The Significance of the Hanziatic League and the Dangers Faced by Merchants in the 12th Century

If I put the word Hanseatic into Google Search I get as result number 4 “Hanseatic King’s Lynn -Visit West Norfolk”. I can say with absolute confidence that there is not a single German individual, place or organisation that a small town in England would choose to not just associate with but incorporate itself into its history, safe for the Hanseatic League. They may play Zedoch the Priest at the coronation but that is because both Handel and Price Charles are considered English with German roots. Kings Lynn calling itself a Hanseatic city is a different thing. And it happens in many other places, Bergen is proud of its Hanseatic past as is Visby in Gotland or the Dutch former members of the League.

The love of all things Hanseatic goes so far that it even overrides the German fascination with all things car related. As you may know, the German system of numberplates is strictly hierarchical. The first 1, 2 or 3 letters indicate the place where the vehicle is registered at the time. The more letters, the smaller the town or county of registration. For instance, WES stands for Wesel and STD for Stade, two of the smaller members of the Hanseatic League. The two-letter cities are plentiful and some, like LG stands for Lüneburg and BS for Brunswick. Only the largest cities get to proudly display just one single letter – for instance K for Cologne, B for Berlin and F for Frankfurt.

But what about Germany’s second largest city, the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg? Does your honourable Hamburg merchant drive round in a car ostentatiously displaying a proud single H? No, of course he doesn’t. His numberplate is HH, standing for Hansestadt Hamburg, leaving the single H to the inland Hanoverians. Other Hanseatic cities like Bremen, Lübeck, Wismar, Rostock, Greifswald and Stralsund also proudly carry an additional H on their numberplate, a subtle reminder to everyone that their hometowns are different and dare one say, superior to other cities.

How can an organisation that had hardly any permanent institutions traded rather pedestrian commodities like grain, Hering, furs and beeswax and ceased to exist in 1669 still stir so many peoples’ hearts with pride, that is what we will try to figure out in this podcast series.

The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.

As always:

Homepage with maps, photos, transcripts and blog: www.historyofthegermans.com

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To make it easier for you to share the podcast, I have created separate playlists for some of the seasons that are set up as individual podcasts. they have the exact same episodes as in the History of the Germans, but they may be a helpful device for those who want to concentrate on only one season.

So far I have:

The Ottonians

Salian Emperors and Investiture Controversy

Fredrick Barbarossa and Early Hohenstaufen

Frederick II Stupor Mundi

Saxony and Eastward Expansion

The Hanseatic League

The Teutonic Knights

The Holy Roman Empire 1250-1356

The Reformation before the Reformation

The Empire in the 15th century

The Fall and Rise of the Habsburgs

Bibliography:

Philippe Dillinger: Die Hanse

Die Hanse, Lebenswirklichkeit und Mythos, curated by Jürgen Bracker, Volker Henn and Rainer Postel

Rolf Hammel-Kieslow: Die Hanse

And special thanks for the translation of the Artlenburg Privileg to Dr. Jenny Benham.

And special thanks to Dr. justyna Wubs-Montzewicz whose research I found eye-opening