was demanded. An infraction of the laws of the league was punishable
by a fine, and in extreme cases by exclusion from the Hansa--a
sentence necessarily involving the commercial isolation and eventual
bankruptcy of the delinquent city. Bremen, it is true, once withstood
the consequences of the Hanseatic ban for more than fifty years, but
this was before the extraordinary extension of Hanseatic power
consequent upon the Danish war. From all this it appears that the
constitution of the Hansa was a very slack but elastic one, which
easily adapted itself to the exigencies of the moment. A charter of a
Hanseatic constitution has never existed--proof in itself of the
desire to afford as much latitude as possible in the construction of
the laws. Theory is regarded as valueless; immediate 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