Jeff Foster

Ge110

                The Hanseatic League also known as the Hansa or Hanse was a commercial confederation of merchants and their market towns that controlled the trade along the northern European coast.  This group of merchant’s guilds lasted from roughly the 13^th to the 17^th century.   It was initially created to protect the economic interests and diplomatic privileges in the cities and countries along the trade routes the merchants visited.  The cities had their own armies and mutual protection and aid.  The origins of the Hanse can be led back to the German city of Lubeck, located on the western edge of the Baltic at the foot of the Danish peninsula.  In 1226 the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II had declared Lübeck an Imperial City, owing allegiance only to the emperor himself. Since Frederick, like his successors, was normally far from the city pursuing quarrels with popes and other magnates, the merchants of Lübeck were freer than many city dwellers to pursue their own interests which revolved around the herring fisheries of the Baltic. To preserve the herrings they needed access to salt which was found in the vicinity of Kiel. In the late 12th century Hamburg and Lübeck had begun to trade together along the ‘salt road’ through Kiel. [1]

          In 1356, the League established a Diet, or Parliament, which first met in Lubeck, where representatives of the cities discussed common approaches to such matters as piracy, trading partners and the ambitions of sovereigns. Lubeck was used as a meeting place more often than not due to its central location within the trade routes.

[1] Hanseatic city Lubeck info; http://www.historytoday.com/stephen-halliday/first-common-market-hanseatic-league