292 A BRIEF SURVEY OF HUMAN HISTORY

out or valiantly fought for their liberties and thereby earned
an important place among the " estates " of the realm. Their
citizens, the burghers or burgesses, were the creators of the
commons of modern democracies.

Internally, the towns organised professional guilds, and
externally, they formed leagues with other cities for purposes
of commerce as well as defence. The craft-guilds were unions
of workers which secured monopolies for their special indus-
gjrij&f afforded training for their apprentices, laid down condi-
r-tibns for efficiency, and protected their members
much as trade-unions do today. There were
unions of shoemakers, bakers, weavers, dyers, etc,
The most famous of the leagues of commercial towns was
the Hanseatic League of North Germany. Hansa in
old German meant a confederation or union. The Hanseatic
League included about eighty of the principal cities of
Northern Europe. It established trading colonies of its mem-
bers in London, Bruges, Bergen, and Novgorod. It lost its
importance only with the new geographical discoveries of
the fifteenth century and the consequent shifting of the
highways of world commerce.

The greatest of the cities of Southern Europe were con-
centrated in Italy. They were Venice, Genoa, and Florence.
Venice had- her beginning in the fifth century when the
refugees from the attacks of Attila the Hun sought shelter
among her marshes. In course of time, owing to the natural
advantages of her position at the head of the Adriatic, as
well as the enterprise of her daring citizens, she became the
mistress of the Mediterranean as once Athens, Carthage, and
Rome had been. In the immortal words of Byron—

A thousand years their cloudy wings expand

Around me, and a dying Glory smiles

O'er the far times, when many a subject land