Chapter 13

Authorities.—A. Hüne,Geschichte des Königreichs Hannover und des Herzogtums Braunschweig(Hanover, 1824-1830); A. F. H. Schaumann,Handbuch der Geschichte der Lande Hannover und Braunschweig(Hanover, 1864); G. A. Grotefend,Geschichte der allgemeinen landständischen Verfassung des Königreichs Hannover, 1814-1848(Hanover, 1857); H. A. Oppermann,Zur Geschichte des Königreichs Hannover, 1832-1860 (Berlin, 1868); E. von Meier,Hannoversche Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgeschichte(Leipzig, 1898-1899); W. von Hassell,Das Kurfürstentum Hannover vom Baseler Frieden bis zur preussischen Okkupation(Hanover, 1894); andGeschichte des KönigreichsHannover (Leipzig, 1898-1901); H. von Treitschke,Der Herzog von Cumberland und das hannoversche Staatsgrundgesetz von 1833(Leipzig, 1888); M. Bär,Übersicht über die Bestände des königlichen Staatsarchivs zu Hannover(Leipzig, 1900);Hannoversches Portfolio(Stuttgart, 1839-1841); and the authorities given for the history of Brunswick.

HANOVER,the capital of the Prussian province of the same name, situated in a sandy but fertile plain on the Leine, which here receives the Ihme, 38 m. N.W. from Brunswick, 78 S.E. of Bremen, and at the crossing of the main lines of railway, Berlin to Cologne and Hamburg to Frankfort-on-Main. Pop. (1885) 139,731; (1900) 235,666; (1905) 250,032. On the north and east the town is half encircled by the beautiful woods and groves of the Eilenriede and the List which form the public park. The Leine flows through the city, having the old town on its right and the quaint Calenberger quarter between its left bank and the Ihme. The old town is irregularly built, with narrow streets and old-fashioned gabled houses. In its centre lies the Markt Kirche, a red-brick edifice of the 14th century, containing interesting monuments and some fine stained-glass windows, and with a steeple 310 ft. in height (the highest in Hanover). Its interior was restored in 1855. Close by, on the market square, is the red-brick medieval town-hall (Rathaus), with an historical wine cellar beneath. It has been superseded for municipal business by a new building, and now contains the civic archives and museum. The new town, surrounding the old on the north and east, and lying between it and the woods referred to, has wide streets, handsome buildings and beautiful squares. Among the last-mentioned are the square at the railway station—the Ernst August-Platz—with an equestrian statue of King Ernest Augustus in bronze; the triangular Theater-Platz, with statues of the composer Marschner and others; and the Georgs-Platz, with a statue of Schiller. To the south of the old town, on the banks of the Ihme, lies the Waterloo-Platz, with a column of victory, 154 ft. high, having inscribed on it the names of 800 Hanoverians who fell at Waterloo. In the adjacent gardens an open rotunda encloses a marble bust of the philosopher Leibnitz, and near it is a monument to General Count von Alten, the commander of the Hanoverian troops at Waterloo. Among the other churches the most noticeable are the Neustädterkirche, with a graceful shrine containing the tomb of Leibnitz, the Kreuzkirche, built about 1300, with a curious steeple, and the Aegidienkirche among ancient edifices, and among modern ones the Christuskirche, a gift of King George V., the Lukaskirche, the Lutherkirche, and the Roman Catholic church of St Mary, with a tower 300 ft. high, containing the grave of Ludwig Windthorst, “his little excellency,” for many years leader of the Ultramontane (Centre) party in the imperial diet. Of secular buildings the most remarkable is the royal palace—Schloss—built 1636-1640, with a grand portal and handsome quadrangle. In its chapel are preserved the relics of saints which Henry the Lion brought from Palestine. The new provincial museum built in 1897-1902 contains the Cumberland Gallery and the Guelph Museum; and the Kestner Museum also contains interesting and valuable collections of works of art. The other principal public buildings are the royal archives and library, containing a library of 200,000 volumes and 3500 manuscripts; the old provincial museum, which houses a variety of collections, such as natural, historical and ethnographical, and a collection of modern paintings; the theatre (built 1845-1852), one of the largest in Germany, the archaeological museum, the railway station, and, in the west, close to Herrenhausen (see below), the magnificent Welfenschloss (Guelph-palace). The last, begun in 1859, was almost completed in 1866, but was never occupied by the Hanoverian royal family. Since 1875 it has been occupied by the technical high school, an academy with university privileges. Close to it lies the famous Herrenhausen, the summer palace of the former kings of Hanover, with fine gardens, an open-air theatre, a museum and an orangery, and approached by a grand avenue over a mile in length.

Hanover has a number of colleges and schools, and is the seat of several learned societies. It is largely frequented by foreign students, especially English, attracted by the educational facilities it offers and by the reputed purity of the German spoken. Hanover is the headquarters of the X. Prussian army corps, has a large garrison of nearly all arms and a famous military riding school. It occupies a leading position among the industrial and commercial towns of the empire, and of recent years has made rapid progress in prosperity. It is connected by railway with Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen, Hameln, Cologne, Altenbeken and Cassel, and the facilities of intercourse have, under the fostering care of the Prussian government, enormously developed its trade and manufactures. Almost all industries are represented; chief among them are machine-building, the manufacture of india-rubber, linen, cloth, hardware, chemicals, tobacco, pianos, furniture and groceries. The commerce consists principally in wine, hides, horses, coal, wood and cereals. There are extensive printing establishments. Hanover was the first German town that was lighted with gas. It is the birthplace of Sir William Herschel, the astronomer, of the brothers Schlegel, of Iffland and of the historian Pertz. The philosopher Leibnitz died there in 1716.

Close by, on the left bank of the Leine, lies the manufacturing town of Linden, which, though practically forming one town with Hanover, is treated under a separate heading.

The town of Hanover is first mentioned during the 12th century. It belonged to the family of Welf, then to the bishops of Hildesheim, and then, in 1369, it came again into the possessionof the Welfs, now dukes of Brunswick. It joined the Hanseatic League, and was later the residence of the branch of the ducal house, which received the title of elector of Hanover and ascended the British throne in the person of George I. One or two important treaties were signed in Hanover, which from 1810 to 1813 was part of the kingdom of Westphalia, and in 1866 was annexed by Prussia, after having been the capital of the kingdom of Hanover since its foundation in 1815.

See O. Ulrich,Bilder aus Hannovers Vergangenheit(1891); Hoppe,Geschichte der Stadt Hannover(1845); Hirschfeld,Hannovers Grossindustrie und Grosshandel(Leipzig, 1891); Frensdorff,Die Stadtverfassung Hannovers in alter und neuer Zeit(Leipzig, 1883); W. Bahrdt,Geschichte der Reformation der Stadt Hannover(1891); Hartmann,Geschichte von Hannover mit besonderer Rücksichtnahme auf die Entwickelung der Residenzstadt Hannover(1886);Hannover und Umgegend, Entwickelung und Zustände seiner Industrie und Gewerbe(1874); and theUrkundenbuch der Stadt Hannover(1860, fol.).

HANOVER,a town of Jefferson county, Indiana, U.S.A., on the Ohio river, about 5 m. below Madison. Pop. (1900) 377; (1910) 356. It is served by boats on the Ohio river and by stages to Madison, the nearest railway station. Along the border of the town and on a bluff rising about 500 ft. above the river is Hanover College, an institution under Presbyterian control, embracing a college and a preparatory department, and offering classical and scientific courses and instruction in music; there is no charge for tuition. In 1908-1909 there were 211 students, 75 being in the Academy. The institution was opened in a log cabin in 1827, was incorporated as Hanover Academy in 1828, was adopted as a synodical school by the Presbyterian Synod of Indiana in 1829 on condition that a Theological department be added, and in 1833 was incorporated under its present name. In 1840, however, the theological department became a separate institution and was removed to New Albany, whence in 1859 it was removed to Chicago, where it was named, first, the Presbyterian Theological Seminary of the North-west, and, in 1886, the McCormick Theological Seminary. In the years immediately after its incorporation in 1833 Hanover College introduced the “manual labor system” and was for a time very prosperous, but the system was not a success, the college ran into debt, and in 1843 the trustees attempted to surrender the charter and to acquire the charter of a university at Madison. This effort was opposed by a strong party, which secured a more liberal charter for the college. In 1880 the college became coeducational.

HANOVER,a township of Grafton county, New Hampshire, U.S.A., on the Connecticut river, 75 m. by rail N.W. of Concord. Pop. (1900) 1884; (1910) 2075. No railway enters this township; the Ledyard Free Bridge (the first free bridge across the Connecticut) connects it with Norwich, Vt., which is served by the Boston & Maine railway. Ranges of rugged hills, broken by deep narrow gorges and by the wider valley of Mink Brook, rise near the river and culminate in the E. section in Moose Mountain, 2326 ft. above the sea. Near the foot of Moose Mountain is the birthplace of Laura D. Bridgman. Agriculture, dairying and lumbering are the chief pursuits of the inhabitants. The village of Hanover, the principal settlement of the township, occupies Hanover Plain in the S.W. corner, and is the seat of Dartmouth College (q.v.), which has a strikingly beautiful campus, and among its buildings several excellent examples of the colonial style, notably Dartmouth Hall. The Mary Hitchcock memorial hospital, a cottage hospital of 36 beds, was erected in 1890-1893 by Hiram Hitchcock in memory of his wife. The charter of the township was granted by Gov. Benning Wentworth on the 4th of July 1761, and the first settlement was made in May 1765. The records of the town meetings and selectmen, 1761-1818, have been published by E. P. Storrs (Hanover, 1905).

See Frederick Chase,A History of Dartmouth College and the Town of Hanover(Cambridge, 1891).

HANOVER,a borough of York county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., 36 m. S. by W. of Harrisburg, and 6 m. from the S. border of the state. Pop. (1890) 3746; (1900) 5302, (133 foreign-born); (1910) 7057. It is served by the Northern Central and the Western Maryland railways. The borough is built on nearly level ground in the fertile valley of the Conewago, at the point of intersection of the turnpike roads leading to Baltimore, Carlisle, York and Frederick, from which places the principal streets—sections of these roads—are named. Among its manufactures are foundry and machine-shop products, flour, silk, waggons, shoes, gloves, furniture, wire cloth and cigars. The settlement of the place was begun mostly by Germans during the middle of the 18th century. Hanover was laid out in 1763 or 1764 by Col. Richard MacAllister; and in 1815 it was incorporated. On the 30th of June 1863 there was a cavalry engagement in and near Hanover between the forces of Generals H. J. Kilpatrick (Union) and J. E. B. Stuart (Confederate) preliminary to the battle of Gettysburg. This engagement is commemorated by an equestrian statue erected in Hanover by the state.

HANRIOT, FRANÇOIS(1761-1794), French revolutionist, was born at Nanterre (Seine) of poor parentage. Having lost his first employment—with aprocureur—through dishonesty, he obtained a clerkship in the Paris octroi in 1789, but was dismissed for abandoning his post when the Parisians burned theoctroibarriers on the night of the 12th-13th of July 1789. After leading a hand-to-mouth existence for some time, he became one of the orators of the section of thesans-culottes, and commanded the armed force of that section during the insurrection on the 10th of August 1792 and the massacres of September. But he did not come into prominence until the night of the 30th-31st of May 1793, when he was provisionally appointed commandant-general of the armed forces of Paris by the council general of the Commune. On the 31st of May he was one of the delegates from the Commune to the Convention demanding the dissolution of the Commission of Twelve and the proscription of the Girondists (q.v.), and he was in command of the insurrectionary forces of the Commune during theémeuteof the 2nd of June (seeFrench Revolution). On the 11th of June he resigned his command, declaring that order had been restored. On the 13th he was impeached in the Convention; but the motion was not carried, and on the 1st of July he was elected by the Commune permanent commander of the armed forces of Paris. This position, which gave him enormous power, he retained until the revolution of the 9th Thermidor (July 27, 1794). His arrest was decreed; but he had thegénéralesounded and the tocsin rung, and tried to rescue Robespierre, who was under arrest in the hall of theComité de Sûreté Générale. Hanriot was himself arrested, but was rescued by his adherents, and hastened to the Hôtel de Ville. After a vain attempt to organize resistance he fled and hid in a secluded yard, where he was discovered the next day. He was arrested, sentenced to death, and guillotined with Robespierre and his friends on the 10th Thermidor of the year II. (the 28th of July 1794).

HANSARD, LUKE(1752-1828), English printer, was born on the 5th of July 1752 in St Mary’s parish, Norwich. He was educated at Boston grammar school, and was apprenticed to Stephen White, a Norwich printer. As soon as his apprenticeship had expired Hansard started for London with only a guinea in his pocket, and became a compositor in the office of John Hughs (1703-1771), printer to the House of Commons. In 1774 he was made a partner, and undertook almost the entire conduct of the business, which in 1800 came completely into his hands. On the admission of his sons the firm became Luke Hansard & Sons. Among those whose friendship Hansard won in the exercise of his profession were Robert Orme, Burke and Dr Johnson; while Porson praised him as the most accurate printer of Greek. He printed theJournals of the House of Commonsfrom 1774 till his death. The promptitude and accuracy with which Hansard printed parliamentary papers were often of the greatest service to government—notably on one occasion when the proof-sheets of the report of the Secret Committee on the French Revolution were submitted to Pitt twenty-four hours after the draft had left his hands. On the union with Ireland in 1801, the increase of parliamentary printing compelled Hansard to give up all private printing except when parliament was not sitting. He devised numerous expedients for reducing the expense of publishing the reports; and in 1805, when his workmen struck at a timeof great pressure, he and his sons themselves set to work as compositors. Luke Hansard died on the 29th of October 1828.

His son,Thomas Curson Hansard(1776-1833), established a press of his own in Paternoster Row, and began in 1803 to print theParliamentary Debates, which were not at first independent reports, but were taken from the newspapers. After 1889 the debates were published by the Hansard Publishing Union Limited. T. C. Hansard was the author ofTypographia, an Historical Sketch of the Origin and Progress of the Art of Printing(1825). The original business remained in the hands of his younger brothers, James and Luke Graves Hansard (1777-1851). The firm was prosecuted in 1837 by John Joseph Stockwell for printing by order of the House of Commons, in an official report of the inspector of prisons, statements regarded by the plaintiff as libellous. Hansard sheltered himself on the ground of privilege, but it was not until after much litigation that the security of the printers of government reports was guaranteed by statute in 1840.

HANSEATIC LEAGUE.It is impossible to assign any precise date for the beginning of the Hanseatic League or to name any single factor which explains the origin of that loose but effective federation of North German towns. Associated action and partial union among these towns can be traced back to the 13th century. In 1241 we find Lübeck and Hamburg agreeing to safeguard the important road connecting the Baltic and the North Sea. The first known meeting of the “maritime towns,” later known as the Wendish group and including Lübeck, Hamburg, Lüneburg, Wismar, Rostock and Stralsund, took place in 1256. The Saxon towns, during the following century, were joining to protect their common interests, and indeed at this period town confederacies in Germany, both North and South, were so considerable as to call for the declaration against them in the Golden Bull of 1356. The decline of the imperial power and the growing opposition between the towns and the territorial princes justified these defensive town alliances, which in South Germany took on a peculiarly political character. The relative weakness of territorial power in the North, after the fall of Henry the Lion of Saxony, diminished without however removing this motive for union, but the comparative immunity from princely aggression on land left the towns freer to combine in a stronger and more permanent union for the defence of their commerce by sea and for the control of the Baltic.

While the political element in the development of the Hanseatic League must not be underestimated, it was not so formative as the economic. The foundation was laid for the growth of German towns along the southern shore of the Baltic by the great movement of German colonization of Slavic territory east of the Elbe. This movement, extending in time from about the middle of the 11th to the middle of the 13th century and carrying a stream of settlers and traders from the North-west, resulted not only in the Germanization of a wide territory but in the extension of German influence along the sea-coast far to the east of actual territorial settlement. The German trading towns, at the mouths of the numerous streams which drain the North European plain, were stimulated or created by the unifying impulse of a common and long-continued advance of conquest and colonization.

The impetus of this remarkable movement of expansion not only carried German trade to the East and North within the Baltic basin, but reanimated the older trade from the lower Rhine region to Flanders and England in the West. Cologne and the Westphalian towns, the most important of which were Dortmund, Soest and Münster, had long controlled this commerce but now began to feel the competition of the active traders of the Baltic, opening up that direct communication by sea from the Baltic to western Europe which became the essential feature in the history of the League. The necessity of seeking protection from the sea-rovers and pirates who infested these waters during the whole period of Hanseatic supremacy, the legal customs, substantially alike in the towns of North Germany, which governed the groups of traders in the outlying trading posts, the establishment of common factories, or “counters” (Komtors) at these points, with aldermen to administer justice and to secure trading privileges for the community of German merchants—such were some of the unifying influences which preceded the gradual formation of the League. In the century of energetic commercial development before 1350 the German merchants abroad led the way.

Germans were early pushing as permanent settlers into the Scandinavian towns, and in Wisby, on the island of Gothland, the Scandinavian centre of Baltic trade, equal rights as citizens in the town government were possessed by the German settlers as early as the beginning of the 13th century. There also came into existence at Wisby the first association of German traders abroad, which united the merchants of over thirty towns, from Cologne and Utrecht in the West to Reval in the East. We find the Gothland association making in 1229 a treaty with a Russian prince and securing privileges for their branch trading station at Novgorod. According to the “Skra,” the by-laws of the Novgorod branch, the four aldermen of the community of Germans, who among other duties held the keys of the common chest, deposited in Wisby, were to be chosen from the merchants of the Gothland association and of the towns of Lübeck, Soest and Dortmund. The Gothland association received in 1237 trading rights in England, and shortly after the middle of the century it also secured privileges in Flanders. It legislated on matters relating to common trade interests, and, in the case of the regulation of 1287 concerning shipwrecked goods, we find it imposing this legislation on the towns under the penalty of exclusion from the association. But with the extension of the East and West trade beyond the confines of the Baltic, this association by the end of the century was losing its position of leadership. Its inheritance passed to the gradually forming union of towns, chiefly those known as Wendish, which looked to Lübeck as their head. In 1293 the Saxon and Wendish merchants at Rostock decided that all appeals from Novgorod be taken to Lübeck instead of to Wisby, and six years later the Wendish and Westphalian towns, meeting at Lübeck, ordered that the Gothland association should no longer use a common seal. Though Lübeck’s right as court of appeal from the Hanseatic counter at Novgorod was not recognized by the general assembly of the League until 1373, the long-existing practice had simply accorded with the actual shifting of commercial power. The union of merchants abroad was beginning to come under the control of the partial union of towns at home.

A similar and contemporary extension of the influence of the Baltic traders under Lübeck’s leadership may be witnessed in the West. As a consequence of the close commercial relations early existing between England and the Rhenish-Westphalian towns, the merchants of Cologne were the first to possess a gild-hall in London and to form a “hansa” with the right of admitting other German merchants on payment of a fee. The charter of 1226, however, by which Emperor Frederick II. created Lübeck a free imperial city, expressly declared that Lübeck citizens trading in England should be free from the dues imposed by the merchants of Cologne and should enjoy equal rights and privileges. In 1266 and 1267 the merchants of Hamburg and Lübeck received from Henry III. the right to establish their own hansas in London, like that of Cologne. The situation thus created led by 1282 to the coalescence of the rival associations in the “Gild-hall of the Germans,” but though the Baltic traders had secured a recognized foothold in the enlarged and unified organization, Cologne retained the controlling interest in the London settlement until 1476. Lübeck and Hamburg, however, dominated the German trade in the ports of the east coast, notably in Lynn and Boston, while they were strong in the organized trading settlements at York, Hull, Ipswich, Norwich, Yarmouth and Bristol. The counter at London, first called the Steelyard in a parliamentary petition of 1422, claimed jurisdiction over the other factories in England.

In Flanders, also, the German merchants from the West had long been trading, but here had later to endure not only the rivalry but the pre-eminence of those from the East. In 1252 the first treaty privileges for German trade in Flanders showtwo men of Lübeck and Hamburg heading the “Merchants of the Roman Empire,” and in the later organization of the counter at Bruges four or five of the six aldermen were chosen from towns east of the Elbe, with Lübeck steadily predominant. The Germans recognized the staple rights of Bruges for a number of commodities, such as wool, wax, furs, copper and grain, and in return for this material contribution to the growing commercial importance of the town, they received in 1309 freedom from the compulsory brokerage which Bruges imposed on foreign merchants. The importance and independence of the German trading settlements abroad was exemplified in the statutes of the “Company of German merchants at Bruges,” drawn up in 1347, where for the first time appears the grouping of towns in three sections (the “Drittel”), the Wendish-Saxon, the Prussian-Westphalian, and those of Gothland and Livland. Even more important than the assistance which the concentration of the German trade at Bruges gave to that leading mart of European commerce was the service rendered by the German counter of Bruges to the cause of Hanseatic unity. Not merely because of its central commercial position, but because of its width of view, its political insight, and its constant insistence on the necessity of union, this counter played a leading part in Hanseatic policy. It was more Hanse than the Hanse towns.

The last of the chief trading settlements, both in importance and in date of organization, was that at Bergen in Norway, where in 1343 the Hanseatics obtained special trade privileges. Scandinavia had early been sought for its copper and iron, its forest products and its valuable fisheries, especially of herring at Schonen, but it was backward in its industrial development and its own commerce had seriously declined in the 14th century. It had come to depend largely upon the Germans for the importation of all its luxuries and of many of its necessities, as well as for the exportation of its products, but regular trade with the three kingdoms was confined for the most part to the Wendish towns, with Lübeck steadily asserting an exclusive ascendancy. The fishing centre at Schonen was important as a market, though, like Novgorod, its trade was seasonal, but it did not acquire the position of a regularly organized counter, reserved alone, in the North, for Bergen. The commercial relations with the North cannot be regarded as an important element in the union of the Hanse towns, but the geographical position of the Scandinavian countries, especially that of Denmark, commanding the Sound which gives access to the Baltic, compelled a close attention to Scandinavian politics on the part of Lübeck and the League and thus by necessitating combined political action in defence of Hanseatic sea-power exercised a unifying influence.

Energetic and successful though the scattered trading settlements had been in establishing German trade connexions and in securing valuable trade privileges, the middle of the 14th century found them powerless to meet difficulties arising from internal dissension and still more from the political rivalries and trade jealousies of nascent nationalities. Flanders became a battle-field in the great struggle between France and England, and the war of trade prohibitions led to infractions of the German privileges in Bruges. An embargo on trade with Flanders, voted in 1358 by a general assembly, resulted by 1360 in the full restoration of German privileges in Flanders, but reduced the counter at Bruges to an executive organ of a united town policy. It is worth noting that in a document connected with this action the union of towns, borrowing the term from English usage, was first called the “German Hansa.” In 1361 representatives from Lübeck and Wisby visited Novgorod to recodify the by-laws of the counter and to admonish it that new statutes required the consent of Lübeck, Wisby, Riga, Dorpat and Reval. This action was confirmed in 1366 by an assembly of the Hansa which at the same time, on the occasion of a regulation made by the Bruges counter and of statutes drawn up by the young Bergen counter, ordered that in future the approval of the towns must be obtained for all new regulations.

The counter at London was soon forced to follow the example of the other counters at Bruges, Novgorod and Bergen. After the failure of the Italians, the Hanseatics remained the strongest group of alien merchants in England, and, as such, claimed the exclusive enjoyment of the privileges granted by theCarta Mercatoriaof 1303. Their highly favoured position in England, contrasting markedly with their refusal of trade facilities to the English in some of the Baltic towns and their evident policy of monopoly in the Baltic trade, incensed the English mercantile classes, and doubtless influenced the increases in customs-duties which were regarded by the Germans as contrary to their treaty rights. Unsuccessful in obtaining redress from the English government, the German merchants finally, in 1374, appealed for aid to the home towns, especially to Lübeck. The result of Hanseatic representations was the confirmation by Richard II. in 1377 of all their privileges, which accorded them the preferential treatment they had claimed and became the foundation of the Hanseatic position in England.

In the meanwhile, the conquest of Wisby by Waldemar IV. of Denmark in 1361 had disclosed his ambition for the political control of the Baltic. He was promptly opposed by an alliance of Hanse towns, led by Lübeck. The defeat of the Germans at Helsingborg only called into being the stronger town and territorial alliance of 1367, known as the Cologne Confederation, and its final victory, with the peace of Stralsund in 1370, which gave for a limited period the four chief castles on the Sound into the hands of the Hanseatic towns, greatly enhanced the prestige of the League.

The assertion of Hanseatic influence in the two decades, 1356 to 1377, marks the zenith of the League’s power and the completion of the long process of unification. Under the pressure of commercial and political necessity, authority was definitely transferred from the Hansas of merchants abroad to the Hansa of towns at home, and the sense of unity had become such that in 1380 a Lübeck official could declare that “whatever touches one town touches all.” But even at the time when union was most important, this statement went further than the facts would warrant, and in the course of the following century it became less and less true. Dortmund held aloof from the Cologne Confederation on the ground that it had no concern in Scandinavian politics. It became, indeed, increasingly difficult to obtain the support of the inland towns for a policy of sea-power in the Baltic. Cologne sent no representatives to the regular Hanseatic assemblies until 1383, and during the 15th century its independence was frequently manifested. It rebelled at the authority of the counter at Bruges, and at the time of the war with England (1469-1474) openly defied the League. In the East, the German Order, while enjoying Hanseatic privileges, frequently opposed the policy of the League abroad, and was only prevented by domestic troubles and its Hinterland enemies from playing its own hand in the Baltic. After the fall of the order in 1467, the towns of Prussia and Livland, especially Dantzig and Riga, pursued an exclusive trade policy even against their Hanseatic confederates. Lübeck, however, supported by the Bruges counter, despite the disaffection and jealousy on all sides hampering and sometimes thwarting its efforts, stood steadfastly for union and the necessity of obedience to the decrees of the assemblies. Its headship of the League, hitherto tacitly accepted, was definitely recognized in 1418.

The governing body of the Hansa was the assembly of town representatives, the “Hansetage,” held irregularly as occasion required at the summons of Lübeck, and, with few exceptions, attended but scantily. The delegates were bound by instructions from their towns and had to report home the decisions of the assembly for acceptance or rejection. In 1469 the League declared that the English use of the terms “societas,” “collegium” and “universitas” was inappropriate to so loose an organization. It preferred to call itself a “firma confederatio” for trade purposes only. It had no common seal, though that of Lübeck was accepted, particularly by foreigners, in behalf of the League. Disputes between the confederate towns were brought for adjudication before the general assembly, but the League had no recognized federal judiciary. Lübeck, with the counters abroad, watched over the execution of the measures voted by the assembly, but there was no regular administrativeorganization. Money for common purposes was raised from time to time, as necessity demanded, by the imposition on Hanse merchandise of poundage dues, introduced in 1361, while the counters relied upon a small levy of like nature and upon fines to meet current needs. Even this slender financial provision met with opposition. The German Order in 1398 converted the Hanseatic poundage to a territorial tax for its own purposes, and one of the chief causes for Cologne’s disaffection a half-century later was the extension from Flanders to other parts of the Netherlands of the levy made by the counter at Bruges. Since the authority of the League rested primarily on the moral support of its members, allied in common trade interests and acquiescing in the able leadership of Lübeck, its only means of compulsion was the “Verhansung,” or exclusion of a recalcitrant town from the benefits of the trade privileges of the League. A conspicuous instance was the exclusion of Cologne from 1471 until its obedience in 1476, but the penalty had been earlier imposed, as in the case of Brunswick, on towns which overthrew their patrician governments. It was obviously, however, a measure to be used only in the last resort and with extreme reluctance.

The decisive factor in determining membership in the League was the historical right of the citizens of a town to participate in Hanseatic privileges abroad. At first the merchant Hansas had shared these privileges with almost any German merchant, and thus many little villages, notably those in Westphalia, ultimately claimed membership. Later, under the Hansa of the towns, the struggle for the maintenance of a coveted position abroad led to a more exclusive policy. A few new members were admitted, mainly from the westernmost sphere of Hanseatic influence, but membership was refused to some important applicants. In 1447 it was voted that admission be granted only by unanimous consent. No complete list of members was ever drawn up, despite frequent requests from foreign powers. Contemporaries usually spoke of 70, 72, 73 or 77 members, and perhaps the list is complete with Daenell’s recent count of 72, but the obscurity on so vital a point is significant of the amorphous character of the organization.

The towns of the League, stretching from Thorn and Krakow on the East to the towns of the Zuider Zee on the West, and from Wisby and Reval in the North to Göttingen in the South, were arranged in groups, following in the main the territorial divisions. Separate assemblies were held in the groups for the discussion both of local and Hanseatic affairs, and gradually, but not fully until the 16th century, the groups became recognized as the lowest stage of Hanse organization. The further grouping into “Thirds,” later “Quarters,” under head-towns, was also more emphasized in that century.

In the 15th century the League, with increasing difficulty, held a defensive position against the competition of strong rivals and new trade-routes. In England the inevitable conflict of interests between the new mercantile power, growing conscious of its national strength, and the old, standing insistant on the letter of its privileges, was postponed by the factional discord out of which the Hansa in 1474 dexterously snatched a renewal of its rights. Under Elizabeth, however, the English Merchant Adventurers could finally rejoice at the withdrawal of privileges from the Hanseatics and their concession to England, in return for the retention of the Steelyard, of a factory in Hamburg. In the Netherlands the Hanseatics clung to their position in Bruges until 1540, while trade was migrating to the ports of Antwerp and Amsterdam. By the peace of Copenhagen in 1441, after the unsuccessful war of the League with Holland, the attempted monopoly of the Baltic was broken, and, though the Hanseatic trade regulations were maintained on paper, the Dutch with their larger ships increased their hold on the herring fisheries, the French salt trade, and the Baltic grain trade. For the Russian trade new competitors were emerging in southern Germany. The Hanseatic embargo against Bruges from 1451 to 1457, its later war and embargo against England, the Turkish advance closing the Italian Black Sea trade with southern Russia, all were utilized by Nuremberg and its fellows to secure a land-trade outside the sphere of Hanseatic influence. The fairs of Leipzig and Frankfort-on-Main rose in importance as Novgorod, the stronghold of Hanse trade in the East, was weakened by the attacks of Ivan III. The closing of the Novgorod counter in 1494 was due not only to the development of the Russian state but to the exclusive Hanseatic policy which had stimulated the opening of competing trade routes.

Within the League itself increasing restiveness was shown under the restrictions of its trade policy. At the Hanseatic assembly of 1469, Dantzig, Hamburg and Breslau opposed the maintenance of a compulsory staple at Bruges in the face of the new conditions produced by a widening commerce and more advantageous markets. Complaint was made of South German competition in the Netherlands. “Those in the Hansa,” protested Breslau, “are fettered and must decline and those outside the Hansa are free and prosper.” By 1477 even Lübeck had become convinced that a continuance of the effort to maintain the compulsory staple against Holland was futile and should be abandoned. But while it was found impossible to enforce the staple or to close the Sound against the Dutch, other features of the monopolistic system of trade regulations were still upheld. It was forbidden to admit an outsider to partnership or to co-ownership of ships, to trade in non-Hanseatic goods, to buy or sell on credit in a foreign mart or to enter into contracts for future delivery. The trade of foreigners outside the gates of Hanse towns or with others than Hanseatics was forbidden in 1417, and in the Eastern towns the retail trade of strangers was strictly limited. The whole system was designed to suppress the competition of outsiders, but the divergent interests of individuals and towns, the pressure of competition and changing commercial conditions, in part the reactionary character of the legislation, made enforcement difficult. The measures were those of the late-medieval town economy applied to the wide region of the German Baltic trade, but not supported, as was the analogous mercantilist system, by a strong central government.

Among the factors, economic, geographic, political and social, which combined to bring about the decline of the Hanseatic League, none was probably more influential than the absence of a German political power comparable in unity and energy with those of France and England, which could quell particularism at home, and abroad maintain in its vigour the trade which these towns had developed and defended with their imperfect union. Nothing was to be expected from the declining Empire. Still less was any co-operation possible between the towns and the territorial princes. The fatal result of conflict between town autonomy and territorial power had been taught in Flanders. The Hanseatics regarded the princes with a growing and exaggerated fear and found some relief in the formation in 1418 of a thrice-renewed alliance, known as the “Tohopesate,” against princely aggression. But no territorial power had as yet arisen in North Germany capable of subjugating and utilizing the towns, though it could detach the inland towns from the League. The last wars of the League with the Scandinavian powers in the 16th century, which left it shorn of many of its privileges and of any pretension to control of the Baltic basin eliminated it as a factor in the later struggle of the Thirty Years’ War for that control. At an assembly of 1629, Lübeck, Bremen and Hamburg were entrusted with the task of safeguarding the general welfare, and after an effort to revive the League in the last general assembly of 1669, these three towns were left alone to preserve the name and small inheritance of the Hansa which in Germany’s disunion had upheld the honour of her commerce. Under their protection, the three remaining counters lingered on until their buildings were sold at Bergen in 1775, at London in 1852 and at Antwerp in 1863.

Bibliography.—Hansisches Urkundenbuch, bearbeitet von K. Höhlbaum, K. Kunze und W. Stein (10 vols., Halle und Leipzig, 1876-1907);Hanserecesse, erste Abtheilung, 1256-1430 (8 vols., Leipzig, 1870-1897), zweite Abtheilung, 1431-1476 (7 vols., 1876-1892); dritte Abtheilung, 1477-1530 (7 vols., 1881-1905);Hansische Geschichtsquellen(7 vols., 1875-1894; 3 vols., 1897-1906);Inventare hansischer Archive des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts(vols. 1 and 2, 1896-1903);Hansische Geschictsblätter(14 vols., 1871-1908). Allthe above-mentioned chief sources have been issued by the Verein für hansische Geschichte. Of the secondary literature, the following histories and monographs should be named. G. F. Sartorius,Geschichte des hanseatischen Bundes(3 vols., Göttingen, 1802-1808),Urkundliche Geschichte des Ursprunges der deutschen Hanse, herausgegeben von J. M. Lappenberg (2 vols., Hamburg, 1830); F. W. Barthold,Geschichte der deutschen Hansa(3 vols., 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1862); D. Schäfer,Die Hansestädte und König Waldemar von Dänemark(Jena, 1879); W. Stein,Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Hanse bis um die Mitte des fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts(Giessen, 1900); E. Daenell,Die Blütezeit der deutschen Hanse. Hansische Geschichte von der zweiten Hälfte des XIV. bis zum letzten Viertel des XV. Jahrhunderts(2 vols., Berlin, 1905-1906); J. M. Lappenberg,Urkundliche Geschichte des hansischen Stahlhofes zu London(Hamburg, 1851); F. Keutgen,Die Beziehungen der Hanse zu England im letzten Drittel des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts(Giessen, 1890); R. Ehrenberg,Hamburg und England im Zeitalter der Königin Elisabeth(Jena, 1896); W. Stein,Die Genossenschaft der deutschen Kaufleute zu Brügge in Flandern(Berlin, 1890); H. Rogge,Der Stapelzwang des hansischen Kontors zu Brügge im fünfzehnten Jahrhundert(Kiel, 1903); A. Winckler,Die deutsche Hansa in Russland(Berlin, 1886).

(E. F. G.)

HANSEN, PETER ANDREAS(1795-1874), Danish astronomer, was born on the 8th of December 1795, at Tondern, in the duchy of Schleswig. The son of a goldsmith, he learned the trade of a watchmaker at Flensburg, and exercised it at Berlin and Tondern, 1818-1820. He had, however, long been a student of science; and Dr Dircks, a physician practising at Tondern, prevailed with his father to send him in 1820 to Copenhagen, where he won the patronage of H. C. Schumacher, and attracted the personal notice of King Frederick VI. The Danish survey was then in progress, and he acted as Schumacher’s assistant in work connected with it, chiefly at the new observatory of Altona, 1821-1825. Thence he passed on to Gotha as director of the Seeberg observatory; nor could he be tempted to relinquish the post by successive invitations to replace F. G. W. Struve at Dorpat in 1829, and F. W. Bessel at Königsberg in 1847. The problems of gravitational astronomy engaged the chief part of Hansen’s attention. A research into the mutual perturbations of Jupiter and Saturn secured for him the prize of the Berlin Academy in 1830, and a memoir on cometary disturbances was crowned by the Paris Academy in 1850. In 1838 he published a revision of the lunar theory, entitledFundamenta nova investigationis, &c., and the improved Tables of the Moon based upon it were printed in 1857, at the expense of the British government, their merit being further recognized by a grant of £1000, and by their immediate adoption in theNautical Almanac, and other Ephemerides. A theoretical discussion of the disturbances embodied in them (still familiarly known to lunar experts as theDarlegung) appeared in theAbhandlungenof the Saxon Academy of Sciences in 1862-1864. Hansen twice visited England and was twice (in 1842 and 1860) the recipient of the Royal Astronomical Society’s gold medal. He communicated to that society in 1847 an able paper on a long-period lunar inequality (Memoirs Roy. Astr. Society, xvi. 465), and in 1854 one on the moon’s figure, advocating the mistaken hypothesis of its deformation by a huge elevation directed towards the earth (Ib.xxiv. 29). He was awarded the Copley medal by the Royal Society in 1850, and his Solar Tables, compiled with the assistance of Christian Olufsen, appeared in 1854. Hansen gave in 1854 the first intimation that the accepted distance of the sun was too great by some millions of miles (Month. Notices Roy. Astr. Soc.xv. 9), the error of J. F. Encke’s result having been rendered evident through his investigation of a lunar inequality. He died on the 28th of March 1874, at the new observatory in the town of Gotha, erected under his care in 1857.

SeeVierteljahrsschrift astr. Gesellschaft, x. 133;Month. Notices Roy. Astr. Society, xxxv. 168;Proc. Roy. Society, xxv. p. v.; R. Wolf,Geschichte der Astronomie, p. 526;Wochenschrift für Astronomie, xvii. 207 (account of early years by E. Heis);Allgemeine deutsche Biographie(C. Bruhns).

(A. M. C.)

HANSI,a town of British India, in the Hissar district of the Punjab, on a branch of the Western Jumna canal, with a station on the Rewari-Ferozepore railway, 16 m. E. of Hissar. Pop. (1901) 16,523. Hansi is one of the most ancient towns in northern India, the former capital of the tract called Hariana. At the end of the 18th century it was the headquarters of the famous Irish adventurer George Thomas; from 1803 to 1857 it was a British cantonment, and it became the scene of a murderous outbreak during the Mutiny. A ruined fort overlooks the town, which is still surrounded by a high brick wall, with bastions and loop holes. It is a centre of local trade, with factories for ginning and pressing cotton.

HANSOM, JOSEPH ALOYSIUS(1803-1882), English architect and inventor, was born in York on the 26th of October 1803. Showing an aptitude for designing and construction, he was taken from his father’s joinery shop and apprenticed to an architect in York, and, by 1831, his designs for the Birmingham town hall were accepted and followed—to his financial undoing, as he had become bond for the builders. In 1834 he registered the design of a “Patent Safety Cab,” and subsequently sold the patent to a company for £10,000, which, however, owing to the company’s financial difficulties, was never paid. The hansom cab as improved by subsequent alterations, nevertheless, took and held the fancy of the public. There was no back seat for the driver in the original design, and there is little beside the suspended axle and large wheels in the modern hansom to recall the early ones. In 1834 Hansom founded theBuildernewspaper, but was compelled to retire from this enterprise owing to insufficient capital. Between 1854 and 1879 he devoted himself to architecture, designing and erecting a great number of important buildings, private and public, including churches, schools and convents for the Roman Catholic church to which he belonged. Buildings from his designs are scattered all over the United Kingdom, and were even erected in Australia and South America. He died in London on the 29th of June 1882.

HANSON, SIR RICHARD DAVIES(1805-1876), chief justice of South Australia, was born in London on the 6th of December 1805. Admitted a solicitor in 1828, he practised for some time in London. In 1838 he went with Lord Durham to Canada as assistant-commissioner of inquiry into crown lands and immigration. In 1840, on the death of Lord Durham, whose private secretary he had been, he settled in Wellington, New Zealand. He there acted as crown prosecutor, but in 1846 removed to South Australia. In 1851 he was appointed advocate-general of that colony and took an active share in the passing of many important measures, such as the first Education Act, the District Councils Act of 1852, and the Act of 1856 which granted constitutional government to the colony. In 1856 and again from 1857 to 1860 he was attorney-general and leader of the government. In 1861 he was appointed chief justice of the supreme court of South Australia and was knighted in 1869. He died in Australia on the 4th of March 1876.

HANSTEEN, CHRISTOPHER(1784-1873), Norwegian astronomer and physicist, was born at Christiania, on the 26th of September 1784. From the cathedral school he went to the university at Copenhagen, where first law and afterwards mathematics formed his main study. In 1806 he taught mathematics in the gymnasium of Frederiksborg, Zeeland, and in the following year he began the inquiries in terrestrial magnetism with which his name is especially associated. He took in 1812 the prize of the Danish Royal Academy of Sciences for his reply to a question on the magnetic axes. Appointed lecturer in 1814, he was in 1816 raised to the chair of astronomy and applied mathematics in the university of Christiania. In 1819 he published a volume of researches on terrestrial magnetism, which was translated into German by P. T. Hanson, under the title ofUntersuchungen über den Magnetismus der Erde, with a supplement containingBeobachtungen der Abweichung und Neigung der Magnetnadeland an atlas. By the rules there framed for the observation of magnetical phenomena Hansteen hoped to accumulate analyses for determining the number and position of the magnetic poles of the earth. In prosecution of his researches he travelled over Finland and the greater part of his own country; and in 1828-1830 he undertook, in company with G. A. Erman, and with the co-operation of Russia, a government mission to Western Siberia. A narrative of the expedition soon appeared (Reise-Erinnerungen aus Sibirien, 1854;Souvenirsd’un voyage en Sibérie, 1857); but the chief work was not issued till 1863 (Resultate magnetischer Beobachtungen, &c.). Shortly after the return of the mission, an observatory was erected in the park of Christiania (1833), and Hansteen was appointed director. On his representation a magnetic observatory was added in 1839. In 1835-1838 he published text-books on geometry and mechanics; and in 1842 he wrote hisDisquisitiones de mutationibus quas patitur momentum acus magneticae, &c. He also contributed various papers to different scientific journals, especially theMagazin for Naturvidenskaberne, of which he became joint-editor in 1823. He superintended the trigonometrical and topographical survey of Norway, begun in 1837. In 1861 he retired from active work, but still pursued his studies, hisObservations de l’inclination magnétiqueandSur les variations séculaires du magnétismeappearing in 1865. He died at Christiania on the 11th of April 1873.

HANTHAWADDY,a district in the Pegu division of Lower Burma, the home district of Rangoon, from which the town was detached to make a separate district in 1880. It has an area of 3023 sq. m., with a population in 1901 of 484,811, showing an increase of 22% in the decade. Hanthawaddy and Henzada are the two most densely populated districts in the province. It consists of a vast plain stretching up from the sea between the To or China Bakir mouth of the Irrawaddy and the Pegu Yomas. Except the tract lying between the Pegu Yomas on the east and the Hlaing river, the country is intersected by numerous tidal creeks, many navigable by large boats and some by steamers. The headquarters of the district are in Rangoon, which is also the sub-divisional headquarters. The second sub-division has its headquarters at Insein, where there are large railway works. Cultivation is almost wholly confined to rice, but there are many vegetable and fruit gardens.

HANUKKAH,a Jewish festival, the “Feast of Dedication” (cf. John x. 22) or the “Feast of the Maccabees,” beginning on the 25th day of the ninth monthKislev(December), of the Hebrew ecclesiastical year, and lasting eight days. It was instituted in 165B.C.in commemoration of, and thanksgiving for, the purification of the temple at Jerusalem on this day by Judas Maccabaeus after its pollution by Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria, who in 168B.C.set up a pagan altar to Zeus Olympius. The Talmudic sources say that when the perpetual lamp of the temple was to be relighted only one flask of holy oil sufficient for the day remained, but this miraculously lasted for the eight days (cf. the legend in 2 Macc. i. 18). In memory of this the Jews burn both in synagogues and in houses on the first night of the festival one light, on the second two, and so on to the end (so the Hillelites), or vice versa eight lights on the first, and one less on each succeeding night (so the Shammaites). From the prominence of the lights the festival is also known as the “Festival of Lights” or “Illumination” (Talmud). It is said that the day chosen by Judas for the setting up of the new altar was the anniversary of that on which Antiochus had set up the pagan altar; hence it is suggested (e.g.by Wellhausen) that the 25th of Kislev was an old pagan festival, perhaps the day of the winter solstice.

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