FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[638]As in Carlyle'sEarly Kings of Norway, thecaput mortuumof his historical method. Much more instructive works on Scandinavian history are available to the English reader. The two volumes onScandinaviaby Crichton and Wheaton (1837) are not yet superseded, though savouring strongly of the conservatism of their period. Dunham, who rapidly produced, for Gardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia series, histories ofSpain and Portugal(5 vols.),Europe during the Middle Ages(4 vols.), and theGermanic Empire(3 vols.), compiled also one ofDenmark, Sweden, and Norway(3 vols. 1839-40), of inferior quality. But Geijer'sHistory of Sweden, one of the standard modern national histories of Europe, is translated into English as far as the period of Gustavus Vasa (3 vols. of orig. in one of trans. 1845); and the competentHistory of Denmarkby C.-F. Allen is available in a French translation (Copenhagen, 2 tom. 1878). Otté'sScandinavian History, 1874, is an unpretending and unliterary but well-informed work, which may be used to check Crichton and Wheaton. The more recent work of Mr. R. Nisbet Bain,Scandinavia: a Political History of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden from 1513 to 1900(Camb. Univ. Press, 1905), is useful for the period covered, but has little sociological value. For the history of ancient Scandinavian literature, the introduction to Vigfusson and Powell'sCorpus Poeticum Boreale(1883), and Prof. Powell's article on Icelandic Literature in the 10th ed. of theEncyclopædia Britannica, are preferable to Schweitzer'sGeschichte der skandinavischen Literatur(1886, 2 Bde.), which, however, is useful for the modern period.[639]See Geijer'sHistory of the Swedes, Eng. tr. of pt. i, 1-vol. ed. p. 30, as to the special persistence in Scandinavia of the early religious conception of kingship. Cp. Crichton and Wheaton'sScandinavia, 1837, i, 157.[640]Such New Testament passages asRom.xiii, 1-7, andTitusiii, 1, seem to have been penned or interpolated expressly to propitiate the Roman government.[641]It was by entirely overlooking this historic fact that M. Fustel de Coulanges, in the last chapter of hisCité antique, was able to propound a theory of historic Christianity as something extra-political. He there renounced the inductive method for a pure ecclesiastical apriorism, and the result is a very comprehensive sociological misconception.[642]Geijer, pp. 31, 33; Crichton and Wheaton, i, 102, 104, 183, 184.[643]Tacitus,Germania, cc. 7, 11.[644]Cp. Zschokke,Des Schweizerlands Geschichte, c. 7, as to the psychological effect of an organised worship in a great building on heathens without any such centre. And see the frank admission of J.R. Green,Short History, p. 54, that among the Anglo-Saxons "religion had told against political independence."[645]Cp. C.F. Allen,History of Denmark, French tr., Copenhagen, 1878, i, 55, 56.[646]Crichton and Wheaton,Scandinavia, i, 129-32; Hardwick,Church History: Middle Age, 1853, p. 115. Knut was a great supporter of missionaries. Hardwick attributes to Gorm a "bitter hatred" of the Church, and also "violence," but gives no details.[647]Even Svend is said to have laboured for Christianity in his latter years—another suggestion that it was found to answer monarchic purposes. See Hardwick, p. 115,note 9.[648]Cp. Dasent, Introd. toThe Burnt Njal, p. ix.[649]Hardwick, as cited, p. 117.[650]Hardwick, as cited.[651]A warlike priest of Bremen is said to have converted him in Germany; and he was baptised in the Scilly Islands, which he had visited on a piratical expedition. Finally he was confirmed in England, which he promised to treat in future as a friendly State. (Id.ib.)[652]Crichton and Wheaton, i, 151.[653]Cp. Hardwick. p. 118,note 3.[654]Though this was often of the most brutal description, there were some comparatively "mild-mannered" pirates, who rarely "cut a throat or scuttled ship." See C.-F. Allen,Histoire de Danemark, i, 21.[655]Geijer,History of Sweden, Eng. tr. p. 31.[656]It is actually on record that the practice long subsisted in Iceland, despite the efforts of St. Olaf to suppress it. Hardwick,Church History: Middle Age, p. 119,note, citing Torfaens,Hist. Norveg.ii, 2, and Neander. Among the Slavonic Pomeranians in the twelfth century it was still common to destroy female children at birth.Id.p. 224,note.[657]Cp. C.-F. Allen,Histoire de Danemark, Fr. tr. 1878, i, 20.[658]"Qu'est-ce que c'est que l'Angleterre? Une colonie français mal tournée."[659]Thus Rolf the Ganger fared forth to France because Harold Fairhair would not suffer piracy on any territory acquired by him.[660]Essay on the Principle of Population, 7th ed. p. 139.[661]Crichton and Wheaton, i, 254. Dr. Ph. Schweitzer (Geschichte der skandinavischen Literatur, § 19), makes the surprising statement that the quantity of old coins found in Scandinavia (over 100,000 within the last century) proves that the ancient Scandinavian commerce was very great (ein ganz grossartiger). His own account of the occasional barter of the Vikings shows that there was nothing "grossartig" about it, and the coins prove nothing beyond piracy.[662]Crichton and Wheaton, i, 263, 287.[663]Id.pp. 251, 252, 277, 377.[664]Id.pp. 304, 305, 311.[665]Id.ii, 350. Cp. Laing,Journal of a Residence in Norway(1834-36), ed. 1851, p. 135. Bain, however, pronounces that in Norway in the latter part of the fifteenth century "the peasantry were mostly thralls" (Scandinavia, 1905, p. 10).[666]Crichton and Wheaton, i, 305, 310.[667]Id.p. 332; Geijer, p. 135.[668]Geijer, pp. 88, 91; Crichton and Wheaton, i, 331.[669]Crichton and Wheaton, i, 324.[670]Crichton and Wheaton, i, 331.[671]Id.p. 336.[672]Geijer, pp. 100, 109; Otté,Scandinavian History, 1874, p. 252.[673]Cp. Milman,Latin Christianity, 4th ed. ii, 225, on Anglo-Saxon separatism. Since this was written there has taken place the decisive separation between Norway and Sweden.[674]Otté,Scandinavian History, 1874, pp. 214-18. Himself an excellent Latinist, he sought to raise the learned professions, and compelled the burghers to give their children schooling under penalty of heavy fines. He further caused new and better books to be prepared for the public schools, and stopped witch-burning. Cp. Allen,Histoire de Danemark, i, 281.[675]Crichton and Wheaton, i, 377-79, 383; Allen, as cited, i, 286, 310.[676]Otté, p. 222; Allen, i, 287, 290.[677]Crichton and Wheaton, i, 384-86; Allen, pp. 287-90.[678]Allen, i, 299, 300.[679]Crichton and Wheaton, pp. 386, 387. These writers suppress the details as to Frederick's anti-popular action; and Otté's history, giving these, omits all mention of his act of toleration. Allen's is the best account, i, 293, 299, 301, 305.[680]Crichton and Wheaton, pp. 394-96; Otté, pp. 222-24. According to some accounts, the great bulk of the spoils went to the nobility. Villers,Essay on the Reformation, Eng. tr. 1836, p. 105.[681]It is notable that even in the thirteenth century there was a Norwegian king (Erik) called the Priest-hater, because of his efforts to make the clergy pay taxes.[682]"The bulk of the people, at least in the first instance, and especially in Sweden and Norway, were by no means disposed to look to Wittenberg rather than to Rome for spiritual guidance" (Bain,Scandinavia, p. 86; cp. pp. 60, 64).[683]Geijer, p. 177; Otté, p. 234.[684]As the king wrote later to an acquisitive noble: "To strip churches, convents, and prebends of estates, manors, and chattels, thereto are all full willing and ready; and after such a fashion is every man a Christian and evangelical"—i.e.Lutheran. Geijer, p. 126. Cp. p. 129 as to the practice of spoliation.[685]Geijer, pp. 119, 129.[686]Id.p. 125; Otté, p. 236. The prelates were no longer admitted to any political offices, though the bishops and pastors sat together in the Diet.[687]See Geijer, pp. 129-36.[688]Prof. York Powell, article on Icelandic Literature, inEncyclopædia Britannica, 10th ed. xii, 621; 11th ed. xiv, 233.[689]Id.(11th ed. xiv, 234).[690]Bain,Scandinavia, pp. 100-1.[691]Powell, article on Icelandic Literature,Ency. Brit.10th ed. xii, 621.[692]Id.p. 623.[693]Shaftesbury (Characteristics, ed. 1900, ii, 262) writes in 1713 of "that forlorn troop of begging gentry extant in Denmark or Sweden, since the time that those nations lost their liberties."[694]Crichton and Wheaton, ii, 104.[695]Id.ii, 321-22.[696]Laing in 1839 (Tour in Sweden, p. 13) thought the Danes as backward as they had been in 1660, quoting the ambassador Molesworth as to the effect of Lutheran Protestantism in destroying Danish liberties (pp. 10, 11). But it is hard to see that there were any popular liberties to destroy, save in so far as the party which set up the Reformation undid the popular laws of Christian II. The greatest social reforms in Denmark are certainly the work of the last half-century.[697]It will be remembered that the Marquis of Pombal, in Portugal, at the same period, was similarly overthrown after a much longer and non-scandalous reformatory rule, the queen being his enemy.[698]His particulars were gathered during a tour he made in 1799. Thus the Norse practice he notes had been independent of any effect produced by his own essay.[699]Essay on the Principle of Population, 7th ed. pp. 126, 133.[700]This was doubtless owing to the loss of Finland (1742), a circumstance not considered by Malthus.[701]Malthus (p. 141) gives higher and clearly erroneous figures for both periods, and contradicts them later (p. 143) with figures which he erroneously applies to Swedenand Finland. He seems to have introduced the latter words in the wrong passage.[702]Id.p. 141.[703]See p. 131 as to the restrictions on subdivision of farms by way of safeguarding the forests.[704]Id.p. 126. A priest would often refuse to marry a couple who had no good prospect of a livelihood: so far could rational custom affect even ecclesiastical practice.[705]Cp. Crichton and Wheaton, ii, 339-50; Laing,Journal of a Residence in Norway(1834-36), ed. 1851, pp. 22, 23, 34, 35, 191, 214.[706]Crichton and Wheaton, ii, 345. Laing (Tour in Sweden, pp. 277-82) thought the Swedish peasants better off than the Scotch, though morally inferior to the Norwegian.[707]Laing,Norway, p. 213.[708]Laing, as cited, p. 220; Crichton and Wheaton, ii, 368.[709]Sweden in 1800 stood at 2,347,303; in 1880, at 4,565,668; in 1900, at 5,136,441. Estimate for 1910, 5,521,943. Norway in 1815 stood at 886,656; in 1910 at 2,391,782.[710]Laing, as cited, p. 103,note.

[638]As in Carlyle'sEarly Kings of Norway, thecaput mortuumof his historical method. Much more instructive works on Scandinavian history are available to the English reader. The two volumes onScandinaviaby Crichton and Wheaton (1837) are not yet superseded, though savouring strongly of the conservatism of their period. Dunham, who rapidly produced, for Gardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia series, histories ofSpain and Portugal(5 vols.),Europe during the Middle Ages(4 vols.), and theGermanic Empire(3 vols.), compiled also one ofDenmark, Sweden, and Norway(3 vols. 1839-40), of inferior quality. But Geijer'sHistory of Sweden, one of the standard modern national histories of Europe, is translated into English as far as the period of Gustavus Vasa (3 vols. of orig. in one of trans. 1845); and the competentHistory of Denmarkby C.-F. Allen is available in a French translation (Copenhagen, 2 tom. 1878). Otté'sScandinavian History, 1874, is an unpretending and unliterary but well-informed work, which may be used to check Crichton and Wheaton. The more recent work of Mr. R. Nisbet Bain,Scandinavia: a Political History of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden from 1513 to 1900(Camb. Univ. Press, 1905), is useful for the period covered, but has little sociological value. For the history of ancient Scandinavian literature, the introduction to Vigfusson and Powell'sCorpus Poeticum Boreale(1883), and Prof. Powell's article on Icelandic Literature in the 10th ed. of theEncyclopædia Britannica, are preferable to Schweitzer'sGeschichte der skandinavischen Literatur(1886, 2 Bde.), which, however, is useful for the modern period.

[639]See Geijer'sHistory of the Swedes, Eng. tr. of pt. i, 1-vol. ed. p. 30, as to the special persistence in Scandinavia of the early religious conception of kingship. Cp. Crichton and Wheaton'sScandinavia, 1837, i, 157.

[640]Such New Testament passages asRom.xiii, 1-7, andTitusiii, 1, seem to have been penned or interpolated expressly to propitiate the Roman government.

[641]It was by entirely overlooking this historic fact that M. Fustel de Coulanges, in the last chapter of hisCité antique, was able to propound a theory of historic Christianity as something extra-political. He there renounced the inductive method for a pure ecclesiastical apriorism, and the result is a very comprehensive sociological misconception.

[642]Geijer, pp. 31, 33; Crichton and Wheaton, i, 102, 104, 183, 184.

[643]Tacitus,Germania, cc. 7, 11.

[644]Cp. Zschokke,Des Schweizerlands Geschichte, c. 7, as to the psychological effect of an organised worship in a great building on heathens without any such centre. And see the frank admission of J.R. Green,Short History, p. 54, that among the Anglo-Saxons "religion had told against political independence."

[645]Cp. C.F. Allen,History of Denmark, French tr., Copenhagen, 1878, i, 55, 56.

[646]Crichton and Wheaton,Scandinavia, i, 129-32; Hardwick,Church History: Middle Age, 1853, p. 115. Knut was a great supporter of missionaries. Hardwick attributes to Gorm a "bitter hatred" of the Church, and also "violence," but gives no details.

[647]Even Svend is said to have laboured for Christianity in his latter years—another suggestion that it was found to answer monarchic purposes. See Hardwick, p. 115,note 9.

[648]Cp. Dasent, Introd. toThe Burnt Njal, p. ix.

[649]Hardwick, as cited, p. 117.

[650]Hardwick, as cited.

[651]A warlike priest of Bremen is said to have converted him in Germany; and he was baptised in the Scilly Islands, which he had visited on a piratical expedition. Finally he was confirmed in England, which he promised to treat in future as a friendly State. (Id.ib.)

[652]Crichton and Wheaton, i, 151.

[653]Cp. Hardwick. p. 118,note 3.

[654]Though this was often of the most brutal description, there were some comparatively "mild-mannered" pirates, who rarely "cut a throat or scuttled ship." See C.-F. Allen,Histoire de Danemark, i, 21.

[655]Geijer,History of Sweden, Eng. tr. p. 31.

[656]It is actually on record that the practice long subsisted in Iceland, despite the efforts of St. Olaf to suppress it. Hardwick,Church History: Middle Age, p. 119,note, citing Torfaens,Hist. Norveg.ii, 2, and Neander. Among the Slavonic Pomeranians in the twelfth century it was still common to destroy female children at birth.Id.p. 224,note.

[657]Cp. C.-F. Allen,Histoire de Danemark, Fr. tr. 1878, i, 20.

[658]"Qu'est-ce que c'est que l'Angleterre? Une colonie français mal tournée."

[659]Thus Rolf the Ganger fared forth to France because Harold Fairhair would not suffer piracy on any territory acquired by him.

[660]Essay on the Principle of Population, 7th ed. p. 139.

[661]Crichton and Wheaton, i, 254. Dr. Ph. Schweitzer (Geschichte der skandinavischen Literatur, § 19), makes the surprising statement that the quantity of old coins found in Scandinavia (over 100,000 within the last century) proves that the ancient Scandinavian commerce was very great (ein ganz grossartiger). His own account of the occasional barter of the Vikings shows that there was nothing "grossartig" about it, and the coins prove nothing beyond piracy.

[662]Crichton and Wheaton, i, 263, 287.

[663]Id.pp. 251, 252, 277, 377.

[664]Id.pp. 304, 305, 311.

[665]Id.ii, 350. Cp. Laing,Journal of a Residence in Norway(1834-36), ed. 1851, p. 135. Bain, however, pronounces that in Norway in the latter part of the fifteenth century "the peasantry were mostly thralls" (Scandinavia, 1905, p. 10).

[666]Crichton and Wheaton, i, 305, 310.

[667]Id.p. 332; Geijer, p. 135.

[668]Geijer, pp. 88, 91; Crichton and Wheaton, i, 331.

[669]Crichton and Wheaton, i, 324.

[670]Crichton and Wheaton, i, 331.

[671]Id.p. 336.

[672]Geijer, pp. 100, 109; Otté,Scandinavian History, 1874, p. 252.

[673]Cp. Milman,Latin Christianity, 4th ed. ii, 225, on Anglo-Saxon separatism. Since this was written there has taken place the decisive separation between Norway and Sweden.

[674]Otté,Scandinavian History, 1874, pp. 214-18. Himself an excellent Latinist, he sought to raise the learned professions, and compelled the burghers to give their children schooling under penalty of heavy fines. He further caused new and better books to be prepared for the public schools, and stopped witch-burning. Cp. Allen,Histoire de Danemark, i, 281.

[675]Crichton and Wheaton, i, 377-79, 383; Allen, as cited, i, 286, 310.

[676]Otté, p. 222; Allen, i, 287, 290.

[677]Crichton and Wheaton, i, 384-86; Allen, pp. 287-90.

[678]Allen, i, 299, 300.

[679]Crichton and Wheaton, pp. 386, 387. These writers suppress the details as to Frederick's anti-popular action; and Otté's history, giving these, omits all mention of his act of toleration. Allen's is the best account, i, 293, 299, 301, 305.

[680]Crichton and Wheaton, pp. 394-96; Otté, pp. 222-24. According to some accounts, the great bulk of the spoils went to the nobility. Villers,Essay on the Reformation, Eng. tr. 1836, p. 105.

[681]It is notable that even in the thirteenth century there was a Norwegian king (Erik) called the Priest-hater, because of his efforts to make the clergy pay taxes.

[682]"The bulk of the people, at least in the first instance, and especially in Sweden and Norway, were by no means disposed to look to Wittenberg rather than to Rome for spiritual guidance" (Bain,Scandinavia, p. 86; cp. pp. 60, 64).

[683]Geijer, p. 177; Otté, p. 234.

[684]As the king wrote later to an acquisitive noble: "To strip churches, convents, and prebends of estates, manors, and chattels, thereto are all full willing and ready; and after such a fashion is every man a Christian and evangelical"—i.e.Lutheran. Geijer, p. 126. Cp. p. 129 as to the practice of spoliation.

[685]Geijer, pp. 119, 129.

[686]Id.p. 125; Otté, p. 236. The prelates were no longer admitted to any political offices, though the bishops and pastors sat together in the Diet.

[687]See Geijer, pp. 129-36.

[688]Prof. York Powell, article on Icelandic Literature, inEncyclopædia Britannica, 10th ed. xii, 621; 11th ed. xiv, 233.

[689]Id.(11th ed. xiv, 234).

[690]Bain,Scandinavia, pp. 100-1.

[691]Powell, article on Icelandic Literature,Ency. Brit.10th ed. xii, 621.

[692]Id.p. 623.

[693]Shaftesbury (Characteristics, ed. 1900, ii, 262) writes in 1713 of "that forlorn troop of begging gentry extant in Denmark or Sweden, since the time that those nations lost their liberties."

[694]Crichton and Wheaton, ii, 104.

[695]Id.ii, 321-22.

[696]Laing in 1839 (Tour in Sweden, p. 13) thought the Danes as backward as they had been in 1660, quoting the ambassador Molesworth as to the effect of Lutheran Protestantism in destroying Danish liberties (pp. 10, 11). But it is hard to see that there were any popular liberties to destroy, save in so far as the party which set up the Reformation undid the popular laws of Christian II. The greatest social reforms in Denmark are certainly the work of the last half-century.

[697]It will be remembered that the Marquis of Pombal, in Portugal, at the same period, was similarly overthrown after a much longer and non-scandalous reformatory rule, the queen being his enemy.

[698]His particulars were gathered during a tour he made in 1799. Thus the Norse practice he notes had been independent of any effect produced by his own essay.

[699]Essay on the Principle of Population, 7th ed. pp. 126, 133.

[700]This was doubtless owing to the loss of Finland (1742), a circumstance not considered by Malthus.

[701]Malthus (p. 141) gives higher and clearly erroneous figures for both periods, and contradicts them later (p. 143) with figures which he erroneously applies to Swedenand Finland. He seems to have introduced the latter words in the wrong passage.

[702]Id.p. 141.

[703]See p. 131 as to the restrictions on subdivision of farms by way of safeguarding the forests.

[704]Id.p. 126. A priest would often refuse to marry a couple who had no good prospect of a livelihood: so far could rational custom affect even ecclesiastical practice.

[705]Cp. Crichton and Wheaton, ii, 339-50; Laing,Journal of a Residence in Norway(1834-36), ed. 1851, pp. 22, 23, 34, 35, 191, 214.

[706]Crichton and Wheaton, ii, 345. Laing (Tour in Sweden, pp. 277-82) thought the Swedish peasants better off than the Scotch, though morally inferior to the Norwegian.

[707]Laing,Norway, p. 213.

[708]Laing, as cited, p. 220; Crichton and Wheaton, ii, 368.

[709]Sweden in 1800 stood at 2,347,303; in 1880, at 4,565,668; in 1900, at 5,136,441. Estimate for 1910, 5,521,943. Norway in 1815 stood at 886,656; in 1910 at 2,391,782.

[710]Laing, as cited, p. 103,note.

THE HANSA

Systematic commerce in the north of Europe, broadly speaking, begins with the traffic of the Hansa towns, whose rise may be traced to the sudden development of civic life forced on Germany in the tenth century by the emperor Henry I, as a means of withstanding the otherwise irresistible raids of the Hungarians.[711]Once founded, such cities for their own existence' sake gave freedom to all fugitive serfs who joined them, defending such against former masters, and giving them the chance of earning a living.[712]That is by common consent the outstanding origin of German civic industry, and the original conditions were such that the cities, once formed, were gradually forced[713]to special self-reliance.Faustrecht, or private war, was universal, even under emperors who suppressed feudal brigandage; and the cities had to fight their own battle, like those of Italy, from the beginning. As compared with the robber baronage and separate princes, they stood for intelligence and co-operation, and supplied a basis for organisation without which the long German chaos of the Middle Ages would have been immeasurably worse. Taking their commercial cue from the cities of Italy, they reached, as against feudal enemies, a measure of peaceful union which the less differentiated Italian cities could not attain save momentarily. The decisive conditions were that whereas in Italy the enemies were manifold—sometimes feudal nobles, sometimes the Emperor, sometimes the Pope—the German cities had substantially one objective, the protection of trade from the robber-knights. Thus, as early as the year 1284, seventy cities of South Germany formed the Rhenish League, on which followed that of the Swabian towns. The league of the Hansa cities, like the other early "Hansa of London," which united cities of Flanders and France with mercantile London, was agrowth on all fours with these.[714]Starting, however, in maritime towns which grew to commerce from beginnings in fishing, as the earlier Scandinavians had grown to piracy, the northern League gave its main strength to trade by sea.

Its special interest for us to-day lies in the fact that it was ultra-racial, beginning in 1241 in a pact between the free cities of Lübeck and Hamburg,[715]and finally including Wendish, German, Dutch, French, and even Spanish cities, in fluctuating numbers. The motive to union, as it had need be, was one of mercantile gain. Beginning, apparently, by having each its separate authorisedhansaor trading-group in foreign cities, the earlier trading-towns of the group, perhaps from the measure of co-operation and fraternity thus forced on them abroad,[716]saw their advantage in a special league for the common good as a monopoly maintained against outsiders; and this being extended, the whole League came to bear the generic name.

See Kohlrausch for the theory that contact in foreign cities is the probable cause of the policy of union (History of Germany, Eng. tr., p. 260; cp. Ashley,Introd. to Economic History, i, 104, 110). As to the origin of the word, see Stubbs, i, 447,note. Thehansorhansafirst appears historically in England as a name apparently identical withgild; and, starting with ahansaor hanse-house of their own, English cities in some cases are found trading through subordinatehansasin other cities, not only of Normandy but of England itself. Thus arose the Flemish Hansa or "Hansa of London," ignored in so many notices of the better-known Hanseatic League. Early in the thirteenth century it included a number of the towns of Flanders engaged in the English wool-trade; and later it numbered at one time seventeen towns, including Chalons, Rheims, St. Quentin, Cambray, and Amiens (Ashley,Introd. to Economic History, i, 109; cp. Prof. Schanz,Englische Handelspolitik, 1889, i, 6, citing Varenbergh,Hist. des relations diplomatiques entre le comte de Flandre et l'Angleterre au moyen âge, Bruxelles, 1874, p. 146sq.). There is some obscurity as to when the foreign Hansards were first permitted to have warehouses and residences of their own in London. Cp. Cunningham,Growth of English Industry and Commerce, vol. i, § 68; andAshley, i, 105, following Schanz, who dates this privilege in the reign of Henry III, though the merchants of Cologne (id.p. 110) had ahansaor gildhall in London in the reign of Richard I. Under whatever conditions, it is clear that London was one of the first foreign cities in which the German Hansard traders came in friendly contact.

A reciprocal and normal egoism furthered as well as thwarted the Hansard enterprise. Trade in the feudal period being a ground of privilege like any other, the monopolied merchants of every city strove to force foreign traders to deal with them only. On the other hand, the English nobility sought to deal rather with the foreigner directly than with the English middlemen; and thus in each feudal country, but notably in England,[717]the interest of the landed class tended to throw foreign trade substantially in foreign hands, which did their best to hold it. In the reigns of the Edwards privileges of free trade with natives were gradually conferred on the foreign traders[718]in the interests of the landed class—the only "general consumers" who could then make their claims felt—in despite of the angry resistance of the native merchant class. For the rest, in a period when some maritime English cities, like those of France and Germany, could still carry on private wars with each other as well as with foreign cities,[719]a trader of one English town was in any other English town on all fours with a foreigner.[720]When, therefore, the foreigners combined, their advantage over the native trade was twofold.

Naturally the cities least liable to regal interference carried on a cosmopolitan co-operation to the best advantage. The Hansa of London, being made up of Flemish and French cities, was hampered by the divided allegiance of its members and by their national jealousies;[721]while the German cities, sharing in the free German scramble under a nominal emperor much occupied in Italy, could combine with ease. Cologne, having early Hansa rights in London, sought to exclude the other cities, but had to yield and join their union;[722]and the Hansa of London dwindled and broke up before their competition. As the number of leagued cities increased, it might be thought, something in the nature of an ideal of free trademust have partly arisen, for the number of "privileged" towns was thus apparently greater than that of the outside towns traded with. To the last, however, the faith seems to have been that without monopoly the league must perish; and in the closing Protestant period the command of the Baltic, as against the Dutch and the Scandinavians, was desperately and vainly battled for. But just as the cities could not escape the play of the other political forces of the time, and were severally clutched by this or that potentate, or biassed to their own stock, so they could not hinder that the principle of self-seeking on which they founded should divide themselves. As soon as the Dutch affiliated cities saw their opening for trade in the Baltic on their own account, they broke away.

While the league lasted, it was as remarkable a polity as any in history. With its four great foreign factories of Bruges, London, Bergen, and Novgorod, and its many minor stations, all conducted by celibate servitors living together like so many bodies of friars;[723]with its four great circles of affiliated towns, and its triennial and other congresses, the most cosmopolitan of European parliaments; with its military and naval system, by which, turning its trading into fighting fleets, it made war on Scandinavian kings and put down piracy on every hand—it was in its self-seeking and often brutal way one of the popular civilising influences of northern Europe for some two hundred and fifty years; and the very forces of separate national commerce, which finally undermined it, were set up or stimulated by its own example. With less rapacity, indeed, it might have conciliated populations that it alienated. A lack of any higher ideals than those of zealous commerce marks its entire career; it is associated with no such growth of learning and the fine arts as took place in commercial Holland; and its members seem to have been among the most unrefined of the northern city populations.[724]But it made for progress on the ordinary levels. In a world wholly bent on privilege in all directions, it at leasttempered its own spirit of monopoly in some measure by its principle of inclusion; and it passed away as a great power before it could dream of renewing the ideal of monopoly in the more sinister form of Oriental empire taken up by the Dutch. And, while its historians have not been careful to make a comparative study of the internal civic life which flourished under the commercial union, it does not at all appear that the divisions of classes were more steep, or the lot of the lower worse, than in any northern European State of the period.

The "downfall" of such a polity, then, is conceptual only. All the realities of life evolved by the league were passed on to its constituent elements throughout northern Europe; and there survived from it what the separate States had not yet been able to offer—the adumbration, however dim, of a union reaching beyond the bounds of nationality and the jealousies of race. In an age of private war, without transcending the normal ethic, it practically limited private war as regarded its German members; and while joining battle at need with half-barbarian northern kings, or grudging foreigners, it of necessity made peace its ideal. Its dissolution, therefore, marked at once the advance of national organisation up to its level, and the persistence of the more primitive over the more rational instincts of coalition.

FOOTNOTES:[711]Menzel,Geschichte der Deutschen, bk. ix, cap. 147; Kohlrausch,History of Germany, Eng. tr., pp. 157, 162, 257; Dunham,History of the Germanic Empire, 1835, i, 108; Sharon Turner,History of Europe during the Middle Ages, 2nd ed. i, 13. The main authority is the old annalist Wittikind.[712]Heeren,Essai sur l'influence des Croisades, 1808, pp. 269-72; Smith,Wealth of Nations, bk. iii, ch. 3.[713]As to the process of evolution, see a good summary in Robertson'sView of the Progress of Society in Europe(prefixed to hisCharles V), Note xvii to Sect. I.[714]The SpanishHermandadwas originally an organisation of cities set up in similar fashion. E. Armstrong,Introductionto Major Martin Hume'sSpain, 1898, p. 12.[715]Lübeck was founded in 1140 by a count of Holstein, and won its freedom in the common medieval fashion by purchase. Hamburg bought its freedom of its bishop in 1225. Hallam,Middle Ages, 11th ed. iii, 324. Many Dutch, supposed to have been driven from their own land by an inundation, settled on the Baltic coast between Bremen and Dantzic in the twelfth century. Heeren,Essai sur les Croisades, 1808, pp. 266-69, citing Leibnitz and Hoche. Cp. G.H. Schmidt,Zur Agrargeschichte Lübecks, 1887, p. 30sq.[716]"The league ... would scarcely have held long together or displayed any real federal unity but for the pressure of external dangers" (Art. "Hanseatic League" inEncy. Brit., 10th ed. xi, 450).[717]Cp. Ashley, as cited, i, 104-112; Schanz, as cited, i, 331.[718]Cp. W. von Ochenkowski,Englands wirtschaftliche Entwickelung im Ausgange des Mittelalters, 1879. pp. 177-82, 221-31. Cp. the author'sTrade and Tariffs, pt. ii, ch. ii, § 1.[719]Hallam,Middle Ages, iii, 335. On private war in general see Robertson'sView, note 21 to § i.[720]Ashley, i, 108, 109.[721]Whereas in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries England and Flanders had freely exchanged trading privileges, in the fifteenth century they begin to withdraw them, treating each other as trading rivals (Schanz, i, 7, 8).[722]Ashley, i, 110.[723]This principle may have been copied from the practice of the LombardUmiliati. The common account of that order is that when in 1014 the Emperor banished a number of Lombards, chiefly Milanese, into Germany, they formed themselves into a religious society, called "The Humbled," and in that corporate capacity devoted themselves to various trades, in particular to wool-working. Returning to Milan in 1019, they developed their organisation there. Down to 1140 all the members were laymen; but thereafter priests were placed in control. For long the organisation was in high repute both for commercial skill and for culture. Ultimately, like all other corporate orders, they grew corrupt; and in 1571 they were suppressed by Pius V. (Pignotti,Hist. of Tuscany, Eng. trans. 1823, pp. 266-67,note, following Tiraboschi.)[724]In such accounts as M'Culloch's (Treatises and Essays) and those of the German patriotic historians the Hansa is seen in a rather delusive abstract. The useful monograph of Miss Zimmern (The Hansa Towns: Story of the Nations Series) gives a good idea of the reality. See in particular pp. 82-147. It should be noted, however, that Lübeck is credited with being the first northern town to adopt the Oriental usage of water-pipes (Macpherson,Annals of Commerce, 1802, i, 381).

[711]Menzel,Geschichte der Deutschen, bk. ix, cap. 147; Kohlrausch,History of Germany, Eng. tr., pp. 157, 162, 257; Dunham,History of the Germanic Empire, 1835, i, 108; Sharon Turner,History of Europe during the Middle Ages, 2nd ed. i, 13. The main authority is the old annalist Wittikind.

[712]Heeren,Essai sur l'influence des Croisades, 1808, pp. 269-72; Smith,Wealth of Nations, bk. iii, ch. 3.

[713]As to the process of evolution, see a good summary in Robertson'sView of the Progress of Society in Europe(prefixed to hisCharles V), Note xvii to Sect. I.

[714]The SpanishHermandadwas originally an organisation of cities set up in similar fashion. E. Armstrong,Introductionto Major Martin Hume'sSpain, 1898, p. 12.

[715]Lübeck was founded in 1140 by a count of Holstein, and won its freedom in the common medieval fashion by purchase. Hamburg bought its freedom of its bishop in 1225. Hallam,Middle Ages, 11th ed. iii, 324. Many Dutch, supposed to have been driven from their own land by an inundation, settled on the Baltic coast between Bremen and Dantzic in the twelfth century. Heeren,Essai sur les Croisades, 1808, pp. 266-69, citing Leibnitz and Hoche. Cp. G.H. Schmidt,Zur Agrargeschichte Lübecks, 1887, p. 30sq.

[716]"The league ... would scarcely have held long together or displayed any real federal unity but for the pressure of external dangers" (Art. "Hanseatic League" inEncy. Brit., 10th ed. xi, 450).

[717]Cp. Ashley, as cited, i, 104-112; Schanz, as cited, i, 331.

[718]Cp. W. von Ochenkowski,Englands wirtschaftliche Entwickelung im Ausgange des Mittelalters, 1879. pp. 177-82, 221-31. Cp. the author'sTrade and Tariffs, pt. ii, ch. ii, § 1.

[719]Hallam,Middle Ages, iii, 335. On private war in general see Robertson'sView, note 21 to § i.

[720]Ashley, i, 108, 109.

[721]Whereas in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries England and Flanders had freely exchanged trading privileges, in the fifteenth century they begin to withdraw them, treating each other as trading rivals (Schanz, i, 7, 8).

[722]Ashley, i, 110.

[723]This principle may have been copied from the practice of the LombardUmiliati. The common account of that order is that when in 1014 the Emperor banished a number of Lombards, chiefly Milanese, into Germany, they formed themselves into a religious society, called "The Humbled," and in that corporate capacity devoted themselves to various trades, in particular to wool-working. Returning to Milan in 1019, they developed their organisation there. Down to 1140 all the members were laymen; but thereafter priests were placed in control. For long the organisation was in high repute both for commercial skill and for culture. Ultimately, like all other corporate orders, they grew corrupt; and in 1571 they were suppressed by Pius V. (Pignotti,Hist. of Tuscany, Eng. trans. 1823, pp. 266-67,note, following Tiraboschi.)

[724]In such accounts as M'Culloch's (Treatises and Essays) and those of the German patriotic historians the Hansa is seen in a rather delusive abstract. The useful monograph of Miss Zimmern (The Hansa Towns: Story of the Nations Series) gives a good idea of the reality. See in particular pp. 82-147. It should be noted, however, that Lübeck is credited with being the first northern town to adopt the Oriental usage of water-pipes (Macpherson,Annals of Commerce, 1802, i, 381).

HOLLAND

Note on Literature

The special interest of Dutch history for English and other readers led in past generations to a more general sociological study of it than was given to almost any other. L. Guicciardini'sDescription of the Low Countries(Descrizione ... di tutti Paesi Bassi, etc., Anversa, folio, 1567, 1581, etc.; trans. in French, 1568, etc.; in English, 1593; in Dutch, 1582; in Latin, 1613, etc.) is one of the fullest surveys of the kind made till recent times. Sir William Temple'sObservations upon the United Provinces of the Netherlands(1672) laid for English readers further foundations of an intelligent knowledge of the vital conditions of the State which had been in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the great commercial rival of England; and in the eighteenth century many English writers discussed the fortunes of Dutch commerce. An English translation was made of the remarkably sagacious work variously known as theMemoirs of John de Witt, theTrue Interest of Holland, andPolitical Maxims of the State of Holland(really written by De Witt's friend, Pierre Delacourt; De Witt, however, contributing two chapters), and much attention was given to it here and on the Continent. In addition to the many and copious histories written in the eighteenth century in Dutch, three or four voluminous and competent histories of the Low Countries were written in French—e.g., those of Dujardin (1757, etc., 8 vols. 4to), Cerisier (1777, etc., 10 vols. 12mo), Le Clerc (1723-28, 3 vols. folio), Wicquefort (1719, folio, proceeding from Peace of Münster). Of late years, though the lesson is as important as ever, it appears to be less generally attended to. In our own country, however, have appeared Davies'History of Holland(1841, 3 vols.), a careful but not often an illuminating work, which oddly begins with the statement that "there is scarcely any nation whose history has been so little understood or so generally neglected as that of Holland"; T. Colley Grattan's earlier and shorter book (The Netherlands, 1830), which is still worth reading for a general view based on adequate learning; and the much better known works of Motley,The Rise of the Dutch Republic(1856) and theHistory of the United Netherlands(1861-68), which deal minutely with only a period of fifty-five years of Dutch history, and of which, as of the work of Davies, the sociological value is much below the annalistic. All three are impaired as literature by their stale rhetoric. The same malady infects the second volume of theIndustrial History of the Free Nations(1846), by W. Torrens M'Cullagh (afterwards M'Cullagh Torrens); but this, which deals with Holland, is the better section of that treatise, and it gives distinct help to a scientific conception of the process of Dutch history, as does J.R. M'Culloch'sEssay on the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Commerce in Holland, which is one of the best of hisEssays and Treatises(2nd ed. 1859). TheHollandof the late Professor Thorold Rogers has merit as a vivacious conspectus, but hardly rises to the opportunity.

Of the many French, Belgian, and German works on special periods of the history of the Low Countries, some have a special and general scientific interest. Among these is the research of M. Alphonse Wauters onLes libertés communales(Bruxelles, 1878). Barante'sHistoire des Ducs de Bourgogne(4th ed. 1838-40) contains much interesting matter on the Burgundian period. The assiduous research of M. Lefèvre Pontalis,Jean de Witt, Grand Pensionnaire de Hollande(2 tom. 1884; Eng. trans. 2 vols.), throws a full light on one of the most critical periods of Dutch history.

Dutch works on the history of the Low Countries in general, and the United Provinces in particular, are many and voluminous; indeed, no history has been more amply written. The good general history of the Netherlands by N.G. van Kampen, which appeared in German in the series of Heeren and Uckert (1831-33), is only partially superseded by theGeschichte der Niederlandeof Wenzelburger (Bd. i, 1879; ii, 1886), which is not completed. But the most readable general history of the Netherlands yet produced is that of P.J. Blok,Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Volk(1892, etc.), of which there is a competent but unfortunately abridged English translation (Putnams, vol. i, 1898). Standard modern Dutch works are those of J.A. Vijnne,Geschiedenis van het Vaderland, and J. van Lennep,De Geschiedenis van Nederland. For Belgian history in particular the authorities are similarly numerous. TheManuel de l'histoire de Belgique, by J. David (Louvain, 1847), will be found a good handbook of authorities, episodes, and chronology, though without any sociological element. TheHistoire de Belgiqueof Th. Juste (Bruxelles, 1895, 3 tom. 4to) is comprehensive, but disfigured by insupportable illustrations.

§ 1.The Rise of the Netherlands

The case of Holland is one of those which at first sight seem to flout the sociological maxim that civilisations flourish in virtue partly of natural advantages and partly of psychological pressures. On the face of things, it would seem that the original negation of natural advantage could hardly be carried farther than here. A land pieced together out of drained marshes certainly tells more of man's effort than of Nature's bounty. Yet even here the process of natural law is perfectly sequent and intelligible.

One of the least-noted influences of the sea on civilisation is the economic basis it yields in the way of food-supply. Already in Cæsar's time the Batavians were partly fishermen; and it may be taken as certain that through all the troubled ages down to the period of industry and commerce it was the resource of fishing that mainly maintained and retained population in the sea-board swamps of the Low Countries. Here was a harvest that enemies could not destroy, that demanded no ploughing and sowing, and that could not well be reaped by the labour of slaves. When war and devastation could absolutely depopulate the cultivated land, forcing all men to flee from famine, the sea for ever yielded some return to him who could but get afloat with net or line; and he who could sail the sea had a double chance of life and freedom as against land enemies. Thus a sea marsh could be humanly advantaged as against a fruitful plain, and could be a surer dwelling-place. The tables were first effectually turned when the Norse pirates attacked from the sea—an irresistible inroad which seems to have driven the sea-board Frisians (as it did the coast inhabitants of France) in crowds into slavery for protection, thus laying a broad foundation of popular serfdom.[725]When, however, the Norse empire began to fail, the sea as a source of sustenance again counted for civilisation; and when to this natural basis of population and subsistence there was added the peculiar stimulus set up by a religious inculcation or encouragement of a fish diet, the fishing-grounds of the continent became relatively richer estates than mines and vineyards. Venice and Holland alike owed much to the superstition which made Christians akreophagous on Fridays and fast-days and all through the forty days of Lent.When the plan of salting herrings was hit upon,[726]all Christian Europe helped to make the fortunes of the fisheries.

Net-making may have led to weaving; in any case weaving is the first important industry developed in the Low Countries. It depended mainly on the wool of England; and on the basis of the ancient seafaring there thus arose a sea-going commerce.[727]Further, the position of Flanders,[728]as a trade-centre for northern and southern Europe, served to make it a market for all manner of produce; and round such a market population and manufactures grew together. It belonged to the conditions that, though the territory came under feudal rule like every other in the medieval military period, the cities were relatively energetic all along,[729]theirs being (after the Dark Ages, when the work was largely done by the Church) the task of maintaining the sea-dykes[730]and water-ways, and theirs the wealth on which alone the feudal over-lords could hope to flourish in an unfruitful land. The over-lords, on their part, saw the expediency of encouraging foreigners to settle and add to their taxable population,[731]thus establishing the tradition of political tolerance long before the Protestant period. Hence arose in the Netherlands, after the Renaissance, the phenomenon of a dense industrial population flourishing on a soil which finally could not be made to feed them,[732]and carrying on a vast shipping trade without owning a single good harbour and without possessing home-grown timber wherewith to build their ships, or home-products to freight them.[733]

One of the determinants of this growth on a partially democratic footing was clearly the primary and peculiar necessity for combination by the inhabitants to maintain the great sea-dykes, the canals, and the embankments of the low-lying river-lands in the interior.[734]It was a public bond in peace, over and above the normal tie of common enmities. The result was a development of civic life still more rapid and more marked in inland Flanders,[735]where the territorial feudal power was naturally greater than in the maritime Dutch provinces. Self-ruling cities, such as Ghent and Antwerp, at their meridian, were too powerful to be effectively menaced by their immediate feudal lords. But on the side of their relations with neighbouring cities or States they all exhibited the normal foible; and it was owing only to the murderous compulsion put upon them by Spain in the sixteenth century that any of the provinces of the Netherlands became a federal republic. For five centuries after Charlemagne, who subdued them to his system, the Low Countries had undergone the ordinary slow evolution from pure feudalism to the polity of municipalities. In the richer inland districts the feudal system, lay and clerical, was at its height, the baronial castles being "here more numerous than in any other part of Christendom";[736]and when the growing cities began to feel their power to buy charters, the feudal formula was unchallenged,[737]while the mass of the outside population were in the usual "Teutonic" state of partial or complete serfdom. It was only by burning their suburbs and taking to the walled fortress that the people of Utrecht escaped the yoke of the Norsemen.[738]

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