hapenny

A half-penny; one cent. ( Eng. ) hap-le , *hap-les, *hap-le e, a. [Eng. hap; -le .] Unhappy, unlucky, unfortunate, luckle . "Emblems true of haple lovers dying." hặp'-lě -lỹ, adv. [Eng. haple ; -ly.] In a Keats : Epistle to G. F. Mathew. Hanseatic-league, s . Hist.: A celebrated confederacy formed in the thir teenth century between certain commercial towns, with the view at once of restraining the rapacity of kings and nobles, and clearing the Elbe, the German Ocean, and other places from the pirates and robbers by which they were then infested. It began on a small scale in 1239, when Hamburg entered into an alliance with Ditmarsch and the district of Hadeln, Lübeck in 1241 being added to the League. Brunswick came into it in 1247, other towns following at irregular intervals. The confederated towns or cities were arranged in four divisions, the chief piaces in each being Lübeck, Cologne, Brunzwig, and Danzig. Becoming powerful, the League concluded treaties with monarchs, raised troops, and made war, as if it had been an independent political power. At the time when the League flourished most, it consisted of eighty-five confederated towns. In 1256 it established a factory in London, called the Steelyard. It had other factories over Europe, the chief being at Bruges, Novgorod, and Bergen. It gave a powerful impulse to commerce, and when in 1631 it in large measure fell to pieces, it left behind various free republics which continued for a long period of time. hăn'-sěl, s. [HANDSEL.] hăn' sěl, v. t. [HANDSEL, v.] hanse lines, s. [Etym. doubtful.] Loose breeches worn during the fifteenth century.