powerful did the league become that it dominated kings,
nobles, and cities by its edicts.

Those free cities which constituted the league had the
emperor for their lord, were released from feudal
obligations, and passed their own laws, subject only to his
approval. The emperors, finding in the strength of the
cities a bulwark against the bishops and the princes,
constantly extended the municipal rights and privileges. The
Hanseatic League at one time nearly monopolized the whole
trade of Europe north of Italy.

It was an epoch of associations in which the league arose.
The Church was but a society, fighting as an army for its
liberty. Each trade had its guild, and none might practise
his trade unless he was a member of the particular guild
controlling it. The handicrafts were in the same case; and
the real or operative freemasonry was instituted, about the
same time, for the erection of ecclesiastical and palatial
buildings.

Wealth, power, pomp, and pride began to wane in the cities
of the league early in the fifteenth century, and the
movement was accelerated by the change of ocean routes of
trade due to the discovery of America, and the Cape of Good
Hope way to India. The final extinction came as late as
October, 1888, when the free cities of Hamburg and Bremen,
whose right to remain free ports had been ratified in the
imperial constitution of 1871, renounced their ancient
privileges and became completely merged in the autocratic