The Early Hanses 59
German merchants in London merely formed a union; a complete fusion only
came about during the fifteenth century.129
A few years later, the resolution of the cities already features those charac-
teristics so typical of the institutionalized federation of the stede van der dude-
schen hense. A 1305 invitation from Lübeck to Osnabruck contained precisely
those three statements, which, since the late fourteenth century, had always
had to appear within a letter of invitation Hanseatic Diets (contemporarily
called tagfahrten). This enabled vulmechtig [authorized] emissaries of the
urban council to participate in the deliberations. These statements addressed:
- the affair(s) to be decided on the tagfahrte, 2. the date for the tagfahrte, and
- the call to send authorized emissaries to the rendezvous.130 In other words,
from the turn of the thirteenth to the fourteenth centuries, the Hanse cities
had already achieved a degree of organization comparable to that achieved
following the consolidation of the organizational structure into steden van der
dudeschen hense.
In light of the successful joint trade conducted by the cities, Lübeck was
victorious in the feud it had had with Visby regarding the predominance of
the gemenen stede within the alliance during the last decade of the thirteenth
century. Visby styled itself the representative for the gemene kopman, whose
headquarters were in their city and whose rights the city defended (ius illud
quod [.. .] a mercatoribus in Godlandia observatur; the law, which is applied by
the merchants of Gotland). Lübeck, on the other hand, viewed itself as speaker
for the town councils (city governments) of those Low German cities whose
merchants participated in the joint foreign trade of the gemenen kopmans. In
the 1290s, the city council of Lübeck tried to eliminate Visby from the competi-
tion for dominance over the union of the gemenen stede in the Baltic Region.
They did so by trying move the high court (appellate court), designed for trav-
elers journeying along the way from Visby to Novgorod, to Lübeck (1293–95)
and by successfully abolishing the seal of the common merchants of Gotland
(1299).
In one case, which already shows the typical characteristics of traditional
decision-making, which were more heavily documented starting with the sec-
ond half of the fourteenth century, cities interested in the trade with Novgorod,
were asked by representatives of the Wendish cities to give their consent to
the relocation of Novgorod’s trade court jurisdiction from Visby to Lübeck.
129 Dollinger, Hanse, 61f; Nils Jörn, “With money and bloode,” Der Londoner Stalhof im
Spannungsfeld der englisch-hansischen Beziehungen im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert. Quellen
und Darstellungen zur hansischen Geschichte, N.F., vol. 50 (Cologne: Böhlau 2000).
130 hr i, 1, no. 82, 43f.