apidly; but it would be impossible to say that the feudal
system was favourable to trade, or the extension of trade. The
commercial spirit in the feudal, as in preceding ages, had to find for
itself places of security, and it could only find them in towns, armed
with powers of self-regulation and defence, and prepared, like the
feudal barons themselves, to resist violence from whatever quarter it
might come. Rome, in her best days, had founded the municipal system,
and when this system was more than ever necessary as the bulwark of arts
and manufactures, its extension became an essential element of the whole
European civilization. Towns formed themselves into leagues for mutual
protection, and out of leagues not infrequently arose commercial
republics. The Hanseatic League, founded as early as 1241, gave the
first note of an increasing traffic between countries on the Baltic and
in northern Germany, which a century or two before were sunk in isolated
barbarism. From Lubeck and Hamburg, commanding the navigation of the
Elbe, it gradually spread over 85 towns, including Amsterdam, Cologne
and Frankfort in the south, and Danzig, Konigsberg and Riga in the
north. The last trace of this league, long of much service in protecting
trade, and as a means of political mediation, passed away in the
erection of the German empire (1870), but only from the same cause that
had brought about its gradual dissolution--the formation of powerful
and legal governments--which, while leaving to the free cities their
municipal rights, were well capable of protecting their mercantile
interests. The towns of Holland found lasting strength and security from
other causes. Their foundations were laid as literally in the sea as
those of Venice had been. They were not easily attacked whether by sea
or land, and if attacked had formidable means of defence. The Zuyder
Zee, which had been opened to the German Ocean in 1282, carried into the
docks and canals of Amsterdam the traffic of the ports of the Baltic, of
the English Channel and of the south of Europe, and what the seas did
for Amsterdam from without the Rhine and the Maese did for Dort and
Rotterdam from the interior. By the Union of Utrecht in 1579 Holland
became an independent republic, and for long after, as it had been for
some time before, was the greatest centre of maritime traffic in Europe.
The rise of the Dutch power in a low country, exposed to the most
destructive inundations, difficult