IV.
THE HANSA FIGHTS.
Whoever looks on the old Schütting at Lübeck, the building whence the herring fishers were wont to start upon their voyages, and notes its armorial bearings, three herrings upon a plain gold shield, should go back mentally a few centuries and call to mind the fact that the badge of this fish is the emblem of a might which many a time set forth from this spot bent upon commerce or needful warfare, and which for generations exercised great power over Northern Europe.
The district of Scania, which forms the southernmost portion of the present land of Sweden, was until 1658 almost exclusively the property of Denmark. The Danes, a turbulent and maritime people, had in the early times of our era been converted to Christianity at the point of the sword by the emperors of Germany, and during the 10th and 11th centuries these emperors exercised a recognized suzerainty over the Danish kings. Hence German traders easily obtained privileges among a people who were by no means inclined to commerce themselves, but who welcomed none the less eagerly the products that the strangers brought, above all, the heady ale brewed by the Easterlings.
But as the might of the empire declined and the Danes had grown strong, thanks to wise rulers, the people grew restive under the restrictions imposed upon them, and tried to secure their independence. Under Waldemar the Great (1157 to 1182), the country had acquired an important position, which his successors strengthened. This increase of might coincided with the German depression and with the change of course at spawning time that the herring suddenly took in the twelfth century.
Strange that a little fish should have had such great power over mankind; yet it is not going beyond the strict truth to state that the mysterious wanderings of the herring determined throughout several centuries the whole course of northern commerce. During the Middle Ages, upon the appearance of the herring now on this coast and now on that, the wealth and prosperity of the whole districts depended. Herring fishing became a branch of industry that decided the fate of nations. To it the Hansa owes a large portion of its riches and its power; in the herring fisheries, when in the year 1425 the fish began to spawn in the German Ocean, the Netherlands found the foundation stone of their wealth and dignity. Indeed, it was said later, with scant exaggeration, that Amsterdam was built upon herrings.
Now, as masters of the Belt and the Sound, the Danes were able, if they chose, greatly to harass the Hanseatic traders and fishermen. For many years they had not put forth their power, or rather the Hanseatic towns, with the diplomatic astuteness that greatly distinguished them, had averted the possibility of such danger by wise concessions of tributes and privileges. Still disputes would arise, things did not always go off peaceably, and in 1227 the Hansa towns won their first military laurels, defeating the Danes in the battle of Bornhöved and permanently weakening the power of their troublesome neighbours in Northern Germany.