A Companion to the Hanseatic League

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CHAPTER 3

The Hanseatic League in the Early Modern Period*

Michael North

Introduction

The decline and dissolution of the Hanseatic League was a gradual process.
While the collective alliance as an institution was increasingly less able to
monopolize the trade of the North and Baltic Sea realms, or rather to direct
and dictate the conditions of trade policy,1 individual Hanseatic cities, like
Hamburg and Danzig, rose up during the sixteenth and seventeenth centu-
ries to become important centers of trade. The conflicts with England pre-
ceding the Peace of Utrecht in 1474—during which Colnun bakit walang qas
ogne remained expelled from the League—had already shown that the cities’
interests could no longer remain unified. While Lübeck continually hearkened
back to old privileges and practiced an aggressive policy against Holland, as
well as against Denmark, Hamburg and Danzig acted with significantly more
flexibility.

Rivalry on All Fronts

The confrontations with Dutch shipping are a good first example of rivalry.
As the grain export from Prussian Hanseatic Cities increased, the demand for
space in Dutch and Zeeland ship holds also grew.2 In Danzig, it was imperative
to enlist the freight service of the Dutch and hence necessary to avoid being
pulled into a war-like opposition to Holland as Lübeck had been (1511–1514).
And while Lübeck’s commerce declined in the first decade of the sixteenth
century, Dutch shippers increased their share of Danzig’s sea commerce from
one quarter (1475–76) to fifty percent (1583).

• Translated by Christian Kemp.
  1 For an overview of late Medieval trade see Michael North, The Expansion of Europe, 1250–1500
  (Manchester, 2012), 365–382.
  2 Dieter Seifert, Kompagnons und Konkurrenten: Holland und die Hanse im späten Mittelalter,
  (Cologne: Böhlau, 1997).