=The Hanse League.=--About the beginning of the thirteenth century[4] Hamburg and Luebeck formed an alliance afterward called a _hansa_; at the beginning of the fourteenth century it embraced seventy cities, having the capital at Luebeck. At the time of its greatest power the League embraced all the principal cities of western Europe nearly as far south as the Danube. Large agencies, called "factories," were established in London, Bruges, Novgorod, Bergen, and Wisby. The influence of the League practically controlled western Europe. The Hanse League performed a wonderful work. It stopped piracy on the seas and robbery on the land. Industrially, it encouraged self-government and obedience to constitutional authority. Shipbuilding and navigation so greatly improved that the ocean traffic resulting from the discovery of the cape route to India quickly fell into the hands of Hanse sailors and master-mariners. The League not only encouraged and protected all sorts of manufactures, but its schools trained thousands of operatives. The mines were worked and the idle land cultivated. It was the greatest industrial movement that ever occurred. [Illustration: HANSE ROUTES--THE HANSE LEAGUE REORGANIZES THE TRADE OF THE WORLD] Socially, the Hanse League brought the wealth that gave those comforts and conveniences before unknown. The standards of social life, education, art, and science were raised from a condition scarcely better than barbarism to a high plane of civilization. Indeed, the civilization of western Europe was the most important result of it. It forced the rights of individual freedom, as well as municipal independence, from more than one monarch, and punished severely the kings who sought to betray it. It crushed the power of those who opposed it,[5] and rewarded those who were faithful to it. Its most important mission, however, was the overthrow of feudalism and the gradual substitution of popular government in its place. Having accomplished the regeneration of Europe, the Hanse League died partly by its own hand, because of its arrogance, but mainly from the fact that, having educated western Europe to self-government and commercial independence, there was no longer need for its existence. Independent cities grew rapidly into importance, and these got along very well without the protection of the League. The great industrial progress was at times temporarily checked by wars, but it never took a backward step. Indeed the progress of commerce has always been a contest between brains and brute force, and in such a struggle there is never any doubt about the final outcome. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION What were some of the effects of Caesar's invasion of Germanic Europe so far as commerce is concerned? What were some of the effects on commerce of the breaking up of the Roman Empire? How did the invasion of England by William of Normandy affect the commerce of the English people? Who was Henry the Navigator, and what did he accomplish?