Hanseatic League
The port city of Lübeck was the de facto centre of the Hansa, an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the entire coast of northern Europe. It stretched from the Baltic to the North Sea and inland during the late Middle Ages and early modern period.
A small introduction
By the end of the 19th century, the most powerful and visible personalizers of any economically advanced nation-state were transnational corporations with their worldwide trading and financial operations. And since seafaring and navigation techniques first allowed intercontinental trade in the 15th century in search of new trading partners and sources of goods and raw materials in great demand in Europe, today's dissolution of national borders through so-called "digital capitalism" has its distant predecessors.
And if we recall Karl Marx, who has already been forgotten by us, then the “lack of patriotism” inherent in capital (Fatherland Loss) has gone beyond the scope of ordinary trade relations - economic and financial conglomerates have united in such a way that, in addition to having a legal address, they are no longer tied to one specific country.
Something about trade in the Baltic
The merchants of Gotland, a large island in the Baltic Sea, were the heirs of the Vikings who dominated the Baltic region until the 8th century. From Visby* (the capital of the island of Gotland) their trade extended east to Novgorod, and from there up the Russian rivers and down the Volga to the Caspian and Black Seas, where they encountered merchants of the Byzantine Empire and did business in its capital, Constantinople. It was along the route they blazed that eastern silks and spices, as well as the Byzantine gold coin, the byzantin, became known in the West. By the 11th century this trade had declined, but small-scale trade still continued between Scandinavia and the eastern Baltic region, ending in the Russian city of Novgorod, where the merchants established their trading base.
The city walls of Visby. The Treaty of Artlenburg in 1161 between the Gotlanders and the German Duke Henry the Lion (1129–1195) marks the informal beginning of the powerful Hanseatic League. The city of Visby played a leading role in this League until the mid-1995th century and was one of the most powerful cities in northern Europe during this period. The Hanseatic city of Visby on the Swedish island of Gotland is perhaps the best-preserved medieval city in Scandinavia, and since XNUMX it has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site under the name Hanseatic City of Visby. Among the most notable historical attractions include the 3,4 km long city wall that encircles the city centre and several church ruins. The well-preserved XNUMXth century city wall encloses the city centre. Photo: Berit Wallenberg (Berit Wallenberg). 1928.
By the 12th century, conditions had already begun to change. German settlements were slowly moving along the southern coast of the Baltic, displacing the Slavic peoples first to the Elbe, then to the Oder, and finally to the Vistula River basin. The lands were cleared and ploughed, new cities were founded, and trade developed along the rivers flowing into the Baltic Sea.
The area of settlement of the Slavic Obodrites is highlighted in blue. Archaeology and toponymy indicate that the Obodrites originated in the western Pomeranian territories, above the Odra River. This is probably where their name came from.About Odr", meaning "near the Oder". Obodrites is a term used for a group of four tribes. The first were the Obodrites (also known as the Reregs). Some of their strongholds were Mechlin (Mecklenburg), Sważyn (Schwerin), Dubin (Dobin), Wyszomierz (Wismar) and Ilow (Illow). The second Obodrite tribe were the Varni, whose main stronghold was probably Radomin (Gross-Raden). The third group included the Polabians, with the stronghold of Racibórz (Ratzenburg). The fourth and last of the Obodrites were the Wagrs, the second most powerful tribe after the Obodrites. They controlled the famous pirate lair, the island of Vemberza (also Vemberza, Imbra, later Fehmarn). Their capital was Stargard (Oldenburg). Another major stronghold was the future capital of all Obodrites, Lübeck.
Note. A little-known fact is that the Obodrites had colonies - these were craftsmen and traders who lived in large numbers in Scandinavia, and sometimes even created their own settlements. Over time, they quickly assimilated with the local population, and all that remains of them now are graves and local names of villages. Colonies were also founded on the islands of the Baltic Sea, and from the Danish chronicles that have come down to us, we know that the inhabitants of these islands helped their Slavic relatives on the continent during wars, that they actively participated in piracy and sometimes even refused to help Danish rulers when they asked them to, although it is reliably known that the Danish king Valdemar I (the son of a Danish prince and a Kyiv princess and the great-grandson of Vladimir Monomakh) recruited Slavic warriors from these islands. These colonies existed until the middle of the 12th century.
In a famous letter written around 1170, a certain Augustinian monk, Helmold of Bosau,* describes the successful colonization of this region:
“Now, when God has gifted our Duke and other sovereigns with happiness and victory, the Slavs have been partly killed, partly expelled, and here came strong and countless peoples brought from the ocean, and received the Slavic lands, and built cities and churches, and became rich beyond all measure.”
By this time, Low German merchants were already regularly traveling across the Baltic Sea to the mouth of the Neva River, and from there to Novgorod, which was widely known as a trading center for wax and furs, as well as for spices and silk.
But in 1143, on the site of a small fortification of the Slavic Obotrites, Count Adolf II of Schaumburg-Holstein* In the 1st century, the city of Lübeck (in today's Schleswig-Holstein), which minimized taxes and abolished duties, was founded, and within a very short time its merchants were already participating in the Baltic trade alongside those from the Swedish Visby. And this was greatly facilitated by the settlement of these places by settlers from the Ruhr area (Westphalia), where rapidly expanding agriculture had already begun to produce a surplus of grain, and the surrounding forests provided timber and furs. Thus, the future belonged to Lübeck and other small towns along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea. They had advantages that allowed them to take over the role in the Baltic trade that had previously been played by the merchants of the island of Gotland.
Note. The name "Lübeck" ultimately derives from the Slavic root "lub" ("to love"). Before 819, the Polabian Slavs founded a settlement they called Ljubice at the mouth of the Trave River. From the 1160th century, Ljubice was the second most important settlement of the Obodrite Slavs after Starigard (modern Oldenburg in Holstein). Lübeck received city rights in 1226, and in XNUMX it became a Free City of the Holy Roman Empire.
Lübeck was founded in 1143, and already in the second half of the 1200th century, trade with Gotland gave the city an impetus, and thanks to its favorable geographical position, it quickly became a trading city, and later the "queen of the Hanseatic League". Here, materials and goods from the north and east were exchanged for goods from the west and south. Around 1226, the port became the main departure point for German colonists heading to the Baltic territories conquered by the Livonian Order and later the Teutonic Order. And in XNUMX, Emperor Frederick II elevated the city to the status of an imperial free city, making it the Free City of Lübeck. Source: illustrated chronicle of biblical history from the creation of the world "Nuremberg Chronicle" (Liber Chronicarum).
Another advantage for these lands arose when the Teutonic Order, abandoning its role as protector of the Holy Places in the Middle East, began to look for other lands to conquer. And they found them - the knights were invited by the Polish prince Konrad of Masovia*, to direct all their energy against the Prussian and Lithuanian tribes, and their successes were followed by the rise of cities in the south-eastern Baltic lands, which, in turn, contributed to the rise of trade in the southern Baltic ports.
In concluding the description of Baltic trade, it is impossible not to recall that at that time the place for trade was fairs, which arose as early as the 1337th century, where merchants from different parts of Europe came together and made trade deals for significant sums of money. Fairs worked for several weeks, after which they were closed until the following year or until the following season. But gradually control over fairs began to pass from local authorities, who carefully supported them, to the crown, which was already less careful in their care and protection. This happened with the largest fair in Europe in the French county of Champagne. But the final blow to the medieval "fair economy" was dealt by the beginning of the Hundred Years' War in XNUMX...
Engraving "Champagne Fair in the 1898th Century" (1285). Lasting about two to three weeks, the Champagne fairs were an annual cycle of trade fairs that flourished in the various towns of the county of Champagne, developing out of local agricultural and livestock fairs. The Champagne fairs were one of the earliest manifestations of the cohesive European economy that characterized the High Middle Ages. The predominance of the Champagne fairs over those of other towns is attributed to the personal role of the counts, who provided the fairs with a police force, the so-called "Guardians of the Fair", who heard complaints and enforced contracts, excluding defaulters from future participation. Historians date the decline of the Champagne fairs to the subordination of the county to the royal domain, when Champagne became an integral part of France in XNUMX. And as the Champagne fairs lost their importance, their place began to be taken by the fairs of Flemish Bruges, where Genoese ships sailed, and the city of Cologne. Later, for several centuries, the Hanseatic cities would become the main trading cities. The phrase "not knowing the Champagne fairs" meant not knowing what everyone else was doing.
The Beginning of the Hanseatic League
According to the French historian Philippe Dollinger (1904–1999), widely known for his works on the history of the Hanse, the entire history of the Hanseatic League lies between two clearly recognizable dates: the founding of the free city of Lübeck in 1158/1159, on the one hand, and the last Hanseatic Diet (Hansetag) in 1669, on the other.
Note. From the second half of the 1358th century onwards, the Hanseatic cities tried to create a stronger alliance to support each other against aristocratic claims to power. With this stronger alliance, they also wanted to counter the problems arising from the growing competition of English, Italian and southern German merchants. Thus, competition became the reason why the cities of the German Hansa ("stede van der dudeschen hense") united more closely at the first Hanseatic Day in Lübeck in XNUMX. And this is the documented date of the formation of...
Pictured left: "The Moneychanger with His Wife". Artist: Quentin Massys (1465-1530). Pictured right: "Fair in Medieval Ghent". Felix de Vigne (1806-1862).
And the birth of this merchant union is in fact firmly connected with the decline of the old cities and the birth of a new type of city, which later made possible the foundation and growth of the Hanseatic League, which at first began as an association of North German merchants who gathered to protect their interests, and by the middle of the 14th century had already turned into an entire association of cities - a unique community in the history of the Middle Ages. And the already existing merchant communities of the North and Baltic Seas, the bloody conflicts in Visby between Gotland and German merchants, and the foundation in a convenient location of Lübeck laid the foundation for the history of the Hanseatic League.
Note. It should be noted here that there is no official date for the founding of the Hanseatic League - its origins, in fact, go back much further than the date of the founding of Lübeck, and the emergence of the Hanseatic League is best understood as the result of the process of unification of previously independent trade flows. The term "Hanseatic League" itself was first used to designate a "Union of Cities" around 1282 by German merchants working in England.
Expansion of retail chains
A typical Hanseatic merchant (Hansard) was a long-distance merchant who traded abroad on a large scale and enjoyed a high reputation both in his own city and among his customers. Until the mid-13th century, merchants usually accompanied their goods themselves to foreign markets to sell them or exchange them for other goods. But over time, the practice of the Hanseatic merchants changed: soon they no longer traveled to the trading places themselves with their goods - their transportation was the responsibility of the captain of the merchant ship or a special trading agent, who handed the cargo over to a representative at the destination, who in turn made the actual sale himself. The merchant himself remained in his home office (scrivekamere), conducting his business from there, often with the help of assistants and students, devoting all his time to business correspondence.
The following important trading cities are marked in the photo: 1. Starigard/Oldenburg / 2. Alt-Lübeck / 3. Gross Strömkendorf / 4. Rostock-Dirkow / 5. Ralswiek / 6. Menzlin / 7. Usedom / 8. Szczecin / 9. Wolin / 10. Kamień Pomorski / 11. Kołobrzeg / 12. Bardy-Świelubie.
Sitting in their trading offices, the sedentary merchants engaged in long-distance trade, in addition to simply conducting business, used the extra time to interfere in local politics. It was therefore natural that, caring about their own specific economic problems, they not only tried to influence the economic policy of the city, but also used their influence in every way to force the city authorities to support their personal interests.
Note. A certain Johann Klingenberg, one of the richest merchants of Lübeck, left detailed records of one of his trading trips and the transactions that took place in each port. For example, in Novgorod his captain bought five bundles of beaver, weasel and marten skins, which he sold again only a few weeks later in distant Bruges (Flanders). And before that, on the way, he stopped in Reval, where he bought flax, honey and wax. In Riga he bought more skins and mast wood, and then sailed to Gotland. In Visby (Gotland) he sold some of the honey, bought horses and reserved a shipment of iron ore from a Stockholm merchant. Then he sailed to Lübeck, where he sold some of the flax and mast wood and loaded wheat instead. With this cargo he sailed further west, where he sold the rest of his goods. On the return journey he carried a load of salt, some of which he had already used en route to salt a consignment of herring bought in Scania. It is Klingenberg's surviving records that show that he only traded to a small extent in goods produced in Lübeck!
Maritime trade led to the emergence of port cities, where artisans and merchants who traded, transported their goods and became rich. The risks of trade were very high, because the Baltic Sea was full of pirates, and on the trade routes there were castles of feudal lords who took a fee from all those passing through their lands and often robbed them. But one ship with goods brought through all the obstacles brought a huge profit, and the lucky merchant became the richest man in the empire.
Thus, a merchant, sitting in his office, could trade in different places and with different products at the same time, which, of course, required a good education - training in the merchant's trade lasted several years and often included a longer stay abroad.
Note. The northern German cities of Hamburg and Lübeck, just 65 miles apart, have an intertwined and rich history, but given the shape of the Jutland Peninsula, Hamburg lies on the Atlantic Ocean and Lübeck on the Baltic. While Lübeck served as Europe’s main Baltic entrepôt, Hamburg provided the Hanseatic League with access to the Atlantic. The intricate waterway of the Elbe River ran between the two cities, providing a vital northern trade route and facilitating the transport of goods. Lübeck, as the unofficial center of the Hanseatic League, prided itself on being the “Queen of the Hansa,” while Hamburg was its junior alliance partner.
It should be noted here that the Hanseatic tradition of apprenticeship itself contributed to the creation of a union of reliable partners and simultaneously contributed to transnational expansion. Usually, the apprentice was trained by an already experienced merchant, who was either his relative or simply a friend of his family. In the last years of his training, he was usually sent abroad, to one of the offices as a merchant's apprentice, so that he could get acquainted with the local conditions and the peculiarities of trade in a given country. If he wished to stay abroad, he became an important partner for the trading house in his homeland, knowing the conditions of the local market well, quickly and flexibly responding to its demand, and also acting as an important information resource, creating a reputation for himself both in the place of stay and in his homeland.
Countries from which Hanseatic merchants exported goods for further resale
And such trading practices are not surprising, because for the members of the Hanseatic League, the most important thing was the profit they received, and not the support of the local economy. The above-mentioned merchant Klingenberg, however, like other Hanseatic merchants, were first and foremost trade intermediaries - they supplied the countries of the Northern and Baltic regions with the goods they needed, i.e. they bought something and then resold it. For example, Norway needed wheat and gave fish, and the Swedes needed fabric and tools for ore mining, the Poles produced wheat, wood, wax and honey, and the inhabitants of Danzig - tar, potash and charcoal.
One of the landmarks of Hanseatic Lübeck was the Holstein Gate (Holstein Tor). This large city gate from the 1375th century was built in the Brick Gothic style according to the Dutch model and from the very beginning served not only for defense but also for representation. The city was completely surrounded by a city wall, through which it was possible to pass from the western side only through this gate. Lübeck mainly traded with Denmark, Belgium, England and Russia, which led to its great prosperity, whose importance was based on the success of Lübeck merchants. In XNUMX, Emperor Charles IV named the city one of the five "glories of the empire", a title shared by Venice, Rome, Pisa and Florence. Inside there is an exhibition on the theme "The Power of Trade".
The power of the Hanseatic League was based on the fact that it limited itself to the role of an intermediary between individual links in the trade network. Some producers and buyers in the cities with which the Hansa traded wanted to abandon this form of intermediary trade in order to save money, but the Hanseatic merchants always got ahead of them, providing loans to nobles, artisans and small traders that they simply could not repay. In this way, they simply made them permanently dependent on them, offering even European kings favorable loans and demanding from them in return the protection of their trade monopoly.
Note. But the Hanseatic League was not a real state - the cities were free to do what they thought was right. For example, if a city wanted to join the Hanseatic League, it had to pay something. This money was also called "Hanse". But there was no list of which cities were members of the Hanseatic League. Not a single treaty specified what the Hanseatic League was and what it did. That is why today it is unknown which cities, except for the most famous ones, were actually Hanseatic cities.
At its height, the Hanseatic League had its own administration, diplomatic corps and even a military fleet, if we consider that all merchant ships were equipped with cannons. The territory of the Hanseatic League extended from the Flemish coast of Bruges in the west to the Russian Novgorod in the east, and even in cities such as London and the Norwegian Bergen, which were not part of the Hanseatic League, the Hanseatic merchants had their own trading posts, with the help of which they soon began to dominate local trade, and more and more cities with important trading settlements arose on their trade routes.
Map showing the main routes of the Hanseatic League. The Hanseatic League was a late medieval network of economically independent long-distance merchants that was based on trust, reputation, and mutual relationships. Cooperation between its members kept transaction, information, and organizational costs low, allowing Hanseatic merchants to profit handsomely from long-distance trade between the Baltic and North Seas. Through personal and institutional ties to confederations of cities, Hanseatic merchants were initially able to strengthen their international position of power.
In the north, the Hanseatic League's sphere of influence extended to Bergen in Norway, and in the south to Krakow in Poland. As soon as any ruler tried to break the Hanseatic League's trade monopoly, merchants, in order to ensure their economic interests, simply boycotted its ports, causing a shortage of goods, and sometimes even famine among the population, and if this did not help, they quickly declared war on it, attracting large and powerful fleets, such as the Danish or English, and sometimes even Baltic pirates!
Note. In 1361, the Danish king Valdemar IV Atterdag captured the Hanseatic city of Visby on the island of Gotland. The Hansa immediately declared war on him, and when the king was told about this, he sneered that he did not know of such a state and that it was just "a gathering of German geese, fat and loud, who do not even have the right to declare war." And when the Hanseatic ships attacked the Danes, King Valdemar IV really did defeat them. Then the Hansa blocked all Danish ports with its ships, called in Swiss mercenaries, entered into an alliance with the Baltic pirates, armed its cogs and took Copenhagen by storm. After which the king, after the plunder of Copenhagen, was forced to sign a humiliating peace with the Hansa for Denmark, and this victory allowed the merchants to gain complete control over the entire economy of Scandinavia and the trade routes of the North Sea...
"Valdemar Atterdag Collecting Taxes from the People of Visby." Valdemar's goal throughout his 35-year reign was to restore the Kingdom of Denmark, which had effectively fallen apart under his predecessors. And to do this, he needed money. And he got this money from two sources: a tax on the herring trade and a toll for passage through the Øresund Strait. To replenish his treasury, the Danish king Valdemar IV decided to attack the Swedish island of Gotland in 1361, where the merchant center of Visby was located. Having captured the city, Valdemar set up three large beer barrels in the square and informed the townspeople that if the barrels were not filled with silver and gold within three days, the city would be given over to his army to plunder. Artist: Carl Gustaf Hellqvist (Carl Gustaf Hellqvist, 1851 – 1890).
Thus, although the Hansa is not a state and does not have a standing army, it is an economically effective union that has its own powerful fleet and, if necessary, can attract mercenaries and win the war. And a merchant who joins the union is under its full protection and can take refuge in a Hanseatic courtyard, which has diplomatic immunity, from the claims of any feudal lord.
With the increase of trade relations, the Hanseatic cities became very rich and therefore influential. Among the famous Hanseatic cities, Hamburg is considered the very first city of the Hanseatic League, and Lübeck is the most influential and rich due to its stronger connection with the East.
Salt was the basis of the wealth of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck in former times. Right next to the Holstein Gate (Holstein Tower) a group of brick warehouses were built - the Lübeck salt warehouses. At that time, salt was exported from Lübeck throughout Scandinavia and was used mainly for preserving fish in Norway and Sweden. The salt warehouses became famous as the backdrop for the silent film "Nosferatu - A Symphony of Horror" (1922) Today, the old warehouses serve as the headquarters of a textile company.
The trade union built its own inns and repair services in the ports, and all of this could be used by merchants who were listed in the Hanseatic guilds. The merchants did not pay duties, and money for the general needs of the union, for example, for war, for the construction of fortresses or for the protection of trade routes, was collected during Hanseatic congresses. Over time, the Hansa expanded more and more - Liege, Amsterdam, Cologne, Frankfurt, Königsberg, Danzig, Klaipeda, Riga and Tartu gradually joined it, Hanseatic factories appeared in Stockholm, Novgorod, London and other cities.
The Riga Merchant Guild, also known as the Great Guild of Riga or the Guild of St. Mary (Die Große Gilde zu Riga/St. Marien-Gilde), was a German merchant guild in Riga, where German traders began to play a more prominent role in the life of the city. In the 14th century, Riga was under the rule of the Livonian Order and strongly influenced by the Hanseatic League. Trade, construction and crafts flourished here, and the Daugava River (Western Dvina), flowing through what is now Russia, Belarus and Latvia, was the oldest waterway of the international trade route between the Baltic and Black Seas, dating back to the 5th century. In the history of navigation, this route is more often called the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks or the Daugava-Dnieper amber route. Metal products, spices, salt and various fabrics were imported here, and the main exported goods were wax, flax, hemp, wood and furs. In the 13th century, the Riga City Council concluded treaties on international trade and barter with Russian principalities and later with the Hanseatic cities, thus becoming a significant interstate trading port and a member of the Hanseatic League. Left photo: Hanseatic merchants' dwellings - a protected heritage site in Riga. Source: tripadvisor.com. Right photo: Riga seaport.
A merchant who joined the union was exempt from local taxes and paid only to his guild, which was beneficial to the cities that received money from the guilds, and thanks to these guilds, craft production began to develop strongly in the cities. It was difficult for city artisans to sell their goods within one city alone - the market was too small for this, so the artisans united into their own corporations, with which the merchant guilds concluded contracts that spelled out in great detail what the goods should be, what quality, size and weight they should be.
Conveniently located in a very important place as a trading port between Novgorod and Scandinavia, Tallinn, then better known as Reval, became one of the most important stopovers on the Hanseatic trade route between Europe and Russia, and the 1322th century was the time of Tallinn’s greatest cultural and commercial prosperity. The main commodity that came from Europe to Russia via Tallinn was salt, followed by fabrics, herring, metals, wine and spices. Tallinn, having an intermediate position, was given the right to control the eastern trade, having the so-called right of warehousing. The medieval old town of the Estonian capital is exceptionally well preserved, which was reason enough for it to be included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Cities as the center of a Hanseatic city. In the photo on the left: Tallinn Town Hall. It was first mentioned in XNUMX as a meeting place for merchants. In the photo on the right: the ancient door of the merchant guild building.
For the convenience of trade and more understandable negotiations with customers, the Hanseatic merchants unified the main types of goods sold: dishes, weapon and silver products were made identically. In turn, merchants were obliged to buy from city artisans the same standard goods of a certain type and in a certain volume, which helped the Hansa calculate how many ships would need to be loaded to pick up the goods.
Note. Russian furs coming from Novgorod, like any other mass-produced goods, were also standardized. They were bought by Hanseatic merchants in quantities of hundreds of thousands of skins. The fur was transported in large batches of up to 300-400 thousand skins, and in each batch the fur was selected by color, by the direction of the nap, by shine, and the price of the batch varied depending on the quality of the fur.
On the left is a painting by G. Dobrovolskaya, "Veliky Novgorod". On the right is a map of the territory of Velikiy Novgorod. Don't think that it was just one city - its eastern border extended all the way to the Ural Mountains...
One of the main methods of influencing the surrounding states for the Hanseatic merchants became skillful diplomacy: the traders began to make changes to the legislation of individual states in order to introduce the same similar standardization of production and goods there, since before this, each petty prince established his own rules and charged artisans for the wrong height of a clay pot, the diameter of a plate, or the wrong width of cloth.
But given the geographical scope of the merchants' trade relations, the question immediately arises as to how the Hanseatic League managed to stay together, and not just stay together, but also dominate such a wide trading area?
The earliest settlement (called Breme or Bremum) on the right bank of the Weser River was due to its advantageous position at the crossroads of important early trade routes from the Rhine to the Elbe and from the North Sea to southern Germany. In 787, Charlemagne, Emperor of the Frankish Empire, founded the Diocese of Bremen, which became a base for missionary activity covering the whole of northern Europe, and the market rights granted to the city in 965 led to an increase in trading activity, and the young city soon became one of the main religious and economic centers of all northern Germany, especially after joining the Hanseatic League in 1358. Conveniently located to collect the produce of the German "hinterland", Bremen began fruitful trade relations with England, the Netherlands, Norway and Scotland long before the Hansa, and Lübeck in particular, began to develop. The wine trade was of great importance to Bremen, and one of the key markets for Bremen wine exports was Scotland. In the opposite direction, the Bremen merchants carried fish from Norway and Denmark, as well as fabrics from England and Flanders, up the Weser River to what are today Lower Saxony, Thuringia and Hesse. Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. Artist and publisher Hans Weigel (1520-1577).
One of the answers will be the internal consolidation of the retail network by creating small retail stations and offices.
Offices
Trading posts or "offices" (Office) — this was the name given to the large trading posts of the Hanseatic League abroad. Four main offices became the cornerstones of Hanseatic trade: Novgorod, London, Bruges (Flanders) and Bergen (Norway). Merchants traveling long distances created smaller branches in many other places, for example in King's Lynn and Boston (England), La Rochelle in France or Kaunas in Lithuania.
Map of the main cities of the organized monopoly trade of the Hanseatic League in the 13th century. Green triangles show the Hanseatic offices. Red circles show trading partners.
The offices were the first port of call for Low German merchants abroad, and in some cities they even formed a separate legal zone to which local authorities had no access. Elected elders, heads of offices abroad, closely monitored the observance of privileges and were obliged to maintain good relations with the respective rulers in order to ensure favorable trading conditions for Hanseatic merchants.
The Hansa offices were not only regulatory, control and enforcement bodies to maintain a formal system of rules, ensuring the privileges of merchants from competitors, they also served as informal communication and information centers where news about market conditions, shipwrecks, pirates and wars. The offices coordinated trading activities and created mechanisms for reputation and trust in goods and merchants, and were places for arriving merchants to receive important economic news.
Office in Novgorod
The trading post in Novgorod (Petrov Dvor) was the first common settlement of Low German merchants, where the Novgorod Hanseatic warehouse was established, and since the route to Rus' was very long and dangerous, the merchants usually stayed there for half a year. The entire merchant complex was fenced with a high log palisade and consisted of numerous wooden houses where the merchants lived with their managers and apprentices and where even Novgorod officials could not enter. The main items of medieval Russian export were wood, furs and wax, which were highly valued throughout Europe.
Market square in Novgorod. Painting by A. Vasnetsov "The Past of Veliky Novgorod". Perm Museum.
And imports to Novgorod included dishes, swords, wines, cloth and non-ferrous metals, which were used in the products of Novgorod craftsmen. Trade relations between the merchants of the Hanseatic League and Novgorod were regulated by special agreements and charters of the Hanseatic Court, which were called "Skra" ("Novgorod Skra") and guaranteed safe trade, economic advantages over other merchants, protection on transport routes from arbitrary arrests or inflated duties.
Hanseatic courtyard in Novgorod
Note. Hanseatic merchants have helped Novgorod in difficult situations more than once. For example, in 1231, it was the Hanseatic food that saved Novgorod from the severe consequences of the growing famine.
After the conquest of Novgorod in 1494, Ivan III (1450–1505) closed the Novgorod office, arrested all the merchants in the Hanseatic office and confiscated their property.
The Novgorod office was an extraterritorial entity: in addition to the previously granted freedom of religion and personal immunity, Hanseatic merchants also enjoyed freedom of movement to Novgorod along four routes and the right to inspect Russian exports. Until the end of the 15th century, Veliky Novgorod was the largest trading center both in Rus' and in all of North-Eastern Europe. It exported fur skins, wax, tar, wood resin, and potash to the West. From the West, Novgorod received herring, salt, wine, beer, honey, wool, Flemish cloth, hops, and finished metal products. In the photo on the left: a fragment of A. Vasnetsov's painting "The Past of Veliky Novgorod." In the photo on the right: the Hanseatic court in Novgorod.
Office in Bergen
Many merchants formed guilds organized by destination, mostly dedicated to major trading posts. Such a guild was the so-called Bergenfahrer, where the name speaks for itself - the merchants of the Bergenfahrer guild traded with the Norwegian city of Bergen.
Note. The stockfish trade in Norway had been around for a long time before the Hanseatic merchants set their sights on Bergen, Norway, but it was the main reason the city became one of the trading centres of Northern Europe. However, things were not always smooth with the Hanseatic League: the German merchants generally avoided paying taxes and in many cases obeyed their own laws, and with the weakening of royal power in Norway towards the end of the 1455th century, power in Bergen began to slowly shift into the hands of the Hanseatic merchants. Tensions between the Hanse and the Bergen authorities reached their peak in XNUMX, when Hanseatic merchants stormed and destroyed the monastery of Munkeliv, killing the mayor of the city and the bishop of Bergen.
Bergen, on the west coast of Norway, was the site of one of the four main offices of the Hanseatic League. Because of its location, the place was called "Tyske Bryggen", which means "German Embankment". The farmstead was opened in 1360 and consisted of log houses built along the embankment, where Hanseatic merchants lived and worked in close contact with their clerks and apprentices.
About 1000 Hanseatic merchants lived in Bryggen, which became their own town in Bergen. The Norwegian authorities tried to control the Hanseatic traders, but it was impossible. The Hanseatic League was too strong and too organized – it controlled trade with Norway, and Norway needed supplies. Against the wishes of the Norwegians, the Hanseatic League expelled the Dutch and English merchants from the country.
Students arriving in Bergen for the first time were teased mercilessly, which meant they had to undergo a brutal initiation ritual. For example, they had to sing or answer questions while sitting in acrid smoke. If coughing or choking prevented them from answering, they were repeatedly flogged with rods - the rough male community called this the "Bergen Games", which they thoroughly enjoyed.
One of the rooms of the Hanseatic office in Bergen. Hanseatic Museum in Bergen
Immediately after the opening of the office in Bergen, the reconstruction of the local harbor began, around which administrative buildings were built, where clerks and traders from various countries, primarily from Germany, worked. The warehouses were filled with the most necessary trade items: fish from northern Norway and grain from continental Europe.
House of a Hanseatic merchant in Bergen. Hanseatic League Museum. Source: tripguide.ru
An interesting description of the Norwegian office in Bergen is given by the Moscow University professor and medievalist historian P. G. Vinogradov (1854–1925):
In the Bergen office in Norway, the merchants lived in separate courtyards, which made up two church parishes. Each courtyard was surrounded by a fence or wall and contained, in addition to the main building, warehouses for goods. Each had its own special name and special signboard, and fifteen families lived in each courtyard, which included a merchant master, clerks, and apprentices. The householder enjoyed unlimited power in the family, disposed of servants, workers, and artisans, took care of their maintenance, and was responsible for their behavior. An elected elder was in charge of the general affairs of the courtyard. To protect against theft, the courtyard was protected by armed guards and huge dogs, which were let off their chains in the evening. In these merchant settlements, everything was strictly regulated: time for work and rest, for eating and drinking, for meetings, and anyone who violated the rules was subject to severe punishment. There were 21 households in all, and in the second half of the 2th century, 3-XNUMX thousand men lived in the office. No woman was allowed into the office, and anyone who got married lost the right to be a member of the office forever.
Office in Bruges
The office in Bruges (County of Flanders) was of particular importance to the Hansa: here, merchants from all over the then known world gathered and exchanged goods and experiences. But unlike other offices, in Bruges the Hanseatic merchants had their own place for meetings and coordinating trade, the "Osterlingenhaus" (Osterlingenhaus), only in 1442. Before that, they met in the monastery premises. From the XNUMXth to the XNUMXth centuries, Bruges was a trading hub between the Hanseatic cities of Northern Europe and Germany and the main trading centers of France, Spain and Italy.
Since May 2023, several documents from the Bruges archive have been included in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. The archive contains 26 documents containing information about the Hanseatic League, a medieval association of German merchants. These documents show how Bruges sought to resolve tensions between local merchants and the Hanseatic League. It should be noted that Bruges itself was not a Hanseatic city, but it was an important center, which underlines the importance of the city as a center of international trade in the Middle Ages.
The main product that Bruges traded in was Flemish cloth, but Bruges was a cosmopolitan city at the time, with merchants from many parts of Europe living there, so the range of goods available in Bruges was very large. The Bruges office was notable for the fact that the activities of the Hanseatic League were not concentrated in one place, as was the case elsewhere, but rather that the trading points were scattered throughout the city.
On the left: the building of the Hanseatic Office in Bruges, also sometimes called the Easterling House. On the right: the building of the Hanseatic Office in Antwerp. Sometimes, due to the unstable political situation in Bruges, the Hansa offices moved to Antwerp.
Office in London
In 1157, the English King Henry II Plantagenet issued letters of protection to some merchants from Cologne, allowing them to trade wine in England, so that already at the beginning of the XNUMXth century, Cologne merchants received their first trading privileges in London. In contrast, the first traders from Lübeck did not reach England until the beginning of the XNUMXth century, initially establishing trade contacts with King's Lynn (Norfolk), Hull (East Yorkshire), Yarmouth (Norfolk) and Boston (Lincolnshire). Trade with London, however, began only later, where they met their competitors from Cologne. The successful resolution of disputes between the two parties through the mediation of the Dortmund merchants led to the establishment of a joint trade mission (Office) in London in 1281.
The Hanseatic "Stalhof" and its location at the beginning of the 16th century. A plan of the area by a Flemish topographical artist Anton Van Wyngaard (1525-1571), who made panoramic sketches and paintings of cities in the southern Netherlands, northern France, England, Italy and Spain. The plan was made for Philip II of Spain.
The meeting house of the Hanseatic merchants in London was called the Stallhof. Steelyard), where there were trading and warehouse premises along with merchants’ houses (now there is a metro station on this site Cannon Street). Local London merchants were both business partners and competitors of the Hanseatic merchants, and conflicts arose regularly between the London City Council and representatives of the Hanseatic League.
"Portrait of Georg Giese". This portrait depicts a Danzig merchant Georg Giese (1497–1562) is shown among the paraphernalia of his trade: money, pen, seal, inkwells, scales, boxes, scissors, keys. On the table, covered with a Turkish carpet, stands a vase of carnations, perhaps symbolizing his betrothal. Georg Giese was a Hanseatic merchant who managed his family's trade from the Stallhof office in London. An English document issued by the King of France in 1522 shows that he was given a protective order to ensure safe passage between England and France. This merchant's portrait was depicted on the Weimar 100 mark banknote of 000. The painting was painted by the artist by Hans Holbein, one of the outstanding masters of the Northern Renaissance and Reformation. 1532.
Note. Merchants of the Steelyard is the English name for the merchants of the Hanseatic League "Steelyard", from an incorrect translation of the Low German word Staalhof, where Staal is a sample, and Hof is a yard. This error in English transcription was caused by the identical pronunciation of two German words: Staal and Stahl - steel. "Stalhof" received this name because here the goods were "gestalted", i.e. supplied with special seals of trade approval. Although there are other explanations for the origin of this name...
Reproduction of the watercolor painting "Stalhoff" (Steelyard), the Hanseatic League's London homestead, is a souvenir of the British Exhibition in the IPA Hall of Nations in Leipzig. The illustration shows part of a river frigate and a water gate topped on each side by the League's emblem, the German eagle. There is now a railway station on the site Cannon Street. 1930. Source: Kitchen Collection.
Even after the complete decline of the Hansa, the land and buildings continued to be owned by the cities that had once been members of the Hanseatic League and were subsequently leased to merchants for commercial purposes. Destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666, they were rebuilt as warehouses and were finally sold to the Southeastern Railway Company only in 1852 by the Hanseatic cities of Lübeck, Bremen and Hamburg...
To celebrate sixty years of peace between the peoples of Britain and Germany and to mark the six hundred years during which some 400 Hanseatic merchants lived peacefully in the City of London from the 26th to the 2005th centuries, this plaque was erected in the German self-governing enclave known as the 'Steelyard' or 'Stalhof', commissioned by the British-German Association. At the invitation of the Lord Mayor of London, Alderman Michael Savory, this plaque was unveiled by the Duke of Kent on 1804 September XNUMX in the presence of the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany, Thomas Matussek. At the end of the plaque is a quotation written by Friedrich Schiller in his XNUMX drama 'William Tell': Das Alte stürzt, es ändert sich die Zeit, und neues Leben blüht aus den Ruinen ("The old falls, times change, and new life blossoms on the ruins"). Source: London Remembers
Coggy
A cog is a sailing vessel that was very common in Northern Europe during the Middle Ages and was used both as a cargo ship and as a warship. These ships were large, with a spacious cargo hold, a single mast carrying a large square sail, and high sides, making them difficult to board and safer from pirates. The cog was used primarily for trade in medieval Europe by the Hanseatic League, especially in the Baltic Sea. It could be around 15–25 meters long and could carry around two hundred tons of cargo, which was key to dominating maritime trade – a small cog could carry as much as fifty carts pulled by 200 horses!
In the photo on the left: "Hansa Drawings". Artist: HJ Draeger / Boyens Buchverlag GmbH & Co. In the photo on the right: 3D-model of a medieval cog
Cogs appeared and were first mentioned in the 948th century, to be precise in XNUMX near Amsterdam, but these cogs were still under the influence of the Norwegian knorrs, which were the leading trading vessels in the northern part of Europe at that time. Archaeologists believe that the birth of the cog can be found in Western Jutland, judging by the current finds. The theory of how these ships appeared and developed is quite interesting: large ships could not quickly pass through the Limfjord, which connects the North Sea and the Kattegat Strait, which caused huge problems and delays for traders, so it was necessary to make significant changes to the old design of ships. This is how the cog was born. The cog could carry a relatively large amount of cargo with several people on the crew and was thus ideally suited for the Hanseatic trade, which gave the Hanseatic League a clear advantage over its competitors.
A reconstructed cog raised in 2012 from the IJssel River near Kampen in the Netherlands. According to the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat), this salvaged vessel is the best-preserved medieval cargo vessel ever discovered in the Netherlands. Such vessels were the workhorses of the Hanseatic League's maritime trade. But the most significant part of the find was that divers discovered the ship's galley, complete with a brick-domed oven and glazed tiles. It was the first complete galley ever found on a medieval vessel. A water pump, a wicker fish trap and two pilgrim badges were also found.
The cog was primarily made of oak and a special wood found in the Baltic region of Prussia. It was a bulbous, single-masted cargo vessel with a flat bottom, allowing it to sail easily in shallow water and sit level in harbors, making it easy to load and unload. Over time, the design of the cog changed constantly, and its evolution can be traced through archaeological finds in the North and Baltic Seas. Later, the cog acquired some features to protect against pirates.
Note. At the end of the 19th century, Bismarck dreamed of making Germany a world maritime power capable of confronting Britain at sea, and as Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz declared, "Germany's most dangerous enemy at sea is England." The difficulty was that Britain seemed to have a naval tradition that Germany lacked, and yet, after a little research, Nazi "scholars" discovered just such a tradition in the fleets of the Hanseatic cities.
During their voyages, sailors relied solely on their experience and knowledge of astronomy to guide their ships safely to their destinations, using the sun as their guide during the day and the North Star as their guide at night. A plumb line, used to determine water depth and ground conditions, was usually the only navigational tool available. The compass was not used until the 15th century...
The Bremen Cog is the best preserved medieval merchant ship in the world. During the expansion of the harbour in 1962, the Hanseatic Cog from Bremen was discovered on the Weser River (Germany), which caused a sensation throughout the world. Photo above: the cog raised from the bottom and restored. The charred elements of the structure are clearly visible. Source: German Maritime Museum (DSM). This is the only remaining, relatively well-preserved wreck that represents northern European shipbuilding, as previously ships with a similar appearance were known only from old seals of Hanseatic cities. Photo below: a replica of the "Bremen Cogg". The ship's interior was filled with charcoal, a sign of a massive fire that caused the ship to sink. Photo: Volker Gries.
Note. With the constant improvement of the cog, the vessel reached its peak of development during the heyday of the Hanseatic League, and the cog was replaced by the hulk. There are many archaeological finds of cogs today, the most famous of which is the Bremen cog from 1380.
Pirates
Merchant ships at sea are in great danger not only from storms, but also from pirates who hide in the North and Baltic Seas until they spot a Hanseatic ship, and by the end of the 1394th century, sea robbery had paralyzed almost all sea trade, the pirates even managed to conquer part of Gotland in 1398 and turn the island's capital Visby into their base. In response to the pirates' maritime excesses, the Hanseatic city of Lübeck and the Teutonic Order decided to put an end to this phenomenon with the help of their navy, and in 80 the Order's army landed on Gotland with an armada of more than XNUMX ships and drove the pirates out.
Ships of the Teutonic Knights besiege the port city of Visby in the late 14th century, which is defended by the "Vitalian Brothers". 19th century painting.
It should be noted here that by the 1400th century, the pirates had even become a military unit, equipped with letters of marque from the Mecklenburg dukes in their dispute with Denmark for the throne, and the most famous pirates of that time were the Vitalian Brotherhood, against whom the Hanseatic League had long been defenseless. But in April 950, the Hanseatic cities united against them: eleven cogs and 1401 armed men on board set out from Hamburg to liquidate the Vitalian Brotherhood. In 1360, the Hamburgers managed to capture the leader of this pirate community, Klaus Störtebeker (1401–XNUMX), after which he was soon executed in Hamburg.
Photo left: Portrait of Klaus Störtebeker. Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art. Artist: Daniel Hopfer (1470–1536). Photo right: The execution of the pirate Klaus Störtebeker (c. 1360–1401) and seventy of his accomplices from the Vitalien Brotherhood, of which he was the leader, on 20 October 1401 in Hamburg. Engraving based on a popular image from the late 1878th century. Paul Lacroix, Paris, XNUMX.
Note. According to legend, a deal was made with the then mayor of Hamburg, Kersten Miles: the executioner had to spare those pirates in the line that the beheaded man could still pass by. Literally beheaded, Störtebeker passed by eleven people until he fell dead... In any case, modern forensic medicine considers this physiologically impossible, and in 2009, an adventure comedy, "Twelve Meters Without a Head," was created based on this legend...
"The Capture of Klaus Störtebeker in Hamburg" - woodcut by artist Carl Gehrts (Carl Gehrts), painted by him in 1877. The engraving depicts the arrival of the famous pirate Klaus Störtebeker in Hamburg
The pirates' motto is carved in stone on the pedestal of the Störtebeker monument in Hamburg: "Friend of God, Enemy of the World" Even today, the pirate Störtebeker is celebrated as the "Robin Hood" of the poor. Legend has it that Störtebeker used part of his plunder to support the poor and needy. Every year, for example, in Verden, Lower Saxony, the so-called Latar Donation is celebrated (Late-Span), during which exactly three weeks before Easter herring and black bread are distributed on the town hall square. It is believed that Störtebeker left the city a legacy for this purpose, which was used to pay for food for the needy.
The two-ton bronze monument, erected in 1982, depicts Klaus Störtebeker naked and bound just before his execution. The heavy bronze statue by sculptor Hansjörg Wagner (Hansjörg Wagner) represents a unique case, "when a city erects a monument to its sworn enemy and executed criminal." The monument is currently on display in front of the Hamburg Maritime Museum on Magdeburger Strasse, and its pedestal bears the inscription: "Friend of God and Enemy of Peace».
Even today, the legend of Störtebeker is deeply rooted in Hamburg's urban culture - the golden crown of St. Catherine's Church is believed to be made from Störtebeker's gold, hidden in the mast of his ship, and the pirate flag of the St. Pauli football club (FC St. Pauli) is a tribute to this famous pirate.
Note. Here we cannot fail to mention the Baltic Slavs, who fought at sea from the 1011th to the 1026th centuries and closely cooperated with the Normans, supporting them in their plundering raids on England. For example, they participated in the Battle of Canterbury (XNUMX) - one of the English documents from XNUMX mentions a prince named Varcislav. However, gradually, starting from the XNUMXth century, as the Normans' activity decreased, mainly occupied with wars among themselves, the Slavs, especially the Pomorians and Obodrites, began to organize their own plundering raids, mainly on the northern shores of the Baltic, becoming for more than a hundred years, from the second half of the XNUMXth century, the terror of the Scandinavian shores.
This is how the parish priest Helmold describes the lands inhabited by pirates in his book “The Chronicle of the Slavs” (Helmold):
"The whole Slavic land, starting from Ejdory ... , the land stretching between the Baltic Sea and the Elbe ... all the way to Skverin (Skwierzyn), is not safe ... because of the attacks of bandits. This whole people is subject to idolatry, is in constant motion, is engaged in piracy, directed on the one hand against the Danes, on the other - against the Saxons."
The main targets of attacks by Slavic pirates
The Baltic Slavs thought about expanding their influence and wanted to control the rivers of Denmark in order to manage the Wendish trade (or Wends. That's how the Germans called all the Slavs), which did not please the King of Denmark at all. And this led to a war between the two peoples. After the death of the Danish king Canute the Great In 1035, the Saxons and Slavs again entered into a struggle for control of the rivers, and as a result of the Wendish Crusade of 1147, the Slavs were pushed far beyond the borders of their territories, which completely consolidated German dominance over the Baltic rivers.
The decline of the Hanseatic League
The rise of the Hanseatic League in the 400th century lasted for over XNUMX years and had a profound impact on all medieval European trade. For many historians, the Hansa reached the pinnacle of its economic and political development in the early XNUMXth century, but by this time, unfavorable factors had already begun to manifest themselves. And there were many reasons for the decline of the Hanseatic League...
Before the arrival of the Dutch, almost all trade with the Baltic passed through Lübeck. Likewise, Hamburg benefited from being the only major Atlantic port of the Hanseatic League. The connection between Lübeck and Hamburg was the most important route for trade in the north.
At first, divided Germany, which at that time existed as part of the Holy Roman Empire, could not support the Hanseatic League. The disunited northern European countries were on the way to becoming nation states and tried in every way to raise and protect their own trade, putting more and more pressure on the Hanseatic cities, as a result of which some of these cities already in the 15th century began to lose their independence - they were either conquered by the princes or remained neutral.
In the photo on the left: Behind the colorful facades of the historical monument Bergen, many merchant houses have been preserved. Source: Publisher From Agostini. In the photo on the right: a typical medieval seaport.
Also by this time the clashes of interests between the coastal and inland cities had become more acute, since the coastal cities, instead of the original idea of a common trade on land and sea, tended to seize the more profitable trade on the North and Baltic Seas (especially Hamburg and Lübeck), relegating the inland cities to the mere supply of goods to the sea ports. But even the growing threat to princely power, the growth of centrifugal forces within the Hansa itself, its constant loss of members and the growing competition from England and Holland did not lead to an increase in collective security.
Hamburg’s origins began in 808, when Emperor Charlemagne ordered a castle to be built on the marshy land between the Alster and Elbe rivers to fend off Slavic tribes. The year 1189 was a turning point for the city, when Frederick I Barbarossa granted Hamburg the title of Free Imperial City of the Holy Roman Empire. Duty-free access to the lower Elbe River allowed the city to become a key trading power in Europe. And a few decades later, the thriving trading city of Lübeck formed an alliance with Hamburg that eventually led to the creation of the Hanseatic League of Cities. Hamburg was an important trading center and one of the leading cities of the Hanseatic League, with over 600 breweries, the city was also known as the “Brewery of the Hanseatic League”. The Hanseatic legacy is still reflected in the city’s full name: Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.
Secondly, the Hanseatic League did not consider itself a political community and was not a state territorial force with its own army or navy. It also could not act as a legal entity, and the structure of the Hanseatic League itself was relatively loose and did not achieve a unified force. Eventually, the discovery of a new route to India, the discovery of America, as a result of which many goods went past the league, and the formation of nation states became the last straw that broke the back of this organization. The trading status of the Hanseatic League declined, trading partners began to protect their domestic market, and the Hanseatic League eventually fell apart.
Right: London Harbour. Left: The city of Lübeck – the “Queen of the Hansa”.
Thirdly, the decline of the Hanseatic League was caused not only by internal but also by external factors, which intensified especially during the serious conflict with England (the Anglo-Hanseatic War of 1469-1474) due to the increasing English pressure on Hanseatic trade, which repeatedly ended in acts of violence.
Among the external factors of decline, one cannot help but pay attention to the war for independence of the Dutch provinces against Spain, which meant the end of all Hanseatic trading positions in this area - riots, Spanish looting and the siege of Antwerp in 1584/85 drove out the last traders from there. This also includes the destruction of all privileges for the Hanseatic League by the Swedish King Gustav I, then followed by the Danish King Christian IV, a staunch opponent of city liberties. But the new Danish King Johann went further than anyone else - he declared himself the master of the Baltic Sea, forbade the Hanseatic merchants to trade with Russia and even sent his fleet to plunder the Hanseatic ships.
The irreconcilable enemies of the Hanseatic League, from left to right: the Swedish king Gustav I, the Danish king Christian IV and the Danish king Johann, who put an end to the Hanseatic trade in the East.
Fourth, The onset of the Reformation, which brought the process of the disintegration of the Hansa to a new stage, due to the spread of Lutheran teachings, began to become a serious threat to security and the established order, but in the end almost all the Hanseatic cities followed the Reformation, and in some even iconoclasm occurred.
Amsterdam, and later London, owed their impressive economic rise to religious refugees in the 1585th century. Sephardic Jews and Flemish Protestants who fled to Amsterdam and London after the fall of Antwerp in XNUMX brought capital with them and established international trade relations that reached the New World. The city of Hamburg also owed its economic development to these refugees. Pictured left: The fish market in Leiden. Source: Frankfurt am Main, Städel Museum. Pictured right: 16th century London.
But more disastrous for the Hansa were some of the political consequences of the Reformation. For example, in Lübeck, the immigrant merchant Jurgen Wullenwever, thanks to his support for the Reformation movement, even rose to the position of mayor, overthrowing the old ruling class of the city in 1533. But his efforts to restore the city to the powerful position that Lübeck had enjoyed in earlier times ended in disaster, further increasing the loss of prestige not only for Lübeck but for the entire Hansa, and his privateering war against Dutch merchant ships escalated into a major war against Denmark and Sweden.
In the photo on the left: Jurgen Wullenwewer. He was not only a German merchant, but also served as the mayor of Lübeck from 1533 to 1535. During his time in power, the city faced internal unrest, and his foreign policy decisions contributed to the decline of Lübeck's importance as the informal capital of the Hanseatic League. To stop Lübeck's economic decline, Jürgen Wullenwever launched a privateering war against the Netherlands in 1533. At the same time, he tried to restore the influence of the Hanseatic League on the Danish crown, but when Lübeck's defeat became apparent, his popularity in the city waned. Pictured right: Jürgen Wullenwever shortly before his execution. On this day, September 24, 1537, Jürgen Wullenwever was beheaded and quartered in Wolfenbüttel. In the GDR, he was portrayed as a class fighter. Source: iStock
Note. Another explanation for the decline of the Hanseatic League is the migration of herring, which was one of the most popular Hanseatic goods, from the coastal waters of southern Scandinavia to the open Atlantic and the North Sea. As is known, the Little Ice Age lasted from 1300 to 1850, and during this time the herring moved to more comfortable climatic conditions for it - to the region of England and Belgium, which was incredibly happy for English and Dutch fishermen, who quickly intercepted the herring trade from the Hanseatic merchants...
Woodcut illustrating the herring trade by Dutch and English sailors in the Middle Ages. Due to the onset of the Little Ice Age and the significant weakening of the Gulf Stream, the migration route of the herring was changed. Huge schools of fish began to migrate from the Baltic to the Atlantic, where they became prey for the main rivals of the Hansa, the English and the Dutch.
Throughout the 1494th century, the power and importance of the Hansa began to decline - the territorial states no longer tolerated the claims of these autonomous cities, and in some cases the trading privileges of the offices were revoked. For example, as has already been said, the Novgorod office, after Novgorod was annexed to the Muscovite state, was closed by Ivan III in XNUMX, in London the office's privileges were terminated by Queen Elizabeth I, and in Flanders Bruges was no longer accessible to Hansa ships. The Bergen office was the last of the four Hanseatic offices and lasted the longest. Trade in this office was based on the export of dried fish, fish oil and skins, as well as the import of grain, flour, malt and beer. The Bergen office achieved an almost complete monopoly on the trade in dried fish and fish oil and even had its own territory, Bryggen, in the center of the city ...
Historical memory
In 1669, the last days of the Hanseatic League passed in Lübeck (HanseTag), and the era of the Hansa ended forever...
But the legacy of this league is still reflected in the full names of some cities - Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg or Free Hanseatic City of Bremen - and even despite the decline of the Hanseatic League, many traces of this time remain to this day. Today, many cities that were once part of the Hanseatic League like to remind us of the old days - whether it is adding the word "Hansestadt" to the city name, the letter "H" in the car number, football clubs such as "Hansa Rostock"(FC Hansa Rostock e.V.), or city street names - relics of the Hanseatic period that are still clearly visible, especially in the historic Hanseatic cities.
Modern Free Hanseatic Cities. From left to right: Lübeck, Bremen and Hamburg
The Hansa disappeared, but its cities remained, the development of which stopped with the collapse of this trade union, but now appear to tourists visiting them as real sleeping beauties with a typical medieval appearance and characteristic structure. And Lübeck, Stralsund and Wismar are included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The former Hanseatic cities in the Baltic and North Sea region are proud of their historical past, and in order to attract tourists and investment, some trading firms in Hamburg – and even the city's Chamber of Commerce – list their documents as "honest merchants" (Ehrbarer Kaufmann) as their distant collective ancestor and inspirer. And the list of products sold under the Ganza brand is endless, starting from aviation (Lufthansa) and ending with plasters (Hansaplast). It is clear that this name should signal solidity, quality and tradition, a thick layer of historicism is intended to inspire confidence in potential customers. Most of these companies are located in Germany, but there are also examples from other countries - in the Netherlands it is the University Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen, Estonia Tallinn restaurant Hansa Grill, in Norway brewery Hansabryggeri in Bergen, and in our Novgorod, renamed Veliky Novgorod, there is a tavern called “Hanseatic Cellar”.
In most cases, the word "Hanse" has little or nothing to do with Hanse itself, but the places where these businesses are located have a Hanseatic past. Photo left: Restaurant Hansa Grill in Tallinn. Photo in the center: brewery Hansabryggeri in Bergen, Norway. Photo on the right: the tavern "Hanseatic Cellar» in Veliky Novgorod.
In 1980, in the city of Zwolle, in the Netherlands, it was decided to renew the Hanseatic League (New Hanse), where Lübeck would still be the headquarters. This new Hanseatic League spread very quickly for the purpose of tourism, cultural exchange, development and business connections. And in order to become a member of the modern Hanseatic League, a city must either be a member or a trading partner of the original medieval Hanseatic League, for which the city must submit its evidence to the Lübeck headquarters, which will confirm or deny the application.
Annual celebration of Hansa Day (HanseTag) in the former Hanseatic cities
The organisation currently has 176 member cities in 16 European countries, and the surge of interest in the Hansa, especially in the Baltic region, is directly related to the changes that have taken place in Europe since 1990, most notably the unification of Germany and the membership of the Baltic states in the European Union, which have generated a great deal of enthusiasm for the common "Hanseatic past". And in this context, membership in the European Union and interregional cooperation are often presented as a continuation of old ties...
In 2011, the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus issued a silver commemorative coin “Polotsk. Hanseatic League" In 1210, the German Court was founded in Polotsk, and in 1229 the city joined the Hanseatic League. Trade routes to the Horde passed through Polotsk - it was the largest transit city for Hanseatic goods delivered to the East, and its main export goods were timber and Polotsk honey, which at that time was almost the only sweet for the poor inhabitants of Europe. Polotsk also took part in trade wars - by the beginning of the 2009th century, it completely blocked the access of North German merchants to the markets of Vitebsk and Smolensk, forcing them to sell their goods in Polotsk only wholesale, after which these goods were sent to the East under the "roof" of Polotsk merchants. And in June XNUMX, Polotsk became a member of the New Hanseatic League. Artist: Dobrokhna Surajewska (Poland).
And finally ...
During the Nazi era, the Hansa was associated with German conquest because the cities founded along the Baltic coast by German merchants and crusaders could be imagined as shining beacons.Advances to the East». And even after the fall of the Third Reich and the emergence of two Germanies, the politicization of Hanseatic history continued, albeit in somewhat different directions. Since several important Hanseatic cities, such as Rostock, were located along the coast of the former German Democratic Republic, historians in the East of Germany also became interested in the Hanseatic League. These scholars were committed to Marxist ideas about the class structure of society and attached great importance to the “bourgeois” character of these cities, which were generally self-governing communities that were able to repel attempts by local princes to draw them into their political network until the 15th century. Historians from the GDR, as befits Marxists, paid great attention to the evidence of political protest among the artisan class in the Hanseatic cities and asked themselves whether these places were not the birthplaces of early proto-capitalism.
Information
1. Visby (Visby) - a former Viking town on the island of Gotland was the main centre of the Hanseatic League on the Baltic from the 200th to the 1350th centuries, used by Gotlandic merchants as a strategic point for trade in the Baltic Sea. Its 1361th-century ramparts, more than 1525 warehouses built by German, Russian and Danish traders and wealthy merchant houses from the same period make it the best-preserved fortified trading town in all of Northern Europe. In the XNUMXth century, Visby had already begun to lose its leading position in the Hanseatic League due to the plague around XNUMX and the invasion of the Danish army led by King Valdemar IV Atterdag in XNUMX. To this can be added the wars against piracy, which seriously affected the change of trade routes bypassing Visby, as a result of which the economy of Visby worsened. The end of the "Golden Age" for Visby came in XNUMX, when it was stormed by an army from Lübeck and the northern parts of the city were partially burned down.
2. Helmold of Bosau (Helmold von Bosau, 1120–1177). German chronicler of the High Middle Ages, missionary and Augustinian monk, author of the Slav Chronicle, in which he described the conquest of the lands of the Polabian Slavs by German feudal lords, their colonization and Christianization. A contemporary of Frederick Barbarossa and Henry the Lion. Helmold's Chronicle, which dates from around 1170, is the most important written source on the beginnings of German settlement in the northeast. As a parish priest at the forefront of missionary and settlement activity, Helmold wrote a chronicle that is a unique source of information on the intercultural interactions between Germans and Slavs during the colonization of the eastern lands.
3. Adolf II of Schaumburg-Holstein (Adolf II. von Schauenburg und Holstein / 1128–1164). From the Westphalian count's house of Schauenburg (House of Schaeumburg), was originally assigned to the clergy and was introduced to the scientific education of the time, understood Latin and the Slavic language well. But after the death of his elder brother, he took his place in his father's inheritance. Adolf II encouraged the resettlement of German colonists to the territories bordering the Slavs, and in 1143/1144 he founded the city of Lübeck on the site of a former Slavic settlement. In 1164, he died in battle with the Slavs.
4. Konrad I of Masovia (Konrad I Mazowiecki, 1187–1247). A prince-princeps of the Polish Piast dynasty. In the first years of his reign, Konrad of Masovia focused on protecting his lands from the invasions of the Prussians, Yotvingians, and Lithuanians. One of the methods of protecting the borderlands was the distribution of lands to knightly orders whose task was to fight the pagans. In 1228, the first Teutonic Knights arrived in Konrad's lands, and five years later the Order united with the Prussian Knights of Christ, and the process of conquering Prussia began. Over time, they became independent of the prince and, after Konrad's death, created a powerful monastic state that posed a threat to Poland.
Literature
1. F. Dollinger "The Hanseatic League. The Trading Empire of the Middle Ages"
2. V. A. Arakcheev "Pskov and the Hansa in the Middle Ages"
3. E. A. Rybina "Novgorod and the Hansa"
4. N. A. Kazakova "Russian-Livonian and Russian-Hanseatic Relations"
5. M. N. Berezhkov "On the trade of Rus' with the Hansa until the end of the 15th century"
6. Gottfried Rauschnik (1778–1835) History of the German Hansa
7. Michael Pye "The Edge of the World: A Cultural History of the North Sea and the Transformation of Europe"
Information