This notable triumph was followed by an equally signal humiliation. The war with Hungary was renewed, and Mathias Corvinus overran the whole of Austria and great part of Styria and Carinthia. In 1485 Vienna was compelled to surrender, and Frederick III., driven from his |Last years of Frederick III.| capital, was forced to wander as an imperial mendicant from one German monastery to another. Yet the old man never lost his cheerfulness or his confidence in the future. He refused to allow Maximilian to conclude a treaty in which any permanent cession of Austrian territory should be stipulated, and insisted upon waiting for a favourable turn in the course of events. In 1486 he induced the electors to choose Maximilian as King of the Romans, and thus secured the continuance of the imperial dignity in his family. In 1490 Mathias Corvinus died leaving no legitimate heir to continue the line of Hunyadi. Neither Frederick nor Maximilian could secure the succession, and the Hungarian diet offered the crown to Ladislas of Bohemia. But though the extension of Jagellon power was in itself displeasing, the change of rulers enabled the Hapsburgs to recover their losses. In 1491 Ladislas was compelled to sign the treaty of Pressburg, by which all the conquests of Mathias were restored, and it was arranged that on the extinction of his male line his territories should pass to the Hapsburgs. By a series of chances, this condition was actually carried out within the next forty years. But the exertions of Maximilian to extort these terms from the Hungarian king had involved him in a great humiliation in the west. The heiress of Brittany, to whom he had been actually married by proxy, was forced to give her person and her province to the French king Charles VIII., and his only daughter, Margaret, who had been for years betrothed to the latter, was repudiated and sent back to her father. But the wrong brought with it some compensation when Charles VIII., in 1493, found it a necessary preliminary to his Italian expedition to conciliate his injured rival by the restoration of Artois and Franche-Comté. The year before, Maximilian had received Tyrol and Alsace from Sigismund, so that Frederick III. lived to see the Hapsburg dominions not only reunited in a single line, but vastly extended. For some time he had allowed all power to fall into the hands of his impetuous son, and little interest was aroused in the midst of more exciting events by the news that the old emperor had died on August 19, 1493. For years he had inscribed the five vowels as a mystic sign on all his buildings, books, and ornaments, and it appeared that their significance was Austriæ est imperare orbi universo, or in German Alles Erdreich ist Œsterreich unterthan. The implied prophecy was never literally fulfilled, but it came nearer to fulfilment than any contemporary of Frederick III. could have anticipated. And to this result the patient and rather ignoble diplomacy of the long-lived emperor contributed in no small degree.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE AND THE SCANDINAVIAN KINGDOMS
Relations of Germany in the fourteenth century with Scandinavians and Slavs—The towns of southern and northern Germany—Unions of German merchants abroad—Trade in the Baltic and the North Sea—Alliance of Lübeck and Hamburg—Origin of the Hanseatic League—Aggressions of Eric Menved—Collapse of Denmark and revival of the League—Waldemar III. and the capture of Wisby—The Hanse towns at war with Waldemar—Treaty of Stralsund—The League at the zenith of its power—Queen Margaret and the Union of Kalmar—War between Denmark and Holstein for the possession of Schleswig—Deposition of Eric of Pomerania—Christopher of Bavaria re-unites the three kingdoms—Christian I. of Oldenburg and the severance of Sweden from the Union—Karl Knudson and the Stures—Christian I. acquires Schleswig and Holstein—Gradual decline of the Hanseatic League.
The fourteenth century is not a period to which Germans look back with pride or satisfaction. It produced no great |Relation of Germany with Scandinavians and Slavs.| rulers, like the Ottos, or Frederick Barbarossa, or Frederick II., who are the favourite heroes of German history in the middle ages. In their place we have Lewis the Bavarian and his pusillanimous struggle with French popes, Charles IV. with his subtle and cold-blooded policy which has been little understood or appreciated because it produced no great obvious results, and Wenzel, whose drunken incompetence led to deposition and schism. There is an obvious decline of German power and prestige. The crowns of Italy and of Arles confer upon their holder a nominal dignity as unreal as that of the Roman Empire itself. The German kingship is more substantial, but possesses little efficient authority. The king’s influence depends more upon his private territorial possessions than upon his royal position, and his chief interest is in the aggrandisement of his family rather than the extension of the powers of the crown. He cannot extort obedience from his powerful vassals, still less can he defend the distant frontiers of his kingdom. Yet in spite of the impotence of the central authority, there were two points on the frontier on which the cause of Germany was championed with brilliant though not very lasting success. To the north-west lay the Scandinavian kingdoms of Norway, Sweden and Denmark, of which Denmark was the nearest and for a long time the most powerful. The Danes were of German origin, and for generations they had recognised the overlordship of German emperors. But they had gradually become severed from the southern members of their own race, and their interests and prejudices were in many respects anti-German. Knud VI. (1182-1202) repudiated any allegiance to the emperor, and the break-up of the Saxon duchy by Frederick Barbarossa destroyed the most efficient bulwark of northern Germany against Danish aggression. Geographical position enabled the Danes to claim a control of the Baltic, which more than one king from Waldemar II. (1202-1241) to Waldemar III. (1340-1375) sought to convert into absolute supremacy. Resistance to a design which would have been disastrous to Germany was undertaken, not by the emperors, who showed a curious incapacity to appreciate the importance of the Baltic, but by the famous association of North German towns which is known as the Hanseatic League. Their motive was neither patriotism nor a sense of nationality, but a selfish pursuit of trading interests: nevertheless their action saved Germany from a serious danger. Farther east was a still greater problem. In the ninth century the whole of the southern coast of the Baltic was inhabited by Slavs, who had displaced the earlier German settlers. With the tenth century began a long struggle on the part of the Germans to drive back this alien migration, or at any rate to extort submission and the acceptance of Christianity from the conquered Slavs. Thanks to the exertions of two great families, the Welfs in Saxony and the Ascanians in Brandenburg, this task was in great measure accomplished by the thirteenth century. As far as the Vistula German preponderance had been established and secured by the introduction of German settlers and the foundation of German towns. But to the east of the Vistula the struggle was still going on, and it still involved religious as well as political and commercial interests. Here again, as in the north-west, the emperors were absolutely inactive, and the Teutonic Order was left almost unaided to carry on a crusade in Lithuania and Livonia for the extension at once of Christianity and of German civilisation. These two very different corporations, the Hanse towns and the Teutonic knights—with the equally different Swiss Confederation in the south—are in many ways the most interesting developments of German life in an age when Germany as a whole was weak and anarchical.
The towns of Germany developed more slowly than the great Italian republics, and never attained to the same measure of independence or fame. Yet in many respects their history is similar. Both owed |The German towns.| their municipal self-government to the weakness of the central authority, and both owed their prosperity to an advantageous position for carrying on trade. The great commercial routes, by which the commodities made or collected in Italy were distributed throughout central Europe, ran through southern Germany, and it was their position on these routes that gave importance to such towns as Ulm, Ratisbon, Augsburg, and Nürnberg. In the north an almost equally lucrative trade was conducted along the shores of the Baltic and the North Sea, and this trade was almost a monopoly in the hands of German merchants. And the northern sailors had another source of wealth in the fishing industry, which was of special importance in the Middle Ages, when strict rules as to fasting were enforced by the Church. The combination of trade and fishing brought prosperity to the great northern towns of Bremen, Hamburg, Lübeck, Rostock, Danzig, and many others. Between the north and the south lay the great city of Cologne, interested in the southern trade as it found its way along the Rhine valley, and having also a large stake in the commerce with England and other countries bordering on the North Sea. But the real meeting-place of north and south was in the Flemish city of Bruges, whither merchants from all parts of Europe thronged to exchange their respective wares.
The fourteenth century is the golden age of the German towns, the period in which their wealth and political importance were higher than at any other period. But there is a marked and noteworthy distinction |Distinction between northern and southern towns.| between the northern and the southern groups. The great southern cities had many interests in common with each other. They had to resist the growing power of the territorial princes, always jealous of municipal independence; they were eager to put down disorder and private war; and obvious motives impelled them to oppose excessive tolls on roads and rivers and to obtain security for travellers. These interests, and especially the need of police measures to put down robbery or to extort redress, induced them from time to time to form alliances among themselves. But still stronger than community of interest was the jealousy with which the cities regarded each other, and none of these leagues proved lasting. The dominant aim of the southern cities was independence and isolation. In the north the sense of rivalry was equally strong, but the dangers and difficulties were in many ways greater, and thus there was a more powerful impulse towards union. The surrounding states were all of them more backward and less civilised than the Germans; and this gave to the northern towns an infinitely greater political influence than could be exercised by those of the south, which had to deal with powerful and highly developed communities. Hence, while the southern cities could never combine together except for a short time and an immediate object, those in the north gradually formed a league, faulty and ill adjusted in many ways, but which gave its members far greater importance than they could have acquired by isolated action, and even enabled them to play for a short time a dominant part in the politics of northern Europe.
The word ‘hansa’ is of some importance in the Middle Ages. In its earliest known use it means a band or troop of soldiers. Hence it acquires its later meaning of a union or association, especially for mercantile purposes. It is also used for the charge made by a superior authority for leave to carry on trade. When Henry the Lion wished to encourage trade in his newly acquired town of Lübeck, he authorised foreign merchants to enter and leave it absque theloneo et absque hansa, ‘without tax or toll.’ But its most usual signification is association or guild; the hansa is the merchant-guild, the hans-hus is the guild-hall. And it is in this sense that it came to be applied to the great Hansa, the league of north German towns. The very name expresses the important fact that the league of towns had its origin in a league or leagues of traders.
The whole social and economic life of the Middle Ages is dominated by the principle of association. The village community or manor is the most familiar illustration; the Church with its inner corporations is another. In urban communities we find the same thing. Whoever wished to practise a handicraft must belong to a guild: whoever wished to engage in commerce must enter a trade-guild or hansa. The individual was powerless. Only through union with others did he obtain capacity of action and protection for his activity. Any comparison of the modern association with the mediæval union is as a rule superficial and misleading. What is now a matter of use and advantage was then a matter of necessity, of actual if not of formal compulsion. The essential distinction is to be found in the very limited area of state action in early times. In the Middle Ages the corporation fulfilled most of the duties which the undeveloped state had neither the will nor the power to undertake.
If the home trader required an association, the merchant who journeyed to foreign countries needed one still more. There were few commission agents in the Middle Ages, and the merchant in person had to superintend |Unions of German merchants abroad.| the carriage and the sale of his goods. The perils of travelling by land were great; those by sea were far greater. Pirates were almost as numerous and more difficult to resist than land-robbers, and the dangers of navigation were a very serious consideration when sailors had no compass to guide their course, and owners had no system of insurance to cover their risks. It was no wonder that traders desired to travel in considerable numbers in order that perils and disasters might be avoided, or at the worst, chronicled. But it was when the merchants reached a foreign soil that the necessity of union became most pressing. It often took a long time to dispose of a cargo; and as winter travelling was considered impossible, it was frequently necessary to spend several months in a foreign land. Hence the merchants combined to acquire joint property in the chief markets they visited: not only inns for personal lodging, but warehouses for the stowage of goods, and harbourage for their ships. These ‘factories,’ as they were called, became the central point of the union or hansa formed by the merchants. The mediæval system of law gave another impulse towards combination. Law in early time was personal, not territorial; it did not apply to all persons on the soil. The guest, as the foreigner was called, if not altogether lawless, was yet at a great disadvantage as compared with the native. Any disputes among the foreign merchants had to be settled among themselves and by their own law. In disputes with natives it was difficult for them to obtain justice, unless they could secure some powerful support within the state. To carry on trade at all they required privileges and concessions, which were not easily to be gained by individuals. All these considerations forced the merchants to adopt a corporate organisation. At the head of the hansa were elders or aldermen, who administered justice among the members, held assemblies for the consideration of common interests, and represented the community in its relations with the outside world. The more efficient this organisation was, the better able were the merchants to obtain privileges, especially the remission of duties upon trade, from the community with which they had to deal. The new-comer could only share these privileges by obtaining admission to the hansa, and for this he had to obtain the consent of the members and to pay a money fee.
The two chief scenes of mercantile activity in the north were the Baltic and the North Sea, connected with each other only by the narrow straits which separate the |Trade in the Baltic and North Sea.| islands and peninsulas of Scandinavia. The great centre of the Baltic trade was Wisby, the capital of the island of Gothland. So important and flourishing was Wisby in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that many merchants took up their abode there; and though it remained a part of the Swedish kingdom, it became to all intents and purposes a German town. Thus an important distinction grew up between the German residents in Wisby and the older union of merchants, who only visited the town for purposes of trade. From Wisby factories were organised for the extension of eastern trade. Of these, by far the most important was at Novgorod, which became the great centre of trade with Russia. In the course of the thirteenth century the ascendency of Wisby in the Baltic was threatened by the rise of a group of towns upon territory which had been won back for Germany from the Wends, the most westerly of the Slav settlers on the Baltic coasts. These ‘Wendish’ towns, as they are called, though in population and character they were wholly German, were Lübeck, Rostock, Wismar, Stralsund, and Greifswald; and among them Lübeck, thanks to its advantageous position on the Trave and to the efficient patronage it received, played from the first by far the most prominent part. In the North Sea there were three great foreign markets to which German merchants resorted, and where they formed hansas of notable importance. These were Bergen in Norway, London in England, and Bruges in Flanders. For a long time the majority of the North Sea traders came from Cologne, which was as predominant in the west as Wisby had become in the east. But other towns became rivals of Cologne, notably Hamburg on the Elbe, and Bremen on the Weser. Even from inland towns, such as Soest, Dortmund, and Münster in Westphalia, merchants journeyed to the coast and hired vessels for the conveyance of their goods to England or Norway.