=120. Extent and organization of the League.=—“When the ambassadors of the Hanseatic League in England in 1376 were asked for a list of the members who made up their vast association, they answered scornfully that surely even they themselves could not be supposed to remember the countless names of towns, big and little in all kingdoms, in whose name they spoke.” The league was in fact very extensive, for it included not only the chief German seaports, but also towns in the interior and some towns outside of Germany altogether. The number varied from time to time; in the period of greatest power it was nearly 100, stretching from Dinant in modern Belgium to Krakau and Reval in the East, and including towns as far inland as Göttingen in Germany. The towns never formed a very close union, but sent their representatives every year or so to a meeting-place where they could discuss matters of common interest, decide upon the policy to be followed, and raise what resources they could for carrying the policy through. =121. Control of the commerce of northern Europe by the League.=—The aim in general was the protection of commerce from the attacks of pirates and feudal lords and the negotiation of commercial treaties which would extend the privileges of members and preserve their monopoly of trade. The League was so successful that it obtained in the closing centuries of the Middle Ages a predominance in the commerce of northern Europe comparable to that of the Dutch and of the English in later times. In the West it had to share its trade with other peoples. In this direction Bruges was the terminus of many of the voyages; at that port the Hanseatics met the Venetians, coming in the Flanders galleys, and secured also many wares from western Europe. This was by no means, however, the limit of their western voyages. They had an important trading station in England, with a great group of buildings, the “Steelyard” near London bridge, and invested their capital in English tin mines; one of their favorite voyages was to Bourgneuf, south of the Loire, on the western coast of France; and they sent their ships in some periods as far as Spain and Portugal. [Illustration: THE HANSEATIC COMMERCIAL EMPIRE ABOUT 1400 ] The North and East of Europe were, however, the field of their greatest success. In Scandinavia (including Iceland) and Russia, they gained a complete monopoly of commerce; the peoples of those countries were so backward that they permitted the Germans to do the most important part of their trading for them, and the governments were weak and were easily forced to grant the privileges desired.