As early as the tenth century German traders had won privileges in English markets, for we find in the code of Ethelred ‘the Rede-less’ the following statement: ‘The people of the Emperor have been judged worthy of good laws like ourselves.’ Later, ‘steelyards,’ or depots somewhat similar to the Flemish ‘staple-towns’, were established for the convenience of imperial merchants; and owing to the energy of the Hanseatic League these became thriving centres of commerce, respected by kings of England if jealously disliked by their subjects. Protection of the merchants belonging to ‘the Hansa’ while in foreign countries soon represented, however, but a small part of the League’s duty towards those who claimed her privileges. The merchant must travel safely to his market by land and sea; but in North Germany he had not merely to fear robber knights but national foes: the hostile Slav tribes that attacked him as he rode eastwards to the famous Russian market of Nijni-Novgorod to negotiate for furs, tallow, and fats: or even more dangerous Scandinavian pirates who sought to sink his vessel as he crossed the Baltic or threaded the Danish isles. One of the chief sources of Hanse riches was the fishing industry, since the law that every Christian must abstain from meat during the forty days of Lent, and on the weekly Friday fast, made fish a necessity of life even more in the Middle Ages than in modern times. Now the cheapest of all fish for anxious housekeepers was the salted herring, and as the herring migrated from one ocean-field to another it made and unmade the fortune of cities. From the middle of the twelfth to the middle of the fifteenth century it chose the Baltic as a home of refuge from the North Sea whales, and in doing so built the prosperity of Lübeck, just as it broke that prosperity when it swam away to the coasts of Holland. For two months every year the North German fishermen cast nets for their prey as it swept in millions through the narrow straits past the coast of Skaania; but here lay trouble for ‘the Hansa’, since Skaania, one of the southernmost districts of modern Sweden, was then a Danish province, and the Danes, who were warriors rather than traders, hated the Germans heartily. [Illustration: N.E. EUROPE in the MIDDLE AGES] In early mediaeval times we have noticed Scandinavia as the home of Norse pirates; as the mother of a race of world-conquerors, the Normans; under Cnut, who reigned in England, Norway, and Denmark, as an empire-builder. The last ideal was never quite forgotten, for as late as the Hundred Years’ War King Valdemar III of Denmark planned to aid his French ally by invading England; but the necessary money was not forthcoming, and other and more pressing political problems intervened and stopped him.