Hanseatic League

Abby Charlson

GER 110

Hanseatic League

            While researching the Hanseatic League, I had found many interesting facts that I’ve never read or heard about before. One of them being what the Hanseatic League actually is. I had found out that the League is in fact a group of associations that appeared in the mid-thirteenth century. The associations within the Northern Germany cities and Baltic gather together and trade. Because trading in the middle ages was a dangerous task, traveling together helped protect themselves. The trades occurred was along the Kiel or the “salt road.” The salt road ran between Hamburg and Luebeck.

            When founded in the twelfth century, trade was important for merchants and finding items to trade was crucial. One item in Hamburg that was popular to trade was salt. Salt was easy to access from salt producers in Kiel and was convenient because Hamburg needed the salt to dry and salt fish to distribute.

            Hansa’s power had over sixty cities involved and the power of the Hansa had risen. Each city had its own merchant and each alliance made their own common policies and planned to govern their inter-city trade. The league all together had shared common all their economic interests. Today, the Hanseatic League had revived itself from losing its significance during the mid-seventeenth century. In 1980, Zwolle had improved the alliance both socially and culturally. The goals of this League is to keep the spirit of the alive and encourage a vibrant exchange between its members. The League also tries to bring about a closer economic, cultural, social, and national ties across Europe.  

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~baronfum/hansa.html

http://www.hanse.org/en/