Chapter XII: "No scutage nor aid shall be imposed in our kingdom, (4)

Besides torture was a very common thing in those times and a man who belonged to a country that happened to be at war for the moment, might very easily be subjected to torture for some reason or another with the idea of securing important information from him. If the members of Hansa wanted to be reasonably assured that new members would not give up their secrets without a brave struggle, they had no better way than by these tests, for which there was therefore some excuse. As to the brutality of the tests perhaps Miss Zimmern in maidenly way has said too much. We commend her paragraphs to the modern committees of reception of college secret societies, because here as elsewhere this generation may get points from the Thirteenth Century.

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MINSTER (CHORIN, GERMANY)

CITY GATE (NEUBRANDENBURG)

"We cannot sully our pages by detailing the thirteen different games or modes of martyrdom that were in use at Bergen. Our more civilized age could not tolerate the recital. In those days they attracted a crowd of eager spectators who applauded the more vociferously the more cruel and barbarous the tortures. The most popular were those practices known as the smoke, water and flogging games; mad, cruel pranks calculated to cause a freshman to lose health and reason. Truly Dantesque hell tortures were these initiations into Hansa mysteries. Merely to indicate their nature we will mention that for the smoke game the victim was pulled up the big chimney of the Schutting while there burned beneath him the most filthy materials, sending up a most nauseous stench and choking wreaths of smoke. While in this position he was asked a number of questions, to which he was forced, under yet more terrible penalties, to reply. If {427} he survived his torture he was taken out into the yard and plied under the pump with six tons of water." (Even the "Water Cure" is not new).

There was a variety about the tests at different times and places that show no lack of invention on the part of the members of Hansa. With regard to other water tests Miss Zimmern has furnished some interesting details:

"The 'water' game that took place at Whitsuntide consisted in first treating the probationer to food, and then taking him out to sea in a boat. Here he was stripped thrown into the ocean, ducked three times, made to swallow much sea-water, and thereafter mercilessly flogged by all the inmates of the boats. The third chief game was no less dangerous to life and limb. It took place a few days after, and was a rude perversion of the May games. The victims had first to go out into the woods to gather the branches with which later they were to be birched. Returned to the factory, rough horse play pranks were practised upon them. Then followed an ample dinner, which was succeeded by mock combats, and ended in the victims being led into the so-called Paradise, where twenty-four disguised men whipped them till they drew blood, while outside this black hole another party made hellish music with pipes, drums and triangles to deafen the screams of the tortured. The 'game' as considered ended when the shrieks of the victims were sufficiently loud to overcome the pandemonic music." Some of the extreme physical cruelties of the initiations our modern fraternities have eliminated, but the whole story has a much more familiar air than we might have expected.

Probably the most interesting feature of the history of the Hanseatic League is the fact that this great combination for purposes of trade and commerce proved a source of liberty for the citizens of the various towns, and enabled them to improve their political status better than any other single means at this precious time of development of legal and social rights. This is all the more interesting because great commercial combinations with similar purposes in modern times have usually proved fruitful rather of opposite results. A few persons have been very much benefited by them, or at least have made much money by them, which is quite another thing, though money is {428} supposed to represent power and influence, but the great mass of the people have been deprived of opportunities to rise and have had taken from them many chances for the exercise of initiative that existed before.

There is a curious effect of Hansa upon the political fortunes of the people of the cities that were members of the League which deserves to be carefully studied. As with regard to so many other improvements that have come in the history of the race, it was not a question so much of the recognition of great principles as of money and revenues that proved the origin of amelioration of civic conditions. These commercial cities accumulated wealth. Money was necessary for their rulers for the maintenance of their power and above all for the waging of war. In return for moneys given for such purposes the cities claimed for the inhabitants and were granted many privileges. These became perpetuated and as time went on were added to as new opportunities for the collection of additional revenues occurred, until finally an important set of fundamental rights with documentary confirmation were in the hands of the city authorities. One would like to think that this state of affairs developed as the result of the recognition on the part of the ruling sovereign, of the benefits that were conferred on his realm by having in it, or associated with it, an important trading city whose enterprising citizens gave occupation to many hands. This was very rarely the case, however, but as was true of the legal rights obtained by England's citizens during the Thirteenth Century, it was largely a question of the coordination of taxation and legislative representation and the consequent attainment of privileges.

The most important effect on the life of Europe and the growth of civilization that the Hanseatic League exerted, was its success in showing that people of many different nations and races, living under very different circumstances, might still be united under similar laws that would enable them to accomplish certain objects which they had in view. Germans, Slavs and English learned to live in one another's towns and while observing the customs of these various places maintained the privileges of their homes. The mutual influence of these people on one another, many of them being the most practical and {429} enterprising individuals of the time, could scarcely fail to produce noteworthy effects in broadening the minds of those with whom they came in contact. It is to this period that we must trace the beginnings of international law. Hansa showed the world how much commercial relations were facilitated by uniform laws and by just treatment of even the citizens of foreign countries. It is to commerce that we owe the first recognition of the rights of the people of other countries even in time of war. If the Hanseatic League had done nothing else but this, it must be considered as an important factor in the development of our modern civilization and an element of influence great as any other in this wonderful century.

HINGE FROM CATHEDRAL, SCHLESTADT

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