The Hansa Towns

by Helen Zimmern

It was at Bruges, then, that the vast ramifications of Flemish and Hanseatic trade were united. Fifteen different foreign nations held established depôts in the city which was a very artery of commerce. Sixty-eight Flemish trade-guilds flourished in the town. It communicated with the sea by means of a canal and a not too distant harbour. Extensive privileges had been accorded to it by various native princes. The inhabitants were proud, rich, and independent. It was said of them by a contemporary that the merchant-aristocrats of Bruges "rode to tournament yesterday, bottled wine to-day, cut out garments to-morrow." A queen of France could not deny that the splendour and luxury of the courts were cast into the shade by the pomp and splendour of the maids and matrons of commercial Bruges. With these men commerce had already become a science, and various peoples who had till then the most elementary notions on the point came to the Netherlands to instruct themselves. It is surprising to read that, as early as 1310, they had instituted at Bruges an insurance office, and that the chief principles affecting exchange of values were already understood. These matters were novelties even to the Hanseatics, though they owed their prosperity and very existence to trade.

The League therefore found itself in a totally different position in the Netherlands from that which it occupied in poor or barbarous countries like Norway or Russia. Here was no question of submitting a whole people to their monopoly; it was rather a matter of obtaining gracious concessions and privileges. Hence the factory at Bruges in no way resembled those of Bergen and Novgorod, which were armed citadels placed in the midst of a more or less hostile people and constantly liable to warlike attacks. Here, on the other hand, civilization reigned and competition was active. The Hanseatic factory at Bruges partook more of the character of a general office and storehouse than that of any other factory of the League. But "the Residence of the German Merchants," as it was called, was organized in the main like that of its brethren. In its most prosperous days the factory consisted of about three hundred traders or agents, who executed the orders to buy and sell for those Hanseatic merchants who did not come to Bruges in person to carry on their trade. These resident merchants were not permitted to quit the factory until after a certain number of years' sojourn. During this time they were interdicted from associating with the natives. They lived in the Hanseatic building under the supervision of six aldermen and a council composed of eighteen members, and there were in force for them here as elsewhere rigid rules of life, among which the imposition of celibacy took a leading place. The factory was partitioned into several chief divisions called "districts," where the members from different cities abode in almost monastic seclusion. Less rude customs, however, prevailed than at Bergen. The Hanseatics being in the midst of a polished and luxury-loving people, acquired some of their more civilized habits. By way of Bruges comforts and refinements penetrated into German homes, and Flemish modes of thought and speech crept into German literature.

RHINE BOAT, COLOGNE.

The factory at Bruges was in every respect of immense value to Germany and the Hansa. It grew into a sort of training college from which came forth the most able magistrates and administrators of the Hanseatic League.

The head of the factory was a president chosen by the Diet of the League. He was changed annually, usually at Whitsuntide, when the by-laws of the factory were read and the newly elected had to swear "to submit to its statutes, to see that these were observed without fraud as far as in him lay and according to his five senses."

As elsewhere expenses were paid by fines and customs dues. These latter some cities tried to elude at various times in a spirit of egotistic and most short-sighted policy. Chief among these was Cologne which was in consequence "unhansed" for some time. Indeed Cologne was always a more or less turbulent member of the League. The official meetings of the Hanseatic representatives at Bruges curiously enough did not take place in their own factory, but were held in the Reventer, that is to say, the refectory of the Carmelite convent. Their charters were deposited in the church sacristy, or more precisely in the so-called Noah's ark, this alliance between sacred and profane things being a common feature of those times.

As the might of the League increased at Bruges they insisted that every vessel sailing the seas must make an enforced halt at the port of Bruges, and thus give the traders a first chance of buying their wares or, in any case, of exacting from them a staple toll. Exception was made only in the case of ships sailing to England or to the Baltic seaboard. The possession of this privilege naturally proved a source of great wealth and power to the League, who grew proud and haughty as they increased in strength, and even ventured to oppose themselves to the Flemings, if they considered that these had in any way offended against "the majesty of the Hanseatic nation in the person of any of its members or officers." They would then threaten to transport their factory into some other city, and once actually carried out the threat. They suspended all trade with Flanders, blocked its ports, and refused to buy its goods. At the last the murmurs of the artizans thus thrown out of work, and the general distress among the people, forced the rulers to crave grace and to beg for the return of these masterful strangers, even according them new privileges, that is to say, new weapons of oppression. For the League, on these occasions of proud resentment, took the most menacing of tones and exacted a heavy satisfaction. Thus once, because one of its members had been, as it considered, gravely insulted, and others murdered, it demanded that a chapel should be built and masses founded to pray for the repose of the souls of those who had perished; and that a large indemnity should be paid to the relations of the dead and to the division of the League to which they belonged. And, further, in order to induce this division to return to Bruges, it was requisite that one hundred of the chief burghers should come in procession to the Carmelite convent and ask public pardon from the Hanseatics, and that sixteen of these should go in pilgrimage to Santiago de Compastello and four to the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. Only after such expiation would the division allow itself to be re-established.

The dissensions and revolutions which, in the fourteenth century, convulsed Flanders and caused the sovereignty of the provinces to pass into the hands of the Dukes of Burgundy, did not, for a long time, touch the commerce of the Hanseatics. Their trade seemed able to cope with the subversive influences of tumults, seditions, and civil wars; their activity was not discouraged; their great credit enabled them to repair all losses, and even to draw profit from these very disturbing influences themselves. Each new ruler, guided by the same motives of interest, awarded the same favour to this association of strangers, who, in coming to their country, nourished its industries and profitably exchanged products. Even Charles the Bold—proud and warlike though he was, a declared foe to all liberty, attacking at that very time the Swiss people, who were striving to gain their national independence—openly protected the Hanseatic towns, and interested himself warmly in aiding them to overcome the English, with whom they had been at strife.