facts and
interests are all in all. The supremacy of Lubeck, for example, was
never formally recognized by the other cities of the league.

Thus did the Hansa flourish until the close of the Middle Ages. With
the discovery of America and of the passage to India trade was
diverted into new channels; it became transoceanic and, not without
some culpability on the part of the Hanses themselves, fell into the
hands of the now more favorably situated countries of Western
Europe--Spain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, and, finally,
England. Equally detrimental to the Hansa was the political
transformation wrought at this time, especially as regards the rapidly
growing power of the princes, who, with all the influence at their
command, sought to abrogate all special privileges and to foster a
levelling process in order that they alone might be exalted. One city
after another sank into utter dependence upon the sovereign rulers of
the respective provinces, who, in their turn, began to take an
interest in economic affairs, thus contributing to widen the breach
between these respective cities and the league. It was under these
circumstances that Gustavus Vasa declared of the Hansa that "Its teeth
were falling out, like those of an old woman." The Hollanders,
especially, had long been converted from allies into formidable
rivals. The most important and decisive factor of this decadence,
however, was the victorious opposition to the Hanseatic monopoly now
brought to bear by the hitherto commercially oppressed nations,
England and Russia, who simply closed the doors of the bureaus and
abrogated the privileges of the German merchants of the league. The
condition of the Hansa was akin to that of a healthy, vigorous tree,
set in poor soil and deriving its sustenance from the weakness of the
home rulers and the primitive or defective economic conditions of
foreign countries. As soon as these negative mediaeval conditions were
swept away by the storms of the Reformation the tree gradually but
surely fell into decay. With this later stage there is associated the
historic tragedy of Juergen Wullenwever, that genial and daring
democratic innovator, who, in an endeavor to conquer Denmark in order
to restore the prestige of the Hansa, was betrayed by his patrician
fellow-burghers and hanged.

The Hansa, though in a stage of increasing decrepitude, now lingered
on until the final crash came in 1630, when all the members dissolved
their a