Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/351

 Medieval Life in Country and Town 257 423. Pirates. Commerce by sea had its own particular trials, by no means confined to the hazards of wind and wave, rock and shoal, for pirates were numerous in the North Sea. They were often organized and sometimes led by men of high rank, who appear to have regarded the business as no disgrace. The coasts were dangerous and lighthouses and beacons were few. 424. The Hanseatic League. With a view of reducing these manifold perils, the towns early began to form unions for mutual defense. The most famous of these was that of the German cities, called the Hanseatic League (from hansa, meaning " confederation " or "union"). Liibeck was always the leader, but among the seventy towns which at one time and another were included in the confederation we find Cologne, Brunswick, Danzig, and other centers of great importance. The union purchased and controlled settlements in London, the so-called Steelyard near London Bridge, at Wisby, Bergen, and far-off Novgorod in Russia. They managed to monopolize nearly the whole trade on the Baltic and North Seas, either through treaties or the influence that they were able to bring to bear (see map, p. 254). The League made war on the pirates and did much to reduce the dangers of traffic. Instead of dispatching separate and de- fenseless merchantmen, their ships sailed out in fleets under the protection of a man-of-war. 425. Trade carried on by Towns, not by Nations. It should be observed that during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries trade was not carried on between nations but by the various towns, like Venice, Liibeck, Ghent, Bruges, Cologne. A merchant did not act or trade as an independent individual but as a member of a particular merchant guild, and he enjoyed the protection of his town and of the treaties it arranged. 426. Increasing Importance of Business Men. The increasing wealth of the merchants could not fail to raise them to a position of importance which earlier tradesmen had not enjoyed. They began to build fine houses and to buy the various comforts and luxuries which were finding their way into western Europe. They wanted their sons to be educated, and so it came about that other