the abolition of the strand right, which had secured to the owner of
the shore land the jetsam and flotsam of wrecked or stranded vessels;
(4) the concession of legal procedure to the debtor; (5) liberation
from the duel and other forms of the "divine judgment" in legal
procedure; (6) the reduction of duties; (7) permission to sell at
retail, as for example, cloth and linen by the ell--a privilege
previously accorded only to natives. These are but a few of the
privileges secured, the most important of which, however, remains to
be mentioned. This was the establishment of branches and bureaus in
the most frequented commercial centres abroad. On the other hand, the
confederation never had the remotest intention of granting similar
privileges to the nations from which these concessions had been
secured, such as the English, Flemish, Norwegians, Danes, and
Russians. On the contrary. In Cologne, for example, foreign merchants
were permitted only three times a year and then for a period of three
weeks only. Never, perhaps, in history has a monopoly been so rigidly
and relentlessly enforced--a monopoly which not only rested upon the
nation at home, but which made bold incursions into the sovereignty of
foreign states in order to smother their independent trade, or, as in
Norway, utterly to stamp it out.

Of the two great avenues of trade, that indicated by the termini
Bruges and Novgorod is first deserving of mention. For centuries it
was practically used exclusively by merchants of the Hansa, who,
moreover, were forbidden to form copartnerships with foreigners, such
as Russians and Englishmen. Novgorod, well guarded against pirates and
situated in the navigable Volkhov, was at that time in a sense the
capital of the much-divided Russian empire. This city, since the day
of its founder, Rurik, had been the centre of Russian trade and
enjoyed an almost republican independence. From this point diverged