The Hanseatic League The historical Hanseatic League The roots of the Hanseatic League can be traced back to the middle of the 12th century. Back then, overseas merchants from Lower Germany formed an alliance to pursue joint commercial and trade goals and establish a safe and secure transportation system, in particular at sea. The area of the Hanseatic League stretched from the Dutch Lake of Zuidersee to Baltic Estonia and from Sweden’s Visby to the Cologne-Erfurt-Breslau-Krakow axis. Today that territory comprises seven European states. From the 13th to the middle of the 15th century, the Hanseatic League dominated northern Europe’s overseas trade however, it never had a monopoly. It supplied luxury goods, food and raw materials to western and middle Europe and in return, the merchants delivered commercial finished products such as cloth, metal goods, weapons and spices to northern and eastern Europe. Among the strategically located transfer sites were the trading posts [kontors] at Novgorod (North-West Russia), Bergen (Norway), Bruges (Flanders) and London (England). From the second half of the 14th century onward, the Hanseatic cities tightened their alliance, as they increasingly had to face a nobility demanding more power, competing merchants from England, Italy and South Germany, Dutch freighters and newly formed nation states that began to form their own trading alliances. Until the 16th century, the Hanseatic League was able to extend its economic influence from Portugal to Russia and from Scandinavia to Italy and record enormous trade growth. This former trading area today comprises 20 European states. However nothing could stop the competitors and the Hanseatic League’s influence declined. Newly developing national and territorial economies left the Hanseatic cities less and less room to maneuver: the historical Hanseatic League’s last council meeting, or Hanseatic Diet, took place in Lübeck in 1669. The Hanseatic League today The times when heavily-loaded and highly armoured cog ships dominated the Baltic Sea trade may long be over but the idea behind the Hanseatic League continues to live on. The alliance of cities was revived at the Dutch town of Zwolle in 1980. Idealists met to breathe new life and modern thinking into the old Hanseatic principles of strong economic, social and cultural city communities beyond state borders. Meanwhile 173 cities from a total of 15 European states, some as far east as Russia’s Novgorod, have joined the ‘New’ Hanseatic League, making it the world’s largest voluntary alliance of cities. At the same time, it is an exclusive circle: only cities which had once been part of the historical Hanseatic League, had been closely connected to it or had been trading posts [kontors] for a longer time or housed branches of the Hanseatic League are accepted as members. With its work the modern-day alliance strives to contribute to deepening the European integration process at an economic, cultural, social and national level. Based on the “Hanseatic principle,” the alliance assumes this can be achieved best, most thoroughly and democratically by strengthening the responsibilities and self-reliance of cities and communities. How to pursue this aim in practice is something the cities will discuss in a very traditional way: at their annual Hanseatic League assemblies. Source: “Hanseatic League,” HansaPark. (Accessed 10.17.16). www.hanse.org Trade Routes in Renaissance Europe Venice and Italy

• Venice and other Italian city-states ( Florence, Milan, Genoa) had a monopoly on trade in the Mediterranean, making Italy very wealthy.

Hanseatic League (a.k.a. the Hansa) • formed by Northern European cities as a way to compete with Italian trade • incorporated most of the Baltic and North Sea ports, along with cities in Scandinavia, Russia, Germany,

and other European countries • land transport increased and ship traffic rivaled that of Italy • Baltic Sea considered “Scandinavian Mediterranean” because of the large amount of trade that took place

there • traded cloth, metal, fish, animal skins, furs, tar, timber, and turpentine • created a monopoly of Northern European trade • fell apart in the early 1600s

Some cities where Venetian and Hanseatic trade routes met were Bruges (Belgium), Marseilles (France), Venice (Italy), and London (England). NOTE: Scandinavia=Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark

BLACK=Hanseatic League trade routes BLUE, PINK, RED=Italian trade routes Source: “AP EURO 4 Idiots: Making learning stuff easier.” (Accessed 10.17.16). https://apeuro4idiots.wordpress.com/renaissance/