In 1197 Florence regained its own legal authority and joined with other cities in an alliance against German rule.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there was a great increase in trade and commercial activity, primarily wool weaving and banking. From 1115 on, Florence had its own money, which was called the florin.
As early as 1193 the heads of seven guilds took the side of the burgomaster [mayor of the city]. Now there began a prolonged struggle with the merchant clans. In 1206 [there was] a revolution. The people fought alongside of the burgomaster, who had [actually] originated from among the merchant families; [he had become] a representative of the people, the community. [There was a] collegium of the twelve chief elders. The merchant families were driven out of the city, and then they organized a conspiracy and went to war against Florence. In 1260 the Florentines suffered a severe defeat in this war, and the merchant families marched into the city again, whereupon the constitution of 1250 was abolished.
The craftsmen’s party was at that point supported by the Pope against the merchant families, and in 1267, on a night in April, all the merchant families were driven out of the city. But through the mediation of a papal cardinal the merchant families were allowed to re-enter the city in 1280. Thus the popes played a major role.
In 1282 [the constitution] was again abolished by the Pope, and power passed directly to the more highly placed guilds, to the merchants and wool weavers. The nobles and the aristocracy of money also maintained a certain participation in the regime.
In 1293 [there was another] uprising, and the merchant families were completely excluded from the city council and placed under strict legal control. To hold the merchant families in check, a special standard-bearer of justice was established in coordination with the city council. But in 1316 [there was] another revolution, and the wealthy merchants seized the power for themselves. And yet in 1328 the guilds carried out a revolution and took the rule of the city back into their own hands. In 1341 and 1343 there were new revolutions, in which the lower guilds came to power. But the nobles and the aristocracy of finance soon regained the upper hand. In 1378 there was an uprising, which was called the revolution of the wool carders. But this revolution failed. There were further struggles by the craftsmen in 1387, 1393, 1397, and 1400, but the merchant families managed to remain at the helm. At the same time Florence attained an ever-higher stage of wealth and power.
In 1405 the city of Florence purchased the city of Pisa for 200,000 gold florins and subjugated it by force. That happened because of the harbor and because Pisa was a competitor.
In 1491 the harbor of Livorno85 was purchased [by the Florentines] from the Genoese.
In the meantime the Medicis had arrived at the head of the people’s party. They took part in all the revolutions. Under Cosimo de Medici the famous age of the Renaissance, the age of the Medici, began. In 1494 the Medici were driven out of the city, and a new republican constitution was introduced, with the leading role played by the party of Savonarola, against whom the Pope imposed a ban and who was killed in 1498. Again there was further unrest until 1502, when a lifelong standard-bearer [of the guilds] came to the top. But in 1512 he too was overthrown, and the Medicis were called back. In 1527 an uprising of the republican party under the merchant clan of the Strozzi86 [took place] and the Medicis were again driven out. In 153087 Florence was taken by the [Holy Roman] Emperor Charles V.
Florence is typical of the development of the cities. We see that the city did not go to rack and ruin because of the unrest, but rather it bloomed and flourished. The fairy tale about the eternal peace that is supposedly necessary for culture is not confirmed by the actual development and rise of the modern bourgeoisie.
The most outstanding feature of the medieval Italian cities [is] in particular the overweening influence and later the rule of the merchants.
That came about because the Italians were the intermediaries in trade with other countries bordering on the Mediterranean. And indeed trade developed [substantially] in the cities. The merchant families experienced an upsurge [economically] and at the same time rose to political power, and nowhere did the cities achieve such complete independence as in Italy. The cities were independent republics. They came into conflict with feudalism.
Indicative for the Italian cities was the struggle against the German emperors.
In Germany itself the emperors attempted to support the cities here and there, but in Italy the emperors turned directly against the cities and waged an unceasing struggle against them.
Consequently, two large alliances were formed in Italy.
The Lombard League was politically the most important, because it was the most extensive and was located in the north. The chief city for that League was Milan.
Florence tended more to pursue commercial interests. Belonging to the Lombard League, for example, in addition to Milan, were the following: Pisa, Arenza, Como, Lugano, Novi, Parma, Bologna, Pavia, and Genoa.
The city of Milan. In the year 569 it was taken by the Langobardi.88 They were Germans, and then came the Franks. Under them Milan was the center of a count’s domain. In the eleventh century the counts were from the house of Este. In 1056 a movement broke out in Milan that is known to history as the Partarser (?).89 It was named after the rag-and-bonemen’s quarter of the city (a derisive term). [It was] directed against the rule of the archbishop and indeed was favored by the Pope. The papacy was striving for greater political power and sought with strict discipline to make the bishops concentrate on spiritual matters in order to leave the secular rule of the church in its own hands [that is, in the hands of the papacy]. Therefore it supported the cities in their struggle against the bishops.
Pope Gregory VII opposed certain marriages. He …
The conflict with Frederick Barbarossa. Milan was besieged many times [during this conflict] … but in spite of it all the development of the city did not come to an end.
… Two clans came to the forefront: Della Torre and Visconti. They established a veritable dynasty, as the Medici had done in Florence …
The conclusion was that in the sixteenth century Milan was subjugated by Charles V of Spain in the War of the Spanish Succession. It then passed to Austria.
The rise of the merchants led to a great flourishing of spiritual life. This in turn led to the Renaissance. It came about because there had been stagnation in all spiritual life here for centuries, since antiquity. Whoever observes the reality of the Renaissance with a critical eye will soon see proof in it that our present-day culture is not a continuation from the ancient world, but that after undergoing a real retrograde movement, lasting roughly from the eighth to the tenth centuries, all science ended up at that time in the hands of the Church and the monks. Science was restricted almost entirely to theology.
The spiritual life of the times was concentrated there [in the Church], but in part some traditions from the ancient world were handed down through the various doctrines and tendencies in the Christian religion, but they had almost completely lost their original form.
The language of the Christian Church was Latin. Through knowledge of this language [MS. Missing words]
Theology was the positive science of that time. It was a consistently thought-out structure.
Contained in it, in part, were traditions handed down from Greek culture, but entirely remolded and adapted to the doctrines of the Christian Church.
In the philosophy and science of antiquity everything rested on research and investigation, while afterward faith was the only thing that remained, because all of science was subordinated to firmly fixed schematic doctrines [by the Church]. The more absurd something was, the more one was supposed to believe in it, the more it proved that we were not created to inquire into things.
All arts became, as it were, slaves of the church: painting was holy pictures; architecture was building churches.
This stagnation of culture was conditioned by the regression to the older economic forms of the mark constitution with the collapse of slavery. [There was] a turn backward to methods in which science was superfluous, primarily to agriculture, and thus, since life was devoted entirely to the production process, that meant the natural economy.
Art and science develop when there is an inclination toward them.
The nobility in Germany in the Middle Ages lived mainly on the land.
A new form of production had to arise in order for art and science to flourish again; [there had to be] new historical perspectives, new classes and class struggles, and then the accumulation of wealth in the cities. And it was possible for this wealth to be accumulated by the people of noble lineage who were up and coming as merchant clans.
The culture of antiquity had its roots in the ancient city, which represented the center of class rule. Also in the Middle Ages the city had to re-emerge, deep-going class differences had to develop, new social problems had to arise, and the wealth of the merchants had to be present as a material basis before art and science could again come into bloom. At that point the city signified, in different form, the same thing it had signified in antiquity.
The Renaissance gave a new start to the pagan art of antiquity. People began digging out the treasures of antiquity and reacquainted themselves with them. There was a revival of pre-Christian science of the pagan variety. The printing of books90 was the precondition that made the flourishing of humanism possible.
Great names are connected with this epoch. Names linked with the Renaissance are the best known.
Chronologically:
| Dante | 1265–1321 |
| Petrarch | 1304–1374 |
| Boccaccio | 1313–1375 |
They were the first who wrote in so-called “kitchen Latin,” that is, Italian.
The first beginnings of the Italian Renaissance.
The whole trend toward the readoption of the languages and science of antiquity was called humanism. Its expansion was helped along in particular by the definite results achieved in the development of the cities and the crafts in the Middle Ages: the printing of books was a genuine product of the development of cities and the skilled crafts.
Humanism expanded from Italy first to France. Greek began to be taught at the University of Paris for the first time in 1430. The universities are also a purely urban phenomenon. However, they were entirely under the spell of theology at first. All the chairs at the university were occupied by churchmen, and Latin was the ruling language. But now there was the beginning of an opposition at the universities.
The gymnastics of the spirit.
That was mocked by [Ulrich von] Hutten in his letters about the obscurantists.91
Then [humanism spread to] Spain and England (Sir Thomas More, one of the noblest representatives of humanism).
Then to Holland (Erasmus of Rotterdam, 1466–1536), and the humanist movement came to Germany from Holland.
[Johann] Reuchlin, 1455–1522. He had a famous dispute with the theological faculty of Cologne. It was then that [Ulrich von] Hutten (he lived from 1465 to 1517) wrote his famous letters about the obscurantists. Then came [Philip] Melanchthon (in German the name means “black earth.”).92 He lived from 1497–1560, and then came Zwingli, from 1484 to 1533.93
This last name, along with the name of Hutten, shows that in Germany humanism was intertwined with the Reformation. ([See] Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, Huttens letzte Tage [Hutten’s Last Days].94 Extraordinarily easy to read and also giving a very accurate picture historically.)
Humanism was expressed in the readoption of the artistic explorations made by the artists of antiquity, and then in the special flowering of painting, sculpture, and architecture. And everywhere this was sponsored by wealthy patrons. The rich made themselves the protectors of medieval artists, kept them at their palaces, and allowed them to do their work as artists as they saw fit. Thus, once again, this was an achievement made by a court [Hof] but not only a manorial estate. The … of Goethe is highly characteristic in that regard …
The dynasty of the Medici in Florence is especially famous in this connection, because they spent large sums on the splendid buildings, paintings, etc., in Florence. The great edifices were intended to win the favor of the people. Job opportunities became available to the people through these projects.
All the cities were united against external powers, but they fought bitter struggles against each other, especially over the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. That meant trade with the Orient.
After Constantinople fell to the Turks [in 1453] the powerful drive to find a sea route to the East Indies had its origins especially in the Italian cities.
Two factors that promoted the development of the cities in the north.
The liberation of the Netherlands from Spain and the Hanseatic League.
The Netherlands, its history and its population.
[The Netherlands, or Low Countries, were conquered] first by German tribes … and Frisia in Roman times. They were subjugated by the Romans until the beginning of the fifth century AD.
Then came the Franks. In the eighth century, after long resistance, they were converted to Christianity and subjugated by the Carolingians. Bishoprics and abbeys and the domains of counts were established.
After the collapse of Charlemagne’s empire, a decline in France, Germany, and [the duchy of] Lorraine was named after Lothar.95 In the fourteenth century it came through marriage to the duchy of Burgundy with the seat of the duchy in Brussels. In 1477 the Low Countries passed through marriage to the house of Hapsburg and thus belonged to Austria. After Emperor Charles V withdrew from power the Low Countries fell to Philip II of Spain.
In the meantime there was a great flourishing of the cities in the Low Countries in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The struggle of those cities against the counts for city freedoms began, and in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries they had free city constitutions everywhere.
The time when the cities of the Netherlands reached their peak was a few centuries later than that of the German cities, whose time of blossoming was, in turn, later than that of the Italian cities.
Antwerp. Its trade flourished from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. A large foreign colony existed there, that is, foreign merchants, and [there was] mutual trade with Germany. Antwerp conducted a worldwide trade and possessed its own commercial fleet.
The trade link with the Orient as a result of the land route to the East being replaced [by the sea route] …
There was also a shift of a major route for world trade to northern Europe as a result of which the Baltic and the North Sea came to the fore.
The previous culture.
As a result, first Holland and then England reached a high point.
Amsterdam at the beginning of the thirteenth century was still a fishing village and a feudal possession of the lord of Amstel (the river there is called the Amstel.) The entire city is built on dams along this river.
The lords of Amstel were vassals of the seminary at Utrecht. But as early as the beginning of the fourteenth century the city got rid of manorial ordinances and won its own constitution. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Amsterdam’s trade with the Baltic flourished. In the sixteenth century Amsterdam was the number one city of the Netherlands, as far as trade was concerned. But the actual flourishing of Amsterdam dates from the downfall of Antwerp. The Dutch East India Company was founded in 1602. In 1622 Amsterdam had a hundred thousand inhabitants. That was its highest peak.
Bruges. It was walled in as early as the seventh century. In the ninth century it received a castle and became a count’s city, and thus a feudal possession. In the twelfth century Bruges was the largest trading city in Flanders. The largest battles between guilds, those of the weavers and the fullers, were played out here, with bloody street battles. Later Bruges flourished to the greatest extent as part of the Flemish textile industry, and the city had the wool trade with England [entirely] in its hands.
In connection with all this a brilliant artist’s colony arose there in the sixteenth century. Rubens, Rembrandt, and so forth, on the basis of the development of the city.
Brussels. In the eleventh century it was a fortified town belonging to the counts von Löwen (?).96 It was at about the halfway point on the trade road from Cologne to Bruges, and it became the center of a flourishing textile industry. In the fourteenth century the fiercest constitutional battles were fought out in Brussels.
Ghent. It was first a fortified castle of the counts of Flanders, founded in 1180.97
It rose to prominence from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. During this time the fiercest battles of the guilds against the merchant families were fought out in Ghent. A merchant clan was at the head of the struggle against the manorial ordinances of the counts, the Artevelde family. In 1345 there was a conspiracy of the weavers against the rule of the merchants and a violent uprising in which Artevelde, the main leader, was murdered.98 In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there were as many as 40,000 linen weavers and wool weavers in the city. This shows that matters had already gone beyond the handicraft form of production here; this was already manufacture. The work methods were still of the handicraft kind, but a huge number of craftsmen had been brought together, and they were exploited by the merchants.
All these flourishing cities entered into a major historical conflict after they came under the rule of the Spanish crown in 1455, a conflict with the Catholic Church and Spanish despotism, which had risen to its highest level of power in Spain. That was where the Inquisition reigned.
It waged the fiercest fight against the Renaissance.
And now the merchants in Holland made themselves the champions of free trade and freedom of thought and belief.
Commerce needed free trade, and business freedom was needed for industrial activity, but Spanish policy prevented all that.
At the same time humanism had come from Italy by way of France. In Holland [there was] the earliest acceptance of Calvinism.
In reality underlying the struggle between Holland and Spain was an economic and social conflict, the conflict between the natural economy of feudalism and a new development, manufacture, which was on the rise.
[At the same time] the rising force of absolutism needed gold in order to fight against feudalism, to maintain armies, and so forth.
The policy of the Dutch merchants in the colonies went in the direction of importing raw materials from those foreign lands as well as labor power—the slave trade.
When Holland came under Spanish rule these two [forms] came into conflict.
All the flourishing Dutch cities, after Spanish rule was imposed on them, engaged in constant conflict with the Catholic Church, which had achieved its highest level of power in Spain. The Inquisition tried to drown the upcoming new era in blood. Thus the Dutch cities became the foremost champions of commercial freedom, freedom of thought, and freedom of belief, and they won those freedoms in the struggle against Spain. The rising force of humanism strengthened the struggle, but it alone was not the determining factor. Rather it and these struggles were products of the economic revolution that was beginning.
The Dutch were the first to establish modern colonies (Indies!).99 While the early colonial policy of Spain knew only the quest for gold as its sole aspiration, Dutch colonial policy culminated in efforts to promote the development of trade with the processing of raw materials and the production of finished goods. Holland came under Spanish domination, and the two [divergent] tendencies were bound to come into conflict. Struggles erupted that lasted eighty years; the first period was from 1565 to 1598 and the second from 1621 to 1648. The result of the first phase was the secession of Netherlands from Spain and the founding of a republic. Only after the second phase of struggle did the defeated Spanish recognize the [Dutch] republic and its independence.
Then the House of Orange rose to power in the Netherlands holding the office of stadtholder100 as a hereditary right.
Schiller [in his Revolt of the Netherlands] gave a literary depiction of this struggle. In addition, [see] Goethe’s drama Egmont.101
In the midst of this desperate eighty-year struggle, in the course of which the cities were plundered many times by the Spanish, the Netherlands reached its highest point, flourishing in all fields. [This serves] again as proof of how very much the Middle Ages was developing on ground that was truly volcanic.
At the same time the colonial conquests of the Dutch proceeded apace. It [Holland] conquered the Sunda Islands[,]102 Ceylon, the Cape region [around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope], and Brazil.103
Holland’s trading fleet numbered 35,000 ships, and the Bank of Amsterdam had 300 million gold florins lying in its vaults.
The enormous costs of war with Spain, thanks to this flourishing [of commerce], were easily borne, along with high taxes.
The Netherlands also became at that time a place of refuge for the victims of feudalism: craftsmen and merchants, learned men from Spain, from France, from Italy, all fled to the Netherlands. The Netherlands at that time, thanks to its geographical location, was the only country in Europe where the mode of life in the cities was entirely oriented toward the interests of the burghers, while elsewhere the latter were defeated by a rising absolutism.
In addition, modern philosophy also arose in Holland: Spinoza.
Both the later artistic Renaissance of Holland and the modern [MS. Missing words] show the contrast between the Dutch Renaissance and the Italian. The Italian: churchly in character; the Dutch [showed]: burghers and the life of the burghers.
As a result of all this flourishing, which at the same time in economic areas was passing over from the forms of craft production to those of manufacture, trade had already become genuine world trade. In this way Holland then came into conflict with England. The struggle between those two is, so to speak, the boundary line between the true modern era and the last phase of the Middle Ages.
Holland, with the flourishing of its Renaissance, with its victorious struggle against Spain, and with its colonial policy, is the last blossoming of medieval city development.
England already represents the beginning of the capitalist phase. Both of them are linked by the textile industry.
[It was first in Holland] that textile manufacture arose.
England still played a passive role then, providing the raw materials. That resulted in agriculture being pressed back by stock raising, and in that connection a large number of peasant households were forced out of existence. In their place came pastureland for sheep, driven by capitalist impulses. From that came the modern proletariat and modern capital in England, which opened a new period of economic production.
We must look at the Hanse [the Hanseatic League] in order to make clear the contradictory role of Germany [i.e., of the German cities].
History of the Hanse. The word Hanse [Hansa] means “chief alliance.” And the word hänseln [to make a fool of; to hassle] is derived from Hanse. That was the method of the Hanse.104
The formal coming together of the Hanseatic League in 1354 followed in the wake of the Cologne Confederation.105 The origin of the Hanseatic League in an earlier, looser form goes back to the beginning of the thirteenth century. The beginnings consisted in separate groups of cities with special relations among one another and with the outside world. And the latter was the point from which the Hanse actually emerged. It was necessary at that time to take special measures to ensure the protection of trade caravans, expeditions, and the like, in order to conduct an extensive trade with other areas and countries. Given the situation at that time it was necessary for merchants in foreign trading centers to establish their own settlements. Today it is not necessary because freedom of commerce exists, but at that time it did not.
At that time the protection of one’s rights was based on a person’s being connected to manorial ordinances or, in a city, belonging to a guild. The protection of one’s rights depended on belonging to a particular social group, whereas today it depends on being a citizen of a particular country.
The oldest German trade settlement abroad was that of the Cologne merchants in London. It was called the Steelyard. It was started in the thirteenth century, beginning on such a small scale that its actual point of origin cannot be established exactly. It became the central point for all trade with England. (See this pageb in the Putzger atlas.)
The second trading settlement of the Germans was at Wisby on the island of Gotland.106 (See this pageb in the Putzger atlas.)
The third settlement, which went out from there, was in Novgorod (court of St. Peter). (See this pageb in the Putzger atlas.)
In connection with all this, three alliances of cities were formed, and they were called the “three thirds” of the later Hanseatic League. Then there came a “fourth third” of the Hanse.
The first alliance was concluded between Hamburg und Lübeck in 1241 to ensure the security of the trade between the Baltic and the North Sea. Grouping itself around these two main cities was: the Wendish Third. It was founded in 1285. Here the leading city was Lübeck. It concluded an alliance with the cities of Wismar and Rostock, and later Stralsund and Greifswald also joined. A number of small cities in Pomerania and the Mark [of Brandenburg] soon joined as well: Stargard, Stendhal, Salzwedel, Brandenburg, Berlin, Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, and others.
On the other hand, Hamburg made an alliance with a series of towns in the Lower Rhineland; this part of the Hanse was called the Lower Rhineland-Prussian Third. Belonging to this part were the cities of: Cologne, Dortmund, Soest, Münster, Herfurt, and Minden, as well as some Netherlands cities such as Bruges, etc. At the other end some Baltic cities also belonged, such as Torun, Kulm, Danzig, and others.
Wisby was the center of a third group, including cities of Estonia and Livonia in the Baltic. This group was called the Gotland Third. Those belonging here included Reval, Pernau, Dorpat, Riga …
They also had branches in the Russian cities of Novgorod, Pskov, Polotsk, and Vitebsk.
The “fourth third” grouped itself around Bremen. This group of Hanse cities was called the Saxon Third. Belonging to this were the cities of Göttingen, Halle, Halberstadt, Hildesheim, Braunschweig [Brunswick], Hannover, Lüneburg, and later also Magdeburg, which gained a leading role.
Thus the separate groups had their origins, and in 1367 all of them together signed a joint constitution in Cologne. They formed what was called the Cologne Confederation.
The aim of this formal agreement was to win commercial freedoms at home and abroad, to secure the trade routes against attacks by robbers, and so forth, settlement of all disputes among one another by a court of arbitration, and joint regulation of commercial law. And such regulation has also come into existence now, with the development of international trade, and has become an established norm.
The safeguarding of maritime travel, the regulation of coins and weights, the joint organization of commercial fleets and crews, and indeed of navies as well, in order ultimately [to protect] the rights of the Hanse with [MS. Missing word(s)]
There was also a registration list for purposes of war, which defined the part each separate city would have in outfitting [the League for war]. Keeping the peace in the cities was also a joint obligation. The point of this regulation, as of the entire organization of the Hanse, was directed internally against the guilds. The joint keeping of the peace in the cities meant: keeping the guilds down.
The aim was to establish the dominance of the merchants in a way analogous to the Italian cities.
The entire practical activity of the Hanse involved measures against the guilds and against unrest stirred up by the guilds.
The Hanse had assemblies [Bundestage] to which each city sent a representative.
By itself this assembly was rather a loose arrangement, but each of the four “thirds” had its own assemblies. Also, the individual cities remained independent in all their internal affairs. Only when common interests involving trade came up was it necessary to directly force some cities into obedience, using the method of harassment, which ultimately meant laying siege and waging war.
Thus the Hanse, because of its fleet and the power that backed it up, won great privileges in England.
Then it dealt with Denmark in particular. In 1362 Denmark had taken Wisby on the island of Gotland, and with that began a bloody war with Denmark. Under the leadership of the burgomaster of Lübeck, the Hanseatic navy sailed against Copenhagen. It was taken and plundered by the Hanseatic League. Then an armistice was concluded with Denmark. In 1367 in Cologne 77 cities declared war against Denmark. A powerful Hanseatic navy occupied the Norwegian coast and again besieged Copenhagen and the Danish islands. In 1370 a peace treaty was signed in Stralsund with the Danish king. The Hanse had achieved complete victory and assured itself exclusive trade rights in all of Denmark.
By 1397 it had the same rights in all the Scandinavian lands. That meant that no merchant was allowed to go there if he was not a member of the Hanseatic League. Fish from the North Sea and the Baltic constituted the main item of trade. This favorable situation for the League in the North Sea and the Baltic lasted for a century. Merchants of the Hanse in the Nordic cities had …
Danzig then replaced Wisby in the leading position in the Baltic, and this had to do with the grain trade from the east, from Poland and Russia. At the same time trade with Russia kept increasing, and here timber and furs played the main role.
The Hanse also conducted extensive trade with England, with France, and with Portugal. It had its [own] settlements everywhere. Also there was a lively trade with Venice.
The main trading offices were Bruges, Bergen, and Novgorod, as well as Schonen,107 and indeed the last-named city served as a trans-shipping location.
The chief objects of trade were [as follows]: from France, salt and wine; from Flanders, textiles; from England, wool and other kinds of cloth; from Sweden, wax, furs, and ore; from Russia, grain, furs, and timber; and from Nordic waters, fish.
These, then, were no longer luxury items, but objects of daily use on a mass scale, which went mainly to the cities. Here one senses already a transition to a new era in which trade is no longer meant only for the rulers.
The high point of domination by the Hanse was in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. At that time the Hanse represented a power that was also highly respected politically. It waged war on its own account and concluded treaties with foreigners. And it seemed that the prospects for the Hanse’s further development were very great. But it turned out otherwise. Signs of decline began to appear.
As early as the year 1423 the revolt of the Dutch cities is to be noted, and they allied themselves with Denmark against the Hanse.
That came about because the Netherlands cities already aspired to become an independent power [in their own right]. A new form of production had already begun to develop in them. By contrast, the German cities pursued trade interests exclusively on the basis of the old form of production.
In particular in the sixteenth century the sea route for trade with the Orient shifted to the north.108 And now the cities of the Netherlands were geographically more favorably located for this new commercial sea route than Germany. Thus we see that the flourishing of the Hanse occurred between that of the Italian cities and that of the Netherlands cities.
With the opening of the trade routes to the East Indies prospects for trade expanded enormously. The cities of the Netherlands were the first to pursue a colonial policy. The Hanse, on the other hand, stuck firmly to the old trade routes and the old items of trade and did not want to know anything about distant overseas trade. That is why the Hanse became outdated, and for that reason cities gradually, one after another, dropped out of the Hanse.
In the first half of the sixteenth century the Hanse, under the leadership of the burgomaster of Lübeck, Jürgen Wollenweber,109 became involved in a new war with Denmark with the aim of excluding the cities of the Netherlands from the right to trade [in the Baltic]. Thus the war with Denmark was at the same time a war with the Netherlands cities. The Hanse was defeated and its domination in Scandinavia was broken. It is no accident that the first war [against Denmark] was won and the second was lost. It was a sign, a symbol that [MS. Missing words]
In the sixteenth century England emancipated itself from the Hanse. Because the latter had often forced the English kings to grant trade advantages to the Hanseatic cities, so that England was condemned to an entirely passive role in trade. [At the end of] the sixteenth century, under Queen Elizabeth, England began to free itself from the Hanse. The rights of the Hanse began to be restricted in England. Lübeck tried with the help of the German Diet110 to forbid all entry to Germany for trade from England. Queen Elizabeth replied by confiscating 60 Hanseatic ships, shutting down the Steelyard, and abrogating all the privileges of the Hanse in England.
As a result the interests of the city of Hamburg were harmed to such an extent that Hamburg dropped out of the Hanseatic League and made a trade treaty with England on its own account.
At approximately the same time, in 1553, the English discovered a sea route to Russia by way of the White Sea, in the north, and they were likewise emancipated from the Hanse in that way, since they could now trade directly with Russia.
And in the fifteenth century the cities of the [Brandenburg] Mark dropped out of the Hanse, and actually this came about under the influence of the rising landlord class, the power of the Electors [of the Holy Roman Empire].
Likewise in the fifteenth century Novgorod was destroyed by the rising power of the tsarist regime, by Ivan the Terrible, and it was stripped of its independence entirely. Thus the cities fell away one after the other, so that at the beginning of the seventeenth century only 14 cities still remained in the Hanseatic League.
After the Peace of Westphalia, in 1648,111 the Hanse fell into decline completely.
Unfortunately there are not many studies of the Hanse. There are modern ones, but none of them are as good as the old one by Sartorius von Waltershausen, three volumes (cheap in used bookstores). The book contains no critique; one must provide that oneself; but it does contain the material.112
The Hanseatic League represented trading interests exclusively, and consequently it rested on outdated forms and methods of trade. That was expressed in the fact that the Hanse cities did not want to participate in the founding of colonies, as England and the Netherlands did.
Here their geographic position was decisive.
On the one hand the cities in Germany did not acquire sufficient power so that on their own accord they could carry out centralization on a large scale. The superiority of landed property in feudalism was too great for that.
It was the small landowning princes that were the cause of Germany remaining backward. They had the power to hold the cities down, but not enough power to lay the groundwork for a new period.
On the one hand, it [the Hanse] was too conservative to help build the new mode of production. On the other, it was already oriented against the guilds, and would not allow them to gain as much strength as they had in Italy, and so forth.
It was only a structure for exploiting trade at a certain historical period. Novgorod is characteristic. It was destroyed by a single tsar [Ivan the Terrible]. That was one of the phenomena that led to the decline of the Hanse.
Why was Novgorod destroyed? In its internal life it had raised itself to the level of a republic, just as cities elsewhere had done. But at the same time, tsarist absolutism was on the march in Russia, and the freedom of the city, which had only begun a weak, unsteady growth, was bound to give way.
The Hanse represented a line of development that remained backward in comparison to the forward-moving tendencies [of its time].
It shoved itself in between the Italian Renaissance cities and the period of [rising] manufacture in Holland.
Even when particular phases of history occur in succession, there is a single line of development [persisting] in the connection between them, and the one [phase] would not be possible without the other.
From what has been said we may conclude that the following was characteristic [of the Hanse]:
The Hanse was bound to go under. Trade outgrew the limits of the Hanse. New discoveries had brought world trade into being; colonial policy was now possible. The Hanse represented trading interests exclusively; it did not take into account the drastic change in the form of production and trade. Because of its geographical location it could not assume its share [of the new possibilities]. The Netherlands and England were the first countries to gain some benefits from this shift [in world trade]. Production had already grown beyond the limits of the small [trading] centers of the cities. However, the Hanse arose basically as a unification of a number of small trading-center cities. On the one hand, the development of the cities in Germany had not succeeded in growing to a high enough level so that the [Hanseatic] cities could establish a firmly consolidated alliance. On the other hand, in Germany absolutism did not become a powerful formation, as it did elsewhere, in order to become the vehicle for a new age of production as opposed to feudalism. It was particularism, [the existence of many] small states not strong enough to form a greater whole, but strong enough to hold back the development of the cities.
With the development of the cities, commodity production gradually rose higher. It established itself first in the cities, while feudalism reigned all around. Thus all around [the cities] there still remained a form of organized economic production that was controlled by the feudal lords.
Internally the Hanse was directed against the aspirations of the guilds. It [the Hanse] was such a truly German product, a wavering, contradictory structure between two epochs. To be sure, it was a powerful tool for the development of trade, but from the outset it was encumbered with a reactionary tendency. The Hanse was, just like Germany as a whole at that time, inserted parenthetically between two epochs. Novgorod, an important point of support for the trade of the Hanseatic League, was destroyed by tsarism. That was no accidental event. Novgorod represented city autonomy as against the rising aspirations of tsarist absolutism; the upward striving freedom of the city necessarily had to give way [in the face of tsarist absolutism], and that meant the destruction of Novgorod. The development of cities in Russia was thereby annihilated. In this downfall the even greater backwardness of Russia played its role.
The Hanse was shoved in between the flourishing of the cities at the time of the Renaissance in Italy and [the rise of] manufacture in Holland, which again was just a prelude to the further development taken over by England.
The value of the Hanse is that it promoted the powerful upward surge of the Netherlands cities and of trade. Without the Hanse the further development in England of manufacture that had its origins in Flanders would not have been possible.
The study of economic history has shown us that, as far as we have come, all economic forms have been organized in one way or another, were planned. Now in our studies we have come to the threshold of a society that is not ruled by any organization.
To understand this, let us take an example.
We imagine a primitive-communist mark community. Only yesterday it was living according to its planned and regulated relationships, but today all of a sudden all organization has ended.
The foundation of every society is labor.
In all previous societies production was organized in a planned way, and the same was true of the distribution of products.
Where organization is lacking, exchange is necessary and serves as the only connecting link of human society.
In an organized society it is not exchange that takes place, but rather distribution. Each member from the outset contributes socially necessary labor. Before products are made there is an order for them by the society as a whole. Everyone receives what he or she needs, and what the individual receives is the result of a division of the social wealth. (In a society that is wealthier the individual receives more than one would in a society that is poorer.) In an organized society the contribution of the individual cannot serve as a measure of what he or she will receive.
Where organization is lacking each works for himself. He engages in private labor. Only when the finished product is exchanged for another does the labor of the individual change into socially necessary labor.
For exchange a finished product is necessary, as well as a need for that particular product. Products that are exchanged must contain the same amount of labor. A product that is exchanged thereby becomes socially necessary. It has value.
The number of products needed arises out of the experience of one exchange after another. Only after an exchange does it become clear whether a product is socially necessary. From one exchange to another, demand may alter. Since it is possible only after exchange [MS. Missing words] only after exchange is it regulated [MS. Missing words]113
As a result, at one moment there will be too many products and at another moment too few.
Uncertainty of the position of the individual.
Exchange is regulated by the division of labor.
Exchange is a substitute for economic planning.
In a socialist society there will be no exchange, but only distribution of the products.
In the course of history a whole series of the most varied forms of economic production have followed one after another, but they always had a definite plan as a basis.
What we know about the capitalist economy is that it is unplanned. Thus the question arises: how is the existence of such a society possible, one that operates without any plan?
It is assumed that a communist society with a very highly developed culture and wide-ranging division of labor would suddenly collapse for any number of reasons if such an indescribable lack of regulation were to occur.
Only one thing is constantly, irreversibly, and fixed firmly: everyone must work. Without labor a human society is not conceivable.
The division of labor exists. With his or her labor each produces only one kind of product. Where there is no work plan—and here that would be the case—the only bond available would be exchange. Exchange takes place only where the organization of labor does not exist. In a planned economy mediation of products occurs not through exchange but through distribution.
Example: a shoemaker now works as an individual without connection to the society. He delivers his shoes to this person today and to that person tomorrow. That is how he earns his livelihood. In a communist society the shoemaker’s production would be based on the total need of society. He would receive everything he needs from the society. That would be governed by the average wealth of the society at any given time.
Now [i.e., under capitalism], in contrast, the products exchanged on all sides represent the sum total of the labor that is put into each product. When two producers have a mutual exchange of products they are still completely independent of one another and [usually] don’t even know one another. It is irrelevant if one receives less than he gives.
In an organized society that need not be the case. A shoemaker produces boots according to the orders placed by society. In return he receives his means of livelihood, not as a reward for his labor, but as a fully entitled member of society. That is governed more or less by the average social wealth. The labor expended to produce his means of livelihood is once again determined by the needs of the society as a whole. In an organized society the contribution of one and the return contribution of another are not measured against each other. A rich harvest, which also provides the shoemaker with a richer quantity of means for his livelihood, does not require more shoes. Here there is no exact reciprocal relationship. Thus in this case exchange is not taking place.
In a communist society each person receives what he or she needs as a member of that society.
In a slave economy [he receives] because he must be maintained [i.e., kept alive to work].
In an unplanned economy each produces as much as is necessary in order to exchange that for the means of livelihood. The volume of one’s production determines the needs [that will be met].
In an organized society all labor would be, from the outset, socially necessary labor.
In an unplanned economy every product, from the word go, from the first foothold represents private labor. Labor is transformed into socially necessary labor only after exchange.114 Something is first produced and then is regulated by demand. No one can be sure immediately whether he will receive the share of the social wealth due to him in return for his labor.
Exchange thus becomes the substitute for planned organization of labor. In an unplanned economy socially necessary labor, which must exist always and at every time, is no longer the sum of the labor of those who are working. Every instance of labor is first of all private labor, and it becomes socially necessary labor only after exchange, but that comes into the picture only after production has been completed. Socially necessary labor is now the sum total of the products that have been exchanged.
Only those products that are needed [i.e., that can be used] succeed in being exchanged. The exchange value of a product is its capacity to be used. Because only when it is used does a product become socially necessary labor; only then does it have exchange value. Until then every product is valueless private labor.
Exchange is thus the distinguishing characteristic of unplanned production.
That is why in a socialist society no exchange will be able to exist. Exchange is only possible if a society lacks organization.
For each individual labor is the precondition for his or her existence. Without labor one cannot exist.
How much labor is necessary for the maintenance of the society, and what kind of labor? That is [now] determined in the process of exchange. What is produced in excess of that will remain on the market [unsold]. It remains valueless private labor.
The experience gathered from previous instances of exchange serves as the guiding measure for further production.
In the unplanned economy therefore that which is socially necessary is always determined after the fact.
The means of regulation will now be a rough approximation constantly either above or below the actual volume of existing needs.
The tendency of private labor to come close to this approximation is bound to be more or less unsuccessful. Exchange is the only regulating factor.
In an organized society the distribution of products is regulated in a planned way. The amount of total needs is known in advance.
Now one’s share in the social wealth depends on exchange. Complete uncertainty prevails.
Even the way in which the division of labor occurs is now regulated by exchange. The number of workers in each branch of production is regulated independently.
It is left up to each individual to bring new products to the market. Exchange will show him whether a need had been served or not. In this way exchange determines the appearance of new trades or professions.
To repeat: exchange presents itself as the regulating factor in an economy where the planned organization of labor is lacking.
Each person can satisfy their own needs only by exchanging the product of their labor. Thus people produce their vital needs themselves. But their means of livelihood can be gained only through exchange, when someone else has a need for their product. All individual members of society find themselves in the same situation.
Since exchange is the only intermediary for the meeting of needs, all the needs of an individual can only be met if all members of society have the same need for the product of each individual [worker].
Example: the cobbler can meet all his own needs only if all those who make products that he requires for the satisfaction of his manifold needs continually have the same strong need for the product of his labor, boots, for example.
Since this target will never be met, a difficulty arises which an organized society does not know. There the need of the society as a whole is a known factor. Now what exists are a large number of individual, independent needs.
Such an unlimited need by all for all products has never existed. But as a historic fact it has occurred that one particular product, for example, cattle, was a universal need that was felt by everyone at all times, was desired to the same strong degree. We would use one term here for the purpose of our subsequent discussion: that is, a concrete need or product.
This concrete product will be taken by anyone at any time in exchange for any other product.
The precondition is that in the society under consideration there is a general consumer need for this product.
It is precisely through exchange that each one is in a position to gain possession of this product. To begin with, he exchanges something for it in order to consume this product.
Soon, however, he arrives at the conclusion that he can also use this product to exchange for other things that he needs.
It now turns out that one such product has a dual function.
Example: the product of the cobbler’s labor, that is, boots, must now be transformed into the concrete product. Then he can use this concrete product to exchange it for products that he requires in order to satisfy his needs.
Each person makes products with his own labor. It becomes socially necessary labor only through exchange. The only form [this can take] is when the product of his labor can be transformed into the concrete product.
Now a product must exist that is known in advance to be a social need. Only for such a product will private labor immediately become socially necessary labor. Every [instance of] private labor now becomes socially necessary labor if it is transformed into this concrete product of exchange. This concrete product is now the only connecting element within this loosely structured society. This concrete product is now the commodity that will be accepted by anyone at any time. This concrete product has now become the means of exchange.
The means of exchange is therefore a product that from the outset embodies socially necessary labor, and it gives, to every individual who possesses it, access to the social wealth.
This concrete product performs a dual function: as a means of consumption and as a means of exchange. Thus a certain part of this product might not be consumed. That part will be designated in advance as a means of exchange.
For example, [at one time] cattle were a means of exchange. Thus when an exchange took place one or some of the cattle would be marked separately, stamped or branded to distinguish them from the cattle designated for consumption. All the qualities that were valued and required in the cattle designated for consumption were unnecessary and superfluous in the cattle designated as a means of exchange. These cattle now are only a means of exchange.
However, the type of exchange product (for example, cattle) is bound to run into difficulties, such as how they are to be safeguarded, circulated, etc., and these difficulties tend to hinder the cattle’s usability as a means of exchange. Now only one more step is necessary for this problematic means of exchange to be replaced by another that will not be burdened by these difficulties, for example, metal.
This corresponds to what actually happened. The selection of this exact new means of exchange is not mere speculation, however; it is historically determined. The transition from cattle as means of exchange to metal as means of exchange occurred simultaneously with the transition from herding to agriculture.
Agriculture needed metal. Its usability increased with the development of tools and weapons and the technology of their production. Metal became a universally desired item of consumption.
This course of development was reflected in words. In Latin, money was called pecunia, but this term was derived from pecus.115 It is interesting furthermore that the first coins very often had the image of an ox or a sheep—that is, the type of animal that had previously served as the universal means of exchange.
Cattle and metal were not the only products that had significance as means of exchange. For example, for the Arabs it was dates, and for many primitive peoples of Africa it was cowrie shells.
These latter items also were included in the ranks of universally desired means of consumption. They served as jewelry that had significance as a means of distinguishing different tribes, ranks, and classes of seniority.
There is nothing at all exceptional about this. In our society also, despite an incomparably higher level of culture, symbols that are worthless or of very little worth have great meaning as distinguishing marks of a certain rank or standing for those wearing them or carrying them.
But the significance of cattle and metal became predominant. Their range of dominance was much wider than anything else. As we have already said, cattle as a means of exchange were pushed out with the transition from herding to agriculture. This process, in which the one superseded the other, was not completed quickly, nor did it occur everywhere at the same time; it happened gradually, at the same kind of pace that occurs in any transition. For a long time they both served side-by-side as means of exchange of equal worth.
In the poetry of Homer (eighth century BC) oxen and copper and iron were all named side-by-side as means of exchange.
It was possible for metal to become the most significant of all other [means of exchange] because it possessed physical qualities in a higher degree than all others that made it especially appropriate for that purpose.
One can remove all the consumer qualities from metal, and yet at any time it can be turned back into its former condition as a means of consumption. That is its greater advantage.
Metal became the means of exchange that dominated trade and exchange in general.
Indeed the extent of trade and exchange is variable. It goes up and down and cannot be determined in advance. Thus it lends itself also to a great many different means of exchange that may be used in trade at any particular time and that can never be set in advance.
Money is now the only product that represents socially necessary labor from the very outset.
It can possess this characteristic only when all other labor represents only private labor. Hidden behind that is an entire epoch in which the organization of labor was totally lacking.
Money is necessary in an unplanned economy.
Money is only the expression of commodity production.
With that we have also answered the question of whether a socialist society will need money. It does not need it.
The development of money, briefly then, is as follows:
Gold is to begin with a product of social labor that is universally desired.
Money is at one moment a product of exchange and at another a product of consumption.
Part of this product is designated only for consumption and another part exclusively as a means of exchange.
This latter part was deliberately distinguished by stamping it.
Now money took on a form in which it could not be consumed. Now it is only money. But it serves as a means by which every need without exception can be satisfied.
Now the only thing that remains is to investigate whether the premise of a sudden collapse of a form of economy is justified.
It is, because it is a historical fact.
A catastrophe cannot be measured during the time when it is happening. The nature of a catastrophe consists above of all in the fact that in a short span of time it brings with it in a forceful way entirely new forms, a transformation that was prepared for a long time during peaceful development. It is a further development, accelerated by revolution, of a particular line of previous development.
Example: the French Revolution of 1793. [With that came] the introduction of private property in Algeria, and all colonial policies in general.
The premise is historically grounded.
However, it is not the only form that development must necessarily take.
Example: the development of Germany. One stage passes gradually over into another, supported by revolutions, which do not however appear here as catastrophes or have catastrophic effects.
Further, is it possible for exchange to spring up suddenly?
Exchange does not need to be invented suddenly at a critical moment. Exchange exists at every time. Even peoples who are by no means organized into firmly fixed associations know exchange.
Example: during excavations in northern France stone tools were found made from a kind of stone that did not exist in that region.
We do not know of any epoch [in human development] without exchange; and even less so now does any separate people live without exchange.
Exchange was the mechanism by which cultural advances spread far beyond the region of their origin; at every time it contributed to the advancement of culture.
Exchange was possible as soon as the productivity of labor had reached a certain high level at which labor produced surpluses, quantities of goods greater than absolutely necessary. As far as knowledge of the history of culture has been able to conclude, this precondition [i.e., exchange] has been present everywhere.
Thus it is justified to introduce [the subject of exchange] into our investigation [of the Middle Ages].
Exchange always begins where organized production reaches its limit in time or space.
The economic foundation for exchange is the productivity of labor and the surplus produced by it. The expansion of exchange occurs to the same extent that it becomes habitual.
From the outset116 it [exchange] is limited to individual instances and to certain objects that, because of favorable conditions, are more abundantly available. That which succeeds in becoming the possession of another tribe or people soon becomes a need there. Thus exchange becomes a necessity, and production for this exchange becomes a rule.
This exchange also stimulates the production of other goods. It spreads further. There are more and more objects that are produced in advance for exchange, that is, as commodities.
To the extent that more products are brought within the sphere of the exchange process, as exchange spreads wider, the greater the need grows for a designated means for exchange.
An example of the difficulties for the exchange process when such a universal means of exchange is lacking is as follows: [Jérome] Becker found a Black African tribe at the headwaters of the Nile117 which would exchange only meat for other products. In order to obtain flour, hammers (or spades) were offered in exchange, along with cloth. For the hammers an ox was offered in trade, which was then slaughtered and cut into pieces. Only in exchange for these pieces of meat could the desired flour then be obtained from the tribe in question.
For us, cattle are the most important of all the means of exchange because it became the means of exchange for the peoples who were the ancestors of our culture.
Metal money later took the place of cattle. From the outset it represented socially necessary labor.
Gold is the highest form of money because consumption value is attached to it only to a very small extent. It is precisely for that reason that it represents socially necessary labor in its purest form. It possesses hardly any everyday usefulness.
The outer aspect of the social development of money reaches its peak in gold. Money did not develop originally in the Middle Ages, but had its origins in the early ancient world, in the Orient.118
In the early Middle Ages, in contrast, the natural economy predominates. Only with the development of commodity production does the money economy reappear here. Thus, the development [of the money economy] had to become so widespread it was necessary to represent social labor in a form that had no consumption value. The development of money thus recurs many times.
And each time the development of money is nothing more than a reflection of the development of the relations of production within a specific cultural area or region.
The capitalist form of economy endeavors to spread commodity production over the entire globe. With that it also spreads the money economy to the same extent. The world economy has turned money into world money.
Commodity production and the money economy form the basis on which the capitalist economy is built.
With the elimination of this economic form these two fundamental pillars [on which it rests] must also disappear.
They are the foundation and characteristic feature of this unplanned mode of economic production, namely, the capitalist mode of production.
Capitalism develops within itself the preconditions for a new mode of production, which through historical necessity must surely replace it.
That is the socialist economy, organized on a planned basis.
With that we end these investigations [into the Middle Ages], at the point where Marx steps in with his investigation into and critique of the capitalist mode of production.
| Statistisches Jahrbuch für Deutschland [Statistical Yearbook for Germany]119 | |
| Putzger: | Geschichts-Atlas. [Historical Atlas]120 |
| Perthes: | Taschen-Atlas. [Pocket Atlas]121 |
| Plötz: | Auszug aus der Geschichte. [Excerpt from History]122 |
| Bücher: | Entstehung der Volkswirtschaft. [Origin of Economics]123 |
| Engels: | Die Lage der arbeitenden Klassen in England [Condition of the Working Class in England] |
| Engels: | Die Entwicklung des Sozialismus von der Utopie zur Wissenschaft. [Socialism, Utopian and Scientific]124 |
| Lippert: | Kulturgeschichte, I. Band. [History of Culture, Vol. 1])125 |
| Ratzel: | Völkerkunde. [Ethnology]126 |
| Engels: | Der Anteil der Arbeit an der Menschwerdung des Affen[The Part Played by Labor in the Transition from Ape to Man], Neue Zeit, Year 14, Vol. 2, this page.127 |
| Weitling: | Garantien der Harmonie und Freiheit. [Guarantees of Harmony and Freedom]128 |
| Morgan: | Die Urgesellschaft. [Ancient Society]129 |
| Maurer: | Einleitung zur Geschichte der Mark-, Hof-, Fron- und Dorfverfassung. |
| [Introduction to the History of the Mark, Court, Village and Town Constitution] | |
| Caesar: | Der gallische Krieg. [The Gallic Wars]130 |
| Cunow: | Die soziale Verfassung des Inkareiches. [The Social Constitution of the Inca Empire]131 |
| Macaulay: | Warren Hastings. |
| Macaulay: | Lord Clive.132 |
| Haxthausen: | Studien über die inneren Zustände usw. in Russland. [Studies on Internal Conditions, etc., of Russia]133 |
| Plekhanov: | Chernyshevsky.134 |
| Engels: | Internationales aus dem Volksstaat. Soziales aus Russland. [International Material from Der Volkstaat. Social Material from Russia]135 |
| Tschuproff: | Die Feldgemeinschaft. [The Rural Community]136Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften. [Concise Dictionary of the Political Sciences], article on the “Mir” (this is the Russian Mark)137 |
| Parvus: | Das hungernde Russland. [Starving Russia]138 |
| Engels: | Anti-Dühring.139 Theory of Violence |
| Engels: | Ursprung der Familie. [Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State]140 |
| Kautsky: | Ursprung des Christentums; die Sklavenwirtschaft. [Foundations of Christianity; The Slave Economy]141 |
| Eduard Meyer: | Geschichte des Altertums. [History of Antiquity] |
| Eduard Meyer: | Sklaverei im Altertum. [Slavery in Antiquity] |
| Eduard Meyer: | Entwicklung des Wirtschaftslebens im Altertum. [Development of Economic Life in Antiquity]142 Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften [The Concise Dictionary of Political Sciences]: articles “Bevölkerung im Altertum,” [Population in Antiquity] “Agrarverhältnisse im Altertum.” [Agrarian Relations in Antiquity]143 |
| Beloch: | Griechische Geschichte. [Greek History]144 |
| Ernst: | Neue Zeit, 11. Jahrgang, 2. Band.145 |
| Kautsky: | Vorläufer des Sozialismus; Plato und der griechische Staat. [Forerunners of Socialism: Plato and the Greek State]146 |
| Mommsen: | Römische Geschichte. [History of Rome] |
| Lassalle: | Kapital und Arbeit. [Capital and Labor] (Description of feudal economy) |
| Lassalle: | Indirekte Steuern. [Indirect Taxes] |
| Willibald | Der Roland von Berlin. [Roland of Berlin]147 |
| Alexis: | |
| Professor | Das Aufkommen des Handwerks in den deutschen Städten. [The Rise of |
| Arnold, Basel: | Craft Production in the German Cities] |
| Schiller: | Der Abfall der Niederlande. [Revolt of the Netherlands] |
| Goethe: | Egmont. |
| Sartorius von Waltershausen: | Geschichte der Hansa [History of the Hanse] |
| Marx: | Das Kapital. [Capital] |
literature on Feudalism and on the Development of Cities:148
| Ludwig von | Einleitung zur Geschichte der Mark-, Hof-, Dorf- und Stadtverfassung |
| Maurer:149 | [Introduction to the History of the Mark, Court, Village and Town Constitution (Publisher Ignaz Brand, Vienna, cost 6.50 Marks) |
| Ludwig von | Geschichte der Städteverfassung (Many volumes) [History of the City |
| Maurer: | Constitution] |
| Engels: | Die Lage der arbeitenden Klassen in England. [The Condition of the Working Class in England] |
| Engels: | Bauernkrieg. [The Peasant War in Germany] |
| W. Wolff: | Die schlesische Milliarde. [The Silesian Billion] |
| Willibald Alexis: | Der Roland von Berlin (and other novels by him). |
| Fr.v. Schiller: | Abfall der Niederlandeo [Revolt of the Netherlands] |
| Goethe: | Egmont. |
| Guizot: | Geschichte der Zivilisation in Frankreich [History of Civilization in France], first published in 1830–32. |
| Thierry: | Betrachtungen über die Geschichte Frankreichs [Observations on the History of France] 1840. |
| Thierry: | Geschichte des 3. Standes im Mittelalter. [History of the Third Estate in the Middle Ages] |
| Savigny: | Geschichte des römischen Rechts. [History of Roman Law] |
| Lassalle: | Kapital und Arbeit. [Capital and Labor] |
| Eichhorn: | Über den Ursprung der Städteverfassung in Deutschland. [On the Origin of the Constitution of the City in Germany] |
| Lassalle: | Indirekte Steuern. [Indirect Taxes] |
| Gaupp: | Über deutsche Städtegründung [On the Founding of German Cities] 1824. |
| Leo: | Entwicklung der Verfassung der lombardischen Städte. [Development of the Constitution of the Lombard Cities] |
| Wilda: | Über das Gildenwesen im Mittelalter [On the Guild System in the Middle Ages] 1831. |
| Hüllmann: | Städtewesen im Mittelalter [City Structure in the Middle Ages] 1827. |
| Arnold [in] | Das Aufkommen des Handwerks in den deutschen Städten. [The Rise of |
| Basel: | Craft Production in the German Cities] |
| Putzger: | Geschichts-Atlas. [Historical Atlas] |
| Perthes: | Taschen-Atlas. [Pocket Atlas] |
| Bücher: | Entstehung der Volkswirtschaft. [Origin of Economics] |
Literatur zur Hansa (Literature on the Hanseatic League):
| Sartorius von | Geschichte der Hansa. (History of the Hanse) |
| Waltershausen |