Wednesday 4th November 2009
The Hanseatic League by Charles Abdy
The Hanseatic League (also known as the Hanse or Hansa) was an alliance of trading cities and their guilds that established and maintained a trade monopoly along the coast of Northern Europe, from the Baltic to the North Sea and inland, during the Late Middle Ages and early modern period (c.13th–17th centuries). The Hanseatic cities had their own law system and furnished their own protection and mutual aid.
Historians generally trace the origins of the League to the rebuilding of the North German town of Lübeck in 1159 by Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony, after Henry had captured the area from Count Adolf II of Holstein.
Exploratory trading adventures, raids and piracy had happened earlier throughout the Baltic (see Vikings) — the sailors of Gotland sailed up rivers as far away as Novgorod, for example; but the scale of international trade economy in the Baltic area remained insignificant before the growth of the Hanseatic League.
German cities achieved domination of trade in the Baltic with striking speed over the next (i.e. 13th) century, and Lübeck became a central node in all the seaborne trade that linked the areas around the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. The 15th century saw the climax of Lübeck's hegemony.
Hanseatic League's foundation in Hamburg, Germany (circa 1241) Lübeck (above) became a base for merchants from Saxony and Westphalia to spread east and north. Well before the term Hanse appeared in a document (1267), merchants in a given city began to form guilds or Hansa with the intention of trading with towns overseas, especially in the less-developed eastern Baltic area, a source of timber, wax, amber, resins, furs, even rye and wheat brought down on barges from the hinterland to port markets. The towns furnished their own protection armies and each guild had to furnish a number of members into service, when needed. The trade ships often had to be used to carry soldiers and their arms. The Hanseatic cities came to each other's aid.
Hansa societies worked to remove restrictions to trade for their members. For example, the merchants of the Cologne Hansa convinced Henry II of England to free them (1157) from all tolls in London and allow them to trade at fairs throughout England. The "Queen of the Hansa", Lübeck, where traders trans-shipped goods between the North Sea and the Baltic, gained the Imperial privilege of becoming a Free imperial city in 1227, the only such city east of the River Elbe.
In 1241, Lübeck, which had access to the Baltic and North Sea fishing grounds, formed an alliance — a foundation of the League — with Hamburg, another trading city, which controlled access to salt-trade routes from Lüneburg. The allied cities gained control over most of the salt-fish trade, especially the Scania Market; and Cologne joined them in the Diet of 1260. In 1266, Henry III of England granted the Lübeck and Hamburg Hansa a charter for operations in England, and the Cologne Hansa joined them in 1282 to form the most powerful Hanseatic colony in London. Much of the drive for this co-operation came from the fragmented nature of existing territorial government, which failed to provide security for trade. Over the next 50 years the Hansa itself emerged with formal agreements for confederation and co-operation covering the west and east trade routes. The chief city and linchpin remained Lübeck; with the first general Diet of the Hansa held there in 1356 – this is the date of its official formation — the Hanseatic League acquired an official structure.
Main trading routes of the Hanseatic LeagueLübeck's location on the Baltic provided access for trade with Scandinavia and Kiev Russia, putting it in direct competition with the Scandinavians who had previously controlled most of the Baltic trade routes. A treaty with the Visby Hansa put an end to competition: through this treaty the Lübeck merchants also gained access to the inland Russian port of Novgorod, where they built a trading post or Kontor. Other such alliances formed throughout the Holy Roman Empire. The League never became a closely-managed formal organisation. Assemblies of the Hanseatic towns met irregularly in Lübeck for a Hansetag (‘Hanseatic Diet’), from 1356 onwards, but many towns chose not to send representatives and decisions were not binding on individual cities. Over time, the network of alliances grew to include a flexible roster of 70 to 170 cities.
The league succeeded in establishing additional Kontors in Bruges (Flanders), Bergen (Norway), and London (England). These trading posts became significant enclaves. The London Kontor, established in 1320, stood west of London Bridge near Upper Thames Street. (Cannon Street station occupies the site now. It grew significantly over time into a walled community with its own warehouses, weighhouse, church, offices and houses, reflecting the importance and scale of the activity carried on. The first reference to it as the Steelyard (der Stahlhof) occurs in 1422.
In addition to the major Kontors, individual Hanseatic ports had a representative merchant and warehouse. In England this happened in Boston, Bristol, Bishop's Lynn (now King's Lynn shown below), which features the sole remaining Hanseatic warehouse in England.
Town Hall of Tallinn, Estonia. The League primarily traded timber, furs, resin (or tar), flax, honey, wheat, and rye from the east to Flanders and England with cloth (and, increasingly, manufactured goods) going in the other direction. Metal ore (principally copper and iron) and herring came southwards from Sweden.
German colonists under strict Hansa supervision built numerous Hansa cities on and near the east Baltic coast, such as Danzi(above) (Gdańsk), Elbing (Elbląg), Thorn (Toruń), Reval (Tallinn), Riga, and Dorpat (Tartu), some of which still retain many Hansa buildings and bear the style of their Hanseatic days. Most were founded under Lübeck law (Lübisches Recht), which provided that they had to appeal in all legal matters to Lübeck's city council. The Livonian Confederation incorporated parts of modern-day Estonia and Latvia and had its own Hanseatic parliament (diet); all of its major towns became members of the Hanseatic League. The dominant language of trade was Middle Low German, a dialect with significant impact for countries involved in the trade, particularly the larger Scandinavian languages.
The League had a fluid structure, but its members shared some characteristics. First, most of the Hansa cities either started as independent cities or gained independence through the collective bargaining power of the League, though such independence remained limited. The Hanseatic free imperial cities owed allegiance directly to the Holy Roman Emperor, without any intermediate tie to the local nobility.
In fact, at the height of its power in the late 1300s, the merchants of the Hanseatic League succeeded in using their economic clout and sometimes their military might, trade routes needed protecting and the League's ships sailed well-armed, to influence imperial policy.
The League also wielded power abroad. Between 1361 and 1370, the League waged war against Denmark. Initially unsuccessful, Hanseatic towns in 1368 allied in the Confederation of Cologne, sacked Copenhagen and Helsingborg, and forced King Valdemar IV of Denmark and his son-in-law Hakon VI of Norway to grant the League 15% of the profits from Danish trade in the subsequent peace-treaty of Stralsund in 1370, thus gaining an effective trade and political monopoly in Scandinavia. This favourable treaty was the high-water mark of Hanseatic power. The commercial privileges were renewed in the Treaty of Vordingborg, 1435.
The Hansa also waged a vigorous campaign against pirates. Between 1392 and 1440, maritime trade of the League faced danger from raids of the Victual Brothers and their descendants, privateers hired in 1392 by Albert of Mecklenburg against the Queen Margaret I of Denmark. In the Dutch-Hanseatic War (1438—41), the merchants of Amsterdam sought and eventually won free access to the Baltic and broke the Hansa monopoly. As an essential part of protecting their investment in trade and ships, the League trained pilots and erected lighthouses.
Exclusive trade routes often came at a high price. Most foreign cities confined the Hansa traders to certain trading areas and to their own trading posts. They could seldom, if ever, interact with the local inhabitants, except in the matter of actual negotiation. Moreover, many people, merchant and noble alike, envied the power of the League. For example, in London the local merchants exerted continuing pressure for the revocation of the privileges of the League. The refusal of the Hansa to offer reciprocal arrangements to their English counterparts exacerbated the tension. King Edward IV of England reconfirmed the league's privileges in the Treaty of Utrecht (1474) despite this hostility, in part thanks to the significant financial contribution the League made to the Yorkist side during The Wars of the Roses. A century later, in 1597, Queen Elizabeth I of England expelled the League from London and the Steelyard closed the following year. The very existence of the League and its privileges and monopolies created economic and social tensions that often crept over into rivalry between League members.
The economic crises of the late 14th century did not spare the Hansa. Nevertheless, its eventual rivals emerged in the form of the territorial states, whether new or revived, and not just in the west: Poland triumphed over the Teutonic Knights in 1466; Ivan III of Russia ended the entrepreneurial independence of Novgorod in 1478. New vehicles of credit imported from Italy outpaced the Hansa economy, in which silver coin changed hands rather than bills of exchange.
In the 14th century, tensions between Prussian region and the "Wendish" cities (Lübeck and eastern neighbours) rose. Lübeck was dependent on its role as centre of the Hansa, being on the shore of the sea without a major river. Lübeck was on the entrance of the land route to Hamburg, but this land route could be circumvented by the sea travel around Denmark and through the Sound. Prussia's main interest, on the other hand, was primarily the export of bulk products like grain and timber, which were very important for England, the Low Countries, and later on also for Spain and Italy.
In 1454, year of Elisabeth Habsburg's marriage to the Jagiellonian king the towns of the Prussian Confederation rose against the dominance of the Teutonic Order and asked for help from King Casimir IV of Poland. Danzig, Thorn, and Elbing came under the protection of the Kingdom of Poland, (1466–1569 referred to as Royal Prussia) by the Second Peace of Thorn (1466). Polish-Lithuania in turn was heavily supported by the Holy Roman Empire through family connections and by military assistance under the Habsburgs. Kraków, then the capital of Poland, was also a Hansa city with German burghers around 1500. The lack of customs borders on the River Vistula after 1466 helped to gradually increase Polish grain export, transported to the sea down the Vistula, from 10,000 tonnes per year in the late 15th century to over 200,000 tonnes in the 17th century. The Hansa-dominated maritime grain trade made Poland one of the main areas of its activity, helping Danzig to become the Hansa's largest city due to its control of Polish grain exports.
The old and rich port city of Danzig (Gdańsk). View of the Krantor (crane gate)The member cities took responsibility for their own protecting. Polish attempts at subjugating Danzig had to be fought off repeatedly. In 1567 a Hanseatic League Agreement reconfirmed previous obligations and rights of League members, such as common protection and defense against enemies. The Prussian Quartier cities of Thorn, Elbing, Koenigsberg and Riga and Dorpat also signed. When pressed by the king of Poland-Lithuania, Danzig remained neutral and would not allow ships running for Poland into its territory. They had to anchor somewhere else, such as at Puck (or Pautzke as it was named then).
A major benefit for the Hansa was its domination of the shipbuilding market, mainly in Lübeck and in Danzig. The Hansa sold ships everywhere in Europe, including Italy. The Hansa had excluded the Hollanders, because it wanted to favour Bruges as a huge staple market at the end of a trade route. When the Hollanders started to become competitors of the Hansa in shipbuilding, the Hansa tried to stop the flow of shipbuilding technology from Hansa towns to Holland. Danzig, a trading partner of Amsterdam, tried to stall the decision. Dutch ships sailed to Danzig to take grain from the Prussians directly, to the dismay of Lübeck. Hollanders also circumvented the Hansa towns by trading directly with North German princes in non-Hansa towns. Dutch freight costs were much lower than those of the Hansa, and the Hansa were excluded as middlemen.
Bruges, Antwerp and Holland all became part of the same country, the Duchy of Burgundy, which actively tried to take over the monopoly of trade from the Hansa, and the staple market from Bruges was moved to Amsterdam. The Dutch merchants aggressively challenged the Hansa and met with much success. Hanseatic cities in Prussia, Livonia supported the Dutch against the core cities of the Hansa in northern Germany. After several naval wars between Burgundy and the Hanseatic fleets, Amsterdam gained the position of leading port for Polish and Baltic grain from the late 15th century onwards. The Dutch regarded Amsterdam's grain trade as the mother of all trades, Denmark and England tried to destroy the Netherlands in the early 16th century, but failed.
Hanseatic museum in Bergen (Norway)Nuremberg in Franconia developed an overland route to sell formerly Hansa monopolized products from Frankfurt via Nuremberg and Leipzig to Poland and Russia, trading Flemish cloth and French wine in exchange for grain and furs from the east. The Hansa profited from the Nuremberg trade by allowing Nurembergers to settle in Hansa towns, which the Franconians exploited by taking over trade with Sweden as well. The Nuremberger merchant Albrecht Moldenhauer was influential in developing the trade with Sweden and Norway, and his sons Wolf and Burghard established themselves in Bergen and Stockholm, becoming leaders of the Hanseatic activities locally.
At the start of the 16th century the League found itself in a weaker position than it had known for many years. The rising Swedish Empire had taken control of much of the Baltic. Denmark had regained control over its own trade, the Kontor in Novgorod had closed, and the Kontor in Bruges had become effectively defunct. The individual cities which made up the League had also started to put self-interest before their common Hansa interests. Finally the political authority of the German princes had started to grow — and so constrain the independence of action which the merchants and Hanseatic towns had enjoyed.
Heinrich SudermannThe League attempted to deal with some of these issues. It created the post of Syndic in 1556 and elected Heinrich Sudermann as a permanent official with legal training, who worked to protect and extend the diplomatic agreements of the member towns. In 1557 and 1579 revised agreements spelled out the duties of towns and some progress was made. The Bruges Kontor moved to Antwerp and the Hansa attempted to pioneer new routes. However, the League proved unable to halt the progress around it and so a long decline commenced. The Antwerp Kontor closed in 1593, followed by the London Kontor in 1598. The Bergen Kontor continued until 1754; its buildings alone of all the Kontoren survive.
The gigantic Adler von Lübeck, which was constructed for military use against Sweden during the Northern Seven Years' War (1563-70), but never put to military use, epitomized the vain attempts of Lübeck to uphold its long privileged commercial position in a changed economic and political climate.
By the late 16th century, the League had imploded and could no longer deal with its own internal struggles, the social and political changes that accompanied the Protestant Reformation, the rise of Dutch and English merchants, and the incursion of the Ottoman Empire upon its trade routes and upon the Holy Roman Empire itself. Only nine members attended the last formal meeting in 1669 and only three (Lübeck, Hamburg and Bremen).
its collapse, several cities still maintain the link to the Hanseatic League today[update]. The Dutch cities of Deventer, Kampen, Zutphen, and the nine German cities Bremen, Demmin, Greifswald, Hamburg, Lübeck, Lüneburg, Rostock, Stralsund and Wismar still call themselves Hanse cities. Lübeck, Hamburg, and Bremen continue to style themselves officially as "Free and Hanseatic Cities." (Rostock's football team is named F.C. Hansa Rostock in memory of the city's trading past.) For Lübeck in particular, this anachronistic tie to a glorious past remained especially important in the 20th century. In 1937 the Nazi Party removed this privilege through the Greater Hamburg Act after the Senat of Lübeck did not permit Adolf Hitler to speak in Lübeck during his election campaign. He held the speech in Bad Schwartau, a small village on the outskirts of Lübeck. Subsequently, he referred to Lübeck as "the small city close to Bad Schwartau." Three years ago King's Lynn became the only English member of the newly formed modern Hanseatic League, whose members include Hamburg and Lubeck. The "new" HANSE hopes to foster and develop business links and tourism within towns and cities as well as promote cultural exchange.
In 1980, it was decided to re-establish the Hanseatic League as the Hanseatic League of New Time (also known as the New Hansa). Apart from old Hanseatic cities, the New Hansa granted membership to some cities which had not been members of the medieval Hansa but had had wide trade connections with the Hansa in the Middle Ages. The latter include twelve Russian cities, most notably Novgorod, which was a major Russian trade partner of the Hansa in the Middle Ages, even though Russian cities had never been official members of the Hanseatic League. The headquarters of the New Hansa is in Lübeck, Germany. The current President of the Hanseatic League of New Time is Mayor of Lübeck.
