Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 09.djvu/594

* HANSEATIC LEAGITE. 540 HANSEN. League prescribed a system of daily sports and light occupations for the recreation of the men, while judicious regulations for their comfort and cleanliness, and for the celebration of festivals at certain fixed times of the year, bear evidence of the sound sense that influenced the mode of government of the Ilansa. This was further shown by the injunction to the masters of its factory to avoid everything that could hurt the prejudices of the foreigners among whom they were placed, and to conform in all things lawful to the habits of the country. At the Steelyard in London, where a German hanse was estab- lished as early as 1250, the regulations were simi- lar in their severity to those of Bergen, and prob- ably the customs at other factories were not far difl'erent. For many years the Hanseatic League was the undisputed mistress of the Baltic Sea and the German Ocean. It created new centres of trade and civilization in numerous parts of Northern Europe, and contributed to the expansion of agri- culture and of the industrial arts by the con- struction of canals and roads. It carried on trad© with evei-y European country. The great- est powers dreaded its hostility and sought its alliance, and many of the powerful sovereigns of the Middle Ages were indebted to it for most substantial benefits. The League reached its culminating point in the fifteenth century. Its decline was rapid. In proportion as the seas and roads were better protected by the States which now arose in Eu- rope with the passing of the old feudal anarchy, and as rulers learned to comprehend the true commercial interests of their dominions, the power of the Hansa declined. The discovery of America and of the new sea route to India gave an entirely different direction to the trade of Europe. The Hansa had. moreover, arrogated to itself, in the course of time, the right of im- posing the greater and lesser ban, and of exer- cising other acts of sovereignty which were in- compatible with the supremacy of the rulers in whose States they Avere enforced. Hence the League was necessarily brought into frequent hos- tilecollision with the local authorities. In ac- cordance with their narrow commercial policy, the Hansards refused to grant to merchants trad- ing in foreign parts the same privileges in the Hanseatic cities which they themselves had en- joyed for centuries in England, Russia, and Scandinavia, and hence arose dissensions, which not unfrequently ended in a fierce maritime war- fare. By way of retaliation for the pertinacity with which the League refused to grant to the English the same immunities which had been accorded to traders of other nations, the English Parliament required that Germans should pay the tax on wool and wine which was exacted from all other foreigners in the English markets; and although the Hansards strongly resisted, they were at length condemned by the courts, in 1469, to pay a fine of £1.3. .500. They would probably have lost all they possessed in England if their cause had not been advocated by Edward IV., who had more than once been indebted to them for money and aid. and who in 1474 secured for them, by a clause in the Treatv of Utrecht, a restitution of nearly all their former rights in England. In l.'SOS their obstinacv in insisting upon the maintenance of their old prerogatives, notwithstanding the altered condition of the times, drew upon them the anger of Queen Eliza- beth, who dispatched a fleet under Drsike and Norris to seize upon the ships of the Hansa, sixty- one of which were captured. At the same time she banished the Hansards from their factory in London. These measures had the desired effect of compelling the League to receive English traders on equal conditions, and thencefonvard tlie Hansards were permitted to occupy the Steel- yard, as before. The Hansa had. however, out- lived its usefulness, and at the Diet held at Lii- beck, in 1G30, the majority of the cities formally renounced their alliance. Hamburg, Liibeck, Bremen, and for a short time Danzig, remained faithful to their ancient compact, and continued to form an association of free republics, which existed unchanged until 1810, when the first three were incorporated in the French Empire. In 1815 they became members of the tierman Confederation. By a convention concluded in July, 1870, the powers and privileges of the three free towns were reestablished and reorganized, and under the new German Empire they still re- tain their self-government. Consult: Sartorius, Geschichte des hanseatlschen Bundes (Giittingen, 1802-08) ; Barthold, Geschichte der deiifscheii Hansa (Leipzig, lS5i); Hansische Geschichtsblat- ter (Leipzig, 1871 et seq.) ; Hansische Re::esse (21 vols., Leipzig, 1873-09) ; Lindner. Die deiitsche Hansa (Leipzig. 1901): Helen Zim- mern. The Hansa Towns' (^es York, 1889). HANSEMANN, han'sc-man, David Justus Lx'DwiG (1790-1804). A German publicist and statesman, born at Finkenwerder, near Hamburg. He set up as a wool-dealer at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1817, and after having attained considerable reputation in commerce and through railway con- struction, was elected a Deputy in the Provincial Diet of Rhenish Prussia in 1845. In 1847 he was elected a member of the United Diet, in which he became conspicuous as a leader of the Liberal Opposition, and in 1848 he was for a brief period Prus.sian Minister of Finance. He was the founder of the Diskontogesellsohaft of Berlin, one of the most important fin.ancial in- stitutions of Germany. His published works deal with economic and political topics of his time, and include: Preiissens icichtigste Eisenbahnfrage (1837), and Das preussische und deutsche Ver- fassungswcrl- (1850). HANSEN, han'scn. GEKn.RD Heneik Ar- MAUER (1841 — ). A Norwegian physician, bom at Bergen. He is known chiefly as the discoverer of the bacillus of leprosy. He received his early education in the cathedral schools of his native city, and on the completion of his medical studies became resident physician in the Rigshospital of Christiania. Later he spent some time as medical officer at the great Lofoten fisheries. In 1868 he was made assistant medical oflicer to the Bergen Leper Hospital, of which Danielssen was director. It was under the influence of this teacher that Hansen began his lifelong study of leprosy. Hansen's first investigation was to work out the significance of the 'leper cells' of Virchow. ,fter more study in various universi- ties, he returned to Norway to resume his in- vestigations of leprosy. His researclies pointed to the contagious and specific nature of the dis- ease, and in recognition of the value of his work the Jledical Society of Christiania voted a sum ^ of money to enable him to continue his studies.