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.
When guilds, corporations, or associations met for convivial
intercourse, this was pursued according to established rules, some of
which survive in the student _corps_ 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 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.
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.
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 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.
As in modern Switzerland, so in mediaeval 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.
[Illustration: CHILDREN'S SPORTS.]
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 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.
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.
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 Luebeck,
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.
Endless are the rules and regulations of the various 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 Luebeck were noted for their skill in the
sword-dance, a dance probably not unlike the Highland reel executed to
this day by Scotchmen.
[Illustration: DOMESTIC MUSIC.]
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 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.
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
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."
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.
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 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."
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.
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 Luebeck 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
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.
[Illustration: MIDDLE-CLASS OCCUPATIONS IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.]
_Noblesse oblige_ 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 Luebeck 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.
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.
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.
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
Luebeck, 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 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.
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 mediaeval chronicles. Many tales are preserved of brawls arising in
the towns through the vauntings of rival citizens. Thus a certain
Luebecker 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.
Such were these burghs which had grown free and strong through burgher
industry, and were kept powerful by burgher unity and honesty.
III.
THE VICTUAL BROTHERS.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
In vain did Margaret of Sweden protest against the audacities of the
Victual Brothers. She was helpless against them. The measure of her
impotence 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.
[Illustration: SHIP-BUILDING IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.]
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.
Legend took possession of these robbers from an 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.
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.
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, 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.
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.