4 Harreld
governance.15 Volker Henn’s work on communications between and among
the Hansards and his research on their regional interests has given Hanse
scholars a new direction for research.16 Indeed, many different methodologi-
cal approaches have been applied to the history of the Hanse. For scholars of
the new institutional economics, the Hanse has been extensively held up as an
example of the process of organizational and institutional change.17 Sheilagh
Ogilvie, for example, has made extensive use of the explanatory power of the
Hanse in her recent work on medieval institutions.18 The principles of the new
institutional economics has been applied directly to the case of Hanse town
governance,19 the development and function of transnational markets,20 and
in conflict resolution,21 to name only some of the most recent examples.
Place theories and network theories have been an important influence on a
variety of scholarly pursuits,22 and have provided a fruitful direction for Hanse
research, as the recent work of Ulrich Müller attests.23 And recently, social
15 Ernst Pitz, Bürgereinung und Städteeinung. Studien zur Verfassungsgeschichte der
Hansestädte und der deutschen Hanse. Quellen und Darstellungen zur hansischen
Geschichte (Cologne: Böhlau, 2001).
16 Volker Henn, “Innerhansische Kommunikations- und Raumstrukturen: Umrisse einer
neueren Forschungsaufgabe?” in Stuart Jenks and Michael North, eds., Der hansische
Sonderweg? Beiträge zur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte der Hanse (Cologne: Böhlau,
1993), 255–268 and also “Was war die Hanse?” in Jörgen Bracker, Volker Henn and Rainer
Postel, eds., Die Hanse. Lebenswirklichkeit und Mythos (Lübeck: Schmidt-Römhild, 1998),
14–23.
17 Avner Greif, Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 105.
18 Sheilagh Ogilvie, Institutions and European Trade: Merchant Guilds, 1000–1800 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2011).
19 Kaire Põder, “Credible Commitment and Cartel: The Case of the Hansa Merchant in the
Guild of Late Medieval Tallinn,” Baltic Journal of Economics 10 (2010): 43–60.
20 Sigrid Quack, “Global Markets in Theory and History: Towards a Comparative Analysis,”
in Jens Beckert and Christoph Deutschmann, eds., Wirtschaftssoziologie. Kölner
Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsyshologie, Vol. 49 (Wiesbaden: vs Verlag für
Sozialwissenschaften, 2009).
21 Albrecht Cordes, “Merchant’s expectations regarding procedure before foreign courts
according to Hanseatic priviledges (12th–16th Centuries),” loewe Research Focus
“Extrajusdicial and Judicial Conflict Resolution” Working Paper, no. 4, 2013.
22 For example, Ulrich Müller, “Networks of Towns—Networks of Periphery? Some Relations
between the North European Medieval Town and its Hinterland,” in Sunhild Kleingärtner
and Gabriel Zeilinger, eds., Raumbildung durch Netzwerke? (Bonn: Habelt, 2012).
23 Ulrich Müller, “Case Study 3: Trading centre—Hanseatic towns on the southern Baltic
Coast: Structural continuity or a new start?” in Babette Ludowici, et al., eds., Trade and
Communication Networks of the First Millennium ad in the northern part of Central Europe: