Very scanty are the records that have come down to us concerning the trade of the League with Spain. This nation, incessantly occupied in wars with the Moors and in chivalrous exploits, neglected and disdained trade. They even went so far at times as to interdict it also to others. But all that has come down to us concerning the intercourse of the Hanseatics with this country is so vague, and borders so much on the fabulous, that it cannot be accepted as history. What does seem certain is that in 1383 King John of Castile forbade the Hanseatics to have any intercourse with his kingdom, that he confiscated eighty-four of their vessels, and that in 1441 the factory of Bruges received orders to practise reprisals upon the Spaniards and to close to them all the ports of the Netherlands. All details, however, are lacking. We only know, again, for certain that in 1472 the Spaniards raised the interdict against the League. No doubt they had suffered pecuniarily from the absence of these active traders. In 1551 Philip II. even went so far as to sign a treaty of commerce with the League, in which this prince favoured them as much as his predecessors tried to harm them. And this treaty, strange to say, was not quite a nullity even at the beginning of our own century. On the strength of certain clauses contained in it were founded various privileges enjoyed up to that date, in their commercial intercourse with Spain, by the cities that were then all that remained of the once mighty League--namely, Lübeck, Hamburg, and Bremen. In Portugal the League was more fortunate than in Spain, and early established a factory at Lisbon. From this port they traded with the Mediterranean, and came in contact with the flourishing Italian commercial republics, as well as with the products of the Levant and India, for which Italy was the sole market. But the Italian trade was chiefly in the hands of the South German cities, such as Augsburg, Ulm, and Nüremberg, and the wares were transported by land. These cities formed a counter league among themselves, which, though in a measure affiliated to the Hansa, was never quite an integral part. Their sole object was the Levant and Italian trade. Already in the thirteenth century they had a depôt at Venice, the far-famed Fontego de' Tedeschi, which visitors to Venice behold to this day as one of the most lovely palaces abutting on the Grand Canal. This factory, however, was very differently constituted from that of other cities. The League never obtained a monopoly or special privileges in Italy. The Fontego at Venice was merely the warehouse or dwelling-house of the German traders, without any internal jurisdiction or president. [Illustration: FONTEGO DEI TEDESCHI, VENICE.]