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| 3. The Hanseatic League |
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| Associations (Hansas, from Old Fr. Hanse; Med. Lat. Hansa; meaning a group, company, or association) of North German towns date from the 13th century and were an important aspect of the great town development of Germany in that period. | 1 |
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| c. 1000 |
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| German traders were established on the island of Gothland and in London. | 2 |
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| c. 1150–c. 1250 |
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| Revival of the German river trade, notably along the Rhine, centering in the towns of Cologne, Dortmund, Soest, and Münster. At the same time, the German expansion toward the Slavic east extended the sphere of German trade along the Baltic coasts. In the later 12th century the German settlement on Gothland (Wisby) became autonomous and established an offshoot at Novgorod (St. Peter's Yard), which became the focus of the important Russian trade. | 3 |
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| 1226 |
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| Lübeck (founded 1143) secured an imperial charter from Frederick II. Hamburg followed in 1266–67. | 4 |
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| 1237 |
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| Wisby secured trading rights in England, and soon afterward in Flanders. | 5 |
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| 1241 |
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| Lübeck and Hamburg formed an alliance to protect the Baltic trade routes. | 6 |
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| 1256 |
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| The Wendish towns (Lübeck, Stralsund, Wismar, Rostock, Greifswald, and later Lüneburg), held their first recorded meeting. Lübeck began to emerge as the dominant North German town, a position it retained throughout the history of the Hanseatic League. Most of the commercial towns followed the Code of Lübeck, which was an early source of unity between them. By the end of the century, the Wendish towns had taken the leadership from the Gothland merchants. | 7 |
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| 1282 |
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| The Germans in London formed a corporation and established their own guildhall and steelyard. Other German yards were opened at York, Bristol, Yarmouth, Lynn, and Boston. The London trade was dominated by Cologne, but the yards at Lynn and Boston were under the control of Lübeck and Hamburg. | 8 |
| The Hanseatic League. No date can be fixed for its organization, which was evidently the result of the lack of a strong central German government able to guarantee security for trade. Its formation was no doubt facilitated by the medieval affinity for cooperative action and for monopoly. The Hanseatic League was first mentioned in a document in 1344. The exclusion of Germans abroad (1366) from the privileges of the Hansa indicates a growing sense of unity, but league members spoke of the association merely as a firma confederatio for trade, and throughout its history it remained a loose aggregation. This looseness of organization allowed its members a maximum of independence and was not modified until the league was put on the defensive in the 15th century. The league never had a true treasury or officials in a strict sense; its only common seal was that of Lübeck. Assemblies of the members (Hansetage) were summoned by Lübeck at irregular intervals, except in time of crisis. The objectives of the league were mutual security, extortion of trading privileges, and maintenance of trade monopoly wherever possible. The chief weapons against foreigners or recalcitrant members were the economic boycott and (rarely) war. Primarily concerned with the North European trade, the Hansa towns dealt chiefly in raw materials (timber, pitch, tar, turpentine, iron, copper), livestock (horses, hawks, etc.), salt fish (cod and especially herring), leather, hides, wool, grain, beer, amber, drugs, and some textiles. The four chief kontors (trading stations) were Wisby, Bergen, London, and Bruges. | 9 |
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| 1340–75 |
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| WALDEMAR IV of Denmark, who took up the struggle against the powerful Hansa towns. He threatened the Hanseatic monopoly of the herring trade with his seizure of Scandinavia and, in 1361, cut the Russian-Baltic trade route with his capture of Wisby. In 1362 he defeated the German fleets at Helsingborg. By the Peace of Wordingborg (1365) the Hansa was deprived of many of its privileges in Denmark. | 10 |
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| 1367 |
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| The Confederation of Cologne, effected by a meeting of representatives of 77 towns, organized common finance and naval preparations for the struggle. Reconstruction of Scandinavian alliances to meet the threat from Waldemar. | 11 |
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| 1370 |
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| After a series of victories, the German towns extorted from the Danish Reichsrat the Peace of Stralsund, which gave the league four castles in Scandinavia (dominating the sound), control of two thirds of the Scandinavian revenues for 15 years, and the right to veto the succession to the Danish throne unless their monopoly was renewed by the candidate. The treaty marked the apogee of Hanseatic power and virtually established control over the Baltic trade and over Scandinavian politics. | 12 |
| Flanders. The Germans in Bruges received a special grant of privileges in 1252, which allowed them their own ordinances and officials. Bruges was the most ardent champion of Hanseatic unity, and, with Lübeck, was the chief source of such cohesion as the league attained. A boycott in 1360 brought the town into complete submission to the league. | 13 |
| England. The Hansa towns, by maintaining friendly relations with the crown, were able to ignore the growing national hostility to alien traders (directed at first mainly against the Italians) and to avoid granting reciprocal privileges to the English in return for their own exclusive rights (notably those claimed under Edward I's Carta Mercatoria of 1303). A source of Hanseatic influence derived from loans to the crown, especially during the Hundred Years' War. The English themselves began to penetrate into the Baltic (c. 1360), and growing public resentment against the league led to increased customs dues, but Richard II in 1377 renewed the privileges of the league, thus firmly establishing the Hanseatic power in England. The sound was opened to the English in 1451, and the league, profiting by the Wars of the Roses, secured full title to the steelyard in London (1474) and the renewal of rights in Boston and Lynn. | 14 |
Decline of the league. Externally the league was weakened by the disorders of the Hundred Years' War; by the rise of Burgundy and the new orientation thereby given to Dutch trade (e.g., Brill wrested the monopoly of the herring trade from the league); and by the great discoveries and the opening of new trade routes. But above all, the monopolistic policies of the league aroused ever sharper opposition in the countries where the league operated. Internally the league continued to suffer from lack of organization. In the 15th century, the league was further weakened by the struggle within the member towns between the democratic guildsmen and the patrician oligarchy. The league threatened the expulsion of “democratic” towns. The German princes (notably the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg) gradually reduced the freedom of various powerful members of the league, and rivalries broke out within the league itself (Cologne and the Westphalian towns stood together, as did Danzig and the Prussian towns, especially after 1467). The South German towns opened direct trade relations of their own with Flanders, Breslau (Wroc aw), Prague, and other centers, and began to establish their own fairs. Leipzig, for example, replaced Lübeck as the center of the fur trade. | 15 |
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| 1629 |
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| The assembly entrusted the guardianship of the common welfare to Lübeck, Hamburg, and Bremen. | 16 |
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