The Hanseatic League (Hanse) was founded by German and Scandinavian maritime traders around the twelfth century. As there were no regular navies to defend their cargoes, no international organizations to govern duties and trade and lesser ports had lawful officials to look after their use, the merchants came together in their common cause to institute tariff covenants, facilitate joint protection of ports snd seafaring merchants. The initial union was Lubeck, Westphalia, Saxony and Gotland but swiftly expanded to the east with the take over of Livonia at the beginning of thirteen century. The league became so lucrative and so influential that it survived for three hundred years. "The Hanseatic League was not so much a league of cities as it was a league of merchant associations within the cities of Northern Germany and the Baltic. Trade in the middle ages was a dangerous and risky business and the only way for merchants to protect themselves was by traveling together. At its climax, the Hanse embraced the whole of the North and Baltic Sea area and spread scores of miles inland with rivers. Though the purpose of this league was kept on economic bonds, it became a considerable politico-military power. The Baltic area which was comprised of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania became a single economic entity in the world trade and contributed to European politics by means of its existence as one league. "The Hanse ships were usually round-bellied, high-boarded craft with one mast, and flew the pennant of their home port. They were comparatively broad and built of heavy planks, and could easily be transformed into war vessels by furnishing them with a superstructure known as the castell in which catapults and archers could be placed" The Hanseatic League trailed the Livonian take over into the eastern Baltic for exploring Russian goods, agricultural food stuffs and raw materials with the purpose of ship construction. The Volga, Dnepr and Duna were significant mercantile pathways to Russia, linking Europe with Asia for centuries. From this came the first and most significant of the eastern Baltic commercial cities Riga, located at the outlet of the Duna. German Hanse traders swiftly instituted trade lines into the heart of Livonia and with the Baltic shore. In the north, the Danish king was claimant of Tallinn, which was to assume great significance as a town in Livonia. The town of Tartu was located on the Russian boundary with the pathway to Pskov. It was instrumental in serving as entry point for most of Russian goods destined for Riga. Fellin became the largest city combined with land ways from Riga to Tartu and others. Parnu was a harbor city at the orifice of a namesake river but it contributed lesser role in trade as compared to above mentioned cities. Narva would assume the importance of one of big towns in Livonia but because it was in the vicinity of Novgorod, it turned out to be of comparatively lesser importance until later centuries. Novgorod was the biggest Russian locality on the Gulf of Finland away from the harbors of Narva and Tallinn. Nevertheless, it never absolutely sided with the league so the league made a trading position favoring the majority of the Baltic trade for Russian goods for almost one hundred years and did away with the requirement for ships to avail the precarious northern route in the region of Scandinavia. In the whole of the thirteen century, the Hanseatic League existed as a forum for traders. To be more precise, it was a union of German merchants. Non German merchants not having any connection with the league suffered from critical trade obstructions in the Baltic. The Livonian towns did not allow direct trading among foreign traders within their jurisdictions. This enraged the Wendish members of the league who were prohibited from talks directly with Russian traders. The local people of Livonia gradually came under the control of German feudal lords during those times. The lords claimed rents from laborers in the form of agricultural products. The lords subsequently gave subsidies to traders in the cities to earn profit. For the purpose of retaining higher level of profits, the barons prohibited peasants from trading directly with the merchants in the cities and allowed only small pieces of land for cultivation. Sometimes, it culminated in the clashes between merchants and barons as the former expected to make greater profits if they could be interacting directly with the peasants. In Lithuania, traders were regulated by the canons of Grand Duchy of Lithuania and were unrestricted to have trade with league merchants but later calculated that it was absurd to dominate Lithuania trade. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was inimical to Germans after their endeavors to overtake it. Tariffs were taken away at the Lithuanian boundaries with Poland and Livonia. Hanse traders were permitted however if they compensated in the form of tariffs and evolved trade routes via Lithuania along the way to the Bug River. The eastern Baltic facilitated huge amounts of grain to European traders but most of the products from Riga were ship construction equipment. . There is evident information that the city traders determined the prices and farmers were compensated in the ancient towns. Otherwise, the bonds between city and hinterland contributed less important role in the Baltic economic conventions. Traders normally moved to the marketplaces and scattered in the entire countryside to fetch grain and products for marketing in the cities. Every merchant bore the onus for a specific area and came into contact with the same peasants. Sometimes, the merchants would facilitate peasants with money as loans. Most of the peasants were landless. The city merchants aspired to exploit resource-less Germans or Lithuanian peasants who were not limited by having land as was the case with Livonian peasants. Landowning peasants mostly obliged to traders and debt was linked with the land to an extent that the successor of land would take over the debt of predecessor. The zenith of Hanseatic League remained from the emergence of Stadtehanse through the fifteenth century. The Baltic cities nevertheless did not undergo decline along the lines of Wendish cities, instead they exploited more rivalry between the Hanse, the Nordic union and merchants of Netherlands on the Baltic Sea. "The Hanseatic League declined partly because it lacked any centralized power with which to withstand the new and more powerful nation-states forming on its borders





The Victual Brothers, Here Come the Pirates and the Downing of the Hanse