vessel sailing the seas must make an enforced halt at the port of
Bruges, and thus give the traders a first chance of buying their wares
or, in any case, of exacting from them a staple toll. Exception was made
only in the case of ships sailing to England or to the Baltic seaboard.
The possession of this privilege naturally proved a source of great
wealth and power to the League, who grew proud and haughty as they
increased in strength, and even ventured to oppose themselves to the
Flemings, if they considered that these had in any way offended against
"the majesty of the Hanseatic nation in the person of any of its members
or officers." They would then threaten to transport their factory into
some other city, and once actually carried out the threat. They
suspended all trade with Flanders, blocked its ports, and refused to buy
its goods. At the last the murmurs of the artizans thus thrown out of
work, and the general distress among the people, forced the rulers to
crave grace and to beg for the return of these masterful strangers, even
according them new privileges, that is to say, new weapons of
oppression. For the League, on these occasions of proud resentment, took
the most menacing of tones and exacted a heavy satisfaction. Thus once,
because one of its members had been, as it considered, gravely insulted,
and others murdered, it demanded that a chapel should be built and
masses founded to pray for the repose of the souls of those who had
perished; and that a large indemnity should be paid to the relations of
the dead and to the division of the League to which they belonged. And,
further, in order to induce this division to return to Bruges, it was
requisite that one hundred of the chief burghers should come in
procession to the Carmelite convent and ask public pardon from the
Hanseatics, and that sixteen of these should go in pilgrimage to
Santiago de Compastello and four to the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem.
Only after such expiation would the division allow itself to be
re-established.
The dissensions and revolutions which, in the fourteenth century,
convulsed Flanders and caused the sovereignty of the provinces to pass
into the hands of the Dukes of Burgundy, did not, for a long time, touch
the commerce of the Hanseatics. Their trade seemed able to cope with the
subversive influences of tumults, seditions, and civil wars; their
activity was not discouraged; their great credit enabled them to repair
all losses, and even to draw profit from these very disturbing influences
themselves. Each new ruler, guided by the same motives of interest,
awarded the same favour to this association of strangers, who, in coming
to their country, nourished its industries and profitably exchanged
products. Even Charles the Bold--proud and warlike though he was, a
declared foe to all liberty, attacking at that very time the Swiss
people, who were striving to gain their national independence--openly
protected the Hanseatic towns, and interested himself warmly in aiding
them to overcome the English, with whom they had been at strife.
This good understanding, it is true, was impaired under Maximilian of
Austria, his son-in-law and successor. This prince was a stranger to the
Flemings, a German by birth, accustomed to exact blind obedience, the
son of an emperor and his heir. On all these accounts he was distasteful
to the Flemings, who rose up in revolt against him, and imprisoned him
in the Castle of Bruges. It was on this occasion that there happened an
event made famous in legend. Maximilian's Court jester, who loved his
master, had formed a plan for his liberation. Horses, rope ladders--all
were in readiness. The jester himself sprang into the canal that
separated the castle from the mainland, in order to swim across and aid
his sovereign. But it happened that his night raid alarmed the swans
which were kept by the town on this canal. They raised a great noise,
flapped their wings in anger, and threatened to kill the poor fellow,
who was obliged to beat a hasty retreat, while his scheme, thus
discovered, was rendered futile. For four months Maximilian was kept in
confinement. No sooner was he liberated and master of the empire than he
took his revenge. This audacity was punished severely, and ended in a
loss to Flanders of its opulence and a great part of its industry. Above
all, the town of Bruges had to submit to hard treatment, and ceased from
that time forwards to be the most flourishing and important market of
Europe.
The wily Hanseatics had, meanwhile, acted like the proverbial rats that
abandon the sinking ship. Seeing the course that things were taking,
they sought to establish themselves elsewhere, and Antwerp, long jealous
of Bruges, obtained the reversion of its rival's trade: the fruits of
which it enjoyed until the murderous hordes of Philip II., in their
turn, crushed Antwerp as Maximilian had crushed Bruges.
[Illustration: THE PIED PIPER'S HOUSE, HAMELIN.]
No doubt, by means of the Flemish market, the League also treated with
France, but our knowledge concerning this trade is very scanty. It seems
certain that they had no regular factory in that country, though for a
short time they held a depot at Bordeaux. Probably their trade with
France was chiefly indirect and by means of Flanders. The fact that for
so long the greater part of the French seaboard was in the hands of the
English may have had something to do with this matter. We know,
however, that successive French kings accorded to them various
privileges. Louis XI., on one occasion, speaks of them as a "Power," and
proposed to make an alliance with them against England. Charles VIII.
yet further enlarged the concessions granted by his father. It is even
recorded that in case any difficulties arose because of obscurities of
phrase in a contract made between the League and Frenchmen, these should
always be interpreted to the advantage of the Hanseatics. They were
further promised impartial justice, reduced custom dues, and a civil
standing equal in all respects to that of the natives. The kingdom was
open to them for trading purposes, and in case of a war breaking out
between France and a foreign nation, the Hanseatics were allowed to
continue their commercial connection with that nation without being
regarded as violating the peace and friendship promised. France, on the
other hand, reserved to itself the same privileges. But why France was
willing to concede so much to these strangers does not appear. The
commerce can in no case have been considerable. The manufactures of
France in those days were few and limited. Their small navy did not
require much wood, iron, or hemp. It is true they had their wines and
their salt, and that in exchange they bought herrings and smoked fish,
but there was no such lively and profitable intercourse as we encounter
elsewhere. The land was still too poor, too distracted with wars and
dissensions to be able to utilize its native riches. Besides this, her
own direct commerce with the Mediterranean and Latin East, and the
Crusaders and Italian traders, rendered her more independent of Hansa
help.
Very scanty are the records that have come down to us concerning the
trade of the League with Spain. This nation, incessantly occupied in
wars with the Moors and in chivalrous exploits, neglected and disdained
trade. They even went so far at times as to interdict it also to others.
But all that has come down to us concerning the intercourse of the
Hanseatics with this country is so vague, and borders so much on the
fabulous, that it cannot be accepted as history. What does seem certain
is that in 1383 King John of Castile forbade the Hanseatics to have any
intercourse with his kingdom, that he confiscated eighty-four of their
vessels, and that in 1441 the factory of Bruges received orders to
practise reprisals upon the Spaniards and to close to them all the ports
of the Netherlands. All details, however, are lacking. We only know,
again, for certain that in 1472 the Spaniards raised the interdict
against the League. No doubt they had suffered pecuniarily from the
absence of these active traders. In 1551 Philip II. even went so far as
to sign a treaty of commerce with the League, in which this prince
favoured them as much as his predecessors tried to harm them. And this
treaty, strange to say, was not quite a nullity even at the beginning of
our own century. On the strength of certain clauses contained in it were
founded various privileges enjoyed up to that date, in their commercial
intercourse with Spain, by the cities that were then all that remained
of the once mighty League--namely, Luebeck, Hamburg, and Bremen.
In Portugal the League was more fortunate than in Spain, and early
established a factory at Lisbon. From this port they traded with the
Mediterranean, and came in contact with the flourishing Italian
commercial republics, as well as with the products of the Levant and
India, for which Italy was the sole market. But the Italian trade was
chiefly in the hands of the South German cities, such as Augsburg, Ulm,
and Nueremberg, and the wares were transported by land. These cities
formed a counter league among themselves, which, though in a measure
affiliated to the Hansa, was never quite an integral part. Their sole
object was the Levant and Italian trade. Already in the thirteenth
century they had a depot at Venice, the far-famed Fontego de' Tedeschi,
which visitors to Venice behold to this day as one of the most lovely
palaces abutting on the Grand Canal. This factory, however, was very
differently constituted from that of other cities. The League never
obtained a monopoly or special privileges in Italy. The Fontego at
Venice was merely the warehouse or dwelling-house of the German traders,
without any internal jurisdiction or president.
[Illustration: FONTEGO DEI TEDESCHI, VENICE.]
They were permitted to sojourn with their wares at stated times in
Venice, received on their arrival the keys of the fifty-six rooms of the
building, which on their departure they had to re-deliver to the
Venetian authorities. In course of time the Germans, gaining refinement
and acquiring a love of art from their Italian intercourse, spent large
sums in decorating and adorning this palace, which, however, never
passed into their real possession. Three Venetian citizens, under the
title of Visdomini de' Tedeschi, and native secretaries, and a
"fontegaro," always inhabited the building and kept strict watch over
the traders, whose commerce was subjected to all manner of tedious
restrictions. The house, as we have said, was only open to them at
stated times of the year. They were only permitted to sell to and buy
from Venetians; all wares exported or imported had to be weighed in the
public balances, and only this weight was accepted as just. The Italian
secretaries, one of whom always slept in the Fontego, kept strict
account of all goods that came to hand or were sent away, and the
control over these wares was in the power of the Visdomini. Nothing
might be unladen in the warehouse without permission from one of these
local officials. But in spite of all these restrictions, which the
Germans would not have tolerated for a moment at Bergen or Bruges, their
depot at Venice was a favourite sojourn, and remained the centre of a
pleasant, easy, and refined intercourse between Germany and Italy until
the time of the Reformation. The influence of the Rialto made itself
felt in Prague, Dresden, Frankfort, and the other South German cities,
and has placed its imprint upon their literature and art. From Italy
these cities brought the models to adorn their streets, markets,
guildhalls, and churches. From Italy they brought the tales and fables
that delighted listeners long before the days of printing, and awoke the
native mediaeval poetic art, so that the stories of Boccaccio became as
familiar to the Germans as to the Italians themselves. In spite of all
the restrictions they placed on their freedom, the foreigners were not
unwelcome to the proud Venetian signoria. They even spoke of the German
nation as their "cuorisino" (little heart), and in their sore need,
during the time of the League of Cambray, formed by the Pope, the
Emperor and the kings of France and Spain against the Republic of Venice
(1508), they called upon their German friends for sympathy, and did not
call in vain. The bond of a common interest, that of trade, bound
together the proud rich city of the Lagoons and the less powerful, less
wealthy, but by no means poor or insignificant, cities of Southern
Germany.
[Decoration Tail-Piece]
VII.
THE STEELYARD IN LONDON.
Nowhere was the Hanseatic power so great as in England. Of none of its
connections do we possess more ample records. As already stated, England
was one of the first depots of the "common German merchant," long before
these combined under the generic name of Hanseatic. From early days the
English kings had protected these rich foreigners, who helped them out
of many a pecuniary difficulty. Indeed they accorded them such
privileges and monopolies as could not fail to rouse the jealousy of
their own people. We therefore find in the history of the Steelyard in
London a mingled record of all passions and interests, hate and favours,
honour and national prosperity, envy and violence, greed and poverty,
pride and fear, in a word, a most motley record of which it is not easy
to frame the contradictory elements into one harmonious picture.
During the long reign of Henry II., and under his sons, Richard Coeur
de Lion and John, there was an active intercourse between Germany and
England, encouraged by the marriage of Matilda, daughter of Henry II.
with Duke Henry the Lion.
[Illustration: THE STEELYARD, LONDON. (_From an old Print._)]
The rich merchants of Cologne were the earliest to obtain special
favours. These were accorded by Richard Coeur de Lion, who, halting in
that city to attend high mass in the cathedral after his release from
Austrian imprisonment, received there such ample supplies towards the
heavy ransom money required for his person, that, to show his gratitude,
he gave to his "beloved burghers of Cologne" a letter of freedom, in
which he released them from their annual rent of two shillings for their
guildhall in London, and from all other taxes due to the king upon their
persons or their merchandise. It was long ere King John, his successor,
could make up his mind to renew these privileges, but his own
difficulties with his turbulent barons, and the pressure which the
merchants could bring to bear by their riches, at last overcame his
hesitation. Edward I. and his followers further extended these
prerogatives, for the Plantagenets found the Hanseatic Rothschilds even
more useful in aiding their war schemes than the skilful alchymists whom
they had summoned to their Court, and who knew how to shape the Rose
noble (the money of the period) out of artificial gold. Then, too, the
Hanseatics were considerate creditors, who did not press unduly, and
even overlooked a debt if some favour were extended in default of
payment.
Edward the Third's crown and most costly jewels were long retained at
Cologne in pawn for a heavy sum of money. The details concerning this
transaction are preserved to this day in a correspondence deposited in
the State Paper Office of London. It seems that when the time for
redemption came the king had not the money. He was in special straits
just then, for the celebrated commercial firm of the Bardi, at Florence,
which constituted the very focus of the Italian money business, had
failed, and the King of England appeared in their books as a debtor for
the sum of one million golden gulden. The merchants of the Steelyard
were not slow adroitly to turn the royal perplexity to their profit.
They undertook to redeem the pawned jewels and offered the king loans of
more money, although he already owed them much. Edward was in sore need,
for the wars with France strained his resources to the utmost. He drew
upon them for thirty thousand pounds, a sum worth fifteen times more
then than to-day. Thus it came about that the great victories of the
Black Prince at Crecy and Poitiers were gained in no small degree by the
help of German capital. Needless to add that the Hanseatic merchants
showed no diffidence in accepting for their factory important privileges
in return for these services.
[Illustration: BARDI PALACE, FLORENCE.]
It was to a German merchant prince that the king let the tin mines
belonging to the Black Prince in the Duchy of Cornwall. To the same firm
he ceded a large number of farms situated in different shires for the
space of a thousand years.
The Easterlings are spoken of in records as the allies of the English
kings, and there seemed at last no limit to the royal favours.
That the people did not look upon them with the same friendly eye is
easy to understand. The English, full of a just sentiment of what they
could do by themselves, and of what they were hindered from doing by
these foreign monopolists, bore their presence with extreme impatience.
Feuds and riots were not infrequent, and no royal favours, no Hanseatic
ships of war could save them from occasional brutal attacks at the hands
of the mob. Thus during the Wat Tyler rebellion the people pursued the
hated foreigners even into the sanctuary of the church, murdering
mercilessly all those who could not pronounce the words "bread and
cheese" with the pure English accent. But these rebellions were quelled
by the royal commands, or extinguished themselves by the fact that the
Hanseatics were also useful to the English people, oppressed by the
feudal system and engaged in constant wars, whose trade industries were
thus unable to develop quickly. Nor did such passing storms shake the
power or the resistance of the Hanseatics. Bloody encounters, rude
tumults were entirely in keeping with the license and roughness of those
earlier ages, and were met by the League, more or less, in all their
foreign stations.
With their usual astuteness they utilized wisely all periods of calm,
and reckoned with the love of gain to help them in less peaceful
moments. When the English made things uncomfortable for them at home,
they revenged themselves upon them at Bruges or at Bergen, paralysing
their commerce, and harassing their vessels, even forbidding them to
enter the ports of Norway, Iceland, and Greenland. For verily in those
days whosoever tried to outwit the Hansa was likely to prove the victim
of his own plots. Circumstances aided the Germans, enabling them to make
their power felt just when England had to betray weakness. The feeble
and stormy period of Henry VI., often deposed and made prisoner, the
Wars of the Roses, the long and continual hostilities waged with France,
all favoured the League, and made the English submit to its demands
rather than attract to themselves yet more enemies.
In no place, not even in Bergen, did the Hanseatics succeed in enjoying
greater independence. Their factory was privileged, and while benefiting
by English law, they were quite independent of it. Everything,
therefore, was favourable to their commerce, and they were hampered by
no such restrictions as weighed, not only upon other foreigners, but
upon the English themselves. To give a just idea of the degree of power
to which their privileges and trade had raised the League, let us cite
one example. It will serve in lieu of many, and it places in full light
the almost incredible ascendency which a company of merchant cities,
isolated and distant from each other, had gained over a great kingdom
and a proud and valiant nation.
The English Government having been unable or unwilling to repress the
frequent acts of piracy which its subjects practised against members of
the League, these also took to piracy, and mutual recriminations ensued.
The Luebeckers in particular revenged themselves fiercely. They also
wrote a letter of complaint to the English king, "a letter full of pride
and audacity," says Henry IV. It then happened that the Danes, at strife
with the English for other causes, joined themselves to the Hanseatics,
and united they harassed the English by sea and by land. These, in their
turn, took possession of the Hanseatic depot in London, and put in
prison or killed all who lodged there. The League hearing this broke off
commercial connection with England, closed their ports and the entrances
of the Baltic, and seized English vessels on all seas and on all coasts.
The Hanseatics even landed in England itself, and pitilessly ravaged
many of the maritime provinces, hanging on the masts of their ships all
the men they took prisoners. This war at last grew so ruinous for the
English that they applied to the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, to
mediate between them and their foes. A congress was assembled at Utrecht
to put an end to this dire quarrel and to assure peace upon a solid
basis. The mediator and his counsellors thought it but just to accord to
the English a part of what they had desired so long, namely, liberty to
trade in the Baltic and with the Hanseatic ports of Dantzig and Russia.
This concession greatly favoured the commerce which their merchants were
ambitious to carry on, or already carried on, notwithstanding all
obstacles. But for their part the Hanseatics insisted on recovering all
the privileges they had lost, and on recovering them with usury. In
fact, by this treaty of Utrecht Edward IV. not only reconfirmed all
their ancient monopolies, but accorded to them new and important
favours, proving to what extent the English were still in the power of
these foreigners. Such was the effect of the fear which the League
inspired in the English; such, too, was the ignorance of their
Government, which, being in possession of a power not less great and,
had they desired, even greater than that of their rivals, allowed
strangers to deprive them of the most useful of all independent rights,
that of utilizing for their own profit the resources of their own labour
and their own soil.
In reading this chapter of the annals of England, it is hard to believe
that we are dealing with the nation whose ships now scour all the seas,
whose tonnage exceeds that of all other countries combined, which is the
greatest trader of the earth, and which trades not only freely, but also
in that spirit of domination with which its ancestors reproached the
Hanseatics, and which they endured with so much impatience.
This treaty of Utrecht served for a long while as basis for all
subsequent treaties between the Hanseatics and the English, and well or
ill observed, it survived until the reign of Edward VI.
The position held by the Hanseatics in England certainly has no
counterpart in the international intercourse of the Middle Ages. The
only exception, perhaps, is the position of Genoa, Venice, and Pisa in
the Byzantine and Latin empires.
[Illustration: STEELYARD WHARF, LONDON.]
The chief depot of the Hanseatics in England was in London, and was
known first as the Guildhall of the Germans, then as the Easterlings'
Hall, and finally, as its dimensions grew, as the Steelyard. It was
situated in Thames Street, on the left bank of the river, close to
Dowgate, just above London Bridge, in earlier times the only city gate
that commanded the water. The whole length of this street leading to the
post gate was lined with the wharves, warehouses, and dwelling-houses of
the Germans. It is therefore easy to comprehend how they held, by their
position alone, the key to the whole commerce of the City of London in
days when goods were almost entirely transported by water-ways. As at
Bergen, so here, they dominated the whole commercial situation.