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 Lübeck, 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 Lübeck were noted for their skill in the sword-dance, a dance probably not unlike the Highland reel executed to this day by Scotchmen.

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 Lübeck 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.

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 Lübeck 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 Lübeck, 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 mediæval chronicles. Many tales are preserved of brawls arising in the towns through the vauntings of rival citizens. Thus a certain Lübecker 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.

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.

In 1400, the Hansa sent out a fleet to Frisia to combat these 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 rôle 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 Lübeck 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 mediæval 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, Skânoe 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 Lübeck 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 Malmö they founded a permanent colony, under the jurisdiction of an alderman, who administered Lübeck 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 Lübeck would pay a passing visit in order to adjust quarrels and investigate the state of trade.

The "Scandinavian travellers," as they were named, instituted a number of companies with rules of a religious, commercial, and worldly-sensuous character. Thus the "Pious Brotherhood of Malmö" buried every poor stranger with the same church pomp, costly palls, candles and masses, as they would one of their own members. No one was admitted into the brotherhood who was at feud with one of its associates. No one might enter the common room bearing arms. A member who introduced a guest was responsible for his good behaviour. In a word, the regulations were of a certain humane character, far different from those which obtained at Bergen. They were evidently copied from those of the guilds in the Hanseatic and other towns of the Middle Ages.

Until early in the sixteenth century the League retained in undiminished vigour its advantages in Scandinavia. To break their power it was necessary for the Dutch to discover a better mode of salting the fish. Then the fish itself came in smaller shoals to these coasts, and appeared instead near Scotland and Ireland, and, worst of all, modern Europe became Protestant, and fasting was hence no longer an obligatory fashion. Only a few sunken gravestones, still standing amid the desolation of this district, bear witness to the former importance of the site.

As for the rest of Sweden, the country, though not productive, was still of value to the Hanseatics, since they held the entire trade in their hands. As from Norway, they exported wood, iron, copper, skins, in a word, explored all its resources. In most of the maritime towns they exercised certain rights. Thus Stockholm itself was partly in their possession, the local administration being half chosen by them. In this wise they were able to bring pressure to bear upon the government. In short, they disposed of the whole commerce of Sweden, and it was not until the days of Gustavus Vasa that their might was rudely and completely shaken.

Indeed, in those middle centuries there seemed no limit to the Hanseatics' ambition and power. They early cast their eyes towards that immense territory in the far north, that Russian Empire which in those days was truly an unknown land. With quick traders' instinct they recognized that the country was worthy to be included in their vast monopoly. When they first established themselves in Russia is not known. Towards the end of the thirteenth century we find them in possession of a factory at Novgorod, on the river Volchor, a city which, with the province that surrounded it, was then an independent republic, for the Russia of those days was surrounded by various principalities mostly under Tartar rule. The natives were not strong enough to claim as their own a rich and populous city, whose liberties were protected by the Western Christians, and which had moreover been founded by aliens, namely, by one of those enterprising Norman chiefs, who in early times were, as we know, the terror of all states and countries.[9]

It is thought that the Hanseatics had another similar establishment at Pleskow, a city on the Velika, and perhaps even a depôt at Moscow, but undoubtedly Novgorod was their most important station. Here merchants and artizans fixed their abode, and drew around them a rich commerce for the town. It was the staple for Arctic and Byzantine riches, riches which the more barbarian Russians did not understand how to utilize like our cunning traders. As early as the eleventh century we hear of a German trading settlement at Novgorod. In 1269 the local ruler accorded to the Hanseatics, "to the German settlement, the Goths, and all peoples of Latin tongue," special freedom in dealing with his province.

As usual, the Hanseatics created a monopoly and jealously excluded all strangers. Assigned in Novgorod to a special quarter of the town, they built a church of their own, dedicated to St. Peter, and grouped their guildhall, shops, stores, and dwelling-houses around it. The quarter soon became known as the Court of the Germans at Great Novgorod, or the Court of St. Peter. As at Bergen, it was built in such a manner that it could be defended, if need be, and at night it was closed and guarded by watchmen and fierce dogs.

There is happily preserved for us the Codex of this German colony on the Lake of Ilmen. It is called the Skra, an old German word which we encounter elsewhere in Hanseatic chronicles. This Skra furnishes a lively picture of the strange character of the Court of St. Peter. It appears that "the entire council, together with the common consent of the wisest of all the German cities," had decreed that the laws here laid down should be enforced on all who visited the court, "as it was done from the commencement." The non-resident merchants, who always travelled in large parties and accompanied by a priest, are spoken of as the "summer and winter travellers." They elected from out of their number the alderman of the Court of St. Peter. He became head of the settlement, received the income, fees, and taxes, and defrayed the general costs. The alderman of the dwelling court was the highest dignitary and, with the aid of the four wisest, adjudged all quarrels, personal or commercial. These aldermen had special privileges in the choice of residence, and the aldermen of the "winter travellers" were further allowed certain honours and comforts in the great common room. The land travellers had to yield to the seafarers in all matters of convenience and space. Their priest, too, was regarded as the chief ecclesiastic of St. Peter's Court, and to him alone was accorded free board and a salary out of the common funds. Any one who refused to appear in answer to a summons before the court was subjected to a heavy fine. The so-called "rooms" (i.e., dwellings) were common to all; except that the "winter travellers," secluded from all the world in midst of the long Arctic nights, were permitted special privileges. The "children's room," the abode of the younger clerks and apprentices, also enjoyed rather more freedom from strict rules than was accorded to their elders. A master might not dismiss his subordinate until he had brought him back to his country; he was also bound to care for him in sickness, and might not punish him arbitrarily, or on his own authority alone. As at Bergen, and at the Steelyard in London, the whole establishment partook of a monastic character, in which most stringent rules prevailed. And of these rules none was more strict than that which forbad social intercourse or partnership trading with natives.

A special brewery concocted the sweet mead or beer drunk by the thirsty brotherhood of St. Peter's; in St. Peter's cauldron was melted down all the wax brought in from afar; the wood for firing was felled in St. Peter's forests. A monotonous life it was, interrupted only in spring and autumn by the arrival of the summer and winter travellers with their rich wares. In the cosy warmth of the common room, over endless bowls of mead, these far-travelled men, snowed up here and unable to return till spring released them, would beguile the long winter evenings with anecdote and tales. In this wise the Scandinavian Sagas first penetrated into Middle and Southern Germany.

The rules made against the Russians were severe and offensive in the extreme. It is evident they were not trusted in the smallest degree. A Hanseatic enjoyed the first privilege in all respects. For example, if a native was bankrupt, the German merchant to whom he was in debt had the first right to be paid before Russian creditors, and the Germans could further insist that such a bankrupt should be banished the city with wife and child. By way of tax they themselves paid a piece of cloth to the ruler of the mainland between their Court and the sea, and a pair of gloves to the Russian officials.

For the rest their whole attitude was haughty and overbearing, and it is scarcely astonishing that quarrels and risings against them were of frequent occurrence. But they almost always kept or at least regained the upper hand. Their audacious motto was "Who can stand against God and the Great Novgorod?" No doubt many of their rigid measures were necessary to a small colony living amid a turbulent and rude population, differing from them in manners, language, and religion. The station was as difficult to hold as years ago was that of Canton for the English. Like the Chinese, the Russians hated the merchants, if for no other reason than because they were foreigners. In every possible manner they tried to cheat them, adulterating wax, furnishing bad furs, &c., &c. In consequence, the alderman of St. Peter's saw himself obliged continually to issue new warnings and rules to secure his traders from the Russian tricksters. So, for example, the dwellers of the Court of St. Peter were enjoined only to buy furs in well-lighted places, where it was easier to test their genuineness and excellence, further to accept no large consignments that had not been previously subjected to careful scrutiny. And notwithstanding the fact that their commerce in Russia was subjected to great danger, that they even had several times to close their court and withdraw, the Hanseatics clung tenaciously to their Russian monopoly, which was one of the chief sources of their wealth. They even watched to see that no non-Hanseatic learnt Russian, an indispensable acquirement for this trade. Nay, at one time they held the whole province of Livonia responsible for hindering such a proceeding. After a time, under penalty of one hundred marks, no Russian was allowed to live in Livonia. On pain of corporal punishment, they were enjoined to treat with Russians only for ready money, or more strictly for ready goods. Credit with these barbarians was not encouraged, for it was desirable in every way to simplify intercourse, and moreover then, as now, it was next to impossible to a foreigner to make good his credit claims before Muscovite justice.

The trade consisted in Russian products, furs, metals, honey, and, above all, wax, much sought after in those Catholic times, when the consumption of this article was wonderfully great. It would seem as though some obscure merit were attached to the burning or the gift of candles, the origin of which is probably heathen. What the Hanseatics brought to market was chiefly Flemish and English cloths and linen, as well as divers articles of luxury, eagerly sought after by the various princes and sovereigns and by the innumerable Boyars who ranked like petty princes.

In those large and small courts a barbaric and gorgeous display was common, and ostentatious rivalry existed between the princes. Probably this love of exterior pomp is explained by their neighbourhood to the East. The Hanseatics astutely utilized this Russian tendency, and spared no pains in bringing to market wares calculated to dazzle and please these grown children; children in this respect alone however, that they could be fascinated by finery and show. In other matters the Russians behaved like adults, and they kept a constant watch upon the Hanseatics, never neglecting any opportunities of annoying them or hindering their trade. Thus, if the League accused the Russians of want of good faith in commercial dealings, they returned the compliment, and complaints of linen goods as being too narrow, too coarse, or not according to sample, were frequent. Often these were justified, as often not. But on several occasions the Russians arrested Hanseatics, put them in irons, even on one occasion hanged a Hanseatic merchant from the door of the League's own factory. The Hanseatics met such insults by threatening to leave Novgorod; indeed, carried out this threat several times, but love of gain on the one hand, hunger after luxuries on the other, appeased the troubled spirits, and peace was re-established on the old footing. These treaties of reconciliation were sealed by the Germans with a key in a shield, the seal of St. Peter's Court. The Russians swore fidelity by kissing the crucifix.

But as such disturbances might always recur, and in order that the damage should not prove too heavy to members of the League, it was decreed by them in the fourteenth century that no merchant might send to or store at Novgorod merchandise exceeding in value the sum of a thousand marks. This shows that their position at Novgorod was rather that of a hostile encampment than that of a secure and permanent settlement.

Above all, the Hanseatics strictly forbade Russia to trade on the sea, and any Russian merchant ships that they encountered were captured and the captain and crew severely punished.

Early in the twelfth century the clever Lombards, already famous throughout Europe for their skill in all banking transactions, tried to gain a footing at Novgorod. It seems that their financial shrewdness was not always combined with the strictest honesty, and that hence they enjoyed an ill fame. Certainly the Hanseatics succeeded in 1405 in prohibiting "these dangerous men" from any residence in the Baltic cities, while in St. Peter's Court their presence was formally proscribed in 1346.

A serious interruption to the commerce of the League with Russia occurred in the middle of the fifteenth century, when the Prussian towns revolted against the oppressive supremacy of the chivalric order of the Teutonic Knights. Like all spiritual powers, when it is a question of the goods of this world, the Teutonic Knights fought ardently to regain their power, and this warfare long rendered the Baltic dangerous and impossible for trade purposes. Indeed, so long and so serious was this war that but for the fact that the League was in a sufficiently flourishing condition to be able to bear great losses, and also for the fact that the Russian trade was worth many sacrifices, the League might even then have been permanently crushed.

More serious was the next enemy who arose and who shook to its foundations the empire of Hanseatic commerce in Russia. This was the Czar Ivan II., known as the Terrible. He had conquered and chased from his domains the savage Tartar hordes that annually ravaged it; he was ambitious to unite the whole Muscovite kingdom under his sway. Like his successors to this day, he hated all that savoured of liberty and independence, and was resolved to exclude from his realms everything that approached a more advanced civilization and was irreconcilable with absolute rule.

At last, after a gallant resistance, in which especially a woman, named Marsa, took a leading part, Novgorod fell into the hands of Ivan, who despoiled it of its liberty and riches, and sent its chief inhabitants into the centre of his empire and replaced them by his Muscovites; burnt, ravaged, pillaged, and sacked, so that at one blow the town lost its liberty, lustre, and prosperity. The great bell of freedom was carried to Moscow, where to this day it hangs, no longer inciting to revolt, but calling the people to prayer. As for the Hanseatics at Novgorod, they were taken prisoner and kept in cruel durance. Their merchandise was confiscated, and all their possessions, such as church ornaments, bells, silver vases, &c., were carried off in triumph to Moscow.

This blow came upon them like a thunderbolt, for all their privileges had just been reconfirmed by the Russian ruler. But to Ivan no sacred treaties were binding. Only after many years and long negotiations did the Hanseatics succeed in getting him at least to release their prisoners. When he did agree to this most had already died from the effects of privation. Of the confiscated goods he would not return a bale.

Thus ended the glory of the Hanseatic rule in Russia. It is true that under Ivan's son the cities once more endeavoured to open their court on the Volchor. But a twenty years' interruption of trade was not easily made good. They could not recover their monopoly, which had been usurped by Danes and Dutchmen. The last blow to all such efforts came from the English, who had discovered a passage to Russia by means of the White Sea and Archangel, and hence no longer needed Hanseatic mediation. In 1603 Czar Boris Gudenow wanted to reinstate the Hansa in its ancient privileges. It was too late. The dissensions that agitated Russia did not permit the League to derive any profit from his good intentions. Commerce had taken another direction, and kept it. When, some time after, a traveller passed through Novgorod, all he found to remind him of the German colony here were only the ruins of the stone church of St. Peter, a single storehouse, and one wooden shanty, which served as shelter for him and his servant. Of the former glory and prosperity there was no sign.