A Frederick Barbarossa might arrest these processes for a time. But one century later the ruin was complete. Frederick II., the last of the Hohenstaufens, died, leaving an empty throne and a broken and shattered empire. It was destined to rise again and to wear the name and trappings of its former greatness, but, crippled and degraded, to be in reality a mere shadow and semblance of what it had once aspired to be--the head of the world. A period of twenty years then followed, known as the "Great Interregnum." A time when there was no King nor Emperor; when robbery and brigandage became the employment of needy knights, and when great barons made war upon and waylaid each other on the highways. It was a time of strange chaos and darkness. And yet this period, apparently so unfavorable to growth, brought forth two of the most pregnant events in the history of Germany. These were the creation of the Hanseatic League and the birth of German literature. The one laid the foundation of a real national life in which the people should participate; while the other gave expression to the romantic ideals of a hitherto silent race. The great German epic, which is the Iliad of the Middle Ages, was produced at this darkest hour in the history of Germany. The Nibelungen Lied deals with the colossal crimes, loves, and sorrows of Burgundian kings and princesses at the time of the Hunnish invasion. And it has been the good fortune of Germany, six hundred years later, to have a son (Richard Wagner) who has clothed that great epic in music which matches it in heroic dignity and splendor. The other event was of deeper import than this. The burgs, or cities, which were created as a defense against the Hungarians, had become busy centers of manufacture and trade, and to some extent of learning. Many of them had been made free cities. That is, they were under the direct control of the Emperors instead of the hereditary nobles as at first. These cities enjoyed especial privileges and immunities which drew to them population and prosperity. The true policy for German Emperors, harassed by Italian intrigues and at war with their own archbishops and disaffected nobles, would have been to form close alliance with these free cities, and make friends of their burghers and guilds. When there was no king, no ruler in the land, when robbery ran riot so that traveling was impossible, two cities, Hamburg and Lubeck, agreed together to keep order in their neighborhood. Then Brunswick and Bremen joined; and at last over a hundred towns had combined together in what was called the "Hanseatic League." This Confederacy became the mightiest power in the North of Europe; and at one time even threatened the overthrow of feudalism, and to convert West Germany into a federation of free municipalities.