1831. j The Hanse Towns. 505 



industry of man could be expended to the highest advantage. They 

 were to be found on the Danube, the Rhine, the Elbe, and the Vistula ; 

 on the borders of the Baltic and the Mediterranean. While the rest of 

 Europe lay reduced almost to its primitive barbarism under a race of 

 dissolute and impoverished princes, those were the arteries which 

 gathered and sent life through the frame. Even war owed its science and 

 its laws to those cities of peace. " Forced to raise troops for their defence 

 against the rapine of their sovereigns, their chief citizens officered their 

 armies, and, transferring the sense of justice and civilization even to the 

 camp, they gradually constructed that code of arms which, rendering 

 due honour to the virtues even of an enemy, has eminently tended to 

 ennoble the principles^and mitigate the horrors of war. 



But as the intelligence of the privileged cities increased, they disco- 

 vered that another important step remained to be taken for their security 

 against the sovereigns. The deposition of the Emperor Frederic II. had 

 thrown Germany into confusion. Some of the commercial towns on the 

 Rhine were surprised and plundered by the vagrant soldiery. The other 

 Rhenish towns, indignant at this outrage, adopted the cause of their bre- 

 thren. An alliance was instantly proposed ; and, in 1255, the first con- 

 federacy, an " alliance for ever," of no less than sixty Rhenish towns, 

 was published to Europe.* 



Hamburgh is said to have been founded in the ninth century by Char- 

 lemagne, who placed in it a garrison to watch the more than doubtful 

 fidelity of his Saxon subjects ; but its situation 011 the Elbe soon gave it 

 a higher rank, and it shared largely in all the commercial opulence of 

 the time. Lubeck and Bremen, founded probably in the following cen- 

 tury, distinguished themselves by the daring spirit with which their 

 mariners ventured on the long voyage to Norway ; the skill with which 

 they navigated the Sound, then a scene of fabulous perils ; and the 

 wealth and the wonders which they contrived to bring back from the 

 Russian provinces, then the peculiar seat of witchcraft, and the terrors 

 of a superstition mingled of the wildest tales of Europe and Asia. 



But it was that grand stimulant of nations, the Crusades, that showered 

 gold on the north. The German chieftains, summoned by their empe- 

 ror, and retaining their hereditary love of war, more than vied with the 

 enthusiasm of the south in embracing the sacred cause. But they were 

 poor, and the money and the ships of the commercial cities were essen- 

 tial to their enterprize. The greater part of those gallant champions left 

 their remains in Palestine. The ships alone returned, and they brought 

 back the precious cargoes of the east, the knowledge of the Mediterra- 

 nean navigation, the passion for luxuries hitherto unknown, and the 

 determination to share this brilliant traffic with its masters, the Venetians 

 and Genoese. The success of the Crusades had thus far aided the north- 

 ern towns. Their failure was the next thing necessary to the success of 

 commerce. The event soon occurred. The Saracens and their climate, 

 the expense of the armaments, and the jealousies of the princes, broke 

 down the passion of the Crusaders for triumphs in Asia. But their valour 

 must be employed. A simpler crusade lay before their eyes. Saxony, 

 Denmark, Prussia, almost the whole coast of the Baltic, were still 

 heathen. The Knights of the Cross were let loose among them : their 

 cabins were burnt, their harvests seized, their warriors put to the sword. 



* Mallet, Histoire de la L. H. 

 M.M. New Series. VOL. XI. No. 65. 3 T 



