It is natural, in the light of these commercial conditions, that
industry, and handicraft also, must have greatly flourished. In those
days there were twice as many bakers in Lubeck as at present. The
coopers, also, in view of the great demand for herring kegs, were in
high repute, and scarcely less so the brewers, who at that time
greatly excelled their South German competitors. The beer of Hamburg
or Rostock was never absent from a northern feast. Nearly all the
cities from Livonia to the mouth of the Weser were surrounded by
gardens of hops, and Hamburg especially owed its rapid rise during the
fourteenth century chiefly to its brewers, at times five hundred or
more in number, one hundred and twenty-six of whom supplied the market
of Amsterdam alone. Not only representatives of the higher industrial
arts, such as goldsmiths, metal workers, picture carvers, paternoster
makers, and altar makers, but shoemakers and other handicraftsmen were
to be found in the Far North, which, at that time, was still somewhat
deficient in these matters. There is report of a worthy shoemaker,
who, after sojourning in Russia, repaired to Stockholm, where he
entered the service of a knight, and thence to Santiago di Compostela,
where he wrought for pilgrims.

All these trades were divided into guilds and sequestered in certain
streets or localities; and it was long before they were permitted to
participate in the city government, which rested solely in the hands
of the great landlords and merchant princes. In the fourteenth
century, however, following the example of the South German
communities, the "Rebellious Guilds" arose also in the Hanse towns and
inaugurated that far-reaching democratic movement akin to the War of
the Classes in ancient Rome. The guilds demanded a seat and a voice in
the municipal councils, and made the payment of their quota dependent
upon this concession. Most of the Northern cities experienced bloody