The ‘Golden Age’ of the Hanseatic League 85
while the members of the old town council claimed to be the legitimate repre-
sentation of the town. The conflict between old and new town council did not
only threaten Lübeck’s standing in the Hanseatic League but also the strength
of the whole community.
Since Lübeck was an imperial city, soon royal authority was involved. In
1400, King Wenzel had been deposed by the electors at the Rhine, and in his
place they elected Ruprecht, the Count Palatine of the Rhine. This was not
accepted by Wenzel, and some princes and the old town council of Lübeck
had supported him. Now the new town council did homage to Ruprecht and
paid its taxes to him, while the king accepted the right of the municipality
to elect the town council. Meanwhile the exiled mayor Jordan Pleskow and
other town councillors in exile succeeded in getting a judgement by the royal
court in Heidelberg that Lübeck should call back the exiles into the town. Since
the new town council reacted by confiscating the property of the exiles and
decided not to answer to further summons of royal courts, in January 1410, King
Ruprecht declared the imperial ban (Reichsacht) against Lübeck. Only his early
death in the same year and the following double elections prevented further
measures.
Nevertheless, the consequences of the events were severe. A Hansetag in
Lübeck scheduled for May 1408 was cancelled; instead there were assemblies
of the towns in Hamburg in 1408 and again in 1410, and in April 1412 a common
assembly of the town’s representatives took place in Lüneburg. Lübeck had lost
its leading role, but it was not clear which city would step into its place. The
merchants in Bruges complained that they did not know whom to address.74
This was strengthened by the fact that the new town council in Lübeck suc-
ceeded in ‘exporting’ its constitutional ideas to other Wendish towns. In spring
1410, there were upheavals and new town councils in Rostock and Wismar;
and in Hamburg new regulations increased the influence of the municipal-
ity on the town’s policies,75 while the members of the old Lübeck town coun-
cil left the town in direction to Lüneburg. The assembly there in April 1412
decreed that Hamburg or—if Hamburg’s town council was restricted by its
municipality—Stralsund had to care for the problems of the merchants
abroad,76 but in fact it was Lüneburg which took over central functions because
it now hosted nearly the entirety of the old Lübeck town council.
The imperial ban against Lübeck concerned every merchant who had
trade relations with the town, so the Kontor in Bruges had already warned the
74 Dollinger, Hanse, 369.
75 Pitz, Bürgereinung, 118–25.
76 hr i 6, 68 § 18.