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The Story of the Nations.
THE HANSA TOWNS.
* * * * *
THE STORY OF THE NATIONS.
_Large Crown 8vo, Cloth, Illustrated, 5s._
_Presentation Edition, Gilt Edges, 5s. 6d._
1. =ROME.= ARTHUR GILMAN, M.A.
2. =THE JEWS.= Prof. J. K. HOSMER.
3. =GERMANY.= Rev. S. BARING-GOULD, M.A.
4. =CARTHAGE.= Prof. A. J. CHURCH.
5. =ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE.= Prof. J. P. MAHAFFY.
6. =THE MOORS IN SPAIN.= STANLEY LANE-POOLE.
7. =ANCIENT EGYPT.= Canon RAWLINSON.
8. =HUNGARY.= Prof. A. VAMBERY.
9. =THE SARACENS.= A. GILMAN, M.A.
10. =IRELAND.= Hon. EMILY LAWLESS.
11. =CHALDAEA.= Z. A. RAGOZIN.
12. =THE GOTHS.= HENRY BRADLEY.
13. =ASSYRIA.= Z. A. RAGOZIN.
14. =TURKEY.= STANLEY LANE-POOLE.
15. =HOLLAND.= Prof. J. E. THOROLD ROGERS.
16. =MEDIAEVAL FRANCE.= Prof. GUSTAVE MASSON.
17. =PERSIA.= S. G. W. BENJAMIN.
18. =PHOENICIA.= Canon RAWLINSON.
19. =MEDIA.= Z. A. RAGOZIN.
20. =THE HANSA TOWNS.= By HELEN ZIMMERN.
London:
T. FISHER UNWIN, 26, Paternoster Square, E.C.
* * * * *
[Illustration: VIEW OF HAMBURG.]
THE HANSA TOWNS
by
HELEN ZIMMERN
Author of "A Life of Lessing," "Heroic Tales from Firdusi," etc.
London
T. Fisher Unwin
26 Paternoster Square
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons
MDCCCLXXXIX
Entered at Stationers' Hall
By T. Fisher Unwin
Copyright by G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1889
(For the United States of America).
PREFACE.
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.
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.
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, 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.
HELEN ZIMMERN.
FLORENCE,
_March 1, 1889_.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE vii
PROEM 1-7
_PERIOD I._
I.
THE DAWN OF A GREAT TRADE GUILD 11-20
Teutonic Merchants, 15--Travelling in Early Times, 17--Origin
of the Guilds, 19.
II.
FEDERATION 21-29
The Story of "Winetha," 23--The Island of Gothland, 25--"Salt
Kolberg," 27--Unhansing, 29.
III.
FOREIGN TRADE 30-47
Social Conditions, 31--Enslavement of the Middle Class,
35--Italian Influences, 37--Burgher Home Rule, 43--League of
the Baltic Towns, 45--The Title "Hansa," 47.
IV.
THE HANSA FIGHTS 48-69
The Herring Fisheries, 49--Waldemar, 51--The First Attack,
53--Sack of Wisby, 55--Copenhagen Plundered, 57--Punishment
of Wittenborg, 59--The Cologne Federation, 61--Growing
Strength of the League, 63--Flight of Waldemar, 65--Treaty
of Stralsund, 67--A Curious Chapter in History, 69.
_PERIOD II._
THE HISTORY OF THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE,
FROM 1370 TO THE PUBLIC PEACE OF 1495,
DECREED IN GERMANY BY MAXIMILIAN I.
I.
LUEBECK RECEIVES AN IMPERIAL VISITOR 73-81
Hesitation of Luebeck, 75--Procession from St. Gertrude's
Chapel, 77--Luebeck Hospitality, 79--Records of the Visit,
81.
II.
THE TOWNS IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 82-125
The Ban of the Hansa, 83--Submission of Brunswick,
85--Prominence of the Cities, 87--Population of Luebeck,
89--Characteristics of the Germans, 91--Independence of the
Towns, 93--The Maritime Ports, 95--Exports of the Hansa,
97--Conditions of Trade, 101--Specie, Credit, and Bills,
103--The Extent of Mediaeval Trade, 105--The Churches and
Religious Buildings, 107--Hanseatic Architecture and Art,
109--Science and Literature, 111--The May Emperor,
113--Customs, Restrictions, and Regulations, 117--Luxury in
Dress, 119--The Town Council, 121--The Town-hall,
123--Mediaeval Patriotism, 125.
III.
THE VICTUAL BROTHERS 126-136
Plunder of Bergen, 127--Stortebeker, 129--Simon of Utrecht,
131--Execution of Stortebeker, 133.
IV.
THE FACTORY OF BERGEN 137-147
History of Bergen, 139--Shoemaker's Alley, 141--Constitution
of the Factory, 143--Barbarous Practices, 147.
V.
THE HANSEATIC COMMERCE WITH DENMARK,
SWEDEN, AND RUSSIA 148-162
Skanoe and Falsterbo, 149--The Pious Brotherhood of Malmo,
151--The Hansa at Novgorod, 153--The Court of St. Peter,
155--Furs, Metals, Honey, and Wax, 157--The Lombards
_versus_ the Hansa, 159--Ivan the Terrible Sacks Novgorod,
161.
VI.
THE COMMERCE OF THE LEAGUE WITH THE
NETHERLANDS AND SOUTHERN EUROPE 163-178
The Flemish Trade Guilds, 165--Hansa Factory at Bruges,
167--Suspension of Trade with Flanders, 169--Trade with
Antwerp, 171--Relations with France, 173--The Hansa in
Portugal and Italy, 175--Italian Culture in South Germany,
177.
VII.
THE STEELYARD IN LONDON 179-201
The Hanseatic Rothschilds, 181--Hanseatics Hated by the
People, 183--Rupture with England, 185--The Key to the
City's Commerce, 187--Description of the Steelyard,
189--Inner Life of the Factory, 191--The English
Conciliated, 193--Depots throughout England, 195--The
Hansa's Part in Ceremonies, 199--Religion of the English
Hanseatics, 201.
VIII.
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE 202-208
The Diets, 203--Minutes of the Diet's Proceedings, 205.
_PERIOD III._
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE HANSA.
INTRODUCTION 211-216
Decay of the Feudal System, 213--The Thirty Years' War, 215.
I.
STORM CLOUDS 217-235
Charles V. of Germany, 219--Gustavus Appeals to Luebeck,
223--Cruelty of Christian II., 225--Gustavus Lands in
Sweden, 227--Luebeck Aids Gustavus, 229--Christian II.
deposed, 231--Christian II. Abjures Lutheranism,
233--Christian's Memory, 235.
II.
KING FREDERICK AND KING GUSTAVUS VASA 236-239
"Put not thy trust in Princes," 237--Gustavus Quarrels with
Luebeck, 239.
III.
WULLENWEBER 240-282
The Religious Movement, 241--Luebeck Espouses Lutheranism,
243--Max Meyer, 245--Capture of Spanish Ships,
247--Christopher of Oldenburg, 251--Congress at Hamburg,
253--Wullenweber's Projects, 255--Disorder in Luebeck,
257--Hostilities in Denmark, 259--Escape of Max Meyer,
261--Battle of Assens, 263--Cologne's Reproach,
265--Nicholas Broemse, 267--Resignation of Wullenweber,
269--Imprisonment of Wullenweber, 271--The Rack, 275--Unfair
Trial, 277--Execution of Wullenweber, 279.
IV.
THE HANSA LOSES ITS COLONIES 283-305
Emancipation of Sweden, 285--New Route to Russia,
287--History of Livonia, 289--Livonia Repudiates the Hansa,
291--Ivan Seizes Livonia, 293--Stupefaction of Germany,
295--War Against Sweden, 297--Warning of the Duke of Alva,
299--Bornholm Ceded to Denmark, 301--Embassy to the
Muscovite Court, 303--The League Dissolves, 305.
V.
THE LEAGUE IN THE NETHERLANDS 306-323
Causes of Failure in the West, 307--Dissension Among the
Towns, 309--Depot Established at Antwerp, 311--Dangerous
Innovations, 315--General Insecurity of Commerce,
317--Insubordination of the Hanseatics, 319--The Antwerp
Factory in Danger, 321--Trade with the Low Countries, 323.
VI.
THE END OF THE HANSA'S DOMINION IN
ENGLAND 324-353
Restrictions on the English Trade, 325--Complaints of the
Londoners, 329--Trade Regulations Broken, 331--Queen Mary
Favours the Hansa, 333--English Grievances,
335--Negotiations with Elizabeth, 337--Internal Disunion,
339--The Steelyard Insubordinate, 341--Hamburg Adjusts its
Policy, 343--The Good Old Privileges, 345--Conservative
Luebeck, 347--Seizure of Hanseatic Vessels, 349--Expulsion of
Hanseatics from England, 351--The Steelyard Property, 353.
VII.
THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR KILLS THE LEAGUE 354-364
Gustavus Adolphus, 355--Wallenstein's Project, 357--Imperial
Graciousness, 359--The War Storm Breaks, 361.
VIII.
THE SURVIVORS 365-378
"Sic transit gloria mundi," 369--Napoleon and the Three
Cities, 371--Note, 375.
EPILOGUE 379-386
INDEX 387
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
VIEW OF HAMBURG _Frontispiece_
IMPERIAL CROWN OF GERMANY 4
COIN OF CHARLEMAGNE 7
PIRATES 13
NORMAN VESSEL FROM BAYEUX TAPESTRY 20
HIGHROAD 33
ITINERANT MERCHANTS 36
SALTERS' HALL, FRANKFORT 39
MEDIAEVAL CITY 41
ROBBER KNIGHTS 44
RATH-HAUS, COLOGNE 62
RATH-HAUS, TANGERMUNDE 66
SHIPPING HOUSE, LUEBECK 76
GROCERS' HALL, BREMEN 84
RATH-HAUS, BRUNSWICK 86
MUEHLENTHOR, STARGARD 88
BURGHERS AT TABLE 91
GERMAN TRADE LIFE 94
RENSLAU GATE 97
CROSSBOW 99
HOHE-THOR, DANZIG 108
HOLSTENTHOR, LUEBECK 110
CHILDREN'S SPORTS 115
DOMESTIC MUSIC 118
MIDDLE-CLASS OCCUPATIONS IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 122
SHIP-BUILDING IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 128
HELIGOLAND 132
TOMB OF SIMON OF UTRECHT, HAMBURG 135
JUSTICE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 142
SHIP AT THE END OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 145
SEAL OF NOVGOROD 162
STADT-HAUS, BRUGES 164
RHINE BOAT, COLOGNE 167
THE PIED PIPER'S HOUSE, HAMELIN 172
FONTEGO DEI TEDESCHI, VENICE 176
THE STEELYARD, LONDON 180
BARDI PALACE, FLORENCE 182
STEELYARD WHARF, LONDON 187
THE TRIUMPH OF RICHES, BY HOLBEIN 197
SEAL OF LUEBECK 205
PETERSEN-HAUS, NUREMBURG 207
CHARLES V. 218
CHRISTIAN II. 221
HENRY VIII. 249
SCENE BEFORE A JUDGE 273
THE RACK 281
THE HANSA FACTORY, ANTWERP 313
SIR THOMAS GRESHAM 327
RATH-HAUS, MUENSTER 363
RATH-HAUS, LUEBECK 367
RATH-HAUS, BREMEN 373
* * * * *
[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.
T. FISHER UNWIN,
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS.]
[Illustration: DOMINION OF THE HANSA
XIII-XV CENTURIES
T. FISHER UNWIN, 26, PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDON, E.C.]
STORY OF THE HANSA TOWNS.
PROEM.
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.
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 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.
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 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.
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.
"Though the mills of God grind slowly
Yet they grind exceeding small,"
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.
"Whom the gods would destroy they first strike 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.
[Illustration: IMPERIAL CROWN OF GERMANY.]
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 mediaeval 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 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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 aegis alone could peace or shelter be found.
This was the irony of fate indeed. To be sovereigns of the world, the
German emperors had staked their national existence; staked and lost.
On a murky and disturbed horizon had arisen a brilliant 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.
[Illustration: COIN OF CHARLEMAGNE.]
PERIOD I.
I.
THE DAWN OF A GREAT TRADE GUILD.
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.
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.
It is obvious that there must have been much commerce, and that it must
have played an important part 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,
against whom the peoples knew no better protection than the prayer
addressed to Heaven in their despair--"_A furore Normanrorum libera nos
Domine_," a clause that survived in their litanies some time after the
cause was no longer to be feared.
[Illustration: PIRATES.]
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.
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" (_mercator_, negotiator) was on the Continent
actually held as identical with townsman.
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 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.
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.
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 mediaeval
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.
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.
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 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 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.
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.[1] 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."
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, 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.
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; 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.
[Illustration: NORMAN VESSEL FROM BAYEUX TAPESTRY.]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] [Greek: he thalassa hagiazetai].
II.
FEDERATION.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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 _role_ 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.
Canon Adam, of Bremen, a chronicler of the eleventh 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."[2] "It is a famed meeting-place
for the barbarians and Greeks[3] 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."
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 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.
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.
A glance at the map will show why this island assumed such importance.
At a time when the 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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,[4] the isle
of Ruegen, 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."
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 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, Luebeck, 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.
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 _strandgut_ (property of the shore), and was
regarded as a gift from Providence. The dwellers on the Baltic shore
held so naive a belief with respect to this matter that in their daily
prayers they innocently asked God to give them a good harvest of
_strandgut_.
Luebeck in 1287, demanding from Reval, on the basis of its treaties, the
restitution of stranded property, 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."
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 _unhansing_, 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.
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.
Let us now take a rapid glance at what had occurred meantime in the Holy
Roman Empire and the towns.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] 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."
[3] 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.
[4] 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 _Astacus harengum_, on which the fish so largely feeds--the fact
in any case remains.
III.
FOREIGN TRADE.