[723] This principle may have been copied from the practice of the Lombard Umiliati. The common account of that order is that when in 1014 the Emperor banished a number of Lombards, chiefly Milanese, into Germany, they formed themselves into a religious society, called "The Humbled," and in that corporate capacity devoted themselves to various trades, in particular to wool-working. Returning to Milan in 1019, they developed their organisation there. Down to 1140 all the members were laymen; but thereafter priests were placed in control. For long the organisation was in high repute both for commercial skill and for culture. Ultimately, like all other corporate orders, they grew corrupt; and in 1571 they were suppressed by Pius V. (Pignotti, Hist. of Tuscany, Eng. trans. 1823, pp. 266-67, note, following Tiraboschi.)
[724] In such accounts as M'Culloch's (Treatises and Essays) and those of the German patriotic historians the Hansa is seen in a rather delusive abstract. The useful monograph of Miss Zimmern (The Hansa Towns: Story of the Nations Series) gives a good idea of the reality. See in particular pp. 82-147. It should be noted, however, that Lübeck is credited with being the first northern town to adopt the Oriental usage of water-pipes (Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, 1802, i, 381).
Chapter IV
HOLLAND
The special interest of Dutch history for English and other readers led in past generations to a more general sociological study of it than was given to almost any other. L. Guicciardini's Description of the Low Countries (Descrizione ... di tutti Paesi Bassi, etc., Anversa, folio, 1567, 1581, etc.; trans. in French, 1568, etc.; in English, 1593; in Dutch, 1582; in Latin, 1613, etc.) is one of the fullest surveys of the kind made till recent times. Sir William Temple's Observations upon the United Provinces of the Netherlands (1672) laid for English readers further foundations of an intelligent knowledge of the vital conditions of the State which had been in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the great commercial rival of England; and in the eighteenth century many English writers discussed the fortunes of Dutch commerce. An English translation was made of the remarkably sagacious work variously known as the Memoirs of John de Witt, the True Interest of Holland, and Political Maxims of the State of Holland (really written by De Witt's friend, Pierre Delacourt; De Witt, however, contributing two chapters), and much attention was given to it here and on the Continent. In addition to the many and copious histories written in the eighteenth century in Dutch, three or four voluminous and competent histories of the Low Countries were written in French—e.g., those of Dujardin (1757, etc., 8 vols. 4to), Cerisier (1777, etc., 10 vols. 12mo), Le Clerc (1723-28, 3 vols. folio), Wicquefort (1719, folio, proceeding from Peace of Münster). Of late years, though the lesson is as important as ever, it appears to be less generally attended to. In our own country, however, have appeared Davies' History of Holland (1841, 3 vols.), a careful but not often an illuminating work, which oddly begins with the statement that "there is scarcely any nation whose history has been so little understood or so generally neglected as that of Holland"; T. Colley Grattan's earlier and shorter book (The Netherlands, 1830), which is still worth reading for a general view based on adequate learning; and the much better known works of Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic (1856) and the History of the United Netherlands (1861-68), which deal minutely with only a period of fifty-five years of Dutch history, and of which, as of the work of Davies, the sociological value is much below the annalistic. All three are impaired as literature by their stale rhetoric. The same malady infects the second volume of the Industrial History of the Free Nations (1846), by W. Torrens M'Cullagh (afterwards M'Cullagh Torrens); but this, which deals with Holland, is the better section of that treatise, and it gives distinct help to a scientific conception of the process of Dutch history, as does J.R. M'Culloch's Essay on the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Commerce in Holland, which is one of the best of his Essays and Treatises (2nd ed. 1859). The Holland of the late Professor Thorold Rogers has merit as a vivacious conspectus, but hardly rises to the opportunity.
Of the many French, Belgian, and German works on special periods of the history of the Low Countries, some have a special and general scientific interest. Among these is the research of M. Alphonse Wauters on Les libertés communales (Bruxelles, 1878). Barante's Histoire des Ducs de Bourgogne (4th ed. 1838-40) contains much interesting matter on the Burgundian period. The assiduous research of M. Lefèvre Pontalis, Jean de Witt, Grand Pensionnaire de Hollande (2 tom. 1884; Eng. trans. 2 vols.), throws a full light on one of the most critical periods of Dutch history.
Dutch works on the history of the Low Countries in general, and the United Provinces in particular, are many and voluminous; indeed, no history has been more amply written. The good general history of the Netherlands by N.G. van Kampen, which appeared in German in the series of Heeren and Uckert (1831-33), is only partially superseded by the Geschichte der Niederlande of Wenzelburger (Bd. i, 1879; ii, 1886), which is not completed. But the most readable general history of the Netherlands yet produced is that of P.J. Blok, Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Volk (1892, etc.), of which there is a competent but unfortunately abridged English translation (Putnams, vol. i, 1898). Standard modern Dutch works are those of J.A. Vijnne, Geschiedenis van het Vaderland, and J. van Lennep, De Geschiedenis van Nederland. For Belgian history in particular the authorities are similarly numerous. The Manuel de l'histoire de Belgique, by J. David (Louvain, 1847), will be found a good handbook of authorities, episodes, and chronology, though without any sociological element. The Histoire de Belgique of Th. Juste (Bruxelles, 1895, 3 tom. 4to) is comprehensive, but disfigured by insupportable illustrations.