NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.

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assisted by a council. They made their own laws, had their own churches, and generally set the Norwegian authorities at defiance.

It was at Bergen where the German of the middle ages and renaissance was seen at his very worst, his otherwise genial though somewhat coarse humour here took the form of tyranny, licentiousness, and brutality of the most odious type. The bestial games and orgies indulged in when candidates from German towns presented themselves for admittance to the families' to fill up gaps in the community caused by removal or death, were a scandal even in that rough age. These were subjected to the most dreadful barbarities, smeared with filth and garbage, underwent terrible whippings, which some did not survive; duckings in the sea occasionally ending in drowning; compelled to ascend a chimney under which filth was burnt, so as to cause a nauseous smoke that frequently overcame them. These are but a sample of the horrors that took place, and no wonder that the Hansa continues a term of reproach in Norway down to our own day. The games, harmless enough when instituted, clearly degenerated into a device for the limitation of immigration from the parent towns.

NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.

Evidence of a very early connection of our own city with the Hansa, or more properly with the older associations whence it sprang, is not wanting, and it is certain that a considerable trade was carried on soon after the Conquest, and probably much earlier. I have found direct testimony of trading operations on a large scale at the beginning of the fifteenth century, which by implication may be set much further back. A despatch preserved in the archives of Stralsund, dated 5th September, 1401, from the mayor of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, addressed to the Rath of Stralsund, thanks the latter for the agreeable audience given to an ambassador from the former, and promises a like favourable reception to the Stralsund ships and merchandize to the Tyne. A promise is given by the magistrate to convey the sense of these negotiations to king Henry IV.

I have ventured to give the document in extenso as having a local application. It runs as follows :—

3 Sykes states that Sir Peter Scott was the first chief magistrate of Newcastle, having the title of mayor in 1251, but there was a mayor in 1243. See Arch, Ael. iiii. 125, N.S.

'Reuerendis et discretis viris Consulibus et Burgimagistris Ciuitatis Stralessundensis, Maior, Vicecomes et Communitas ville Noui Castri super Tynam in Anglia salutem cum reuerencia pariter et honore. Scire dignetur vestra discrecio, veneranda nos vestras literas honorabiles per manus Johannis Sterneke, nostri burgensis, nuper recepisse, cui vestram beneuolenciam ac multiplices grates nostre dileccionis intuitu prout nobis retulit, amicabiliter intimastis; eundemque Johannem in suis agendis efficacius pertractando, vnde vobis ex toto nostri cordis desiderio intime regraciamur cum affectu. Et quantum ad grauamina, prout in dictis literis vestris continetur, vestratibus illata, aut quod aliqua discensio inter vos et aliquem nostrorum esset inita, seu orta, multipliciter condolemus. Insuper quoad literam vestram excellentissimo principi et domino nostro Regi Anglie et Francie directam, ipsam eidem Serenissimo principi domino nostro Regi festinacione qua commode poterimus, secundum formam copie litere nobis transmisse presentabimus cum affectu. Scientes pro firmo, quod cum et quando placuerit aliquibus vestrorum partes et villam nostram cum vestris nauibus seu mercibus visitare, quantum in nobis est et secundum totum nostrum posse, digne et amicabiliter recipientur, que consimilia mercatoribus nostris apud vos fieri semper cupimus et speramus. Vestram prosperitatem, prout nostram, perpetuam conseruet altissimus gloriose Virginis intemerate filius per tempora longius duratura. In cuius rei testimonium has literas nostras fieri fecimus patentes, nostro sub sigillo consignatas. Datum apud dictam villam nostram Noui Castri super Tynam: quinto die mensis Septembris, Anno Dni: Millesimo quadringentesimo primo.'

We find mention of the trade of Newcastle with the Hansa, towards the end of the same century, in a memorandum by a certain priest Clement Armstrong, he says:

'These merchants bring to England pitch, tar, wood for quarterstaves, wax and pork from the north; wine from Spain; alum from Italy; madder, silk, and many other articles from Flanders; and to buy cloth bring with them gold and silver in bars, whence the name (E) sterling money comes. England is stuffed and pestered with foreign goods.

He sermonizes on the good old times before England determined to dominate the channel. Then comes the following remarkable passage: There were towns besides London that had steelyards, viz., Hull, York, Newcastle, Boston, and Lynn.' There were undoubtedly factories or steelyards at both Boston and Lynn, and I shall give some account of them in Part 2, but I have not found any evidence in corroboration of this statement as to York, Hull, and Newcastle. The term steelyard implies a residential German settlement, and I am of opinion there were never more than depôts at these three towns. Investigation among local or imperial records should define what the position of the Germans here really was, but I have not yet been able + Pestered (pest-black death).

NORWAY AND SWEDEN.

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to find anything more bearing on the question. In 1443 Copenhagen became the capital of Denmark, and the almost always nominal union of the three Scandinavian kingdoms came to an end.

It was king Eric who first instituted the Sound dues, so fiercely contested by the Wendish cities.

The renaissance had now succeeded the middle ages, and Martin Luther was preaching his propaganda, soon to exercise such a disintegrating influence on the fortunes of the Hansa.

Norway had become a Danish province when Christian II. ascended the throne in 1513. He invaded and again subdued Sweden, for the last time to be united to the Danish monarchy. The Hansa, true to its traditional policy of preventing the realisation of a strong and united Scandinavia, determined at all hazards to break the union which always aimed at its exclusion from the Baltic, and declared war against the king. In the campaign that ensued Christian was completely defeated, losing both his liberty and throne. The Hansa then placed Gustav Wasa on the Swedish throne, and Frederik of Slesvig Holstein on that of Denmark, and for a time the Bund enjoyed vast privileges in Scandinavia, but even the kingmakers were never quite able to close the Sound against the Frieslanders, their most formidable rivals in the Baltic, though its most strenuous efforts were directed to that end.

The great and lucrative trade enjoyed by the League at this epoch, with a well equipped trading fleet, quickly and easily convertible into powerful squadrons for war, resulted in a great accumulation of wealth, which, coupled with an unrivalled diplomacy and successful wars, had made it the arbiter of Northern Europe, and secured it the almost entire monopoly of the Baltic trade. Its factories extended to Norway and Russia on the one side, and England and Lisbon on the other, with depôts at Venice and many other important centres; the merchants were like great princes in the wool, cloth, tallow, wax, salt, hides, timber, wine, and beer trades, besides spices, to say nothing of herrings and stockfish, which in these fast fading catholic days continued to swell the sails of the mighty confederacy. The other maritime nations could barely keep the seas, and became restricted mostly to their own coasting traffic, but times were at hand which were soon to have a disastrous influence on the further progress of the League, which never could realise that competitive power and influence was fast accumulating in other directions.

In 1533 the democratic burgomaster of Lübeck, Jurgen Wullenwewer, made a supreme effort to obtain possession of the entrance to the Sound, the key to the Baltic. The city of Lübeck, as representing the Bund, under the leadership of this ambitious man, again attacked Denmark. The allied Scandinavian kingdoms assembled their forces to oppose him, and inflicted a crushing defeat on the Hansa fleets before Assens, which sadly weakened her power and prestige, and becoming a potent factor towards her downfall. Wullenwewer paid for his failure with his life as he suffered at the hands of the executioner; the lessons of his career are not the least interesting pages of the history of this hitherto successful Confederacy. The key to the prosperity of the League lay as ever in the Baltic trade, which now began rapidly to decline, owing to these frequent wars, the rising power of the Frieslanders, and relative political consequence and wealth of other nations. The Reformation began to sow dissension among the cities, and the discovery of America and the ocean route to India told heavily against them, for they made the blunder of using Lisbon as the depôt for the oversea traffic, instead of tracking the trade to its source. Dissensions in the League itself, brought about by divided interests, new political combinations, and religious bigotry, rapidly weakened its power and prestige. The loss of Livonia and Bornholm, the final closing of the station of Novgorod, and gradual loosening of discipline and co-operation, all combined for the now inevitable disruption of the Bund. The Hansa still possessed influence enough to keep the Sound closed against the English, but even here the fates were against her, as the discovery of the Arctic route to Russia by Sir Hugh Willoughby in 1553, gave our countrymen direct access to Russia, and the formation of a company styled 'The London and Moscovy Merchant Adventurers' was another severe blow to the League.

In 1562 the Swedes took forty ships of the League in the waters of Narwa. To avenge this outrage the Hansa once more drew the sword and this time, during the seven years' war, not without a flickering amount of success, as it succeeded in exacting from Sweden an indemnity of 75,000 Thalers, and a free passage through the Sound, a privilege it was only destined to retain for a single year. In 1577 the operations of the League were forbidden in England, and the steelyard temporarily closed in 1598.

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The Hansa at length began to realise the weakness of her position; as these successive blows fell heavily upon her, she now held but weakly together, and but fifty towns remained on the roll, only a very few of which continued to contribute to the general fund; and from this time the famous Bund, which had played for centuries such a leading part in history, ceased to be the great connecting link between the east and west of Europe.

A letter written by a certain Dyrik Busselborch at Brunswick on the 10th November, 1586, gives a contemporary glimpse of the condition of the Hansa Bund at that time. Written in the timehonoured Low German of Lübeck, which had become after Latin the diplomatic language of the League, the letter is addressed to the Rath of that city. Following is a short digest:

'He sees with sorrow that the Bund is falling to pieces, its trade daily more and more restricted by arbitrary and oppressive duties, rapidly becoming prohibitive. Referring bitterly to a heavy duty recently imposed by Denmark on piece goods, he sorrowfully contrasts the now impotent condition of the League, as compared with its dominant position but a short few years before, when the will of the Hansa was law to Denmark. He sees arrogance and reprisals on every side; privileges and monopolies enjoyed for centuries, arbitrarily and suddenly curtailed. He refers to the abandonment of trading routes, owing to rancorous opposition from abroad, and to the selfish policy of the cities as pursued towards each other. Then follows a philippic against the blasphemy prevailing, the deplorable religious differences, the rioting, indolence, and luxury -he sees in all this the judgment of God.'

This picture has many parallels in history and vividly portrays the pass the Hansa had now reached. She had sown monopoly and oppression, and the harvest was ready. On the close of the sixteenth century it became impossible to get a quorum for the diet. The thirty years' war had played havoc with what remained of the once great trade. The coup de grace was reached when Christian IV. of Denmark drove the Lübeck fleet into its own river the Trave, and publicly proclaimed that the exceptional privileges so long enjoyed by the League in the Baltic had ceased for ever. On the signing of the peace of Westphalia in 1648 the Hanseatic Confederation ceased to be a corporate body. A portion of the towns continued to act together, but at length only Lübeck, Hamburg, and Bremen remained to carry down the Hansa legend to our own day.

VOL. XVI.

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