86 Sarnowsky
Livonian towns and Braunschweig in June 1410 about possible consequences.
The Western European princes, especially the dukes of Burgundy and Brabant,
were ready to enforce the ban, and the Kontor would not be able to protect
those merchants co-operating with traders from Lübeck.77 In fact, Duke John
of Burgundy wrote to the new town council in Lübeck in April 1411 that mem-
bers of the old town council, namely Jordan Pleskow, had asked for the arrest of
Lübeck goods worth up to 4,000 marks pure gold (256,000 guilders) as compen-
sation for their losses. He did not follow their request but demanded to solve
the conflict.78 With his mission to Bruges, Jordan Pleskow at least succeeded
in preventing the Kontor from a clear decision in favour of the new town coun-
cil, but his other diplomatic missions, to Prussia and to the by then generally
accepted Roman King, Sigismund, were even less successful. Sigismund con-
firmed the old town council because the new one failed to appear at the royal
court, but he did not renew the imperial ban against Lübeck. In consequence,
the assembly at Lüneburg in 1412 at which neither the new town council of
Lübeck nor those of Rostock and Wismar were present, could not agree on
excluding Lübeck from the Hanseatic League.
Both sides did not give up. The new town council tried to win over Sigismund,
who was notorious for his financial problems, by promising great sums
of money. In July 1415, for the promise of 24,000 Rhenish guilders, the King
renewed the town’s privileges, made a decision about regulations concerning
the compensation for the old town council, and lifted the ban against Lübeck.
Though Sigismund also made his decision known to the Danish King, Eric of
Pomerania,79 in September 1415 Eric took measures against merchants from
Lübeck on Scania, in Bergen, and elsewhere in the Scandinavian Kingdoms.
When the new town council was not able to pay the 24,000 guilders in Bruges
in November 1415, Sigismund revoked his earlier decision and in spring 1416
again opted for the old town council.
This situation finally led to a compromise which ended the conflict, and the
parties agreed on a meeting of the old and new town councils and royal envoys,
mediated by the other Wendish and Pomeranian towns.80 Jordan Pleskow
and the other nine members of the old council in exile still alive returned to
Lübeck and were joined by five members of the old council who had remained
in Lübeck, five members of the new council, and seven other merchants, two
of them being members of the famous Zirkelgesellschaft (’Society of Dividers’)
77 hr i 5, 685–86.
78 hub 5, 998.
79 hr i 6, 203.
80 Cf. Pitz, Bürgereinung, 128–38.