were appointed in pairs to inquire with two citizens of each town about
notorious robbers, arsonists, and evildoers of all sorts.^116 In Bavaria,
perhaps best of all, the peace-oaths of the duke and the princes of that
land can be seen as the foundation of the Landrecht, the working law
of Germany.^117
The power of the Landfriedeto consolidate new political entities was
forcefully demonstrated on both the northern and southern margins of
Germany. At Rostock in 1283 John Duke of Saxony, Bogislav duke of
Pomerania and other north German princes formed a peace-association
with Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, Greifswald, Stettin, and other towns
within their lordships, and with the imperial city of Lübeck under
whose leadership these ports would make up the core of the Hanseatic
league. The profits of peace to men and lands were known to all, they
declared, and having at heart peace and a good state (pax bonusque
status) they had sworn to assist one another in all just causes. The agree-
ment stipulated that the towns should combine to provide two hundred
war-horses to the lords for defence against external threats, and set
down the number the lords should bring to the aid of the towns; the
service of the villeins was also defined, at the rate of one appropriately
armed man and a horse from every six manses of land. Within the
league’s territory the roads must be kept peaceful for travellers, and
murderers, arsonists, and thieves must receive the full penalties of the
law, not to be spared in return for payment. These agreements and
statutes (placita memorata et statuta atque pax) were to last for ten
years, after which the vassals and townsmen might extend them for as
long as they chose, but not bind the lords; within those ten years vassals
would inherit the sworn obligations of their fathers and should
renounce their homage to lords who departed from the peace. Rectors
and judges should be chosen from the vassals and more discreet towns-
men in each lordship and Land(terra), and they should meet four times
a year (at Easter, Midsummer, Michaelmas, and the beginning of
January) to make new ordinances and correct whatever in the peace
needed correction. What could not be sorted out by them was to be left
to the judgment of the duke of Saxony, who had been chosen as iudex
at capitaneusfor the whole institution.^118
The Baltic peace shows the Landfriededeveloping into a confedera-
tion which mobilized all sections of a regional community for both
internal policing and defence against external threat. But a league of
feudal lords with maritime towns pursuing international trading
interests could not easily grow into a territorial state. Better material lay
104 The Spread of the Organized Peace
(^116) Constitutiones 1273–98, 601–4.
(^117) Ibid. 1198–1272 , 570–9.
(^118) Ibid. 1273–98, 606–10.