=126. English trade passive until the close of the Middle Ages.=—Most of the trade in English wares, however, was in the hands of foreigners until the very close of the Middle Ages. The English kings showed more interest in the development of their resources by the encouragement of alien merchants than they showed in the extension of commerce carried on by natives. Hanseatics and Venetians fetched and carried the wares of distant countries for the English; and the “Merchants of the Staple,” a society composed largely of aliens, enjoyed a legal monopoly of the export of the most important raw materials which England supplied to European commerce—wool and sheepskins, leather, tin, and lead. English merchants became restive in the inferior position assigned to them both at home and abroad, and before the end of the Middle Ages began to fight for equal rights or for privileges, but they did not secure final and complete victory until the beginning of the modern period, in the sixteenth century. QUESTIONS AND TOPICS 1. Pursue on sects. 114-117 studies similar to those suggested above (sects. 88-94) for the Levant wares. For the character of the Baltic trade at present consult the Statesman’s Year-Book, index, Norway or Sweden. The history of the trade in amber may be made an interesting study, as the article has been an object of commerce since prehistoric times. 2. Origin of the Hanseatic League. [Zimmern, pp. 11-29.] 3. What place does Lübeck hold in the commerce of modern Germany? [Statesman’s Year-Book, Germany, last table in section on commerce.] 4. What effect may the Elbe-Trave Canal, opened June 16, 1900, have upon the future of the city? [See U. S. Consular reports and newspapers about that date.] 5. Contrast the organization of the Hanseatic League and of the Venetian empire. 6. Report in detail on the organization of the League, and its weaknesses. [Zimmern, 202-220.] 7. Write an essay on the life in a Hanseatic factory. [Zimmern, 137-147, Bergen; 179-201, London.] 8. Compare the Hanseatic factory with an Indian trading post. [Descriptions of such posts can be found in histories of the Hudson’s Bay Company.] 9. Write a report on the rise and fall of Bruges or of Antwerp as a commercial center. [Encyclopedia.] 10. Write a report on one of the following topics in English medieval commerce: (_a_) Exports. (_b_) Imports. (_c_) Shipping. (_d_) Attitude of the king. (_e_) Institution of the Staple. [Sufficient material on all these points may be found in Cunningham, Growth, and if the student is able to use a book like that he will get far more benefit than in abstracting the summaries (often inaccurate or misleading) in the smaller manuals.] BIBLIOGRAPHY For general bibliography consult Gross, Sources, and Palgrave’s Dictionary.