Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/472

Rh HANSEATIC LEAGUE branch Kansas rises the &quot; Hansa Alamanni&amp;lt;e,&quot; first men tioned in 1282. The opposition to the exclusive pretensions of Cologne was chiefly the work of Liibeck, and with the rise of Liibeck we must connect the second element, the internal political element, which contributed to the formation of the Hansa. The old capitals of German trade, Cologne and Wisby, took their stand on the unions of German mer chants abroad. In opposition to them Liibeck found support in home alliances, in its league with Hamburg and with the Wendish towns. The alliance between Liibeck and Hamburg is generally and with some truth given as the origin of the Hanseatic League. It was well fitted to play this part. These two towns com manded the commerce of the North Sea and the Baltic. By taking the land route between them, a merchant could avoid the dangerous passage of the Sound or the Belts, and could evade the Sound dues which were often exacted by the Danish kings. The first alliance between the two towns, for which there is no exact date, had for its object the defence of the roads between them. From that came agreements as to mutual legal security, and thence they advanced to common political action in London and in Flanders. The league between Liibeck and Hamburg was not the only, and possibly not the first, league among the German towns. But it gradually absorbed all the others. Besides the influence of foreign commercial interests there were other motives which compelled the towns to union. The chief of these were the protection of commercial routes both by sea and land, and the vindication of town independence as opposed to the claims of the landed aristocracy. The first to join this league were the Wendish towns to the east, Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, &c., which had always been intimately connected with Liibeck, and were united by a common system of law known as the &quot; Liibisches Recht.&quot; The Saxon and Westphalian towns had long possessed a league among themselves ; they also joined themselves to Liibeck. Liibeck now became the most im portant town in Germany. It had already surpassed Cologne both in London and Bruges. It soon gained a similar victory over Wisby. At a great convention in which twenty-four towns from Cologne to Revel took part it was decided that appeals from Novgorod which had hitherto been decided at Wisby should henceforth be brought to Liibeck. In the 14th century the Hansa changes from a union of merchants abroad to a league of towns at home. In 1330 mention is first made of the Hanse towns, where before it had been the Hanse merchants. In 1343 the league is first designated as the Hansa by a foreign prince, Magnus of Norway, and thus acquires a diplomatic position as a united state. In 1356 a statute about mercantile privileges at Bruges is made, not by the German merchants, but by the towns themselves, through their representatives assembled at Bruges. Henceforth the town-league subordinates to itself the mercantile unions ; the factories and depots of the merchants lose their independence, and became the &quot; counters,&quot; as they are called, of the Hanse towns. The league thus formed would scarcely have held long together or displayed any real federal unity but for the pressure of external dangers. The true function of the Hansa, and especially of the Baltic towns, was to conduct the commerce between the east and west of northern Europe. But the geographical position of the Scandinavian countries enabled them to interpose a bar to this commerce. Thus from an early period the Hansa stood in a position of watchful hostility towards those countries. It was the careful maintenance of this watch over the Baltic which gave Liibeck its position in the league, and which gave the League its political as contrasted with its mercantile character. The most dangerous of the Scandinavian countries at this time was Denmark. Until the 16th century the southern coast of what is now Sweden was in the hands of the Danes, j who were thus enabled to command the important channel of the Sound, and to interfere with the herring fisheries, a great source of wealth to the Hanse merchants. The Danish kings were almost always opposed to German interests, and were especially jealous of the supremacy of German traders in the Baltic. Eric Menved (1286-1319) almost succeeded in making himself master of the southern coast of the Baltic. He captured Rostock and the island of Riigen. Even Liibeck submitted to him, and was for a time practi cally detached from the empire. Stralsund alone success fully resisted the Danish attack. The league of Wendish towns was for the time wholly broken up, and the growth of the Hansa was arrested ; but it was saved from total dissolution by the feuds which distracted Denmark. Eric s successor, Christopher II., an exile from Denmark, fled to the very towns which his predecessor had humbled. After extorting from him numerous privileges, especially the exclusive right to the fisheries on the coast of Schonen, the Hanse towns restored him to his throne, though to only a ! fraction of his former power. From 1333 to 1340 Denmark was without a king, and a prey to the wildest anarchy. the Hansa. Waldemar III. (1340-1377) devoted the early part of his reign to the recovery of the lands which Denmark had lost during the recent troubles. To carry out this policy he had to spend large sums of money, and in his straits he determined to enrich himself by the plunder of German commerce. In 1361 he sailed to Gothland, and sur prised and captured the town of Wisby. The news of this act reached the representatives of the Hansa as they were assembled at Greifswald. They at once resolved on war, and in 1362 their fleet stormed and captured Copenhagen. But while they were besieging the strong fortress of Helsingborg, Waldemar attacked their defenceless fleet and destroyed it. This defeat was followed by a truce, which recognized the Danish possession of Gothland. Waldemar might easily have turned this truce into an advantageous peace, but his success seems to have inspired him with the hope of crushing German ascendency in northern Europe. In 1367 a Hanseatic assembly at Stralsund was informed that Waldemar had laid new duties on the fishing stations, and that he had robbed German merchants in the Sound and the Belts. Another war was inevitable, and this time the result was different. Waldemar did not await the arrival of the hostile fleet, but fled in 1368 to Branden burg. Denmark fell entirely into the hands of the League. In 1370 Waldemar was compelled, as the price of his return to his kingdom, to sign the treaty of Stralsund. By this treaty the Hansa obtained possession for five years of all fortresses on the coast of Schonen, and as compensation for its losses was to receive for fifteen years two-thirds of the Danish revenues. It was also stipulated that hence forth no king should ascend the throne of Denmark without the consent of the Hanse towns, and that their privileges should be expressly confirmed at each coronation. The treaty of Stralsund marks the zenith of the power and pros perity of the Hansa. The emperor Charles IV., who had always looked coldly on independent combinations among his subjects, seems to have been induced to alter his policy, and in 1375 he distinguished Liibeck by a personal visit. The war against Waldemar III. seems to have had a great effect in consolidating the Hanseatic League, and in forcing it to adopt a federal constitution. From 1361 we can date the regular meeting of the general assemblies, whose acts (Recesse) have been preserved in the archives
 * But as it recovered strength it again became formidable to