RATHHAUS (LÜBECK)
The extent and very natural development of this community of interests must ever attract attention. It is the first time in our modern history that it occurs and men of some seven different races and tongues were at last drawn into it. In this it represents the greatest advance of history, for it led to assimilation of laws and of liberties, with some of the best features of each nation's old-time customs preserved in the new codes. Its extension even to Novgorod, in what is now the heart of Russia is a surprising demonstration of successful enterprise and spread of influence almost incredible. The settling of the trade disputes of this distant Russian City in the courts of a North Sea town, is an evidence of advance in commercial relations emphasized by the writer in the Britannica, that deserves to be well weighed as a manifestation of what is often thought [{423}] to be the exclusively modern recognition of the rights of commerce and the claims of justice over even national feelings.
"The league between Lübeck and Hamburg was not the only, and possibly not the first, league among the German towns. But it gradually absorbed all others. Besides the influence of foreign commercial interests there were other motives which compelled the towns to union. The chief of these were the protection of commercial routes both by sea and land, and the vindication of town independence as opposed to claims of the landed aristocracy. The first to join the League were the Wendish towns to the East, Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, etc., which had always been intimately connected with Lübeck, and were united by a common system of laws known as the 'Lübisches Recht' (Lübeck Laws). The Saxon and Westphalian towns had long possessed a league among themselves; they also joined themselves to Lübeck. Lübeck now became the most important town in Germany. It had already surpassed Cologne both in London and Bruges. It soon gained a similar victory over Wisby. At a great convention in which twenty-four towns from Cologne to Revel took part, it was decided that appeals from Novgorod which had hitherto been decided at Wisby should henceforth be brought to Lübeck."
After much travail and vexation of spirit, after much diplomacy and political and parliamentary discussion, after much striving on the part of the men in all nations, who have the great cause of universal peace for mankind at heart, we have reached a position where at least commercial difficulties can be referred to a sort of international court for adjudication. The standing of this court is not very clear as yet. Special arrangements at least are required, if not special treaties in many cases, even for the reference of such merely commercial difficulties as debt-collecting to it. In the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century special tribunals had to be erected for the settlement of such difficulties between nations. In the Twentieth Century the outlook is more hopeful and the actual accomplishment is indeed encouraging. In the Thirteenth Century with the absence of the telegraph and the cable, with the slowness of sailing vessels and the distance of towns [{424}] emphasizing all the difficulties of the situation, the Hanseatic League succeeded in obtaining an international tribunal, whose judgments with regard to commercial difficulties were final and were accepted by men of many different races and habits and customs, and to which causes were referred without any of the immense machinery apparently required at the present time.
This is the real triumph of the commercial development of the Thirteenth Century. While it may be astonishing to many modern people to learn how much was accomplished in this utterly unexpected quarter, it will not be a surprise to those who realize the thoroughly practical character of the century and the perfectly matter of fact way in which it went about settling all the difficulties that presented themselves; and how often they succeeded in reaching a very practical if not always ideal solution. The sad feature of the case is to think that most of this coming together of nations was lost by the gradual development of national feeling, much of benefit as there may have been in that for the human race, and by the drawing of the language lines between nations more closely than they had been before, for the next three centuries saw the development of modern tongues into the form which they have held ever since.
Hansa did more than almost any other institution in northern Europe to establish the reign of Law. If it had accomplished no other purpose, this would make it eminently worthy of the study of those who are interested in sociology and social evolution. Before the time of Hansa the merchant by sea or land was liable to all sorts of impositions, arbitrary taxes, injustices, and even the loss of life as well of his goods. As Hansa gained in power however, these abuses disappeared. Perhaps the most noteworthy improvement came with regard to navigation. There is a story told of a famous rock in Brittany on which many ships were wrecked during the Middle Ages. Even as late as the Thirteenth Century sometimes false lights were displayed on this rock with the idea of tempting vessels to their destruction on it. Everything that was thrown ashore in the neighborhood was considered to be the property of the people who gathered it, except that a certain portion of its value had to be paid to the Lord of the Manor. [{425}] This worthy representative of the upper classes is said to have pointed out the rock to some visiting nobleman friends one day, and declared that it was more precious to him than the most precious stone in the diadem of any ruling monarch in Europe. This represents the state of feeling with regard to such subjects when Hansa started in to correct the abuses.
It may be looked upon as a serious disgrace to the Thirteenth Century that such a low state of ethical feeling should have existed, but it is the amelioration of conditions which obliterated such false sentiments that constitutes the triumph of the period. On the other hand we must not with smug self-complacency think that our generation is so much better than those of the past. It is easy to be pharisaical while we forget that many a fortune in modern times suffers shipwreck on the coasts of business and investment, because the false lights of advertising intended to deceive, are displayed very prominently, for those who are only anxious as were the mariners of the olden times to make their fortunes. Doubtless too the proprietors of many of the papers which display such advertisements, and it is nonsense to say that they are unconscious of the harm they do, are quite as proud of the magnificent revenue that their advertising columns bring to them as was the Breton noble of the Thirteenth Century. Man has not changed much in the interval.
Lest it should be thought that even the present-day initiation into secret societies of various kinds is the invention of modern times, it seems well to give some of the details of the tests through which those seeking to be members of the Hanseatic League were subjected, by those who were already initiated. It may possibly seem that some of these customs were too barbarous to mention in the same breath with the present-day initiations, but if it is recalled that at least once a year some serious accident is reported as the result of the thoughtless fooling of "frat" students at our universities, this opinion may be withdrawn. Miss Helen Zimmern in her story of the Hansa Towns already quoted several times, has a paragraph or two of descriptions of these that we shall quote. It may be well to remember that these tests were not entirely without a serious significance for the members of the Hansa. Much [{426}] was expected of those who belonged to the Hansa Guild. A number of precious trade secrets were entrusted them, and they alone knew the methods and mysteries of Hansa. In order that these might not by any possibility be betrayed, the members of Hansa who lived in foreign countries were forbidden to marry while abroad and were bound under the severest penalties to live a life of celibacy. They were not supposed to be absent from the houses assigned to them during the night, and their factories so called, or common-places of residence, were guarded by night watchman and fierce dogs in order to secure the keeping of these rules.