different from those of to-day. There was no postal service, no
insurance, very sparse circulation of bills, and very little of that
agency--or commission--business, which relegates to a third party the
transportation and management of goods. Trade was very largely a
matter of individual enterprise, demanding in a far greater measure
than to-day the personal superintendence of the merchant. Usually the
latter himself travelled well-armed across sand and sea to distant
lands, trusting in God and upon his strong right arm. As master of a
vessel he did not fail to interest his crew in the safety of the ship
and cargo by allotting to them part of the profits. Indeed, his
journey was far more perilous than it is to-day. Upon the public
highway he was subject to the attack of the robber barons, who held
him prisoner against heavy ransom; and in the innumerable
hiding-places of the rock-bound northern coast his course was followed
by the watch-boats of pirates. The occupations of highway robbery and
piracy were at that time still regarded among wide circles as
excusable. Dozens of feudal castles, the retreats of robber barons,
were destroyed by the soldiers of the municipalities, and dozens of
freebooting vessels were annihilated, the robbers themselves being
executed with axe or sword or thrown overboard. The piracy of that age
reached its acme in the notorious "Society of Equal Sharers" or
"Brotherhood of Victuallers." This consisted of an incongruous
aggregation of noble and plebeian blades, who, despite their excessive
brutality, nevertheless possessed some genuine knightly
characteristics, the hardihood and bravery of the true mariner, and a
boundless love of adventure. Formed during the eighth decade of the
fourteenth century for the purpose of assisting the King of Sweden
against the martial queen Margaret of Denmark, its immediate object at
that time was the supplying of victuals to the beleaguered city of
Stockholm--whence its name. When, upon the surrender of the city and
the establishment of peace, the immediate object of the society had
been fulfilled, the attraction of freebooting proved too strong for
these wild companions, whose excesses now assumed an increasingly
alarming form. For more than a half century they remained the terror
of the northern seas. Almost annually the cities were compelled to
send out vessels against them, which, however, were not always so
successful as the celebrated Bunte Kuh ("Brindled Cow") of Hamburg,
which captured the most dangerous of the piratic captains, Claus
Stoertebeker and Godeke Michel, with their followers and their
fabulous treasures, and brought them to Hamburg. Tradition has it that
for three days the public executioner stood ankle-deep in the blood of
the condemned. Nevertheless, the seafaring public did not suspect the
presence of a robber behind every bush or cliff. After all, an
undisturbed voyage was the rule rather than the exception; sensational
occurrences, of course, then, as now, playing an important part in the
reports of the time.
To these social disorders must be added elemental dangers of all
kinds, such as the tides and shallows of the North Sea--the shallow
waters contiguous to the coast being chiefly navigated--dangers
against which neither compass nor chronometer was then available. Even
buoys and lighthouses were comparatively rare or inadequate at a time
when nautical knowledge itself was still extremely defective. It was
therefore not astonishing that shipwrecks were of daily occurrence and
were of course followed by all the evils of that cruel and barbarous
"Strand law" which, despite all papal edicts and voluntary treaties,
could not be abrogated, but was actually carried out by the Archbishop
of Bremen himself.
Notwithstanding all these hinderances, the sea voyage, which, by
reason of the dangers attending it, was strictly prohibited during the
winter months, was incomparably safer and pleasanter than the journey
by land. The traveller by land was strictly confined to the prescribed
highway of travel, every deviation from which was regarded as a
defraudation of the customs and was punished by confiscation of goods.
The inconveniences to which the merchant was subjected in the way of
taxes are almost incredible. As the mediæval spirit was reflected in
the confusion of coinage--nearly every petty count and every city
eventually enjoying the privilege of a private mint--so also was the
deplorable disunion existing among the German people mirrored in the
innumerable road and water taxes. Above Hamburg, along a road about
twelve German miles in extent, there were not fewer than nine customs
stations. Fortunately the tariff was not complicated, but was levied
on the freight of the ship or wagon, or estimated by the bale or box
irrespective of value or the quality of the goods under inspection.
Upon the presented crucifix the merchant, aided occasionally by his
cojurors, solemnly swore to the correctness of his representations
concerning the goods carried by him, the oath, as is well known, being
very frequently brought into requisition in all judicial and
commercial transactions during mediæval times.
The Hansa ships were usually round-bellied, high-boarded craft with
one mast, and flew the pennant of their home port. They were
comparatively broad and built of heavy planks, and could easily be
transformed into war vessels by furnishing them with a superstructure
known as the _castell_ ("castle") in which catapults and archers could
be placed. In size they were probably as large as the trading vessels
which cross the Baltic to-day. That they were skilfully handled is
evident from the fact that a contemporaneous report mentions a trip
from Ripen in Jutland to Amsterdam as having been successfully made in
two days. As regards the laws of navigation, a point especially
noteworthy was the talent displayed in organizing fellowship unions.
Reference is not here made to the habit of the merchants in sailing in
squadrons so much as to the peculiar institutions which regulated the
life on board--institutions which have recently been justly designated
as the most perfect expression of that executive ability which
characterized the close of German mediævalism. An account of these
institutions dating from the middle of the sixteenth century has
fortunately been preserved.
As soon as the vessel was upon the high sea the crew, which consisted
of the captain and the "ship's children," pledged itself strictly to
obey orders and equitably to divide any booty eventually secured. A
court of sheriffs was then organized, consisting of a judge, four
sheriffs, a sergeant-at-arms, a secretary, an executioner, and several
other officials. Thereupon came the proclamation of the maritime law
upon which the eventual judgment of the court was based. The tenor of
this law was as follows: It is forbidden to swear in God's name; to
mention the devil; to sleep after the hour for prayer; to handle
lights; to destroy or waste food; to meddle with the duties of the
drawer of liquor; to play at dice or cards after sunset; and to vex
the cook or annoy the crew under penalty of a monetary fine. The
following are some of the penalties inflicted for various offences:
Whoever sleeps while on guard or creates a disturbance between decks
shall be drawn under the keel of the vessel; whoever attempts to draw
weapons on board, be they long or short, shall have the respective
weapon run through his hand into the mast, so that he will have to
draw the weapon through his own hand again if he would free himself;
whoever accuses another unjustly shall pay the double fine prescribed
for the offence charged; and no one shall endeavor to take revenge
upon the executioners. Upon the completion of the voyage the court
resigned, after dispensing a general amnesty and partaking of bread
and salt in company with the rest of the crew. Upon landing, the
monetary fines which had been collected from delinquents on board were
presented to the lord of the strand for benevolent distribution.
On arriving at the end of his journey the merchant was confronted by
new difficulties. It not infrequently happened that the master of the
port visited by him had, within the time elapsed since the departure
of the vessel from home, fallen into strife with the respective Hanse
town whose ensign the vessel bore. As newspapers and despatches were
at that time unknown, it is not difficult to conjecture the
difficulties with which a merchant had to contend. Moreover, he
required an exact knowledge of local conditions and of the legal
rights accorded him, which were different in each city and always
inferior to those of the native inhabitants. To-day, as a rule, a
foreigner, wherever he may be, enjoys the full benefits of the place
he happens to visit, equally with the resident citizen. It was not so
in the days of the Hansa, and hence the constant endeavor of the
league to obtain firmly established offices or bureaus abroad. At an
early date such a bureau existed in London under the name of the
Stahlhof, another at Novgorod under the name of the St. Petershof, and
still others at smaller towns in England and the Netherlands--each
having its peculiar privileges, customs, and mercantile usages, but
all possessing in common the invaluable right of settling any
difficulty affecting the members of the league according to their own
native code. In London the representative of the league was compelled
to become an English citizen, and the entire bureau thus became
naturalized, as it were. The same was true of the Hanse bureau at
Bruges, a city in which after all, in view of the powerful competition
prevailing there, a pronounced monopoly was certain to be curbed to
some extent. Here the league merely possessed warerooms, while their
agents lived privately among the burghers. The right of holding court
in the Carmelite monastery was conceded to them; and there, too, they
administered their affairs. In Novgorod, however, the conditions were
entirely different. In view of the uncivilized condition and the
national prejudices of the Russians, the greatest care had to be
exercised in all intercourse with the natives in order that the
existence of the entire Hanseatic colony might not be endangered.
Consequently, this intercourse was regulated with great circumspection
and in all detail both by the diet of the Hanseatic League and by the
chiefs of the bureau.
It was, however, in Bergen, Norway, that northernmost station of the
Hansa, that the most interesting conditions prevailed. Here, that is,
in Norway, the German merchant, by means of money or arms, gradually
drove all competitors, including Englishmen, from the field, and in
1350 succeeded in establishing in the most favorably situated and
liveliest city of the land, Bergen, the last of his numerous
bureaus--a bureau which maintained itself, though in somewhat
deteriorated form, until the eighteenth century. This station, created
at a late period of Hanseatic expansion, bears testimony to the
colonial genius of the German merchants of the league and affords a
glimpse into their business methods. It may therefore be deserving of
a more detailed consideration.
Twenty-one farms or granges, belonging to as many Hanse towns, dotted
the shore. Each of these, surrounded by trees and lawns, covered
considerable space and included spacious granaries and dwellings, most
of which served also as warehouses. Each grange had its dock, where
ships could conveniently land and discharge their goods. The entire
space thus occupied by the Hanses was enclosed by a wall, beyond which
and running parallel with it was the so-called "Schustergasse"--a
street occupied by German artisans, who, though permanently settled
here, nevertheless remained closely in touch with their German
brethren of the bureau. Every bureau had its _Schutting_--a spacious,
windowless room which depended for light and air upon a hole in the
roof, which likewise served as a vent for the smoke issuing from the
hearth. It was in this room that the agents of the Hansa merchants
assembled to debate on judicial or mercantile affairs. During the long
winter evenings the families of the agents, as the assistants and
apprentices of the resident factors were pleasantly termed,
congregated here, each group at its own particular rough-hewn, wooden
table, to indulge in strong drink and pleasant gossip. When the
interests of the entire colony were to be discussed, the _Ælterleute_
("seniors") from every grange would meet in the Schutting belonging to
Bremen and called _Zum Mantel._ This assemblage was called the
"Council of Eighteen," the representative of Lubeck enjoying the
greatest distinction and wielding the greatest influence among them by
reason of the hegemony exercised by his native town. When matters of
particular importance arose, or in case of a serious dispute, the
affair at issue was usually referred to the _Bergenfahrercollegium_
("the town council"), or more frequently to the general convention of
the Hansa at Lubeck.
The expenses of maintaining the colony, in view of the almost monastic
simplicity of life prevailing there and the large membership, were
naturally small. In its zenith it probably numbered about three
thousand persons, who were subjected to strict laws--as strict,
indeed, as those of any camp or monastery. No woman was permitted
within the colony, and no person was permitted out of doors after
sundown, unless, indeed, he wished to run the gauntlet of the fierce
watchdogs which guarded the reservations of the settlers. The members
and employés of the Hansa who resided here were not permitted to marry
Norwegian women, in order that their special rights and privileges
might not be endangered through intermixture with the natives. How
considerable were these special rights the reader may determine from
the fact that, during the weekly markets, the members of the Hansa
bureaus had the streets barricaded by powerful fellows who permitted
no one to interfere with the valuable privilege of priority conceded
to the Hanses in the matter of barter. Naturally enough the purchasing
price of goods was arbitrarily set by the latter under these
conditions, while the fixing of the selling price, in the absence of
all competition, was a matter of course.
That the exercise of such pressure sometimes disturbed the serenity of
the Norwegian can readily be conjectured, especially when it is
considered that the average Northman is by no means indisposed to have
a little brush with his neighbor now and then. But in such an event
the Germans usually gave tit for tat, and that with a vengeance. On
one occasion they killed a bishop in the presence of the king; at
various other times they burned monasteries over the heads of the
inmates; and frequently they sheltered criminals, or demolished entire
dwellings in order to obtain kindling wood speedily and conveniently.
Only by means of concord among themselves and strict exclusiveness
could the Hanses for centuries maintain their position upon that
inhospitable and thinly peopled shore. The novice, who usually entered
the service of the Hansa at the age of twelve, was compelled to serve
an apprenticeship of seven years, during which his duties consisted
also in cooking, cleaning, and washing for and in waiting upon the
older clerks. Thereafter he advanced to the position of journeyman,
his inauguration being attended by festive, highly suggestive, and, to
the beholder, amusing ceremonies. These ceremonies began with a great
drinking bout arranged at the youth's expense. The next feature of the
programme was entitled _Das Staupenspiel im Paradies_ ("the Walloping
in Paradise"), a procedure to which every apprentice was exposed
annually and to which on this occasion he bade a final farewell. This
part of the ceremony consisted in setting apart a space enclosed
within birch boughs, on entering which the blindfolded and scantily
attired youth who was to be initiated into the order of journeymen was
thoroughly trounced by "angels of paradise" in the form of lusty
companions who were usually unsparing of the rod. A festive procession
through the streets followed. It was led by two fantastically attired
youngsters who impersonated a Norwegian peasant and his wife, and
whose duty it was to play tricks upon the sightseers and to amuse
them. After a baptism in the sea the unfortunate youth who figured as
the hero of this festival was subjected to a procedure akin to that of
roasting a herring in the flue; and it is singular enough that the
records show only one case of death by suffocation consequent upon
this ordeal. Good days, however, now followed upon evil ones, and the
youthful novitiate was fêted and entertained by his companions and
made to forget the sufferings and hardships of his initiation. Many
other pastimes were indulged in by the members of the bureaus, which,
however, cannot be touched upon here. Suffice it to say that they were
characterized by the humor and roughness of the age. Despite repeated
attempts of the Hansa and of the several cities to put an end to these
sports, they nevertheless continued to be practised for centuries,
upon the rather plausible plea that they served as a wholesome
training for the mercantile youth. Never before or since, however, has
the pedagogy of the rod found so thoroughgoing an application as here.
One of the busiest centres of Hanseatic activity remains to be touched
upon: namely, the small tongue of land near Skanor and Falsterbo, and
constituting an appendage of the larger peninsula of Skane or Schonen.
The once prosperous stretch of beach here referred to is now a desert
tract of sand, the furrows and ruins on which are the only relics of
the busy commercial life once prevailing. After the herring had during
the tenth and eleventh centuries visited the Pomeranian coast in great
shoals, it changed its course to the above-mentioned region of the
Sound. The Hanses were not slow to avail themselves of this
circumstance. They succeeded in securing a practical ownership of this
most valuable district of Denmark; thereby demonstrating how
incredibly incompetent the princes of the land were at that time as
regards the utilization of their natural resources. These princes
actually granted to several German cities, and, moreover, to each
individually, the right to establish reservations here--the so-called
_Vitten_--consisting of fenced enclosures on the coast, within which
were erected vendors' and fish-booths, dwellings, and even churches,
all under the administration of special governors appointed by the
Germans. From this point the herring grounds were readily accessible.
The fishing lasted from July until October; and during this time
merchants, fishermen, and coopers resorted here by thousands to fish
as well as to salt, smoke, pack, and load the produce of the net. In
connection with this industry there were held in the immediate
vicinity much-frequented annual markets, the distributing centres for
home consumption. At the beginning of the fifteenth century the
capricious fish suddenly took another direction, visiting the coast of
Holland, to the people of which he thenceforth became as lucrative a
source of revenue as he had been to the Hanses. It has been said that
Amsterdam with all its wealth is built upon herrings; and a similar
statement could once be applied with equal justice to the Hansa cities
of the Baltic.
Concerning the characteristic methods of conducting trade it may be
well here to add that during the distant period here under
consideration a so-called commission business could scarcely be said
to exist; and this is true also of speculation in the narrower sense.
While buying and selling on time were not infrequent, especially in
the grain market, the transactions were upon an infinitely smaller
scale than as conducted at present, when, as the saying goes, "goods
is sold a dozen times before it is actually available." The unsound
methods at present in vogue, based as they are upon fluctuations in
price, were then scarcely known. "Goods in exchange for goods or its
equivalent in money" was the motto of the Hanseatic merchant, who,
however, was by no means always entirely guiltless of fraudulent
operations. Often enough the lowermost layers of herring in the keg
consisted of spoiled goods, and not infrequently a bale of linen had
to be returned from station to station to the place whence it was sent
in order that it might be reëxamined as to quantity and quality. In
these transactions the crafty dealer usually preferred to take
advantage of the proverbial simplicity of the Norwegian.
The scope of the Hansa trade was greater than one would imagine. It
was greater, for example, than that of the maritime towns of Germany
for the period immediately preceding the era of steam navigation,
_i.e._, about 1830. The fish trade was at that early period far more
brisk, partly because the herring then visited the shores of the
Baltic, and partly because the church laws relative to abstinence from
meat during the fasts were rigidly observed by all the states of
Christian Europe. A few figures will serve vividly to illustrate this
change: In 1855, 3,700 kegs of herring were imported by way of Lubeck,
as against 33,000 kegs for the period 500 years previous; and in the
year of war, 1369, despite the embargo with Denmark, a great consumer,
the exports of herring from thirty Hanseatic ports yielded a sum of
130,000,000 marks, 40,000,000 of which fell to the share of Hamburg,
then a much smaller city than Lubeck.
It is natural, in the light of these commercial conditions, that
industry, and handicraft also, must have greatly flourished. In those
days there were twice as many bakers in Lubeck as at present. The
coopers, also, in view of the great demand for herring kegs, were in
high repute, and scarcely less so the brewers, who at that time
greatly excelled their South German competitors. The beer of Hamburg
or Rostock was never absent from a northern feast. Nearly all the
cities from Livonia to the mouth of the Weser were surrounded by
gardens of hops, and Hamburg especially owed its rapid rise during the
fourteenth century chiefly to its brewers, at times five hundred or
more in number, one hundred and twenty-six of whom supplied the market
of Amsterdam alone. Not only representatives of the higher industrial
arts, such as goldsmiths, metal workers, picture carvers, paternoster
makers, and altar makers, but shoemakers and other handicraftsmen were
to be found in the Far North, which, at that time, was still somewhat
deficient in these matters. There is report of a worthy shoemaker,
who, after sojourning in Russia, repaired to Stockholm, where he
entered the service of a knight, and thence to Santiago di Compostela,
where he wrought for pilgrims.
All these trades were divided into guilds and sequestered in certain
streets or localities; and it was long before they were permitted to
participate in the city government, which rested solely in the hands
of the great landlords and merchant princes. In the fourteenth
century, however, following the example of the South German
communities, the "Rebellious Guilds" arose also in the Hanse towns and
inaugurated that far-reaching democratic movement akin to the War of
the Classes in ancient Rome. The guilds demanded a seat and a voice in
the municipal councils, and made the payment of their quota dependent
upon this concession. Most of the Northern cities experienced bloody
insurrections at this time, and the hangman was very busy. Now the
victory was with the patricians, and anon with the plebeians; and the
contest was continually renewed with changing fortune. After holding
aloof for some time the Hanseatic League finally took part in this
purely internal affair of the several cities, and always in favor of
the patrician party; in this way assuming a function originally
foreign to its purpose.