Brabant, and France, whose annual markets were regularly attended by
the Hansa merchants. While the trade of the cities of the league found
such wide extension abroad, however, the traffic with their nearest
neighbors, the High-Germans, was very weak. Their domestic trade,
indeed, was confined chiefly to the plains of Northern Germany,
extending southward to Thuringia and eastward to the Oder and the
Vistula, where Cracow constituted the last outpost. The great
High-German communities along the Main and the Danube pursued
different political and economic interests. Being chiefly
manufacturing cities, they formed only temporary unions. Dependent
rather upon the south of Europe, they were also differentiated from
their northern brethren by their coinage, inasmuch as they accepted
gold as their standard, whereas the Low-Germans preferred silver
money, especially that of Lubeck. Of course each Hanse town formed the
nucleus of the local intercourse; and thither came noblemen and
peasant to barter the produce of the fields for the merchandise of the
city, and to invest, or probably more frequently to borrow, money.
Lubeck and Bruges were in those days the money centres of Northern
Europe, and their councillors and commercial magnates were the bankers
of kings and princes.

The methods of transportation and intercourse at that time were very
different from those of to-day. There was no postal service, no
insurance, very sparse circulation of bills, and very little of that
agency--or commission--business, which relegates to a third party the
transportation and management of goods. Trade was very largely a
matter of individual enterprise, demanding in a far greater measure
than to-day the personal superintendence of the merchant. Usually the
latter himself travelled well-armed across sand and sea to distant
lands, trusting in God and upon his strong right arm. As master of a