FRENCH, FLEMISH, ENGLISH, GERMAN TOWNS 369 deburg from the twelfth century. Stone houses and glass
- windows did not come in until after the thirteenth cen-
j tury, although roofs of straw or shingles were already being (replaced by tiles. The architects, furniture-makers, and j wood-carvers of German towns in the thirteenth century gave little evidence of artistic ability. In general Germany
- was at this time far behind Italy and France in commerce,
1 industry, art, and wealth. There were three leading regions of urban life in medieval i Germany. One was the Rhine Valley ; another was south- ern Germany, where Augsburg, Bamberg, Wurz- Chief groups burg, and Niirnberg were destined to become of German very wealthy by their trade across the Alps with Venice. The third group consisted of towns of the northern coast, like Bremen, Hamburg, and Liibeck, which exploited the fisheries and commerce of the North and Baltic Seas. Wisby, situated on the large island of Gotland oft the Swed- ish coast in the Baltic, was a very flourishing trading town which now became German in character. Earlier, judging from the many Arabian and Anglo-Saxon coins found there, it must have been an important station in the traffic of the Northmen with the Orient by way of the Russian rivers. Though now deserted, its walls, towers, and ruined churches remain as a picturesque testimony to its medieval grandeur. In Denmark, too, and elsewhere along the coasts of the Baltic towns were numerous by the thirteenth century. Already in the thirteenth century German cities were forming leagues for their mutual protection. Prominent among these were the Rhine League and the Hanseatic League, of which we shall have more to say in the later Middle Ages. The growth toward self-government in a German town during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries may be illus- trated by the example of Strassburg. At first How a self- there were practically no free inhabitants and governing 1 1 • 1 t>i mumcipal- every one was dependent upon the bishop. The ity arose in expressions, " citizens" and " burghers," were Strassbur s first employed in the twelfth century, but all inhabitants
