inflicted several
times, and was only atoned for by the heaviest penalties
not only of money tributes, but often of pilgrimages
to some distant sacred shrine, to wipe out the disgrace
that the city had drawn down, not on itself alone,
but also on its brethren of the League, by the fact
that there could be such a black sheep among them.</p>
<p>Such, briefly, was the empire that, by the middle
of the thirteenth century, was exercised by a community
of German men of commerce, who had their
seat of control, not at home, but on a foreign soil.
Such, briefly, was the rise of these powerful merchants
who not only dared to dictate terms to distant cities,
but were absolutely obeyed. Such, briefly, was the
transformation of bands of pirates and adventurous
traders into a peace-loving and industrious association.</p>
<p>Let us now take a rapid glance at what had
occurred meantime in the Holy Roman Empire and
the towns.</p>
<p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/griff.jpg" width="450" height="106" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p class="center p4 b13"><b>III.</b></p>
<h3 class="p4">FOREIGN TRADE.</h3>
<p>It is of importance to the study of the Hanseatic
confederation to remember that the settlements made
by the German merchants in their various foreign and
distant ports, though permanent in themselves, were
inhabited almost exclusively by a floating and ever-changing
population. True, the traders who had done
good business in this spot would return season after
season. But they did not form an established colony,
they did not take up their permanent abode abroad,
and hence the connection with their native towns was
never broken; they remained ever in touch with
home. Now the pettiest trader of one of the German
cities enjoyed in the Steelyard in London, in the
St. Peter's Court of Novgorod, in the factory of
Bergen, in the church of Wisby, and many other
places, a measure of personal freedom, a number
of privileges such as were frequently absolutely denied
him in his fatherland, or doled out grudgingly by
his territorial lord.</p>
<p>When the merchants had first appeared abroad
they were protected more or less by their suzerains.
Thus Barbarossa had given them the assistance of
his strong name, and extorted for them certain important
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span>
privileges from the King of England. The
same holds good with regard to the Duke of Saxony.
But as the emperors grew to care less and less for
purely German affairs, as the Saxon ducal power was
broken, as the German-speaking lands became the
camp of anarchy, confusion, and lordlessness, where
rightful and unlawful sovereigns quarrelled with each
other, where ruler fought ruler, noble robbed noble,
where, in short, the game of "devil take the hindmost"
was long played with great energy, the towns that
had silently and gradually been acquiring much independent
strength, perceived that if they would save
their prosperity, nay, their very existence, they must
take up a firm position against the prevailing social
conditions.</p>
<p>Founded upon trade, with trade as their vital
element, it was natural that traders also should
have a mighty voice in the councils of these towns.
The councillors indeed were chosen chiefly from
among the leading merchants, most of whom had
been abroad at some time or other of their career,
and tasted the sweets of wider liberty. None of
these were insensible to the pressure put upon them
by their returning fellow citizens that they should
struggle in their common interests to maintain a
position of strength at home, a position which could
not fail to increase the security of their settlements
abroad. For owing to this long period of political
chaos, the merchants abroad noticed or fancied that
the name of the Holy Roman Empire no longer
carried the same weight as formerly; that to
threaten those who overstepped their licenses towards
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span>
them with the empire's power had ceased to
have any serious effect. Yet unless there was
some real power at their back, how, at this lawless
time, could the Germans feel sure that the treaties
they had made with the aliens would be upheld?
Well then, urged the foreign traders, what our
emperors cannot or will not do for us, busy as they
are with Italian matters, or with self-destruction, we
must do for ourselves.</p>
<p>And quietly, unobtrusively, but very securely, they
formed among themselves that mutual offensive and
defensive alliance of whose exact date and origin
we are ignorant, but of whose great power in later
times the world was to stand in awe and admiration.
The purpose of the union was to uphold the respect
for the German name abroad by a strong association
of cities willing and able, if need were, to enforce its
demands by force of arms.</p>
<p>Mutual protection, moreover, was needed as much,
if not more, at home. The highroads, never too safe
from plundering barons, had grown yet less so during
the lawless and fighting period that followed the fall
of the Hohenstauffen dynasty. These, too, must be
guarded, or how could merchandize be brought from
place to place. Peace and security of property, being
the very corner-stones of commerce, did the merchant
seek above all to secure, and since nothing in this
life can be obtained without a struggle, these cities
had to fight hard, not only with moral force, but often
with the sword, in order to extort from their rulers
these elementary rights of civilization.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo33" id="illo33"></a>
<img src="images/illo33.jpg" width="500" height="326" alt="HIGHROAD." />
<p class="caption">HIGHROAD.</p>
</div>
<p>Thus the Hansa from its earliest origin, though
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span>
organized for the ends of peace, was from its commencement
and throughout its existence a militant
body, ever watchful to punish infringement of its
rights, ever ready to extend its authority, ever prompt
to draw the sword, or send forth its ships against
offenders.</p>
<p>It is indeed a significant fact, that never once in
the whole course of its history did it draw the sword
aggressively, or against its own members. In its
domestic disputes it never needed to exercise other
than moral pressure. But the cities as they grew in
power almost assumed the proportions of small
democracies, and it is well-known that democracies,
save for purposes of self-defence, are not
so ready to rush into wars as monarchies. War is
the pastime of kings and statesmen; of men who
have nothing to lose, and perchance much to gain
in this pursuit; of men who do not stake life and
limb, health and home and trade. The wars waged
by the Hansa were never in one single instance
aggressive. Like all confederations, whose life nerve
is commerce, the Hansa ever sought to avoid war,
and only seized the sword as <i>ultima ratio</i>. It is
noteworthy that its ships were designated in its acts
as "peace ships" (<i>Friedenschiffe</i>), and even the forts
it built for protection were described as "peace
burgs" (<i>Friedeburgen</i>).</p>
<p>The germ of manly independence once awakened
in the burghers grew apace, and as they felt the
benefits of this new spirit they learnt that with it
they could cow their would-be despotic lordlings, and
exact from them respect and even aid. Cologne was
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span>
the first among the older cities to emancipate itself.
It is hard for us to realize the enslavement of the
middle class in former days. For example, a
merchant might not wear arms, no luxury, but an
absolute necessity in those wild times. Frederick
Barbarossa permitted him to carry a sword, but in order
that there might be no confusion of social castes, he
decreed that "the travelling merchant shall not gird
his sword, but attach it to his saddle, or lay it on his
cart, so that he may not wound the innocent, but yet
may protect himself against robbers." The inference
in this clause, that only a member of the third estate
would be likely to hurt an innocent person, is amusing
in its <i>naïveté</i>. As for the peasant, if he were found
with arms upon him, a lance or a sword, he had to
suffer severe punishment. The knightly weapon was
broken across the back of any serf who dared to
carry it.</p>
<p>A further instance of want of personal liberty in
Barbarossa's days is shown by his contempt for
commerce and for the trader's knowledge of the
commercial value of his goods. Thus he decreed
that a merchant selling his wares in camp must offer
them at the price fixed by the field-marshal, and if
the owner asked more than was deemed just by this
functionary, who probably knew as much of the value
of goods as his trusty lance, he lost not only his
market rights and his wares, but was whipped into
the bargain, his head shorn and his cheek branded
with a red-hot iron. At home his choice of dwelling-houses,
of trade, even of marriage was interfered
with. Is it astonishing, then, that with so little
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span>
personal liberty at home, so much abroad, the townsmen
aspired to change this state of things, and aided
by political events did change them, and rapidly too?</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo36" id="illo36"></a>
<img src="images/illo36.jpg" width="550" height="484" alt="ITINERANT MERCHANTS." />
<p class="caption">ITINERANT MERCHANTS.</p>
</div>
<p>Nor was it only the merchants returning from
abroad who stirred the legitimate longings of their
stay-at-home brethren. A liberating influence came
from yet another side; from that very land of
Italy, for whose sake the German rulers had suffered
their own country to endure neglect. Travelling
Italian merchants on their road to Flanders passed
through Central Germany, and as they halted in
the cities they would recount in the long evenings
those travellers' tales eagerly listened to in days when
reading for the most part was an unknown accomplishment,
and when all information was acquired by
ear.</p>
<div class="poem">
<p class="o1">"... I spoke of most disastrous chances;</p>
<p>Of moving accidents by flood and field;</p>
<hr class="poem" />
<p>And portance in my travel's history:</p>
<p>Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle;</p>
<p>Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven</p>
<p>It was my hint to speak."<a name="FNanchor_5" id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
</div>
<p>These Lombards told of the prosperity of their
cities and the liberties they enjoyed, narrations that
sounded like fairy tales in the ears of the Northmen.
And when the Crusades broke out, and many of
them saw with their own eyes the glories of the
southern cities, when German merchants who had
followed in the train of the emperor's Roman campaign
returned, confirming all they had heard from
the Italians about commercial liberties and privileges,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span>
their determination not to be left behind was
strengthened.</p>
<p>Freiburg (Free City) was the first town founded as
the outcome of the new liberty, an enlightened prince
lending his help and means to that end.</p>
<p>Further individual aid was given to the new idea
of personal liberty for all conditions of men by an
apostle of freedom, Arnold of Brescia. This eloquent
pupil of the French monk Abelard, the enlightened
philosopher, the lover of Heloïse, himself a
priest, was the most powerful opponent of the clerical
ideas in the twelfth century, which tried to keep
down the people in order that through their ignorance
and dependence they might be ruled with absolute
and unquestioned sway—ideas by no means wholly
extinct to this day among this class of men. Banished
by the Pope as a political and ecclesiastical heretic,
Arnold fled to Southern Germany, where he preached
his doctrines to eager ears, and roused an enthusiasm
that laid the train for a later Church reformation, and
helped towards the development of a new social state.
He awakened or fostered the thought of personal
liberty, a liberty not only consistent with corporate
union, but part and parcel of the same; a condition
alone worthy a rational human being, who, while
doing whatever pleases him best, never loses sight of
the fact that he has only a right to follow this desire
so long as his liberty does not trench upon that of his
neighbour and brother man.</p>
<div class="figcenter" ><a name="illo39" id="illo39"></a>
<img src="images/illo39.jpg" width="308" height="550" alt="SALTERS' HALL, FRANKFORT" />
<p class="caption">SALTERS' HALL, FRANKFORT<br />
(<i>From an engraving in the British Museum.</i></p>
</div>
<p>John Stuart Mill had not yet defined the meaning
of the much abused term, liberty; Madame Roland
had not yet ejaculated upon the scaffold her true and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span>
piteous cry, "Liberty! what crimes are committed in
thy name!" but Arnold of Brescia understood the
meaning of the word, and what was equally important,
he made his hearers understand it too. He did
not merely preach vague doctrines, he preached sound
political economy and social ethics.</p>
<p>And thus the Germans learnt from the Italians
both the true meaning of liberty and the virtue of
municipal institutions, which latter had, in the first
instance, sprung up in Lombardy from a Germanic
root; its essential features being a free choice of
the civic rulers from the fittest elements, a right to
govern themselves, and if need be to form alliances,
and the right to tax themselves. Further, they learnt
to recognize the principle that the final decision should
not rest with one person, but with the mass of the
inhabitants. This autonomy in all inner affairs,
founded on Italian models, became in the course of
several generations the most cherished possession of
all those German cities whence sprang the Hanseatic
League. There was, however, this difference that,
unlike the Lombard cities, the Germans ever acknowledged
the supremacy of the emperor, and never
developed either into complete oligarchies or democracies,
though in their statutes when they were at the
height of their power, it was distinctly stated that
decisions in important matters did not rest "with the
general council, but with the people."</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo41" id="illo41"></a>
<img src="images/illo41.jpg" width="550" height="388" alt="MEDIÆVAL CITY" />
<p class="caption">MEDIÆVAL CITY.<br />
(<i>From a drawing by Albert Dürer.</i>)</p>
</div>
<p>In the thirteenth century municipal privileges grew
and extended, for though the townsfolk were supposed
only to elect their own magistrates under the
sanction of the bailiffs of their respective territorial
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span>
lords, these functionaries, who generally lived in a
strong castle within the city or just upon its walls,
became only too ready to be bribed into compliance
with the burgher will as the distresses of the empire
caused their lords to require more and more of the
hard cash and other solid assistance which the rapid
progress of the cities in wealth could furnish. Of course
circumstances were not the same in all places. In
many there was open warfare between the lordlings
and the townsmen, and many a sacked and gutted
castle remained to testify to the successes of the
third estate.</p>
<p>As the baronial strongholds were razed, the towns
built up on their sites strong citadels, walls, and
moats, which they defended by a burgher militia
hardened to fatigue, brave, determined; who not
only dared to face the resentment of the barons, but
often extorted from them by force what they could
not up to that date buy from them or obtain as a
meed of justice. It was no infrequent event in the
thirteenth century for a town to be besieged by its
territorial lord; and these sieges, like that of Troy,
would last many years, for the art of reducing strong
places was but little developed, and wars, even
if they lasted longer, were less terribly destructive
than in our day.</p>
<p>The cities, having the wealth, were most frequently
the victors, and it would even come about that as terms
of peace their enemy would hire himself out to his vassals
as the legal and bound defender of his own subjects,
for a stated number of years. Further, the cities often
bought from these princelings the lands outside their
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span>
walls; the forests, mines, brine springs, even the highroads
and streams, thus drawing into their power anything
that might assist in diminishing the danger from
all that could impede their commerce. They would
also ask the cession of villages, of tolls; next the right
to coin money. In a word, they made use of every
means that came in their way, in accordance with
local and momentary circumstances, to extend and
consolidate their power.</p>
<p>What wonder that the burghers feeling their
strength and seeing the weakness of the empire
turned its dissensions and disorders to profit, and
began to make among themselves, quietly and unostentatiously,
alliances for maintaining peace in their
immediate vicinities, for keeping the roads cleared of
robbers, for opposing the black mail levied by their
feudal lords, and anything else that offended against
"the common freedom of the merchant."</p>
<p>Curiously enough such alliances were in direct
contravention of the existing laws of the German
Empire. At the Diet held in Worms, 1231, the
princes had expressed marked disapproval of such
leagues, in which they clearly recognized a dangerous
rival power. But the cities seemed little troubled by
this interdict. They, on their part, recognized that
the time had come for a firm union, and adhesion of
the weak against the strong, and more and more, as
they saw that the empire threatened from within and
from without was visibly falling asunder. For what
respect could be felt for a crown which was at last
actually put up for sale to the highest bidder, and
acquired by the rich but otherwise impotent brother
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span>
of the English Henry III., Duke Richard of Cornwall?</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo44" id="illo44"></a>
<img src="images/illo44.jpg" width="550" height="497" alt="ROBBER KNIGHTS. (From Fritoch.)" />
<p class="caption">ROBBER KNIGHTS. (From Fritoch.)</p>
</div>
<p>The towns of the Rhine were the first to form themselves
into an alliance, a fact that can scarcely surprise
us when we remember how thickly set is that lovely
river with the now ruined strongholds of what erst
were robber lords. And the Baltic towns were not
slow to follow in their wake, forming a League "for
the benefit of the common merchant." These cities
even settled the contingent which each town had
to place at their common disposal, a great stone
of possible stumbling being skilfully avoided by a
phrase which occurs in a contract of 1296: "If the
fight goes against a prince who is lord of one of the
cities, this city shall not furnish men, but only give
money." The Rhenish section alone was able to
put into the field some eleven hundred crossbowmen
and six hundred stout galleys; no mean army in those
days.</p>
<p>In a word, the times were out of joint, and the
people had to help themselves, and did so. Sprung
from modest sources, having its origin in true neighbourly
feeling, what was at first a mere association of
merchants had developed into an association of cities.
The banner under which they had grouped themselves
bore the device "freedom for the common
merchant at home and abroad," and this device
became the elastic but durable bond, which, keeping
them together, made them a mighty power. Its
very elasticity was the cause of its strength, giving it
that facility of expansion and freedom from rigidity
which in more modern times has made the glory and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span>
the might of England, whose constitution is distinguished
by a like principle of flexibility.</p>
<p>A naïve North German chronicler of the thirteenth
century telling of the various alliances formed, writes:
"But the matter did not please the princes, knights,
and robbers, especially not those who for ever put
forth their hands for booty; they said it was shameful
that merchants should rule over high-born and noble
men." Undaunted, however, by such objections, the
cities continued to form alliances, to make contracts
among themselves until these contracts assumed the
extent, dignity, and importance of those made by the
towns with their foreign settlements.</p>
<p>Thus, by slow degrees, cautiously, but very surely,
the Hanseatic League took its origin, and thus it grew
until it became an independent popular force, a state
within a state. Like everything that the Christian
Middle Ages called into life, the <i>Vehmgericht</i> (Vehmic
Tribunal), Gothic architecture, the knightly orders, it
bore strongly the impress of individuality.</p>
<p>The origin of the name of Hansa is wrapped
in some mystery. The word is found in Ulfila's
Gothic translation of the Bible, as signifying a
society, a union of men, particularly in the sense of
combatants. He applies it to the band of men who
came to capture Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Later on Hansa occurs as a tax on commercial transactions,
and also as the sum, a very low one, which
the various cities paid as their entrance fee into the
association.</p>
<p>But our League did not yet officially bear that title;
it acquired it from the date of its first great war with
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span>
Waldemar of Denmark and the peace of Stralsund
(1370). Then it won name and rank at the point of
the sword, and after this it came to be classed among
the most redoubted powers of the period, being thus
by no means the first, and probably not the last,
example of the lift given to civilization by so barbarous
a thing as the powder cart.</p>
<div class="figcenter">
<img src="images/tail_pair.jpg" width="200" height="171" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/flowers.jpg" width="450" height="108" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p class="center p4 b13"><b>IV.</b></p>
<h3 class="p4">THE HANSA FIGHTS.</h3>
<p>Whoever looks on the old Schütting at Lübeck,
the building whence the herring fishers were wont to
start upon their voyages, and notes its armorial
bearings, three herrings upon a plain gold shield,
should go back mentally a few centuries and call
to mind the fact that the badge of this fish is the
emblem of a might which many a time set forth from
this spot bent upon commerce or needful warfare,
and which for generations exercised great power over
Northern Europe.</p>
<p>The district of Scania, which forms the southernmost
portion of the present land of Sweden, was
until 1658 almost exclusively the property of Denmark.
The Danes, a turbulent and maritime people,
had in the early times of our era been converted to
Christianity at the point of the sword by the
emperors of Germany, and during the 10th and 11th
centuries these emperors exercised a recognized
suzerainty over the Danish kings. Hence German
traders easily obtained privileges among a people
who were by no means inclined to commerce themselves,
but who welcomed none the less eagerly the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span>
products that the strangers brought, above all, the
heady ale brewed by the Easterlings.</p>
<p>But as the might of the empire declined and the
Danes had grown strong, thanks to wise rulers, the
people grew restive under the restrictions imposed
upon them, and tried to secure their independence.
Under Waldemar the Great (1157 to 1182), the
country had acquired an important position, which
his successors strengthened. This increase of might
coincided with the German depression and with the
change of course at spawning time that the herring
suddenly took in the twelfth century.</p>
<p>Strange that a little fish should have had such great
power over mankind; yet it is not going beyond the
strict truth to state that the mysterious wanderings of
the herring determined throughout several centuries
the whole course of northern commerce. During the
Middle Ages, upon the appearance of the herring
now on this coast and now on that, the wealth and
prosperity of the whole districts depended. Herring
fishing became a branch of industry that decided the
fate of nations. To it the Hansa owes a large portion
of its riches and its power; in the herring fisheries,
when in the year 1425 the fish began to spawn in the
German Ocean, the Netherlands found the foundation
stone of their wealth and dignity. Indeed, it was
said later, with scant exaggeration, that Amsterdam
was built upon herrings.</p>
<p>Now, as masters of the Belt and the Sound, the
Danes were able, if they chose, greatly to harass the
Hanseatic traders and fishermen. For many years
they had not put forth their power, or rather the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span>
Hanseatic towns, with the diplomatic astuteness that
greatly distinguished them, had averted the possibility
of such danger by wise concessions of tributes and
privileges. Still disputes would arise, things did not
always go off peaceably, and in 1227 the Hansa towns
won their first military laurels, defeating the Danes in
the battle of Bornhöved and permanently weakening
the power of their troublesome neighbours in Northern
Germany.</p>
<p>A few years later Lübeck, almost unassisted,
threatened in its independence by the Danish king,
won a great naval victory over its neighbours; and
gained yet another in 1249, when Eric II. had
ventured to attack some of its ships upon the open
seas. On this occasion the merchant townsmen even
seized and sacked Copenhagen and planted their flag
in Zealand.</p>
<p>It was no very easy position which the Baltic cities
(for it was they who were chiefly threatened) had to
maintain against the Danish kings as the power of the
latter increased. For with their power, their rapacity
and cupidity increased also, and this made them look
on the rich commercial towns with a longing desire
to absorb them into their own possessions. These,
though extensive, were poor, and their inhabitants
neither industrious nor prosperous. Further, the
Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes were in constant
feud with one another, and each of these states turned
an eye of greed towards the flourishing Baltic cities,
whose possession they coveted. The two Scandinavian
powers, in particular, constantly harassed the
German merchants by their scanty comprehension
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span>
of treaty rights, their breaches of faith, and it was
not easy work for the cities to steer clear between the
three kingdoms, that were now at deadly feud with
one another, now convulsed by civil wars, now united
in a policy of rapine.</p>
<p>It would be tedious to enumerate the quarrels,
jealousies, and feuds that agitated these kingdoms
during the early years of the fourteenth century; to
note in detail the trouble they caused to the Hanseatic
traders, and the need they awoke among them of
holding together in as close an alliance at home as
they had hitherto done abroad. It was necessary to be
ever wakeful and mistrustful; and to watch jealously
for the faintest signs of an infringement of privileges.</p>
<p>In 1326 a lad of some twelve summers, whose
memory was destined to be handed down to posterity
as that of a hero of romance, ascended the throne
of Denmark. In allusion to the famous fable about
the election of a king of the frogs, an old writer
speaks of this event as a choice by the frogs of the
stork as ruler instead of the log. For Waldemar, as
he was called, proved indeed no log and no puppet in
the hands of his ambitious barons. As a mere youth
he gave evidence of his strength and determination,
and under his ægis Denmark acquired great wealth
and consideration, and would have attained to yet
more had not Waldemar, with mistaken judgment,
drawn the reins too tight, until from a wise ruler he
became a despot. It was his aim and policy to
nationalize his country, to drive away the foreigners
who utilized it for their warlike and commercial
ends. He found it small and distracted with dissensions;
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span>
after twenty years' rule he could point to
marked success and change, for he had made Denmark
respected and feared at home and abroad.
History knows him as Waldemar III.,<a name="FNanchor_6" id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> story and song
as Waldemar Atterdag, a nickname that well expresses
the salient points of his character. For the
name of Atterdag, which means "there is yet another
day," refers to the king's constant habit of using
this expression in the sense that if to-day a goal is
not reached, it is not therefore unattainable, that a
man must wait, never despair, and never lose sight of
his aim.</p>
<p>And Waldemar for his part never did. He pursued
his purposes with a strenuousness and a patience,
which contrasted favourably with the vacillating attitude
of his princely northern contemporaries, and
which was only matched and finally surpassed by the
same strenuous and patient policy on the part of the
Baltic towns, and especially on the part of Lübeck,
their astute and diplomatic leader.</p>
<p>Nor was it only good aims that the king followed
with such persistence. He was an implacable, a
relentless enemy, who never forgot an injury, and who
waited with cruel calmness the day of vengeance.</p>
<p>In Waldemar's state policy there often appeared
mixed motives; considerations of the most personal
character were blended with care for the welfare of
his state, and when one should alone have been considered,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span>
both frequently played a part. It was this
that led to his ultimate ruin; like too many clever
people he overreached himself. Therefore, while the
early years of his reign were really a blessing to distracted
and impoverished Denmark, of the latter part
a contemporary chronicler complains that—</p>
<p>"In the times of Waldemar, every tradition of our
ancestors, all paternal laws, all the freedom of the
Danish Church was abolished. The rest of the soldier,
the merchant, the peasant, was so curtailed, that in the
whole kingdom no time remained to eat, to repose, to
sleep, no time in which the people were not driven to
work by the bailiffs and servants of the king, at the
risk of losing his royal favour, their lives, and their
goods." In a word, Waldemar worked his subjects
hard, and even the most patriotic singers cannot present
him as a wholly attractive figure. He is rather
a character to be feared than loved.</p>
<p>The Hansa was not slow to recognize this. It
saw that it was face to face with a man whom no
obstacles could deter, to whom even treaty obligations
were not sacred, and who was liable to be swayed by
incalculable caprice. That it was right in its estimate
and its fears Waldemar was not slow to make
known, so soon as his power at home was fully
secured.</p>
<p>The first attack upon the Hansa towns was made
by the Danish king in the shape of interference with
their fishing rights on Scania, breaking the contracts
which his predecessors, and even he himself, had
made, and demanding extortionate fees for the renewal
of the time-honoured privileges. Diplomatic
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span>
negotiations were entered upon, but Waldemar befooled
the deputies from the cities, wasting their
time with idle discussion of irrelevant matters, and
refusing to come to a real agreement. After long
and fruitless debate the ambassadors of the Hansa
towns departed home anxious and discouraged.
Ten weeks after their return the cities were startled
by the terrible news that Waldemar, in a time of
perfect peace, without previous warning or declaration
of war, had suddenly invaded the island of Gothland,
and seized, sacked, and plundered the rich city of
Wisby, the northern emporium of the Hansa's wealth.</p>
<p>Such a blow was aimed not only at Wisby, but
at all the Hanseatic towns; from that moment diplomatic
negotiations with Waldemar were no more to
be thought of. This act meant war; war at all costs
and at all risks.</p>
<p>"In the year of Christ 1361 King Waldemar of
Denmark collected a great army, and said unto them
that he would lead them whither there was gold and
silver enough, and where the pigs eat out of silver
troughs. And he led them to Gothland, and made
many knights in that land, and struck down many
people, because the peasants were unarmed and unused
to warfare. He set his face at once towards Wisby.
They came out of the town towards him, and gave
themselves up to the mercy of the king, since they
well saw that resistance was impossible. In this
manner he obtained the land, and took from the
burghers of the town great treasures in gold and
silver, after which he went his ways."</p>
<p>Thus the contemporary chronicler of the Franciscans
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span>
of St. Catherine at Lübeck. By a skilful <i>coup
de main</i> Waldemar had indeed made himself master
of Gothland, then under Swedish suzerainty, and of
the wealthy city of Wisby. His aim had been booty,
and he had it in rich measure in the shape of gold, of
fur, and silver vessels.</p>
<p>Legend tells that the year previous to the attack
Waldemar had visited Gothland disguised as a merchant,
securing the love of a goldsmith's daughter,
whose father held an influential position in Wisby, and
who, in her loving trustfulness revealed to him the
strength and weakness of the island and town, thus
helping him to secure the spot that was rightly
regarded as the key to the three northern realms.</p>
<p>The inhabitants, unprepared, unarmed, had been
unable to offer much resistance. It was a terribly
bloody fight this that raged outside the walls of
Wisby; the site of it is marked to this day by a
cross erected on the spot where 1,800 Gothlanders
fell.</p>
<p>"Before the gates of Wisby the Goths fell under
the hands of the Danes,"<a name="FNanchor_7" id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> runs the inscription.</p>
<p>As was the custom among the conquerors of olden
days, Waldemar, it is related, entered the city, not by
means of the gates that had been forcibly surrendered
to him, but by a breach he specially had made for
this purpose in the town walls. The gap too is shown
to this hour.</p>
<p>When he had plundered to his heart's content,
aided in his finding of the treasure by his lady love,
after he had added to his titles of King of the Danes
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span>
and Slavs, that of the King of Gothland, Waldemar
proceeded to return home in his richly laden ships.
But it was decreed that he should not bring his booty
to port. A great storm arose in mid-ocean. It was
with difficulty that the king escaped with his life; his
ships were sunk, his coveted hoards buried in the
waves.</p>
<p>There are still shown at Wisby the two fine twelve-sectioned
rose windows of St. Nicholas' Church, in which,
according to tradition, there once burned two mighty
carbuncles that served as beacons to light the seamen
safely into harbour in the day of the town's prosperity.
These stones, it is said, were torn from their place and
carried off by Waldemar. The Gothland mariner
still avers that on certain clear nights he can see the
great carbuncles of St. Nicholas' Church gleaming
from out the deep.</p>
<p>As for Waldemar's lady love, whom it is said he
abandoned as soon as his purpose was attained, she
was seized on by the infuriated townspeople and
buried alive in one of the turrets of the city walls,
known to this day as the "Virgin Tower."</p>
<p>It is difficult to decide whether Waldemar foresaw
the full danger and bearing of his high-handed step;
whether he knew what it meant to plunder a city like
Wisby, one of the strongest arms of the Hansa. He
had certainly thrown the gauntlet down to the towns;
he was quickly to learn that the power which some
years ago had successfully beaten his predecessors
had but grown in strength since that date.</p>
<p>On the first news of Waldemar's treachery, the
Baltic cities laid an embargo on all Danish goods, and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span>
then called together a hasty council in which it was
decreed that until further notice all intercourse with
Denmark should be forbidden on pain of death and
loss of property. Then they put themselves into
communication with Norway and Sweden in order in
the event of a war to secure the alliance of these
countries, an assistance that was the more readily
promised because their sovereigns were at feud with
Waldemar. To defray the war costs it was determined
to levy a poundage tax on all Hanseatic
exported goods.</p>
<p>A fleet was got ready with all possible speed, and
when everything was in order, the towns sent a herald
to Waldemar with a formal declaration of war.</p>
<p>In May, 1362, their ships appeared in the Sound,
and brilliant success at first attended their arms.
Copenhagen was plundered, its church bells carried
to Lübeck as the victor's booty. At Scania the cities
looked to meet their northern allies, in order in conjunction
with them to take possession of the Danish
strongholds on the mainland. Here, however, disappointment
awaited them. Whether lack of money
or fear had deterred the northern kings from keeping
their word is unknown; at any rate, they did not put
in an appearance with their armies.</p>
<p>The Burgomaster of Lübeck, Johann Wittenborg,
who commanded the Hanseatic fleet, saw himself
forced to use the men he had on board for the land
attack. He held himself the more justified in doing
this since he deemed he had so thoroughly routed the
Danes, that from the side of the sea there was nothing
to be feared.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span></p>
<p>This decision was rash, and Wittenborg was to
atone for it with his life. Already it seemed as if the
stronghold Helsingborgs was in his hands—he had
been besieging it sixteen days with great catapults—when
Waldemar suddenly appeared with his fleet upon
the Scanian coast, surprised the Hansa vessels that
had been left with but a feeble crew, and carried off
twelve of the best ships, and most of their provisions
and weapons. The consequence was that Wittenborg
saw himself obliged to return with the remnant of his
army to Lübeck.</p>
<p>He found the city embittered against him in the
highest degree for his defeat; though it saw that
the main guilt of the disastrous end of the war
lay with the faithless northern kings. The stern free
city deemed it right, not only towards itself, but also
to its sister towns, to punish heavily the unsuccessful
leader. Wittenborg had hardly landed ere he was
arrested, chained, and thrown into a dungeon. Here
he dragged out a weary year of imprisonment. In
vain some of the cities pleaded his cause, in vain his
friends tried to obtain his deliverance. Lübeck was
a stern mistress, who knew no mercy, and could brook
no ill success. In her dictionary, as in that of youth,
according to Richelieu in Bulwer's play, there might
be no such word as "fail." Wittenborg had, of course,
been at once deprived of his burgomagisterial honours;
a year after his defeat his head publicly fell under the
executioner's axe in the market-place of Lübeck.
Burial in the councillors' church was denied him.
He was laid to rest in the cloisters of the Dominicans
the spot where all criminals were interred in Lübeck
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span>
during the Middle Ages; the spot where, down to
our own era, all criminals passing that way to
execution received from the pious monks a soothing
drink as last farewell to life. Further, Wittenborg's
name is absent from the record of the burgomasters;
an omission in this place, which doubtless has the
same meaning as the absence of Marino Falieri's
portrait among the long row of Doges in the
Venetian Palace.</p>
<p>The election of a burgomaster as leader of the
troops is quite in character with the spirit of those
times. Such trade warriors are not uncommon in the
history of the Hansa. Within the roomy stone hall
that served as entry and store-room to those ancient
dwelling-houses, it was usual to see helmet, armour,
and sword hanging up above stores of codfish,
barrels of herrings, casks of beer, bales of cloth, or
what not besides.</p>
<p>To this day the stranger is shown in the marketplace
at Lübeck the stone on which Wittenborg sat
before his execution, and in the collection of antiquities
is the chair of torture in which he was borne
thither. So sternly did the Hansa punish.</p>
<p>There exists an entirely unauthenticated fable that
Wittenborg had betrayed his trust in return for a
dance with the Queen of Denmark, promising her as
a reward the island of Bornholm. That the fable had
some currency is proved by the fact that for a long
while there survived in Lübeck the expression, "He
is dancing away Bornholm," when some one light-heartedly
did an unjustifiable deed. The story has
given one of the younger German poets, Geibel, the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span>
theme for a famous ballad. Further, it was fabled
that twice a year the Burgomaster and council of
Lübeck solemnly drank Hippokras out of silver cups
made from Wittenborg's confiscated property, repeating
the while a Low German distich that reminded
them of their stern duty and their predecessor's sad
fate. Modern accurate research, pitiless in the
destruction of picturesque legends has discovered
that these cups were not made till the sixteenth
century, and were paid for by a tax levied on Bornholm,
then in rebellion.</p>
<p>After the cruel defeat due to Wittenborg, the cities
concluded an armistice with Waldemar, an armistice
that might easily have been converted into a
permanent peace, for the towns were not eager to
fight. It was too great an interruption to trade.
Moreover, the war expenses had exceeded their calculations,
times were bad, harvests scant, food scarce,
and, to crown all, the Black Death had reappeared
in Europe and was devastating whole districts.</p>
<p>But Waldemar had resolved to break entirely the
power of the Hansa. Once more he befooled it in
diplomatic negotiations, and in the midst of the truce
attacked its herring settlements at Scania, and captured
some merchant vessels that passed through the
Belt.</p>
<p>The towns held council, Waldemar was offered
terms. Yet again he befooled them, and when he
soon after married his only child Margaret, celebrated
in history as the Semiramis of the North, to Hakon,
heir to the thrones of Sweden and Norway, thus preparing
the union of the three northern kingdoms
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span>
under one crown, the towns, alarmed at the mere prospect,
felt that now or never they must secure their
independence.</p>
<p>In November, 1367, deputies from the Baltic and
inland towns met in conclave in the large council
chamber of the Town Hall of Cologne, a meeting
that became the foundation act of the recognized and
open constitution of the Hanseatic League, and on
which account the hall still bears the name of Hansa
Room. It seems certain that here for the first time
was drawn up an Act, modified, renewed, altered
in course of time, but yet always the fundamental
basis of the League. There is no older Hanseatic
document than this of the congress known as the
Cologne Confederation, when the deputies of seventy-seven
towns met to declare most solemnly that
"because of the wrongs and injuries done by the
King of Denmark to the common German merchant,
the cities would be his enemies and help one another
faithfully." It was decided that such cities as were
too weak or too distant to help actively in the war,
should do so by the contribution of subsidies. It was
further enacted that such cities as would not join in
the war should be held as outside the League, with
whom its burghers and merchants should have nothing
more in common, neither buying from, nor selling to,
them, nor allowing them to enter their ports, or unlade
goods in their domains.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo62" id="illo62"></a>
<img src="images/illo62.jpg" width="362" height="550" alt="RATH-HAUS, COLOGNE." />
<p class="caption">RATH-HAUS, COLOGNE.</p>
</div>
<p>Waldemar was warned of what the cities had resolved
against him. He replied with an untranslatable
pun, in which he likened the Hansa to a flock of
geese, who deafened him with their cackle. Warned
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span>
once more, Waldemar threatened the cities that he
would complain of them to their spiritual and
temporal lords; among them the Pope and the
emperor. The cities had forestalled him. They had
sent copies of a letter, stating their grievances against
a king whom they denounced as "a tyrant and a
pirate," to some thirty spiritual and temporal lords.
In the letter to the emperor, Lübeck, whence all the
letters were dated, excused itself in particular for
not responding to Charles's recent invitation to join
his Roman expedition on the plea of its home difficulties,
while humbly giving thanks for the honour
done it by the offer. It also justified itself for not
paying during the past year to Waldemar a tax
decreed by Charles, since this king, it wrote, "seeks
to withdraw your town of Lübeck from the emperor
and the empire." It grieved to state that the
emperor lived too far off to shield by his arms his
weak and neglected flock in the northern region of
the empire. Therefore the emperor's most gracious
majesty must not take it amiss if the cities, with
God's help, did something towards their own protection.</p>
<p>Worded with all the servile language of the period,
Lübeck yet in this letter made it pretty evident to
its supreme ruler that it meant to stand on its own
feet, as it knew too well how unsteady were its
sovereign's.</p>
<p>Yet, again, Waldemar was warned of the growing
strength, the earnest purpose of the League, and this
time he seems to have been alarmed, for he tried to
detach from it many of its members, and to win them
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span>
over to his own cause. He received from the towns
with whom he opened negotiations, the following
reply, which proves how perfected and tightly
secured were already the reciprocal engagements of
the League.</p>
<p>"The Hanseatic League," they said, "having
resolved on war, they must submit themselves to
that general resolution which bound them all."</p>
<p>The cackling geese whom Waldemar had despised
seemed to have grown into formidable eagles overnight.
Lordlings and princes too, many of whom
had private injuries to avenge, had joined the League
or promised their support. The Hansa had set up a
rival and successful king in Sweden, and it now
proposed nothing less than to dismember Denmark,
and to distribute its provinces to its own friends and
allies. It did not desire to retain possession of it.
It was ever its policy to restrict actual possessions,
but to seek that these should be as far as possible in
the hands of friends who would grant it the concessions
and privileges needful for commerce. Thus
could be applied to it what a Roman said of the
peoples he subjugated, "I do not ask for gold; I only
desire to rule over those who have gold." With this
difference, however, that the Hansa, without wishing
to conquer provinces, wished to draw to itself whatever
profits could be found therein.</p>
<p>It was on the Sunday of Quasimodo, April 16,
1368, that all the Hansa ships were to meet in the
Sound for a combined attack on Zealand. The
Easter days approached. All Northern Germany
awaited anxiously the moment for the decisive
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span>
combat to commence; when suddenly the cities
learnt that on Maundy Thursday Waldemar had
secretly fled from his dominions, alarmed by the
decision and strength shown by his enemies. In a
ship laden with much treasure he had landed on the
Pomeranian coasts to go further east and avoid the
impending squall, leaving a viceroy in his stead,
whom he authorized to conclude peace or carry on
war.</p>
<p>Waldemar's cowardly attitude could not of course
alter that of the cities. In that same month of April
the war began and raged all the summer, the Hansa
meeting with but little resistance. With the winter
came a truce, after the fashion of those times, but in
the summer war was renewed and for two years
the Hansa ships harassed the Danish coasts and
waters, sacked their cities and plundered their
treasures. The treacherous attack on Wisby was
avenged with interest, and the war proved so profitable
to the League that it settled in congress that
it should continue until the Danes sued abjectly
for peace. Its leader was once more a Lübecker,
Brun Warendorf, the son of the Burgomaster. He
died in battle, but the memory of his gallant deeds
remains in the stately monument the town erected
to him in the choir of St. Mary's Church. Thus
Lübeck honoured those who contributed to her
honour.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo66" id="illo66"></a>
<img src="images/illo66.jpg" width="402" height="550" alt="RATH-HAUS, TANGERMUNDE." />
<p class="caption">RATH-HAUS, TANGERMUNDE.</p>
</div>
<p>By the close of 1369, Denmark was exhausted and
the people weary of war. They pleaded for peace.
On this the seventy-seven cities, whom Waldemar
had derided as geese, dictated their terms. It was
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span>
indeed a peace such as few kings have signed in the
deepest degradation of their empire. For the term
of fifteen years they claimed two-thirds of the
revenues of Scania, the possession of its strongholds,
the free passage of the Sound, and the right
for the same fifteen years to veto the choice of a
Danish ruler, besides a number of other valuable
concessions and privileges; terms, in short, as humiliating
for Denmark as they were glorious for the
League. The last paragraph of this remarkable
Treaty of Stralsund, which put the Hansa in the
position of a first-class power, ran thus:</p>
<p>"Our king, Waldemar, shall seal to the cities the
above terms of peace with his great seal, if he would
remain with his kingdom and not give it over to
another ruler. If it should be that our lord and
king; Waldemar, desires to abdicate his land of
Denmark during his lifetime, we will and shall not
suffer it, unless it be that the cities have given their
consent, and that he has sealed to them their privileges
with his great seal. Thus, too, it shall be if our
lord and king, Waldemar, be carried off by death,
which God forfend. Then, too, we will accept no
ruler but in council with the cities."</p>
<p>It is evident from this paragraph that the Hansa
still mistrusted Waldemar, and feared he would by
some subterfuge evade the treaty obligations made
in his name by his appointed viceroy.</p>
<p>And they had probably not gauged him falsely.</p>
<p>It was further settled that Waldemar must sign this
document within sixteen months: if he did not do
so within this period, the Danish council and kingdom
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span>
would nevertheless be bound to keep its terms "even
if the king did not seal."</p>
<p>But abject though these stipulations were, complete
as was the submission of Denmark to the League
which they implied, Waldemar signed them within
the appointed time. He saw that he was defeated,
friendless, and alone. In vain had he scoured the
mainland, and recounted his woes to all who would
listen, in vain had he begged or bribed for help against
his enemies. He had made himself too much hated,
and even those who promised aid failed at the last
to keep their word.</p>
<p>With the signature of peace Waldemar also signed
away his position, nay, perhaps his life. Broken in
hope and spirits, his health gave way. Four years
later (1375) he died, after he had just appealed in
vain to the towns to restore to him his castles in
Scania.</p>
<p>With the peace of Stralsund the German merchants
had established the supremacy of the Hansa
over Scandinavia, and laid the foundation for that
power over the northern kingdom, which, in the
words of King Gustavus Vasa, places "the three
good crowns at the mercy of the Hansa."</p>
<p>Thus ended the Hansa's great war against the King
of Denmark—a war that marks an important era in
its history and development.</p>
<p>The League henceforth took a changed position,
not only in its own fatherland, but in the face of all
Europe, for nothing succeeds like success. Flanders,
France, and England, had all to recognize that a new
power had arisen in the north of Germany. For the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span>
war had proved, not only how valiantly the League
could fight if need arose, but also how well organized it
was; how it held together for the common weal; how
it would be not only unwise, but dangerous to resist
its demands for trade privileges and concessions.</p>
<p>A curious juxtaposition of events was afforded by
this chapter of history; a German emperor was busy
in the interests of Rome, striving to bring back the
Pope from his long exile at Avignon, and obtaining
dubious victories over the great Italian family of the
Visconti; while meantime a league of cities in his
own empire was carrying on a successful war against
the kings of the north, dethroning and defeating them.
And so far from raising a hand to aid them, the
emperor, on paper, at least, and by word and protestation,
was taking part with Waldemar against his
own subjects. A curious, a unique condition of
things truly.</p>
<p>And herewith we have brought the history of our
League to the close of what is known as its first
period, dating from its origin to the peace concluded
with Denmark.</p>
<div class="figcenter">
<img src="images/tail_vase.jpg" width="200" height="153" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span></p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a></span></p>
<h2 class="p6">PERIOD II.</h2>
<p class="p2"><i>THE HISTORY OF THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE, FROM
1370 TO THE PUBLIC PEACE OF 1495, DECREED IN
GERMANY BY MAXIMILIAN I.</i></p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/king.jpg" width="450" height="108" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p class="center p4 b13"><b>I.</b></p>
<h3 class="p4">LÜBECK RECEIVES AN IMPERIAL VISITOR.</h3>
<p>The great war ended, the Hansa, in true merchant
spirit, instantly busied itself making up its
accounts. The poundage toll, instituted to cover
martial expenses, was at once abolished; credit
and debit carefully balanced. Examination of its
books showed that, notwithstanding the long duration
of the war, the Hansa had been as little a
pecuniary, as it had been a military, loser, in its
struggle against Waldemar's assumptions.</p>
<p>While thus engaged, Lübeck was startled by the
intelligence that the Emperor, Charles IV., intended
to honour "his beloved free Imperial City of
Lübeck" by a personal visit. Since Frederick
Barbarossa no emperor had ever passed the city
gates, and the town councillors were probably not
far wrong when they perceived in this proposal a
tacit imperial acknowledgment of the Hansa's great
military victories, victories in which Lübeck had
played the part of leader. For twenty-eight years
Charles had worn the imperial crown, and all that
time his chief efforts had been directed towards
extending the power of his family, and the home influence
of the emperors. He was a shrewd and wily
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span>
old man, who saw the dangers Italy presented to the
empire, and wished to avoid them. At first, however,
he had no proper comprehension of the great
power that had sprung up within his own domains in
the shape of the Hanseatic League, nay, indeed, he
had sided against his subjects and with Waldemar.
But now the scales fell from his eyes, and he appreciated,
as all Europe did, the greatness and the
strength of the Hansa.</p>
<p>Of course he did not admit this in words, yet there
is little doubt that he wished to gain the goodwill of
this League, and hoped thus to get from it both
pecuniary and military support for his dynastic plans.</p>
<p>It was, however, "diamond cut diamond;" the
worthy councillors of Lübeck were no less shrewd
and wily than their imperial master. Needless to
say that, in accordance with the usage of the age,
they indulged in the most servile and hyperbolical
expressions of their joy and unworthiness to be so
honoured, but like true merchants they had a good
memory, and knew that Charles had not so long ago
pawned his coronation cloak and some of his tolls to
one of their federation, and they suspected in their
heart of hearts that ulterior motives were probably
not absent to account for this unwonted event. Still,
with the wisdom of the serpent, they let nothing of
this appear, either in their replies to Charles, or in
their treatment of him. Like their Lombard predecessors,
even when in open warfare against the
emperor's authority, they ever protested in words
their submission and fidelity to the imperial crown.</p>
<p>It was in the autumn of 1375 that Charles the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span>
Fourth entered the gates of Lübeck as the city's
guest. It is a curious fact that his visit coincided
with the death of Waldemar on the island of
Zealand; but in those days of slow communication
the news did not reach the emperor till after the
festivities were over.</p>
<p>On October 22nd, the Emperor, accompanied by
the Empress, the Archbishop of Cologne, prince-bishops,
dukes, earls, and suzerains many and
mighty, halted before the closed gates of Lübeck.
His suite, his armed retainers, and those of his
party, made such a numerous host that Lübeck
hesitated awhile ere opening its gates to so great
a multitude, not feeling wholly sure whether their
mission were indeed one of peace, or whether an
affectation of peace was meant to cover a deceitful
attack. For such things were not uncommon in
those days.</p>
<p>After some preliminaries it was however decided to
let them all in. A halt had been made outside the
walls. Here was situated the Chapel of St. Gertrude,
patron saint of strangers. The chapel was the property
of the municipal council, and to obtain relics for it the
town had spent many sums of money. Among
other matters, they boasted of possessing some bones
of Thomas à Becket, and it is curious to note that
they sent over to England to buy these at the very
time Chaucer was superintendent of tolls in the
harbour of London, and was writing his immortal
"Canterbury Tales," in which he derides the
frauds constantly practised upon the purchasers of
such wares; as in his "Pardonere's Tale." Now
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span>
Charles IV. had a great fancy for objects of this
nature; he was in the habit of making tours in his
kingdom in order to collect them, begging them
from churches or monasteries, and giving in return
privileges and sanctions. It is possible he also
had an eye to St. Thomas's bones, but among the
rich booty he took with him from Lübeck, we find no
mention of such relics.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo76" id="illo76"></a>
<img src="images/illo76.jpg" width="350" height="550" alt="SHIPPING HOUSE, LÜBECK." />
<p class="caption">SHIPPING HOUSE, LÜBECK.</p>
</div>
<p>It was before St. Gertrude's Chapel, then, that
Charles and his great suite halted, and here he and
his empress put on their imperial robes previous to
entering the city. This done, they were greeted by a
procession that came forth from the gates to welcome
them. It consisted of the temporal and spiritual
lords of the town, the leading men, and the most
lovely and notable of its women. They carried before
them a crucifix and a casket containing relics. Both
the emperor and his consort kissed these with great
fervour. Then two stately horses, richly caparisoned,
were brought before them, upon which they mounted.
That of the emperor was led by two burgomasters,
that of the empress by two town councillors. Eight
young patricians carried a baldachino of rich stuffs
over the heads of the imperial pair. In front of the
emperor rode a councillor, bearing aloft on a pole
the keys of the city; while he was flanked by two
imperial dukes, carrying respectively the sword and
the sceptre of the empire. In front of the empress
rode the archbishop, bearing the imperial globe.
Behind followed all the nobles, the suite, the men-at-arms.</p>
<p>Such was the procession that moved from St. Gertrude's
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span>
Chapel on the morning of October 22nd. In
the space between the outer and inner walls of the
city the women of Lübeck awaited them ready to
greet the guests with cheers and song and waving
kerchiefs. It was through the stately Burg Thor that
the great train passed and entered the streets of the
city, gaily decked out with arras and banners and
verdure to bid them welcome. They rode the whole
length of the town, through the Breite Strasse, to the
sound of fife and drum, and then made for the cathedral.
Here they halted, dismounted, and entered. A
solemn thanksgiving service was held, and the choir
sang the Introitus for the feast of the Epiphany: "Ecce
advenit Dominator Dominus" ("Behold the Lord, the
Ruler is come"), and then the second verse of the
Seventy-second Psalm, "Give the king Thy judgments,
O God." After this the party once more re-formed,
and rode along the Königstrasse, till they came to
the house that was to harbour the imperial guests.</p>
<p>Contemporary chroniclers tell us that all along the
route of the procession and both by night and day
the sounds of military and sacred music never ceased.
Night was as light as day, thanks to the general
illumination prescribed by the council; a prescription
that, in a city thus overcrowded by a martial
train and by curious spectators from far and near,
was as much a matter of safety as of compliment to
its guests. In those times street-lighting was an
unknown luxury, and nocturnal brawls of constant
occurrence.</p>
<p>The house where Charles halted exists to this day,
as also that where the empress lodged. They are
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span>
both corner-houses and boast gables, which according
to contemporary writers was an indication of an
aristocratic building. The lodging of the empress
was opposite to that of the emperor, and a covered
way was built across the street to connect them.
Such road-bridges, springing from the projecting
gable windows, were not unusual things in the
harrow streets of those times. The condition of the
unpaved roads made them requisite, as these could
not be crossed on foot with safety or cleanliness.</p>
<p>For the space of eleven days Charles and his
train halted at Lübeck, and the town spared neither
cost nor trouble to entertain him right royally, and
to impress him with its wealth and importance.
Feasts, tournaments, rejoicings, followed upon one
another; time was not allowed to hang heavy upon
the emperor's hands. But neither was he allowed to
carry out his ulterior objects. With great politeness
and fulsome flattery Charles was made to understand
that the Hansa was sure of its own strength,
and since he had not helped it in the hour of
need, it did not propose to make great sacrifices to
assist him in his troubles. All however was done
with perfect courtesy, Charles even being permitted
on one occasion to be present at a meeting of the
municipal council when both sides exchanged pretty
compliments. He even went so far as to address
them as "Lords." With great modesty they disclaimed
this appellation. But the emperor insisted
on it: "You are lords," he said; "the oldest imperial
registers know that Lübeck is one of the five towns
that have had accorded to them in the imperial
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span>
council the ducal rank, that they may take part in
the emperor's council and be present where is the
emperor."</p>
<p>These five cities were Rome, Venice, Pisa, Florence,
and Lübeck.</p>
<p>When Charles left Lübeck he was delighted with
the hospitality he had there received, but disappointed
in his political aims. It is certain, however,
that he rode out richer than he rode in; to this the
account books of the city bear testimony, of this the
taxpayers told a tale for many a long day. Indeed
the expenses incurred through this imperial visitor
were to lead later on to some serious riots of the
guilds against the municipality.</p>
<p>It was through the <i>Mühlen Thor</i> that Charles
departed with his train and by order of the town
council this gate was walled up for ever behind him. It
was meant as a piece of subtle flattery to the emperor,
a suggestion that no mortal was worthy to step
where he had stepped,<a name="FNanchor_8" id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> but it is not out of keeping
with the astute sense of humour that distinguished
these commercial princes, that the act also covered
a secret satisfaction in having outwitted their imperial
guest and in being once more the victors in an
encounter with royalty. Certain it is that Charles'
visit proves that the Hanseatic League had reached
the apex of power, and that the city of Lübeck was
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span>
regarded in Europe as the head of this organization.
Charles' visit was one of the proudest moments
in her story, and the memory survives in local
chronicles.</p>
<p>It also survives in an old picture preserved until
quite recently in the house where he lodged, and now
removed to the rooms of the Municipal Antiquarian
Society. In this canvas we see the Emperor Charles
IV., seated on a large throne-like chair. On either
side of him is a leaded window. A carpet lies before
his feet bordered with black, red, and gold cords.
The emperor is clothed partly in imperial, partly in
episcopal robes: a not uncommon mode of representation
in those days. He wears his hair long, has
a long moustache, and his full beard is parted in the
middle, showing the costly clasp that closes his
mantle. His head is surrounded by a golden jewelled
crown, in his right hand he holds a long sword, in
his left the imperial globe. The subscription runs:
"Anno Dni. 1376 ipse Sevori Dn. Carolus quartus
imperator invictissimus decem diebus hac in domo
hospitatus est."</p>
<div class="figcenter">
<img src="images/tail_jewel.jpg" width="200" height="151" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/couple.jpg" width="450" height="105" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p class="center p4 b13"><b>II.</b></p>
<h3 class="p4">THE TOWNS IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.</h3>
<p>Our League had attained its maturity. As we
have seen from its origin and as we shall see until
its decadence, security and extension of commerce
was its one aim and solicitude. The Hanseatics
were at all times desirous to extend their markets
abroad, to obtain, if possible, the monopoly of trade,
and it must be admitted that they succeeded
admirably in achieving the end they had in view.
When we look back and consider the disorganized
state of the empire and the slight support they
received from their nominal liege lord, it seems
strange that they did not take this occasion to constitute
themselves also into a political union, forming
independent states after the pattern of the Italian
commercial republics. In general, the towns in
pursuing their policy took as little real notice of the
authority of the emperor, as the emperor of the
interests and doings of the towns.</p>
<p>Even our shrewd Hansa merchants, it would seem,
were afraid outwardly to present a bold front to
their rulers, though secretly they defied them and
circumvented their laws. The very existence of the
federation was illegal, and in direct contravention
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span>
to one of the chief clauses of the Golden Bull, which
forbade all associations and unions within the
empire. It is no doubt on this account that the
Hansa, like the Venetian Republic, kept its organization
so secret. Even in its own day people were
but vaguely informed as to the working of its
government, and as to the number and extent of its
dominions.</p>
<p>The very natural question arises now that our League
is mature, How many cities did it count in its federation?
but it cannot be answered with precision. Nay,
this question can receive no final reply in any period
of the Hansa's history. The towns that joined did
not always do so permanently, or were not able to
maintain their place, and to fulfil their duties. Often,
too, they proved restive and were "unhansed," and it
was no easy or inexpensive matter to be readmitted.
The ban of the Hansa was more potent than that of
pope or emperor. A town that fell under it lost its
commerce at one blow. Thus, for example, Bremen,
headstrong and stiff-necked, anxious to play an undue
part in the Hansa League, saw itself shut out in 1356,
because one of its burghers had traded with Flanders
at a time when such trading was forbidden. The
municipality, called upon to punish him, took his part,
with the result that for thirty years the town was "unhansed,"
thirty miserable years, during which "the
city was impoverished, grass grew in its streets, and
hunger and desolation took up their abode in its
midst," so writes a contemporary eyewitness. Reinstated
at last, Bremen had to take up heavy responsibilities
in atonement for its misdeeds.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo84" id="illo84"></a>
<img src="images/illo84.jpg" width="309" height="550" alt="GROCERS' HALL, BREMEN." />
<p class="caption">GROCERS' HALL, BREMEN.</p>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span></p>
<p>On another occasion Brunswick fell into the hands
of discontented artizans, who headed a revolt of
several towns against the League. A fulminating
decree was issued by the Hansa with the same
results as in the case of Bremen. Misery and
hunger in this case also proved persuasive, and at last,
after six years, this proscribed town was readmitted.
It had to send deputies to Lübeck, who craved pardon
in the most abject terms, and who had to accept the
most humiliating conditions. Besides questions of
internal management, the Brunswickers undertook to
build a votive chapel in the town in memory of their
bad behaviour, and to send pilgrims to Rome who
should crave the Papal pardon for the murders of
councillors committed by the rioters. Two burgomasters
of Brunswick, and eight of the chief citizens
walked humbly in procession, bare-headed, bare-footed,
carrying candles in their hands from the church of
our Lady at Lübeck, to the town hall, where in the
great council chamber of the League, before an
enormous crowd, they had publicly upon their knees
to confess their repentance for what unruly passion
had caused them to do, and to implore their confederates
to pardon them for the love of God, and the
honour of the Virgin Mary.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo86" id="illo86"></a>
<img src="images/illo86.jpg" width="550" height="373" alt="RATH-HAUS, BRUNSWICK." />
<p class="caption">RATH-HAUS, BRUNSWICK.</p>
</div>
<p>More and more did Lübeck come to take the leading
place among the cities. Her laws ruled at the
Hansa diets. They were reckoned the wisest ever
framed by an autonomous community, and are still
quoted with respect. The right to use Lübeck law
was as eagerly craved by distant cities as the Greek
colonies craved the holy fire from native altars. No
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span>
wonder Lübeck's merchants loved to quote the proud
couplet:</p>
<p class="center">"Was willst begehren mehr,<br />
Als die alte Lübsche Ehr?"<br />
("What more will you desire than the old Lübeck honour?")</p>
<p>Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius
II., when travelling through Europe as Chancellor
of the Emperor Frederick III., visited Lübeck, and
writes of it as the town which surpasses all others in
the wealth and magnificence of its buildings and
churches. The same praise is echoed a little later by
a rare guest, the Metropolitan of Moscow, who passed
through Lübeck on his way to Florence, to be present
at the great church council held there by Eugene IV.
Æneas also visited Danzig, and says it was so well
equipped for land and sea warfare, that it could call
under arms at least 50,000 men.</p>
<p>The prominence of the cities varied greatly. Circumstances
which at one time might be to their
advantage, might at another time prove adverse.
Thus Wisby, after its sacking by Waldemar, was the
victim of an accidental fire, which destroyed all that
the Dane had spared. In consequence it fell at once
from its position of importance, and its very site, once
the source of its strength, became the cause of its
downfall, for it proved a most convenient station to
pirates. Where the merchant had safely halted, he
was now in peril of life and goods.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo88" id="illo88"></a>
<img src="images/illo88.jpg" width="338" height="550" alt="MÜHLENTHOR, STARGARD." />
<p class="caption">MÜHLENTHOR, STARGARD.</p>
</div>
<p>To the question put at various times to the Hansa's
ambassadors "which are the Hansa's cities?" evasive
replies were given, either "those towns that fought the
Hansa's battles;" or a few were enumerated, and the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span>
list closed with a colossal etcetera, etcetera. For they
were not easily caught napping, these worthy burghers,
and had ever in view "the interests of the common
German merchants," which they feared might be
endangered by too much publicity. Still, they had
become a power that could not be hid, and seeing how
well they realized this in most respects, it is the more
curious that they did not avail themselves of their
chance of attaining political autonomy. The more
curious too, because, as a rule, the Hanseatics, like the
modern Italians, knew so well how to draw profit out of
all the dissensions and disorders that agitated Europe.</p>
<p>It was indeed a vast dominion that stood under the
sway of the Hansa. In the course of less than a
hundred years there had arisen on the Baltic coast,
within the area of two hundred and fifty miles, no
fewer than fourteen cities of first-class importance,
not to name those that already existed there. Thus
the merchants held in their possession the mouths of
all the great Baltic rivers, on all of which they founded
harbours and depôts. Germany in that epoch evinced
a power of colonization which in its successes recalls
the most brilliant moments of the extension of Greek
life in the Mediterranean. In more modern times
only the North American soil has exercised an
attraction similar to that of the Baltic coasts, and has
shown an equal power of upraising cities within a
brief space of time. Many of the towns boasted a
far larger population than they have at this day.
Thus Lübeck in the fourteenth century counted eighty
thousand inhabitants, as against forty-eight thousand
in 1870.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a></span></p>
<p>An interesting contemporary opinion on our merchants
is extant from the pen of a learned and travelled
Italian, Marino Sanudo, a pious Venetian, who set
forth early in the fourteenth century with a mission
to stir up the Christian world, and organize a new
Crusade, for Askelon, the last stronghold of the
Romish Church, had fallen into the hands of the unbelievers.
His first purpose was to gauge the fighting
power of the various European maritime states, for it
was a fleet rather than an army that was required.
In his journeyings he ventured as far north as the Baltic,
and thus reports in his letter to Pope John XXII.:</p>
<p>"In Alemannia live many peoples that could prove
most useful to us.... I have seen with my own eyes
that these coasts of Alemannia are quite similar to
the Venetian. The inhabitants, strong of limb and
practised in arms, are mostly warriors; others well
skilled in dyke-making; besides, they are rich, and
what is yet more commendable, they show a warm
zeal for the affairs of the Holy Land."</p>
<p>After enumerating other advantages to be gained
from these allies, he is however obliged to draw his
Holiness' attention to a serious drawback on their
part, namely, "that the Germans are enormous eaters,
which arouses anxiety in respect to supplies when the
fleet shall find itself in the hot regions."</p>
<p>A love for feasting meets us repeatedly in
the old chronicle reports on the German merchants,
and shows that in those days there also held good
what Hawthorne has more recently expressed, that
the Germans need to refresh exhausted nature twice
as often as any other peoples. Then, as now, they
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span>
were an upright, thorough, massive race, not made of
too fine a clay and wanting rather on the æsthetic
side; a want sure to strike the more finely strung
senses of an Italian.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo110b" id="illo110b"></a>
<img src="images/hansa110b.jpg" width="450" height="431" alt="BURGHERS AT TABLE." />
<p class="caption">BURGHERS AT TABLE.</p>
</div>
<p>It is certain that the fourteenth century was in
many respects the epoch when the Hansa cities
flourished most actively. Neither before nor after did
they have so many sided an importance for the whole
life of the German nation. It was a stirring period
in the history of the European continent; when the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span>
Minnesingers gave place to the Mastersingers; when
learning, hitherto stored up jealously in the monasteries
and the libraries of the princes, had found its
way out among burghers and laymen; when protectors
of art and science were more often simple
merchant princes than noble-born beggars. In a word,
it was an epoch when the middle class sprang into
full being, and took its due and proper place as a
link between the nobility and the common people.</p>
<p>Towards bringing about this state of things the
Hansa had greatly contributed. If it failed to
emancipate itself entirely from the empire, it was
yet ever keenly desirous of emancipating itself from
its petty suzerains. Thus the burghers of Lübeck,
Cologne, Goslar, and other cities were early forbidden
to hold posts under the lord of the domain,
no matter how lucrative such posts might be. Wismar,
engaged on one occasion in a dispute with
the Dominican monks concerning the repair of
the town walls, and obliged to cede to these ecclesiastics
because the lord of the land was favourable
to the Church, carefully recorded the occasion in
its "town book," "in order," as it wrote, "that it
might remember the circumstance on some future
and more favourable occasion." "To pay them out"
is implied though not expressed in the phrase.</p>
<p>With the same insistence and energy the towns
made good their claims when it was requisite to protect
the burgher in his commerce, this source of life to
all the cities. Formerly, it is true, the German merchants
had appeared in the foreign markets as "the
men of the emperor," but now the emperors had no
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span>
longer might wherewith to back their right, and more
efficient protection was called for. This each found
in his own city. Hundreds and thousands of treaties
and letters of freedom attest to the fact that the towns
recognized their duties towards their citizens and
practised them most strenuously. Sometimes these
were written out in the name of a princeling, whose
signature it was always possible to buy for hard cash;
but as time went on the towns gradually took an entirely
independent stand, so that from France to the Russian
districts of Smolensk the whole continent was overspread
with a network of diplomatic and commercial
contracts eagerly supported and extended by the towns.</p>
<p>The first thing sought for from the territorial lords,
was protection for person and property from the gang
of banditti who dwelt in every castle under the leadership
of some titled robber; then protection against the
cruel rights of wreckage and salvage, which declared
all such goods the property of the territorial lord;
further, release from imprisonment for debts and
other misdemeanours incurred within the jurisdiction
of the city and to be dealt with by itself alone;
assistance in obtaining payment of foreign debts;
freedom from the so-called "judgments of God" in
the form of torture, walking on red-hot irons, &c.;
regulation and diminution of local taxes and tolls on
the lading or unlading of vessels, the weighing of
merchandise; permission to fell wood to repair ships;
in a word, one and all of the necessary permits to
render more easy and profitable the intercourse between
towns and nations.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo94" id="illo94"></a>
<img src="images/illo94.jpg" width="550" height="271" alt="GERMAN TRADE LIFE." />
<p class="caption">GERMAN TRADE LIFE.</p>
</div>
<p>In each foreign country the Hanseatics had always
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span>
their permanent settlement, known as the <i>Kontor</i>,
and for these they had early obtained a species of
autonomy that permitted them to exercise jurisdiction
according to their native laws over their own country
people. Defaulters were judged by Hanseatic rules,
and the "common merchant" found a help and
support against the foreigners among whom he for
the moment resided and with whom he traded.</p>
<p>The shrewd towns knew well how to estimate the
value of such foreign settlements, and it is noteworthy
that they never accorded reciprocal rights. In
vain foreigners pleaded permission to found similar
settlements in the Hansa's dominions; the towns
always skilfully declined such requests. Thus in
Cologne foreign merchants were not allowed to reside
longer than six weeks at a stretch, and this only three
times in the year; therefore only eighteen weeks in all.
Similar and even more restrictive regulations prevailed
in the other cities.</p>
<p>It is curious to note that, until the end of the
thirteenth century, it was chiefly the inland towns
who were the great traders, but when they needed for
their trade the highway of the ocean, gradually the
maritime ports had taken the place of importance.
One of the chief lines of sea traffic was that between
Bruges in Flanders and Northern Russia. On this
route hundreds of ships sailed annually, all owned by
the "Easterlings," as the Baltic merchants were called
to distinguish them from the inland traders. It was
not until the fifteenth century that we find Dutchmen,
Zealanders, and Frisians striving to come into serious
competition with the Hansa.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span></p>
<p>A decree that no German merchant might go into
partnership with a Russian, Fleming, or Englishman,
no doubt aided greatly this exclusive possession of
the Baltic Sea. In Russia waterways led them as far
as Smolensk; and, later on, they penetrated even further
inland, by utilizing the roads that had been made
by the German knights whose seat of might was
Pomerania and Livonia. The Marienburg, the chief
house of the Order, proved a welcome halting station
for the merchant travellers, where they found safety
and shelter. Furs were largely obtained from the
inner districts of Russia. "They are plentiful as dung
there," writes the pious chronicler, Adam of Bremen;
adding, "for our damnation, as I believe, for <i>per fas et
nefas</i> we strive as hard to come into the possession
of a marten skin as if it were everlasting salvation."
According to him, it was from this cause and from
Russia "that the deadly sin of luxurious pride" had
overspread the West.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo97" id="illo97"></a>
<img src="images/illo97.jpg" width="184" height="450" alt="RENSLAU GATE." />
<p class="caption">RENSLAU GATE.</p>
</div>
<p>Wax, that played so large a part in mediæval religious
rites, and was required in great abundance, was
furnished by the "honey-trees" of the virgin Russian
forests. Leather, skins, tallow, and all species of fat,
were also among the chief products of Russia and the
exports of the Hansa. In return, they imported into
that empire the produce of the looms of Germany,
England, and Flanders, the fine Flemish cloths, the
coarser English and German. Silk, too, and linen
were valued goods. Important also were all manner
of worked metal objects, and such wares as town
industries manufacture. Beer, too, was a valued and
most profitable article of commerce. This drink was
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span>
brewed in superior excellence in Northern Germany,
the hops being grown on the spot. Contemporary
writers tell how outside all the northern cities hop
gardens flourished. This beer was never wanting
at any carouse in the whole stretch of land from
Flanders to Finland; a heavy, heady beverage, which
would now be deemed unpalatable and indigestible.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span>
Some specimens are preserved to this day in the
Danzig <i>Topenbier</i> and the Brunswick <i>Mumme</i>. To
this thirst for ale Hamburg largely owes its prosperity.
For many long years it was the greatest beer-making
town of the North, boasting in the fourteenth century
no less than five hundred breweries.</p>
<p>From Sweden the Hanseatics fetched copper and
iron; in many cases they had acquired the sole
possession of the mines. Scandinavia also furnished
skins, as well as the various forest products of wood,
potash, pitch, and tar. From Blekingen, as at this
day, the merchants brought granite, and from Gothland
and Bornholm limestone, both stones being
required for those building purposes for which the
native material of brick did not suffice. Already the
Baltic supplied the Netherlands with grain.</p>
<p>The Hansa carried in return to Sweden, Finland,
and Russia the requirements of daily life, since these
countries possessed neither manufactures nor skilled
labour. Down to the altar shrines and the psalters of
the Church the merchants brought the evidences of
civilized workmanship to these lands. The very furs
they had taken thence were returned to their northern
homes; of course manipulated and worked up. Even
the English, more advanced in handicraft, submitted
to the same <i>régime</i>. It used to be said on the European
continent in those days: "We buy the fox skins from
the English for a groat, and re-sell them the foxes
tails for a guilder." With England indeed the
Hansa's intercourse was most active, as we shall show
more in detail later on.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo99" id="illo99"></a>
<img src="images/illo99.jpg" width="388" height="550" alt="CROSSBOW." />
<p class="caption">CROSSBOW.</p>
</div>
<p>Danzig owes almost all its splendour to the English
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span>
trade. This city dealt largely in Austrian and
Hungarian products, which were distributed from out
its harbour. English crossbowmen received all the
wood for their bows from Austria by way of Danzig.
They were made from the yew tree, which was considered
especially adapted to this end.</p>
<p>What the German merchant obtained as produce
from Russia, Scandinavia, and other parts of Europe,
not to mention the special productions of his own
towns, he distributed either at home or in the world-famed
markets of Bruges and London, for the Hansa
was then the only intermediary between East and
West. For more than three hundred years Bruges
maintained its place as the central market for the
whole of Europe this side the Alps. Here could be
met traders from all parts; the Lombard bankers
and money-changers, the Florentine, Spanish, Portuguese,
French, Basque, English, Scotch, North and
South Germans. It was from Bruges that the Baltic
merchant supplied his home and Northern Germany
with the products of the East, which the South
German had brought from Venice and over the Alpine
passes along the Rhine. In Bruges he could buy the
fruits of the Mediterranean, the silks of Florence, the
oils of Provence, the wines of Spain and Italy. These
meetings of merchants were wont to take place at
stated times, intercourse being thus made surer and
easier. This custom laid the foundation for those
annual fairs for the exchange of wares, of which one
yet survives in Germany in little diminished importance,
namely, the great fair of Leipzig, where all the
German publishers meet to exchange the intellectual
productions of the year.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span></p>
<p>Another source of wealth to the cities arose from
the circumstance that they not only supplied the
requirements of the mass, but were also the purveyors
to the princes and the aristocracy. We find in their
books that these frequently owed them heavy sums
for furs, Flanders cloth, and choice wines. They were
also most often their bankers, for the towns and,
above all, Lübeck, the centre of cash transactions,
were held desirable places for money investments.
Even in the distant districts of Sweden people knew
no better mode of investing capital than to confide it
to Lübeck merchants.</p>
<p>Of course the conditions of trade were vastly
different from those of to-day. Above all, the
merchant had to act more in person. Posts did not
exist, orders and contracts, therefore, could rarely
be made by letter, for it mostly required a special
messenger to carry these. It was hence almost the
rule that the merchant accompanied his wares "over
sea and sand," as the phrase went. For the sake of
greater security, and in order also to diminish expenses,
many would club together to charter a ship.
It was usual to interest the captains in the sales of the
wares, it being held advisable that every one on board
should have an advantage in bringing the goods safe
to land and in their profitable disposal. This custom
arose from the dangers that lurked from robbers, while
insurance of goods in transit was yet unknown. By
interesting captain and crew pecuniarily they were
less likely to throw the goods overboard in a storm, or
to allow pirates quietly to board and rob the vessels;
both matters of common occurrence.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span></p>
<p>If it was dangerous to travel by water, it was yet
far worse to travel by land. Not to mention that there
were few roads, that the mud often lay piled wheel
high, so that the strongest horses could not pull the
carts; the presence of robbers was a constant cause of
fear on the road. Many of these were, as we know,
the lordlings of the land in disguise, and hence they
naturally turned a deaf ear to the repeated petitions of
the merchants to keep the highways in better order.
Added to this, each lord had the right to demand toll
for the passing of his dominions and the toll stations
were often very close together. Thus, for example,
within a space of fifteen miles from Hamburg the
merchant encountered no less than nine. Fortunately
the tables of tolls in those days were not too complicated.
They were generally paid by waggon, or ship
load, regardless of contents.</p>
<p>The Middle Ages were ignorant of protective taxes.
These impediments to the useful exchange of international
produce were reserved for the invention and
practice of our more enlightened centuries. It is
characteristic that the oath which played so great a
part in all mediæval transactions, social and political,
was also employed to settle the toll dues of the
traveller. A crucifix was held before him; on this he
swore that he was not defrauding, that the weight of
his wares, as stated by him, was accurate, and herewith
the transaction was completed. It was, however,
necessary to be most careful not to diverge from the
toll roads. If a merchant was found on a bye-road
his goods were confiscated and he himself imprisoned.
On this account, too, companionship was sought after,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span>
the leadership of some one familiar with the ground,
and hence merchants and merchandize generally
moved in caravans.</p>
<p>It is worthy of note that all the trade of that time
was strictly legitimate, and what is known as real
merchant's business. Speculation hardly existed.
Commission and agency dues were not wholly unknown,
but happily there was not existent that
pernicious scourge of modern trade, the time bargains,
which permit merchandize to be sold a dozen times
over before it actually exists. It was honest, true
trade, which only sold what it could show. Therefore,
it could uphold and practise the axiom, "ware
for ware, or for cash." In certain districts, for example
Russia, barter was more common than money payments.
Credit was absolutely forbidden in certain
towns and in certain branches of trade. If credit
was allowed the borrower had to find a surety,
and to go surety was a grave matter, of which the
consequences might easily prove disastrous, entailing
loss of property and often of personal freedom.</p>
<p>Payments were usually made in coined money, but
bar silver was also employed, especially in Russia, and
bills of exchange were not quite unknown. The bills
were payable as a rule either at Lübeck or Bruges.
Silver was the chief currency, but in the fourteenth
century Lübeck was permitted to coin gold. It made
guilders after the pattern of the Florentine ducats.
The gold to coin them with was bought at Bruges.
We must remember that money had a far higher value
in those days than in ours, and that if we want to
arrive at a just comparison with our own times, we
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span>
must multiply the sums by seventy or seventy-five.
The most common form of reckoning was the Flemish,
<i>i.e.</i>, one pound, equal to twenty shillings at twelve
groats each; in a word, exactly the reckoning that has
survived in England to this day. The pound of
money was originally a weight. The best money was
that of Lübeck, and, above all, the English contracted
to be paid in pounds of the "Easterlings," their generic
name for the Baltic merchant. As a survival and
abbreviation of this phrase we in England say pound
sterling to this day. A bad light upon the morality
and conditions of the period is thrown by the fact that
the petty kings, seeing that their coins were often
refused and mistrusted, did not hesitate to coin and
give currency to false money bearing the imprint of
the League. We come across frequent bitter and
often useless complaints on this subject.</p>
<p>Putting out capital at interest was not wholly unknown
in those days, notwithstanding the prohibitions
of the Church which, founded on the text in St. Luke
vi. 54, and the Fourteenth Psalm ("qui pecuniam non
debet ad usuram"), forbade all usury business. The
Jews early held this branch of trade in their hands.
Rates of interest varied from 6 to 10 per cent.
Loans, too, were made to princes, foreign and native,
and to cities, upon industrial enterprises. Wholly
erroneous is the notion that capital was inactive, kept
in a strong box or an old stocking. That great
riches were accumulated is proved by some of the old
wills and account books. Fortunes of a quarter of
a million were not unknown. A single merchant
would often own not only many farms in different and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span>
distant parts of the country, but whole villages and
townships. As for the men themselves, we encounter
them in every part of the continent, the artisan as
well as the merchant. Thus, for example, Germans
seem the favourite shoemakers; we hear of them in
this capacity as far off as Lisbon. Then, as now, they
were renowned as bakers, and no one knew better
how to salt and preserve herrings and cod-fish.</p>
<p>In Livonia, Esthonia, Gothland, rich merchants
died whose nearest heirs had to be sought in far off
Westphalia. For instance: A worthy shoemaker
became burgher of Lübeck; then visited Rome and
San Jago di Compostella as a pilgrim, and afterwards
being named shoemaker to the German knights, had
as his chief debtor for goods supplied a cavalier who
fought in Sweden. Thus diverse, many-coloured, and
full of adventure were lives in those times, which we
are too often tempted to think sleepy and stay-at-home.</p>
<p>It is difficult to gain an idea of the full extent and
nature of mediæval trade, but this too was far more
rich and varied than we suppose. Though there was
no activity outside Europe, still it can well stand
beside our modern commerce, and as regards honesty,
thoroughness of produce and workmanship, it unhappily
far eclipses it. Certainly the list of articles
imported and exported in their variety of needful and
needless objects, their luxury and magnificence, goes
far to disprove our notions of the greater simplicity
of life in the Middle Ages. For supply means
demand, and meant this yet more emphatically with
our practical forefathers.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span></p>
<p>Apart from the evidences of figures and statistics, the
evidences of wealth and luxury can also be found in
the yet extant monuments of the time, and, above all,
in the churches. In the Middle Ages the one converging
point of ideal life was the Church. Everything
that went beyond the immediate practical needs
of daily existence, every form of charity, every endeavour
after culture, every striving of artistic and scientific
activity had in those days a religious foundation.
Imagination, too, came to the aid of this tendency in
the shape of the possible and probable dangers encountered
by "sea and sand," by the town traders.
Thus in 1401 we find merchants and shippers at
Lübeck founding "an eternal brotherhood and guild
to the honour of God, of Mary His beloved mother,
and all the saints; above all, the holy true helper in
need, St. Nicholas, that they may aid and comfort the
living and the dead, and all those who seek their
rightful livelihood on the water, many of whom, alas!
perish in water troubles, are thrown overboard or
expire in other ways, dying unconfessed and without
repentance; for on account of their agonies they could
feel neither remorse nor penitence for their sins, and
who have none who pray for them except the general
prayers."</p>
<p>Such guilds were by no means rare. Legacies, too,
were left for similar ends, by which thousands of our
money were willed away: churches, monasteries, and
holy foundations of all kinds raised or aided to pray
for the benefit of the souls of the dead.</p>
<p>Nor were distant pilgrimages unknown. The merchant
would go in person, combining business and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span>
religion on the road, or he would send a substitute,
who for a certain sum would visit Rome, the Holy
Land, San Jago in Spain, or Rocamadour in Guyenne.
Such pilgrims by profession were frequent. St. Peter,
St. James, after them St. John, then St. Nicholas and
St. Clement as patron saints of merchants, shippers
and fishermen, and among the women saints St.
Catherine, were the chosen objects of North German
piety. In no town was lacking a leper house, a refuge
for those troubled with that plague of the Middle
Ages, happily now almost unknown in Europe.
These were dedicated to the Holy Ghost and to St.
George, the slayer of dragons.</p>
<p>Above all, worship was paid to the Virgin Mary.
All the municipal churches were dedicated to her.
There is not a town that has not its church of "Our
Lady." The municipal council were put under her
especial protection. To this day the so-called Beautiful
Door of the Mary Church at Danzig bears the
inscription in golden letters: "Queen of Heaven, pray
for us!"</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo108" id="illo108"></a>
<img src="images/illo108.jpg" width="550" height="451" alt="HOHE-THOR, DANZIG." />
<p class="caption">HOHE-THOR, DANZIG.</p>
</div>
<p>These churches and religious buildings of all kinds,
many of which survive to this day amid surroundings
to which they have grown strange, speak more eloquently
of the Hansa's might than piles of old parchment
records. All Scandinavia can show nothing to
compare with these architectural monuments, and we
can well comprehend that the Northman entering the
Elbe, the Trave, or other Baltic rivers, and seeing the
lighthouses, churches, and mighty buildings of the
towns, were awed by the Germans' wealth and power
and strength, much as we are impressed now-a-days
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span>
when we first set eyes upon Eternal Rome. These
buildings resembled each other in externals; in each
we find the same tall graceful steeples rising into the
heavens, the same proud, defiant battlements and
turrets, the same high-gabled many storeyed, small-windowed
houses, the same tendency to employ bricks
as building materials, and to use coloured varieties as
ornamentation. Of this method of building and
decoration the Holstenthor of Lübeck is a well-preserved
example, as indeed these double gates to the
towns were also a characteristic feature. One, a round
tower, resembling greatly the Castel St. Angelo of
Rome, situated on the south side of Rostock, was so
strongly built that even the mechanical contrivances
of our days found it hard work to demolish it when
modern progress required its removal.</p>
<p>Art was then almost exclusively the handmaiden of
religion, and hence it is also in the churches we have
to seek evidences of what the Hansa could produce in
this respect. Metal gravestones, rich bindings, cunning
iron work, attest its taste. Evidence of a
love of painting is found in many works now preserved
in museums of the pre-Holbein day. And, incredible
though it may seem, they were so famous for glass
painting that early in the fifteenth century men came
from Italy to Lübeck to learn perfection in the craft.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo110" id="illo110"></a>
<img src="images/illo110.jpg" width="349" height="550" alt="HOLSTENTHOR, LÜBECK." />
<p class="caption">HOLSTENTHOR, LÜBECK.</p>
</div>
<p>Of their domestic architecture little, unhappily,
remains to us, the practice of building with wood
having wrecked most of the cities. Such houses as
survive, however, testify to the national love of cunning
carvings and inscriptions of didactic purpose.
For it is the keynote of that time to express in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span>
artistic form its ardent faith and activity, and its
somewhat rough-and-ready philosophy. Theorizings
and abstractions were little understood. Thus in old
legal codes we see the punishments to be inflicted
pictorially portrayed. Contempt and mocking also
took tangible form, and the clergy were by no means
exempted from such satire. Notwithstanding all the
piety of the age, the people were ever on their guard
against the encroachments of the wily priests. The
deeds of Reynard the Fox—that favourite national
comic epic, so wholly in keeping with the Hansa spirit
of practical good sense and business cunning—was a
favourite theme for weaving into arras and carpet;
and it was common to give a distinct hit at the
clergy in the person of the sly beast.</p>
<p>It was the custom to depict the Last Judgment in
the court of justice of each guildhall. That painted
in 1341 for Hamburg led to a long lawsuit before the
Papal Court at Avignon, because the local dean and
chapter saw in it personal allusions. Thus devoutness
did not impede the townspeople from rigidly retaining
their mental independence of view and action.</p>
<p>Science and literature—such as those ages could
boast—were, like art, more or less pressed into the
service of the Church. The only exception is to be
found in the few popular folk-tales, all comic, like the
deeds of Eulenspiegel, and in the town chroniclers
who were in the pay of the municipal council; but
activity was not great in this latter domain. In most
cities, schools were attached to all the parishes, in
which the children of the wealthy classes learned
reading, writing, some arithmetic, singing, and a little
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span>
Latin. These institutions were founded in defiance
of the priests, who loved to keep the people in the
darkness and enslavement of ignorance.</p>
<p>Nearly all the merchants and many artizans could
read and write, even if they did not practise these
arts with great facility. Business letters were indited
either in Latin or German, for the latter tongue was
more widely diffused for commercial purposes than in
our day.</p>
<p>But if the wealth of the towns led them to encourage
the gentler aspects of life, it also enabled
them to give expression to less refined tastes, and
refinement of taste was never a speciality of these
rather coarse-grained and boorish Teutons. The
Middle Ages were essentially a time of animal enjoyment
and license; the people loved life and all life
could offer on the material side. We come across
constant records of carouses and feasts, at which the
manners and customs were—to our ideas, at least—most
gross. No occasion for merry-making, which
meant largely eating and drinking, was allowed to
slip by unheeded. Nor were these occasions few, for
the Catholic Church, with its endless list of saints,
furnishes easy and constant excuses for holiday-making,
as we see to this day in Catholic countries.</p>
<p>When guilds, corporations, or associations met for
convivial intercourse, this was pursued according to
established rules, some of which survive in the student
<i>corps</i> of German universities. Breaches of regulation
were punished by extra rations of beer that were paid
for by the delinquent. Entrance fees were defrayed
by giving a feast to all members. In short, they ate
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span>
hard and drank yet harder, with the result that
nightly drunken brawls were frequent, the quieter
folk often lodging complaints concerning disturbed
sleep or rioting beneath their windows between the
younger burghers and the watchman. Occasionally
a man is banished for molesting the town guard, while
intoxicated and disorderly, for undue license was not
winked at by the town council.</p>
<p>This was also the epoch when flourished those
civic games which furthered the sentiment of brotherhood,
and served, besides, to improve the youth of the
city in the use and practice of arms. Among these,
the May games, May processions, May empires, took
a foremost place. They had their origin in the pagan
conception of spring as a fair youth, who, in victorious
duel, overcame the treacherous winter.</p>
<p>The May emperor was usually elected from among
the town council. The one who had obtained the
wreath during the previous year delivered it up at the
beginning of May or at Whitsuntide. He would ride
out into a neighbouring wood "upon his good horse,"
accompanied by all the councillors clad in armour, to
the sound of martial music and with the town's flag
flying. This was called "going to fetch the May."
A beautiful boy generally headed the procession.
What ceremonies went on in the wood is not known,
but when the procession returned, leading in the new
May emperor, the boy would bear a flowery wreath
upon his long pole as token of victory; while all the
councillors and the huge crowd that followed in their
train were decked with green branches and boughs.
The newly-elected emperor was expected to treat
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span>
the crowd. After a while this grew a heavy and
serious expense, and we find it recorded that a certain
burgher of Stralsund, who knew he would be
elected to this honour, fled the city. He was, however,
followed and brought back, made to accept the
post and its expenses, and heavily fined into the
bargain.</p>
<p>As in modern Switzerland, so in mediæval Germany,
crossbow shooting for prizes gave another
occasion for public holiday, the different guilds turning
out, with banner and music, to do honour to their
various patron saints. In such wise all adult men
were trained to warfare, though the armies of the
Hansa usually consisted in great part of hired mercenaries,
easily obtained for ready cash in those days,
when fighting was held a pleasure far beyond legitimate
work. Many records survive to attest that these
Hansa merchants were skilled in the use of dagger
and axe. One, for example, a peaceful citizen and
trader, with his own hand killed a noted pirate who
had long rendered the Baltic unsafe. The merchant
went his road, as the saying was, trusting to God and
his own right arm. "Whosoever would be a good
burgher at Danzig must be industrious both in commerce
and arms," runs an inscription on the house of
the crossbow shooters of that city.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo115" id="illo115"></a>
<img src="images/illo115.jpg" width="438" height="500" alt="CHILDREN'S SPORTS." />
<p class="caption">CHILDREN'S SPORTS.</p>
</div>
<p>Later on, as the towns grew more aristocratic in
character, the gilded youth of the day had games of
their own, from participation in which the artizan was
excluded. These, in many cases, led to such riots
and uprisings of the populace against the municipality
as occasioned the "unhansing" of Brunswick
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span>
and other cities. Foremost among them were the
so-called "Popinjay Associations," who met to shoot
down from a pole these bright-coloured birds with
which travellers had become acquainted in the market
of Bruges. It was usual for the winner to treat his
comrades to a barrel of beer and cakes.</p>
<p>Indeed, without touching upon the innumerable
institutions common to guilds, trades, patricians, and
plebeians, a picture of those times would be imperfect.
Some of these were instituted for purely
hilarious purposes, others combined charity and
mutual support with carouse and license. Thus in
Cologne there was a society which met to drink
wine, and presented to every honoured guest a medal
having the inscription, "Bibite cum hilaritate." This
society imposed on itself certain laws regarding the
avoidance of bad language, of lawless living, of coarse
speech and action.</p>
<p>In the North beer was the chief beverage, many
companies were dedicated to Gambrinus, the "arch-king
and inventor of brewing." Here, too, quaint
rules attest the rudeness of contemporary manners.
It was customary to exact a monetary fine
from those who spilt more beer than they could cover
with their hand. It seems that even women were
not excluded wholly from these revels. At least a
princely guest, harboured by Lübeck, expressed his
disapprobation at the presence in the cellar of the
town hall of patrician ladies, who under cover of their
veils, which formed for them an incognito, drank hard
and enjoyed themselves grossly.</p>
<p>Endless are the rules and regulations of the various
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span>
calends, ghostly brotherhoods, companies, and other
names by which they styled themselves. Thus, for
example, they were forbidden to take the food off
each other's plates, to call each other certain most injurious
names, to throw knives and plates at each other, to
appear at solemn drinking bouts bare-footed, to roll in
the mud, to retain arms, hat, and cloak when in company,
to tap a fresh barrel without the presence of an
elder, and so forth. Their duties to each other combined
social and religious obligations. Thus they were
often bound to pray for those who, absent on travels,
could not attend at mass. They gave decent burial
to their poorer comrades, nursed them when sick,
helped them when distressed. A pound of wax, half
a hundredweight of tallow, a barrel of beer, were not
uncommon fines for dereliction of duty. Games of
chance were universally forbidden. Dancing and
song were common forms of diversion. The shoemakers
and tailors of Lübeck were noted for their
skill in the sword-dance, a dance probably not
unlike the Highland reel executed to this day by
Scotchmen.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo118" id="illo118"></a>
<img src="images/illo118.jpg" width="388" height="550" alt="DOMESTIC MUSIC." />
<p class="caption">DOMESTIC MUSIC.</p>
</div>
<p>Wit, grace, imagination, were elements mostly
absent from the lives of these rough Germans. This
is nowhere more evident than in their amusements.
The carnival practices furnished a notable example,
practices so graceful, so pretty in the South, so rough
and rude in the North. Two instances will suffice.
At Stralsund it was customary to nail up a poor cat
with which a man fought until he hit it to death,
when he was mock-knighted by the burgomaster. In
Cologne poor blind people were let loose in an enclosed
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span>
space to hit a pig, which should be the prize
of the successful candidate. The joy of the spectators
reached its height when the poor blind men struck
each other in place of their victim. The practices at
weddings were too rude for description.</p>
<p>Luxury in dress was most pronounced, and
sumptuary laws were repeatedly enacted. It seems
strange that it was the men even more than the
women who offended in these respects. Simple, nay,
rude as the lives of these burghers were in their
homes, out of doors they loved to make display,
especially in the matter of costly weapons and brave
horses. Young men returning from the wars or the
great markets of London or Bruges, introduced new
fashions and fantasies which changed far more frequently
than we are apt to suppose. The most
conservative dress was the headgear of the patricians,
the councillors and members of the municipality.
This consisted for many ages in a long cap of
cloth, trimmed with fine fur. Before hats or caps
came into fashion as coverings, the sight of these
men in their long fur cloaks, with their heads enclosed
in these curious hoods, must have had a
stately, grave effect. So proud were the patricians
of this dress that the councillors of Bremen actually
forged a document early in the thirteenth century,
according to which Godfrey of Bouillon, accorded
to them, during the first Crusade, the permission to
wear fur and gold chains. The dress, clogging the
free action of the legs, necessitated a stately slow
walk, and its length would seem often to have inconvenienced
them in those times of unpaved streets and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span>
mud-coated roads. A certain Evart von Huddessen,
the representative of Stralsund at the Court of King
Erik of Sweden, gained the special favour of the
monarch on an occasion, when, invited by the king to
visit with him his pleasure gardens outside the town,
he quietly walked through the puddles after Erik's
horse, instead of waiting like the other representatives
for their servants to carry for them their trains,
which they feared to spoil in the mud. "Eh! what
are we waiting for here?" he cried to his colleagues,
"shall his royal highness ride alone? I reckon my
masters of Stralsund are rich enough that they can
make good to me my new coat."</p>
<p>Nor were they invariably simple in their homes,
though usually so. A favourite German folk tale
tells how Melchior, of Bremen, had his dining-room
paved with silver dollars, and even if history
or chronicle does not confirm this legend, it is
thoroughly in keeping with Hanseatic modes of displaying
wealth. There did exist, for instance, a
certain Wulf Wulflam, of Stralsund, who sat upon
a silver seat, and had his rooms hung with costly
arras. When he married he, like a royal personage,
caused the road from his house to the church to be
overspread with a Flanders carpet, while musicians
played day and night before his door. No doubt at
his wedding appeared also the eighty dishes which
at weddings was the highest limit allowed to
burgher luxury by the Hanseatic by-laws.</p>
<p>It would seem, too, that the Hansa representatives
when sent to "Hansa days" (the meetings of the
various cities in common council) after a while indulged
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span>
in great display to impress beholders with the
power and wealth of their respective cities. This,
after a time, assumed such proportions that poorer
or wiser communities refrained, whenever possible,
from sending members to the "Hansa days."</p>
<p>Such were the habits and customs of these old
burghers. As we see, it was a time when men were
occupied with the material rather than the ideal side
of life. A curious medley it presents of egotism and
altruism, piety and license, love of individuality and
strict regulation, roughness of living and unbridled
luxury, boorishness and civilization.</p>
<p>A word must be said of that important institution,
the town council, to complete this sketch of the
German towns during the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. Its constitution varied somewhat of course,
according to the size and wealth of the cities, but
there were certain main resemblances. The number
of aldermen varied from twelve to twenty-four. At
their head were two or four burgomasters, who enjoyed
no special privileges, except that in council they
held the office of president. The appointment was
for life, but they took it in turns to be on active duty.
Certain limitations of choice as to aldermen existed.
Thus for long in Lübeck no one could hold that office
who earned his bread by handicraft. This regulation
however did not last. Still merchants throughout
filled the chief places; as, being travelled men, and
knowing the requirements of their fellows, they were
considered the most fit. Next to these, brewers
and tailors took a leading part. The general constitution
of the council may be regarded as in a fashion
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span>
aristocratic, but it was checked in deliberations and
decisions by a sort of second chamber, the common
council. Under their rule the cities certainly
flourished; the one chamber counselled, the other
acted, and to be alderman was indeed no sinecure,
but rather a post that imposed heavy labour. Honour
it brought, but scanty remuneration.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo122" id="illo122"></a>
<img src="images/illo122.jpg" width="433" height="500" alt="MIDDLE-CLASS OCCUPATIONS IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY." />
<p class="caption">MIDDLE-CLASS OCCUPATIONS IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.</p>
</div>
<p><i>Noblesse oblige</i> was the proud motto these men
acted on. The church bells called them to their
meetings, which at first were held in the municipal
church, later in the guildhalls. At Lübeck they
always assembled first in their own chapel of Our
Lady's Church, then went in procession to the town-hall.
This was the centre of all national life. The
market-place was built before it, around it were the
chief shops. In the market-place justice was
administered, either in the open air or under the
open porticos of the guildhall. Civic feasts were held
here, foreign guests received at this spot. No wonder,
then, that the burghers spent great sums upon the
building and decoration of their town-halls and surroundings.
They were to them the palladium of
civic independence, whence law and order, merriment
and feasting took their origin. To this day the
cellars of the town-halls in Germany boast the best
wines and choicest foods, and though now let out as
restaurants they still, many of them, show in fresco
and carving the remains of ancient splendour. In
the town-halls were preserved the treasure, the
civic documents, and the great town books, called
into requisition in all disputes. "No witness goes
beyond the Book" was the axiom of the day.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span></p>
<p>The market-place was always the largest open place
in a city. The streets were narrow and tortuous.
This was necessitated by the circumstance that all
towns at that date were walled, and hence their extension
circumscribed. Each class of workmen lived
together; shoemakers in one street, coopers in
another, and so forth. Their houses being small, it
was usual for them on fine days to do their work out
of doors, which gave an animated appearance to the
place. At night these streets were closed by iron
chains drawn across them.</p>
<p>The town life was, in short, but the family life on
an extended scale, and the municipality watched over
the welfare of the inhabitants as a father over that
of his household. To facilitate commerce and industry,
and to look after roads and buildings, were
among its chief cares. It is noteworthy that in some
towns regulations existed compelling every one who
had means to leave in his will a certain sum for
repairing the highways and keeping the ports in
good condition. Many fulfilled this provision, even
without this order.</p>
<p>Another occupation of the aldermen was to superintend
trade, and see it carried out on honest principles.
Thus, at Novgorod, a bale of linen is discovered
to be bad, so that "no honourable and good
man could be paid in such ware." It is sent back
to Riga, thence to Wisby, thence to Lübeck, where
the aldermen had to find out who delivered these
goods. Punishment for such fraud followed inevitably,
and was so heavy that, on the whole, few attempted to
play these base tricks. We also come across complaints
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span>
that barrels of herrings had been packed
fraudulently, good and large fish being on the top;
small and inferior and even stale ones filling the
rest of the barrel. As such perishable goods could
not be returned, the aldermen instituted official
herring packers, who were responsible for honest
action.</p>
<p>In all difficult matters, the advice of the municipality
was asked and given. It was held "that they
knew what others did not know." Thus burgher and
burgher ruler worked hand in hand, and each man
felt himself a link of the whole chain. This feeling
gave rise to an active patriotism, a warm love for
their own town, of which instances abound in the
mediæval chronicles. Many tales are preserved of
brawls arising in the towns through the vauntings
of rival citizens. Thus a certain Lübecker meeting
a Bremener in a Hamburg inn, boasted so greatly
of his native town's advantages and made such fun
of his companion's aldermen that they all but came
to serious blows. "You had better mind your words
and drink your beer in peace," was the friendly
advice of a bystander.</p>
<p>Such were these burghs which had grown free
and strong through burgher industry, and were kept
powerful by burgher unity and honesty.
</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/dragon.jpg" width="450" height="107" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p class="center p4 b13"><b>III.</b></p>
<h3 class="p4">THE VICTUAL BROTHERS.</h3>
<p>A serious interruption to the Baltic trade after
the glorious peace with Waldemar arose from the
notorious gang of pirates known to history as the
Victual Brothers. Upon the principle that all is
fair in love and war the Hansa, during its campaign
against the Danish king, had openly countenanced
and even abetted piracy, so long as the attacks of
the robbers were directed against their enemies. The
chance of plundering under protection was too
tempting not to attract a large number of adventurers,
who for some years carried on their black
trade under the designation of "Victual Brothers,"
a name chosen because their ostensible aim was to
supply with provisions that part of the Swedish coast
which belonged to the Hansa.</p>
<p>It seems strange to us of to-day to find as the
leading spirits among these Brothers the names of
Moltke and Manteuffel, doubtless forbears of the
famous modern German generals. These pirates
founded masses and charitable institutions on the
one hand, and robbed and sacked remorselessly
on the other. Peace being concluded, the Hansa
naturally had to clear the seas of these pests, but
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span>
it had been easier to call them into activity than
to suppress them. A large body of men had found
profitable employment coupled with stirring adventure;
this latter being a powerful incentive in those
days, and were loth to quit their free wild life.</p>
<p>They continued their association, nay, even enlarged
it, forming themselves into a corporation, after the
pattern of the Knights Templars, and divided all
booty equally among their body. In a brief space
they became the scourge of all the commercial cities.
"God's friend and all the world's enemy" was their
audacious motto. Masters of both seas, the Baltic
and the German Ocean, on one occasion they even
seized, plundered, and burnt down Bergen (1392) and
took prisoner the bishop. Gothland became their
stronghold, and Wisby, once the Hansa's glory, was
turned into a pirate's nest near which the merchant
sailed with fear and trembling.</p>
<p>It seems strange, to our modern ideas, even to
think that piracy was once a reputable calling. It
was held as such, for example, in ancient Greece,
as we may read in Thucydides, book i. chap. 5.
No offence was in those days either intended or
taken if one Greek asked another if he were a pirate.
In the Baltic, like duelling in more polished climes,
this practice long survived the positive laws framed
against it. Pirates would even give back empty
ships to merchants, wishing them a happy return
with fresh and fuller cargoes.</p>
<p>In vain did Margaret of Sweden protest against
the audacities of the Victual Brothers. She was
helpless against them. The measure of her impotence
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span>
can be gauged by the fact that she begged
from Richard II., king of England, permission to
hire three ships at Lynn for the protection of her
kingdom. In vain, too, on the days when the Hansa
met in council, was this theme discussed. For three
whole years all fishing on Scania had to be abandoned.
The result was severely felt throughout the
length and breadth of Christian Europe, for herrings
and other Lenten food became rare and costly.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo128" id="illo128"></a>
<img src="images/illo128.jpg" width="550" height="327" alt="SHIP-BUILDING IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY." />
<p class="caption">SHIP-BUILDING IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.</p>
</div>
<p>Stronger and stronger grew these pirates, so that
at last it was decided to send out an army against
them. Once more recourse was had to a poundage
tax to raise supplies and thirty-five large vessels with
three thousand men were sent to sea in 1394. After
long and arduous struggles they at last broke the power
of the association, but for long afterwards separate
bands of pirates, once members of the mighty gang,
rendered the navigation of these seas a peril.</p>
<p>Legend took possession of these robbers from an
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span>
early date, and we come across them in song and
fable. Taking a foremost place were Godeke
Michelson and Stortebeker, whose special mission
it was to harry the traders with England. Stortebeker,
it is said, was a nobleman, indeed noblemen
were frequently found in the association. As a youth
he had been wild and lived so riotous a life that all
his property was gambled and drunk away. When
finally the town of Hamburg, the scene of his
carouses, in order to pay his debts, deprived him
of his knightly armour and forbade him the city
precincts, he joined the Victual Brothers.</p>
<p>At this time their leader was Godeke Michelson,
who hailed the new confederate with joy, after testing
his strength, which was so great that with his hands
he broke iron chains like string. And because his
new ally was also great at drinking—he could pour
down huge bumpers at one gulp—he bade him lay
aside his noble name and renamed him instead
Stortebeker ("Pour down bumpers"). Once when the
pair had plundered the North Sea clean they made
a descent upon Spain. As was their wont, they divided
their spoils with their comrades, only on this occasion
they kept for themselves the holy bones of St.
Vincent, stolen from a church, bearing them under
their coats upon their naked breasts. Hence, says
legend, they grew invulnerable, so that neither crossbow
nor axe, sword nor dagger, could harm or wound
them.</p>
<p>When the Victual Brothers were conquered by the
Hansa and banished from the Baltic, these two chieftains
with their followers found good friends in Frisia,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span>
where to this day memories of Stortebeker survive,
and the chieftain Keno then Broke became his father-in-law,
for his lovely daughter lost her heart to the
doughty pirate, and followed him on to his ships and
his floating kingdom. For Stortebeker was a king in
his way. When he made captives who promised him
a ransom he let them live. But if they were poor
and old and weak, he threw them overboard relentlessly.
If they were poor but strong, and so likely
to be of use, he tested their strength in this manner.
He caused his own enormous goblet to be filled
with wine. If they could empty it at one gulp they
were his peers, and he accepted them as comrades.
Those who could not pass this ordeal were dismissed.</p>
<p>It is said that Stortebeker and Godeke Michelson
sometimes had moments of penitence concerning
the lives they led. In such a moment of remorse
they each presented the cathedral of Verdun with
seven glass windows, on which were painted cunningly
the seven deadly sins. Stortebeker's "mark," two
reversed goblets, is depicted in one of them, probably
the one that treats of gluttony. They also founded
a charity for distributing bread to the poor.</p>
<p>In 1400, the Hansa sent out a fleet to Frisia to
combat these chieftains. It was in this war that the
Hamburgers attained the honour of conquering the
Victual Brothers, dispersing their crew and releasing
their captives. Keno then Broke was carried off into
confinement, for he had, against his oath and faith,
contrived to aid the pirates. With Keno the town of
Hamburg made a new treaty. It is said that just as
it was signed and the councillors had left the council
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span>
chamber, Stortebeker managed to slip out of a hiding-place,
where he had heard all that passed, and joked
with his father-in-law at the expense of the Hamburg
aldermen who had once more put faith in him. Whilst
so engaged a certain Councillor Naune, who had forgotten
his gloves, returned to the hall and overheard
them. Hence the war broke out afresh. Once more
many Victual Brothers were captured and beheaded in
Hamburg. Their heads were stuck upon poles for
the warning of all beholders, while the account books
prove that the executioner received eight pennies per
trunk decapitated and his servant twenty pennies per
body buried. Yet again a fleet had to set forth; for
as long as Stortebeker and Godeke Michelson were
living there was no peace possible. Under a Hamburg
alderman, Simon of Utrecht, who commanded
the fleet on board a mighty ship known as the
<i>Coloured Cow</i>, they again set out. The name of
this vessel is remarkable, and is the first instance we
come across in Hanseatic history of a profane denomination
for a ship. All the others are named after
some saint or angel, under whose special protection
it was supposed to sail. "The <i>Coloured Cow</i>, from
Flanders, that tore through the ocean with its great
horns," sings the folk-song, the "Stortebeker Lied,"
which a hundred and fifty years ago was still sung by
the people. The Victual Brothers lay off Heligoland.
Towards dark one evening in the year 1402, the
Hamburg fleet approached them, and a daring fisherman
came so near that he was able to pour molten
lead upon some of their rudders, loosening them,
and rendering the vessels unseaworthy. Next day
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span>
the battle began. It raged three days and three
nights, and only after a desperate resistance was
Stortebeker conquered.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo132" id="illo132"></a>
<img src="images/illo132.jpg" width="550" height="375" alt="HELIGOLAND." />
<p class="caption">HELIGOLAND.</p>
</div>
<p>Some of the pirates fled, many were killed or thrown
into the sea; their ships, richly laden with booty in
the shape of linen, wax, cloth, &c., were seized, and
Stortebeker with seventy comrades carried in triumph
to Hamburg. The cell in which Stortebeker was
confined was known as Stortebeker's hole as long as
it existed. It was destroyed like so many of the antiquities
of Hamburg in the great fire of 1842. Short
work was of course made of his trial, and with his
companions Stortebeker was condemned to death.
When he heard his sentence it afflicted him much, and
he offered the municipality in return for his life and
freedom a chain of gold to be made from his hidden
treasures, so long that they could span with it the whole
cathedral and also all the town. This offer was, of
course, indignantly rejected, and next day he was
publicly executed, together with seventy comrades. In
compliance with their dying petition they went to death
dressed in their best, marching in stately procession,
and preceded by fifes and drums.</p>
<p>After Stortebeker's death the Hamburgers searched
his ships for the hidden treasures. Except a few
goblets they could find nothing at first, until a carpenter
broke the main-mast, which was discovered to be
hollow and full of molten gold. With this fortune
the merchants who had suffered at Stortebeker's hands
were indemnified, the costs of the war paid, and out
of the remainder a golden crown was made and
placed on the spire of St. Nicholas Church.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span></p>
<p>Stortebeker was thus out of the way; but there still
remained Godeke Michelson. So the Hamburgers
with Simon of Utrecht and his <i>Coloured Cow</i>, once more
set forth and once more returned victorious, bearing
in their train Godeke Michelson, eighty robbers, and
the under-chieftain Wigbold, of whom it is said that
he had been a professor of philosophy at Rostock,
and had exchanged his chair for the forecastle of a
ship. These men also were all decapitated in the
presence of the burghers and municipal council.</p>
<p>It was a heavy day's work for the executioner, and
it is related that he waded up to his ankles in blood.
After it was all ended an alderman asked him kindly
if he were not much wearied. "Oh no," said the
headsman, laughing grimly, "I never felt better in my
life, and I have strength enough left to behead the
whole lot of you councillors." For this treasonable
speech he was at once dismissed from his post.</p>
<p>Various relics exist to this day to keep Stortebeker's
memory fresh in Hamburg. Among them were
a small whistle with which he gave the signal to his
ships during a storm, an iron cannon nineteen feet
long, his armour, and the executioner's sword.</p>
<p>But chief of all Hamburg preserved the so-called
Stortebeker goblet, a silver bumper, from which
tradition says he drank. "Whosoever comes to Hamburg
and does not go to the Ship's Company, that
he may drink from the goblet of Stortebeker and
Godeke Michelson, and write his name in the book
that lies beside it, has not been in Hamburg," says an
old writer. This goblet is about a yard and a half
high, and holds four bottles. A sea-fight is engraved
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span>
on it, together with other incidents out of Stortebeker's
life, and some rough rhymes. Once more
modern criticism, destructive and intolerant of all
picturesque legend, declares that the cup is of later
date than Stortebeker's time, and can never have
been his.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo135" id="illo135"></a>
<img src="images/illo135a.jpg" width="360" height="550" alt="TOMB OF SIMON OF UTRECHT, HAMBURG." />
<p class="caption">TOMB OF SIMON OF UTRECHT, HAMBURG.</p>
</div>
<p>Soon after the death of the pirate chiefs, Hamburg
sent an envoy as pilgrim to the shrine of San Jago of
Compostella. Whether he was employed to bear
thither the thanks of the city to the saint for their
victory, or to return to Spain the relics of St. Vincent,
history saith not. A medal was struck to commemorate
the event. It bears Stortebeker's portrait and
an appropriate inscription. Simon of Utrecht, the
victorious captain of the fleet, who later won other
battles for the Hansa, received high honours from
Hamburg. When he died he was accorded honourable
burial, and a gravestone to his memory was put outside
St. Nicholas Church. Happily it survived the
great fire. It shows the crest of Simon, a large three-masted
vessel, with the figure of a beast at the helm;
doubtless, the famous "coloured cow;" a swan draws
this ship through the waves. Below is an inscription
in Latin verse, recording the hero's feats against the
pirates, and enjoining posterity to imitate the great
deeds of their forbears, that the fame of the city may
not be diminished.
</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/griff.jpg" width="450" height="106" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p class="center p4 b13"><b>IV.</b></p>
<h3 class="p4">THE FACTORY OF BERGEN.</h3>
<p>We have seen how great was the Hansa's power
in peace and in war; let us now cast a glance
at the basis upon which the whole proud fabric
rested. This is to be sought, beyond doubt, in
its foreign commerce. How enormous the interest
they had, especially in the Baltic trade, how
great, indeed almost exclusive, was their empire
in that sea, it is difficult to realize. And to retain
this empire, to be masters of the mercantile
relations between the eastern and western extremities
of Europe, they considered no sacrifice too
great. This was the keynote of their policy. Their
purpose, simple enough in conception, was carried out
with a disregard of other claims than their own, and
often a violence which made them encounter resistance,
and which in the end was largely the cause of
their fall.</p>
<p>The political agitations and confusions which disturbed
the Scandinavian kingdoms early in the
fifteenth century were astutely utilized by the Hanseatics,
who, having their settlements at Bergen and
Scania, were able to keep out the Dutch and English,
then just beginning to attempt a rivalry with them in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span>
the northern trade. The Dutch were easily disheartened.
Not so the English; and we read of instances
in which the Hanseatics and English acted towards
one another with a savagery which proves that commercial
rivalry can excite hearts as bitterly and
furiously as political or religious fanaticism.</p>
<p>No matter at what cost, monopoly the Germans
were resolved to have, and they succeeded in forcing
the kings of Denmark to place an interdict upon
English trading. This prohibition corresponded to
another that they had extorted, according to which
all merchandize coming from the extreme end of the
Norwegian kingdom was obliged to pass through and
halt at their station of Bergen. The purpose of the
latter regulation was to concentrate all the productions
of the country at a single point; thus offering
to the Hanseatics the first refusal of goods, and a
power of dominating the market.</p>
<p>Indeed nowhere did their imperious and self-seeking
policy show itself in a less amiable light than in the
dealings of the Hansa with the poor inhabitants of
Norway's sterile coasts. The history of their factory
at Bergen is from its earliest foundation the history
of a relentless despotism, disfigured by violence and
breach of faith in treaties. King Haguin had, in
1376, accorded to the German merchants the right to
trade freely in all the burghs, villages, and harbours
of his kingdom, but it seemed that they themselves
preferred to restrict their business to the town of
Bergen, which, it is true, combined uncommon advantages.
It possessed an excellent harbour, the city
was shielded by an amphitheatre of lofty mountains,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span>
and though, as regards climate, it could boast no
advantages, more rainy days occurring there than at
other points of the Norwegian coast, yet it had early
been the staple of all Norwegian and Arctic products.
Its geographical situation rendered it equally accessible
for travellers from the north and south, while its
harbour was so deep that even ships of considerable
draught could anchor almost in front of the town's
houses.</p>
<p>From the earliest times the inhabitants of Bergen
had been traders. In 1393 they were grievously pillaged
by the Victual Brothers; and ere they could
recover from this misfortune, another pirate, Bartholauer
Voet (1428), attacked them, just when the
English were helping them to recover their commerce.
It is pretty evident that his attack was countenanced,
if not commanded, by the Hansa. At sight of his
ships the inhabitants fled. The crew were thus
enabled to land unhindered; they plundered everything,
down to the bishop's palace and his library;
and they despoiled the Norman vessels which had
come there for the summer fishing. They then took
their stolen goods to market, returning the following
Easter for a second visit. This time the inhabitants
were more on their guard, and made a gallant but
vain defence. Once more the city was sacked, and
the royal and episcopal palace and many private
houses were burnt to ashes.</p>
<p>Shorn of its wealth, Bergen was now so weak that
the conquerors were able to dictate their own terms.
The city, which for five hundred years had been
in exclusive possession of the Greenland passage
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span>
had to renounce all maritime traffic. Further,
the citizens saw themselves forced to pawn their
land to the Hanseatics, in return for the mere
necessaries of life, and as they could rarely redeem
these pledges the whole city of Bergen gradually fell
into the hands of these opulent traders.</p>
<p>Expelled from their old dwellings in ancient
Bergen, which formed the part of the city known
as the Bridge, the inhabitants planned to establish
themselves on the harbour board that skirted the
opposite side of the crescent. But the insatiable
greed of the Hanseatics would not suffer them to
stay there. The conquerors obtained this also for
themselves, so that in the end the entire port was in
their power.</p>
<p>Thus, and by means of an ever-increasing population
of merchants, clerks, apprentices, sailors, workmen,
they exercised a practical suzerainty over the town.
Whenever cited to submit themselves to the local
authorities they claimed the privilege of foreigners;
they refused to pay city taxes, though they held the
rights of citizens, while they paid custom duties at a
reduction. They openly protected the enemies of the
king, felled the forests, introduced themselves arbitrarily
into the houses of strangers; in short, committed
every offence with impunity. As in London
and Novgorod, so in Bergen, the Hanseatic factory
formed a state within the state.</p>
<p>The Hanseatics, in their arbitrary actions, repeatedly
ran counter to the Hansa's command and how
to keep order at Bergen became one of the most
difficult problems at "Hansa days." It would seem
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span>
as if the rude climate had exercised a deleterious
influence over these naturally coarse-grained Germans.</p>
<p>As we have said, the whole harbour board was in
their hands. The two sides were connected by the
so-called Shoemaker's Alley, long the abode of
strangers at Bergen, a quarter that became after a
time the residence of all boors and doubtful characters,
who shrank from no acts of violence, and
defended the German monopoly after their own
fashion, <i>i.e.</i>, by means of fisticuffs and knives. Thus,
as an example: the all-important fish market was so
situated that the inhabitants of Bergen could reach
it only by means of this street. Until the Germans
had had the first pick of newly-arrived goods, the
inmates of Shoemaker's Alley suffered no one to pass,
and woe to those who ventured to disregard this
prohibition. So completely broken was the might of
these northern people—the descendants of the Normans,
that most warlike race, the scourge of ancient
Europe.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo142" id="illo142"></a>
<img src="images/illo142.jpg" width="550" height="512" alt="JUSTICE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY." />
<p class="caption">JUSTICE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.</p>
</div>
<p>The side of the harbour known as the Bridge—the
Bridge of the lice the natives called it in derision—was
the actual factory of the Hansa. It consisted of
so-called gardens, of which nine belonged to the community
of St. Martin and thirteen to that of St. Mary.
Each garden was isolated, and formed a separate factory,
bearing its own crest and name, such as "The
Cloak," the "Court of Bremen," &c. The common
crest of the Bridge was odd enough, presenting half of
the German imperial eagle, against a crowned cod-fish.
Each garden was connected with the sea by a drawbridge,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span>
so that vessels could anchor in front. The
ground-floor consisted of workshops and warehouses: in
the first were the bedrooms of the resident merchants,
above were the kitchens. Behind the house were
mighty cellars, and above these again the "Schutting,"
a large windowless space used as a council chamber.
Opening thence was the kitchen garden.</p>
<p>Every "garden" was inhabited by at least ten
"families," each of whom had a husband as chief
superintendent and magistrate, to keep order among
the younger members and apprentices. As a rule the
"family" came from the same Hansa town. The
faults of the very young were punished by flogging,
those of the apprentices by fines or imprisonment. In
the summer the heterogeneous "families" dined alone,
in the sad winter time they all met in the "Schutting,"
but ate at separate tables. At a fixed hour every one
had to rise and go to bed.</p>
<p>Superintending the entire factory was a grand
council, composed of two aldermen, eighteen members,
and a secretary, who had to be a doctor of laws.
When conflicts arose between the different members
of a family, or between residents and travellers, the
matter was referred to the aldermen for decision.
Grave cases were sent up to the Hanseatic diet. The
aldermen had further to watch over trade, taxes, and
all that regarded the business transactions of the
colony.</p>
<p>In its time of greatest prosperity the factory at
Bergen counted about three thousand souls, all vowed
to celibacy, which was imposed on them under most
severe penalties. The fear was that union with the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span>
native women might lead to the divulging of Hanseatic
secrets, or induce the men to settle permanently
in this spot, and so become denaturalized. Members
of the Hansa were strictly forbidden to spend a night
outside the factory. Armed watchmen and savage
dogs exercised a rigid guard.</p>
<p>These residents were usually agents for merchants
in the Baltic cities. After ten years' sojourn, they were
obliged to return to their native town to give place to
new arrivals, who then had to go through the various
gradations of rank, beginning as office boy, and ending,
if luck favoured, as alderman. It was a sort of hierarchic
organization, of which the rules were most
rigidly enforced. Entrance dues for vessels, fines, and
money penances defrayed the general expenses of the
factory; each town paid for the board, wages, and
arming of its representatives. Not all members of the
Hansa, however, were permitted to trade with Bergen,
the conditions being purposely made onerous and
expensive.</p>
<p>In the same restrictive spirit, and to hinder a great
influx of men to the factory, a series of probationary
ordeals was planned, through which every new-comer
had to pass. By rendering these tests difficult and
repulsive they hoped to deter from Bergen the sons of
opulent families, for whom the advantages to be gained
there would be counterbalanced by the perils of initiation.
These "games," as with grim humour they were
termed, were entirely in keeping with the grotesque
spirit of the age, and analogies are to be found, though
less gross, in the religious orders and the institutions
of chivalry. The mildest of them resembled in some
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span>
respects the practices common to British sailors in
crossing the line. It is scarcely strange, that in the
frigid, rigid north, among a population naturally rough,
far from home, friends, and the more refining influences
of life, a prey to deadly <i>ennui</i>, imagination should
have taken a fierce and coarse turn.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo145" id="illo145"></a>
<img src="images/illo145.jpg" width="513" height="550" alt="SHIP AT THE END OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY." />
<p class="caption">SHIP AT THE END OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.</p>
</div>
<p>We cannot sully our pages by detailing the thirteen
different "games" or modes of martyrdom that were
in use at Bergen. Our more civilized age could not
tolerate the recital. In those days they attracted a
crowd of eager spectators, who applauded the more
vociferously the more cruel and barbarous the tortures.
The most popular were those practices known as the
smoke, water, and flogging games; mad, cruel pranks,
calculated to cause a freshman to lose health and
reason. Truly Dantesque hell tortures were these
initiations into Hansa mysteries. Merely to indicate
their nature we will mention that for the smoke game
the victim was pulled up the big chimney of the
Schutting while there burnt beneath him the most
filthy materials, sending up a nauseous stench and choking
wreaths of smoke. While in this position he was
asked a number of questions, to which he was forced,
under yet more terrible penalties, to reply. If he survived
this torture he was taken out into the yard and
plied under the pump with six tons of water.</p>
<p>The "water" game that took place at Whitsuntide
consisted in first treating the probationer to food, and
then taking him out to sea in a boat. Here he was
stripped, thrown into the ocean, ducked three times,
made to swallow much sea-water, and thereafter mercilessly
flogged by all the inmates of the boats. The
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span>
third chief game was no less dangerous to life and
limb. It took place a few days after, and was a rude
perversion of the May games. The victims had first
to go out into the woods to gather the branches with
which later they were to be birched. Returned to the
factory, rough horse-play pranks were practised upon
them. Then followed an ample dinner, which was
succeeded by mock combats, and ended in the victims
being led into the so-called Paradise, where twenty-four
disguised men whipped them till they drew blood,
while outside this black hole another party made
hellish music with pipes, drums, and triangles to deafen
the screams of the tortured. The "game" was considered
ended when the shrieks of the victims were
sufficiently loud to overtone the pandemonic music.</p>
<p>When all the ordeals were ended a herald, who also
occupied the <i>rôle</i> of fool, announced in a loud voice that
the games were over, adding the fervent wish that the
noble practice of ordeals might never be abandoned,
and that for the honour and prosperity of the Hansa
commerce and the Hanseatic factory they might ever
be held in veneration.</p>
<p>Only those who survived and sustained these rites
were admitted into the corporation at Bergen and
could rise to the highest grades, with the prospect of
assisting as spectators at the games in which before
they had themselves played a part. Not till 1671
were these barbarous practices, which every year increased
in ferocity, suppressed by order of Christian V.
of Denmark, and only, of course, after the Hansa had
sunk from its pristine power.
</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/flowers.jpg" width="450" height="108" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p class="center p4 b13"><b>V.</b></p>
<h3 class="p4">THE HANSEATIC COMMERCE WITH DENMARK,
SWEDEN, AND RUSSIA.</h3>
<p>Though the Government of Denmark was more
enlightened than that of Norway, and though the
Danes were jealously desirous of keeping their trade in
their own hands, they, too, could not free themselves
from the all-absorbing power of the Hanseatic League.
In vain did they endeavour to raise up rivals to these
traders; in vain did they even encourage pirates to
attack them; in vain did they institute custom dues
and taxes; each and all of these measures proved insufficient.
The credit of the towns was unassailable.
The Hanseatics knew how to vanquish all obstacles,
and finally they found themselves in full possession of
all their ancient privileges, as well as those which they
had extorted in concluding peace with Waldemar.</p>
<p>The dissensions of the three northern kingdoms,
which lasted for nearly fifty years, and which the
Hanseatic League were by no means anxious to see
settled (for, above all else, they feared the union of the
three northern kingdoms under one head) were admirably
utilized. The League played off one set of
enemies against another, now aided this faction, now
sided with that, never too openly expressed either
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span>
sympathy or hostility, and yet always contrived so
that any advantages accruing were theirs.</p>
<p>It was in those troubled times that Lübeck bought
from the Danish king the town of Kiel and adjoining
lands, while the queen pawned her jewels to the city
in order to raise money for war purposes.</p>
<p>Denmark was of immense importance to the
Hanseatic League, not only for the grain and cattle
it produced, but because it was the key to the
passages of the Belt and the Sound, the only maritime
routes for passing from the Baltic to the North
Sea. And, above all, the Sound was of first-class
importance as dominating the coveted province of
Scania, that mediæval Peru. This tongue of land,
which juts out into the sea in form of a hook on the
extreme south-west of Sweden, and shows to-day two
miserable towns, Skânoe and Falsterbo, almost buried
in driving sand, presented in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, from St. Jacob's to St. Michael's
Day (July 25th to September 29th), a most animated
spectacle. Nothing more strange is to be found in
either hemisphere than was the tumultuous life of
this arid province. Here each foot of ground was
jealously disputed by fishermen and merchants.</p>
<p>Englishmen, Flemings, Danes, and peoples of
tongues and customs the most diverse were found side
by side. But the Hanseatics preponderated. They
established themselves in a species of rude wooden
barrack called by them Witten, where they at once
instituted their peculiar rules and privileges, which
gave them that united power which in the end enabled
them to crush out all competition. For the device of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span>
the Hanseatics, though unexpressed, was "Monopoly,"
and during these centuries they carried it rigidly into
effect. The word Witten still survives in the name of
various fishing stations on the Baltic; for example,
one not far remote from the old pagan city of Arkona,
once the site of a temple, where the Christian Saxons
bought the right to fish by paying tribute to the local
god.</p>
<p>The main object of the trade in Scandinavia was
herrings, but this brought many other industries in its
train. Itinerant merchants offered cloth, linen, hardware,
wine, beer, and many other articles to the natives,
whose country boasted no handicrafts, as well as to
the temporary residents. In short, the place became
a market for the exchange of Western and Eastern
products, natural and manufactured. Here could be
seen the Lübeck cooks busy in extemporized kitchens
that formed a sort of rude restaurant; here rough
taverns in which German drinks were obtainable at
easy prices; here German shoemakers plied their
skill; above all, the coopers drove a lively trade,
making and mending the barrels needed for the
precious fish. The import of salt, too, was obviously
of first-class importance, and this was entirely in the
hands of the Germans. We might expect that during
the busy period when thousands of men were hard at
work fishing, salting, packing the herring, beer should
have been drunk in large quantities, but the amount
consumed almost passes belief. This also was entirely
supplied by the Hanseatic cities. It was they, too,
who shipped the indispensable fish and sent it to
England, France, the Netherlands, the Baltic, nay, far
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span>
into the centre of Germany, and even to Poland and
Russia.</p>
<p>They had not in Scania, as at Bergen, a regularly
organized factory, but the Witten stood under superintendence,
while at adjacent Malmö they founded a
permanent colony, under the jurisdiction of an alderman,
who administered Lübeck law and watched over
the Witten trade with jealous care. Here each town
had its guild representative, often its house, and here
annually a dignitary from Lübeck would pay a
passing visit in order to adjust quarrels and investigate
the state of trade.</p>
<p>The "Scandinavian travellers," as they were named,
instituted a number of companies with rules of a
religious, commercial, and worldly-sensuous character.
Thus the "Pious Brotherhood of Malmö" buried
every poor stranger with the same church pomp,
costly palls, candles and masses, as they would one of
their own members. No one was admitted into the
brotherhood who was at feud with one of its associates.
No one might enter the common room bearing arms.
A member who introduced a guest was responsible for
his good behaviour. In a word, the regulations were
of a certain humane character, far different from those
which obtained at Bergen. They were evidently
copied from those of the guilds in the Hanseatic and
other towns of the Middle Ages.</p>
<p>Until early in the sixteenth century the League
retained in undiminished vigour its advantages in
Scandinavia. To break their power it was necessary
for the Dutch to discover a better mode of salting the
fish. Then the fish itself came in smaller shoals to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span>
these coasts, and appeared instead near Scotland and
Ireland, and, worst of all, modern Europe became
Protestant, and fasting was hence no longer an
obligatory fashion. Only a few sunken gravestones,
still standing amid the desolation of this district, bear
witness to the former importance of the site.</p>
<p>As for the rest of Sweden, the country, though not
productive, was still of value to the Hanseatics, since
they held the entire trade in their hands. As from
Norway, they exported wood, iron, copper, skins, in
a word, explored all its resources. In most of the
maritime towns they exercised certain rights. Thus
Stockholm itself was partly in their possession, the
local administration being half chosen by them. In
this wise they were able to bring pressure to bear
upon the government. In short, they disposed of the
whole commerce of Sweden, and it was not until the
days of Gustavus Vasa that their might was rudely
and completely shaken.</p>
<p>Indeed, in those middle centuries there seemed no
limit to the Hanseatics' ambition and power. They
early cast their eyes towards that immense territory
in the far north, that Russian Empire which in those
days was truly an unknown land. With quick traders'
instinct they recognized that the country was worthy
to be included in their vast monopoly. When they
first established themselves in Russia is not known.
Towards the end of the thirteenth century we find
them in possession of a factory at Novgorod, on the
river Volchor, a city which, with the province that
surrounded it, was then an independent republic, for
the Russia of those days was surrounded by various
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span>
principalities mostly under Tartar rule. The natives
were not strong enough to claim as their own a rich
and populous city, whose liberties were protected by
the Western Christians, and which had moreover been
founded by aliens, namely, by one of those enterprising
Norman chiefs, who in early times were, as we
know, the terror of all states and countries.<a name="FNanchor_9" id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
<p>It is thought that the Hanseatics had another
similar establishment at Pleskow, a city on the Velika,
and perhaps even a depôt at Moscow, but undoubtedly
Novgorod was their most important station. Here
merchants and artizans fixed their abode, and drew
around them a rich commerce for the town. It was
the staple for Arctic and Byzantine riches, riches which
the more barbarian Russians did not understand how
to utilize like our cunning traders. As early as the
eleventh century we hear of a German trading settlement
at Novgorod. In 1269 the local ruler accorded
to the Hanseatics, "to the German settlement, the
Goths, and all peoples of Latin tongue," special freedom
in dealing with his province.</p>
<p>As usual, the Hanseatics created a monopoly and
jealously excluded all strangers. Assigned in Novgorod
to a special quarter of the town, they built a
church of their own, dedicated to St. Peter, and
grouped their guildhall, shops, stores, and dwelling-houses
around it. The quarter soon became known
as the Court of the Germans at Great Novgorod, or
the Court of St. Peter. As at Bergen, it was built in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span>
such a manner that it could be defended, if need be,
and at night it was closed and guarded by watchmen
and fierce dogs.</p>
<p>There is happily preserved for us the Codex of this
German colony on the Lake of Ilmen. It is called
the Skra, an old German word which we encounter
elsewhere in Hanseatic chronicles. This Skra furnishes
a lively picture of the strange character of the
Court of St. Peter. It appears that "the entire council,
together with the common consent of the wisest of all
the German cities," had decreed that the laws here
laid down should be enforced on all who visited the
court, "as it was done from the commencement." The
non-resident merchants, who always travelled in large
parties and accompanied by a priest, are spoken of as
the "summer and winter travellers." They elected
from out of their number the alderman of the Court
of St. Peter. He became head of the settlement,
received the income, fees, and taxes, and defrayed the
general costs. The alderman of the dwelling court
was the highest dignitary and, with the aid of the four
wisest, adjudged all quarrels, personal or commercial.
These aldermen had special privileges in the choice
of residence, and the aldermen of the "winter travellers"
were further allowed certain honours and comforts
in the great common room. The land travellers
had to yield to the seafarers in all matters of convenience
and space. Their priest, too, was regarded as
the chief ecclesiastic of St. Peter's Court, and to him
alone was accorded free board and a salary out of the
common funds. Any one who refused to appear in
answer to a summons before the court was subjected
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span>
to a heavy fine. The so-called "rooms" (<i>i.e.</i>, dwellings)
were common to all; except that the "winter travellers,"
secluded from all the world in midst of the long
Arctic nights, were permitted special privileges. The
"children's room," the abode of the younger clerks
and apprentices, also enjoyed rather more freedom
from strict rules than was accorded to their elders. A
master might not dismiss his subordinate until he had
brought him back to his country; he was also bound
to care for him in sickness, and might not punish him
arbitrarily, or on his own authority alone. As at
Bergen, and at the Steelyard in London, the whole
establishment partook of a monastic character, in
which most stringent rules prevailed. And of these
rules none was more strict than that which forbad
social intercourse or partnership trading with natives.</p>
<p>A special brewery concocted the sweet mead or
beer drunk by the thirsty brotherhood of St. Peter's;
in St. Peter's cauldron was melted down all the wax
brought in from afar; the wood for firing was felled
in St. Peter's forests. A monotonous life it was,
interrupted only in spring and autumn by the arrival
of the summer and winter travellers with their rich
wares. In the cosy warmth of the common room,
over endless bowls of mead, these far-travelled men,
snowed up here and unable to return till spring
released them, would beguile the long winter evenings
with anecdote and tales. In this wise the Scandinavian
Sagas first penetrated into Middle and Southern
Germany.</p>
<p>The rules made against the Russians were severe
and offensive in the extreme. It is evident they were
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span>
not trusted in the smallest degree. A Hanseatic
enjoyed the first privilege in all respects. For
example, if a native was bankrupt, the German
merchant to whom he was in debt had the first right
to be paid before Russian creditors, and the Germans
could further insist that such a bankrupt should be
banished the city with wife and child. By way of tax
they themselves paid a piece of cloth to the ruler of the
mainland between their Court and the sea, and a pair
of gloves to the Russian officials.</p>
<p>For the rest their whole attitude was haughty and
overbearing, and it is scarcely astonishing that quarrels
and risings against them were of frequent occurrence.
But they almost always kept or at least regained the
upper hand. Their audacious motto was "Who can
stand against God and the Great Novgorod?" No
doubt many of their rigid measures were necessary
to a small colony living amid a turbulent and rude
population, differing from them in manners, language,
and religion. The station was as difficult to hold as
years ago was that of Canton for the English. Like
the Chinese, the Russians hated the merchants, if
for no other reason than because they were foreigners.
In every possible manner they tried to cheat
them, adulterating wax, furnishing bad furs, &c.,
&c. In consequence, the alderman of St. Peter's
saw himself obliged continually to issue new
warnings and rules to secure his traders from the
Russian tricksters. So, for example, the dwellers
of the Court of St. Peter were enjoined only to
buy furs in well-lighted places, where it was easier
to test their genuineness and excellence, further to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span>
accept no large consignments that had not been previously
subjected to careful scrutiny. And notwithstanding
the fact that their commerce in Russia was
subjected to great danger, that they even had several
times to close their court and withdraw, the Hanseatics
clung tenaciously to their Russian monopoly, which
was one of the chief sources of their wealth. They
even watched to see that no non-Hanseatic learnt
Russian, an indispensable acquirement for this trade.
Nay, at one time they held the whole province of
Livonia responsible for hindering such a proceeding.
After a time, under penalty of one hundred marks, no
Russian was allowed to live in Livonia. On pain of
corporal punishment, they were enjoined to treat with
Russians only for ready money, or more strictly for
ready goods. Credit with these barbarians was not
encouraged, for it was desirable in every way to simplify
intercourse, and moreover then, as now, it was
next to impossible to a foreigner to make good his
credit claims before Muscovite justice.</p>
<p>The trade consisted in Russian products, furs,
metals, honey, and, above all, wax, much sought
after in those Catholic times, when the consumption
of this article was wonderfully great. It would seem
as though some obscure merit were attached to the
burning or the gift of candles, the origin of which is
probably heathen. What the Hanseatics brought to
market was chiefly Flemish and English cloths and
linen, as well as divers articles of luxury, eagerly sought
after by the various princes and sovereigns and by the
innumerable Boyars who ranked like petty princes.</p>
<p>In those large and small courts a barbaric and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span>
gorgeous display was common, and ostentatious
rivalry existed between the princes. Probably this
love of exterior pomp is explained by their neighbourhood
to the East. The Hanseatics astutely utilized
this Russian tendency, and spared no pains in bringing
to market wares calculated to dazzle and please these
grown children; children in this respect alone however,
that they could be fascinated by finery and
show. In other matters the Russians behaved like
adults, and they kept a constant watch upon the
Hanseatics, never neglecting any opportunities of
annoying them or hindering their trade. Thus, if
the League accused the Russians of want of good
faith in commercial dealings, they returned the compliment,
and complaints of linen goods as being too
narrow, too coarse, or not according to sample, were
frequent. Often these were justified, as often not.
But on several occasions the Russians arrested
Hanseatics, put them in irons, even on one occasion
hanged a Hanseatic merchant from the door of the
League's own factory. The Hanseatics met such
insults by threatening to leave Novgorod; indeed,
carried out this threat several times, but love of
gain on the one hand, hunger after luxuries on the
other, appeased the troubled spirits, and peace was
re-established on the old footing. These treaties of
reconciliation were sealed by the Germans with a
key in a shield, the seal of St. Peter's Court. The
Russians swore fidelity by kissing the crucifix.</p>
<p>But as such disturbances might always recur, and
in order that the damage should not prove too heavy
to members of the League, it was decreed by them in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span>
the fourteenth century that no merchant might send
to or store at Novgorod merchandise exceeding in
value the sum of a thousand marks. This shows that
their position at Novgorod was rather that of a
hostile encampment than that of a secure and permanent
settlement.</p>
<p>Above all, the Hanseatics strictly forbade Russia
to trade on the sea, and any Russian merchant ships
that they encountered were captured and the captain
and crew severely punished.</p>
<p>Early in the twelfth century the clever Lombards,
already famous throughout Europe for their skill in
all banking transactions, tried to gain a footing at
Novgorod. It seems that their financial shrewdness
was not always combined with the strictest honesty,
and that hence they enjoyed an ill fame. Certainly
the Hanseatics succeeded in 1405 in prohibiting
"these dangerous men" from any residence in the
Baltic cities, while in St. Peter's Court their presence
was formally proscribed in 1346.</p>
<p>A serious interruption to the commerce of the
League with Russia occurred in the middle of the
fifteenth century, when the Prussian towns revolted
against the oppressive supremacy of the chivalric
order of the Teutonic Knights. Like all spiritual
powers, when it is a question of the goods of this
world, the Teutonic Knights fought ardently to regain
their power, and this warfare long rendered the Baltic
dangerous and impossible for trade purposes. Indeed,
so long and so serious was this war that but for the
fact that the League was in a sufficiently flourishing
condition to be able to bear great losses, and also
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span>
for the fact that the Russian trade was worth many
sacrifices, the League might even then have been
permanently crushed.</p>
<p>More serious was the next enemy who arose and
who shook to its foundations the empire of Hanseatic
commerce in Russia. This was the Czar <a name="Ivan_II" id="Ivan_II"></a>Ivan II.,
known as the Terrible. He had conquered and
chased from his domains the savage Tartar hordes
that annually ravaged it; he was ambitious to unite
the whole Muscovite kingdom under his sway. Like
his successors to this day, he hated all that savoured
of liberty and independence, and was resolved to exclude
from his realms everything that approached a
more advanced civilization and was irreconcilable
with absolute rule.</p>
<p>He cast a jealous eye on Novgorod, with its political
independence and its prosperity. Here, he said to
himself, were rich spoils to be obtained; this power
within his own domains must be broken. He tried,
with success, to gain over to his side a portion of the
population. These were, however, soon denounced
as traitors to the community, and the great bell of
Novgorod, regarded as the Palladium of popular
liberty, was rung to call the city under arms. A
violent struggle ensued, in which Ivan committed
many of those acts of cruelty that have made his
name notorious.</p>
<p>At last, after a gallant resistance, in which especially
a woman, named Marsa, took a leading part, Novgorod
fell into the hands of Ivan, who despoiled it of
its liberty and riches, and sent its chief inhabitants
into the centre of his empire and replaced them by
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span>
his Muscovites; burnt, ravaged, pillaged, and sacked,
so that at one blow the town lost its liberty, lustre,
and prosperity. The great bell of freedom was
carried to Moscow, where to this day it hangs, no
longer inciting to revolt, but calling the people to
prayer. As for the Hanseatics at Novgorod, they
were taken prisoner and kept in cruel durance.
Their merchandise was confiscated, and all their possessions,
such as church ornaments, bells, silver vases,
&c., were carried off in triumph to Moscow.</p>
<p>This blow came upon them like a thunderbolt, for
all their privileges had just been reconfirmed by the
Russian ruler. But to Ivan no sacred treaties were
binding. Only after many years and long negotiations
did the Hanseatics succeed in getting him at
least to release their prisoners. When he did agree
to this most had already died from the effects of
privation. Of the confiscated goods he would not
return a bale.</p>
<p>Thus ended the glory of the Hanseatic rule in
Russia. It is true that under Ivan's son the cities
once more endeavoured to open their court on the
Volchor. But a twenty years' interruption of trade
was not easily made good. They could not recover
their monopoly, which had been usurped by Danes
and Dutchmen. The last blow to all such efforts
came from the English, who had discovered a passage
to Russia by means of the White Sea and Archangel,
and hence no longer needed Hanseatic mediation.
In 1603 Czar Boris Gudenow wanted to reinstate the
Hansa in its ancient privileges. It was too late.
The dissensions that agitated Russia did not permit
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span>
the League to derive any profit from his good intentions.
Commerce had taken another direction, and
kept it. When, some time after, a traveller passed
through Novgorod, all he found to remind him of the
German colony here were only the ruins of the stone
church of St. Peter, a single storehouse, and one
wooden shanty, which served as shelter for him and
his servant. Of the former glory and prosperity there
was no sign.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo162" id="illo162"></a>
<img src="images/illo162.jpg" width="250" height="247" alt="SEAL OF NOVGOROD." />
<p class="caption">SEAL OF NOVGOROD.</p>
</div>
<p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/king.jpg" width="450" height="108" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p class="center p4 b13"><b>VI.</b></p>
<h3 class="p4">THE COMMERCE OF THE LEAGUE WITH THE
NETHERLANDS AND SOUTHERN EUROPE.</h3>
<p>Among the Western countries not even England
attracted the attention of the League so powerfully as
did the Netherlands, with their cosmopolitan market
of Bruges, a market which, as early as the days of
King Canute, was already of great importance. There
was to be found every element needful to second their
vast ambition and to foster their activity. In Flanders
lived the most industrious nation in Europe, dwelling
in opulent cities, having excellent harbours and
markets, where all the necessaries of life, and all
objects of luxury abounded. In these markets our
traders could find all the articles most eagerly sought
after by the inhabitants of more northern climes,
while they, in their turn, could furnish the Flemings
with the productions of the North, and especially with
those which were necessary to a maritime people.
Thus the League had cunningly got into their hands
the whole monopoly of hemp, so needful for rope
making. Indeed, it must ever be borne in mind that
the Hansa had the monopoly in those days of the
whole industry and of all the products of Northern
and Eastern Europe. This active and profitable commerce
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span>
was almost entirely carried on by means of the
factory which the League had established at Bruges.
It was here that its merchants supplied themselves in
their turn with the manufactures of the industrious
Flemings; with cloth, linen, and the costly tapestries
admired to our day.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo164" id="illo164"></a>
<img src="images/illo164.jpg" width="550" height="381" alt="STADT-HAUS, BRUGES." />
<p class="caption">STADT-HAUS, BRUGES.</p>
</div>
<p>It was at Bruges, then, that the vast ramifications
of Flemish and Hanseatic trade were united. Fifteen
different foreign nations held established depôts in
the city which was a very artery of commerce. Sixty-eight
Flemish trade-guilds flourished in the town. It
communicated with the sea by means of a canal
and a not too distant harbour. Extensive privileges
had been accorded to it by various native princes.
The inhabitants were proud, rich, and independent.
It was said of them by a contemporary that the
merchant-aristocrats of Bruges "rode to tournament
yesterday, bottled wine to-day, cut out garments to-morrow."
A queen of France could not deny that
the splendour and luxury of the courts were cast into
the shade by the pomp and splendour of the maids
and matrons of commercial Bruges. With these men
commerce had already become a science, and various
peoples who had till then the most elementary notions
on the point came to the Netherlands to instruct
themselves. It is surprising to read that, as early as
1310, they had instituted at Bruges an insurance office,
and that the chief principles affecting exchange of
values were already understood. These matters were
novelties even to the Hanseatics, though they owed
their prosperity and very existence to trade.</p>
<p>The League therefore found itself in a totally different
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span>
position in the Netherlands from that which it
occupied in poor or barbarous countries like Norway
or Russia. Here was no question of submitting a whole
people to their monopoly; it was rather a matter of
obtaining gracious concessions and privileges. Hence
the factory at Bruges in no way resembled those of
Bergen and Novgorod, which were armed citadels
placed in the midst of a more or less hostile people
and constantly liable to warlike attacks. Here, on
the other hand, civilization reigned and competition
was active. The Hanseatic factory at Bruges partook
more of the character of a general office and
storehouse than that of any other factory of the
League. But "the Residence of the German Merchants,"
as it was called, was organized in the main
like that of its brethren. In its most prosperous days
the factory consisted of about three hundred traders
or agents, who executed the orders to buy and sell
for those Hanseatic merchants who did not come to
Bruges in person to carry on their trade. These resident
merchants were not permitted to quit the factory
until after a certain number of years' sojourn. During
this time they were interdicted from associating with
the natives. They lived in the Hanseatic building
under the supervision of six aldermen and a council
composed of eighteen members, and there were in
force for them here as elsewhere rigid rules of life,
among which the imposition of celibacy took a leading
place. The factory was partitioned into several
chief divisions called "districts," where the members
from different cities abode in almost monastic seclusion.
Less rude customs, however, prevailed than at
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span>
Bergen. The Hanseatics being in the midst of a
polished and luxury-loving people, acquired some of
their more civilized habits. By way of Bruges comforts
and refinements penetrated into German homes,
and Flemish modes of thought and speech crept into
German literature.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo167" id="illo167"></a>
<img src="images/illo167.jpg" width="550" height="502" alt="RHINE BOAT, COLOGNE." />
<p class="caption">RHINE BOAT, COLOGNE.</p>
</div>
<p>The factory at Bruges was in every respect of
immense value to Germany and the Hansa. It grew
into a sort of training college from which came forth
the most able magistrates and administrators of the
Hanseatic League.</p>
<p>The head of the factory was a president chosen by
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span>
the Diet of the League. He was changed annually,
usually at Whitsuntide, when the by-laws of the
factory were read and the newly elected had to swear
"to submit to its statutes, to see that these were
observed without fraud as far as in him lay and
according to his five senses."</p>
<p>As elsewhere expenses were paid by fines and
customs dues. These latter some cities tried to
elude at various times in a spirit of egotistic and
most short-sighted policy. Chief among these was
Cologne which was in consequence "unhansed" for
some time. Indeed Cologne was always a more or
less turbulent member of the League. The official
meetings of the Hanseatic representatives at Bruges
curiously enough did not take place in their own
factory, but were held in the Reventer, that is to say,
the refectory of the Carmelite convent. Their
charters were deposited in the church sacristy, or
more precisely in the so-called Noah's ark, this alliance
between sacred and profane things being a
common feature of those times.</p>
<p>As the might of the League increased at Bruges
they insisted that every vessel sailing the seas must
make an enforced halt at the port of Bruges, and thus
give the traders a first chance of buying their wares
or, in any case, of exacting from them a staple toll.
Exception was made only in the case of ships sailing
to England or to the Baltic seaboard. The possession
of this privilege naturally proved a source of great
wealth and power to the League, who grew proud
and haughty as they increased in strength, and even
ventured to oppose themselves to the Flemings, if
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span>
they considered that these had in any way offended
against "the majesty of the Hanseatic nation in the
person of any of its members or officers." They
would then threaten to transport their factory into
some other city, and once actually carried out the
threat. They suspended all trade with Flanders,
blocked its ports, and refused to buy its goods. At
the last the murmurs of the artizans thus thrown out
of work, and the general distress among the people,
forced the rulers to crave grace and to beg for the
return of these masterful strangers, even according
them new privileges, that is to say, new weapons
of oppression. For the League, on these occasions
of proud resentment, took the most menacing of
tones and exacted a heavy satisfaction. Thus once,
because one of its members had been, as it considered,
gravely insulted, and others murdered, it demanded
that a chapel should be built and masses founded to
pray for the repose of the souls of those who had
perished; and that a large indemnity should be paid
to the relations of the dead and to the division of the
League to which they belonged. And, further, in
order to induce this division to return to Bruges, it
was requisite that one hundred of the chief burghers
should come in procession to the Carmelite convent
and ask public pardon from the Hanseatics, and that
sixteen of these should go in pilgrimage to Santiago
de Compastello and four to the Holy Sepulchre at
Jerusalem. Only after such expiation would the
division allow itself to be re-established.</p>
<p>The dissensions and revolutions which, in the fourteenth
century, convulsed Flanders and caused the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span>
sovereignty of the provinces to pass into the hands
of the Dukes of Burgundy, did not, for a long time,
touch the commerce of the Hanseatics. Their trade
seemed able to cope with the subversive influences of
tumults, seditions, and civil wars; their activity was
not discouraged; their great credit enabled them to
repair all losses, and even to draw profit from these
very disturbing influences themselves. Each new
ruler, guided by the same motives of interest, awarded
the same favour to this association of strangers, who,
in coming to their country, nourished its industries
and profitably exchanged products. Even Charles
the Bold—proud and warlike though he was, a declared
foe to all liberty, attacking at that very time
the Swiss people, who were striving to gain their
national independence—openly protected the Hanseatic
towns, and interested himself warmly in aiding
them to overcome the English, with whom they had
been at strife.</p>
<p>This good understanding, it is true, was impaired
under Maximilian of Austria, his son-in-law and successor.
This prince was a stranger to the Flemings,
a German by birth, accustomed to exact blind
obedience, the son of an emperor and his heir. On
all these accounts he was distasteful to the Flemings,
who rose up in revolt against him, and imprisoned
him in the Castle of Bruges. It was on this occasion
that there happened an event made famous in legend.
Maximilian's Court jester, who loved his master, had
formed a plan for his liberation. Horses, rope ladders—all
were in readiness. The jester himself sprang
into the canal that separated the castle from the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span>
mainland, in order to swim across and aid his sovereign.
But it happened that his night raid alarmed
the swans which were kept by the town on this canal.
They raised a great noise, flapped their wings in
anger, and threatened to kill the poor fellow, who
was obliged to beat a hasty retreat, while his scheme,
thus discovered, was rendered futile. For four months
Maximilian was kept in confinement. No sooner was
he liberated and master of the empire than he took
his revenge. This audacity was punished severely,
and ended in a loss to Flanders of its opulence and a
great part of its industry. Above all, the town of
Bruges had to submit to hard treatment, and ceased
from that time forwards to be the most flourishing and
important market of Europe.</p>
<p>The wily Hanseatics had, meanwhile, acted like the
proverbial rats that abandon the sinking ship. Seeing
the course that things were taking, they sought to
establish themselves elsewhere, and Antwerp, long
jealous of Bruges, obtained the reversion of its rival's
trade: the fruits of which it enjoyed until the murderous
hordes of Philip II., in their turn, crushed
Antwerp as Maximilian had crushed Bruges.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo172" id="illo172"></a>
<img src="images/illo172.jpg" width="345" height="550" alt="THE PIED PIPER'S HOUSE, HAMELIN." />
<p class="caption">THE PIED PIPER'S HOUSE, HAMELIN.</p>
</div>
<p>No doubt, by means of the Flemish market, the
League also treated with France, but our knowledge
concerning this trade is very scanty. It seems certain
that they had no regular factory in that country,
though for a short time they held a depôt at Bordeaux.
Probably their trade with France was chiefly
indirect and by means of Flanders. The fact that
for so long the greater part of the French seaboard
was in the hands of the English may have had something
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span>
to do with this matter. We know, however,
that successive French kings accorded to them various
privileges. Louis XI., on one occasion, speaks of
them as a "Power," and proposed to make an alliance
with them against England. Charles VIII. yet further
enlarged the concessions granted by his father. It is
even recorded that in case any difficulties arose
because of obscurities of phrase in a contract made
between the League and Frenchmen, these should
always be interpreted to the advantage of the Hanseatics.
They were further promised impartial justice,
reduced custom dues, and a civil standing equal in all
respects to that of the natives. The kingdom was
open to them for trading purposes, and in case of a war
breaking out between France and a foreign nation, the
Hanseatics were allowed to continue their commercial
connection with that nation without being regarded
as violating the peace and friendship promised.
France, on the other hand, reserved to itself the
same privileges. But why France was willing to
concede so much to these strangers does not appear.
The commerce can in no case have been considerable.
The manufactures of France in those days were few
and limited. Their small navy did not require much
wood, iron, or hemp. It is true they had their wines
and their salt, and that in exchange they bought
herrings and smoked fish, but there was no such
lively and profitable intercourse as we encounter elsewhere.
The land was still too poor, too distracted
with wars and dissensions to be able to utilize its
native riches. Besides this, her own direct commerce
with the Mediterranean and Latin East, and the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">174</a></span>
Crusaders and Italian traders, rendered her more
independent of Hansa help.</p>
<p>Very scanty are the records that have come down
to us concerning the trade of the League with Spain.
This nation, incessantly occupied in wars with the
Moors and in chivalrous exploits, neglected and disdained
trade. They even went so far at times as to
interdict it also to others. But all that has come
down to us concerning the intercourse of the Hanseatics
with this country is so vague, and borders so
much on the fabulous, that it cannot be accepted as
history. What does seem certain is that in 1383
King John of Castile forbade the Hanseatics to have
any intercourse with his kingdom, that he confiscated
eighty-four of their vessels, and that in 1441 the
factory of Bruges received orders to practise reprisals
upon the Spaniards and to close to them all the ports
of the Netherlands. All details, however, are lacking.
We only know, again, for certain that in 1472 the
Spaniards raised the interdict against the League.
No doubt they had suffered pecuniarily from the
absence of these active traders. In 1551 Philip II.
even went so far as to sign a treaty of commerce with
the League, in which this prince favoured them as
much as his predecessors tried to harm them. And
this treaty, strange to say, was not quite a nullity
even at the beginning of our own century. On the
strength of certain clauses contained in it were
founded various privileges enjoyed up to that date, in
their commercial intercourse with Spain, by the cities
that were then all that remained of the once mighty
League—namely, Lübeck, Hamburg, and Bremen.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span></p>
<p>In Portugal the League was more fortunate than
in Spain, and early established a factory at Lisbon.
From this port they traded with the Mediterranean,
and came in contact with the flourishing Italian commercial
republics, as well as with the products of the
Levant and India, for which Italy was the sole market.
But the Italian trade was chiefly in the hands of the
South German cities, such as Augsburg, Ulm, and
Nüremberg, and the wares were transported by land.
These cities formed a counter league among themselves,
which, though in a measure affiliated to the
Hansa, was never quite an integral part. Their sole
object was the Levant and Italian trade. Already in
the thirteenth century they had a depôt at Venice,
the far-famed Fontego de' Tedeschi, which visitors to
Venice behold to this day as one of the most lovely
palaces abutting on the Grand Canal. This factory,
however, was very differently constituted from that of
other cities. The League never obtained a monopoly
or special privileges in Italy. The Fontego at Venice
was merely the warehouse or dwelling-house of the
German traders, without any internal jurisdiction or
president.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo176" id="illo176"></a>
<img src="images/illo176.jpg" width="550" height="423" alt="FONTEGO DEI TEDESCHI, VENICE." />
<p class="caption">FONTEGO DEI TEDESCHI, VENICE.</p>
</div>
<p>They were permitted to sojourn with their wares at
stated times in Venice, received on their arrival the
keys of the fifty-six rooms of the building, which on
their departure they had to re-deliver to the Venetian
authorities. In course of time the Germans,
gaining refinement and acquiring a love of art from
their Italian intercourse, spent large sums in decorating
and adorning this palace, which, however, never passed
into their real possession. Three Venetian citizens,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span>
under the title of Visdomini de' Tedeschi, and native
secretaries, and a "fontegaro," always inhabited the
building and kept strict watch over the traders, whose
commerce was subjected to all manner of tedious
restrictions. The house, as we have said, was only
open to them at stated times of the year. They were
only permitted to sell to and buy from Venetians; all
wares exported or imported had to be weighed in the
public balances, and only this weight was accepted as
just. The Italian secretaries, one of whom always
slept in the Fontego, kept strict account of all goods
that came to hand or were sent away, and the control
over these wares was in the power of the Visdomini.
Nothing might be unladen in the warehouse without
permission from one of these local officials. But in
spite of all these restrictions, which the Germans
would not have tolerated for a moment at Bergen
or Bruges, their depôt at Venice was a favourite
sojourn, and remained the centre of a pleasant, easy,
and refined intercourse between Germany and Italy
until the time of the Reformation. The influence of
the Rialto made itself felt in Prague, Dresden, Frankfort,
and the other South German cities, and has
placed its imprint upon their literature and art. From
Italy these cities brought the models to adorn their
streets, markets, guildhalls, and churches. From
Italy they brought the tales and fables that delighted
listeners long before the days of printing, and awoke
the native mediæval poetic art, so that the stories of
Boccaccio became as familiar to the Germans as to
the Italians themselves. In spite of all the restrictions
they placed on their freedom, the foreigners were not
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span>
unwelcome to the proud Venetian signoria. They
even spoke of the German nation as their "cuorisino"
(little heart), and in their sore need, during the time
of the League of Cambray, formed by the Pope, the
Emperor and the kings of France and Spain against
the Republic of Venice (1508), they called upon their
German friends for sympathy, and did not call in
vain. The bond of a common interest, that of trade,
bound together the proud rich city of the Lagoons
and the less powerful, less wealthy, but by no means
poor or insignificant, cities of Southern Germany.</p>
<div class="figcenter">
<img src="images/tail_jewel.jpg" width="200" height="151" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/couple.jpg" width="450" height="105" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p class="center p4 b13"><b>VII.</b></p>
<h3 class="p4">THE STEELYARD IN LONDON.</h3>
<p>Nowhere was the Hanseatic power so great as in
England. Of none of its connections do we possess
more ample records. As already stated, England was
one of the first depôts of the "common German
merchant," long before these combined under the
generic name of Hanseatic. From early days the
English kings had protected these rich foreigners,
who helped them out of many a pecuniary difficulty.
Indeed they accorded them such privileges and monopolies
as could not fail to rouse the jealousy of their
own people. We therefore find in the history of the
Steelyard in London a mingled record of all passions
and interests, hate and favours, honour and national
prosperity, envy and violence, greed and poverty,
pride and fear, in a word, a most motley record of
which it is not easy to frame the contradictory
elements into one harmonious picture.</p>
<p>During the long reign of Henry II., and under his
sons, Richard Cœur de Lion and John, there was an
active intercourse between Germany and England,
encouraged by the marriage of Matilda, daughter of
Henry II. with Duke Henry the Lion.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo180" id="illo180"></a>
<img src="images/illo180.jpg" width="550" height="360" alt="THE STEELYARD, LONDON. (From an old Print.)" />
<p class="caption">THE STEELYARD, LONDON. (From an old Print.)</p>
</div>
<p>The rich merchants of Cologne were the earliest
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span>
to obtain special favours. These were accorded by
Richard Cœur de Lion, who, halting in that city to
attend high mass in the cathedral after his release
from Austrian imprisonment, received there such
ample supplies towards the heavy ransom money
required for his person, that, to show his gratitude, he
gave to his "beloved burghers of Cologne" a letter
of freedom, in which he released them from their
annual rent of two shillings for their guildhall in
London, and from all other taxes due to the king
upon their persons or their merchandise. It was long
ere King John, his successor, could make up his mind
to renew these privileges, but his own difficulties with
his turbulent barons, and the pressure which the
merchants could bring to bear by their riches, at
last overcame his hesitation. Edward I. and his
followers further extended these prerogatives, for the
Plantagenets found the Hanseatic Rothschilds even
more useful in aiding their war schemes than the
skilful alchymists whom they had summoned to their
Court, and who knew how to shape the Rose noble
(the money of the period) out of artificial gold. Then,
too, the Hanseatics were considerate creditors, who
did not press unduly, and even overlooked a debt if
some favour were extended in default of payment.</p>
<p>Edward the Third's crown and most costly jewels
were long retained at Cologne in pawn for a heavy
sum of money. The details concerning this transaction
are preserved to this day in a correspondence
deposited in the State Paper Office of London. It
seems that when the time for redemption came the
king had not the money. He was in special straits
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span>
just then, for the celebrated commercial firm of the
Bardi, at Florence, which constituted the very focus
of the Italian money business, had failed, and the
King of England appeared in their books as a debtor
for the sum of one million golden gulden. The merchants
of the Steelyard were not slow adroitly to turn
the royal perplexity to their profit. They undertook
to redeem the pawned jewels and offered the king loans
of more money, although he already owed them much.
Edward was in sore need, for the wars with France
strained his resources to the utmost. He drew upon
them for thirty thousand pounds, a sum worth fifteen
times more then than to-day. Thus it came about
that the great victories of the Black Prince at Crecy
and Poitiers were gained in no small degree by the help
of German capital. Needless to add that the Hanseatic
merchants showed no diffidence in accepting for their
factory important privileges in return for these services.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo182" id="illo182"></a>
<img src="images/illo182.jpg" width="550" height="308" alt="BARDI PALACE, FLORENCE." />
<p class="caption">BARDI PALACE, FLORENCE.</p>
</div>
<p>It was to a German merchant prince that the king
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span>
let the tin mines belonging to the Black Prince in
the Duchy of Cornwall. To the same firm he ceded
a large number of farms situated in different shires
for the space of a thousand years.</p>
<p>The Easterlings are spoken of in records as the
allies of the English kings, and there seemed at last
no limit to the royal favours.</p>
<p>That the people did not look upon them with the
same friendly eye is easy to understand. The English,
full of a just sentiment of what they could do by
themselves, and of what they were hindered from
doing by these foreign monopolists, bore their presence
with extreme impatience. Feuds and riots were not
infrequent, and no royal favours, no Hanseatic ships
of war could save them from occasional brutal attacks
at the hands of the mob. Thus during the Wat
Tyler rebellion the people pursued the hated foreigners
even into the sanctuary of the church, murdering
mercilessly all those who could not pronounce the
words "bread and cheese" with the pure English
accent. But these rebellions were quelled by the
royal commands, or extinguished themselves by the
fact that the Hanseatics were also useful to the
English people, oppressed by the feudal system and
engaged in constant wars, whose trade industries were
thus unable to develop quickly. Nor did such passing
storms shake the power or the resistance of the
Hanseatics. Bloody encounters, rude tumults were
entirely in keeping with the license and roughness
of those earlier ages, and were met by the League,
more or less, in all their foreign stations.</p>
<p>With their usual astuteness they utilized wisely all
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span>
periods of calm, and reckoned with the love of gain
to help them in less peaceful moments. When the
English made things uncomfortable for them at home,
they revenged themselves upon them at Bruges or at
Bergen, paralysing their commerce, and harassing
their vessels, even forbidding them to enter the ports
of Norway, Iceland, and Greenland. For verily in
those days whosoever tried to outwit the Hansa
was likely to prove the victim of his own plots. Circumstances
aided the Germans, enabling them to
make their power felt just when England had to
betray weakness. The feeble and stormy period of
Henry VI., often deposed and made prisoner, the
Wars of the Roses, the long and continual hostilities
waged with France, all favoured the League, and
made the English submit to its demands rather than
attract to themselves yet more enemies.</p>
<p>In no place, not even in Bergen, did the Hanseatics
succeed in enjoying greater independence. Their
factory was privileged, and while benefiting by
English law, they were quite independent of
it. Everything, therefore, was favourable to their
commerce, and they were hampered by no such restrictions
as weighed, not only upon other foreigners,
but upon the English themselves. To give a just
idea of the degree of power to which their privileges
and trade had raised the League, let us cite one
example. It will serve in lieu of many, and it places
in full light the almost incredible ascendency which a
company of merchant cities, isolated and distant from
each other, had gained over a great kingdom and a
proud and valiant nation.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span></p>
<p>The English Government having been unable or
unwilling to repress the frequent acts of piracy
which its subjects practised against members of the
League, these also took to piracy, and mutual recriminations
ensued. The Lübeckers in particular revenged
themselves fiercely. They also wrote a letter of complaint
to the English king, "a letter full of pride and
audacity," says Henry IV. It then happened that
the Danes, at strife with the English for other causes,
joined themselves to the Hanseatics, and united they
harassed the English by sea and by land. These, in
their turn, took possession of the Hanseatic depôt in
London, and put in prison or killed all who lodged
there. The League hearing this broke off commercial
connection with England, closed their ports and the
entrances of the Baltic, and seized English vessels on
all seas and on all coasts. The Hanseatics even
landed in England itself, and pitilessly ravaged many
of the maritime provinces, hanging on the masts of
their ships all the men they took prisoners. This war
at last grew so ruinous for the English that they
applied to the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold,
to mediate between them and their foes. A congress
was assembled at Utrecht to put an end to this dire
quarrel and to assure peace upon a solid basis. The
mediator and his counsellors thought it but just to
accord to the English a part of what they had
desired so long, namely, liberty to trade in the
Baltic and with the Hanseatic ports of Dantzig and
Russia. This concession greatly favoured the commerce
which their merchants were ambitious to carry
on, or already carried on, notwithstanding all obstacles.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span>
But for their part the Hanseatics insisted on recovering
all the privileges they had lost, and on recovering
them with usury. In fact, by this treaty of Utrecht
Edward IV. not only reconfirmed all their ancient
monopolies, but accorded to them new and important
favours, proving to what extent the English were still
in the power of these foreigners. Such was the effect
of the fear which the League inspired in the English;
such, too, was the ignorance of their Government,
which, being in possession of a power not less great
and, had they desired, even greater than that of their
rivals, allowed strangers to deprive them of the most
useful of all independent rights, that of utilizing for
their own profit the resources of their own labour and
their own soil.</p>
<p>In reading this chapter of the annals of England,
it is hard to believe that we are dealing with the
nation whose ships now scour all the seas, whose
tonnage exceeds that of all other countries combined,
which is the greatest trader of the earth, and which
trades not only freely, but also in that spirit of domination
with which its ancestors reproached the Hanseatics,
and which they endured with so much impatience.</p>
<p>This treaty of Utrecht served for a long while as
basis for all subsequent treaties between the Hanseatics
and the English, and well or ill observed, it survived
until the reign of Edward VI.</p>
<p>The position held by the Hanseatics in England
certainly has no counterpart in the international
intercourse of the Middle Ages. The only exception,
perhaps, is the position of Genoa, Venice, and Pisa
in the Byzantine and Latin empires.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo187" id="illo187"></a>
<img src="images/illo187.jpg" width="550" height="390" alt="STEELYARD WHARF, LONDON." />
<p class="caption">STEELYARD WHARF, LONDON.</p>
</div>
<p>The chief depôt of the Hanseatics in England was
in London, and was known first as the Guildhall of
the Germans, then as the Easterlings' Hall, and finally,
as its dimensions grew, as the Steelyard. It was
situated in Thames Street, on the left bank of the
river, close to Dowgate, just above London Bridge,
in earlier times the only city gate that commanded
the water. The whole length of this street leading to
the post gate was lined with the wharves, warehouses,
and dwelling-houses of the Germans. It is therefore
easy to comprehend how they held, by their position
alone, the key to the whole commerce of the City of
London in days when goods were almost entirely
transported by water-ways. As at Bergen, so here,
they dominated the whole commercial situation.</p>
<p>There have been many disputes as to the origin of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span>
the name Steelyard. It has been now pretty well
established that it took its rise from the fact that on
this spot stood the great balance of the City of
London, known as the Steelyard, on which all exported
or imported merchandise had to be officially
weighed. It was after the treaty of Utrecht in 1474
that the German factory first took this name, from
the circumstance that its domain was then greatly
enlarged. The whole place was defended by a high
strong wall, fortress fashion, and there were few
windows towards the front. This was as a protection
from the frequent attacks of the London mob, and
also as a defence against the robbers anxious to penetrate
into a storehouse of riches. The chief building,
still called their Guildhall, was a massive stone
structure, of which, until 1851, some of the main walls
still remained. The northern front, which looked
towards Thames Street was especially imposing with
its many stories, its high gabled roof, surmounted by
the double eagle of the empire with its outspread
wings. Three round portals, well protected and
clamped with iron, were seen on its northern frontage.
The centre one, far larger than the others, was rarely
opened, and the two others were walled up. Above
these three portals were to be read, in later days,
the following characteristic inscriptions:</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p class="center">"<span class="smcap">Haec domus est laeta, semper bonitate repleta;<br />
Hic pax, hic requies, hic gaudia semper honesta.</span>"</p>
<p class="center">"<span class="smcap">Aurum blanditiae pater est natusque doloris;<br />
Qui caret hoc moeret, qui tenet hoc metuit.</span>"</p>
<p class="center">"<span class="smcap">Qui bonis parere recusat, quasi vitato fumo in flammam
incidit.</span>"</p>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span></p>
<p>The second of these couplets is attributed to Sir
Thomas More, Chancellor of England, author of the
"Utopia," and a good friend to the Hanseatics. This
great hall was used for the meetings of the merchants
and for their common dining-room. At one
end was a low tower that served as depository for
the documents and valuables belonging to the merchants
or the factory. Close upon the river stood
another strong building, the dwelling of the house
master. Here was the capacious stone kitchen, in
which ample preparations were made for the dinners
of week-days and festivals. Between these two
buildings ran the garden, in which the Germans had
planted fruit trees and vines. On summer evenings
they were wont to rest here after the business of the
day, while the young people among them amused
themselves with playing at ball or other recreations.
It was a pleasant green spot with cool shady arbours,
tables, and seats, and was frequented, not only by the
Hanseatics themselves, but by the London citizens;
for the League had the permission to sell their
Rhenish wines in this spot. Threepence a bottle was
the average price.</p>
<p>In "Pierce Penilesse, his application to the devil,"
we read, "Let us go to the Stilliard and drink rhenish
wine;" and in one of Webster's plays a character
says: "I come to entreat you to meet him this afternoon
at the Rhenish warehouse in the Stillyard. Will
you steal forth and taste of a Dutch brew and a keg
of sturgeon?" This garden restaurant was also
famous for its neat's tongues, salmon, and caviar. It
would seem that the place was a favourite resort from
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span>
the days of Prince Hal and Sir John Falstaff to those
of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the former the embodiment
of boisterous enjoyment, the latter of chivalric
and pedantic learning. A multifarious and varied
company indeed that little garden harboured in its
day, who met in "the Rhenish wine house" to close
their bargains over their wine cups, for festive carouse
or serious talk. There could be seen England's most
honoured men; bishops, mayors, ministers, chancellors,
naval and military heroes. Even Shakespeare's
company of actors, London's merriest
<i>gourmets</i>, are known to have turned in here. The
spot did not lie far off the famous "Boar's Head"
tavern, and Prince Hal's town residence in Cold
Harbour Lane abutted upon the Steelyard. There,
too, assembled the grave ambassadors of the Hanseatics,
their delegates and merchants, their apprentices
and agents; a motley crew indeed, who, until
the days when the garden in Cosins Lane perished in
the Great Fire of London (1666), constantly frequented
the locality, and helped to enhance its wealth and
importance. The memory of the place was kept up,
till quite lately, by a large tavern, bearing the sign of
the Steelyard, which still stood on the same spot,
surmounted by a bunch of golden grapes, similar to
those which we so frequently meet with in the narrow
streets of old German towns.</p>
<p>No less busy, no less varied was the inner life of
that small state within a state. A strange little
world with its severe monastic discipline, its semi-religious
character. In many rooms and halls, in
warehouses and passages, were crowded a number of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span>
masters and men, assembled here from some sixty
Hanseatic cities, busy superintending the stapled
wares which arrived by river and were drawn up by
means of the mighty crane that formed a notable
feature in the water frontage of the factory. Some
wares, too, arrived by way of the crooked streets.
These entered the building through the small carefully
guarded doorways. As time went on and there was
not room enough for all the guests in the main building,
adjoining houses were rented for the Hanseatics,
but all were subject to the same rigid discipline, and
were members of the same large household. In early
days the London merchants had insisted that an
Englishman should be head inspector of the Hanseatic
warehouses, but from this they soon freed themselves,
alleging that it was giving the sheepfold over into the
keeping of the wolf. As elsewhere, the presidency
was assigned to an alderman and twelve councillors.
These were chosen from the different towns in rotation.
As elsewhere, all residents had to remain
unmarried during the period of this sojourn in the
Steelyard. Not even the house-master was allowed
to have a wife. In later years, a Cologne merchant
who had decorated, improved, and enlarged the
garden inn, and turned it into one of the most beautiful
taverns in London, being a resident for life, was
anxious to marry. But so sternly did the League
hold by their decree of celibacy for their absent
members, that they only agreed to make an exception
in his case after fourteen members of the English
Parliament had signed a round robin petition to the
Hanseatic Diet to this effect. Those who trespassed
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">192</a></span>
against the by-laws of the house as to habits or
morals were heavily fined. If refractory they were
often imprisoned, and at times even the aid of the
English constables would be called in. But this was not
frequent. The Hanseatics preferred to manage their
own affairs, and keep themselves distinct from the
natives among whom they dwelt. In criminal cases
the jury, as is still the custom in England under similar
conditions, was composed half of Englishmen, half of
Germans. At nine every evening the portals of the
various dwelling-houses were closed, and the key
given to one of the masters, who took turns to fill
this office. Whoever played at dice in his room at
the tavern, whoever entertained non-Hanseatics, whoever
let a woman cross the precincts of the Steelyard
paid a heavy sum, of which half went to the informant.
Cleanliness was severely imposed both in
person and in the use of the common sleeping and
packing rooms. The fine for contravention in this
respect was paid in wax, not in money. It was
employed for the candles which the Hanseatics kept
burning on their behalf in the church of All Hallows
the More. Opprobrious language towards one
another, blows or drawing of knives was fined by a
hundred shillings paid into the common fund; a high
sum truly if we consider that five pounds sterling was
worth, in the fourteenth century, about four times its
present value. They were even forbidden to fence or
to play tennis with their English neighbours under
out paying a penalty of twenty shillings.</p>
<p>Every merchant was bound to have in readiness in
his room a full suit of armour, and all the needful
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">193</a></span>
weapons in case of an attack on the Steelyard, or on
the Bishopsgate. For the City of London had ceded
to the Hanseatics this gate, which they had to guard
and keep in repair, relieving them instead of the
annual tax towards the preservation of the town
walls known as wall-money, of bridge money, and
paving money. They also managed to obtain special
privileges with regard to shipwrecked goods; the
English being obliged to pay them damages provided
that something living, if only a dog, or cat, or
cock reached the shore alive from the shipwrecked
vessel. This secured them greatly from the perils of
wanton wreckage.</p>
<p>In London none of those gross manners and customs
prevailed that we find at Bergen or Novgorod.
The Hanseatics knew that in England they found
themselves among a people fully their equals, and
were careful not to offend them in any respect. Indeed
they did all they could to conciliate them, and were
liberal in presents. Thus the Lord Mayor of London
received from them yearly a cask of the finest
sturgeon, or two barrels of herring, or a hundredweight
of Polish wax. An English alderman, annually
chosen to adjust disputes between the natives and the
foreigners, was presented each New Year's Day with
fifteen golden nobles, wrapped up in a pair of gloves,
by way of tender consideration for the feelings of the
recipient. The Chief Inspector of Customs received
about twenty pounds sterling, intended probably to
make him indulgent in the exercise of his duties.
And so forth, making as a whole a most goodly sum
thus wisely spent in fees and in conciliating those in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">194</a></span>
power and office. Every point relating to this as well
as to the inner statutes of the factory was most carefully
recorded in writing, and has, in large part, been
preserved to us. It is a record of most quaint regulations,
every one of which no doubt had its wise
purpose and scope.</p>
<p>The Hanseatics purchased from the English the
produce of their flocks and tillage, that is to say, wool,
strong hides, corn, beer, and cheese. Wool was from
the earliest date one of the chief and most important
articles of their exportation from England. This was
sent to Flanders and the Netherlands to be worked
up. It was only later, as the English learnt to manufacture
skilfully this costly produce, that the Hanseatics
exported the finished goods in lieu of the raw material.
The details concerning this wool trade show how
many places in England were engaged in it, and how
appropriately the Chancellor of England is seated
upon a wool-sack as symbol of one of the main sources
of England's ancient wealth. So valuable, indeed, was
this wool trade that a special tax was placed upon the
wool, a tax which Edward III. repeatedly farmed out
to Cologne merchants for the space of several years
in advance in return for ready cash.</p>
<p>Among the articles imported by the League we
find pepper, potash, various kinds of wood adapted
for building ships and making crossbows, iron and
iron utensils, flax, linen, hemp, grease, fish, corn, and
Rhenish wines. We even find that they imported
French wines after the English had lost all their
possessions in France with the exception of Calais.
By their means, too, there came to England Italian
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span>
and Oriental produce, such as choice spices, perfumes,
medicines, metals, figs, almonds, dates, even gold dust,
and jewels, with which they provided themselves at
Bruges.</p>
<p>A very important branch of trade was that in salted
cod-fish, or stock-fish as it was called, an article
largely used on the Continent and in England too
in the Middle Ages. With this the English were then
accustomed to feed their troops when on service.
Nor were even living creatures lacking among their
cargoes, such as choice falcons from Norway or
Livonia, for which the English nobility, who were
then, as now, passionately addicted to sport, paid
high prices.</p>
<p>Indeed, the Steelyard was one of the staple places
for the export and import of all the principal
necessaries of life before men had thought of the products
of America.</p>
<p>Nor was London by any means their only depôt.
It was the chief, but they also had factories in York,
Hull, Bristol, Norwich, Ipswich, Yarmouth, Boston,
and Lynn Regis. Some mention of them is found in
Leland's "Itinerary." Under an invitation to the
Hanseatics to trade with Scotland we find the name
honoured in legend and song of William Wallace. In
John Lydgate's poems we also meet with our Hanseatics.
In relating the festivities that took place in
London city on the occasion of the triumphal entry
of Henry VI., who had been crowned king at Paris
some months previously, the poet narrates how
there rode in procession the Mayor of London
clad in red velvet, accompanied by his aldermen
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">196</a></span>
and sheriffs dressed in scarlet and fur, followed
by the burghers and guilds with their trade ensigns,
and finally succeeded by a number of foreigners.</p>
<div class="poem">
<p class="o1">"And for to remember of other alyens,</p>
<p>Fyrst Jenenyes (Genoese) though they were strangers,</p>
<p>Florentynes and Venycyens,</p>
<p>And Easterlings, glad in her maneres,</p>
<p>Conveyed with sergeantes and other officeres,</p>
<p>Estatly horsed, after the maier riding,</p>
<p>Passed the subburbis to mete withe the kyng."<a name="FNanchor_10" id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p>
</div>
<p>A love of pomp and outward show was indeed a
characteristic of the Hanseatics in England who thus
perchance wished to impress upon the natives a sense
of their wealth. As times grew less turbulent and
the German Guildhall less of a fortress, it was handsomely
decorated with costly paintings and fine carving.
Most notable were two large works by Holbein, who
visited England at the invitation of King Henry VIII.,
desirous of emulating his rival Francis I. in protecting
the fine arts. When the painter first came over he
lived in one of the quaint houses that, before the Great
Fire, stood on London Bridge, and some of his earliest
works seem to have been two commissions for his
countrymen, whose Steelyard was close by. They
were destined to decorate the Great Hall, and were
tempera pictures representing respectively the
Triumph of Poverty and of Riches. When in the days
of James I. the Steelyard ceased to exist as the collective
home of the Hanseatics, the towns decided to
present these pictures to the Prince of Wales, Henry,
who was a lover of the arts like his younger brother,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span>
Charles I., into whose collection they passed on
Henry's death. Unfortunately, they perished in the
great fire that destroyed Whitehall. Federigo
Zuccari, who saw them during his sojourn in London
and appraised them as exceeding in beauty the works
of Raphael, made careful drawings of them, and thanks
to these and the engravings made after them we are
in possession of at least an outline representation of
Holbein's work. The pictures are conceived in the
spirit of the age that loved such so-called triumphs in
art and poetry. The figures, chiefly allegorical, were
life size and in the richness of fantasy and learning
that they display it is permissible to recognize the help
and advice of Holbein's friend, the Chancellor, Sir
Thomas More. In many cases the names of the
personages represented are written beside the figures,
after the quaint method of that time.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo197" id="illo197"></a>
<img src="images/illo197.jpg" width="550" height="256" alt="THE TRIUMPH OF RICHES, BY HOLBEIN." />
<p class="caption">THE TRIUMPH OF RICHES, BY HOLBEIN.</p>
</div>
<p>The Triumph of Riches shows a car of Plutus drawn
by four white horses, driven by Fortune and followed
by a motley crowd which includes Justice, Usury, Bona
Fides, Sichæus, the rich husband of Queen Dido,
Pythias (of whom Plutarch tells that he so loved gold
that once when he returned hungry from abroad his
wife placed gold before him instead of meats), and
many figures, for the most part culled from the pages of
Herodotus, Juvenal, and other classic authors. In the
heads of Crœsus and Cleopatra it is said that Holbein
painted likenesses of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn.
In a corner of the picture is written the distich
ascribed to Sir Thomas More which we have already
met with above the central portal of the German
Guildhall.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span></p>
<p>The Triumph of Poverty was purely allegorical, and
appears to have been considered less attractive than
the former work, whether on account of its treatment,
or on account of its less pleasing theme does not appear.
In this case the car is drawn by two oxen and
two asses, designated as Negligence and Idleness,
Greed and Sloth. This canvas, too, bore some Latin
verses from More's pen, which, curiously enough,
have not been incorporated in his collected works.</p>
<p>In all public ceremonies and processions the Hanseatics
seem also to have taken a notable part; as we
mentioned above on the occasion of Henry the Sixth's
entry. We come across another detailed account
when Queen Mary went in triumph through London
the day before her coronation. At Fenchurch the
Genoese had dressed up a lovely boy as a girl, who
was carried before the Queen and greeted her. The
Hanseatics had built up a hillock in the corner of
Gracechurch, whence a fountain poured forth wine.
On this hillock stood four children who likewise
greeted the Queen. In front of the Steelyard they
had placed two casks of wine, from which they poured
drink to all who passed. This liberality cost them
a thousand pounds, and heavy payments to cover
such expenses are not infrequent in their account
books.</p>
<p>In England, contrary to the usual custom, the Hanseatic
League never had its own church. Perhaps
this need was less felt in a land that professed
the same creed than in Russia. The Germans
frequented the parish church of All Hallows,
contenting themselves with endowing a chapel,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span>
altars, special masses, and alms. They also presented
the church with costly stained glass windows,
in the decoration of which the German imperial
eagle figured conspicuously, and with cunningly-carved
stalls reserved for the use of the Steelyard
authorities. As late as the year 1747 these seats
were still in the possession of the master of the Steelyard
and the other representatives of the guild. In
front of these stalls there always burned five of the
biggest tapers the church could boast. Indeed the
Hanseatics were famous for their outward observances
of piety, both while they were Catholics and after
they, as well as the English, became Protestants. Of
course the Catholic religion made more show. Saint
Barbara was a saint whom they specially affected,
and on her day (December 4th) they caused a most
elaborate mass to be sung and afterwards treated the
priest, their English alderman, and the royal doorkeeper
of the Star Chamber to fruit and wine in the
Cosin's Lane Garden. At Corpus Christi they joined
the great procession of all the guilds and notabilities;
and on midsummer night, and the eve of St. Peter and
St. Paul, they illumined their Great Hall after the
ancient Saxon fashion with Yule fires and torches.
After the Great Fire of London the League presented
All Hallows with a carved oak screen that ran the
length of the whole church. It was the work of a
Hamburg carver, and excites admiration to this day.
In the centre it shows the large imperial eagle, as also
the arms of Queen Anne; the main work consists of
twisted columns and arches.</p>
<p>The Germans in England seem to have adopted the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span>
purer Protestant doctrines with great caution, if not
tardily. At least we have it on record, that when in 1526
a commission, headed by Sir Thomas More in person,
proceeded to make a domiciliary search of the Steelyard
for writings of Luther, nothing was found but
Old and New Testaments and German prayer books,
while the whole body, both young and old, swore at
St. Paul's Cross that there was not a heretic among
them. Soon afterwards the Reformation was firmly
established in England, as it already was in most of
the cities belonging to the League, and from that
time forward the Steelyard associates attended the
English Protestant service in All Hallows Church.</p>
<p>Such were the life, the habits, and the nature, of the
German community that made its English centre in
the Steelyard, and which, so long as it was in harmony
with the times, conferred many advantages not only
upon themselves, but upon the people among whom
they dwelt. For in thrifty activity the English in
those days could not be compared with the Hanseatics,
while in point of wealth no one could compete
with these Germans, excepting only the Italian money-changers
of Lombard Street, then, as still, a favourite
locality of banking houses. But the Italians were
exclusively occupied with financial transactions, while
the Germans devoted themselves exclusively to mercantile
affairs.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/dragon.jpg" width="450" height="107" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p class="center p4 b13"><b>VIII.</b></p>
<h3 class="p4">THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE.</h3>
<p>The notices that have come down to us about the
organization of our League are scanty, although we
possess a vast number of minutes concerning their
diets. It is doubtful whether there was even a fixed
mode of governing and government, whether the
whole was not rather in a state of flux controlled by
the circumstances of the moment. That certain traditional
modes of administration obtained, however,
seems indisputable. It raises a smile to read that
when some problem seemed insoluble, or some
venture proved a failure, our naïve Hanseatics registered
in their books, "of this matter let those think
who come after us," thus throwing the burden upon
the following generation.</p>
<p>There was no fixed place of meeting for the Hanseatic
diets, but most frequently these were held at
Lübeck, because it was situated almost in the centre
of the various activities of the League. The assemblies
were held in "the name of all the cities," and
those who failed to send representatives were begged
"not to take it amiss" if conclusions were arrived at
without their sanction. "Every town shall consider
the benefit of the others, so far as is in accordance
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span>
with right and honour," runs one of their quaint
formulæ. "Should strife arise between the cities,
which God forbid, they shall settle their dispute
according to the counsels of the neighbouring towns."</p>
<p>There was also no fixed time for these diets; they
were assembled according to urgency or press of
business, but usually they were annual, and met about
Whitsuntide, as that feast falls in the fine weather, when
travelling was easier for the delegates of the northern
towns. At the close of each diet, the deputies present
decided on the time and place of the next meeting,
and Lübeck and other leading cities were charged with
the care of making known to the cities unrepresented
the decisions arrived at by the assembly. But default
to send a deputy to the diet was not lightly overlooked.
Some excuse had to be given, and the
validity of the excuse was sharply criticized. Sometimes
a town might be busy resisting its temporal or
ecclesiastical lords, an internal revolution might have
occupied all its energies, the roads might be unsafe,
or it might have been visited by some public calamity
like the Black Death. If the diet thought that these
pleas were merely subterfuges to save the expense of
sending a delegate, or to avoid explaining some infraction
of the rules of the League of which the city
in question was guilty, a heavy money fine was imposed,
and in case of absence three times repeated it
might even find itself "unhansed," deprived of all the
pecuniary privileges belonging to members of this
powerful association. By such rigid measures did the
League hold its members together. Nor was this all.
A deputy who did not arrive in time for the opening
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span>
of the proceedings was fined a gold mark for each
day of delay, a fine that was not remitted unless the
causes for his default were found on scrutiny to be in
every way sufficient.</p>
<p>On their arrival at the meeting place, the deputies
were received in state by some member of the local
municipal council, and were offered the wine of
honour. The conferences began about seven or eight
in the morning, and lasted till one or two in the
afternoon. One of the burgomasters of Lübeck was
usually made president. At the first meeting he
would thank the members present for having come,
and these would reply to him in courteous terms.
Then when all their credentials had been examined,
and the excuses of the absent sifted, the diet would
proceed to the business in hand. This business was
heavy and varied, covering the external and internal
policy of the League, the needful moneys to be raised,
the state of the various foreign factories. Even private
quarrels between merchants were heard here in appeal.
The diet decided on peace and war, sent despatches
to foreign kings and princes; threatened, warned,
exhorted, those who had failed to fulfil treaty obligations.
Such was its power that it rarely failed to
make its voice heard, and a threat indited by the
city of Lübeck was not put quietly into the waste-paper
basket by the northern courts. These missives
were sealed with the seal of the city in which the diet
was sitting at the time. Just as in their buildings,
their guildhalls, and their towers, our forefathers knew
how to express a quaint conceit, so also in a simple
seal they understood how to express symbolically a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span>
summary of their activity. Thus the pious and wise
Lübeck bore on its city seal a ship with high bulwarks,
from whose single central mast waved a flag bearing
the cross. An ancient pilot steers the vessel through
the waves with his left hand while his right is raised
in admonition. Opposite to him sits a youth busy
with the ropes, who, with his uplifted right hand,
seems to point to the help of heaven. This was to
symbolize that prudence, energy, and pious confidence
accompanied Lübeck in all its paths. The
common Hanseatic seal was only used for foreign
affairs. It represented the imperial double eagle with
the inscription "<i>Signum civitatum maritimarum</i>."</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo205" id="illo205"></a>
<img src="images/illo205.jpg" width="250" height="240" alt="SEAL OF LÜBECK" />
<p class="caption">SEAL OF LÜBECK</p>
</div>
<p>The decisions arrived at by the diet were all recorded
in careful minutes, known as "recesses," of
which an immense number have come down to us,
escaping fire and other vicissitudes. They all testify
to the thoroughly businesslike character that distinguished
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span>
the League. Among other matters we
often come across applications from cities to be
admitted into the Hansa. Their candidature was
generally addressed to Lübeck, and their claims and
resources carefully scrutinized by the prudent League.
As a rule the demand was conceded. The League
was never sorry to see its strength grow, and its
expenses diminish by being divided among a greater
number of towns. Such admission, however, was
made upon unequal conditions, according to the importance,
the resources, and the situation of the city
in question. This inequality had struck deep roots
also in the very heart of the cities. The inhabitants
were far removed from enjoying the same prerogatives,
the Hansa was by no means a democratic association.
The most important posts were reserved for a
certain number of families know as patricians, who
had distinguished themselves by services for the common
weal, or who held power in the shape of wealth.
An individual, however, could be "unhansed" as well
as a city, if he had failed to observe some law of high
commercial consequence, and it was even more difficult
for an individual to be readmitted than a town.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo207" id="illo207"></a>
<img src="images/illo207.jpg" width="336" height="550" alt="PETERSEN-HAUS, NUREMBURG." />
<p class="caption">PETERSEN-HAUS, NUREMBURG.</p>
</div>
<p>From the inequalities in the position of different
members of the League there arose conflicts of interest
which were to prove "the little rift within the lute,"
that by and by should "make the music mute." For
instance, the interest of the maritime towns was not
always that of the inland ones. Schisms and divisions
were apt, above all, to take place when there
was a question of beginning a war, as this could never
be done without general approbation. Each town
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span>
was inclined to throw the burden on its associates.
For as each was solely preoccupied with its personal
interests, and only entered into the League with a
view to the profits it could thus obtain, there was
always in the minds of the delegates a tacit reserve to
make as few sacrifices as possible, and as time went
on they were even ready to abandon their allies, and
let the League perish if they did not find themselves
directly benefited by any sacrifice demanded by the
common weal.</p>
<p>What held them together at all was, in a word,
nothing more noble or ideal than personal advantage,
the fear through exclusion of losing by exclusion, the
great advantages that accrued from being a member
of the League. No wonder that with an ambition
so little exalted the Hansa was destined not to
survive until our own day. For communities like
individuals must strive after some lofty ideal if their
existence is to be happy, and to have a sound enduring
basis. The wonder is rather that seeing what
motives animated its members, the defective character
of the means at its disposal, such as the lack of a
standing army, and the constant mutations in its
form of government, it should have attained to such
mighty results as we have roughly sketched in this,
the second and culminating period of its existence.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span></p>
<h2 class="p6">PERIOD III.</h2>
<p class="center"><i>THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE HANSA.</i>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p4">
<img src="images/griff.jpg" width="450" height="106" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<h3 class="p4">INTRODUCTION.</h3>
<p>From the law of change to which all human affairs
are subject the mighty Hanseatic League was not
exempt. Great though its power seemed to all outward
appearance, and rich as were its members, still,
for some time past, signs of decay and decline had
made themselves manifest, here and there ominous
rents and fissures, that threatened, if not an entire,
yet a partial fall of the building.</p>
<p>The latter years of the fifteenth and the early
years of the sixteenth centuries were a time of the
greatest moment in the history of modern Europe.
They mark the transition from the mediæval to the
modern spirit, embracing two such potent factors in
human development as the Reformation and the
discovery of America. It is almost sad to think that
the decrepitude of a powerful institution should have
coincided with the transformation and rejuvenescence
of Europe. Yet so it was. So it will ever be; we
must march onward with our time, or be trodden down.</p>
<p>Many of the ideas of the Hansa had grown effete
or were becoming gradually obsolete. Individuality
in men, independence in nations were factors beginning
to manifest themselves and to rebel against
those notions of blind obedience and of selfish
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span>
monopoly inculcated by the Hansa. The time was
nearing when the old system of staple, of factories
was to give place to the busy varied life of the
Exchange.</p>
<p>The discovery that the earth was round, not flat,
that Ulysses had no idle dream when he dreamed
that there was another continent beyond the pillars
of Hercules, was a matter of unspeakable moment
to trade. When we recollect that almost to the
same date belong the discovery of a maritime route
to the East Indies, and the invention of printing,
we cannot but recognize that a power, not willing
to move with the times, but painfully, obstinately
clinging to its own ideas and images, had to be
left behind. The very causes for which the Hansa
had been founded, insecurity of roads, want of
international justice, and other barbarous and
intolerant conditions, no longer existed. The
League itself had developed from a liberator
into an oppressor. It no longer fitted with the
changing conditions; it too must change or perish.
In vain did it point to ancient charters, evoke
"inviolable treaties" acquired at the point of the
sword or by might of wealth. It had to learn that
of these treaties, as indeed of treaties in general,
must be said that which is sadly, but too truly said
of human promises, that they are "like pie-crust,
made to be broken."</p>
<p>The spirit of revolution, or rather of change, was
abroad. It made itself felt in manners, in institutions,
in governments. The capture of Constantinople
by the Turks contributed to the new development.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">213</a></span>
By warning Europe of a new and menacing
danger, it drew yet more closely together the different
states which the Crusades had already put into
relations with one another, and for which the feudal
system formed a sort of common link. This same
event turned the stream of sciences, letters, and arts
towards Italy. On the other hand, the princes were
finding out the means of diminishing the power of
the feudal lords and nobles. The subjugation of the
power of these vassals undermined little by little the
feudal system, and allowed this worn-out institution
to be replaced by institutions more in conformity
with the needs of modern society.</p>
<p>Various states, that had been unable to develope
their forces, owing to the abuse of the feudal system,
moved swiftly forward, now that they were free from
restraint, and, having succeeded in centralizing their
power desired to give it a firm and equal step in the
march onwards. Meanwhile the forces that existed
in the hands of the rulers were active enough to
assure the tranquillity of the people, but it was
always possible to turn them from their destination;
war might arise any moment out of the very institutions
that ought to secure the maintenance of peace.
The people, recognizing this and fearing lest ambitious
rulers should form projects of aggrandizement and
conquest, had recourse to that policy which the Italian
republics had already initiated and in which Florence
took the lead.</p>
<p>The democracy understood full well that it was
for their good, and even essential to their very
existence as a power in the state, that they should
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span>
act upon the forces that determined the government,
just as these re-acted upon them: that, in a word,
they should mutually hold each other within the
limits of the law and that general security could only
arise from the equilibrium of the means of attack
and defence. This new policy which demanded
frequent communications between the parties interested,
gave rise to the system of embassies, itself
quite a new feature in international and political life,
though it was really an extension of ideas and
systems long ago pursued by the Hansa. In a word,
the whole method of the world was changing, and
it remained to be seen whether the Hansa could still
keep ahead as it had hitherto done.</p>
<p>While other nations were looking about them all
round the globe, the Hansa was, as ever, occupied
in securing to itself the monopoly of the Baltic basin,
in order that no other peoples should deprive them
of the wealth of Scandinavia. And yet this "monopoly
of the herring and the cod-fish," as it has been
named, was steadily becoming less and less valuable.
More than half of Europe was Protestant and no longer
fasted; wax was no more required in quantities for
Church ceremonials and the evidences of personal
piety; the imitation of Italian and Spanish fashions
in dress caused less demand for the furs of the North.
The English were among the chief commercial rivals
of the Hansa at this date, and after them the Dutch,
those very Dutch whose cities had at one time
formed part of the League, but who had seceded after
the wars with Waldemar, finding it more profitable
to keep friends with the Danes.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span></p>
<p>It is strange that this combination of merchants,
generally so astute, should not have recognized whither
the stream of things was tending.</p>
<p>Nor in its perplexities could it find any help from
the emperor. The German Empire was suffering from
the same ills as the League, and with equal steps was
advancing towards its dissolution. Until now the
Hansa had gone on its triumphal way in spite of all
inner and outer political complications, indeed had
rather profited than lost by these. This was now
altered. It was now no longer a body animated by
one will, one spirit. The disintegrating element of
religious discord had entered among its members,
they were mixed up with the bloody doctrinal wars,
that followed the Reformation and ravaged Germany,
and they were divided among themselves on this very
point. At last, after the treaty of Augsburg (1555),
which restored to Germany a more or less agitated
peace of some fifty years, there followed the terrible,
devastating Thirty Years' War, which gave the death
blow to the League.</p>
<p>The Thirty Years' War left behind it only a heap of
ruins. It had consequences so disastrous that from
some of them Germany has not recovered even to this
day. It caused her to lag in the onward march of
progress, and for all her military strength at this
present moment, she has not yet overtaken her neighbours
and contemporaries in many important points
of civilization, that are more unfailing sources of a
nation's power than mere brute strength in arms or
tactical skill in battle.</p>
<p>One of the first serious causes of decline in the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span>
Hanseatic power was due to the fact that as time
went on and conditions of trade altered, the interests
of the maritime and continental cities were no longer
identical. The sea-board towns used to furnish to the
inland the means of selling the produce of industries
with profit in the countries east, north, and west of the
Baltic. The Hanseatic ships and factories facilitated
this distribution of goods. But when other nations, and,
above all, the merchants of the Netherlands, and after
them the English, Danes, and Swedes carried on a
part of this commerce with their own ships, the inland
cities no longer had the same interest in remaining
united with the maritime. They even thought that
their union with the League was more onerous than
useful, and began to grow restive and would no longer
pay their dues to the general fund, which consequently
became much weakened and impoverished. Thus
there were not only enemies from without, but
enemies from within to contend against. "A house
divided against itself cannot stand" is a saying of
which our Hansa was very soon to learn the full
truth.</p>
<p>But before the final collapse came the League was
to know one more moment of proud prosperity, a
moment which, had it been wisely and unselfishly
used would have secured to the Hansa a prolonged
dictatorship in Northern Europe.</p>
<p>After this rapid survey we will consider these events
in detail and order.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/flowers.jpg" width="450" height="108" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p class="center p4 b13"><b>I.</b></p>
<h3 class="p4">STORM CLOUDS.</h3>
<p>The centre of the Hansa's power had ever been the
Baltic Ocean. On its shores the idea of the League
had first taken shape: here it had grown and flourished,
and here also it was to receive its death blow. As we
have said, in the course of the fifteenth century the
Dutch gradually came forward as serious competitors
of the League. Their geographical position made
them freer than the Hanseatics; enclosed in a sort of
inland basin to which at any moment they might lose
the key, their astuteness was not less keen than that
of their rivals, and like their rivals they wisely made
use of any quarrels or dissensions that might be
abroad. They were not slow, therefore, to discern
that the Scandinavian people and also the Scandinavian
kings groaned under the heavy despotism
exercised by these German merchants. They proposed
themselves as substitutes for the Hansa,
offering money and support to the kings and easier
and better conditions of trade to the natives. These
proposals were unofficially accepted. Neither rulers
nor ruled as yet dared oppose themselves openly to
the League, but they were not sorry to see its power
reduced.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo218" id="illo218"></a>
<img src="images/illo218.jpg" width="355" height="550" alt="CHARLES V." />
<p class="caption">CHARLES V.</p>
</div><p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span></p>
<p>For awhile the Hansa were able to keep their rivals
in check, worrying them by piracy on the one hand,
and insisting on their ancient claims and trade rights
on the other.</p>
<p>But Charles V. had ascended the throne; the
greatest emperor that had ever governed in Germany
since his namesake Charles the Great. He was ruler
not only of Germany, but of Spain and the Netherlands,
and to the latter people he was especially well
disposed. He looked with no friendly eye upon the
League, which made itself a power within his territory,
and he was not sorry to see it weakened by competition.
When the Sound, their Danish Hellespont, the
gold mine of the League, continued to be jealously
guarded by them, and its navigation denied to other
nations, Charles V. declared quite openly that "he
would rather miss three royal crowns, than that his
Burgunders should be excluded from the Sound."
This was a sort of challenge to the Hansa. Let us
hear how other circumstances came about to enforce
it from other quarters.</p>
<p>It may be remembered that since the days of
Waldemar Atterdag, the League had always had a
voice in the election of a ruler to one of the three
northern kingdoms, and that it regarded with no
friendly eye the attempts made at a union of those
kingdoms under one common head.</p>
<p>In 1513 Christian II. had ascended the Danish
throne. He was an unscrupulous and cruel ruler,
known to posterity as the Nero of the North. Before
ascending the throne of Denmark he had been
governor of Norway, and in that capacity had conceived
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">220</a></span>
a bitter hatred against the overbearing
foreigners, "those German cobblers," as he called
them, who once even ventured to close against him
the gates of his own town of Bergen. He had already
favoured by all ways in his power the trade of non-Hanseatics,
and tried to obtain some gentler treatment
for the oppressed burghers of Bergen. Still so
great was yet the fear of the Hansa, that when in
1513 Christian was crowned King of Denmark, he
made no difficulties about renewing all Hanseatic
treaties and privileges, and only stipulated that the
harbours of Norway should also be accessible to the
Netherlanders. In return he desired their assistance
against Sweden, with which country he was at war.</p>
<p>For a time the League, and above all Lübeck, were
rejoiced at this new king and his attitude towards
them, but not many years had passed before they
found out that they had to do with a more logical
and altogether sterner man than any of his predecessors
had been. Christian hated the Hansa, and
rebelled against the subjection of the Sound, a Danish
sea, to foreign control, and the absolute sway of the
Hansa in his markets. Among many unwise words
and deeds that live bound up with his memory, it was
not the most unwise which he repeated after Sigbrit
Willem, the mother of his beloved and lovely friend,
Digveke (Little Dove), "that good friendship must be
maintained with the Netherlands, and that Copenhagen
must be made the staple place of the North."</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo221" id="illo221"></a>
<img src="images/illo221.jpg" width="299" height="550" alt="CHRISTIAN II. OF DENMARK." />
<p class="caption">CHRISTIAN II. OF DENMARK.</p>
</div>
<p>Unfortunately for Christian, though he could repeat
Sigbrit's sayings, and perhaps also in a measure
recognize their wisdom, he had not the natural
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">222</a></span>
capacity to carry them into execution. This clever
woman recognized that the aim of the king should
be to reinstate the Scandinavian Union, to break the
power of the aristocracy and the clergy, and to free
his impoverished people from the fetters in which the
Hansa had bound them for nine centuries. This was
all right and well, but it needed to be carried into
effect with tact and moderation. Christian did not
possess these gifts; he made himself personally
detested by his cruelty and his overbearing manner,
he knew not that generosity which so gracefully
becomes a victor. After conquering Sweden, he
soiled his victory by causing the most illustrious
personages of the kingdom to be executed, and still
worse he stained his personal honour by violating the
conditions of an armistice in causing Gustavus Ericson,
of the house of Vasa, to be carried off captive to Denmark.
It did not improve matters when Christian
explained that he required him as a hostage. He
caused Gustavus to be shut up in the strong fortress
of Kalo in Jutland. Here the captive was put on his
parole, and it is said suffered none of the rigours of
custody. But the food put before him, salt junk, sour
ale, black bread, and rancid herrings, cannot have
comforted his enforced captivity in the material sense,
while he confessed to having been maddened by the
talk of the soldiers who guarded him, and who boasted
that they would soon hold all Sweden, and jestingly
parcelled out among themselves the wealth and
beauty of the nation.</p>
<p>This young man so unjustly imprisoned was
destined to become the avenger of his fatherland,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">223</a></span>
and those of his fellow-countrymen who had perished
upon the scaffold. He resolved to escape, hoping to
reach Sweden in time to defend his country, or to
take advantage of any favourable juncture that might
arise.</p>
<p>It was in September, 1519, that, early one raw
autumn morning, Gustavus managed to escape from
the Castle of Kalo, disguised as a drover of oxen.
He made his way to the city of Lübeck, and threw
himself upon the protection of the burgomaster and
council. Needless to say the town gave a generous
welcome to the man who was foe of their foe—the
King of Denmark. But it was not long ere his
whereabouts became known, and Christian sent
messengers to Lübeck, demanding in high-handed
language that Gustavus should be handed over to
him. He complained that Vasa had effected his
escape contrary to his pledged word as a knight.
Gustavus spoke in his own defence.</p>
<p>"I was captured," he said, "contrary to all justice
and all plighted faith. It is notorious that I went
to the king's fleet as a hostage. Let any one who
can, point out the place where I was made prisoner
in battle, or declare the crime for which I deserved
chains. Call me not then a prisoner, but a man
seized upon unjustly, over-reached, betrayed. I
am now in a free city, and before a government
renowned for justice and for defending the persecuted.
Shall I then be altogether deceived in the
confidence I have placed in them? or can breach of
faith be reasonably objected to me by one who never
himself kept faith or promise? or can it be wondered
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">224</a></span>
at that I should free myself from prison which I
deserved by no fault, except that of trusting to the
assurances of a king."</p>
<p>The shrewd burgesses who listened to Gustavus's
defence were not misled by his rhetoric, but motives
of policy told in his favour. They knew that if
Christian were once undisturbed king of the three
northern kingdoms, he would possess a power which,
as he had already shown, he would not use to the
advantage of the League. Here was a young nobleman
of fearless character and high talent, a man who
hated the king with hereditary hatred and personal
animosity. Might he not become a thorn in his side
and a clog upon his movements?</p>
<p>This was the view of the matter taken by the
burgomaster of Lübeck and put forcibly before his
colleagues. It was therefore agreed emphatically to
refuse the king's demands, and, instead of giving up
Gustavus, to furnish him rather with the means to
return to his own country. "For who knows," said
the worthy council, "what he may do when he gets
there."</p>
<p>To this refusal to deliver up the hostage the King
of Denmark replied, through his ambassadors, that
he should make a house-to-house search for his
prisoner. That was truly more than the proud city
could stomach. They answered in the most haughty
terms that they should never permit such an interference
with their home rights and privileges, and in
the presence of the Danish ambassadors reassured the
fugitive of their protection and friendship.</p>
<p>When the news of this reply reached Christian, he
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">225</a></span>
regarded it as an act of great audacity. From this
moment he became a yet more embittered enemy of
the Hansa, whose chief city and spokesman he very
properly recognized was Lübeck. He harassed them
continually in fresh ways; he carried on a yet more
envenomed war against the Swedes, of whom he
knew the League to be the secret ally and the chief
support.</p>
<p>At first success favoured his arms; he broke faith
in all directions—plundered, ravaged, sacked. But at
last he made the cup of wrath against him overflow
by his cruel execution of ninety noble Swedes, in the
autumn of 1520; vaunting the deed in insolent heartless
words. He had shown them, he said, "how he
roasted his Michaelmas goose." Further, in his
wanton presumption he did not hesitate to give
active expression to his hatred against Lübeck.
When congratulated by his councillors that he could
now rejoice in the possession of the three northern
crowns, he replied: "So long as Lübeck is not in my
power, I cannot be happy in my kingdoms."</p>
<p>Shortly after this, Christian set out for the Netherlands
to visit his imperial brother-in-law at Ghent.
The objects of his journey were various. He wanted
to obtain the payment of his consort's marriage
portion; to solicit the emperor's aid against his
uncle, Frederick of Schleswig Holstein; and yet
more to obtain his tacit, if not active assistance,
against the Hansa towns on the Baltic, and especially
against Lübeck.</p>
<p>It was on the occasion of this visit that Charles V.,
accompanied by Christian and Margaret of Austria,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">226</a></span>
laid the foundation-stone of Antwerp Cathedral.
After this ceremony they returned to Brussels, where
Christian entertained his friends at a banquet.
Among the guests was the great German painter,
Albert Dürer, then visiting the Low Countries. He
was then and there commissioned to paint the Danish
king's portrait—a portrait that all contemporaries
greatly admired as a faithful reproduction of Christian's
manly beauty. The artist received thirty
florins—a sum that seemed to him munificent, and
called forth expressions of real gratitude.</p>
<p>Soon after, Christian presented a petition to the
young and inexperienced Charles, in which he
begged, as a gift from him, "a little town on the
German side of his dominions, called Lübeck, so
that when sometimes he passed over to Germany he
might possess a place of his own in which to rest."
Charles, enlightened by the burgomaster of Cologne
to the effect that Lübeck was no "little town," but
one of the four imperial cities, and a chief centre of
the Hanseatic League, refused his brother-in-law's
petition in decisive terms. Nor did Christian fare
better with his other demands; Charles had been
warned against him, and had been taught to see in
him a possible heretic. It is even related that in his
anger Christian tore from his neck the Order of the
Golden Fleece, given to him by the emperor, and
trod it under foot in disdain.</p>
<p>Christian returned home to find fresh difficulties
awaiting him, for in his absence Gustavus Vasa had
not been idle. This restless patriot had lingered
but eight months in the hospitable German city.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">227</a></span>
Young, full of enthusiasm and fire, he longed to be
actively at work to aid his oppressed compatriots;
and one morning, in the spring of 1520, after confessing
his obligations and his gratitude to the
Lübeckers, he stole over to the Swedish coast in
a little fishing-smack, and landed in territory that
was groaning under Christian's oppressions.</p>
<p>At first, Gustavus, who at once assumed the <i>rôle</i> of
leader of revolt, could not make himself heard among
the peasants. They replied to his instigations in
their apathy of oppression with, "Salt and herrings
will not fail us as long as we obey the king, but if we
rise we are sure of ruin." But Gustavus was undaunted,
though he knew a price was put upon his
head. For months he scoured the country, travelling
by by-paths, sleeping one night in the woods,
another in the open fields; assuming now this, now
that disguise. Gradually he gathered a following
around him, which grew in importance day by day.
His influence increased above all after the tidings of
the "Bloodbath," for so the terrible massacre came
to be called, perpetrated by Christian upon the nobles
of Stockholm, on the occasion when he offered them
a banquet, apparently of peace, but which proved to
them a feast of death.</p>
<p>Chief among Gustavus's allies were the people of
Dalecarlia, among whom he went on his mission of
revolt dressed in their native dress. This land of
valleys is inhabited by a people who have many
points of resemblance with the Scotch Highlanders;
thinking themselves, as these do, of a superior caste
and adhering even to this day to an exaggerated and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">228</a></span>
antiquated mode of dress. Like the Highlanders, too,
they are frugal; they are accustomed to drink only
water, and often in case of necessity eat bread made
of the inner rind of the birch tree, which grows so
freely in their woods. It is said that one of the
Danish commanders, learning this, exclaimed "A
people who can live upon wood and drink water the
devil himself could not conquer, much less any other.
Let us go hence."</p>
<p>When the Danes heard of the army of peasants
that was rising against them, they at first treated the
news with great contempt. "If the skies rained
peasants," they said, "we would fight them all."
But they were soon to see that these peasants were
not to be lightly despised. It was before Upsala that
Gustavus's army, aided by troops sent to him from
Lübeck made its first attack on the Danes. There
was a heavy snowfall during the battle, in consequence
of which the Danish cavalry and artillery proved of
no avail, while the peasants with their irregular mode
of warfare were less impeded by the elements. The
victory was theirs, and the Danes had to confess that
their boast was foolish, "For when God withdraws
his hand from a warrior a poor peasant is as good
as he."</p>
<p>From this moment success followed success and
the prospects of the cause of Gustavus grew steadily
brighter. His instructions to his followers were that
"they must teach the tyrant that Swedes must be
ruled by love, not ground down by cruelty."</p>
<p>In August, 1521, Gustavus was elected administrator
of Sweden, and was virtually ruler of the land, though
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">229</a></span>
the whole was not yet in his possession. The time
of shifts, disguises, and humiliations was now over.
The scenes of these, however, the barns where Gustavus
threshed, the different spots where he was in
the greatest peril—are still pointed out with veneration
by the descendants of those peasants who succoured
him in his adversity, and boasted that they were the
first to help him to a crown.</p>
<p>In this juncture Christian saw himself obliged to
send out yet more ships and men against Gustavus.
To meet the re-enforced enemy, Vasa turned to
Lübeck in 1522 and begged of "his fathers, brothers,
friends, and dear neighbours of that town," under
promise of eternal gratitude, to help him against "the
tyrant," saying he would in his turn and time "accord
to them milder privileges and everything that could
be to their profit." The burghers decided to accede
to this request; ten strong ships were armed to aid
Gustavus Vasa and sent out to meet the Danish fleet.</p>
<p>Meanwhile they did not neglect to use the weapons
of diplomacy; weapons so often successfully employed
by them during their career. They remembered that
Duke Frederick of Schleswig Holstein was uncle to
Christian II., and that the two had ever been at feud.
It occurred to them that it would be well to gain the
duke as their ally, promising him the Danish throne
in event of their victory; of course in return for
important privileges; the Hansa would have been
untrue to themselves and their traditional policy had
they for one moment left out of sight their own
advantages.</p>
<p>This proposal met with assent, and the consequence
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">230</a></span>
was that a powerful enemy was thus raised up in the
centre of the king's dominions. Christian, following
the counsel of Sigbrit, planned another wholesale
massacre of the nobles whom he believed favourable
to Frederick's cause. The matter got known, and
in consequence a council was held by them in which
they drew up a deed, renouncing their allegiance to
Christian and choosing Frederick in his place to fill
the Danish throne.</p>
<p>A question arose as to who should convey the
perilous document to the king. A certain monk of
Jutland offered to bear the ill tidings. He met the
king as he was proceeding to one of his castles.
Assuming an open and cheerful countenance he
managed to get himself asked to dinner by the king,
and continued to amuse him and divert all suspicions
till the king retired to rest. Then, placing the despatch
in one of his gloves, he left it on the table, went
quietly out and escaped by a boat which he had
ordered to be in readiness. A page who found the
despatch next morning carried it to the king.</p>
<p>Christian, who till then had blustered and disbelieved
in real danger, grew alarmed when he read
this unexpected paper. He wrote to those who subscribed
it saying "that he submitted himself to the
emperor and other disinterested princes as his judges.
As to the massacre at Stockholm, he would atone
for it; he would fill the country with churches and
monasteries, and undergo any penance which the Pope
might impose. The Council and States should have
from him fresh securities, if only they would retract
their step and turn from him this dishonour they
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">231</a></span>
had meditated." The nobles replied that they
acknowledged no tribunal superior to their own;
that the king had perjured himself so often that they
could not trust him; that he had confessed himself
guilty, that the deeds by which he had freed them
from their allegiance were known to all the world,
and that they had chosen the Duke of Holstein as
his successor.</p>
<p>And indeed Frederick, Duke of Holstein, was
proclaimed king of Denmark in January, 1523. The
Hansa fleet by sea, the support of the clergy and
nobles by land—that clergy and those nobles whom
Christian had oppressed—conduced to this result.</p>
<p>A manifesto put forth by Lübeck made known to
the Emperor of Germany and the Empire how "the
city after long patience and repeated prayers, in consideration
of her oaths and duties towards the Holy
Roman Empire and remembering the inevitable
damage done to body, honour, and goods, had taken
up arms to prosecute the wanton insurer and aggressor
of the Holy Roman Empire."</p>
<p>This manifesto was one of the little farces the
Hanseatic League loved to play with their supposed
liege lord and sovereign, the Emperor of Germany,
each time they took independent action and showed
by deeds how little they heeded his authority or
wishes.</p>
<p>In vain Christian, after his deposition, tried to rally
his subjects around him. Fearing probably that
revenge would be taken upon his person for his cruel
massacres in Sweden, he decided that discretion
was the better part of valour. Choosing twenty of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">232</a></span>
his best and fastest ships, he placed on board of them
all the State papers, all the gold and silver that had
been hoarded in the public buildings, and the State
jewels. On April 13, 1523, he, his wife and three
children together with Sigbrit, "the last packed away
in a chest with the treasures," quaintly writes a contemporary
chronicler, went on board the largest of
the vessels, whereupon they all set sail for the Netherlands.
It was nothing more or less than flight, and
an acknowledgment that Gustavus Vasa and his ally
the Hansa, through its representative Lübeck had
conquered; that the League, though declining in might,
was still able, as in the most glorious times of its
history, to play with kings like dice, deposing and
installing them.</p>
<p>Two years later the same city of Lübeck was
called upon to arbitrate in a conflict between the
two kings, which it thus had made, Frederick
of Denmark and Gustavus of Sweden. As the
price of its intervention and of the sacrifices it had
made on their behalf, the city, in the name of the
League, of course, asked great favours, favours which
were accorded by treaty, and which were to be the
last smiles of Fortune, about to become fickle to the
union she had favoured so long.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in June, 1523, Gustavus Vasa had been,
by unanimous consent, elected King of Sweden. It
is amusing to read that Stockholm, the last city to
surrender to its new ruler, the last faithful to Christian,
refused, even after it had capitulated, to deliver up the
keys of the gates to Gustavus. The governor handed
them over to two Lübeck councillors, present on the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">233</a></span>
occasion, with the words, "We present to the imperial
city of Lübeck the kingdom and the city, and not to
that rogue, Gustavus Erikson, who stands there."</p>
<p>It must not be supposed, however, that Christian
so quietly and easily abandoned his Danish crown to
his uncle and rival. He made many attempts to
enlist the various courts in his favour. Especially
did he try to gain the help of his brother-in-law, the
emperor, but the League was too clever and too
strong for him. He did get together an army of
mercenaries, but his means of paying them soon ran
out, though to attain that end he pawned or sold all
his treasures and the queen's jewels. At last, he had
to fly in terror from his own soldiers who were
enraged at his inability either to pay them their
wages, or at least lead them to some town they
could plunder.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, Christian was not daunted. He was
a man not easily dismayed. He intrigued on every
hand to regain his kingdom, and at last, fancying
that the Lutheran doctrines he had embraced prejudiced
the emperor against him, he formally renounced
Protestantism and returned into the bosom
of the Romish Church.</p>
<p>Christian had not erred in his calculations. This
step induced Charles to be more favourable to him,
and for a while he lent him his countenance, soon,
however, to withdraw it. Still the brief favour sufficed
to enable him to get together a strong army
to attack Denmark. Frederick, alarmed, turned to
Lübeck for aid, and did not turn in vain. Indeed,
his ambassadors admitted that "Lübeckers had
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">234</a></span>
shown themselves in this time of need, not like mere
neighbours, but like fathers to Denmark."</p>
<p>After many vicissitudes of fortune, Christian at
last abandoned the idea of regaining his old rights
by force of arms. He craved an interview with his
uncle and a free passage to Copenhagen. This safe
passage was accorded to him and its terms were
couched in the most sacred and solemn words. The
Hanseatic representatives enforced the promise on
their own account. Not suspecting treachery, unwarned,
Christian stepped on board the vessel that
was to convey him to the Danish capital, and
arrived in Copenhagen with the fond hope that
Frederick would receive him like the prodigal son.
Instead of allowing him to land at once, however,
he was detained in the harbour for five days, under
the pretext that Frederick was absent, and at last
when permitted to set foot on dry land, he was
invited to meet the king at Flensburg, and was told
that the fleet had orders to carry him thither.</p>
<p>Then, and only then, the unfortunate man suspected
that he had been betrayed. And so it was.
Frederick and his councillors pronounced the safe
conduct null and void; Christian was taken prisoner,
and amid fierce ejaculations of rage and despair, was
locked up in the "Blue Tower" of the Castle of
Sonderburg. Here for fifteen years in company
with his favourite dwarf, Christian had to suffer
painful confinement that only ended with his death.
His confinement was unjust, no doubt, but it was
richly merited.</p>
<p>Unmourned by his relations, or the aristocracy he
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">235</a></span>
had oppressed, Christian's memory lived among the
peasants and lower classes, of whom he had been the
supposed friend, a friendship that no doubt had no
higher aim than his own ends, but which never had
occasion to show its true character. His name,
consequently, became a watchword among the
people, and inspired those who soon after were to
be the leaders in great convulsions in the Scandinavian
provinces. But this is outside the course of
my history.</p>
<div class="figcenter">
<img src="images/tail_pair.jpg" width="200" height="171" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/king.jpg" width="450" height="108" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p class="center p4 b13"><b>II.</b></p>
<h3 class="p4">KING FREDERICK AND KING GUSTAVUS VASA.</h3>
<p>In speaking of Christian's continued aggressions
and his death, we have somewhat anticipated the
course of our story. We left our League in the proud
consciousness of having made two kings and expelled
a third. It was but natural that they should now
look for some reward in the gratitude of Frederick
and Gustavus. They thought that the moment had
come to regain their ascendency in the Scandinavian
north. But they were to learn the old, old lesson
once again: "Put not thy trust in princes."</p>
<p>Frederick was the first to show his colours. It was
true that he had sworn to the Hansa not only restitution,
but extension of all their ancient rights and
privileges, but when they demanded as a first pledge
of friendly feeling, that the Baltic should be absolutely
closed to the Netherlanders, and that indeed no one
might trade in that sea but themselves, Frederick
met them with an inexorable refusal. We should be
wrong if we regarded this refusal as a mere display
of ingratitude on the king's part. He saw that the
claim was detrimental to the interests of his own
subjects, whom, after all, he was bound to consider first.</p>
<p>But he went much further. He dissolved the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">237</a></span>
German Society that traded at Copenhagen and
insisted that all Hanseatics should be subjected to
the same laws as his own subjects. Further, he took
under his protection the inhabitants of Bornholm,
which island was under the rule of Lübeck, having
been given up to that city by reason of forfeiture.
For the natives groaned under the Hansa's rule, and
declared "they would rather be under the Turks, than
under the German, Christian, imperial city."</p>
<p>In vain did Lübeck protest to Frederick; in vain
did she remind him of his promises, point to his
treaties, and recall his written and spoken words. She
had to ask herself bitterly what she had gained in
return for the great sacrifices she had made to change
the ruler of Denmark. The uncle had become the
nephew, that was all, and worse than the nephew,
because less impetuous and passionate, and, therefore,
more determined and dangerous. Added to this,
they fell out about religious matters. Frederick
encouraged the new faith, while the Queen of Hansa,
stubbornly conservative in all matters, remained until
the spring of 1531 an adherent of the old religion.</p>
<p>In 1553 Frederick died. An interregnum of more
than a year followed, during which the hopes of
Lübeck to re-establish her authority in the north
revived; and were fed and fanned by the Burgomaster
Jürgen Wullenweber. It was to prove the last flickering
of the Hansa's glory.</p>
<p>But before we speak of the agitated period of
Wullenweber's ambitious plans, let us see how, on his
part, Gustavus Vasa showed his gratitude to the town
to which he owed so much.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">238</a></span></p>
<p>Gustavus Vasa had even less consideration than
Frederick. During his residence in Lübeck he had
learned to appreciate the material results that sprang
from trade, and was secretly resolved that his own
subjects and not these strangers should benefit by the
country's resources. At first he, like Frederick,
accorded the Hansa munificent charters. Indeed, he
could not do less than assent to all their demands; he
was deeply their debtor for money advanced during
his wars, for material as well as moral assistance. He
had no gold or silver to offer them, but he could
accord them the exclusive use of those gold mines, the
Baltic and the Sound. The Hansa should have the
trading monopoly "for ever and ever," so ran the
words of the charter.</p>
<p>But as soon as Gustavus felt the crown firmly
planted on his head, and had in part paid off his debt,
he applied himself to securing the commercial independence
of his country and to making the League
understand the meaning of the words "for ever,"
when they occur in a promise. He resolutely set his
face against the Hanseatic claims for monopoly.
"Gustavus was an angel at first," piteously writes the
Lübeck official chronicler; "Alas, that he should so
soon have become a devil."</p>
<p>In open assembly, 1526, the king did not hesitate
to speak the following words of unmistakable clearness:
"We must," he said, "withdraw from the
strangers their unrestricted liberty; we must open the
Swedish harbours to all ships." Next year even
more definite words were spoken in the assembly.
It was decided "to curtail the Hanseatic privileges
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">239</a></span>
without further delay, as seriously prejudicial to the
kingdom."</p>
<p>There was one way by which Lübeck could retain
in leading strings the "vassals," as she proudly called
them, who had grown over her head. This was by
means of their still unpaid debts. But Gustavus
worked unremittingly towards attaining this end.
His country, which was poor, had been yet further
impoverished by wars, but still he succeeded, by
means of heavy taxation, in raising supplies. He
taxed everything that he could think of. It is said
even hazel-nuts were subjected to this burden. Nay
he even persuaded various towns and communes to
melt down their church bells in order to expunge the
national debt. By these trenchant means he succeeded
in reducing it to a small amount by the year
1532, and then threatened the Hansa with yet more
repressive measures, if they ventured to persist in
claiming their ancient privileges.</p>
<p>No wonder that the ill-humour of the Lübeckers
grew from day to day, and that they used to say to
each other, "This is our thanks for having made an
ox driver a king."</p>
<p>But Gustavus never swerved from his fixed resolve
to make an end of Hanseatic privileges and monopolies
as far as concerned his kingdom. By the time
of his death in 1560 the power of the League was
broken in Sweden beyond all hope or possibility of
revival.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/couple.jpg" width="450" height="105" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p class="center p4 b13"><b>III.</b></p>
<h3 class="p4">WULLENWEBER.</h3>
<p>Among the various disintegrating influences at
work upon the League we have already named the
Reformation. The new doctrines were destined at
first to bring little blessing to the land in which they
took their birth, and more especially to the Hansa
was the purer creed to prove a source of dissension,
resulting in eventual dissolution. Among other
causes this was due to the fact that the cities did
not all or at the same time embrace Protestantism.
Thus a schism arose in their very midst: the Protestant
cities eyeing the Catholic with distrust, and
<i>vice versâ</i>. Moreover, these changes of view and
system led to great disunion in the various towns
themselves, often temporarily weakening the authority
of the municipality and causing the city to be too
much pre-occupied to attend to the common affairs
and the welfare of the entire League. The movement
also took different forms in different centres. In
some it came about quite easily, and found the ground
all ready prepared; in others, it entered with strife
and bloodshed, or with fanatical excesses and absurdities,
as for example in Bremen, and Münster, where
the over-excited sect of the Anabaptists held sway.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">241</a></span></p>
<p>It was especially in the North, that the trade in
indulgences, consequent on a Papal need for ready
money, found the most rigid opponents. The clear-headed
burghers resented this demand as an insolent
defiance of their common sense, and many who had
already been half unconsciously influenced by the
stream of tendency towards a reformed faith, manifested
in the persons of Wickliffe and Huss, felt that
this outrageous and unblushing traffic was too much
for their credulity. The travelling merchants bought
Luther's pamphlets, and carried them to their various
homes. The wandering apprentices learnt the stirring
psalms of the "Wittenberg nightingale." A new
spiritual day was dawning, above all for the lower
classes, who, ignorant of Latin, the language of the
Catholic creed, were unable to follow or comprehend
the services of the church they attended.</p>
<p>It was in consequence of this awakening, and the
wider and nobler mode of thinking, and the educating
force which it implied, that hand-in-hand with the
religious movement there became manifest also a
political stirring. The character of this was democratic,
and it is not hard to understand why it was so.
The people who had groaned under the oppression
of the clergy and of the aristocracy, who almost
invariably were their allies, began to assert their
rights. They could now read the Scriptures in the
vulgar tongue, and thence could learn that the blind
submission demanded by the priests was by no means
an integral part of Christianity. They remembered
how the cities had been founded on democratic
principles; they drew to light old privileges and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">242</a></span>
charters; and by their memory and their ardour they
made things far from comfortable for the burgomasters
and patricians who held the government of
the towns. Especially was their power felt by the
arrogant and dissolute clergy, whose property they
confiscated and devoted to public purposes, and
whose churches and monasteries they converted into
almshouses and schools.</p>
<p>It is necessary to realize the absolute moral corruption
of the priests, monks, and nuns, in order to
comprehend the anger of the populace, and to excuse
the excesses into which they were led by their
righteous zeal. Nor must it be forgotten that the
people had groaned under the Vehmic Tribunal,
which persecuted heretics, and that they had beheld
Christians burn their fellow-Christians for the glory
of God.</p>
<p>Already, early in the century, Dr. Johann Bugenhagen
had been elected Bishop of the Lutheran
Hanseatic cities, and their need for such an office
gives us an indication of their numbers and importance.
Bugenhagen was a man specially suited to
work out the reform of doctrines and to set in order
church affairs, and this work he performed for the
whole of Northern Germany and Denmark. The
new movement gathered strength. It advanced like
a mighty ocean with resistless power. Only Lübeck,
of all the northern cities, remained untouched by the
storms beating around it. True to its stubbornly
conservative character it continued longer than the
rest faithful to the Roman hierarchy. But even
Lübeck had to yield. The pressure to which it gave
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">243</a></span>
way came from the people. For some time past
these had craved teachers of "the purer word" as
the new creed was at first called. At first the
demands were refused on imperial authority, but
after a while concessions were made. It was needful
to conciliate the inhabitants, for the funds of the city
were low, thanks to the wars for Frederick and
Gustavus, and it was foreseen that new taxes would
be submitted to with a bad grace. Indeed, when in
1529 the rulers appealed to the guilds to support
them in imposing new taxes they were answered by
a delegation of forty-eight persons who replied to
the municipal demands in bold terms, of which the
upshot was that they would treat of "no money
questions until the municipality should permit the
introduction of the evangelical teaching" and the
sacrament be administered in both forms. This
language was unmistakably clear, and the city rulers
seeing the townspeople were in earnest, yielded to
all their demands. Thus in 1531 Lübeck openly
acknowledged the Lutheran creed. The democracy
had spoken and triumphed. They had made their
power felt; they were conscious of their success, and
they did not mean easily to abandon their newly
acquired position of importance. The leader and
spokesman of this demonstration was Jürgen Wullenweber,
the man whose ambition and energy were to
give to the Hansa yet one more proud moment of
triumph; one more, and the last.</p>
<p>The origin and the life of Jürgen Wullenweber
are to this day wrapped in some mystery. It suited
the various party factions to represent him respectively
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">244</a></span>
as an idol and a scoundrel. Even the records that
survive concerning him in Lübeck are few. But
modern research has unearthed much, and proved
incontestably that Wullenweber, even if personally
ambitious, was a true and disinterested patriot. Time
has thrown round his figure a sort of mystical halo.
He has been made the hero of many German
romances, and the protagonist of various German
plays.</p>
<p>Of his family little is known except that they came
from Hamburg, and were no doubt at first wool
weavers, as the name implies. Jürgen's name does
not appear in any Lübeck register until the year
1530, when he was chosen a member of the Burgher
Committee. He is there described as a merchant.</p>
<p>This man had been the chosen spokesman of the
democratic party on the occasion when they defied
the city rulers. Soon after he was elected into the
municipal council, and it was not long before it was
generally felt that new blood stirred within that body.
In 1533 King Frederick of Denmark died. During
the interregnum that followed the Danes entered into
a defensive alliance with the Swedes against their
common oppressors, the Hansa. The Scandinavian
nations wished to emancipate themselves from the
League's tutelage. Wullenweber at a glance recognized
the full gravity of the situation. He thought
now or never the time had come to reassert, if need
be by force of arms, the Hansa's might; now or
never was the moment to punish for their ingratitude
and faithlessness the two kings Lübeck had created.
He called together a council, meeting in the guildhall,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">245</a></span>
March 16, 1533, and with eloquent, ardent words,
he laid before the assembly the whole political
situation, its gravity, and its possibilities. He showed
how the entire Hanseatic trade was endangered by
the commerce of the Netherlands in the Baltic. He
urged the bold scheme that Lübeck should take
forcible possession of the Sound, and thus hold in
its own hands the key to that sea.</p>
<p>It was a scheme which had often crossed the minds
of the Lübeck councillors, but which since the days
of Waldemar Atterdag they had never tried to carry
into effect, recognizing probably that the might of
the League was not great enough to retain such a
point of vantage, even if their physical force sufficed
to gain it.</p>
<p>Wullenweber's eloquence and self-confidence, however,
carried the day. The next thing was to consider
the matter of funds. Jürgen reminded his hearers
of the silver and gold ornaments and church decoration
confiscated by the State in consequence of the
Reformation. These he said could be melted down.
As before, he was listened to and obeyed. He spared
nothing in his zeal, even the colossal chandelier of
St. Mary's Church had to go into the melting pot to
make cannons. So much for the funds. It was now
needful to find the men. This was no arduous task.
Lübeck was a favourite resort for the mercenaries
who in those times roamed the world in search of
adventure and pay. Among these men were Max
Meyer, a native of Hamburg, destined to become the
<i>condottiere</i> of the League in its last war.</p>
<p>The figure of Max Meyer is a most romantic one.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">246</a></span>
His parents can never have credited what the fairies
sang around the boy's cradle, that he would become
a friend of the great king of England, Henry VIII.,
and have his portrait painted by the most eminent
artist of his day, Holbein. He was born in the humblest
circumstances, and brought up as a blacksmith.
Two great iron conduits, the work of his hand, are
shown in Hamburg to this day. He was a tall, strong,
fine looking man, with lively eyes and large hands,
and whoever beheld him at his smithy, swinging
his large hammer upon the anvil, could not help
fancying that he beheld some old Norse Viking, who
was moulding his own sword, so bold and enterprising
did he look. And, indeed, a desire for adventures
stirred in his blood. He knew no rest beside his
smithy fire. He felt he must go into the world.
Already, as an apprentice, he had fought in some of
the northern disturbances, had served as ensign under
Christian II. Throwing aside his hammer, he once
more ranged the world in search of danger and distinction.
Coming to Lübeck, in the course of his
travels, he was engaged by that city to lead the 800 men
whom she was sending to the emperor as aid against
the Turks. A year after he returned to his native
city, glorious and victorious, rich in booty and honours.
Hamburg received him as though he were a great and
powerful lord, and he impressed all his friends and
relations by his magnificence. When he rode away
to return to Lübeck, dressed in a full cuirass, with
nodding plumes upon his helmet, a local chronicler
wrote that "he was so good to look upon, that, although
he was a blacksmith, yet he was such a fine, clever
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">247</a></span>
fellow, he could pass anywhere for a nobleman." He
left Hamburg in triumph, trumpeters heading the procession,
in which there were forty men in full armour,
and two great waggon-loads of booty. The foremost
men of the city conducted him to the gates.</p>
<p>Arrived at Lübeck, Max Meyer entered it in the
same proud manner in which he had left Hamburg,
greatly impressing the townspeople by his wealth and
splendour. Among those who saw his entry and beheld
him with a favourable eye was the rich widow of the
Burgomaster Lunte. She lost her heart entirely to
the handsome blacksmith, and at last she married
him, sorely against the wish and will of her family.
Thus Max Meyer became a person of importance in
Lübeck, thanks to his marriage and his wife's connections,
and, consequently, he was thrown into close
relations with Wullenweber. The latter was not slow to
recognize that he was dealing with no common person,
and that here might be the instrumental hand to aid
his schemes. And, indeed, Max Meyer soon became
Wullenweber's close ally.</p>
<p>It was while Lübeck was thus at war with the Netherlands
that Max Meyer, as commander of the city's
war-ships, approached the English coasts, hearing
that some twenty-four Dutch merchant vessels were
sailing in these waters. He hoped to capture them
and to obtain rich booty. In this attempt, however,
he failed; but he took, instead, some Spanish ships
laden with English goods. This was a breach of the
peace, since the Hansa was not at war with England;
but, regardless of this act, Meyer, perhaps because in
want of provisions, actually sailed into an English
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">248</a></span>
harbour and anchored his vessel. King Henry, who
had heard of his presence, and knew him to be a
Lübeck captain carrying on hostilities against the
Netherlands, received him with great honour. The
English king had his own private reasons for wishing
to stand well with the Hansa. He knew they were
Protestants, and that they were not too well disposed
to the Emperor Charles, from whom he also had
become estranged, now that he had grown weary of
his Imperial Highness's aunt, the elderly Catherine
of Aragon. As the Pope would not listen to the
scruples of his tender conscience about having taken
to wife his brother's widow, from whom he sought a
divorce on that account—according to his own showing—he
hoped, not wrongly, that the Protestants
would take less stubborn and unscriptural views of
the indissolubility of the marriage contract, and he
therefore sought to conciliate all Protestant powers.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo249" id="illo249"></a>
<img src="images/illo249.jpg" width="460" height="550" alt="HENRY VIII." />
<p class="caption">HENRY VIII.</p>
</div>
<p>But the England of those days, like the England
of ours, was a law-abiding country, and three days after
King Henry had received Meyer with great feasts and
honours at Court, the royal guest was arrested as a
pirate. It was pleaded that he ought to suffer the
common penalty of piracy, that is to say, death. In
these straits the merchants of the Steelyard came
forward to aid their representative, offering to stand
surety for him. They succeeded in averting the
sentence of death by restoring the value of the goods
seized; they could not succeed in relieving him from the
imprisonment which his breach of international faith
had incurred. Max Meyer had to go to prison,
whence he was released at last only by the intervention
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">250</a></span>
of the municipality of Lübeck, though not until
he had almost served his time.</p>
<p>Justice satisfied, Max Meyer returned to King
Henry's Court, and was once more made a welcome
guest. Whether he was empowered by the city to
act as plenipotentiary, or whether, in the first instance,
he acted on his own account, does not appear. But
what is certain is that he made a number of proposals
to King Henry, to which the latter lent a willing
ear, that Meyer was knighted by his royal host, and
received from him a golden chain in token of the
honour in which he held him, and that Henry further
promised him a yearly income of three hundred and
a half golden crowns. The terms were that the
English king should advance a considerable sum
to Lübeck towards her war expenses—a sum which the
city promised to refund and to double, out of the first
profits derived from the conquered Danish kingdom.</p>
<p>Henry's object in this alliance was chiefly to harass
and annoy his Catholic compeers, and to have a rich
Protestant ally in the complications that were thickening
round him. There was not much result from the
friendship on either side; but for the moment, the
news that the King of England was their friend and
supporter, gave renewed courage to the democratic
party in Lübeck. It also gave them ready cash wherewith
to carry on the war with the Netherlands and
their friends the Danes. For war it must be. This
Wullenweber openly advocated, after various vain
attempts to induce the Danish king to grant the
Hansa's requests. Wullenweber himself had on two
occasions been sent by Lübeck as their ambassador
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">251</a></span>
to Copenhagen, and had returned home furious at
the want of success that met his negotiations. Why
should not the Hansa, he pleaded, once more play the
<i>rôle</i> of king-maker? Gustavus Vasa had proved a failure
and a disappointment to the League, had broken
every promise he had made to them. Let a new king
be put in his place. Those who had helped the
Swedish king into power with a hundred marks, should
help him out of power with five hundred marks, he
boasted; adding that before the next carnival he
should make a masquerade before King Gustavus that
he would not despise. For Denmark too he had his
plan; and this was no other than to reinstate Christian
II., once the enemy of the League. Christian
had always opposed the aristocracy and the clergy,
and had proclaimed himself the friend of the people.
Reinstated by the Hansa, he would owe them gratitude,
so reckoned Wullenweber, and being popular
with the lower classes in Denmark the League might
reckon upon their support. To aid him in this enterprise
the dictator turned to the Count of Oldenburg,
a relation of the dethroned king, an intrepid and intelligent
Lutheran known as the Alcibiades of the
North.</p>
<p>Christopher of Oldenburg, at that time thirty years
of age, handsome in face and stature, was one of those
princelings of Germany, of which the race is not quite
extinct, whose title was their sole fortune and who,
in former days, were willing to sell their services to
any king who needed their aid, and in more modern
times are utilized to marry the redundant princesses
of royal parentage, for whom no match can be found
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">252</a></span>
among the reduced number of reigning houses.
These bold <i>condottieri</i>, whether in search of adventure,
of booty, or of a marriage portion and ease,
had little but their wits to rely upon. Christopher
of Oldenburg, for example, possessed as his whole
patrimony an old convent. He had attracted
around him, however, a band of devoted troops,
free lances, willing to follow wherever he led:
men without fatherland, faith, or ideal, the scum
of all lands, whose desire was bloodshed and booty,
and whose sole religion was obedience to their
chosen captain. Christopher of Oldenburg was not
an ordinary chief. With the military courage of a
<i>condottiere</i> he combined a bright intellect and a mind
of real elevation. He was well educated and well
read. A copy of Homer accompanied him in all his
adventures; his passionate desire was to be a hero of
romance. This was the kind of instrument Wullenweber
required; the man who could realize, appreciate,
and help to carry out his bold designs. And these
were, in a word, to put the Hansa in possession of the
Sound. Possessing this advantage, with two obedient
monarchs upon the respective thrones of Denmark
and Sweden, and enjoining the moral and material
support of the English king, the League would once
more be as in the days of its greatest glory.</p>
<p>So reasoned Wullenweber, and not without reason.
But he was too ambitious, or, at any rate, too bold.
He had not reckoned with the apathy and the
economic egotism that dictated the policy of the
sister towns. He was to play a dangerous game.
He staked his all and he lost.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">253</a></span></p>
<p>Wullenweber's original plan was to attack Denmark,
while carrying on at the same time the war with
the Netherlands. This proposal, which besides being
audacious, meant a great outlay of money, alarmed
the other cities, and, above all, the town of Hamburg.
Owing to her endeavours, a brilliant congress was
assembled within her walls during the month of
March, 1534, when it was proposed to examine carefully
the various points of grievance at issue between
the Hansa and her opponents. There were present
delegates from the various Baltic cities, imperial councillors,
Netherland grandees, and Danish nobles. But
none of them exceeded in outward splendour the representatives
of Lübeck, Jürgen Wullenweber and Max
Meyer, as they rode into the city of Hamburg, dressed
in full armour preceded by the chief of Lübeck's militia,
by trumpeters and drummers, and followed by sixty
armed riders. The timid Hamburgers glanced at all
this military display with some terror, feeling assured
that such a proud bearing meant that the town that
sent forth these men would not easily yield its claims.
Already, before the first assembly of the delegates,
Wullenweber had been regarded with an evil eye by
many of the other Hanseatic envoys. They could
not grasp the ultimate ends he had in view for the
benefit of the League. They thought he was inciting
to needless expense and disturbance. They did not
understand, still less did they sympathize with, the
democratic wave which had swept over Lübeck, and
which had brought two such men as Wullenweber
and Max Meyer to the front. Local chroniclers,
speaking of this meeting of plenipotentiaries, call the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">254</a></span>
Hamburgers "the peace loving," and accuse the
Lübeckers of being "the instigators of the woful
wars."</p>
<p>On March 2, 1534, the Congress was opened by
the Burgomaster of Hamburg in the grand council
chamber of the local guildhall, an historical room,
unfortunately destroyed in the great fire that devastated
Hamburg in 1842. In an eloquent speech the
local magnate described the miseries entailed by the
war in which the Lübeckers had engaged against the
Dutch, and urged that peace should be concluded in
the interest of the common Hanseatic merchants.
The burgomaster was followed by an imperial councillor,
who said the same things in yet stronger terms.
Wullenweber was visibly angered. His anger was
increased when the Dutch envoy rose to his feet and
claimed that it should be laid down as a principle
"that the sea and all other waters should be free to
the shipping of whosoever listed," adding that "if
the Lübeckers suffered damage in consequence, they
should find comfort in God's will and in the mutability
of all earthly things."</p>
<p>This was too much for Wullenweber's temper to
bear. He declared with violence that if the speeches
continued in this tone and spirit he and his colleagues
should leave the assembly, and this, in fact, they
shortly afterwards did. Not only did he leave the
assembly, but the city also, after he found that all the
demands of Lübeck fell on deaf ears. But before
he left he made a powerful speech in the guildhall,
wherein he asserted and maintained that all he had
done had been done solely for the general benefit of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">255</a></span>
the League. He even accused the other Hanseatic
delegates of being Dutch in sympathy, "a thing," he
added, "which they and the Dutch would repent of
as long as he lived."</p>
<p>He was asked to explain his projects. He sketched
a plan almost identical in spirit with the Navigation
Act of Cromwell; it might indeed almost be regarded
as its prototype. When taunted regarding the egotism
of this proposal, when told that the sole purpose
that inspired it was to prevent the vessels of other
powers from deriving a profit out of carriage of goods,
Wullenweber retorted as angrily as Cromwell might
have done, and with the same contempt for the petty
spirits that could see no higher object, nor any larger
or wider aims than purely personal and financial ones.
To Wullenweber's mind there was at stake not only
vulgar profit, but the control and supervision of the
Baltic trade, the maintenance of the Hanseatic
colonies, indeed of all commercial navigation; in a
word, of everything that had made the Hansa what
it was.</p>
<p>The colonial policy pursued by the Hansa, which
had been one of its sources of strength, became a
cause of weakness, and ultimately led to its fall. It
was based in all essentials upon the same principles
as those pursued later by other nations with regard
to their foreign non-European colonies, and which
led in time to the loss of these same colonies. The
chief points were these: that the direct intercourse
and traffic with the Eastern settlements and their
commercial domain were reserved exclusively to
Hanseatic vessels, and that transport by land was
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">256</a></span>
forbidden, because in that case it was not so easy to
keep watch upon business, and to be assured that no
Hanseatic laws were transgressed. Foreign flags
were excluded from all Eastern ports and non-Hanseatic
merchants not admitted to their markets. All
traffic from the Eastern cities to non-Hanseatic
places, and all traffic with these places were to go by
way of Lübeck. This is the sum of the Lübeck
Staple Act, which had a little sunk into abeyance
during the late disorders and which Wullenweber
desired to see fully reinforced. Again, to refer to
England's dictator, with whom Wullenweber had
some points of resemblance, this Lübeck staple was
neither more nor less than the British staple, prescribed
by Cromwell's Navigation Act, when it excluded
foreign flags from American harbours, and
interdicted the Americans from sending ships to any
other European harbour than those of the mother-land.
Two hundred years separated these two
Tribunes of the People from each other, and yet, in
some respects, their ideals and ideas were identical.
But to return to the course of our narrative, which
has been interrupted in order to make clearer the
aims the Lübeck burgomaster had in view.</p>
<p>Wullenweber grew daily more angered at the tone
adopted in the Congress, not only from his opponents,
but by those from whom he had a right to look for
support.</p>
<p>On March 12th, accompanied by Max Meyer, and
the same military train with which he had entered,
he left Hamburg, shaking the dust of the city off his
feet in anger. He was soon followed by the delegates
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">257</a></span>
of the other Baltic cities. The congress had
come to an untimely end, and nothing had been
settled.</p>
<p>Wullenweber's object in returning so precipitately
was twofold. He desired to know the wishes of the
city under the changed circumstances, and he wished
to complain of the colleagues who had failed to
support him. This precipitous return greatly alarmed
the citizens, all the more because during Wullenweber's
absence the aristocratic party had tried to
lodge various complaints against the absent burgomaster,
and to stir up the people to revolt and
discontent. They had even ventured to insinuate
that he was guilty of "stealing and treason." Indeed,
the tumult in the city was so great and seemed so
threatening, that many timid spirits began to think
that discretion was the better part of valour, and that
it would be well to absent themselves awhile.</p>
<p>Into this state of affairs Wullenweber, by his
unexpected return, dropped like a bombshell. He
saw that energetic steps were needful here. He did
not hesitate for a moment to take them. A meeting
of the Forty-six was held, who were charged to
invite the burghers to a general assembly in St.
Mary's Church. More than a thousand persons
replied to the summons. Wullenweber mounted the
pulpit. In ardent words he expressed his patriotic
intentions, and related in detail the reasons for his
abrupt departure from Hamburg. He also complained
most bitterly of the conduct of those who
should have supported him. Next day he addressed
a similar meeting in the guildhall, and spoke, if
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">258</a></span>
possible, in stronger terms, openly accusing his
opponents of envy, and saying he was well aware
that some among them even intended to attack him
at night in his house, and to make him prisoner.</p>
<p>The upshot of his two speeches was that the democratic
party once more gained the upper hand; that
it was agreed that Wullenweber should act entirely
according to his own discretion in the matter with
the Netherlanders; that three of the municipal councillors
inimical to him should be removed from their
place; and that various burghers, whom he designated
as "of Swedish or Netherlandish sympathy," should
either be banished or imprisoned.</p>
<p>With his power thus increased, Wullenweber
returned to Hamburg, and the congress was reopened.
Since, however, he could gain no support
from the other Hanseatic cities for his policy of continuing
the war with the Netherlands, he at last
consented to accept a truce of four years; a truce
which he recognized would leave his hands free for
the execution of his other plans.</p>
<p>Nor did he hesitate for a moment to put them into
action. Riders and foot messengers were engaged in
all directions; the "peace ships" were put into war
condition; emissaries were sent to the sister towns to
explain fully the purpose of the new attack upon the
Scandinavian North, and to ask what assistance they
proposed to render in money, ships, and men.</p>
<p>Wullenweber's plan was really a stroke of genius,
and by no means so foolhardy or foolish as his
enemies have since tried to prove it. It was: to
form around the whole Baltic basin a sort of German
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">259</a></span>
confederation, and had it succeeded, or rather had
it not been impeded by the petty vacillating policy
of the other cities, it would have marked a re-birth
of the Hansa, and there would have been no power
in the North that could have opposed it.</p>
<p>In May, 1534, hostilities began with Denmark, and
Sweden was also threatened with armed intervention,
in case the broken promises to the Hansa were still
left unfulfilled. To the people, the counter promise
was made that they should have nothing to fear from
the Hansa's armies, "if they did not second the arrogance
of their king."</p>
<p>To this Gustavus replied by demanding help from
his brother rulers, saying "that it was intolerable that
the Lübeckers should put up for auction the three
good old northern realms, just as if they were their
market wares."</p>
<p>In a short time the whole North was in flames. At
first extraordinary success crowned the attacks of the
Hansa's fleet and armies, and by Midsummer, 1534,
almost the entire Danish kingdom was in the hands
of the Lübeckers. Then fortune somewhat turned,
and Lübeck had to see an army surround its very
walls, much to the consternation of the inmates.
This danger was however happily averted, thanks to
clever negotiations and force of arms; but meanwhile
things had grown yet more complicated and intricate
in the Scandinavian question. Party faction and
religious jealousies prevented corporate action.
There was a moment when things looked so black
that even Wullenweber was daunted, and the confession
escaped him that "if he were not in the middle
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">260</a></span>
of all this muddle, he should take good care to keep
outside it."</p>
<p>In the midst of these difficulties dawned the year
1535, one of the most fatal in the life of the German
States; a year destined to unravel and settle for ever
the northern confusions.</p>
<p>Such a spectacle as the Baltic presented at this
period it had not shown for many a long day. In
the Sound, in all the Danish seas, in all the narrow
waterways that separated the islands from one
another, were seen waving from the tall masts of the
Hanseatic "peace ships," the flag of the League, and
in the harbours of Lübeck, Rostock, and Stralsund,
more ships were put upon a war footing. There was
likewise seen the white-and-black banner of the
Prussian flotilla, sent to aid the imprisoned Danish
king, while the flags of Denmark and Sweden
fluttered from their respective vessels.</p>
<p>Nor was the spectacle on land less animated than
that on the sea. Troops, mercenaries of every land
and language crowded the shore of the mainland. It
was evident that the encounter would be severe, the
resistance great. The first check came to the Hansa
in the shape of the capture of Max Meyer, owing to
the false information given to him by the Danish
commandant of Scania. Christian III. was proclaimed
king of Denmark, and Gustavus Vasa lent
the new king his most active aid. Things did not
look well for the League, but Wullenweber, though
he grew serious and thoughtful as he learnt the news,
was not discouraged. He continued to confide "in
divine help."
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">261</a></span></p>
<p>A vast number of intrigues were now set on foot,
whose purpose was to alienate or conciliate, as the
case might be, the various Catholic and Protestant
kings and princes; thus giving to the entire quarrel
a party character. Lübeck counted on the assistance
of Henry of England, and offered the king in
return for substantial subsidies the entire kingdom of
Denmark as his booty.</p>
<p>Meanwhile Max Meyer was fretting at his enforced
imprisonment and absence from the scene of action.
In March, by means of a subtle, but not specially
honest, subterfuge, he managed to escape from the
castle that held him, and thanks to his fertility of
resource, and to his popularity, he soon found himself
surrounded by quite a little army, and resolved to
carry on the war in his own manner, and according
to his own ideas. It is said that he offered the
throne of Denmark to Francis I. of France, an offer
which that monarch refused. Nor did he forget his
old friend, bluff King Hal of England, who, in his
turn, seems not to have forgotten him. Though
Henry nominally rejected the proposals made to him
by Max Meyer, it is certain he continued to give him
substantial and moral support, so that, owing to
English help, Max Meyer was able to hold out in the
seaboard castle of Vardberg, in which he had ensconced
himself, until his tragic end. The gateway
over its lintel, bore, till the time of its destruction,
the arms of the Tudor, a delicate compliment from
Max Meyer to Henry, implying that the castle was
in very truth the king's.</p>
<p>The first great encounter of the armies took place
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">262</a></span>
by sea in the month of June. In number and excellence
of ships the Hansa had the advantage. The
Lübeckers were still the best shipbuilders of the
northern world, and many of the Danish and Swedish
vessels sent against them were nothing more than
herring-boats and fishing smacks roughly put on a
war footing. If victory depended on strength and
numbers alone, it seemed assured to the Hansa. Unhappily,
among the many secret methods employed
by the aristocratic party to break the power of the
democratic faction, there existed bribery and corruption
of the ship captains. The usual Hanseatic
concord was absent.</p>
<p>Indeed, herein is to be found in a great measure
the explanation of the ill success of the Hansa.
When Jürgen Wullenweber dreamed that he would
revive the days and glories of Waldemar Atterdag he
forgot that the burgomasters of those days when they
set out for battle were followed by an army consisting
of the burghers themselves, that, for example, in the
struggle for Scania in 1368, no less than sixteen
hundred citizens gave up their lives to gain a
victory for the League. With the increase of wealth
had grown up, as is usual, an increase of luxury and
idleness. Citizens of rich Hanseatic towns contented
themselves with keeping watch in turns at the city
gates, with defending their own city walls, with interfering
in street brawls and keeping order in the town.
But when it came to active fighting, to going abroad
to battle, they preferred to hire the mercenaries with
which Germany was overrun, thanks to the disturbed
state of the land arising out of the continual wars of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">263</a></span>
Charles V. Hence arose the class known as <i>Landsknechte</i>;
hence it came about that in those days
German often fought against German, and that all
true patriotic sentiments were extinguished. The
rich Queen of the Hansa, Lübeck, had of course met
with no difficulty in finding numbers willing to serve
under her flag and to accept her pay, but these men,
as is but too natural, did not fight with that enthusiasm
and ardour which men display when the
cause is their own. Jürgen Wullenweber was of the
old Hanseatic type, but the mould that had formed
him was broken. His contemporaries were not up to
the level of his noble and patriotic ambition. Had
he been ably seconded the whole history of Northern
Germany might have been transformed.</p>
<p>As we have said, the fleets met in hostile encounter
in the month of June. After some heavy fighting
the heavens themselves interposed in the strife. A
great storm arose, driving the vessels of the foes
asunder. Two days later the decisive combat was
fought on land. The place of encounter was Assens,
on the island of Fünen, a spot where human sacrifices
used to be offered to the great Norse god Odin.
This battle of Assens ended in the complete discomfiture
of the burgher army, and there followed immediately
afterwards another meeting by sea, when
the Hansa had to suffer the shame of seeing some of
its vessels flee before the enemy, while others capitulated
in cowardly fashion.</p>
<p>The consequences of these battles made themselves
felt instantly. What Wullenweber had said the
previous year when he was yet the victor was now
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">264</a></span>
realized, "that it was easier to conquer Denmark
than to keep it." For not only Fünen, but Zealand
and Scania fell off from the burgomaster's party after
the defeat at Assens, and did homage to Christian III.
as their king and ruler. Only Copenhagen, Malmöe,
and a few small towns refused this allegiance, and
still offered an armed resistance. But it was not to
be of long duration.</p>
<p>Meanwhile the close of Wullenweber's proud career
approached. It is characteristic of the whole course
of German history, that the fall of Wullenweber, and
the ultimate fall of the Hansa, were due not so much
to external as to internal enemies. Petty jealousies,
"particularism," to use their own phrase, that is to
say, practising a church-steeple policy rather than a
wide and liberal one, has ever been a danger to Germany.
It defeated the efforts of Wullenweber, as it
did those of the patriots of 1848, and of many more
before and since.</p>
<p>In July the Hanseatic Diet was called together to
consider the state of the League's affairs; and on this
occasion a number of the cities, and chief among
them the inland ones, found a much desired occasion
to vent the wrath and envy which they had long
nourished against Lübeck and its democratic dictator.
A number of attacks, some of them of the
most despicably petty character, were made against
Wullenweber. The Lübeckers were told that they
had permitted "irregular disorders," and that it was
they who disturbed the general concord of the
common Hansa. Most bitter of all were the charges
launched by Cologne, the town that had long been
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">265</a></span>
jealous of the power of her northern sister. Forgetful
of the whole course of Hanseatic history, she ventured
to say that it would seem strange to the emperor and
other princely potentates, that a town like Lübeck
should meddle with such great matters as the deposition
and installation of kings.</p>
<p>To this taunt Lübeck replied with dignity, pointing
out that she had no wish either to change the faith of
the kings or to murder them (as Cologne had previously
suggested), but that according to treaty she
had the right to act as she had done, and that she
had acted, not for the sake of exhibiting her own
power, but because of the natural, intimate, and needful
relationship that existed between Denmark and
the Baltic towns. Since olden days no king might
be elected in Denmark without the knowledge of
Lübeck, and on this they had ever acted.</p>
<p>The men of Cologne were not abashed by this
reference to history. They replied that it might be
so, and that the Lübeckers had the right they would
not deny; but they repeated, it made a strange
impression upon kings and princes that the men of
Lübeck should make and unmake kings.</p>
<p>Alas! how were the mighty fallen! What a
degradation of sentiment in the Hansa when the
cause of one was no longer the cause of all!</p>
<p>Some days later, in reply to a similar attack, the
Lübeckers replied, in the old bold spirit that characterized
the Hansa in its best times, "In one thing
they had made a mistake, and that was when they
helped two such worthless men as the kings of
Denmark and Sweden to power, and had further
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">266</a></span>
made them great, in return for which they were now
ill repaid."</p>
<p>Cologne then tried to shift its recriminations on to
the religious ground. Glancing at the excesses committed
in Münster by the Anabaptists, she ventured
to question the benefits that had accrued to Lübeck
and other Hanse cities from the Reformation, concluding
with the shameless words, "In our city we
hang, behead, or drown all heretics, and find ourselves
very comfortable in consequence."</p>
<p>To most of these attacks Wullenweber as representative
of Lübeck had to reply in person. He
knew too well that many of them were aimed directly
at himself. He strove hard to keep his hot temper in
check and to reply with moderation and dignity.</p>
<p>The attitude of these Diet meetings, however, was
but to prove the prologue to the intrigues which were
to eject Wullenweber and his party from power, and
to break not only the hegemony of Lübeck, but that
of the whole Hansa—a consummation the opponents
certainly did not intend. "Those whom the gods
wish to destroy they first strike with blindness,"
says the Latin proverb, and its truth was once more
made manifest by the attitude of the Hanseatic towns
among themselves. They who had ever been so
strong and so united, now no longer held together in
brotherly concord, and weakness and disruption were
the result.</p>
<p>The instrument that was to spring the chief mine
on Wullenweber and his party was found in the
person of Nicholas Brömse. This man was one of
the leading personages of the Municipal Council of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">267</a></span>
Lübeck in the early days of the sixteenth century, and
was burgomaster of the town in the days when
Gustavus Vasa arrived there as a fugitive. Indeed,
he is said to have been one of the most zealous friends
and protectors of the young Vasa. When the Reformation
dissensions began to stir in the city, Brömse
was among the most pronounced opponents of the
purer creed, and repeatedly, by his personal interference,
retarded its introduction. Indeed once, after
it was officially introduced, he succeeded, in virtue of
his personal influence with Charles V., in getting the
Lutheran creed forbidden in the town. In so doing,
however, he somewhat exceeded his limits; his action
aroused suspicion in the council and hatred among
the citizens; and finally, in 1532, he had to resign his
post and fly secretly from Lübeck to escape the wrath
of his enemies. He made his way to the imperial
Court, at that time located in Brussels, and there he
gained the ear and favour of Charles. Thence he
watched with anxious curiosity the course which
events were taking in his native town. He was biding
his time to revenge himself upon the city that had
ejected him, and upon the burgomaster who had
supplanted him in popular favour.</p>
<p>When Nicholas Brömse learnt how the Hanseatic
Diet had censured the action of Jürgen Wullenweber,
he thought that the time for which he had long waited
had come. He employed all his personal influence
with the emperor to induce him to take a decisive
step against the city of Lübeck, and with good result.
For there issued from the imperial council chamber,
June 7, 1535, a decree, stating that unless within six
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">268</a></span>
weeks and three days from the receipt of this document
the town of Lübeck had abolished all democratic
innovations and reinstated in the government
Nicholas Brömse and other councillors banished
together with him, the town would be declared under
the imperial ban.</p>
<p>With Jesuitical astuteness not a word was breathed
regarding Church reforms, but it was fully understood
that a blow was aimed at the Lutheran creed quite
as much as at Jürgen Wullenweber and the democratic
party.</p>
<p>A Hanseatic Diet was sitting at Lübeck when this
decree arrived. A committee was at once chosen to
discuss the acceptance of the imperial mandate. It
decided that obedience must be tendered to the
dictates of the imperial council. In consequence the
democratic party resigned power, and Wullenweber,
who understood well that the whole was chiefly aimed
at him, saw that there remained nothing for him to do
but follow his party.</p>
<p>After delivering before the Diet a speech of great
dignity marked by unusual moderation, in which he
said if it were the will of God and were adjudged for
the common weal that he should retire, he should
certainly not refuse, he laid down in August, 1535,
the office he had filled with such zeal and patriotic
ambition.</p>
<p>It is characteristic of popular gratitude that when
he returned from the guildhall, after completing the
deed of renunciation, he was followed by a crowd that
hissed and hooted him. This people of shopkeepers
turned upon the man who was their true friend
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">269</a></span>
because the wars had impoverished them, had
slackened their trade, and had brought distress within
their walls. They did not recognize, or they forgot,
that they themselves had encouraged the outbreak
of these hostilities, and had applauded and sustained
the man who proposed them; and that had he been
better supported, his plans would have resulted in
their pecuniary benefit.</p>
<p>It is evident that his fellow-rulers among the
Lübeck Council knew that Wullenweber had been
wronged, since they offered to bestow on him for six
years the governorship of a neighbouring dependency.
This he refused, but before he finally quitted office
he took good care that the welfare and existence of
the new creed should not be endangered by the return
of the zealous Papist, Brömse, and also that an
amnesty should be accorded to all political offenders.</p>
<p>Shortly afterwards Brömse entered the city in
stately procession, preceded by a hundred and fifty
horsemen. He proceeded at once to St. Mary's
Church and took possession of the burgomaster's
chair, whence he listened to the minutes decided upon
by the Hanseatic Diet. The decree by no means
pleased his Catholic soul that whatever else was
reinstated, the new religion should be left intact;
but he held his peace and trusted to time, as he had
already done, with good result, while he waited
at the Court of the Emperor Charles. In this one
respect, however, he was to be disappointed. Lübeck
never again changed its creed, or bowed its head to
the Papal party.</p>
<p>But where now was the man to find peace who but
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">270</a></span>
recently had held as ruler both sides of the Sound,
who had dared to fling the gauntlet to two monarchs,
and who had been dictator throughout all Scandinavia?
Notwithstanding many negotiations, peace
had not yet been concluded between Lübeck and
Denmark. Copenhagen was still held by the Hansa's
allies. It is easy to understand that the temptation
presented itself to Wullenweber to make common
cause with them, and to try in yet another form to
gain success for the League. But whether this was
really his plan or not we have now no means of
deciding. The latter years of Wullenweber's life are
wrapped in much mystery, owing to intentional
falsification of facts on the part of his enemies. Thus
much is certain, that in the autumn of 1535 he set
forth on a journey northwards, making for the
province of Halland on the Cattegat, where lay the
castle held by Max Meyer. Probably he wished to
confer with his trusty colleague. His friends tried
to dissuade him from his intention, reminding him
that his road led him through the territory of the
Archbishop of Bremen, one of his most violent
opponents. It was impossible, however, to control or
guide this headstrong and fearless man. Ambition
and self-confidence made him fall into the trap which
his enemies had laid for him.</p>
<p>Nicholas Brömse and his followers, hearing of this
journey, at once sent messengers to the ecclesiastical
prince, and by heavy bribes bought him over to
their side. In consequence, scarcely had Wullenweber
touched the archbishop's domains than he was
seized and imprisoned, regardless of the letter of safe
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">271</a></span>
conduct he bore about him. He was carried off to
Rothenburg, one of the archbishop's castles, and for
some weeks the world knew nothing of his whereabouts,
until his foes had matured their plans against
him.</p>
<p>Wullenweber's brother, Joachim, at that time one
of the Council of Hamburg, was the first to be
uneasy regarding Jürgen's fate, and he succeeded in
ascertaining the fact of his imprisonment and the
perpetrator of the deed. He addressed a letter to
the archbishop, demanding an explanation of this
breach of faith. The audacious prelate replied, that
"Since it was notorious how designedly and presumptuously
Jürgen had acted against the will of
God, of the emperor, and of the spiritual rulers of
Lübeck, and how he had spent a night in his, the
archbishop's domains without his permission, his will
or a safe conduct, he, as the emperor's relative and
as prince of the empire, had held himself in duty
bound towards his Church to take the man prisoner.
Further reasons for this step would be made known
in course of time."</p>
<p>Armed with this insolent reply Joachim Wullenweber
turned to King Henry VIII. of England in
his sore strait, and implored him to befriend the
man who had ever befriended him. To this request
Henry lent a ready ear and he pleaded, but in vain,
for his "faithful and honoured friend," with the
Council of Hamburg and Bremen, and at last with
the archbishop himself.</p>
<p>But Brömse and his party were not the men to
release their prey when once it had fallen into their
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">272</a></span>
hands. They were determined to have their revenge.
They hated Wullenweber; Brömse, in particular, hated
him so much that it was possible for a contemporary
chronicler to declare that he even tore Wullenweber's
flesh off his bones with his own teeth. This no doubt
is a baseless charge. Nicholas Brömse, the patrician,
with the delicate coquettish features of a woman, with
the lily white hands that were noted among his contemporaries,
is not likely to have done such a thing.
He might be false and cruel, but he could not have
been actively bestial and ferocious.</p>
<p>What is certain is that Wullenweber's enemies were
determined to destroy him. So great and powerful a
man could not be simply put aside; he had to be sacrificed.
A truly fiendish scheme of incrimination was
opened against him; so painful and unfair that it
awoke pity even in the breasts of his contemporaries.
Among them, Maria, at that time regent of the
Netherlands, was so deeply moved by the burgomaster's
fate, that she felt herself called upon to
demand that the prisoner should at least be brought
before an imperial governor, in order that his case
might have a more impartial consideration. But
Wullenweber's foes would not listen to any mild or
merciful counsels. Their chief endeavour was to
spread abroad a belief that the dictator had acted
in concert and sympathy with the Anabaptists, at
that moment the bogey with which to scare both
Catholics and Protestants.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo273" id="illo273"></a>
<img src="images/illo273.jpg" width="470" height="550" alt="SCENE BEFORE A JUDGE." />
<p class="caption">SCENE BEFORE A JUDGE.</p>
</div>
<p>The exact means employed to break Wullenweber's
strong spirit during the first months of his
imprisonment are not known. There is no doubt,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">274</a></span>
however, that he was subjected to torture, and that
upon the rack he was made to acquiesce in statements,
many of them quite false, and others distorted to
serve the purpose of his tormentors. Among the
so-called confessions were said to be an admission
of his Anabaptist leanings, an intimation that he had
proposed to murder and kill as many nobles as possible,
that he had abstracted for his own private ends
public and church property, and other statements,
so manifestly out of keeping with his previously
known character and general bearing, that it is
amazing to think how his contemporaries, even
those most opposed to him, could for a moment
have given them credit.</p>
<p>Hero though Wullenweber was in the moral sense
he was no hero at bearing physical pain, and, indeed,
the two qualities by no means go together, nor
does nervous shrinking from pain necessarily imply
moral weakness. The contrary is often the case.
The man of finely strung nerves, to whom bodily
pain is on this account less supportable than to his
more coarse-grained brother, is, for that very reason,
capable of a refinement of sentiment and action
equally unknown to the other. The beef-built man
is apt to be beef-witted.</p>
<p>It is quite certain that all the admissions undoubtedly
made by Wullenweber were wrung from him
under excruciating tortures. Indeed, in the hour of
his death, and in two letters to his brother Joachim,
he affirmed that "the jailer of Bremen, together with
his mortal enemies, had forced him into the admission
of political and moral sins." He says he was
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">275</a></span>
racked again and again, and on one occasion had to
swear that he would not answer in any other sense
than that demanded of him. If he failed in obedience to
this command he should be torn to little pieces on the
wheel, but, so God help him, he knew nothing whatever
of Anabaptists or these other charges. He implores his
brother to make known all this to his friends at Lübeck,
and to beg that some honourable men would search
his account books, and see whether it be true that he
had abstracted State moneys. The brother himself
might come and hang him higher than any thief yet
hung, if he could prove that he, Jürgen, had stolen
anything from the Lübeckers. Finally, he warns the
zealous Lutherans that the purpose of all that he had
to suffer, all that was now being done, was to restore
the old state of things, and that he feared that his foes
would effect this in Lübeck of all other places.</p>
<p>Meantime, King Henry of England repeatedly
demanded of the Archbishop of Bremen that his
"beloved and trusty servant, Jürgen Wullenweber,"
should be treated with more clemency. Receiving
no reply from the archbishop, the king turned to the
city of Hamburg for aid to release the imprisoned
burgomaster. He said he had need of his "innocent
servant" for most important purposes, and pointed out
that it was for the weal, not only of his own kingdom,
but also, and even more, for that of the German nation,
that Jürgen should be freed. Baffled on all sides, the
king demanded at last, that at least the reasons for
this confinement should be made publicly known.</p>
<p>These reasons could not be given, based as they
were on motives of the lowest kind, that would not
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">276</a></span>
bear the light of day and of judicial investigation.
The inquiries, however, caused the archbishop and
his wire-pullers at Lübeck to think it well to remove
Wullenweber from his prison at Rothenburg to some
other more distant place. In consequence, he was
passed on in the spring of 1536 to the custody of the
archbishop's brother, Duke Henry of Brunswick, a
bigoted Catholic and zealous persecutor of heretics.
He confined Wullenweber in his castle of Steinbrück,
a strong fortress situated between the towns of
Brunswick and Hildesheim. The dark dungeon with
its walls ten feet in thickness, with its small door but
a foot and a half in breadth, are shown to this day.
Quite recently this inscription has been put up inside
it—"Here Jürgen Wullenweber lay and suffered.
1536-1537."</p>
<p>Yes, suffered indeed. For a year and a half this
unfortunate man suffered mental and physical tortures
in this hole. On one occasion he was racked in the
presence of Nicholas Brömse and other burghers
from Lübeck, and in order that he might recant
nothing he had previously been made to say, he was
racked twice before this public torture came about,
and threatened with instant death did his answers
vary. The duke was present on all occasions, it
being a special pleasure to him to witness the sufferings
of heretics. At the end, when the questions
and replies were read aloud in the presence of the
Lübeckers and the lacerated man, the duke turned
on him harshly, asking, "Jürgen what do you say
to all this?" "I have said, yes," replied the broken
man, in low tones.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">277</a></span></p>
<p>A letter written to his brother a few days after
this event is heart-rending in its accents of despair
and sorrow that he had been made to incriminate
others by enforced false testimony. He begs his
brother to do his best to make this good; he says he
knows that he himself will lose his life, though he
had two kings of England to friend, but he wished
to save those who had stood by him and aided him.
Brömse and the others who persecute him, know
well that all the accusations are false, but it suits
their purpose to put them forward. "Vouchsafe me
credit; if I am a thief, may you yourself help me
on to the gallows; if I am a traitor, on to the wheel;
if I am an Anabaptist, into the fire."</p>
<p>Thus Wullenweber's confinement dragged on, and
public sympathy for his fate increased. Seeing this,
his persecutors thought it desirable to make an end.
They announced that "the honest country" should
judge Wullenweber. They carried out this proposal
in the most despicable and treacherous manner.
On a Monday morning September 24, 1537, a large
gathering of peasants was assembled in an open
space in the neighbourhood of Wolfenbüttel. From
their midst were chosen twelve farmers who had not
the smallest knowledge of State affairs, and barely
comprehended the question at stake against the
accused. Then the charges made against Wullenweber
and to which he had acquiesced under torture
were read before them. Called upon to reply, Wullenweber
boldly, in a speech of great dignity, denied the
charges, and declared himself willing to die to prove
his innocence. That he should die was unanimously
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">278</a></span>
resolved; indeed, the verdict was a foregone conclusion.
As they were unable to resolve upon the
method it was voted that the hangman should decide
on Wullenweber's punishment. Master Hans, called
on by the judge, said that he "deemed it right and
fitting that Wullenweber should be led forth and
quartered and his body be torn on four wheels, and
that he should be judged thus between heaven and
earth, that he might act in this wise no more, and that
others should remember how he had been dealt by."</p>
<p>But even after this Wullenweber's enemies were
not appeased. They read out three more articles of
accusation against him, articles which the advocate
said he could not hear because of the noise made
by the crowd. Jürgen replied. It was true he had
confessed this while in prison, but under great pain,
and in order to save his body and soul. But in
order that his soul might not lie before the stern
judgment seat of God, he herewith exculpated those
whom he had inculpated while in prison, and begged
his gracious lord (Duke Henry was close by) not
to stain his hands with innocent blood and to bring
therewith his (Wullenweber's) soul to lasting damnation.
He then requested, as a last favour, to be
permitted to speak a word or two with the emissaries
from Lübeck. Most unwillingly the two men came
into the presence of their late chief. "Jürgen, what
do you want?" said one of them, in harsh tones that
roused all the pent-up ire of Wullenweber's soul.
In presence of the miserable instruments of his
oppressors he broke, for the first time, his silence
of two years' standing.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">279</a></span></p>
<p>"This," he said in loud, clear tones: "this is what
you have striven after so long, even four years ago
when you wanted to surprise and carry me off by
night in my house, which God Almighty did not
permit. Now after all you have succeeded, that I
admit before God. But I also tell you before the
whole world, that the last articles are false, and that
what I said in prison, I said under torture and to
save my life."</p>
<p>He wanted to add yet more, but the Lübeckers
were afraid lest a tumult in his favour should arise
among the people. One of them urged Master Hans,
the hangman, to hurry on the execution. But the
hangman had a soul of mercy. He listened to
Wullenweber's prayer, "I have but a short while
left. Let me say two or three words more, then I
will gladly die." And yet again he repeated, taking
Almighty God to witness, that he had in no respect
failed in his duty or his obligations to the town of
Lübeck; that he was no thief, no traitor! Then as
though he had done with his conscience, with the
world, he sank upon his knee, and bent his head
to receive his death-blow. Master Hans severed the
noble head from its trunk with one sharp blow. The
body was then quartered and torn to little pieces
on the wheel.</p>
<p>So perished the last great Hanseatic hero and with
him the Hansa's power. At that time, so great was
the fear of his foes, so blindly prejudiced the masses,
that no one ventured to speak a good word for the
dead man. But that all did not think that he had
suffered justly is made manifest by a few little
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">280</a></span>
trifles. Thus, for example, a worthy Hamburg
burgher of the period notes in his private diary the
fate that had befallen this great man. In the margin
he painted a red flaming sword and underneath he
wrote the words, "This he did not deserve." The
same man writing a few days later and speaking of
his execution and quartering, notes again in the
margin, "Duke Henry merited this." Even the
chancellor of Zelle, one day in his cups, ventured the
utterance that "Wullenweber had died as a martyr
to the gospel."</p>
<p>Yes, he had died as a martyr; a martyr to his
town and to his faith, and the Hanseatic League was
not to see the like of him again. He was no perfect
hero of romance. Indeed his impetuosity and his
excitable temperament, which caused him to be
carried away by his enthusiasms, hindered him from
developing one of those firm characters that excite
eternal admiration and respect; he was lacking in
moderation, and in foresight; but combined with his
faults there were grand and noble elements, and take
him "all in all," he was a man to honour and
admire, a true patriot, a true friend to the people
and their cause.</p>
<p>In the archives of Weimar are deposited and can
be seen to this day, the acts of interrogation and
indictment planned against Wullenweber by his
enemies; curious documents, well worth the study
of a student of humanity, as proving how even
truth can be distorted to bad ends. In one
of them Wullenweber's signature is scarcely decipherable;
no wonder when we learn that he had
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">282</a></span>
just before been hung up for four hours by his
thumbs!</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo281" id="illo281"></a>
<img src="images/illo281.jpg" width="550" height="508" alt="THE RACK." />
<p class="caption">THE RACK.</p>
</div>
<p>Jürgen's friend and ally Max Meyer had not survived
him. He too fell a victim to treachery and
cruelty. Vardberg's walls were subjected to hot
bombardment, from which sacks stuffed full of wool
taken in booty could not preserve them. Then too
the hired soldiery had grown restive, their wages
being in arrear, owing to the delay with which supplies
arrived from England. In the month of May, 1536,
the castle was forced to surrender and open its gates
to the enemy. Max Meyer was promised a safe pass,
a promise that in accordance with the usages of
the time was broken. The whilom blacksmith was
delivered over into the hands of King Christian III.,
who caused him to be put in irons. He was then
accused of all manner of offences, many of them, as
in the case of Wullenweber, purely imaginary; was
tortured, and made to confess to fictitious crime; and
finally, given over to the keeping of the Danish
governor from whose guardianship he had months
before escaped by his happy ruse. On June 17,
1536, Max Meyer was beheaded at Helsingoer, and
his body quartered and torn upon the wheel. So
ended this handsome adventurer, and with his death,
and that of his friend Jürgen Wullenweber, ended
also an important and picturesque episode in Hanseatic
history.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/dragon.jpg" width="450" height="107" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p class="center p4 b13"><b>IV.</b></p>
<h3 class="p4">THE HANSA LOSES ITS COLONIES.</h3>
<p>The prominence which we have had to accord to
the history of Lübeck in the preceding chapters
would almost make it appear as though we were
dealing with the adverse fortunes of only one town,
of a town moreover that was fighting mainly for its
private and special interests and that succumbed in
the combat. But this conception would be wholly
erroneous. In those days the German Empire had
no maritime commerce save that carried on by the
Hansa; this commerce had no protection save that
afforded to it by the League. The League was only
powerful so long as Lübeck with a firm hand and
high spirit held together its various members and
led and encouraged their more feeble and often vacillating
steps. For there were few among the cities
that heartily supported the Queen of the Hansa in
these latter days. At the cost of great and real
sacrifices she insisted that the prerogatives of the
League should be maintained, and if in return she
also asked for some privileges for herself, this can
scarcely excite wonder. It is therefore obvious that
the declining power of Lübeck necessarily brought
with it an enfeeblement of the whole federation.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">284</a></span></p>
<p>After the failure of Wullenweber's bold schemes
and his ignominious death, after the enmity against
Lübeck, and consequently against the League, that
had been fanned to yet greater fury by late events,
it is easy to understand that the relations of the
Hansa to the Scandinavian kingdoms suffered an
entire change. Denmark was the first to avail itself
of the liberty it had regained. The country forthwith
began to draw profit from its "gold mine" the Sound.
Then Norway followed suit. The town of Bergen,
above all, so long oppressed by the League, now took
its revenge. Gradually as the inhabitants beheld the
enfeeblement at home and abroad of their rivals they
withdrew from them privilege after privilege until the
time came that the natives of Bergen recovered both
their commercial activity and their fortune.</p>
<p>The justice of history is less pressed for time than
the justice of man, but it is yet surer and more
inexorable.</p>
<p>This inevitable justice, which punishes the children
for the sins of their fathers, fell upon the Hanseatics
in full measure at Bergen. The time actually came
when it fell to the people of Bergen to advance funds
to impoverished or ruined Hanseatics, and, on the
principle of returning a tooth for a tooth, an eye for
an eye, insult for insult, they advanced these moneys
under the same hard conditions that had been
employed towards themselves. The dispossession of
the Hanseatics was naturally a work of time, but in
course of years it became complete. The last occasion
when the four chief "games" were performed,
which according to a reporter at the Hanseatic Diet
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">285</a></span>
were designed "to keep off rich folks' children from
Bergen and secure the profits of the trade to poor
young fellows," seems to have been about 1590.</p>
<p>It is true that up to the eighteenth century German
merchants retained certain prerogatives in Norway,
but they were no longer the Hanseatics of the League,
they were merely the members of an association
reduced to slender proportions, an association as
impotent to sustain its dignity as to restore the rights
of its predecessors.</p>
<p>Sweden was no less happy in its efforts after
emancipation from Hanseatic tutelage. Gustavus
Vasa laid the foundations for this exemption from
tolls, monopolies, and harassing restrictions. He
taught his subjects the great lesson how to trade to
their own profit. After his position as ruler was
once well assured he did not hesitate to speak in open
court of the German merchants as "butchers," comparing
his predecessors to "good milch kine," and
adding that he should never forgive himself, but
should be ashamed before God and man, did he
sacrifice the well-being of his kingdom to the rapacity
and selfishness of the Lübeckers. And he kept his
word. So long as he lived he checkmated the League
with all the resources at his command, and he left
his desire to raise the commercial prosperity of his
kingdom as a legacy to his son.</p>
<p>Nor was it enough that men had come to hate the
Hansa with that fierce hatred which is felt towards
those who, holding power in their hands disgust
and oppress their inferiors by overbearing conduct.
Even nature seemed to turn against them in that
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">286</a></span>
dark moment of their national life. In the years
following the burgomaster's war, as Wullenweber's
war grew to be called, the herrings which had already
failed once or twice during the course of the fifteenth
century, either entirely abandoned the Scanian coasts,
or came in such small quantities as not to repay the
cost of maintenance of the "Witten." There was
yet worse in store. Not only did the herrings
abandon the Hansa, but they favoured their rivals
the Netherlanders, coming in great masses into their
waters, and thus enriching them at the expense of
their enemies; a circumstance that furnished the pious
preacher Bonnus with the theme for a sermon, in
which he pointed out, to his own satisfaction, how
this was the direct punishment inflicted by Almighty
God, for the war so wantonly entered upon by the
Hansa.</p>
<p>A fresh blow of great force came to the League in
the year 1553. The English, so long forcibly kept
outside the navigation of the Baltic, had suddenly
opened out for themselves a road to the mouth of the
Northern Dwina by means of the Arctic Ocean, thus
discovering the White Sea, and offering a new route
to merchants trading with Russia.</p>
<p>The discoverer of this new ocean route was Sir
Richard Chancellor, who, together with Sir Hugh
Willoughby, had been commissioned by an association
of London merchants, to undertake the search of a
road to China by way of the icy sea. They set forth
in three stately vessels, the <i>Bona Esperanza</i>, the
<i>Bona Confidentia</i>, and the <i>Edward Bonaventura</i>.
For four months the ships kept close together, but
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">287</a></span>
in the region of the North Cape the <i>Edward Bonaventura</i>,
which Chancellor commanded, was separated,
owing to ice and storms, from its comrades—never
more to rejoin them.</p>
<p>Sir Hugh penetrated with his ships as far as the
harbour of Artschina in Northern Lapland, whence
he could not continue his journey, owing to the
intense cold and the lack of means of sustenance.
In this desolate spot, he and his whole crew perished.
Long after, fishermen found their bodies. Beside
Willoughby's corpse lay his journal, which closed
with the desponding words: "Then sent we three men
south-east three days' journey, who returned without
finding of people or any similitude of habitation."
The diary, which has been lately printed, is a touching
record of patient endurance and heroic enterprise.</p>
<p>Meantime the more fortunate Sir Richard had
penetrated to the spot where Archangel is now
situated, and where then stood a monastery dedicated
to St. Nicholas. After resting here, he made his way
to Moscow, where Czar Ivan held his Court. Here he
was received in the most friendly manner, remained
some months, and was finally dismissed with a royal
letter to the young King Edward VI., in which Ivan
expressed his great wish that their two countries
should henceforth approach each other in more
intimate relationship. Nor were these desires of the
Czar's fruitless.</p>
<p>After Sir Richard Chancellor's return, and on hearing
his report concerning the terms under which the
Czar would allow the English to trade in and with
his country, a number of London merchants formed
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">288</a></span>
themselves into a commercial corporation under the
title of "The London and Muscovite Company."
This company once more despatched Chancellor to
treat with the Czar, and the result was that by the
year 1555, mutual trading relations between Russia and
England were established.</p>
<p>Now if an earthquake had shaken the whole of
Northern Europe, it could not have produced a
greater commotion in the entire Baltic North than
did this Russo-Anglican alliance, "The London and
Muscovite Company." The good understanding
between England and Russia was at once recognized
as a danger of first-class importance to all the merchants
along the Sound and the Baltic. They saw
their entire commerce in imminent danger. What
did it now avail them that the Sound had been closed
for centuries against the English ships, if the London
merchants could carry their goods to Russia by
another route? Above all, the Hanseatic League
recognized the danger that menaced both them and
their colony of Livonia, the colony of which the city
of Bremen was wont to boast that it had been the
godmother. What would happen, they asked themselves,
with good reason, if Czar Ivan, already their
enemy at Novgorod, should also take unto himself
Livonia, if he should open its harbours to his new
friends, and thus obtain for himself the mastery of
the Baltic?</p>
<p>In order to fully appreciate these fears, we must
remember that the province anciently called Livonia
embraced all the departments now known as Esthonia,
Courland, and Livonia; in a word, the whole Baltic
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">289</a></span>
coast of the Russian continent. This district was
entirely governed by the Germans. Three hundred
years back a priest named Meinhard had founded the
first Christian Church at the mouth of the Dwina, and
from that time forward Germany had not ceased to
send the flower of its aristocracy, the <i>élite</i> of its
burghers, its monks and its priests, its merchants and
citizens, its <i>landsknechte</i> and mercenaries to these
northern coasts to spread the Christian faith, and to
found a German colony.</p>
<p>Colonists of all kinds rapidly established themselves
in Livonia, and while the industry of the merchants
raised prosperous cities and safe harbours along the
river and the seaboard, the nobles dotted the land
with their castles and strongholds, and the clergy
with their churches and convents. It was a special
characteristic of this greater Germany that it faithfully
retained and reproduced the outward features
of the mother-land. With German speech, German
law and German customs had become naturalized.</p>
<p>On the gates of the citadels the knights beheld the
same coats of arms that greeted their eyes at home.
In the towns were seen the same architectural
features, the same tightly-packed gabled houses,
with their quaint projecting storeys, and their yawning
cellars, for the storage of goods; the cocklofts,
with their heavy, pendant cranes, that distinguished
the northern cities and made them all resemble, more
or less, those toy towns of our childhood that come
from Nürnberg, and are so deftly packed into their
box that, once removed, no unskilled fingers can
replace them.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">290</a></span></p>
<p>The monks and the priests, on their part, formed
in Livonia their accustomed cells, their silent cloisters,
the glory and weird wonder of the Gothic cathedral,
with its tall, pointed spires and steeples, its coloured
glass windows, through which the northern sunlight
broke in soft rays, staining the floors of God's house
with glory.</p>
<p>In a word, everything here reproduced mediæval
Germany. Of the natives of the land there was
little trace, though some of these still lingered in
the country and ventured secretly to pay worship to
their old deposed gods in sacred thickets and on
lonely heaths. To this day Livonia retains its
German character; the German language still reigns
supreme there, German customs prevail, German
names survive. In the times we speak of it was
entirely under Teutonic sway.</p>
<p>Was this rich, important colony to be lost to the
mother-land and to the Hansa that had created it?
No wonder the League was alarmed.</p>
<p>Nor was it alone in its fears. Sweden and all
the West took fright. In imagination, they already
beheld the East—in the shape of Russia and its
barbarous dependencies—descending upon them with
the weapons furnished to them by England. At the
instigation of the King of Sweden and of the Livonians,
who, in 1556, expressed their fears on this
subject before the Hanseatic Diet, the League, desirous
to dispel this European peril, warned the Emperor
of Germany, the Kings of Denmark, England, and
Poland, and the Duke of Prussia, not to facilitate
Russia's projects of invasion by putting at her disposal
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">291</a></span>
either the munitions of war or the means that
would help to civilize her, and thus render her yet
more redoubtable.</p>
<p>To these requests England turned a deaf ear, for
her commercial policy then, as now, was a trifle
selfish and insular. Judging that the distance which
separated her from Russia gave her entire security,
she did not dream of disturbing a traffic which she
found lucrative. Queen Mary, admonished by the
King of Sweden to interdict to her subjects the new
navigation to Archangel, contented herself by forbidding
the shippers who traded with the White Sea
the exportation of arms.</p>
<p>It was not long before the alarms expressed proved
themselves to be anything but chimerical. Danger
first showed itself in the shape of dissension. Livonia,
seeing itself suddenly grown of enhanced importance
to the League, took up certain pretentious airs towards
its foster-mother. It broke through ancient contracts
and statutes, among which was a stern interdict
against trading on its own account with Russia. The
next step was to put the Hanseatic League commercially
upon the same footing as a stranger; and the
Livonians were, consequently, able to turn against
them some of their own laws—for example, that
which declared that guest should not trade with
guest.</p>
<p>Meanwhile Russia, which had now completely
thrown off the Tartar yoke and was beginning to
feel its strength, cast more and more greedy eyes
towards Livonia, with its rich cities and wide seaboard.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">292</a></span></p>
<p>Under pretext of bringing about a fusion of the
Greek and Latin branches of the Catholic Church,
the Czar Ivan had sent successive embassies to Germany,
who there recruited for him workmen, artists,
learned men, and officers, all of whom were to aid in
putting the newly-welded Russian Empire upon a
civilized basis. While there, these men had learnt
the fact that Livonia, which stood under the government
of the Teutonic knights, had been divided by
internal dissensions since the death of the Grand
Master, Water von Plattenberg, who, early in the
sixteenth century, had saved the province from falling
a prey to the Russian desire for conquest.</p>
<p>Ivan, hearing this, felt the moment was favourable.
He saw that the German Empire looked on indifferently
at what was passing in the extreme corner of
its possessions—the German Empire always had the
knack of being indifferent at the wrong and critical
moment—he perceived that the Hansa League
was ill-disposed at that instant to her stubborn and
disobedient daughter; while Sweden and Denmark
glanced with all too loving eyes at the German
colony on the Baltic Sea. He felt now or never was
the time for action. Moreover, Livonia had but one
friend, and that a nominal one, Poland, which masked
designs anything but friendly under the cover of an
amicable alliance; it had but one man on whom it
could count—the present Grand Master of the Teutonic
knights, Gotthard Kettler. But this man,
though of dauntless courage and a true patriot, was
condemned to rule over the once bold company of
Knights at a moment when too long-continued peace
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">293</a></span>
and prosperity had sunk them into sloth, indifference,
and vicious practices.</p>
<p>Under the pretext that a certain toll had not been
paid him, Ivan quite unexpectedly sent into Livonia
a herd of barbarous soldiers, under the leadership of
the erstwhile Khan of Kasan. The money not being
forthcoming, this army took possession of Narwa, a
port just about to enter into the League. Thence
they overspread all the province, burning, razing,
sacking, robbing, and violating.</p>
<p>They met with little resistance. The enervated
nobles—"usually so ready for a scuffle," says an old
chronicler—fell like flies before them, and the strongest
burghs were quietly delivered over into their hands.
Dorpat, one of the strongest, opened its gates to the
invader without the smallest opposition, the citizens
having been seized with panic at their approach.
Here there fell into their hands rich treasure, stored
in the fort, affording them the sinews of war. Reval,
also besieged, turned to the King of Denmark for
aid against its foes. He sent back the Livonian
ambassadors laden with a thousand sides of bacon
and other victuals to stay their hunger, but more
effective aid he could not or would not afford.</p>
<p>In short Livonia was being rapidly broken up and
divided among the various greedy nationalities that
surrounded her—the two Slavonic, Russia and Poland,
on the one hand; the two Scandinavian, Sweden and
Denmark, on the other.</p>
<p>In these sore straits the Grand Master of the Teutonic
knights, Gotthard Kettler, made "the sad plaint
of the Christian Brothers on the Baltic," heard at the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">294</a></span>
Imperial Diet. The Emperor Ferdinand, to whom
the Grand Master made personal appeal for speedy
help, promised his assistance, and did send a letter to
the Czar, begging him to desist from his persecution
of the Livonians; but the letter was so lukewarm in
its wording, and it was so evident from its tenour
that the Emperor had no intention of following it up
by action, that the Czar did not hesitate to send
a very haughty and defiant reply. In this letter he
proved that it was not difficult to find excuses for his
conduct. The Germans, for instance, had oppressed
his subjects; had taken from them their churches,
and converted them into storehouses for their goods;
had forbidden to his people free-trade in their markets.
Some of these complaints were doubtless not quite
groundless, for we know with what a high hand the
Hansa was wont to treat the inhabitants of a land
they had taken under their protection.</p>
<p>Livonia now turned to the League for aid; but the
League had been offended by the late independent
deeds of its colonies, and was not inclined to bestir
itself much. The Hanseatics did not perceive the
folly of their action at the time; they did not observe
that in thus yielding to personal feeling they were
losing their finest, richest dependency. It seemed as
though with Wullenweber all Hanseatic ambition,
clear-sightedness, and enterprise had sunk into its
grave. An able scheme which would have rescued
the entire colony for the Hansa, at a cost of some
200,000 dollars, was allowed to gather dust, unregarded
and unconsidered, in the archives of Lübeck.</p>
<p>The weakness of Germany, the supineness of the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">295</a></span>
League, the cold calculations of the King of Poland,
all combined to deprive the hapless land of support.
It became a prey, on the one side, to the barbaric
vigour of Ivan IV., and, on the other, to the machinations
of Sigismund Augustus, king of Poland. By
the year 1561 the colony of Livonia was lost to
Germany and to the Teutonic knights, and was
divided among the various nationalities that surrounded
it, Sweden coming in for no inconsiderable
portion. Thus fell Livonia, the Russo-Baltic province
to which in those days was assigned the <i>rôle</i>
accorded to the Ottoman Empire by a certain class
of statesmen in our own time, namely, that of a
rampart of civilization against barbarism.</p>
<p>As we look back upon the course of history
and the state of opinion in those times, it seems
almost incredible that this fall should have been
permitted, that neither the Hansa nor Germany
should have stretched out a hand to help the oppressed
colony. Incredible, because at that time
the whole German and Scandinavian Baltic coast
resounded with the cry of alarm that the Muscovite
was seeking to make himself master of the Baltic.
It is true that this result, equally bitter for Germany
and for all Northern Europe, was only accomplished
in the days of Peter the Great; but the foundations
of this Russian Empire over the inland sea were laid
in those times, and Germany had largely itself to
blame for the disasters that happened in consequence.</p>
<p>The immediate result of the loss of Livonia was
that Lübeck became involved in its last war—a war
that was to leave it exhausted. These hostilities
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">296</a></span>
lasted seven years, from 1563 to 1570, and were
instigated by a desire on the part of Lübeck that the
Hansa, though it had lost Livonia, should not lose all
profits accruing from trade with the Russian continent.
The quarrel began by Eric XIV., Gustavus
Vasa's successor, professing that he would reinstate
the Hansa in all her privileges in his kingdom; but
demanding in return from the League far more than
it had ever possessed in Sweden, namely, a factory
and special privileges in every town of the League.</p>
<p>When this was not granted he suddenly chose to
take umbrage at the fact that Lübeck had never
ceased to trade with Narwa, although he had, as he
alleged, repeatedly told the Lübeckers that by so
doing they strengthened the hands of the Muscovite,
the common enemy. He complained of this to the
Emperor Ferdinand, who, on his part however, was
satisfied with the reasons for their actions put forward
by the Lübeckers. Eric who, on his side, was
by no means satisfied, now demanded in the most
emphatic terms that the Hansa should cease all navigation
to Narwa or to Russia, in order that the Muscovite
might not be strengthened by the importation
of arms. He contended that the channels of Finland
were not the open sea, but belonged to his dominions,
and that he had a right to hold sway over them, and
to capture or harass any vessels he found in their
waters.</p>
<p>It is strange indeed to find Lübeck replying to this,
that the open, rude Baltic had been recognized by
nature herself as a free sea; Lübeck which had ever
contended that this sea was an inland lake and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">297</a></span>
should be so treated, that only those should trade in
its waters to whom she, its mistress, graciously accorded
permission. The conclusion of the dispute
was that Lübeck made an alliance with the Danish
king, Frederick II., in which it was resolved to carry
on war against Sweden. The sister towns, apathetic
and most unwilling to fight, did not fail, however, to
obey the Danish king's mandate that they should
at once cease from all trade and intercourse with
Sweden.</p>
<p>On June 9, 1563, the Queen of the Hansa
issued her declaration of war against Eric XIV. of
Sweden. The king, to whom the document was
addressed, referred it with contempt to the magistrates
of Stockholm, saying that "kings must write to
kings, but burghers and peasants should treat with
their peers."</p>
<p>But though Eric was so contemptuous, these
burghers, whom he professed to despise, were to
cause him some uncomfortable moments. Not inglorious
for Lübeck was this last seven years' war
waged by her, and its results might have been of
some consequence had she been supported by the
whole League. But this was far from being the case.
Still she won several important victories, and on one
occasion captured the Swedish admiral's vessel. In
the midst of the hostilities Eric was deposed, and
here again would have been the Hansa's opportunity
had it known how to profit by it.</p>
<p>But in vain did Lübeck counsel union and implore
the other Baltic cities to make common cause and
crush the common enemy. They only replied complaining
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">298</a></span>
of the expenses entailed by this thoughtless
war, and by alleging that more advantage might be
obtained by diplomacy. In the end Lübeck had to
bend to the common sentiment.</p>
<p>Imperial diplomacy was put into motion, resulting
in a congress held at Stettin, in December, 1570, in
which a reconciliation was brought about between
Denmark, Lübeck, and King John of Sweden; and of
which the conditions were, that the Hansa might
trade with certain Russian cities; "so long as the
emperor permitted it;" Sweden was also bound over
to pay some of the outstanding debts which Gustavus
Vasa had contracted with Lübeck.</p>
<p>King John assented, but no sooner did he feel himself
firmly seated on his throne than he too forgot all
his treaty promises, and once more demanded that all
Hanseatic commerce with Russia should cease. He
defiantly styled himself "Lord of the Baltic," assigning
as his claim to this title the fact that to the
Swedish crown had passed the heritage of the Hansa,
both on the seas and in the Livonian colonies.</p>
<p>An Imperial Diet assembled at Speyer shortly
afterwards and discussed these new complications,
and professed great anxiety for the welfare of those
deluded subjects of the empire, the Hanseatics. It
also made sympathetic reference to the fate of
Livonia, and made no secret of its embarrassment and
annoyance at seeing now the Muscovite, now the
Pole, now the Swede in possession of the Baltic.</p>
<p>But the anxiety and the sympathy did not go
beyond words. The Hansa was weary; the empire
was impotent to aid. It is true that Sweden had
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">299</a></span>
offered to restore to the Germans all the portion of
Livonia she had taken for herself in return for the
costs of war, but even this proposal was allowed to
drop. When, by 1579, the Swedes perceived that the
empire made no effort to regain its lost possession,
they quietly assumed that none would ever be made,
and their assumption did not prove erroneous.</p>
<p>Curiously enough, at the diet held at Frankfort, in
the autumn of 1570, presided over by the Emperor
Maximilian who was ever well inclined to the Hansa,
and repeatedly urged them to unity, there was also
present the infamous Duke of Alva, the Catholic
butcher, who murdered human beings to the glory
and honour of God. It was he who urged that by
all possible means the exportation of armour and
fire-arms should be hindered, lest the Muscovite, in
possession of a European army, should one day
bring sorrow not only to the Netherlands, but to all
Christendom.</p>
<p>The German merchant world was to blame, in the
first instance, for the loss of the prosperous colony;
and that this was perfectly understood by outsiders
is proved by the rough utterance of a Tartar
Khan who had been imprisoned together with a
Livonian. Spitting into the face of the latter, the
barbarian said, "It serves you German dogs quite
right that you have lost your province; you first put
into the hands of the Muscovite the rod with which
he whipped us, now he has turned it against yourselves
and whipped you with it."</p>
<p>But the League's troubles were not at an end with
the loss of Livonia and their Russian trade. They
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">300</a></span>
were to learn by bitter experience, what individuals
too have to learn, that mankind cannot resist the
temptation to kick the man or nation that is down.</p>
<p>Bitter ingratitude was first to be shown them by
their ally, Denmark, in return for all the heavy sacrifices
they had made on her behalf. Lübeck was
treated with overbearing contempt, while the neutral
cities were punished, as perhaps they more justly
deserved, for their cowardly policy. Thus Rostock,
which had furnished the Swedish admiral with food
supplies in 1566, was forbidden to trade thenceforth
with Scania; Hamburg, whose ships had been captured
engaged in the same unpatriotic business, had to pay
a hundred thousand dollars to regain them; and
Danzig, too, was fined the same sum by the King of
Denmark for a like offence.</p>
<p>But the keenest humiliation was yet in store for
Lübeck herself, in King Frederick's behaviour concerning
the Island of Bornholm, so long the Hansa
queen's special possession. First a Lübeck governor
was formally ejected by the Danes, then the
inhabitants of the island, encouraged in insubordination
by seeing how the authorities at Copenhagen
dealt with their masters, refused to pay their dues,
finally one of the towns even forcibly ejected
some Lübeck traders. It was ominous that King
Frederick opposed all mention of Bornholm during
the treaties for peace. Suddenly, on the 7th of
September, 1575, he informed the city of Lübeck,
"that as the fifty years' possession, accorded to them
by his grandfather, would have expired on the 19th
of the month, he intended to retake possession of the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">301</a></span>
island." On the city's replying that the peace of
Hamburg had extended their right of possession
which they held for unpaid Danish debts, King
Frederick was not ashamed to reply to the council
of Lübeck, that they should reasonably consider that
this treaty was invalid since his father, who had made
it, was not at that time crowned, and neither he nor
his councillors had been consulted in the matter.
Frederick did not for a moment consider that the
Hansa had in all respects acknowledged the "uncrowned
king," and had helped him into his kingdom.</p>
<p>Lübeck felt too weak, too exhausted, seriously to
resist the king's claims. It sent an embassy to
Copenhagen, begging for the extension of the possession,
held by them as a pledge, for another forty, thirty,
twenty, fifteen, eight, seven, six, five, or at least one
year. Thus low had the Queen of the Hansa sunk,
thus was she broken, that she could beg so abjectly.
She begged in vain. King Frederick was deaf to
entreaties; he saw his rival's weakness, and he
profited by it. Had they not had enough return
for helping Frederick I. to power by holding the
island fifty years? Lübeck was forced to yield; the
only concession that was made to her was, that
Frederick graciously permitted her to convey one
hundred tuns of Rhenish wine free of duty through
the Sound for the space of ten years, to supply the
town cellar of the capital. In the summer of 1576
Bornholm was formally delivered over to the Danes,
and the Hansa lost yet another source of wealth.</p>
<p>For a while the League still strove to carry on
some trade with Russia, at first by Reval, then by
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">302</a></span>
Narwa, but in 1587 the latter town was finally taken
by the Swedes. By good fortune Lübeck and its
friends found in the Czar, Feodor Ivanowitch, a
prince inclined to deal favourably with them. Indeed,
so well disposed was he, that in the year 1586 he
reduced the existing custom dues by half in their
favour, and placed at their entire disposal once more
the factories Novgorod and Plestrow. But in recovering
the possession of their establishments, the
Hansa were far from recovering their monopoly,
which time and events had undermined for ever.
Annoyances without end awaited them from the
Swedes and the Poles, whose territories they had to
cross to arrive at their settlements. They were made
to pay heavy transit tolls; their goods were subjected
to annoying, and often disastrous delays; their ships
were often captured and ransacked by Swedish and
Polish pirates, who were well aware that their devastations
were regarded with no evil eye by the home
authorities.</p>
<p>The last embassy sent by the old and veritable
Hanseatic Confederation to the Muscovite Court, in
January, 1603, only attained their ends very partially,
notwithstanding the truly royal presents which they
laid at the feet of the then reigning Czar, Boris
Féodorowitch Gudenow. The chronicles tell that the
presents consisted of valuable silver-gilt vessels, representing
ostriches, eagles, pelicans, griffins, lions,
also a Venus and a Fortuna. Presents were also
added for the Czar's son, but by an unlucky oversight,
the all-powerful Russian Chancellor had been
forgotten in the matter of gifts; this want of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">303</a></span>
thought lost the Hanseatic ambassadors his potent
favour.</p>
<p>The ambassadors consisted of councillors from
Lübeck and Stralsund, and there went with them
besides a certain Zacharias Meyer, an old Lübeck
merchant, who had lived for many years in Russia,
and knew the language and habits of the people.
The embassy met with little success.</p>
<p>The monarch whose geographical knowledge was
not very extensive, and who confounded the names
of the Hanseatic towns who sent him this embassy
with those that had passed into the possession of
Poland, his arch enemy, categorically refused to recognize
the Hanseatic League as such, and would
only allow the city of Lübeck to be spoken of, which
it seems was less unfamiliar to him. Towards this
city he showed himself well disposed, and very
generous, and said it might establish factories and
storehouses in various localities, according to traditional
custom, and trade freely without vexatious
custom dues as far as Moscow. In return he
demanded only a money duty on the weight of the
merchandise imported, no matter of what nature. In
vain the ambassadors pleaded that the towns could
not separate themselves. The Chancellor exclaimed
with anger—</p>
<p>"Then we will separate them; the Czar does not
know the other towns, and those which he knows
are in the hands of princes who are his enemies."</p>
<p>And from this decision neither he nor his royal
master could be moved. This entirely personal
favour to Lübeck naturally changed the character
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">304</a></span>
borne hitherto by the Hanseatic commerce in Russia,
and helped yet further to fan the fire of discontent
already smouldering in the bosom of the League.
All attempts made by the other cities to profit by the
advantages conceded to Lübeck remained fruitless;
and this city herself, though she seems to have preserved
these custom privileges until the middle of the
seventeenth century, does not seem, judging from
appearances, to have obtained any durable or profitable
result from them. There always remained the
disturbing fact that either Swedish or Polish domains
must be crossed, or a long <i>détour</i> made by way of the
White Sea, where again obstacles of yet another kind
awaited them.</p>
<p>In very truth the Hanseatic commerce with Russia
was slowly dying. Some efforts were made to
resuscitate it by the cities that remained united
when Czar Michael Feodorowitch sat on the imperial
throne. The Hansa's demands were actually supported
by the Netherlands. But even goodwill on
the Russian side was impotent to raise a commerce
which had been practically strangled by the powerful
grasp of Sweden. Gustavus Adolphus, it is true,
annoyed at the new direction commerce was taking,
and the consequent loss to his kingdom in transit
dues, tried all in his power to revive the old movement
upon the Baltic. In this spirit and with this
desire, he concluded various treaties with Russia that
obliged the Hanseatics to pass through his domains,
and especially to touch at Reval, the Lübeckers, who
held their depot at Novgorod, naturally preferring to
pass by way of Narwa. But Gustavus Adolphus and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">305</a></span>
his successors, after all, did not depart from the
previous policy of Sweden. He and they, like their
predecessors, sought to make themselves masters of
the entire Baltic commerce, and to impose their intervention
upon the outside nations, whom they crippled
with custom dues. Various promises of relaxation
which were made to Lübeck by Sweden were ill kept.
The hand of this country continued to weigh heavily
upon all the Baltic coasts, until there arose on the
scene the figure of Peter the Great, who in his turn
reduced them to submission, and who made himself
practically lord and master of the Baltic lands.</p>
<p>Thus ends the history of the Hanseatic commerce
with Russia, which might be said to have ended
already, under Czar Feodorowitch Gudenow, for it was
no longer one League, but only an individual city that
maintained communication with Russia in those latter
days. The confederation of cities known as the
Hanseatic League had ceased to march together,
or to figure by name in the various treaties and
negotiations made after the accession to power of
this Czar.</p>
<div class="figcenter">
<img src="images/tail_face.jpg" width="200" height="115" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/griff.jpg" width="450" height="106" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p class="center b13 p4">V.</p>
<h3 class="p4">THE LEAGUE IN THE NETHERLANDS.</h3>
<p>The successive losses of factories and Hanseatic
liberties in the kingdoms of the North and East, were
of themselves a fatal shock to the prosperity of the
League. It must be remembered that the great
privileges attained by the League in times past in
England, the Netherlands, France, and Spain, were
all based on the monopoly acquired by them in
trading in the products of Russia, Denmark, Sweden,
and Norway. This monopoly, as we have seen in the
last chapters, had been seriously threatened; factories
had been forcibly closed, natives and strangers
had competed with the Hanseatics; the League's prerogatives
and charters had been trodden under foot
and disregarded.</p>
<p>All the efforts made by the Hanseatics at the end of
the fifteenth century and in the early years of the sixteenth
to expel from the Baltic waters their various competitors,
had ended in failure. It obviously followed
that, with the loss of this monopoly, the privileges
extorted on the strength of it would vanish also; and
this was speedily the case, for under what pretence
of preference could the League now invoke special
favours at the hands of the Eastern nations?
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">307</a></span></p>
<p>These general causes of failure in the West were
destined to be complicated in the case of the Netherlands
with the adverse fate which befell the town of
Bruges at the end of the second period of our story,
and of which we have already spoken. The disaster
which deprived the town of its commercial importance
also contributed to ruin the Hanseatic factory
established in that city. Then the Hanseatics themselves
were not wholly blameless, seeing how at
Bruges they repeatedly revolted against paying the
tax enforced for storage of goods, a tax that was a
regular condition in the statutes of the League, and
which was exacted in all its foreign settlements; and,
besides this, there are also other circumstances to
be reckoned with, of a more general character. The
closing of the factory of Bruges was one of many
signs of the course of events. A new spirit was
abroad affecting commerce and progress in all directions,
a spirit against which, as we have said, the
League resolutely set its face, and which it refused to
recognize until it was too late.</p>
<p>After the invasion of the territory of Bruges in
1488 and the ten years' blockade of the harbour of
Sluys, by the Emperor Frederick III., to avenge the
confinement of his son, the city found her trade
almost ruined. Two important branches were lost to
her, by the Italians who brought their own silk stuffs
to the rival market of Antwerp and by the Flemish
cloth-workers who had settled in England and likewise
sent their goods thither.</p>
<p>Under these circumstances the Hansa could scarcely
hope for the continued prosperity of Bruges. The
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">308</a></span>
tumultuous activity that had hitherto reigned in the
factory gave place to a death-like silence. The profit
that was lost to the town fell chiefly to the lot of
Amsterdam and Antwerp, but partly to the fairs held
annually in various localities of the Netherlands,
which benefited by this abandonment and which came
gradually to attract to themselves all the business of
the East.</p>
<p>It must not be supposed, however, that the Hanseatic
Diet did not observe with dismay the visible and
rapid decline of the prosperity of this once flourishing
factory; but what could they do to hinder the general
desertion of its merchants? Could they, reduced as
they were in strength and influence, restore to the city
of Bruges its character of general depôt for the West?
Could they remove the obstruction of the Zivin,
ordered by the emperor, which, by a canal had connected
Bruges with the sea? Were they not themselves
so weakened that their own members refused
to pay the imposed dues, violated all the factory
laws, and traded and made common cause with the
natives?</p>
<p>In vain did various diets send ambassadors to
Bruges to recall to the minds of the faithless traders
the laws under which they were constituted and by
which they were bound to abide. In vain did the
alderman of the factory itself plead with the men
living under his charge. The spirit of individualism
and insubordination was abroad, and since the League
could no longer ensure its old profits to its foreign
members, these no longer found it to their own
interests to obey its behests, many of which they
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">309</a></span>
rightly felt to be antiquated. Add to this, that the
failure to pay the appointed taxes made negotiations
often impossible for lack of means, and it will be seen
how crippled and handicapped was the League in its
relations with Bruges.</p>
<p>The Baltic towns, ever the most public-spirited
and perhaps also the most commercially enlightened
recognizing this state of affairs, had in 1530 combined
on a fixed tariff, which they thought should be paid
to the factory at Bruges for its maintenance. But the
other cities would not listen to this, and the absence
of concord, that of late had made itself felt and heard
too often in the councils of the League, was manifest
again on this occasion. Town after town stated
through its deputies that it would not contribute to
this general tax unless some special favour were
granted to it, unless some special merchandise were
allowed to pass free into the Netherland domains;
the merchandise named being usually that in which
the bulk of the town's trade consisted. If ever an
association gave practical exemplification of the
homely saying of "cutting off one's nose to spite
one's face," the League was doing it at that moment.</p>
<p>As usual Cologne was one of the most restive and
obstructive of all the towns. It actually proposed to
pay a lump sum of a hundred guilders annually, and
so be free from all custom duties of whatever kind.
By the time the dispute was at last decided, and a sum
fixed upon by all the towns together, the dominion of
Bruges had hopelessly passed away from the Hansa,
and the League was busy with the thought of removing
its factory to Antwerp.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">310</a></span></p>
<p>For they finally admitted that they must cut
loose from the old moorings; that it was necessary
to quit the ancient factory, where disunion and
grave disorders had crept in. The merchants who
had deserted had many of them become naturalized
citizens of Amsterdam, or Antwerp, where they
quietly continued their commercial relations with the
confederated towns, without taking notice either of
the confederation or of its factories. Under these
changed circumstances what could be done? There
were only two courses possible to the League: to
afford free trade to the Netherlands, and so renounce
its ancient methods, or to maintain the old system,
and make an attempt to apply its principles in a new
locality. The first course would have been the most
rational, and the most in keeping with the spirit of
the time. But the Hanseatics, as we have frequently
had occasion to see in the course of our story, were
not men easily to lose hold of prey, or to break
spontaneously with a past that had been glorious and
lucrative. They decided in favour of the second
course, and at once set about seeking for the spot
which would best secure their interests. Various
places offered themselves for their choice, such as
Bergen-op-Zoom, Middlebourg, Haarlem, all of which
promised the Hansa considerable advantages, in
order to attract it to themselves. It would, perhaps,
have most inclined to Amsterdam, but it could not
forget that this town had often fought in the ranks of
its enemies, and had put forth in the Baltic a special
activity very prejudicial to its monopoly. Antwerp
was finally decided upon, for it was manifest already
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">311</a></span>
in 1513 that the great commercial movement of the
epoch seemed inclined to tend towards that spot.</p>
<p>The story of the rise of the city into importance is
most interesting. Formerly its houses had been all
thatched with straw. Its inhabitants lived on the
results of agricultural labour and fishing. Since the
English merchant adventurers had patronized the
town, wretched habitations had given place to fine
solid houses; ease and wealth had taken up their
abode among the burghers. As an instance of this,
it may be mentioned that houses which fifty years
previously let for forty to sixty dollars of annual
rent, now fetched four to eight hundred dollars a year.
The Hansa asked themselves, very naturally, were
not some of those good things to fall to their share.</p>
<p>It was in 1545 that it was finally settled by the
Hanseatic Diet that a depôt should be established at
Antwerp, but the negotiations regarding it dragged
on. It was, however, at once decided, that the factory
should become, like the factories of the past, an obligatory
intermediary of all the relations between the
Hansa and strangers.</p>
<p>In 1561, the League was fortunate enough to obtain
from King Philip of Spain the confirmation of the
privileges which they had extorted in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries from the Dukes of Brabant,
and which permitted them to bring in their goods at
a minimum rate, and accorded to them other valuable
privileges. And besides this liberality on the part of
the ruler of the land, the interested city also showed
itself willing to further the weal of the League. The
Hanseatics were offered by the town of Antwerp a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">312</a></span>
spacious tract of land, free of rent, situated between
two canals, on which they were to be allowed to erect
a factory. Besides this, Antwerp offered to defray a
third of the costs, laying down for this purpose the
large sum of thirty thousand guilders. Annexed to
the establishment, which was to be the free possession
of the confederation, was an open public square, that
formed a sort of exchange—free to all comers—where
prices were to be settled, and sales and auctions held.
A public balance, adapted to the weights in use
among the Hanseatics, was to serve in the residence
itself, for weighing the merchandise imported by
them, while the public balance of the town was to
serve for weighing their purchases. Other very
favourable conditions with regard to the exportation
of unsold goods, and of goods in storage and in transit
were added. In return for all these favours, the
Hanseatics had to promise not to abandon Antwerp,
unless very real and serious causes, such as a war or
a plague, should force them thence; and that Antwerp
should enjoy in Hanseatic cities such commercial
liberties as were accorded by the League to the
most favoured nations.</p>
<p>On May 5, 1564, the foundation-stone of the splendid
House of the Easterlings, at Antwerp, was laid,
with great pomp and ceremony, in presence of the
local burgomasters and the representatives of the
League. In four years the stately edifice was finished,
and formerly<a name="formerly" id="formerly"></a> handed over to the aldermen of the
Hansa, and such Hanseatics as were in Antwerp,
who were regarded by the city as the representatives
of the confederated towns.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo313" id="illo313"></a>
<img src="images/illo313.jpg" width="550" height="350" alt="THE HANSA FACTORY, ANTWERP." />
<p class="caption">THE HANSA FACTORY, ANTWERP.</p>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">314</a></span>
The first Hanseatic Syndic General, Dr. Heinrich
Sudermann, of Cologne, then put the finishing touch
to the great work by sketching out for the factory
a projected code of statutes for its internal management.
It was laid before the Hansa Diet for
revision, approved, and at once promulgated. This
code enumerated the qualities requisite for admission
to the enjoyment of Hanseatic privileges,
determined the methods of nomination, as well as
the duties of the various functionaries attached to
the factory, and other details. The accounts were to
be placed under the supreme supervision of Lübeck.
Further, the merchants were to maintain the traditional
monastic discipline, were to live under the same
roof, and partake of their repasts in common in the
great hall of the factory. A few of the rules recall
the old hostile attitude always maintained by the
League towards strangers. All disputes of Hanseatics
among themselves were to be submitted to
the jurisdiction of the factory.</p>
<p>In a word, in the outer magnificence of the factory
building, as well as in the elaboration and rigour of
the statutes, all the ancient traditional Hanseatic
forms had been revived. Indeed, as regards the
statutes, these attained at this epoch their greatest
scientific perfection.</p>
<p>But perfect, correct, traditional, though the forms
might be, they were no longer in accordance with the
times; no longer the expression of the epoch that
gave them birth. It was easy to foresee that the first
adverse breath would dissipate them.</p>
<p>And so truly it proved. Indeed, certain complications
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">315</a></span>
showed themselves before the building was
finished, and foreshadowed the nature of the troubles
to be expected in the future. Money, as usual, was
the touchstone of discord. Various cities refused to
pay in the stipulated sums, others protested against
the regulations proposed. Danzig even went so far
as entirely to object to the new settlement as too
distant from the centre of business, and contended
that the pact of the League with the town of
Antwerp had been concluded too hurriedly, and
without due consultation.</p>
<p>In consequence of these difficulties, the factory,
when completed, found itself crippled, and hampered
by debts, from which it was never able to free itself.
This was an unfortunate start, and was entirely due
to the apathy and bad faith of the cities, among
whom it became more and more evident that the
old spirit of union was rapidly dying out.</p>
<p>Another difficulty was, that the traders began to
object to living in common under one roof. The
reasons in ancient times for this regulation, such as
the defective conditions of public security, no longer
existed in these more civilized times. Merchants
did not care to submit to the often tiresome and
petty restrictions on personal liberty involved by the
monastic rules that existed in the factory.</p>
<p>In vain the Syndic of the League put forward for
the consideration of these unruly members, that the
concentration of all the Hanseatics in one factory
building made the defence of their privileges more
easy, while their dispersion in the various towns and
villages facilitated exactions by the natives and the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">316</a></span>
raising of taxes. In vain he pointed to the example
of England, where the Hanseatics, thanks to their
unity of action and of existence, had kept their prerogatives
intact during three centuries, while, on the
contrary, in the Netherlands the spirit of isolation had
produced in course of time an augmentation of at
least treble their original dues. In vain he demonstrated
that partnerships made with foreigners were
onerous for the Hanseatics themselves, and drew
down upon them the too great probability of conflicts
with the rulers of the Netherlands, who thus would
find their interests betrayed.</p>
<p>Expostulations, appeals to the statutes, and menaces,
proved powerless to change the state of things, or
the direction in which affairs were tending. There
was no longer a strong support to be obtained from
the League as a body, in return for obedience; its
threats were no longer followed up by deeds, it had
grown too feeble to quell resistance, especially such
resistance as was made by towns strong in themselves—as,
for example, Danzig and Cologne.</p>
<p>The jurisdiction of the factory was no longer
respected as supreme by its own members. It
frequently happened, even in the early days of the
settlement, that Hanseatics residing at Antwerp
brought their differences before the local tribunals
instead of before their own court. It is related, that
one day one of the Hanseatic aldermen, anxious to
repress this mode of violating rules, reprimanded a
citizen of Cologne, one Mathern Schoff, on this
account. The accused fell upon the official dignitary
and belaboured him with his fists. The matter
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">317</a></span>
created a scandal and was brought before the High
Court of Brabant. This court took part with the
rebellious Hanseatic, with the result that the authorities
of the factory were forbidden, under the most
heavy penalties, to take any action against him.
They were even threatened with the loss of all their
privileges.</p>
<p>Such incidents, and a number of others like them,
presaged a catastrophe at a time not too far distant.
But circumstances unconnected with the factory
rendered its position still more difficult and precarious
and hastened its fate.</p>
<p>Chief among these external causes was the war
between England and Spain; the war whose
chief incident was the destruction of the great
Spanish Armada by the force of the elements, which
ranged themselves on the side of the English
Queen. This war, which made the navigation
of the seas unsafe, was of course a most serious
interruption to trade. Nor did the destruction of
the Armada bring peace to the Hansa. Besides
this there had broken forth in the Netherlands
the great revolt in the cause of freedom against
the ecclesiastical and civil despotism of Philip II.,
which was permanently to change the whole state of
that corner of Europe, and which for the time being
absolutely extinguished all trade by sea or land.
Glorious as these events proved for the cause of liberty
and of freedom of thought, they were disastrous to
the League. Each of the militant nations interdicted
it from all relation with the other, and security for
commerce was of course quite at an end.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">318</a></span></p>
<p>Now it must be borne in mind that the revolt
of the Netherlands began while the Hanseatics were
still building their new residence at Antwerp. The
League was no longer, as in old days, strong enough
to make its neutrality respected, and the consequence
was, it had to yield to the demands of whichever
party was at the moment the strongest. Thus the
Prince of Orange manifested from 1571 onwards a
desire that they should interrupt their communications
with Spain. As a result, when Antwerp was
taken, and pillaged by the Spaniards, November
4, 1576, the Hanseatics were forced to see themselves
treated not as neutrals, but as friends of the
rebels. Their papers were seized and their goods
confiscated; even their charter was seized and the
price of ransom fixed at the high rate of twenty
thousand guilders. Further, if we may deduce inferences
from the minutes of the Hanseatic Diet of
the same year, 1576, it would seem as though King
Philip II., and the Prince of Orange each in their
turn placed a tax of 10, 20, and even 40 per cent.
upon the merchandise imported by the Hanseatics
into the Low Countries.</p>
<p>The League, in this desperate situation pleaded for
help now from one leader, now from another, but
could obtain no efficient relief or support from any
side. At last in April, 1577, the Spanish governor of
the Netherlands offered conditions to a Hanseatic
embassy which under the circumstances seemed
sufficiently advantageous. It was proposed that to
indemnify them for the losses suffered during the
pillage of Antwerp, the Hanseatics should for twenty
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">319</a></span>
years be completely exempt from all taxes imposed
in Holland or Brabant, and from half the taxes established
for Zealand. Besides this the heads of the
factory were once more to be recognized as alone
competent to pronounce judgment in civil suits
between Hanseatics residing in the Low Countries.
On their part, however, the Hanseatics would have to
submit to the necessities of warfare. Further, full
latitude was conceded to them in the matter of
re-exportation of their goods, unless imperious need
opposed this, in which case they should receive current
prices for their merchandise.</p>
<p>That these promises were ill kept, and that the
factory, scarcely born, was rapidly nearing its end,
is proved by the complaints addressed in 1581
and 1582, to the city of Lübeck by its representatives
residing at the factory of Antwerp. They
pointed out how money was absolutely wanting in the
establishment; that the Hanseatics, resident and
non-resident, did not pay the contributions promised;
that the Spaniards harassed them, and rendered
their indebted position yet more difficult; that they
had no means of enforcing payment, and that if any
one city, or private person did pay, it was out of
pity. Then followed complaints of certain cities,
especially of Cologne, which sent merchandise to
foreign agents. The document further states that
the rooms, cellars, and storehouses of the factory were
quite empty; that the imposition or rather the faithful
payment of some of the various taxes had to be taken
into serious consideration; and that as the canal duties
in Zealand were always rising in price, contrary to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">320</a></span>
treaty, it seemed to the petitioners advisable that
reprisals should be made on the natives of that
territory, residing in or treating with Germany.
Finally, they announced to the city that they were
about to charge an able secretary with the permanent
duties of looking after the affairs of the factory, if
such a plan were pleasing to the town of Lübeck,
and if the factory was to continue its existence.
This last phrase is significant.</p>
<p>Lübeck, in its reply, offered to the factory of Antwerp
mere empty phrases of consolation, promising
in a lukewarm manner to see that the outstanding
Hanseatic dues were paid, in order that a beginning
might at least be made. But it opposed the advice given
by its representatives at Antwerp, to practise reprisals
towards the Netherlanders, because in that case they
would seek for themselves other routes and the Hanseatic
port would remain abandoned and neglected.</p>
<p>One of the Hansa's earliest and most able historians,
commenting on this reply from the city of
Lübeck makes the following very just remarks:
"Nothing betokens more clearly the end of the
Hanseatics' commercial dominion than this last
passage in Lübeck's reply to its petitioners. Formerly
the League would have interrupted all intercourse
with the country that so misbehaved, and would thus
have punished it, would have avenged the very
smallest infraction of its privileges. Now it did not
even dare have recourse to this measure for fear of
completely sacrificing a commerce the pursuit of
which had become possible independent of the Hanseatics."
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">321</a></span></p>
<p>A little later than the documents referred to
above, an Antwerp Hanseatic alderman wrote that
he saw no hope for their body, and that the debts
were of such a nature, so numerous, so onerous,
that within twenty-four hours the representatives of
the factory might be arrested, and the factory itself
put up for sale. This piece of news did arouse
the apathy of the cities. Indeed it created such
alarm that even Cologne showed itself disposed
to pay the stipulated taxes faithfully and regularly,
within the course of the ensuing years. Unfortunately
however at the point to which the Hansa had
come, this tax which was levied on goods proved
fatal to the Hanseatic commerce, already crippled by
other custom dues, while it assured an ever-increasing
advantage to their two commercial rivals, the English
and Dutch. It was in consequence of these heavy
duties, too, that many a Hansa citizen renounced of
his own free will the liberties that had come to cost
so dear.</p>
<p>The Hansa Diet could see no remedy save in their
old traditional measures. These import duties they
insisted must be paid by the towns, and to insure
this they established payment stations in divers
localities of the Low Countries, such as Dortrecht
and Amsterdam. But all these efforts failed to bring
about the needful result, and the chief alderman at
Antwerp was menaced with imprisonment. Indeed,
it is said he was actually confined for some while.</p>
<p>In sore straits, the Hansa resolved to confide the
administration of its Antwerp factory to a manager
and a secretary chosen from the town of Cologne,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">322</a></span>
who in critical moments should seek advice of the
towns of Lübeck and Bremen.</p>
<p>Unfortunately the best administration in the world—and
that of Cologne was perhaps not the best—could
not restore life to an establishment irrevocably
doomed. The few promises made, the few guarantees
given, whether by the United Provinces or by
the Spanish Netherlands, were not kept. Two Hansa
embassies which passed through Antwerp early in
the seventeenth century—the one bound for England,
the other for Spain—halted at the factory to inspect
it. Their official report sent to the Diet was, that
this factory was completely fallen into disrepute and
decay, and that in the general ruin every one thought
only of himself, and the general interest was not considered.
They added, that places formerly bustling
with commercial life had been converted into barns
for the threshing of corn.</p>
<p>A faint new hope was excited by the armistice
which in 1609 was concluded between Spain and the
Low Countries; and Bremen was charged with the
administration of the factory in the place of Cologne.
But this was a mere passing delusion which was to
vanish before the reality; for in 1624 the Spanish
soldiers took up their headquarters in the factory,
and never quitted it until after the lapse of nearly
thirty years, by that time having made its hundred
and seventy rooms entirely uninhabitable.</p>
<p>A very pardonable, and indeed in this case very
laudable, <i>amour propre</i> made the town of Lübeck too
late desirous to restore this factory, which recalled
the greatness, as well as the decadence, of the Hanseatic
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">323</a></span>
League. But the Queen of the Hansa, the
most patriotic, the most energetic of all the cities, was
not supported by her confederates in this costly
enterprise. She therefore saw herself forced to
abandon the establishment to its fate.</p>
<p>Still, before that date, indeed immediately after
the pillage of Antwerp, the trade of the Hanseatic
League with the Low Countries had ceased to be
a commerce placed upon a regulated footing and
ruled by prescribed laws, laws emanating from the
factory and punctually and faithfully obeyed by the
members. A faint activity and revival occurred in
the seventeenth century when the Dutch and Hanseatics
made a mutual trade pact. But this proved
of little profit to the latter, as far at least as their
traffic in the Low Countries was concerned; for, like
impatient heirs, the citizens of the United Provinces
endeavoured to enfeeble their rivals, to whose succession
they looked forward.</p>
<div class="figcenter">
<img src="images/tail_jewel.jpg" width="200" height="151" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/flowers.jpg" width="450" height="108" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p class="center p4 b13"><b>VI.</b></p>
<h3 class="p4">THE END OF THE HANSA'S DOMINION IN ENGLAND.</h3>
<p>The Hansa had been more fortunate in England
than in the Low Countries. Up to the middle of the
sixteenth century nothing had occurred that had sensibly
modified its old relationship with the English
nation. Nor had the factory diminished in power
or the commerce in importance. It is true that at
various times, now the kings themselves, now the
people, had grown restive under the heavy monopoly
of the Hansa League; but, to the kings especially,
the League with its riches, its command of ready
money and of ships, was of great use, and all attempts
at restriction of privilege ended in failure.</p>
<p>But as Russia became consolidated after she had
thrown off the Tartar yoke, so England also gained
in strength after she had once renounced the foolish
desire of making herself mistress of France, and after
the long civil war of the Roses was ended, and a new
and peaceful reign inaugurated.</p>
<p>Henry VII. left the Hansa privileges intact. The
same was the case under Henry VIII., who even
confirmed and extended them. The patron of Max
Meyer, the friend of the democratic burgomaster
Wullenweber, found it to his own interest to have
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">325</a></span>
the theological and political support of the maritime
Baltic cities, and was regardless of the interests and
deaf to the entreaties of his native merchants. It is
true that this hot-tempered and capricious monarch
several times threatened the League with a restriction
of their rights. Once indeed his threats seemed so
likely to take effect that the Hamburgers, in alarm,
advised the Steelyard authorities to remove from the
factory all silver vessels and all ready money. However,
these threats were not serious; they were perhaps
but a ruse to extract more pecuniary or moral assistance
from his allies.</p>
<p>The successive checks, however, which the League
was encountering in other foreign countries were not
without their reactionary effect upon England. Various
discussions arose between Hanseatic and English merchants,
and led to more or less violent squalls, which
were certainly the prelude to the coming tempest.</p>
<p>The Hansa, for instance, complained that they had
been suddenly forbidden to export English goods into
foreign countries, that is to say, countries other than
Germany proper. Above all, an attempt was made to
prevent them from carrying English cloth into the
Low Countries. This traffic the Merchant Adventurers,
an association formed partly upon the pattern
of the Hansa, wished to reserve to themselves alone.</p>
<p>The Hanseatics further revolted against the old-established
custom that made them all responsible
for infraction of privilege, and punished them for the
wrong done by one or several of their cities against
some individual Englishman.</p>
<p>On their side the English insisted with much bitterness
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">326</a></span>
that the German towns refused to render them
justice within their dominions; that they had even
laid violent hands upon such of their compatriots as
were occupied in fishing in Ireland; and that they
had, in the days of Christian II., harassed their
navigation in the Baltic.</p>
<p>During the hostilities between Francis I. and
Henry VIII. the mutual recriminations diminished.
The German Empire supported the English king, and
the League had one more opportunity of playing the
old game that had so often turned to its advantage.
Solicited by both parties to lend its support, it played
off one against the other; and insisting upon the
neutrality of its members, traded freely and advantageously
with both combatants.</p>
<p>It is quite certain that, notwithstanding some vexations
and disputes, King Henry VIII. of England
remained until his death the staunch friend of the
Hansa, as well as of the Low German towns that
formed part of the Smalkaldic League.</p>
<p>The reign of his young son and successor was to
witness the first serious shock to the Hansa's power.
This boy, who ascended the throne at the early age
of ten years, confirmed all the Hanseatic privileges
on his accession. Destined to give some rude blows
to the confederation, he conformed in the first years
of his reign to the ways of his ancestors. One incident
is worth mentioning in order to illustrate the immense
influence which the Hansa had gained in England.
It was the rule, contracted years ago, that the name
of the Hansa should figure in all treaties between
England and France.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo327" id="illo327"></a>
<img src="images/illo327.jpg" width="268" height="550" alt="SIR THOMAS GRESHAM." />
<p class="caption">SIR THOMAS GRESHAM.</p>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">328</a></span>
But after Edward had reigned a few years he lent
willing ear to the requests of the Merchant Adventurers,
all the more readily that their petitions were
supported by Sir Thomas Gresham, the honoured
founder of the London Exchange. This man made
clear to the young king and his guardian, the Duke
of Northumberland, that unless the Steelyard were
destroyed, the price of exchange could not rise,
because the fiscal privileges accorded to the Hansa
weighed too heavily upon the English. Besides this,
the men of the Steelyard were subjects of the emperor,
whom the young Protestant king hated as a persecutor
of his fellows in the purer faith.</p>
<p>Still the Hansa suspected no real danger from
King Edward, and the less so, as they had completely
acceded to his desire that they should abstain
from all trade with Scotland. In April, 1551, a plot
laid against the hated and envied strangers by the
London burghers was discovered. In the course of
the inquiry into the plot, it was needful to examine
the Hansa's claims. Confiding in the goodwill of
the king's councillors, the "New Hansa," as Sir
Thomas Gresham called the Merchant Adventurers,
poured forth a long catalogue of grievances against
the League. It was stated that English merchants
had been ill-treated in various Hansa cities, notably
in Danzig and Stralsund; that the commerce of the
English was hindered in all possible ways; and that
serious loss was incurred by the royal treasury from
the circumstance, suspected to be true, that the Hansa
permitted persons foreign to their association to
enjoy with them the benefit of their privileges.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">329</a></span></p>
<p>In the list of complaints retailed before the king by
the discontented burghers and merchants of London,
and by the Merchant Adventurers who found themselves
less favoured than these foreigners, an attempt
was evident on the part of the English to place on
one footing and to consider as equally prohibited,
the fraudulent importation by the Germans of merchandise
belonging to non-Hanseatics, and the importation
by them of merchandise which belonged
to them, but was not produced in their territory.</p>
<p>The fact was urged that, since the Hansa paid
only the usual custom dues, even for the foreign
products they imported, and for their exportation of
English goods to lands outside the rule of the Hanseatic
League, they were thus able to paralyse with
the greatest facility all English competition in these
different lands.</p>
<p>Certainly nothing better justifies the murmurs of
the islanders against the foreigners than a comparison
of their various commercial transactions.
From these it appears that the English themselves,
in 1551, exported 1,100 pieces of native cloth as compared
with 44,000 pieces exported by the Hansa
League in the same year.</p>
<p>It is true that all these complaints were not new.
But this time they fell upon more fruitful soil. The
government were perhaps all the more ready to give
an attentive ear, as of late the national commerce
had taken a very vigorous start, so that the royal
treasury might hope for considerable receipts, even if
the Crown should lose the duties paid to it by the
members of the League.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">330</a></span></p>
<p>In consequence the representative members of the
Steelyard were cited before the Privy Council, which
after a very brief examination of the claims brought
forward by the Hansa, decided hastily (February 23,
1552) "that the Hansa, an illegal body, the names
and origin of whose members were unknown, had by
importation and adulteration of foreign goods forfeited
the privileges accorded them by Edward VI."</p>
<p>The following day, also in Privy Council, the suppression
of all the old Hanseatic privileges was decreed
and the League placed on an equality with all
other foreigners, none of whom had special favours
granted them. This decision seemed to promise that
at last the English would gain pre-eminence over their
redoubtable rivals.</p>
<p>Meantime, the Hanseatic Diet, informed of this
step on the part of the English Government, sent
over an ambassador to treat with the king and
Council. The result of his efforts was that, in July
of the same year, the Hansa's privileges were re-established
provisionally "as far as was reconcilable
with the justice, fairness, and honour of the king"—so
ran the clause.</p>
<p>Of all the negotiations a detailed and interesting
account has been preserved to posterity in the Diary
of the young King Edward, one of the most interesting
documents for the knowledge of his short reign.</p>
<p>The concession granted to them made the members
of the Steelyard think, and very rightly, that it would
be well for them to put their own house in order, and
of their own accord to initiate various reforms in their
body, reforms much needed, for complaints against
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">331</a></span>
them had been loud and long. They secretly hoped
to be in this wise restored to their former favoured
position.</p>
<p>The disorders, however, in the body of the Steelyard
were not, on the whole, those from which other
foreign factories suffered. The taxes and other
enforced contributions, both from residents and from
the towns trading with England, were punctually
paid, and the finances of the establishment were
flourishing. The complaints, moreover, addressed to
the Diet, that the members of the Steelyard loved
luxury, wine, women, and gambling too well, and
that they rebelled against their semi-monastic life,
were not more frequent from England than elsewhere.</p>
<p>The difficulties were chiefly that trade regulations
were not faithfully observed; that rules of the
strictest nature, on which largely depended the
Hansa's success, were circumvented and disregarded.
For instance, no man who had not attained his
majority was by statute allowed to become a member
of the League and trade on his own account; nor
was one who had not learnt English for at least six
months. This latter precaution was the more requisite,
as past experience had taught that, by ignorance of
the native language, these men were apt to compromise
the interests of the factory. Then there were
other abuses that led to grave results, such as trading
illicitly with natives and then absconding with their
debts unpaid; the whole factory in such cases becoming
responsible for the debts.</p>
<p>In 1553, therefore, the members of the Steelyard
drew up a series of new statutes which they proposed
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">332</a></span>
to lay before the King of England for approval. If
these minutes are well considered it will be seen that
whatever else was dead or moribund, Hanseatic astuteness
was not. The new laws, it is true, tended to
abolish the abuses that had crept into the use of their
privileges, but they did not make the least sacrifice
of the liberties that the Hansa had acquired in the
course of years.</p>
<p>King Edward, however, seemed little inclined to
consider these statutes, or to revoke permanently his
somewhat arbitrary decision—a decision undoubtedly
just towards his subjects. Then happily for the
Hanseatic League, though not for his country, he
died in this same year, and the crown passed to his
sister, the fanatical persecutor of Protestants, Bloody
Queen Mary, as the popular mouth has named her.</p>
<p>The new sovereign speedily made it evident that
she meant in all respects to pursue a different policy
from that of her predecessor. The first to fall
was the Duke of Northumberland, the pronounced
enemy of the Hansa. Immediately after, the queen
showed by various signs that she was graciously
disposed towards these strangers, who had boldly
greeted her proclamation as queen against her rival,
Lady Jane Grey, by draughts of Rhenish wine
liberally bestowed upon the populace at the gates of
her capital. On the occasion of her triumphal entry
into London they were foremost in welcoming her
with pomp and splendour, as we have already
mentioned in a former chapter.</p>
<p>Scarcely was the queen firmly seated on her throne,
than the Syndic General of the Hansa, Dr. Sudermann,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">333</a></span>
waited upon her, attended by councillors from some
of the chief Hansa cities. The result of their representations
was that one of the first acts of the new
queen's reign was to annul the royal statute of
Edward VI. that so grievously threatened the League.
This almost unexpected good result was, it is whispered,
not due merely to Queen Mary's reactionary
policy, but also to the corrupting influence of Hanseatic
gold, judiciously distributed.</p>
<p>Our League thus recovered its entire liberties and
rights in the matter of export and import, notwithstanding
the opposition of Parliament, of the Lord
Mayor of London, and of the citizens. It is therefore
not astonishing that they were willing to show themselves
liberal on the occasion of King Philip's entry
as husband of the English queen; and that in order
to maintain the favour of this couple, various cities,
especially Lübeck, showed themselves far from
friendly to Protestant refugees who sought protection
in their precincts.</p>
<p>A valuable memorandum, drawn up by the Syndic
Sudermann and happily preserved to our times, gives
a vivid picture of what was implied by the Hanseatic
privileges in England.</p>
<p>Taking merely into account one article of their
commerce, English cloth, it appears from this report
that from the month of January to the month of
November, 1554, the Hansa had exported from
England 36,000 pieces of cloth, as against 1,100
exported by the English themselves, a third dyed
and two-thirds in the rough; that they only paid for
the right of exit threepence each piece, while other
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">334</a></span>
foreigners paid five shillings and ninepence; that
they could use their own servants for packing and
expediting merchandise, and so were relieved of
various custom dues; that had they not possessed
these privileges they would have had to buy this cloth
on the Antwerp market, paying about £1 sterling
more for the same; that they further gained £1 on
each undyed piece, which they alone were allowed to
export in this state, and which they resold after
having had it dyed. If it be further considered that
in reality they paid less than threepence a piece in the
pound as custom duties, because the price of goods,
fixed in ancient statutes, had gone up, while the
Hansa still paid at the old figure; if, in short, this and
various other matters be taken into account, it is no
wonder that Syndic Sudermann could prove that on
English cloth alone the Hansa earned, above that
made by other foreigners who traded in this branch,
a sum of about £61,000 sterling.</p>
<p>Small wonder, therefore, that the trade was as much
coveted as it was prosperous, and that the mayor and
municipal council of London did not cease from laying
their complaints before the queen. They literally
pestered her with petitions and demands on this
subject.</p>
<p>For some months the Hansa succeeded in averting
the storm from their heads, but finally the leading
members of the Steelyard found themselves suddenly
cited to appear before the Queen's Privy Council,
and had to listen to a long catalogue of grievances
drawn up by their accusers.</p>
<p>The sum total of these grievances was, that the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">335</a></span>
Hansa did not contribute sufficiently to the resources
of the English Crown; that it was prejudicial to the
English navy, because it refused to employ any
vessels but its own; that it harmed the very quality
of English cloth, for the makers, seeing the Hansa
would be sure to buy, presented them often with
inferior qualities. An amusing complaint is the
following: Whereas, say the memorialists, the Hanseatics
are all bachelors, they greatly injure English
trade at Antwerp, because the increased leisure this
state gives them, allows of their trading more extensively
and actively. Further, they once more
brought forward the time-honoured objection that
the Hansa would permit of no reciprocity, and while
nominally allowing the English to settle in their
towns, crippled their trade by heavy taxation and
vexatious regulations.</p>
<p>That these assertions were not without foundation,
not even the Hansa could deny. They could but
point to ancient charters to justify them in a measure.
The result of this last formal complaint was,
however, that the Privy Council decided that henceforth
the Hansa should abstain from importing
English cloth into the Netherlands, and that the
quantity of undyed goods they might export be reduced
by two-thirds. They further added that any
infraction of these orders would result in entire suppression
of all privileges.</p>
<p>The Hansa, who did not easily own themselves
beaten, and who desired at all costs to hinder their
rivals from supplanting them, sent various embassies
in the course of the next few years to the Court of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">336</a></span>
England. They also once more attempted the
agency of bribery and corruption by means of Hansa
gold, to attain their ends. In vain. Embassies,
seductions, led to no result; not even a letter which
King Philip of Spain was induced to indite to his
wife, the Queen of England, on their behalf, could
modify by one iota the decision taken by the Privy
Council.</p>
<p>Despairing of a good result from these measures,
the League resolved to have recourse to its ancient
mode of exerting pressure upon obstinate peoples,
by threatening to break off all intercourse with them.
The measure was, however, likely to have brought
destruction to them in England; that it did not
was due to the circumstance that the towns were no
longer, as in past days, blindly obedient to the orders
issued by the Hanseatic Diet. The Hansa, issuing
such an order, forgot that they were no longer the
exclusive masters of the North and East.</p>
<p>Such was the state of things when Queen Mary
died, and Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen, took into her
firm and able hands the reins of the English government
(1558). It is true that she gave a gracious
reception to the Hanseatic embassy that waited on
her in May, 1560; but between a gracious reception
and a confirmation of the ancient privileges of the
League the Hansa were to learn that there lay an
abyss she would never bridge over.</p>
<p>That the Hansa's power was effectually broken in
England ultimately was due to that queen and to her
wise statesman, Lord Burleigh.</p>
<p>It was soon felt by the nation at large that, with
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">337</a></span>
the advent to power of Elizabeth, a new spirit was
infused into English life and enterprise. After a
hundred years of weakness, England awoke to renewed
life and vigour, and with vigour awoke ambition.</p>
<p>The Merchant Adventurers, encouraged by Gresham,
put forward their desires; and they, too, asked that
the Hansa should be kept down. These desires were
listened to by the patriotic sovereign. She reconfirmed
all the new tariffs with which the Hansa had
been charged by Edward VI., and she further made
various demands which the Hansa were most unwilling
to concede; for they implied a strict investigation
of the affairs of their factory—an investigation that
they had no wish to provoke.</p>
<p>In the following years an active correspondence
took place between the English queen and the Hansa
cities, which made it most emphatically manifest to
the latter that they must renounce all their antiquated
pretensions; but that, on the other hand, the English
queen was willing to place them in the category of
the most-favoured nation clause, so that they would
still pay less than other foreigners.</p>
<p>The Steelyard authorities, being on the spot and
better able, therefore, to estimate the bearings and
value of Elizabeth's letters and threats, strongly
advised the Hansa towns to conform to the queen's
concessions and demands. They foresaw that worse
things were in store were this not done. But the
League—to whom the smallest and most equitable
sacrifice always seemed an enormity—resolved, before
yielding, to try as a last resource what could be
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">338</a></span>
effected by endeavouring to obtain the intervention
of the emperor.</p>
<p>It is strange that, after the lapse of so many years,
experience should not have taught the Hanseatics
that from the German emperor no effective help
could be obtained. In this case, as in many previous
ones, the reigning sovereign contented himself by
writing a letter of remonstrance—a letter so worded
that it was easily manifest to the recipient that words
would not be followed by deeds. Both the Hansa
and the emperor involuntarily revealed that, even
after the ancient special privileges were withdrawn,
the League would still enjoy great favour in England.</p>
<p>The emperor's letter was presented to Elizabeth by
the aldermen and councillors of the Steelyard. The
queen's privy councillors, and especially the trusty
William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, in reply, made it very
clear to the deputation that they had nothing to hope
for beyond the last concessions offered.</p>
<p>Burleigh was the special object of the Hansa's
hate. This arose, perhaps, from the fact that he had,
according to a contemporary reporter, insulted one of
their ambassadors by accosting him "with almost
indecent rough speech." But Burleigh's speech can
scarcely deserve these epithets, if the complaints and
remarks are founded on his saying, that it was a
bad shepherd who desired to pasture the cattle of
strangers more richly than his own flocks; nor could
they complain that they were excluded, so long as
they might trade as freely as the English, and more
freely than the French, Flemings, Dutch, Scotch, and
other nations.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">339</a></span></p>
<p>The Hansa, blind, unwise, stuck to its old policy,
and like Shylock demanded the very letter of its
ancient bond. It is true that Elizabeth insisted, on
her side, that her subjects should be favoured in the
Hansa towns; that this reciprocity should be granted
was already a clause in the Treaty of Utrecht, concluded,
it will be remembered, in 1474, but it had
never been carried into effect.</p>
<p>It must be admitted that, all things considered,
Queen Elizabeth treated the Hanseatics with a good
deal of consideration and long-suffering, and demanded
from them no more than what she had a right
to demand. When they refused the offer to be placed
on an equal footing with the English the queen issued
an order that their export of English cloth should
in future not exceed five thousand pieces. Cologne
tried to retaliate by putting on an import tax, but it
was an isolated measure, and had no effect.</p>
<p>In a word, the victory remained in the end with the
English Government, on the side of which fought,
not only its own vigorous organization, but also the
disunion among the Hansa towns, which grew more
serious daily, and the grave disorders that existed in
the Steelyard itself.</p>
<p>For some time past serious complaints had been
heard against the alderman of the factory, Peter
Eiffler, a man who filled this high post for several
consecutive years. He was accused among other
things, of having tampered with the funds of the
establishment, of having administered the factory
without the help, or advice of the council; and of
having divided unfairly among the Hanseatic merchants,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">340</a></span>
the five thousand pieces of cloth permitted
to them for export. Further, he was reproached for
having in 1563 made a journey, leaving the Steelyard
and the care of the treasury to young men
incapable of so high a trust, who had done great
damage to the factory.</p>
<p>After all these accusations had been duly sifted,
this unfaithful servant of the Hansa was of course
deposed from his post of trust, but his dismissal
brought no fresh order into the shattered condition
of things. As is frequently the case in the face of
a public calamity, public spirit was extinct. Each
individual thought only of himself, and of what he
could rescue from the impending general ruin. On
the one hand, there was the selfishness of the individual
towns; on the other, the selfishness of the
foreign factories. The London Steelyard, seeing that
the fabric of the League was tottering, tried to save
its individual existence out of the general wreck.
It thought to acquire an independent life, and act
and trade on its own account. Hence when the
League knocked at the doors of its strong-room, to
obtain the funds that should prolong or, as they
hoped, even dispel the death agonies of the other
foreign factories, whether by bribing nobles and
kings, or by sending embassies to foreign courts,
the Steelyard was careful not to listen to these
demands, thinking of the future, when it might need
all funds for itself. It was thus that in 1567, the
London factory, in reply to a reprimand sent it by
Syndic Sudermann for delaying to pay a sum of
over one thousand florins into the public fund, made
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">341</a></span>
known to the town of Lübeck that this delay must
not be imputed to it as a fault, that the times were
not favourable to saving, that the annual expenses
of the Steelyard amounted to eight hundred pounds
sterling, and that other sums no less high had to
be expended by it, in maintaining the factories at
Lynn and Boston. The memorandum went on to
explain that, if the English establishments were not
kept in good repair, they would become forfeit to
the English Crown. Then, again, the Hansa taxes
had grown so heavy that no one could bear them.
If the Diet wished, the Steelyard would be quite
ready annually to send its accounts to Lübeck for
revision, in accordance with the ancient usage, which
however did not seem very firmly established; but,
on the other hand, they would prefer not to act thus,
since they feared lest their account-books should fall
into the hands of their enemies, who by inspecting
them, would gain an undesirable insight into Hanseatic
commerce, and might thus perchance despoil
them of their last privileges. The memorandum
winds up by saying, that the Steelyard would feel
greatly obliged if the League would refrain in future
from making demands for pecuniary help in times
of public difficulty.</p>
<p>If this was not the language of insubordination,
it is difficult to say what else would be. Whither
had vanished the blind obedience which the League
had ever exacted, and till now obtained from all its
members, and which was the source of its greatness
and strength?</p>
<p>Whether all that was stated by the Steelyard in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">342</a></span>
this memorandum was true, it is difficult to decide.
Substantially no doubt it was so, but in the reports
of the Hansa Diets during these years, we come
across frequent complaints of the prevarication
practised by the aldermen of the London factory.</p>
<p>Perhaps we must not blame either the towns, or
the factories too much for yielding to the all-powerful
instinct of self-preservation. When the Hanseatic
towns as a whole recognized that they were impotent
to demolish the rising commerce of England, or to
break the firm will of its lady sovereign, they were
almost forced to desert a cause which was a losing one,
and to work each for their own separate advantage.</p>
<p>Hamburg was the first among the confederate
cities to recognize whither matters were tending, and
to adjust its policy with a due regard to the new
spirit of the age. It concluded a convention on its
own account with England. Matters came about in
this wise. The chief foreign trade of England was
gradually passing into the hands of the Merchant
Adventurers. Now to this company the Netherlands
were closed, owing to the conflict raging between
Elizabeth and King Philip of Spain. Hence these
merchants had to seek elsewhere the depôt which
they had found in the Low Countries for their English
merchandise. Owing to its situation and its excellent
harbour the town of Embden, which did not belong
to the Hanseatic League, seemed to unite in itself
all requisite conditions, and it was indeed towards
this place that English commerce was directed. In
consequence Embden, within a brief space, grew most
prosperous.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">343</a></span></p>
<p>This prosperity, however, speedily proved noxious
to the city of Hamburg, till then one of the great
staple towns for the traffic in English woollens.
Seeing its gains passing thus into the hands of
strangers, the city deliberated whether the situation
could not be changed, and whether it would not be
wiser, more lucrative, and altogether better, to open
its own gates to the Merchant Adventurers, conceding
to them a factory, various privileges, and great commercial
liberties. Thus it would secure the double
profits arising from their sojourn, and from the commerce
that passed through.</p>
<p>In 1567, Hamburg put this project into execution,
concluding a formal treaty with the Merchant Adventurers
for the space of ten years. It was cautious
at first not to name a longer term. The experiment
was but tentative, as it assured those of its burghers,
who, clinging to the old Hanseatic ideas, opposed the
scheme.</p>
<p>That the project was also opposed by the Hansa
Diet will be easily inferred. Bitter reproaches were
addressed to Hamburg by the Diet held at Lübeck
in 1572. They were told that they had been guilty
of treason to the common cause. Their delegates
replied with warmth, rejecting this reproach. They
recalled to the memory of their hearers the treaty
of Utrecht which stipulated reciprocity for England,
and they endeavoured to prove that their townsmen
had acted, not only in no spirit of narrow egoism,
but in the interests of the entire League, since in
consequence of their treaty with the Merchant
Adventurers, the export of undyed cloths from
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">344</a></span>
England had been permitted in larger quantities, and
that the German waters were freed from British
pirates. Further they contended that every town
had a right to think also of its own interests.
Embden had received the Merchant Adventurers,
and had extracted profit from them; why then
should such profit be grudged to a town that was
a portion of the Hansa?</p>
<p>The delegates were able to point also to the
tangible fact, that in the short space of the first
two years, the factory of the Merchant Adventurers
had turned over in Hamburg, the sum of three and
a half million of dollars.</p>
<p>This was all well and good for Hamburg, but
beyond question the treaty still further disturbed the
relations of the cities towards each other, and helped
on the pending catastrophe. And the worst of all
was that Elizabeth could not be induced to reconfer
the old Hanseatic privileges, even after her subjects
had been received by Hamburg.</p>
<p>Still, for the moment, nothing was changed with
regard to the new position taken up by Hamburg,
though the agitation on the subject within the League
itself continued unabated. When the ten years of
treaty were ended, and the Hansa was desirous of renewing
the convention, then the storm broke forth with
fresh fury. Appeal was even made by the Hanseatic
League to the Emperor Maximilian II., who decreed
solemnly that no town might treat with England
without the consent of its allies.</p>
<p>Still the Queen of England did not at once break
off all relations with the Hanseatic League. She
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">345</a></span>
temporized, not being willing to lose for her subjects
the advantages gained at Hamburg which she hoped
to see further extended. The Hansa, on its part,
demanded that the queen should re-confirm its
privileges; then it would accord a factory to the
English. The queen replied that she wished first to
see the factory accorded; then it would be time
enough to speak of the privileges.</p>
<p>In this wise the negotiations did not progress.
Each of the parties was rolling the stone of Sisyphus,
as Elizabeth herself remarked. It was quite evident
that at that moment the queen was resolved not to
resort to extreme measures, and though she threatened,
she did not carry out her threat of putting the
Hanseatics on the same footing with other strangers.
The moment had not yet come. It came later, when
she could do without certain of her imports, such as
raw materials for ship-building and for stores of war,
among which latter gunpowder took a great place.
Then, too, before the defeat of the Spanish Armada
had occurred, England did not feel her maritime
power great enough to venture a <i>coup de force</i>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, each new meeting of the Hansa Diet
put in a stronger light the radical difference between
the policy pursued respectively by the towns of
Lübeck and Hamburg. This difference may be said
to form the tame epilogue to the great tragedy of
Wullenweber's failure and death.</p>
<p>The Lübeckers wanted the old privileges, the whole
privileges, nothing but the privileges. What cared
they for the changed condition of the world's affairs?
Syndic Sudermann's ideal was the restoration of the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">346</a></span>
good old customs in the factories, the continuance of
every measure that in the past had made the Hansa
great. But Sudermann was no military hero, who
could win back privileges at the point of the sword,
or "hold down foreign nations under his thumb," as
the secretary of the Steelyard expressed himself. He
was a learned, well-nourished, well-paid Hanseatic
Syndic, thorough, pedantic, earnest, long-winded. It
is on record that one of his memoranda destined for
the Imperial Diet was so long, that a hundred and
fifty dollars had to be paid in the Imperial Chancery
for having it transcribed—an enormous sum in those
days of cheap labour—and that the imperial councillors
roundly declared that they would not read it at
all, if it were not shortened. He it was who on all
occasions represented Lübeck as her spokesman, and
the ideas he expressed were those of the city.</p>
<p>Hamburg, on the other hand, could not refrain at
times from remarking that the kingdom of England,
like other kingdoms, no longer presented the same
aspect as two or three hundred years ago, and that
hence account must be taken of modifications, and
actions be regulated accordingly. Its delegates
cited the case of Antwerp, pointing out that that
town's prosperity dated from the days it had opened
its gates to the English Merchant Adventurers. Till
then the houses had been thatched with straw, and
the inhabitants had subsisted on the profits accruing
from agriculture and fishing. And now what commercial
activity, what a busy life was to be seen in the
marts of Antwerp, what wealth was found among all
classes of its burghers! To cite one instance alone:
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">347</a></span>
dwellings that fifty years ago were taxed at a rental
of forty to sixty dollars, now cost eight hundred
dollars.</p>
<p>But Lübeck would not recede from its old standpoint,
and would not relinquish its old conservative ideas.
It seemed to have none of that elasticity of mind that
can adapt itself to changed conditions, and profit by
them. It could but plead repeatedly—how far it was
in earnest it is hard to tell—that the government of
the League might be taken from off its shoulders, for
the burden had grown too heavy. As a substitute it
proposed either Cologne or Bremen. It could not
find words to express the sorrow which Hamburg
and other cities had caused by relinquishing the
general weal for their own private good. It said it
would itself retire from the League, in which the old
sentiments no longer lived, were it not held to its
duty, or what it deemed its duty, by the force of old
memories. It could not realize that its system was
antiquated, its ideas played out. Like some old
people, it could neither give way gracefully, nor
assimilate intelligently the new thoughts that sway
the younger and rising generation. Like the old, too,
it overlooked the fact that the young must win, time
being in their favour.</p>
<p>In a great Diet held in 1591 the following resolution
was actually put forward, namely, "that each
town present should declare whether it intended to
remain Hanseatic." This question was indeed significant.
It should be mentioned that during the sitting
of this Diet Syndic Sudermann died—a man who
deserved well of the League, even if his opinions were
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">348</a></span>
sometimes narrow and mistaken, and not up to the
level of the current ideas. Like Wullenweber, he had
reaped nothing but ingratitude in return for his ardent
and patriotic labours.</p>
<p>It is remarkable that Cologne was the first of the
cities to reply in the affirmative, that she wished to
remain in the League, Cologne ever so insubordinate
and stubborn. Bremen also acquiesced, provided
twenty more cities sided with Cologne. They stated
that they decided thus for the sake of their posterity,
since, having once acted, they must go through with
it at all costs.</p>
<p>While all these dissensions were going on in the
heart of the League itself, England continued in its
onward path, evincing that feverish activity of commercial
enterprise that has ever distinguished it.
Elizabeth sent ambassadors in all directions, courted
and bribed the German princelings, distributed her
gold everywhere, and by means of her spies neglected
no means of making herself feared or beloved, or
both.</p>
<p>The League meanwhile had to look on with impotence,
for it lacked resources to do otherwise. Day
by day it was losing its influence. It is true that both
the Hanseatic and the Imperial Diet tried to prevent
the English from settling in Germany; but the towns
that saw their profit in receiving them either openly
or secretly disobeyed commands which neither party
could enforce. As a sample of the replies given to
the Diet by the Hanseatic cities may be cited the
case of Stade, which, when called to account, answered
"That Almighty God had put the English in their
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">349</a></span>
way, and thus sent them some means of subsistence,
in order that the citizens might get a bit of bread,
and keep off the pangs of hunger."</p>
<p>Thus year by year England's influence increased
and that of the Hansa declined. Then occurred a
further cruel blow to the League. In consequence of
the strained relations between England and Spain,
Hanseatic trade in that country and in Portugal had
risen to some importance. The Hansa supplied those
countries with grain, munitions of war, and shipbuilding
materials. Queen Elizabeth naturally looked
on all this trade with an evil eye, and regarded it as
so much support accorded to her enemies. She did
not fail to make the League acquainted with her displeasure,
even threatening to treat its cargoes as
contraband of war. The Hansa in its turn pleaded
that it merely exercised the right of neutrals, and
persisted in not abandoning a lucrative trade.</p>
<p>Then came the defeat of the invincible Armada
which left to England the empire of the seas, and
gave her a boldness and self-confidence which she
has happily never since lost. Sixty Hanseatic vessels
were encountered by Norris and Sir Francis Drake
about to enter the mouth of the Tagus. They were
laden with grain to provision the Spaniards. These
were seized, and no subsequent negotiations ever
succeeded in causing Elizabeth to release her hold
either on the vessels or their cargo.</p>
<p>Needless to say, that this proved the last straw in
the load of Hanseatic grievances against the queen.</p>
<p>Meanwhile the King of Spain, to compensate the
League, and to win it to his side, offered to enter into
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">350</a></span>
a firm alliance with it. But they would not break
with the Netherlands, now in full revolt against King
Philip. There remained only the last and almost
hopeless resort, to appeal once more to the empire.</p>
<p>On August 1, 1597, after fifteen years of nearly
useless solicitation, and when it was quite too late to
remedy matters, the Emperor Rudolph caused an
imperial mandate to be issued at Prague, which
enjoined the English to quit the Empire within
the space of three months. This mandate was
couched in proud and fierce terms against the English
queen, and menaced with severe punishment those
Germans who, on German soil, should put themselves
into communication with the hated Merchant Adventurers
of England.</p>
<p>Great was the joy of Lübeck and of several other
towns at this order, and they kept strict watch that
the imperial mandate should be obeyed. They hoped
from it the most salutary effects in modifying the
resolutions of Elizabeth.</p>
<p>They had reckoned without their host, or rather
they had not duly judged the character of their
opponents. Driven from Germany, the English
found a refuge in the Dutch town of Middleburgh,
whence they conducted a lucrative trade with the
empire, awaiting some happy chance that would be
sure to arise from the now ever active discord in the
League, and that might reinstate them on the shores
of the Elbe and the Rhine.</p>
<p>Elizabeth meanwhile, in 1598, driven to yet further
exasperation by a Hanseatic attempt to hinder the
export of grain to England and Holland, sent word
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">351</a></span>
to the merchants residing at the Steelyard that
they must depart out of these premises and quit England
within the space of fourteen days. The Mayor
of London, attended by the Sheriffs, formally presented
to the authorities of the Steelyard this decree,
which authorized them to take possession of the
building and all that pertained to it.</p>
<p>Ten days after this compulsory taking of possession
the Germans filed out of the Steelyard in orderly
procession. The authorities wrote to the Hanseatic
Diet, stating that, after duly protesting against this
forcible act, they "marched out of the gate, the
alderman at the head, and we following him, sad in
our souls, and the gate was closed behind us; nor
should we have cared to have remained another night
within the walls. God be pitiful."</p>
<p>Thus the last sacrifice was consummated, which had
been long demanded by Sir Thomas Gresham and
his friends, and which the now flourishing condition
of English trade required. In order that the English
merchant might thrive unchecked, he had to drive
away from his midst his old masters, the Hansa, the
men who had taught him how to trade, a lesson the
pupil had learnt too well. Such was the mournful end
of the German Guildhall on the banks of the Thames;
an institution older than the Hanseatic League itself;
the most honourable monument which Germany could
point to abroad of her strength and enterprise. Yet
it is, perhaps, rather the fact that it endured so long,
than that it perished, that should surprise us. It is
certainly wonderful, and much to the credit of the
English, that musty parchments sealed with the seals
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">352</a></span>
of the Plantagenets, should have been honoured so
late, honoured when England's commerce and navy
could boast men such as Sir Thomas Gresham, Sir
Francis Drake, and Sir Walter Raleigh.</p>
<p>Of course the Hanseatic League did not at once
give up all for lost. They intrigued, they negotiated,
they even flattered themselves with hopes of success.
Then suddenly the news of Elizabeth's death broke
up a congress held with this end in view. The
Hanseatics at once cast glances full of hope at her
successor. They trusted he might prove less inexorable.
Experience had often shown them that with a
change of ruler came a change of policy.</p>
<p>But they proved greatly mistaken. The reply
received by the first embassy they addressed to
James I. rudely shattered all their hopes. They
resumed their intrigues at home, trying to stir up the
emperor to hinder the export of wool from Germany,
and to encourage the manufacture of woollen goods
at home.</p>
<p>It was the great De Witt who wisely said that the
one weak point in the German Hansa was that it
was not backed by manufacturing interests. They
were merely carriers and intermediaries, and this
made itself felt in the days of their decline.</p>
<p>Negotiations, entreaties leading to nothing, and
the Germans being impotent to hinder, the English
soon found their way again into the empire with
their persons and their goods, and once more Hamburg
was the first to receive them formally and to
conclude a treaty with them. This time neither the
emperor nor the League protested. It is true the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">353</a></span>
Steelyard in London was ultimately restored to the
Germans, but the old privileges enjoyed with it were
gone for ever. Nor was it, when restored, regarded
any longer as the property of the Hanseatic League
such as we have known it—a compact body, willing
and able to defend its rights. It was rather the property
of the Germans living in England, and this
it remained. In 1853 the Steelyard property was
sold to an English company for building purposes for
the sum of £72,500, by the cities of Lübeck, Bremen,
and Hamburg, the sole heirs of the once powerful
Hanseatic League. The present Cannon Street
Station stands on part of the site.</p>
<p>With the death of Elizabeth the history of the
Hanseatic League as such practically comes to an
end in England. Then followed, quickly afterwards,
the Thirty Years' War, which gave the League a
mortal blow, from which it never recovered.</p>
<p>Even before the last stroke fell, John Wheeler, a
secretary of the association of Merchant Adventurers,
had declared regarding the Hanseatic cities (1601),
"Most of their teeth have fallen out, the rest sit but
loosely in their head." His judgment was verified all
too soon.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/couple.jpg" width="450" height="105" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p class="center p4 b13"><b>VII.</b></p>
<h3 class="p4">THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR KILLS THE LEAGUE.</h3>
<p>John Wheeler's diagnosis of the condition of
the League was too correct. It is true that an
ostensibly official document enumerates fifty towns
as forming part of the Hansa League in 1603, but we
know that at the same time only fourteen had a seat
and voice in the Diet and duly paid their fees.
Indeed, the more we examine the internal condition
of the League at this period the more we wonder,
not that it fell asunder, but that it endured so long.
It had become utterly disorganized and was decaying
fast.</p>
<p>In 1606, the Emperor Rudolph II. evoked a feeling
of alarm among all the towns by suddenly demanding
to see their charters, and to know whence they
derived their privileges and statutes. Thus the results
of appealing to imperial aid, in the English complications,
bore their inevitable and unpleasant fruit. The
emperor's ulterior aim was of course to extract
money from the cities, this time in aid of his Hungarian
wars. As in the days of their glory, the cities
knew how to protect themselves, and how to escape
undesirable inquiries by means of subterfuges and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">355</a></span>
evasive answers. Still the first attempt at supervision
had been made, and was to bear fruit later.</p>
<p>While matters were in this uncomfortable state,
there broke forth the long, terrible strife known to
history as the Thirty Years' War. Its causes are to
be sought for in those most unhappy differences of
doctrinal opinions, which, being rooted in mutual
intolerance, a want of fairness of spirit, and of
dramatic insight into the needs of divergent mental
constitutions, make one man wish forcibly to impose
his point of view upon his neighbour, under the
conviction that it is the only point of view, and
hence the true one. This intolerant and narrow
spirit, which more fatally divides individuals and
nations than any other form of human folly, had
reached its climax in the century of the Reformation,
when not only were Protestant and Catholic opposed
to one another, but Protestants were also divided
among themselves, Calvinist and Lutheran persecuting
each other with an acrimony quite out of proportion
to the gravity of the questions at stake.</p>
<p>The details of this most deplorable war fall outside
our province, and belong to the history of Germany
proper. We can but touch on it as it concerns our
League. When hostilities commenced, the Hansa
were to realize what even the shadow of a great name
implies. Power after power made overtures to the
League to make common cause with them. Gustavus
Adolphus of Sweden, was the first. As early as
1621, he sought an alliance with the cities, and he
counted the more on an affirmative reply, that his
enmity to Denmark was shared by the League. But
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">356</a></span>
they refused his offer, saying they wished to enter
into no unequal bond, assuring the king however,
at the same time, that they desired to remain good
friends with him, and to continue their commercial
intercourse.</p>
<p>The fact was that, seeing the agitated and disordered
condition of affairs in Germany, the Hanseatic League
hardly felt it wise to take any definite step at this
juncture.</p>
<p>Gustavus Adolphus, however, was the more disappointed
at their refusal, since he had been led to
expect different treatment from them. Since the time
he had ascended the throne, his relations with the
League had been friendly. An old chronicler tells
us how some time before the king's marriage, the
"honourable Hansa towns" sent ambassadors to
Sweden to conclude a treaty with Gustavus Adolphus
about the Protestant religion, and also to treat with
him concerning trade privileges. Indeed, the latter
seems to have been their chief aim. But as they wanted
to keep it secret, says the writer, they professed that
they had been sent to congratulate the king upon
his marriage. Gustavus Adolphus received them in
solemn audience, standing and with uncovered head;
no small honour to pay to a confederation of trading
towns. Beside him stood his mighty Chancellor,
Oxenstjerna. After the king had accorded them a
cordial and formal reception, he gave them the
traditional presents, usually only awarded to nobles.
Further, he accorded them free board at the cost of the
city of Stockholm, as often as they did not eat at his
royal table. In order that no mistake might arise
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">357</a></span>
regarding quantity, he informed them that in the
matter of meat alone, they could count on six oxen,
twenty-one fat sheep, one reindeer; and as to drink,
on four barrels of good wine, and three hundred and
sixty Swedish dollars to cover their other expenses.
"This royal treatment mightily pleased the honourable
delegates," writes our chronicler, and no wonder,
when we remember that the men of the Hansa
were famed for the amount they could eat and drink.
No wonder, too, that Gustavus Adolphus thought to
find in them ready allies, if only in return for his good
hospitality.</p>
<p>That the King of Denmark, their old foe, should also
have courted their alliance, seems yet stranger. He
too, was refused. So was France, who, in 1625, sent
delegates to the Hanseatic Diet to sound the members
as to her chances of success, in forming an offensive
and defensive alliance with these once so powerful
merchants.</p>
<p>The most important and strangest offer of all was
the wooing of the imperial delegates in the name of
Spain, at the Diet held at Lübeck, in 1627. It appears
that Spain stood in need of a friendly commercial
navy in order to carry on her colonial trade, as
well as of a friendly maritime power with which to
meet the Netherlands. This idea was in accord with
Duke Wallenstein's project to gain empire over the
Baltic by means of an imperial navy, thus to surround
the imperial crown with a new lustre, and the more
surely to hold within bounds the recalcitrant inland
princes. It was not from pure ill will or haughtiness
that Wallenstein so terrified Stralsund, the town which
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">358</a></span>
he besieged so long and mercilessly, nor from pure
love of well-sounding titles, that he styled himself
"General and Admiral of the Baltic and North
Seas."</p>
<p>The two imperial delegates, who appeared before
the Hanseatic Diet at Lübeck deigned to speak the
quaint formal language that was traditional with the
Hansa League. They were begging for a favour, and
so deemed it wise to assume no masterful tones. The
emperor's word was said to be addressed "to the
honourable councillors and other members of the
worthy city of Lübeck, regarding it as the head of the
most ancient Hansa League." The ambassadors put
before the assembled Hanseatic deputies, that the
Holy Roman Empire, in its entirety, and the venerable
German Hansa towns in particular, had suffered
grievously from the restraint on free navigation which
had been imposed on them by foreign potentates;
and that the German nation had thus the bread
taken out of their very mouths. Therefore it was
the emperor's earnest and ardent desire to befriend
the towns, and to restore the nation to its former
reputation and grandeur. A most useful alliance
would be proposed to them, and this proposal did
not come from a foreign power, but was put forward
under the emperor's patronage and protection. The
facts were these,—Spain had for some time past
declared itself willing to enter into an agreement,
that all the merchandise, whether exported from or
imported into the Spanish dominions, should only
pertain to the natives of the German Empire or to
Spanish subjects.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">359</a></span></p>
<p>The emperor through his ambassadors admitted
that this proposal had at first sight seemed to him
somewhat grave, and requiring consideration, but
those competent to judge had demonstrated to him,
that such direct importation of Spanish and Indian
wares into Germany would benefit, not alone the
Hansa towns, but the whole of Germany, and would
serve to compensate for the privations and sacrifices
imposed by the most unhappy war.</p>
<p>The emperor went on to add, that he had ever
noted in Lübeck a very true and German frankness
and fidelity, and that he did not doubt that Lübeck
would carefully consider this proposal, in concert with
the sister towns, in order that, after the compact had
been duly concluded between the emperor and the
King of Spain, it might be openly confirmed with the
help and advice of the Hansa towns.</p>
<p>This was the smooth speaking in which the Hansa's
imperial masters chose to indulge when it suited their
imperial purpose. But decrepit, weakened though
the Hansa was, it was not easy to catch it napping.
Our wary merchants felt convinced there was some
ulterior motive at the bottom of this sudden graciousness,
and considered the imperial proposal very
carefully and thoroughly. What could it mean, that
of a sudden these jealous Spaniards were willing to
share the monopoly of their whole colonial trade with
the Hansa towns? Our cities feared the Spaniards,
even when they came laden with gifts. When
we recall, said these traders, the incessant and
endless annoyances which our merchants have endured
during two centuries while doing business
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">360</a></span>
with Spain and Portugal, the arrogant demands, the
petty frauds and meanness of the Spanish consuls
in the Hanseatic towns, we must confess that this
previous knowledge of the character of our would-be
allies does not lead us to trust their new, gracious,
and friendly offers. They remembered, further, how
a certain consul, called De Roy, was never named in
their minutes, other than as the "arch enemy of the
Hansa towns." They recalled, too, the project of a
maritime commercial company (an <i>Amirantazgo</i>),
proposed some time back by Spain between the Low
Germans and Netherlands, which had revealed to the
acute Hanseatics that Spain was deficient in ships and
in capital, and that its real purpose was to obtain a
fleet for itself on terms as cheap as possible. No,
decidedly, the Spanish offers were not to be thought of.</p>
<p>Moreover, the Hanseatics very naturally feared an
inevitable breach with their Scandinavian neighbours
if they accepted. They foresaw, too, that their adhesion
to the plan would give the emperor a sort of
right to interfere in their commerce and internal
arrangements. They had a wholesome fear, not without
cause, of being placed under the most Catholic
protectorate of Spain, and, looking ahead, thought
they beheld, hidden beneath these velvet offers, the
claws of the terrible, abominable Inquisition.</p>
<p>The whole project was therefore allowed to remain
a project. To the imperial spokesmen were presented
respectively four thousand and two thousand
dollars, and the Diet resolved to place the proposal
<i>ad referendum</i>. This meant that it was shelved once
and for ever.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">361</a></span></p>
<p>Nor did the Diet have cause to regret its decision,
for soon after the King of Denmark, at that moment
trying to ingratiate himself with them, sent for their
perusal letters which he had intercepted. These
communications were from the emperor, authorizing
Count Tilly to secure the cities of Lübeck, Hamburg,
Bremen, Stade, &c. So much for the sincerity
of this monarch's vaunted friendship.</p>
<p>And now the war storm long brewing broke over
Northern Europe. Germany was to pay heavily for
her want of religious unity, or at least the want of
mutual forbearance among her people. At first the
Hansa towns had hoped that as usual their claims
for neutrality would be regarded, but Tilly refused
to listen to this, probably owing to his secret
instructions from the emperor. All the northern
towns had to suffer the full horrors of the war-curse,
and they suffered hardly less at the hands of their
friends than at those of their enemies. Both proved
equally merciless. In order to escape having a
military occupation within its walls, Rostock had once
to pay 100,000 dollars, and another time 150,000
dollars, Wismar was taxed to the sum of 200,000
dollars; and Hamburg a sum yet higher. Magdeburg's
fate was even more sad; it was besieged by
the imperial army, pillaged, and given to the flames.</p>
<p>Imperial authority had never appeared so redoubtable
to these free cities, or so injurious to their
religious liberties and their political integrity.
Wallenstein and Count Schwarzenberg even went
the length of demanding the Hansa's ships, in
order to use them for pursuing the foes of their
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">362</a></span>
imperial master upon the high seas, and it is easy
to understand how, in presence of an armed force
of a hundred thousand men, it was vain for the
Hanseatic Diet to object that their deputies had
received no instructions which could warrant them
in acceding to such a proposal.</p>
<p>The ports of Rostock, Warnemunde, and the
town of Wismar were all occupied by the Imperialists,
who were also engaged in besieging
Stralsund.</p>
<p>The history of this siege and the heroism displayed
by this city are among the most notable
features in the Thirty Years' War. Wallenstein had
rightly judged it as most important for his purpose
from its geographical position, and had determined it
should be his. As Schiller says in his play <i>Wallenstein's
Lager</i>, he had sworn—</p>
<div class="poem">
<p class="o1">
"Rühmt sich mit seinem gottlosen Mund</p>
<p>Er müsse haben die Stadt Stralsund,</p>
<p>Und wär' sie mit Ketten an den Himmel geschlossen."</p>
</div>
<p>This town which, thanks to some succour from
outside, succeeded in wearing out the enemy, proved
what bravery can do even under the most unfavourable
conditions. At the same time the episode throws
a fierce light on the low condition into which the
League had fallen. In vain did the city of Stralsund
appeal to the Diet and to the sister cities for
help. It was only after long reflection and many
debates that it was decided to advance to this unlucky
friend the meagre sum of fifteen thousand
dollars, and this at interest of 5 per cent.
</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo363" id="illo363"></a>
<img src="images/illo363.jpg" width="342" height="550" alt="RATH-HAUS, MÜNSTER." />
<p class="caption">RATH-HAUS, MÜNSTER.</p>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">364</a></span></p>
<p>These merchants, once princely and noble, at least
in their dealings among themselves, had sunk to
shopkeepers even in the domestic circle. The fact
is, that defeat and terror had paralysed and prostrated
them. Instead of making such a firm resistance
as they would have done in the past, they
had now recourse only to the feeble weapons of tears
and entreaties in order to procure some gentler
treatment for those of their members who had fallen
into the enemy's hands. Most frequently, too, these
humiliating steps proved quite futile, and were
answered according to the temperaments of the
generals-in-chief—brusquely and rudely by Tilly,
politely and cunningly by Duke Wallenstein.</p>
<p>Meanwhile matters went from bad to worse for
the Hansa towns and for Germany. Even when
the empire achieved victories, the people had grown
too impoverished and too enervated to profit by
them. The story of this long-confused conflict of
thirty years' duration is one of the saddest and most
depressing in European history.</p>
<p>When in 1648 the peace of Westphalia was at
last concluded, it nominally restored calm to the
whole northern world, including the Hansa towns.
But the League to all intents and purposes was at an
end. The peace could restore neither its power, nor
its union, and the confederation which seemed to
have sunk in deep sleep during the war, awoke from
its long repose only to find itself deprived of nearly
all its members, and powerless to continue any longer
its enfeebled existence.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/king.jpg" width="450" height="108" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p class="center p4 b13"><b>VIII.</b></p>
<h3 class="p4">THE SURVIVORS.</h3>
<p>Although the peace of Westphalia found the
Hansa hopelessly broken, yet it was not until after
this event that the various members fully realized
their condition. Until then they had anticipated a
resuscitation with the advent of political calm. When
the Hanseatic deputies had assembled at the Diet of
1628, the last of which an official record exists, they
had voted to postpone to a more convenient season
all proposals that were brought forward for consideration.
This Diet revealed the confusion into which
the Hanseatic accounts had fallen. Still even on
this occasion various cities pleaded for re-admission
into the union. It throws a sad light upon the
character of the delegates to read that those of
Brunswick, reporting to that city the history of this
Diet, should lay great and detailed stress upon the
fact that they had not been regaled with the customary
wine of honour and the wonted supply of cakes!</p>
<p>All that was achieved on this occasion was that
the cities of Lübeck, Bremen, and Hamburg, were
charged with the protection of the Hanseatic interests,
in the name of all the other cities, so far as such
interests could at present be said to be at stake.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">366</a></span></p>
<p>Yet another Diet was summoned in February,
1630, at Lübeck. On this occasion there occurred
what of late had not been unusual, namely, that no
Hanseatic delegates appeared, with the exception of
those of Bremen and Lübeck.</p>
<p>It is a picturesque historical invention, but, unfortunately,
like most picturesque legends, quite
untrue, that on this occasion all the members of the
most ancient German Hansa put in an appearance,
and in Lübeck's Hansa Saal decreed, in all solemnity,
its own dissolution; that, in short, the Hansa
was present at its own funeral. As the Hansa never
had an actual foundation day, so it had no day of
dissolution. As its growth had been gradual, the
result of time and circumstance, so was its decay. It
had been built up imperceptibly, it passed away
almost as imperceptibly.</p>
<p>After the Diet of 1630, and again in 1641, the
three cities above named—Lübeck, Bremen, and
Hamburg—made still closer their friendly alliance,
erecting a species of new Hansa upon the ruins of
the old. With great modifications this compact survived
down to our own times, and was not dissolved
until forcibly rent asunder, as disturbing to Prussian
ambition and to Prussian ideas of protective trade.
For these cities kept up a species of free trade, while
all the rest of Germany was protective, and to this
day, though despoiled and shorn of their honour, the
cities call themselves proudly the Hanseatic towns.
In those days their main endeavour was to save as
much as possible from the general wreck, and to try
and keep alive the spirit of the League, of which
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">368</a></span>
most ambitiously they retained the name. They
believed, indeed the other cities believed too, that
with the restoration of peace they could establish
themselves upon the old foundations.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo367" id="illo367"></a>
<img src="images/illo367.jpg" width="362" height="550" alt="RATH-HAUS, LÜBECK." />
<p class="caption">RATH-HAUS, LÜBECK.</p>
</div>
<p>This vain, daring hope, so common to all who suffer
from incurable disease, did not quit them till the conclusion
of the peace so ardently desired. This peace
inaugurated a state of things incompatible with the
commercial tendencies of the Hanseatics, and showed
indisputably the futility of their hopes.</p>
<p>Yet with that doggedness or obtuseness which prevents
a man from knowing when he is beaten, and
which was at all times both the strength and weakness
of the Hansa, even after facts had been made
plain to them, they still refused absolutely to accept
them. They still hoped against hope, to shape the
course of events, and as usual Lübeck the energetic
was to the front in these endeavours.</p>
<p>After the peace of Westphalia, this city tried
repeatedly to organize a Hanseatic Diet in the old
style. It was not until 1669 that a number of cities
could be found willing to send deputies sufficient to
qualify the assembly with the name of a Diet. But
many of these deputies came only to announce that
their towns would not in future pay contributions to
the League, putting forward as their reason either
that the war had impoverished them too much, or
that the changed manner and course of trade made
them doubt as to the continued utility of their union.</p>
<p>The discussions on this occasion were most animated.
It was a stormy sitting, but it produced no
real result. Too many different and absolutely conflicting
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">369</a></span>
opinions were advanced. The only conclusion
that was arrived at was the choice of a certain Dr.
Brauer, of Lübeck, to fill the honoured post of Hanseatic
Syndic.</p>
<p>Vain honour truly, a very sinecure. For our poor
old League, already in its death throes, did not survive
this Diet. After eighteen sittings had been held
it was made manifest that no accord could be arrived
at, and the city of Lübeck even doubted if it were
worth while to draw up an official report of the
proceedings. Respect for ancient usages, however,
prevailed, and the minutes were therefore drawn up in
all due form. But they had no fact to record, except
that the assembly had not been able to arrive at a
unanimous opinion on any one point put forward.</p>
<p>Speaking of this final moment, the eminent historian
of the League, Sartorius, writes—</p>
<p>"The constituent elements of the League had been
united together in silence, and it was also without
noise that they were decomposed. No one could
be astonished at this end, which for some time past
have been foreseen by any intelligent person."</p>
<p>"<i>Sic transit gloria mundi</i>" might have been
written on its tomb. Its glory had been great and
real indeed.</p>
<p>No less a person than the eminent philosopher,
Leibnitz, in 1670, advised the imperial authorities, of
course without result, to revive German trade by the
re-establishment of the Hanseatic towns. The profound
indifference of the empire was a fact too great
to be overcome. The Emperor Charles VI. even
went the length of formally forbidding his subjects to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">370</a></span>
trade with the two Indies by way of England and
Holland. At no single princely court of the whole
realm was there to be found a sound view of commerce
and commercial requirements. In the midst
of such apathy and ignorance it was a real piece of
good fortune for Germany that, at any rate, the three
cities of Lübeck, Bremen, and Hamburg, were allowed
to keep their independence.</p>
<p>It was in these cities, then, gradually as trade
revived and the disastrous effects of the Thirty Years'
War were somewhat overcome, that wealth concentrated
itself. Here too was still to be found commercial
knowledge, activity, and enterprise, while the
old name of Hansa was discovered to have sufficient
power left to conjure with. That German industry
still found foreign outlet, that it still survived, and
proved profitable, was henceforward due solely to the
three remaining Hansa towns.</p>
<p>The empire, meanwhile, whenever it did not harry
them by attempts at futile restrictions or by foolish
criticism of their policy, ignored them entirely. This
was always for the cities the happiest course, allowing
them free room to act as they, with their commercial
knowledge and insight, thought fittest.</p>
<p>But as time went on, and the political state of
Germany grew more and more abject, it naturally
came about that the Germans grew less and less
respected and feared in the foreign markets, the
foreign people with whom they had to deal knowing
full well that there was no real power to back them.
They had to see all other strangers preferred before
them and the name of German become a by-word.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">371</a></span>
Indeed they would be scornfully asked what was meant
by German, seeing there was no land really so styled,
and that the country which once bore that name was
split up into a vast number of small principalities.
No wonder that this condition of things did not help
on German trade. No wonder that under these circumstances
the foreign policy of the new League, or
rather of the union of the three towns, for league it
could not be called, was a policy of weakness, almost
of cringing, far different indeed from that of their predecessors,
who had played with thrones and deposed
kings. Where once they commanded they had now
to plead or flatter, and if these methods failed they
were driven to observe the <i>mores mundi</i>, to use their
own phrase, and let fly silver balls, unlike the heavy
balls used in olden times, that is to say, they had to
bribe.</p>
<p>After the French Revolution and the European disorders
of that time, the Hansa towns by common
accord of Russia and France were declared to be
perpetually neutral, a gift of doubtful value. The
cities were soon made to feel what was meant by
owing their existence to aliens.</p>
<p>A little later Napoleon the Great was frequently on
the point of giving away the Hansa cities, even before
he had appropriated them to himself. In 1806 he
offered them as compensation for Sicily, and, according
to Lord Yarmouth, would have given them to
Hanover if thereby he could have procured the peace
with England. Sometime after they were destined
by him to serve as the footstool of the throne he
designed for his brother Louis in North Germany.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">372</a></span></p>
<p>While he was making up his mind they were held
by his soldiers, and these days of French occupation
were spoken of to their dying days by the burghers
in accents of terror. At last, in 1810, quite suddenly
and without previous warning, "without due regard
and courtesy," as was pleaded afterwards at the Congress
of Vienna, Napoleon incorporated the Hansa
towns with the empire.</p>
<p>It was well for them that this period was of short
duration, for trade was in those days a matter of no
small difficulty. Napoleon's mania regarding the
continental system had reached its culminating point.
Commerce was carried on either by submitting to
grave sacrifices owing to the blockade, or by smuggling
on a colossal scale. Neither method brought
with it prosperity or calm.</p>
<p>Then dawned the memorable year of 1813, and
with it came the first check in Napoleon's victorious
path. The citizens of the three Hansa towns were
among the first in Germany to put on armour and
draw the sword for the liberation of themselves and
of their suffering fellow-countrymen. Great oppression,
happily for mankind and progress, often produces
a strong recoil. Enthusiasm knew no bounds;
German courage, which seemed dead, was revived.</p>
<p>Alas! it was a false hope. Reaction once more
got the upper hand after Germany was liberated from
Napoleon's yoke, and it is a question whether the
yoke of the native rulers was not even heavier to bear
than that of the foreign usurper. It was certainly
less liberal.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><a name="illo373" id="illo373"></a>
<img src="images/illo373.jpg" width="550" height="425" alt="RATH-HAUS, BREMEN" />
<p class="caption">RATH-HAUS, BREMEN (From a print in the British Museum).</p>
</div>
<p>The three Hansa towns, however, fortunately for
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">374</a></span>
them, managed to secure their independence, though
not without a struggle. There were not lacking
neighbours who gazed at them with covetous eyes,
nor others who would have looked the other way had
some power appropriated them.</p>
<p>At the Congress of Vienna Lübeck was all but
given away to Denmark. But this was more than the
Hanseatic delegates present in the assembly could
stand. Accustomed of old to lift up their voices
boldly, and not to fear crowned or anointed heads,
they fiercely denounced this project as a deed of
darkness, and appealed so strongly to the consciences
of those present, reminding them of the everlasting
shame attending a broken word or promise, that they
actually succeeded in bringing them round to their
point of view. The project was abandoned.</p>
<p>Thus the towns remained virtually free, while
nominally attached to Germany, and continued, as
of old, as willing, as they were able, to serve their
country with the talents that had been entrusted
to their keeping. Their flag again appeared on all
the seas, their commerce extended in all lands, they
even succeeded in concluding favourable trade alliances
in virtue of the old Hanseatic firm of "the
Merchants of the German Empire."</p>
<p>But, as ever before, they were not backed by the
nation or by any real power at home, and now that
they were only three towns they could not act as in
the days of old, when their number extended across
Europe.</p>
<p>But since the many hundred little states of which
Germany consisted have been all absorbed by Prussia,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">375</a></span>
and incorporated under the collective name of
Germany, even the three Hansa towns, the last to
resist and to stand out for their autonomy, have had
to succumb to the iron hand of Prince Bismarck and
the Prussian spiked helmet. Hamburg still keeps
up a semblance of independence, but it is but a
shadow, and even that shadow is rapidly vanishing
from its grasp. Military, protectionist Germany
does not care to have in its confines a town where
free trade and burgher independence are inherited
possessions. The name of Hansa towns, the title of
Hanseatic League, is but a proud memory, one, however,
to which modern Germany may well look back
with satisfaction, and from the story of the "common
German Hansa" it can still, if it chooses, learn many
a useful lesson.</p>
<hr class="l15" />
<p class="center p2 b13">NOTE.</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>
Since writing the foregoing, the event, long anticipated as
inevitable, has taken place, and the last two cities to uphold the
name and traditions of the Hanseatic League, Hamburg and
Bremen, have been incorporated into the German Zoll Verein,
thus finally surrendering their old historical privileges as free
ports. Lübeck took this step some twenty-two years ago, Hamburg
and Bremen not till October, 1888—so long had they
resisted Prince Bismarck's more or less gentle suasions to enter
his Protection League. But they foresaw what the end must
be; that his motto was that of the Erl King in Goethe's
famous ballad:</p>
<div class="poem">
<p class="o1">
"Und bist Du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt."</p>
<p>("And if thou be not willing, I shall use force.")</p>
</div>
<p>Still they, and Hamburg in particular, held out nobly, jealous,
and rightly jealous, of the curtailment of those privileges which
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">376</a></span>
distinguished them from the other cities of the German Empire.
It was after the foundation of this empire that the claim of the
two cities to remain free ports was conceded and ratified in the
Imperial Constitution of April, 1871, though the privilege, in
the case of Hamburg, was restricted to the city and port, and
withdrawn from the rest of the State, which extends to the
mouth of the Elbe and embraces about one hundred and sixty
square miles, while the free-port territory was reduced to twenty-eight
square miles. This was the first serious interference with
the city's liberty, and others followed, perhaps rather of a petty,
annoying, than of a seriously aggressive, character, but enough
to show the direction in which the wind was blowing.</p>
<p>It was in 1880 that the proposal to include Hamburg in the
Customs Union was first politically discussed. It met, not
unnaturally, with much opposition among the citizens, and
especially among the merchant class, of whom these citizens
are so largely composed. Not only did it wound the Hamburgers'
pride to see an old and honourable distinction abolished,
but they feared, and not without reason, that their trade
would be seriously affected by such a step. They were afraid
that their city would cease to be the great international distributing
centre which it had been so long. Hot and animated
were the discussions in the Senate, the House of Burgesses,
the press, on docks and quays, in public and in private. But
the pressure exercised from Berlin, though in appearance
gentle, was firm and decided. How could a single city stand
against a strong military empire? In May, 1881, therefore,
was drafted a proposal to the effect that the whole of the city
and port of Hamburg should be included in the Zoll Verein.
This was laid before the Senate, who passed a resolution that
the treaty should be accepted, stating its conviction that the
inclusion of the free ports in the Zoll Verein would not only
be beneficial for the empire, most of whose foreign commerce
passed through them, but also would increase the prosperity of
the cities themselves. Whether the Senate really held this
belief, or whether they thought it wise to profess this opinion,
does not appear. The proposal was then sent down to the
House of Burgesses. Here it did not find such facile acceptance
as among the more aristocratic senators; here no real or
professed illusions reigned. For seven hours did the fathers of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">377</a></span>
the city discuss the resolution of the Senate in a sitting that
will ever be famous among the annals of the town. The speech
made by Dr. Petersen, the Commissioner for the Senate, was
most impressive, and it touched the hearts of all his hearers.</p>
<p>He reminded the Assembly that their thousand years' history
testified to the fact that the Hamburgers were ever an active,
practical, patriotic people, who took life earnestly, caring not
only for business and family, but for the common weal. Every
good Hamburger has always been ready to sacrifice his feelings
and his personal interests for the good of the Fatherland. Let
all of them, he urged, even those who could not do it heartily,
vote for the measure, in the sure and certain conviction that the
"Father City" would flourish and prosper, and increase
through the skill, the energy, and, above all, the public spirit of
its citizens. Hamburg would still remain the emporium, for
the wide world, of the German Fatherland, to which she would
be more closely united than ever.</p>
<p>This speech was followed by much and earnest discussion,
after which the proposal of the Senate was at last agreed to as
an inevitable measure, and Hamburg was included in the Zoll
Verein by one hundred and six votes against forty-six.</p>
<p>The details for carrying into effect this conclusion have
occupied seven years, and the event was finally celebrated with
great pomp, the Emperor William II. coming in person to
enhance the solemnity of the sacrifice brought by the burghers
of the erst free city for the common weal of the German
Fatherland.</p>
<p>As we have said, the step was inevitable sooner or later, and
the Hamburgers knew it. The German Empire, so long
a fiction, had arisen stronger than ever. It was natural,
very necessary, that an anomaly should be abolished which
placed the great gateway of foreign commerce outside the
customs regulations of the rest of the empire. It was natural
for the imperial authorities to desire that their two great commercial
ports should be at one with the empire in all respects;
that as far as their trade is concerned they should not be in the
position of foreign countries, jealously watched by imperial
officers lest they might seek to injure the financial interests of
the country of which they form a part.</p>
<p>It is too early to know what effect this step will have upon the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">378</a></span>
trade of the two cities, whether it will check or increase their
prosperity. The gain to Germany is certain. The gain to the
two cities, but in especial to Hamburg, is something less than
problematical. Meantime the last and only privilege the three
once powerful Hanseatic cities retain is that of being entitled,
like the greatest States in the empire, to send their own representatives
to the Bundesrath and to the Reichstag.</p>
</div>
<div class="figcenter">
<img src="images/tail_pair.jpg" width="200" height="171" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/dragon.jpg" width="450" height="107" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<h3 class="p4">EPILOGUE.</h3>
<p>The once proud and mighty Hanseatic League is
dead now, quite dead. There remains of it only a
noble memory, the record of a high and fearless spirit
which resisted tyrants petty and great, a spirit which
recognized the value of independence, and strove
with all its strength to attain and to maintain this boon.
We have traced it from its earliest dawn to its recent
complete demise; there but remains for us to speak
its funeral oration. This is soon accomplished, since
whether for men, for nations or associations, if their
deeds speak not for them more eloquently than human
words, the latter shall avail them little.</p>
<p>The chief title of the Hanseatic League to remembrance
is that it was the means of spreading higher
culture throughout wide tracts of the European continent,
many of them, in those early times, still sunk
in utter barbarism; that it introduced Western
customs and civilization into all domains of private
and social life for millions upon millions of people.
This association is a bright spot that strikes the eye,
as it looks back across the long, dark abyss of ages
past, and we welcome it the more gladly because the
bond that held this League together was neither
force nor fear, but free will and clear insight into the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">380</a></span>
advantages and necessity of mutual help. To quote
the pertinent words of Mrs. Sinnett: "These free
cities of Germany rise like happy islands amidst the
wide-wasting ocean of violence and anarchy. Not
by war and spoil, but by industry, enterprise, and
prudent economy, did they accumulate the wealth
that enabled them to heal so many of the wounds
inflicted on their country by the iron hands beneath
whose grasp art, science, even agriculture, by which
they subsisted, was perishing. By the unions which
the cities formed amongst themselves they stemmed
the torrent of violence and anarchy that was threatening
to turn their country into a desert peopled by
hordes of robbers and slaves; they lent the most
effectual aid to the Church in her efforts for the peace
and civilization of Europe; yet they held the balance
most firmly against the too great preponderance of
her power, and rescued the human mind from the
injurious subjection which she sometimes claimed as
the price of her benefits when society had outgrown
the leading strings that guarded its infancy, and felt
as a galling restraint what had once been a needed
protection. The cities built asylums for the widows
and orphans whom the nobles and warriors had made
desolate; they stretched out often a helping hand to
the poor knight, who was regarding them with envy,
hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness, taking
him into their pay as a soldier, and enabling him to
get a comparatively honest living, instead of wringing
'from the hard hands of peasants their vile trash,' or
filling some menial office at the court of a prince, and
picking up the crumbs that fell from the great man's
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">381</a></span>
table. Behind their walls and bastions the young
tree of civil liberty, which was perishing in the open
country, took root and flourished; there, even whilst
striving only at first for riches and their peaceful
enjoyment, did men learn to prize the blessings of
social order, justice, and peace. These cities were
not mere aggregations of men within a narrow space,
such as may have existed among the most barbarous
nations; they were organic bodies animated by a
living spirit—a spirit of enlightened intelligence,
courage, and self-reliance, which best supplied what
was defective in the religious system of the time, and
gave a more healthy and manly tone to the character
both of individuals and of society. The Church, it
cannot be denied, sometimes taught men, in the pursuit
of an imagined perfection, to trample on the
impulses, and violate the duties of nature; in these
little republics, on the contrary, though originally
they had only the attainment of temporal good in
view, they rose insensibly to higher objects, and not
only cultivated the social virtues more effectually, but
in their struggle to maintain their place in the world,
fought in many instances a more successful fight
against the sins of the flesh, through the discipline
of the manifold cares of an active life, than the
recluse of the cloister, with all his fastings and
flagellations. Among the happy influences belonging
to these miniature states was the ardent attachment
of the free citizens of the Middle Ages to the little
spot which they had hedged in from the wide wilderness
of slavery around, where the individual, if not
of noble birth, was usually the mere helpless victim
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">382</a></span>
of arbitrary power. Freedom and honour, the respect
of his fellows, the happiness of domestic life, the interest
and excitement of active business, the joviality
of social intercourse, a thousand ties entwined around
him, connected him closely with the city, and even
the house of his birth; for in those days it was common
for men to live and die beneath the same roof
under which they had been born. The merchant regarded
his native town with a pride fully equal to that
of birth and chivalry in the privileged classes, and little
envied, we may suppose, the life of the solitary feudal
lord in his castle, or the anxious and dependent
position of the courtier. The citizen of a humbler
class showed, by parading on all occasions the tools
and emblems of his trade with the same complacency
with which a soldier displays his sword, or the noble
his armorial bearings, that he knew his position and
was content with it, and felt none of that weak
shrinking from his appointed place in society or uneasy
longing after another, which has since been the
epidemic malady of the middle classes."</p>
<p>For two centuries and more this guild of merchants
made the German name respected in European lands,
the German flag respected in European waters. When
the empire had fallen to pieces and there was no
union, no cohesion left, the Hanseatics remained German
and held together staunchly and nobly. Though
the time of their existence was brief, yet it was all-important,
not only for their own land, but for all
Europe.</p>
<p>To appreciate to its full extent the influence exercised
upon Europe in general by the Hanseatic
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">383</a></span>
League, we must carry our minds back, and compare
Europe as it was when the League took its rise, with
Europe as it was when the League declined. The
Hansa made its appearance in history at a time when
barbarism, violence, religious fanaticism, political
and civil slavery, and dire intellectual darkness overspread
the whole continent, when liberty and industry,
as we understand them, were unknown. The constant
and active communication kept up by the
cities of the Hansa, not only among themselves and
with all parts of Germany, but with the most distant
countries, awoke and kept alive the intelligence of the
people. To the Hanseatics, as to the Italians of the
same epoch, was reserved the honour of dispelling
the obscurity that reigned in the mental and material
world. The Hansa's glory only pales before that of
the rival Italian mercantile associations from the
fact that its energies were somewhat too exclusively
confined to money-getting. Had these communities
arisen in a period of literary culture, or among the
glorious relics of the art of a brighter age, these cities
would have presented several more salient points of
resemblance to the republics of Greece and Italy. It
cannot, however, be denied that in many of their
institutions they improved on the model set by the
Italian cities, and this more especially in all matters
relating to morality and rectitude. But they were
less grand and large in their policy than their Trans-Alpine
brethren, and unfortunately for themselves,
their commercial maxims were always narrow and
selfish. Monopoly was their watchword, their grand
aim. And it was largely in consequence of this
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">384</a></span>
narrow policy that their ruin overtook them. They
perished of that disease whereof corporations are apt
to perish, namely, egotism, the centrifugal force which
is perpetually tending to rend asunder all human
society, and must inevitably do so, when not restrained
by some powerful antagonistic action.</p>
<p>It is strange that, while so rich commercially, the
Hanseatic League lacked political ambition. Had
they possessed it, there is little doubt they might
have made themselves independent masters of all
Northern Germany. But they seem never to have
forgotten that they were merchants. They were held
down by petty motives, smallness of views. Here,
again, they were unlike the Italians, among whom
the trader could develop into the aristocrat, as is
abundantly proved by the history of the Medici and
other famous great houses. The reason must be
sought, no doubt, in the different native temperament
of the two nations—the one innately refined, the
other rougher and more boorish. Though the civic
pride of the Hanseatics was highly flattered when
the kings of the North and the princes of Germany
trembled before them, they confined their ambitions
entirely to gaining commercial advantages.</p>
<p>Certain it is that the two powers—the Hanseatic
and the Italian Republics—each in their respective
sphere of action, helped on the progress that has
changed the entire face of this hemisphere, and that
they did this by no other means than that of their
commercial activity.</p>
<p>For this is the great power of commerce, if practised
in its best and highest spirit, that it is able to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">385</a></span>
work veritable miracles, bringing into contact the
extremes of civilization, enlarging and disseminating
ideas, and helping forward towards that universal
brotherhood of man, that universal peace and goodwill,
which is, and must be, the highest ideal of
humanity. Not till war is really rooted out from
among us, not till what is for the benefit of one is
held for the benefit of all, not until a generous
altruism reigns supreme, can mankind be said to be
thoroughly civilized. Trade and commerce, though
apparently egotistic factors, work strongly towards
this end, even though their action proceed merely
from motives of self-seeking. War is so serious an
interruption to trade that men will seek to avert it,
even out of a simple regard for their own pockets.
By fair smiling peace, not only traders, but all the
world is benefited and made happier. Once let
nations fully understand and recognize its incalculable
benefits, and even the lowest and most squalid
souls will struggle to uproot this remnant of a barbaric
spirit which can never evince itself as aught but
an evil.</p>
<p>The Hansa uprose in a rough age, and hence
had to work with the rough-made methods of its
time; but in its time and in its way it did a good
work, and posterity cannot withhold from it either
gratitude or admiration. Its policy, its laws, its constitution,
its commerce, its immense credit, the sway
which it once exercised, the able magistrates, merchants,
and mariners whom it produced—all these
have vanished, unable to resist the torrent of
time that engulfs good and bad alike. But its influence
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">386</a></span>
and example have remained, while much
of its spirit, like many of its ideas and rules, have
become incorporated into the general stock of the
ideas of humanity.</p>
<p>Of the League itself, it is true there remains only
an illustrious name. For Germany, which gave it
birth, there remain memories both of pride and regret—memories
that should serve as a spur to noble and
useful emulation.</p>
<p>"The History of Commerce," says Montesquieu,
"is the history of the intercommunication of peoples."
The story of the Hanseatic League is an eloquent
testimony to the truth of these words.</p>
<div class="figcenter">
<img src="images/tail_vase.jpg" width="250" height="192" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387"></a></span></p>
<div class="figcenter p10">
<img src="images/griff.jpg" width="450" height="106" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<div class="index">
<h3 class="p4">INDEX.</h3>
<hr class="l5" />
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">A</li>
<li>Albert Dürer, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
<li>Alva, Duke of, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li>
<li>Amsterdam, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></li>
<li>Antwerp, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></li>
<li>Armada, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a></li>
<li>Arnold of Brescia, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li>
<li>Art, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">B</li>
<li>Baltic, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li>
<li>Barbarossa, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li>
<li>Bergen, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li>
<li>Bismarck, <a href="#Page_375">375</a></li>
<li>Blackmail, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li>
<li>Boris, Gudenow, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li>
<li>Bornholm, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li>
<li>Bremen, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a></li>
<li>Brömse, Nicholas, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li>
<li>Bruges, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li>
<li>Brunswick, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li>
<li>Burleigh, Lord, <a href="#Page_336">336</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">C</li>
<li>Charles IV., <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>
<li>Charles V., <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li>
<li>Charles VI., <a href="#Page_369">369</a></li>
<li>Christian II., <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li>
<li>Christopher of Oldenburg, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li>
<li>Civilizing influence of traders, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>
<li>Cologne, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a></li>
<li>Commerce with Denmark, Sweden, and Russia, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li>
<li>Commerce with the Netherlands and Southern Europe, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li>
<li>Copenhagen, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
<li>Court of St. Peter, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
<li>Cromwell's Navigation Act, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">D</li>
<li>Dalecarlia, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li>
<li>Dangers of navigation, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li>
<li>Danzig, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a></li>
<li>Decline and fall, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li>
<li>Denmark, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a></li>
<li>Diet of Worms, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li>
<li>Ducal cities, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li>
<li>Duke of Northumberland, <a href="#Page_332">332</a></li>
<li>Dürer, Albert, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
<li>Dutch, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">E</li>
<li>Elizabeth, Queen, <a href="#Page_336">336</a></li>
<li>Embden, <a href="#Page_342">342</a></li>
<li>End of Hansa dominion in England, <a href="#Page_324">324</a></li>
<li>England, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li>
<li>England, end of dominion in, <a href="#Page_324">324</a></li>
<li>English towns, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
<li>Epilogue, <a href="#Page_379">379</a></li>
<li>Ethelred the Unready, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">F</li>
<li>Federation, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li>
<li>Feodorowitch Gudenow, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li>
<li>Fights of the Hansa, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
<li>Foreign protection, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
<li>Foreign trade, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
<li>France, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li>
<li>Frederick Barbarossa, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li>
<li>Frederick (of Holstein), <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li>
<li>Freiburg, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">G</li>
<li>Godeke Michelson, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
<li>Gothland, island of, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">388</a></span></li>
<li>Gresham, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a></li>
<li>Gudenow, Feodorowitch, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li>
<li>Gustavus Adolphus, <a href="#Page_355">355</a></li>
<li>Gustavus Vasa, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">H</li>
<li>Hamburg, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a></li>
<li>Hansa fights, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
<li>Hansa, name of, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li>
<li>Hansa, towns in fourteenth century, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li>
<li>Henry VIII., <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a></li>
<li>Herring, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
<li>Holbein, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li>
<li>Holy Roman Empire, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">I</li>
<li>Italian merchants, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li>
<li>Italy, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">J</li>
<li>Julin, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">L</li>
<li>Liberty, personal in twelfth century, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li>
<li>Life in fourteenth century, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
<li>Lisbon, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li>
<li>Livonia, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li>
<li>Lombards, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li>
<li>London, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>
<li>Loss of colonies, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li>
<li>Lübeck, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">M</li>
<li>Mary, Queen, <a href="#Page_332">332</a></li>
<li>Max Meyer, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li>
<li>Merchant Adventurers, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a></li>
<li>Meyer, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li>
<li>Michelson, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
<li>Municipal privileges, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">N</li>
<li>Napoleon, <a href="#Page_371">371</a></li>
<li>Netherlands, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a></li>
<li>Nicholas Brömse, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li>
<li>Northumberland, Duke of, <a href="#Page_332">332</a></li>
<li>Norway, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li>
<li>Novgorod, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">O</li>
<li>Oldenburg, Christopher of, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li>
<li>Organization of the League, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">P</li>
<li>Payments, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>
<li>Peace of Westphalia, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a></li>
<li>Personal liberty in twelfth century, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li>
<li>Peter's Court, St., <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
<li>Petersen, <a href="#Page_377">377</a></li>
<li>Portugal, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li>
<li>Protection, foreign, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">R</li>
<li>Reformation, the, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li>
<li>Religion, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li>
<li>Rhine towns, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>
<li>Rudolph II., <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li>
<li>Russia, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">S</li>
<li>St. Nicholas Church, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li>
<li>St. Peter's Court, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
<li>Scania, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>
<li>Simon of Utrecht, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>
<li>Sir Thomas Gresham, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a></li>
<li>Smolensk, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li>
<li>Spain, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a></li>
<li>Steelyard, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a></li>
<li>Stock-fish, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li>
<li>Storm clouds, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li>
<li>Stortebeker, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
<li>Stralsund, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a></li>
<li>Sudermann, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a></li>
<li>Survivors, <a href="#Page_365">365</a></li>
<li>Sweden, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_355">355</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">T</li>
<li>Teutonic knights, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li>
<li>Thirty Years' War, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a></li>
<li>Tilly, <a href="#Page_361">361</a></li>
<li>Trade guild, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li>
<li>Treaty of Stralsund, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
<li>Treaty of Utrecht, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">389</a></span></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">U</li>
<li>Unhansing, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>
<li>Utrecht, Simon of, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>
<li>Utrecht, Treaty of, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">V</li>
<li>Vasa, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li>
<li>Venice, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li>
<li>Victual Brothers, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">W</li>
<li>Waldemar, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li>
<li>Wallenstein, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a></li>
<li>Westphalia, peace of, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a></li>
<li>Winetha, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li>
<li>Wisby, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li>
<li>Wittenborg, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
<li>Wrecking, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li>
<li>Wullenweber, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">Y</li>
<li>York, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="none">
<li class="alpha">Z</li>
<li>Zealand, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="figcenter p6">
<img src="images/tail_pair.jpg" width="200" height="171" alt="Decoration" />
</div>
<div class="footnotes p6">
<h3>FOOTNOTES</h3>
<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a><span class="greek" title="hê thalassa hagiazetai"><a name="thalassa" id="thalassa"></a>ἡ θάλασσα ἁγιάζεται</span>.</p>
<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a>Julin in Danish, Wolin in Sclavonic, Winetha in Saxon. A learned
author, pointing out the community of origin of the Venetians of the
Adriatic, and the Venedes or Vends of the Baltic, draws a parallel between
the Venice of the Adriatic, and the Venice (Winetha) of the
north. "Singular destiny," he writes, "this of the two commercial
cities, which seem the issue of one trunk, that grew up at the same time
in the Adriatic and the Baltic, almost under the same name, the one to
arrive at the greatest splendour, enriched by the trade of the East, the
other to serve as a starting-point for the commerce of the north."</p>
<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a>Under the term of Greeks, Adam, and other writers of the period,
include the Russians, on account of their adhesion to the Greek form of
the Catholic Church.</p>
<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a>It is worth mentioning that on the coast of Scania, once so rich in
herring fishery, this industry is now almost extinct. The fish rarely
come into these waters, owing perhaps to the increase of traffic in the
Sound (for herrings, as is well known, dislike noise and movement and
seek out quiet seas); or because the great whale fisheries of Greenland
have altered their course, for whales now pursue less often than formerly
the shoals of herrings that were thus forced to take refuge in the Sound;
or this may be simply due to the diminution of the crustacean called
<i>Astacus harengum</i>, on which the fish so largely feeds—the fact in any
case remains.</p>
<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a>"Othello," act i. sc. 3.</p>
<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a>Some writers reckon Waldemar as the fourth of his name, counting
as the third Waldemar the impostor, who for some years ruled over
the land under that name. I have preferred to follow the more generally
adopted reckoning.—H. Z.</p>
<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a>"Ante portas Wisby in manibus Danorum ceciderunt Gutenses."</p>
<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a>Modern, disintegrating criticism, casts doubts on this story, and
tries to prove that this gate was walled up before Charles' visit, and
that he did not depart by it. This objection, however, is not fully
proved, and the contrary tradition so powerfully rooted, and so entirely
in keeping with the spirit of the age, that I have preferred to reproduce
it as characteristic, even if untrue.—H. Z.</p>
<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_9" id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a>Rambaub, in his "History of Russia," says that Novgorod was
founded by Slavs, but that in the ninth century a castle and fort were
built there by Rurik the Norman.</p>
<p class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_10" id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a>"Lydgate's Minor Poems," Percy Society, p. 4.</p>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<hr class="l15" />
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<div class="tnbox">
<p class="center"><b>Transcriber's Note:</b></p>
<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original
document have been preserved.</p>
<p>Page 312: <a href="#formerly">formerly</a> possibly should be formally</p>
<p>Page 160: <a href="#Ivan_II"> Ivan II.</a> possibly should be Ivan IV.</p>
<p>Footnote 1: ἡ θαλασσα ἁγιάζεται
changed to <a href="#thalassa">ἡ θάλασσα ἁγιάζεται</a></p>
</div>
<hr class="full" />
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