304 Norway and the Norwegians 



great movements in Europe by which the life of the 

 Scaudinavian countries, and Norway with the others, 

 was deeply affected. 



The first great movement is the growth of the 

 Baltic trade, more especially of that great league of 

 the trading towns of Germany which were concerned 

 in the commerce of the north, and which succeeded in 

 absorbing it almost altogether. I mean the association 

 which went by the name of the League — the Hansa. 



The growth of the Hansa is an example of one of the 

 revenges which time brings about. For it had been 

 the Viking piracies in the first instance — the inveterate 

 marauding which generations of sea robberies had en- 

 gendered, which laid the germ of the great association 

 of the leading Baltic towns. 



Not but that, as we have seen, there had been 

 Scandinavian merchants alongside of — nay, we may 

 say identical with — the Scandinavian pirates. When 

 speaking of the earliest days of Northern history and 

 of the doings of the Vikings in Europe, we took occa- 

 sion to point out how the adventurers who came from 

 Norway had a character and a career somewhat different 

 from those which they had who came out of the other 

 Scandinavian countries, Denmark or Sweden ; how 

 while the two last were conquerors and colonisers 

 of Northern England, of Normandy, of Gardariki in 

 Itussia, the Norsemen were ])cir excellence conquerors 

 and tradesmen ; so that what Ireland owes to its 

 Norse conquerors is not any great admixture of Scandi- 

 navian blood, but the founding of seaport towns in the 

 island and the first introduction of a coinage into the 

 country. 



