{402}
It was not for three months after this, in November, that the Emperor dismissed them with a letter to the Pope written in Latin, Arabic, and Mongolian, but containing only a brief imperious assertion that the Khan of the Tartars was the scourge of God for Christianity, and that he must fulfill his mission. Then sad at heart, the ambassadors began their homeward journey in the midst of the winter. Their sufferings can be better imagined than described, but Friar John who does not dwell on them much tells enough of them to make their realization comparatively easy. They reached Kiev seven months later, in June, and were welcomed there by the Slavonic Christians as though arisen from the dead. From thence they continued their journey to Lyons where they delivered the Khan's letter to the Pope.
Friar John embodied the information that he had obtained in this journey in a book that has been called Liber Tartarorum (the Book of the Tartars or according to another manuscript, History of the Mongols whom we call Tartars). Col. Yule notes that like most of the other medieval monks' itineraries, it shows an entire absence of that characteristic traveler's egotism with which we have become abundantly familiar in more recent years, and contains very little personal narrative. We know that John was a stout man and this in addition to his age when he went on the mission, cannot but make us realize the thoroughly unselfish spirit with which he followed the call of Holy Obedience, to undertake a work that seemed sure to prove fatal and that would inevitably bring in its train suffering of the severest kind. Of the critical historical value of his work a good idea can be obtained from the fact, that half a century ago an educated Mongol, Galsang Gombeyev, in the Historical and Philological Bulletin of the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, reviewed the book and bore testimony to the great accuracy of its statements, to the care with which its details had been verified, and the evident personal character of all its observations.
Friar John's book attracted the attention of compilers of information with regard to distant countries very soon after it was issued, and an abridgment of it is to be found in the Encyclopedia of Vincent of Beauvais, which was written shortly{403}after the middle of the Thirteenth Century. At the end of the Sixteenth Century Hakluyt published portions of the original work, as did Borgeron at the beginning of the Seventeenth Century. The Geographical Society of Paris published a fine edition of the work about the middle of the Nineteenth Century, and at the same time a brief narrative taken down from the lips of John's companion. Friar Benedict the Pole, which is somewhat more personal in its character and fully substantiates all that Friar John had written.
As can readily be understood the curiosity of his contemporaries was deeply aroused and Friar John had to tell his story many times after his return. Hence the necessity he found himself under of committing it to paper, so as to save himself from the bother of telling it all over again, and in order that his brother Franciscans throughout the world might have the opportunity to read it.
Col. Yule says "The book must have been prepared immediately after the return of the traveler, for the Friar Salimbene, who met him in France in the very year of his return (1247) gives us these interesting particulars: 'He was a clever and conversable man, well lettered, a great discourser, and full of diversity of experience. He wrote a big book about the Tartars (sic), and about other marvels that he had seen and whenever he felt weary of telling about the Tartars, he would cause this book of his to be read, as I have often heard and seen. (Chron. Fr. Salembene Parmensis in Monum. Histor. ad Provinceam Placent: Pertinentia, Parma 1857).'"
Another important traveler of the Thirteenth Century whose work has been the theme of praise and extensive annotation in modern times was William of Rubruk, usually known under the name of Rubruquis, a Franciscan friar, thought, as the result of recent investigations, probably to owe his cognomen to his birth in the little town of Rubruk in Brabant, who was the author of a remarkable narrative of Asiatic travel during the Thirteenth Century, and whose death seems to have taken place about 1298. The name Rubruquis has been commonly used to designate him because it is found in the Latin original of his work, which was printed by Hayluyt in his collection of Voyages at the end of the{404}Sixteenth Century. Friar William was sent partly as an ambassador and partly as an explorer by Louis IX. of France into Tartary. At that time the descendants of Jenghis Khan ruled over an immense Empire in the Orient and King Louis was deeply interested in introducing Christianity into the East and if possible making their rulers Christians. About the middle of the Thirteenth Century a rumor spread throughout Europe that one of the nephews of the great Khan had embraced Christianity. St. Louis thought this a favorable opportunity for getting in touch with the Eastern Potentate and so he dispatched at least two missions into Tartary at the head of the second of which was William of Rubruk.
His accounts of his travels proved most interesting reading to his own and to many subsequent generations, perhaps to none more than our own. The Encyclopedia Britannica (ninth edition) says that the narrative of his journey is everywhere full of life and interest, and some details of his travels will show the reasons for this. Rubruk and his party landed on the Crimean Coast at Sudak or Soldaia, a port which formed the chief seat of communication between the Mediterranean countries and what is now Southern Russia. The Friar succeeded in making his way from here to the Great Khan's Court which was then held not far from Karakorum. This journey was one of several thousand miles. The route taken has been worked out by laborious study and the key to it is the description given of the country intervening between the basin of the Talas and Lake Ala-Kul. This enables the whole geography of the region, including the passage of the River Ili, the plain south of the Bal Cash, and the Ala-Kul itself, to be identified beyond all reasonable doubt.
The return journey was made during the summertime, and the route lay much farther to the north. The travelers traversed the Jabkan Valley and passed north of the River Bal Cash, following a rather direct course which led them to the mouth of the Volga. From here they traveled south past Derbend and Shamakii to the Uraxes, and on through Iconium to the coast of Cilicia, and finally to the port of Ayas, where they embarked for Cyprus. All during his travels Friar William made observations on men and cities, and rivers and mountains, and{405}languages and customs, implements and utensils, and most of these modern criticism has accepted as representing the actual state of things as they would appear to a medieval sightseer. Occasionally during the period intervening between his time and our own, scholars who thought that they knew better, have been conceited enough to believe themselves in a position to point out glaring errors in Rubruquis' accounts of what he saw. Subsequent investigation and discovery have, as a rule, proved the accuracy of the earlier observations rather than the modern scholar's corrections. An excellent example of this is quoted in the Encyclopedia Britannica article on Rubruquis already referred to.
{opp405}
DOORWAY OF GIOTTO'S TOWER (FLORENCE)
PRINCIPAL DOOR OF BAPTISTERY (PISA, DIOTISALVI)
The writer says: "This sagacious and honest observer is denounced as an ignorant and untruthful blunderer by Isaac Jacob Schmidt (a man no doubt of useful learning, of a kind rare in his day but narrow and long-headed and in natural acumen and candour far inferior to the Thirteenth Century friar whom he maligns), simply because the evidence of the latter as to the Turkish dialect of the Uigurs traversed a pet heresy long since exploded which Schmidt entertained, namely, that the Uigurs were by race and language Tibetan."
Some of the descriptions of the towns through which the travelers passed are interesting because of comparisons with towns of corresponding size in Europe. Karakorum, for instance, was described as a small city about the same size as the town of St. Denis near Paris. In Karakorum the ambassador missionary maintained a public disputation with certain pagan priests in the presence of three of the secretaries of the Khan. The religion of these umpires is rather interesting from its diversity: the first was a Christian, the second a Mohammedan, and the third a Buddhist. A very interesting feature of the disputation was the fact that the Khan ordered under pain of death that none of the disputants should slander, traduce, or abuse his adversaries, or endeavor by rumor or insinuations to excite popular indignation against them. This would seem to indicate that the great Tartar Khan who is usually considered to have been a cruel, ignorant despot, whose one quality that gave him supremacy was military valor, was really a large, liberal-minded man. His idea seems to have been to discover{406}the truth of these different religions and adopt that one which was adjudged to have the best groundwork of reason for it. It is easy to understand, however, that such a disputation argued through interpreters wholly ignorant of the subject and without any proper understanding of the nice distinctions of words or any practise in conveying their proper significance, could come to no serious conclusion. The arguments, therefore, fell flat and a decision was not rendered.
Friar William's work was not unappreciated by his contemporaries and even its scientific value was thoroughly realized. It is not surprising, of course, that his great contemporary in the Franciscan order, Roger Bacon, should have come to the knowledge of his Brother Minorite's book and should have made frequent and copious quotations from it in the geographical section of his Opus Majus, which was written some time during the seventh decade of the Thirteenth Century. Bacon says that Brother William traversed the Oriental and Northern regions and the places adjacent to them, and wrote accounts of them for the illustrious King of France who sent him on the expedition to Tartary. He adds: "I have read his book diligently and have compared it with similar accounts." Roger Bacon recognized by a sort of scientific intuition of his own, certain passages which have proved to be the best in recent times. The description, for instance, of the Caspian was the best down to this time, and Friar William corrects the error made by Isidore, and which had generally been accepted before this, that the Caspian Sea was a gulf. Rubruk, as quoted by Roger Bacon, states very explicitly that it nowhere touches the ocean but is surrounded on all sides by land. For those who do not think that the foundations of scientific geography were laid until recent times, a little consultation of Roger Bacon's Opus Majus would undoubtedly be a revelation.
It is probably with regard to language that one might reasonably expect to find least that would be of interest to modern scholars in Friar William's book. As might easily have been gathered from previous references, however, it is here that the most frequent surprises as to the acuity of this medieval traveler await the modern reader. Scientific philology is so much a product of the last century, that it is difficult to{407}understand how this old-time missionary was able to reach so many almost intuitive recognitions of the origin and relationships of the languages of the people among whom he traveled. He came in contact with the group of nations occupying what is now known as the Near East, whose languages, as is well known, have constituted a series of the most difficult problems with which philology had to deal until its thorough establishment on scientific lines enabled it to separate them properly. It is all the more surprising then, to find that Friar William should have so much in his book that even the modern philologist will read with attention and unstinted admiration.
With regard to this Colonel Yule, whose personal experience makes him a valuable guide in such matters, has written a paragraph which contains so much compressed information that we venture to quote it entire. It furnishes the grounds for the claim (which might seem overstrained if it were not that its author was himself one of the greatest of modern explorers) that William was an acute and most intelligent observer, keen in the acquisition of knowledge; and the author in fact of one of the best narratives of travel in existence. Col. Yule says:
"Of his interest and acumen in matters of language we may cite examples. The language of the Pascatir (or Bashkirds) and of the Hungarians is the same, as, he had learned from Dominicans who had been among them. The language of the Ruthenians, Poles, Bohemians, and Slavonians is one, and is the same with that of the Wandals or Wends. In the town of Equinus (immediately beyond the Ili, perhaps Aspara) the people were Mohammedans speaking Persian, though so far remote from Persia. The Yugurs (or Uigurs) of the country about the Cailac had formed a language and character of their own, and in that language and character the Nestorians of that tract used to perform their office and write their books. The Yugurs are those among whom are found the fountain and root of the Turkish and Comanian tongue. Their character has been adopted by the Moghals. In using it they begin writing from the top and write downwards, whilst line follows line from left to right. The Nestorians say their service, and have their holy book in Syriac, but know nothing of the{408}language, just as some of our Monks sing the mass without knowing Latin. The Tibet people write as we do, and their letters have a strong resemblance to ours. The Tangut people write from right to left like the Arabs, and their lines advance upwards."
There were other matters besides language and religion on which Friar William made observations, and though his book is eminently human giving us a very interesting view of his own personality and of his difficulties with his dragoman, which many a modern Eastern traveler will sympathize with, and a picture that includes the detail that he was a very heavy man,valde ponderosus, which makes his travel on horseback for some 10,000 miles all the more wonderful; it also contains a mass of particulars, marvelously true—or so near the truth as to be almost more interesting—as to Asiatic nature, ethnography, manners, morals, commercial customs, and nearly everything else relating to the life of the peoples among whom he traveled. A typical example of this is to be found in the following suggestive paragraph:
"The current money of Cathay is of cotton paper, a palm in length and breath, and on this they print lines like those of Mangu Khan's seal: 'imprimunt lineas sicut est sigillum Mangu'"—a remarkable expression. "They write with a painter's pencil and combine in one character several letters, forming one expression: 'faciunt in una figura plures literas comprehendentes unam dictionem'"—a still more remarkable utterance, showing an approximate apprehension of the nature of Chinese writing.
There are other distinguished travelers whose inspiration came to them during the Thirteenth Century though their works were published in the early part of the next century. Some of these we know mainly through their adaptation and incorporation into his work without due recognition, by that first great writer of spurious travels Sir John Mandeville. Mandeville's work was probably written some time during the early part of the second half of the Fourteenth Century, but he used materials gathered from travelers of the end of the Thirteenth and the beginning of the next (his own) century. Sir Henry Yule has pointed out, that by far the greater part of the supposed{409}more distant travels of Sir John Mandeville were appropriated from the narrative of Friar Odoric, a monk, who became a member of the Franciscan order about the end of the Thirteenth Century, and whose travels as a missionary in the East gave him the opportunities to collect a precious fund of information which is contained in Odoric's famous story of his voyages. Of Odoric himself we shall have something to say presently.
In the meantime it seems well worth while calling to attention, that the accepted narrative of Sir John Mandeville as it is called, and which may have been written by a physician of the name of John of Burgoigne under an assumed name, contains a number of interesting anticipations of facts that were supposed to enter into the domain of human knowledge much later in the intellectual development of the race. In certain passages, and especially in one which is familiar from its being cited by Dr. Johnson in the preface to his dictionary, Mandeville, to use the name under which the story is best known, shows that he had a correct idea of the form of the earth and of position in latitude as it could be ascertained by observation of the Pole Star. He knew also, as we noted at the beginning of this article, that there are antipodes, and if ships were sent on voyages of discovery they might sail around the world. As Col. Yule has pointed out, Mandeville tells a curious story which he had heard in his youth of how "a worthy man did travel ever eastward until he came to his own country again."
Odoric of whom we have already spoken must be considered as the next great missionary traveler of this age. He took Franciscan vows when scarcely a boy and was encouraged to travel in the East by the example of his Holy Father St. Francis, and also by the interest and missionary zeal to convert the East which had been aroused by Marco Polo's travels. His long journeys will be more readily understood, however, if we realize, as is stated in the article on him in the Encyclopedia Britannica, an authority that will surely be unsuspected of too great partiality for the work of Catholic missionaries, that "There had risen also during the latter half of the Thirteenth Century an energetic missionary action, extending all over the East on the part of both the new orders of Preaching and Minorite (or Dominican and Franciscan) Friars which had caused{410}members of these orders, of the last especially, to become established in Persia and what is now Southern Russia, in Tartary and in China."
In the course of his travels in the East Odoric visited Malabar touching at Pandarini (twenty miles north of Calicut), at Craganore and at Quilon, preceding thence, apparently, to Ceylon and to the Shrine of St. Thomas at Mailapur near Madras.
Even more interesting than his travels in India, however, are those in China. He sailed from the Hindustan Peninsula in a Chinese junk to Sumatra, visiting various ports on the northern coast of that island and telling something about the inhabitants and the customs of the country. According to Sir Henry Yule he then visited Java and it would seem also the coast of Borneo, finally reaching Kanton, at that time known to Western Asiatics as Chin Kalan or Great China. From there he went to the great ports of Fuhkeen and Schwan Chow, where he found two houses of his order, thence he proceeded to Fuchau from which place he struck across the mountains into Chekaeng and then visited Hang Chow at that time renowned under the name of Cansay. Modern authorities in exploration have suggested that this might be King Sae, the Chinese name for Royal Residence, which was then one of the greatest cities of the world. Thence Odoric passed northward by Nanking, and, crossing the great Kiang, embarked on the Grand Canal and traveled to Cambaluc or Pekin, where he remained for three years and where it is thought that he was attached to one of the churches founded by Archbishop John of Monte Corvino, who was at this time in extreme old age.
The most surprising part of Odoric's travels were still to come. When the fever for traveling came upon him again he turned almost directly westward to the Great Wall and through Shenshua. From here the adventurous traveler (we are still practically quoting Sir Henry Yule) entered Thibet and appears to have visited Lhasa. Considering how much of interest has been aroused by recent attempts to enter Lhasa and the surprising adventures that men have gone through in the effort, the success of this medieval monk in such an expedition would seem incredible, if it were not substantiated by documents that{411}place the matter beyond all doubt even in the minds of the most distinguished modern authorities in geography and exploration. How Odoric returned home is not definitely known, though certain fragmentary notices seem to indicate that he passed through Khorasan and probably Tabriz to Europe.
It only remains to complete the interest of Odoric's wondrous tale to add that during a large portion of these years' long journeys his companion was Friar James, an Irishman who had been attracted to Italy in order to become a Franciscan. As appears from a record in the public books of the town of Udine in Italy, where the monastery of which both he and Odoric were members was situated, a present of two marks was made by the municipal authorities to the Irish friar shortly after Odoric's death. The reason for the gift was stated to be, that Friar James had been for the love of God and of Odoric (a typical Celtic expression and characteristic) a companion of the blessed Odoric in his wanderings. Unfortunately Odoric died within two years after his return though not until the story of his travels had been taken down in homely Latin by Friar William of Bologna. Shortly after his death Odoric became an object of reverence on the part of his brother friars and of devotion on the part of the people, who recognized the wonderful apostolic spirit that he had displayed in his long wanderings, and the patience and good-will with which he had borne sufferings and hardships for the sake of winning the souls of those outside the Church.
Sir Henry Yule summed up his opinion of Odoric in the following striking passage which bears forcible testimony also to the healthy curiosity of the times with regard to all these original sources of information which were recognized as valuable because first hand:
"The numerous MSS. of Odoric's narrative that have come down to our time (upwards of forty are known), and chiefly from the Fourteenth Century, show how speedily and widely it acquired popularity. It does not deserve the charge of general mendacity brought up against it by some, though the language of other writers who have spoken of the traveler as a man of learning is still more injudicious. Like most of the medieval travelers, he is indiscriminating in accepting strange tales; but while some of these are the habitual stories of the{412}age, many particulars which he recited attest the genuine character of the narrative, and some of those which Tiraboschi and others have condemned as mendacious interpolations are the very seals of truth."
Besides Odoric there is another monkish traveler from whom Mandeville has borrowed much, though without giving him any credit. This is the well-known Praemonstratensian Monk Hayton, who is said to have been a member of a princely Armenian family and who just at the beginning of the Fourteenth Century dictated a work on the affairs of the Orient and especially the history of the nearer East in his own time, of which, from the place of his nativity and bringing up, he had abundant information, while he found all round him in France, where he was living at the time, the greatest thirst for knowledge with regard to this part of the world. His book seems to have been dictated originally in French at Poictiers, and to have attracted great attention because of its subject, many copies of it being made as well as translations into other languages within a few years after its original appearance.
The story of Odoric is a forcible reminder of how much the missionaries accomplished for geography, ethnology, and ethnography in the Thirteenth Century, as they did in succeeding centuries. If what the missionaries have added to these sciences were to have been lost, there would have been enormous gaps in the knowledge with which modern scholars began their scientific labors in philology. It may be a surprise to most people, moreover, to be thus forcibly reminded of the wonderful evangelizing spirit which characterized the later middle age. Needless to say these graduates of the Thirteenth Century universities who wandered in distant eastern lands, brought with them their European culture for the uplifting of the Orientals, and brought back to Europe many ideas that were to be fruitful sources of suggestions not only for geographical, ethnological, philological, and other departments of learning, but also in manufactures and in arts.
We mentioned the fact that Odoric in his travels eventually reached Cambaluc, or Pekin, where he found Archbishop John of Monte Corvino still alive though at an advanced age, and was probably attached for the three years of his stay to one of{413}the churches that had been founded by this marvelous old Friar, who had been made Archbishop because of the wonderful power of organization and administration displayed during his earlier career as a missionary. The story of this grand old man of the early Franciscan missions is another one of the romances of Thirteenth Century travels and exploration which well deserves to be studied in detail. Unfortunately the old Archbishop was too much occupied with his work as a missionary and an ecclesiastic to return to Europe in order to tell of it, or to write any lengthy account of his experiences. Like many another great man of the Thirteenth Century he was a doer and not a writer, and, but for the casual mention of him by others, the records of his deeds would only be found in certain ecclesiastical records, and his work would now be known to the Master alone, for whom it was so unselfishly done.
It will be noted that most of these traveling missionaries were Franciscans but it must not be thought that it was only the Franciscans who sent out such missionaries. The Dominicans (established at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century) also did wonderful missionary work and quite as faithfully as even their Franciscan brothers. Undoubtedly the Franciscans surpassed them in the extent of their labors, but then the Dominicans were founded with the idea of preaching and uplifting the people of Europe rather than of spreading the good news of the Gospel outside the bounds of Christianity as it then existed. From the very earliest traditions of their order the Franciscans had their eyes attracted towards the East. The story that St. Francis himself went to the Holy Land at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century in order to convert Saladin, the Eastern monarch whose name has been made famous by the stories of the Crusade in which Richard Coeur de Lion took part, has been doubted, but it seems to be founded on too good contemporary authority to be considered as entirely apocryphal. St. Francis' heart went out to those in darkness who knew nothing of the Christ whom he had learned to love so ardently, and it was a supreme desire of his life that the good tidings of Christianity should be spread by his followers all over the world. While they did this great work they accomplished unwittingly great things in all the series of sciences{414}now included under the term geography, and gathered precious information as to the races of men, their relations to one another and to the part of the earth in which they live. The scientific progress thus made will always redound largely to their credit in the story of the intellectual development of modern Europe. Most of their work was far ahead of the times and was not to be properly appreciated until quite recent generations, but this must only emphasize our sympathy for those obscure, patient but fruitful workers in a great field of human knowledge. As to what should be thought of those who ignorant of their work proclaim that the Church did not tolerate geography it is hard to say. Our geographical knowledge comes mainly from travelers whose wish it is to gain commercial opportunities for themselves or their compatriots; that of the Middle Ages was gained by men who wished anxiously to spread the light of Christianity throughout the world. The geographical societies of these earlier days were the religious orders who sent but the explorers and travelers, furnished them on their return with an enthusiastic audience to hear their stories, and then helped to disseminate their books all over the then civilized world.
There is probably no better refutation of the expression so often heard from those who know nothing about it, with regard to the supposed laziness of the Monks of the Middle Ages, than this chapter of the story of their exploration and missionary labors during the Thirteenth Century. It is usually supposed that if a Monk was fat he could not possibly have accomplished any serious work in life. Some of these men werevalde ponderosi, very weighty, yet they did not hesitate to take on themselves these long journeys to the East. Their lives are the best illustration of the expression of Montalembert:
"Let us then banish into the world of fiction that affirmation so long repeated by foolish credulity which made monasteries an asylum for indolence and incapacity, for misanthropy and pusillanimity, for feeble and melancholic temperaments, and for men who were no longer fit to serve society in the world. It was not the sick souls, but on the contrary the most vigorous and healthful the human race has ever produced who presented themselves in crowds to fill them."
{415}
For our present eminently commercial age nothing of all the accomplishment of the Thirteenth Century will probably possess livelier interest than the fact that, in spite of what must have seemed insuperable difficulties to a less enterprising generation, the men of that time succeeded in making such business combinations and municipal affiliations, besides arranging various trade facilities among distant, different peoples, that not only was commerce rendered possible and even easy, but some of the most modern developments of the facilitation of international intercourse were anticipated. The story of the rise of this combination of many men of different nations, of many cities whose inhabitants were of different races and of different languages, of commercial enterprise that carried men comparatively much farther than they now go on trade expeditions, though we have thought that our age had exhausted the possibilities of progress in this matter, cannot fail to have an interest for everyone whose attention has been attracted to the people of this time and must be taken as a symbol of the all-pervading initiative of the generations, which allowed no obstacle to hinder their progress and thought no difficulty too great to be surmounted.
In beginning the history of the great commercial league which in the Thirteenth Century first opened men's minds to the possibilities of peace and commerce among the nations and alas! that it should be said, did more perhaps than any other agent except Christianity to awaken in different races the sense of the brotherhood of man, the English historian of the Hanseatic League, Miss Zimmern in the Stories of the Nations, said:
"There is scarcely a more remarkable chapter in history than that which deals with the trading alliance or association known as the Hanseatic League. The league has long since{416}passed away having served its time and fulfilled its purpose. The needs and circumstances of mankind have changed, and new methods and new instruments have been devised for carrying on the commerce of the world. Yet, if the league has disappeared, the beneficial results of its action survive to Europe though they have become so completely a part of our daily life that we accept them as matters of course, and do not stop to inquire into their origin." This last declaration may seem surprising for comparatively few know anything about this medieval commercial league, yet the effects claimed for it are only what we have seen to be true with regard to most of the important institutions of the period—they were the origins of what is best in our modern life.
Like many of the great movements of the Thirteenth Century the origin of the Hanseatic League is clouded somewhat by the obscurity of the times and the lack of definite historical documents. [Footnote 35] There is no doubt, however, that just before the middle of the century it was in flourishing existence, and that by the end of the century it had reached that acme of its power and influence which it was to maintain for several centuries in spite of the jealousy of the nobility, of certain towns that did not have the same privileges, and even of the authorities of the various countries who resented more and more as time went on the growing freedom and independence of these wealthy cities. The impetus for the formation of the League seems to have been given during the Crusades. Like so many other of the important movements of the time commerce was greatly influenced by these expeditions, and the commercial spirit not only aroused but shown the possibility of{417}accomplishing hitherto impossible results in the matter of transportation and exchange. The returning crusaders brought back with them many precious Eastern objects whose possession was a source of envy to others and whose value was rated so high as to make even distant travel for them well worth while. The returning crusaders also knew how cheaply objects considered very precious in the West might be purchased in the East, and they told the stories of their own acquisition of them to willing listeners, who were stimulated to try their fortunes in expeditions that promised such rich rewards.
[Footnote 35: Perhaps no better idea of the obscurity of the origin of the Hansa confederation can be given, than is to be derived from the fact that even the derivation of the word Hansa is not very clear. Bishop Ulfilas in his old Gothic translation of the Scriptures used the word "hansa" to designate the mob of soldiers and servants of the High Priest who came to take Christ prisoner in the Garden. Later on the word Hansa was used to mean a tax or a contribution. This term was originally employed to designate the sum of money which each of the cities was compelled to pay on becoming a member of the league, and it is thought to be from this that the terms Hansa and Hanseatic League were eventually derived.]
{opp417}
PALAZZO DEI CONSOLI (GUBBIO)
PALAZZO ZABARELLA (PADUA)
Besides the crusaders on their return through Italy had observed what was accomplished by the League of the Lombard cities which had been in existence in a more or less imperfect way for more than a century, and at the end of the Twelfth and the beginning of the Thirteenth Century had begun to provide an example of the strength there is in union, and of the power for good there is in properly regulated combinations of commercial interests with due regard for civic rights and privileges. This League of the Lombard cities was encouraged by the popes especially by Innocent III. and his successors who are usually said to have given it their approbation for their own purposes, though this is to look at but one side of the case. The German Emperors endeavored to assert their rights over Italian territory and in so doing came into collision with the popes not only in temporal matters but also in spiritual things. As we have noted in the short sketch of the popes of the century, Innocent III. was the first great Italian patriot and original advocate of Italy for the Italians. He constantly opposed the influence of the German Emperor in Italian politics, mainly, of course, because this interfered with the power of the Church, but to a very great degree also because it proved a source of manifold political evil for the Italian cities.
The Germans then, who in the train of the Emperor went down into Italy saw the working of this League of Lombard cities, talked about it on their return, and were naturally tempted to essay what might be accomplished by the same means on German territory. These two elements, the incentive of the crusades and the stimulus of the example of the{418}Italians, must be considered as at the basis of Hansa, though these were only seeds, and it was the nurture and fostering care of the German mind which ever since the days of Tacitus had been noted as the freest in Europe, that gave the League its wonderful development.
It is difficult to tell how many towns belonged to the Hanseatic League during the Thirteenth Century but at the end of this period, Hansa, as it came to be called, was, as we have said, in its most flourishing condition and we know something definite of its numbers a little more than half a century later. In 1367 deputies from all the towns met in the large council chamber of the famous town hall at Cologne to discuss certain injustices that had been committed against the members of the League, or as the document set forth "against the free German merchants," in order to determine some way of preventing further injuries and inflict due punishment. Altogether the deputies of 77 towns were present and declared most solemnly "that because of the wrongs and the injuries done by the King of Denmark to the common German merchant the cities would be his enemies and help one another faithfully." The distant and smaller cities were not expected to send troops or even naval forces but promised to give contributions in money. Such cities as did not take part in this movement were to be considered as having forfeited their membership and would no longer be permitted to trade with the members of Hansa.
Lest it should be thought that the cities were incapable of enforcing any such boycott with effect, the story of the town of Lübeck must be recalled. Lübeck on one occasion refused to join with the other Hansa towns in a boycott of certain places in Flanders which had refused to observe the regulations as to trading. One of these was to the effect that such vessels as were lost on a coast did not become the property of the people of the neighborhood, though they had a right to a due share for salvage, but a fair proportion must be returned to the citizens of the town that suffered the loss. Lübeck was at the moment one of the most powerful commercial cities in Germany, and her citizens seemed to think that they could violate the Hansa regulation with impunity. For 30 years.{419}however, the Hansa boycott was maintained and so little trading was done in the city that according to one old writer "the people starved, the markets were deserted, grass grew in the street and the inhabitants left in large numbers." Such a lesson as this was enough to make the Hanseatic decrees be observed with scrupulous care and shows the perfection of the organization.
The outcome of the war with Denmark demonstrates the power of the league. The King of Denmark is said to have scorned their declaration of war, and making an untranslatable pun on the word "Hansa" called the members of the League "geese who cackled much but need not be feared." The fleet of the League, however, succeeded in shutting off all the commerce of the coast of Denmark and though there was a truce each winter the war was renewed vigorously, and with summer many of the Danish cities were ransacked and plundered. At the end of the second year Denmark was exhausted and the people so weary of war that they pleaded for peace, and Valdemar had to accept the terms which the "geese" were willing to offer him. This triumph of the common people over a reigning monarch is one of the most striking passages in medieval history. It comes about a half century after the close of the Thirteenth, and is evidently the direct result of the great practical forces that were set in movement during that wonderful period, when the mighty heart of humanity was everywhere bestirring men to deeds of high purpose and far-reaching significance.
As a matter of fact, Hansa became, very early in its career, one of the firmest authorities in the midst of these troubled times and meted out unfailingly the sternest justice against those who infringed its rights if they were outsiders, or broke the rules of the League if they were its members. It was ever ready to send its ships against offenders and while it soon came to be feared, this fear was mingled with respect, and its regulations were seldom infringed. It is a most interesting reflection, that as its English Historian says, "never once in the whole course of its history did it draw the sword aggressively or against its own members." While it was ever on the look-out to increase its power by adding new cities to the League, cities were not forced to join and when it meted{420}out punishments to its members this was not by the levying of war but by fines, the refusal to pay these being followed by the "declaration of boycott," which soon brought the offender to terms. War was only declared in all cases as a last resort, and the ships of the League were constantly spoken of and designated in all documents as "peace ships," and even the forts which the League built for the protection of its towns, or as places where its members might be sure of protection, were described as "Peace Burgs."
Unfortunately, the lessons of peace that were thus taught by commerce were not to bear fruit abundantly for many centuries after the Thirteenth. It is practically only in our own time that they have been renewed, and the last generation or two, has rather plumed itself over the fact that trade was doing so much to prevent war. Evidently this is no guarantee of the perpetuation of such an improvement in national or international morals, for the influence of Hansa for peace came to be lost entirely, after a few centuries. The cities themselves, however, that belonged to the League gradually became more and more free, and more independent of their rulers. It was thus, in fact, that the free cities of Germany had their origin, and in them much more of modern liberty was born than has ever been appreciated, except by those whose studies have brought them close to these marvelous medieval manifestations of the old spirit of Teutonic freedom.
The names of most of the cities that were members of the Hansa League are well known, though it is not easy to understand in the decrepitude that has come over many of them, how they could have been of so much importance as has been claimed for them in the Middle Ages. All the cities of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea were united together, and while we think of these as German, many of them really belonged to Slav people at this time, so that the membership of a number of Russian cities is not surprising. While the Rhenish cities were important factors in the League, Cologne indeed being one of the most important, Bremen and Hamburg and both the Frankforts, and Rostock, and Lübeck and Stralsund, and Tangermünde and Warnemunde, were important members. Novgorod was founded by Hansa for the purpose of trading{421}with the Orientals, and the Volga, the Dnieper, the Dwina, and the Oder were extensively used for the purpose of transporting goods here and there in central Europe. One of their most famous towns, Winetha in German, Julin in Danish, disappeared beneath the waters of the Baltic Sea and gave rise to many legends of its reappearance. It is hard to realize that it was so important that it was called the Venice of the North, and was seriously compared with its great southern rival.
A good idea of the intimate relations of the Hansa towns to England and the English people can be obtained from the article on the subject written by Richard Lodge for the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. A single paragraph of this compresses much of the external and internal history of the "Rise and Development of Hansa." It was rather to be expected that the commercial relations between England and the various cities situated along the North Sea, as well as the Baltic and up the Rhine, would be active and would have to be submitted to careful regulation. Unless the modern mind is actually brought directly in touch, however, with the complex yet very practical state of affairs, which actually existed, it will utterly fail to appreciate how thoroughly progressive and enterprising were these medieval peoples. Enterprise and practicalness we are apt to think of as the exclusive possession of much more modern generations. Least of all would we be apt to consider them as likely to be found in the Thirteenth Century, yet here they are, and the commercial arrangements which were made are as absolute premonitions of our modern thought as were the literature and architecture, the painting, even the teachings of science at the same period.
"The members of this League (Hanseatic) came to England mostly from Cologne, the first German town which obtained great importance both at home and abroad. Its citizens possessed at an early date a guild-hall of their own (in London), and all Germans who wished to trade with England had to join their guild. This soon included merchants from Dortmund, Soest and Munster, in Westphalia; from Utrecht, Stavern and Groningen, in the Netherlands, and from Bremen and Hamburg on the North Sea. But, when at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century, the rapidly rising town of Lübeck{422}wished to be admitted into the guild, every effort was made to keep her out. The intervention of Frederick II. was powerless to overcome the dread felt by Cologne towards a possible rival to its supremacy. But this obstacle to the extension of the League was soon overcome. In 1260 a charter of Henry III. assured protection to all German merchants. A few years later Hamburg and Lübeck also were allowed to form their own guilds. The Hansa of Cologne, which had long been the only guild, now sinks to the position of a branch Hansa, and has to endure others with equal privileges. Over all the branch Hansas rises the "Hansa Alamanniae," first mentioned in 1282.
This article gives additional information with regard to the many and varied influences at work at the end of the Thirteenth Century. It furnishes in brief, moreover, an excellent picture of the activity of mind and power of organization so frequently displayed during this period in every branch of life. This is after all the highest quality of man. The development of associations of various kinds, especially such as are helpfully purposive, are the outcome of that social quality in man's mind which is the surest index of his rational quality. Succeeding centuries lost for some almost unaccountable reason much of this faculty of organization and the result was a lamentable retrogression from the advances made by older generations, so that it was only in quite recent years that anything like this old international comity was reestablished.