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 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 _Coloured
Cow_, 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
_Coloured Cow_, 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 the
battle began. It raged three days and three nights, and only after a
desperate resistance was Stortebeker conquered.
[Illustration: HELIGOLAND.]
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.
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.
Stortebeker was thus out of the way; but there still remained Godeke
Michelson. So the Hamburgers with Simon of Utrecht and his _Coloured
Cow_, 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
[Illustration: TOMB OF SIMON OF UTRECHT, HAMBURG.]
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.
IV.
THE FACTORY OF BERGEN.
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.
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 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.
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.
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, 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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 as if the rude
climate had exercised a deleterious influence over these naturally
coarse-grained Germans.
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.e._, 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.
[Illustration: JUSTICE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.]
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, 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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 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 _ennui_, imagination
should have taken a fierce and coarse turn.
[Illustration: SHIP AT THE END OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.]
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.
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 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.
When all the ordeals were ended a herald, who also occupied the _role_
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.
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.
V.
THE HANSEATIC COMMERCE WITH DENMARK, SWEDEN, AND RUSSIA.
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.
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 sympathy or
hostility, and yet always contrived so that any advantages accruing were
theirs.
It was in those troubled times that Luebeck 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.
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 mediaeval 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, Skanoe 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.
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 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.
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 Luebeck 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
into the centre of Germany, and even to Poland and Russia.
They had not in Scania, as at Bergen, a regularly organized factory, but
the Witten stood under superintendence, while at adjacent Malmo they
founded a permanent colony, under the jurisdiction of an alderman, who
administered Luebeck 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 Luebeck would pay a passing visit in order
to adjust quarrels and investigate the state of trade.