Introduction 9
movements of the High Middle Ages that brought large numbers of Germans
to the Baltic regions. The newly settled Germans maintained connections
with their relatives in the west, which was the foundation for an extensive
kin-network. Kin-networks were important not only for commercial dealings,
but they also had a profound effect on the political relations between Hanse
towns. Indeed, as Ewert and Selzer point out, these family ties and the affect
they had on inter-city relations calls into question our understanding of the
“hierarchical-bureaucratic” nature of the Hanse’s political structure.
Kin networks, were only one kind of social network that could develop.
Ewert and Selzer also show the way non-kin networks can be determined by
using (for example) wills, fraternal association membership, real estate trans-
actions, etc. Sources like these illustrate the difficulty of reconstructing social
networks, but they also open a new window on our understanding of these
networks. Indeed, because the majority of Hanse firms were very small and
often family based, reconstructing social networks are crucial to understand-
ing the character and structure of Hanseatic commerce. It should come as no
surprise that it is due primarily to the work of Ewart and Selzer that the entire
field of network analysis has taken exciting new directions as it is applied to
the study of the Hanse.
In the chapter, “The Baltic Trade,” Carsten Jahnke examines Hanseatic
activities in the core region. Historical study of the Baltic came directly out of
the nationalist history movements that were the focus of archivists, editors of
source books, and even political propagandists at the end of the nineteenth
century. Indeed, according to Jahnke, the political overtones in Hanse research
intensified following the Second World War as regional political interests over-
shadowed a more unified understanding of the Baltic milieu. This situation
changed with the fall of the Iron Curtain as a new generation of scholars initi-
ated an international effort at rethinking the history of the Baltic.
For his part, Carsten Jahnke provides an excellent overview of the Hanse’s
Baltic trade routes, major commercial centers, and connections to the Baltic
hinterland. There were two primary westbound routes from the Baltic. The
first, by way of Lübeck and Hamburg was secure but costly. The second route,
around Skaw and through the Sound, became important in the thirteenth cen-
tury. This route was less costly, but more dangerous. Within the Baltic, a variety
of overlapping regional trade routes served, on one hand, to combine smaller
cargoes into larger ones for international trade, and on the other hand, to
break up larger international cargoes into smaller units for regional and local
trade. Tracing the trade routes is particularly important because few market-
able goods were produced in the Baltic area, rather the Baltic trade centered