A. D. 1255. 405 



tion : a count was hanged for violating the public peace, and the nobles 

 defifted from robbing on the highways. The cities of Lubeck and 

 Hamburgh, already confederated for the protedtion of their commerce, 

 do not feem to have had any connexion with this afTociatlon, which did 

 not extend beyond the neighbourhood of the Rhine. But a coalition 

 afterwards took place ; and the union of other fmall confederacies and 

 fingle towns feems to have afterwards produced the powerful alFociation 

 of the Hanfe, which does not appear from any good authority to have 

 exifted at this time *. \Ffefel, Abrege de Vhijl. d" Allemagne , pp. 364, 380, 

 ed. 1758. — Striivli Corpus h'l/l. Germ. V. i, p. 596.] 



Though the excellent accommodation of remitting money by hills of 

 exchange was probably known long before this time in Italy and all other 

 countries in which there was any commerce, there is not, I believe, any 

 exprefs mention of them (fo little attention did hiftorians pay to mat- 

 ters of real utility and importance), till a very extraordinary and infam- 

 ous occafion conneded them with the political events of the age. The 

 pope, having a quarrel with Manfred king of Sicily, had, in the pleni- 

 tude of his power as fovereign of the world, offered the kingdom of 

 Sicily and Apulia, on condition of driving Manfred out of it, to the 

 brothers of the king of France, and, after their refufal, to Richard earl 

 of Cornwall, brother of King Henry III, who faid, he might as well 

 offer to make him king of the moon. At laft he offered it to Henry 

 for his fecond fon Edmund, who without helitation accepted the fatal 

 gift, and empowered the pope to carry on his war againfl Manfred at 

 the expence of England ; whereupon he immediately took up large 

 fums from the merchants of Italy. When they afked him for payment, 

 he applied for the money to Henry, whofe conftant profufion made him 

 for ever poor. While Henry was in terror of lofing his fon's vifionary 

 kingdom for want of money to feed the pope's rapacity, Peter de Ege- 

 blanke, bifliop of Hereford, told him, that «he had hit upon an expe- 

 dient to raife the fums wanted, which was, that the Italian merchants, 



* Some writers mention a charter of Henry III the year 1579, when the Hanfe merchants were 



king of England to the merchants of the Hanfe dated moving heaven and earth in order to preferve their 



in the year 1206, (which, by the bye is two years privileges in England, we find, in their addrefTes 



before he was born) as a proof that that afTocia- to the emperor and princes of Germany and to 



tion exiiled then, and long before, for it is faid to Queen Elizabeth, no pretenfions to any charters 



refer to grants of his predcceflbrs. We have char- earlier than one faid to be given by King Ed- 



tcrs of Henry HI to the merchants of Cologne ward I ; and that appears, from the account they 



fettled in London in the 18* year of his reign,, give of it, to be the general charter given to all 



to the merchants of Lubeck, Brunfwick, and Den- foreign merchants in the year 1 303 ; and they feem 



mark In his 41'' year, and to the German mer- to have had no knowlege of Edward's charter of 



chants in London in his 44"' year. But in none 1 280, which was a confirmation of his father's 



of them is the word Hanfe, or any mention of a one of 1259 to the merchants of the Teutonic gild- 



c-eneral mercantile airociation, to be found, which hall, the name oi Hanfe being apparently not ufed 



would furely have been inferted in the charter to fo early. [_Pjpers concerning the Hanfe merchants, 



the German merchants in general, with a reference MS. Bib. Colt, Vefp. F viii,y". 149 a, 157 a.] All 



to the former charter to the merchants of the the charters, here mentioned, will be noted in their 



Hanfe, if any fuch had exifted. Moreover, in proper places in this wort. 



