544 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE and monks on most other days. Wax for candles and amber for rosaries were other Northern commodities then in great demand. Other products in which there was an extensive trade were timber, furs, certain metals, grain, and beer. The prosperity and greatness of the Hanseatic League continued through the fifteenth century. Then came its _ , ■ gradual decline owing to such events as the cap- Its decline ° r ^ _ ° -• * zl ture of Novgorod in 1478 by Ivan of Russia, changes in ocean currents and in the location of the herring nshing, the rise of the Dutch and English peoples to mari- time and commercial power, and the confusion in Germany caused by the Protestant Revolt and the religious wars which followed it. The Teutonic Knights not only carried on a long crusade against the heathen Prussians and other non-German peo- The pies of Poland, Lithuania, and western Russia, Teutonic but established a territorial state along the east shore of the Baltic and encouraged German col- onization in this area. About 1202 the town of Riga had been founded by a German who became its first bishop and who employed the Brethren of the Sword in conquering Livonia from the Wends and Letts. Ten years later a monk tried to play the same role as Bishop of Prussia, where he founded the Knights of Dobrzin. This effort, however, was a failure. So in 1228 the Teutonic Knights ■, hitherto active in the Holy Land, were invited in and began in the next year their conquest of what is now called East Prussia. The Grand Master of the Order was made by Frederick II a prince of the Holy Roman Empire. The two other military orders which have been mentioned soon amalgamated with the Teutonic Order, which became very popular and was loaded with gifts. Early in the fourteenth century the Knights, whose activities had at first been eastward from the Vistula, acquired Pomerelia to the west of that river and thus shut off Poland from the Baltic. In 1346 Denmark ceded Estho- nia to the Knights. The numerous towns which sprang up along the east coast of the Baltic as a result of the Knights' conquests usually joined the Hanseatic League. The four-
