88 Sarnowsky
but would be caught and executed. If any town council was weakened in its
autonomy or even deposed by civic unrest, the town had to be excluded from
the common privileges of the Hanseatic towns (Verhansung); no one should
further more trade with its citizens or help and host them in his own town
or region. Anyone resisting the restoration of the town council’s power was
himself to be excluded from the privileges. The other thirty-two paragraphs
of the statute repeat the regulation of 1366 concerning the use of the privi-
leges in the Kontore, deal with the dissolution of trading societies, purchases
on loan, the winter break in maritime navigation, coinage, measures against
pirates, and other aspects of trade and crafts. Though this was partly only a
summary of earlier legislation and by no means systematic, it demonstrated
the common interests of the towns.
This holds true also for the regular record of this assembly. It stresses the
importance of the vryheit und herlicheid (‘liberty and authority’) of the town
council,84 and it regulates that only town councillors are allowed to represent
the towns at the assemblies, not the scribes or notaries. Most important is the
decision about the representation of the towns in between the Hansetage.
Lübeck and the Wendish towns confirmed, after having been asked, that they
would continue to deal with the many affairs after and before common assem-
blies in the best interests of the towns and the merchants, as they had done
before.85 The assembly of 1418 thus marks another climax in the development
of the structures of the Hanseatic League. The regulations against civic unrest
were confirmed and extended, the authorities of the town councils strength-
ened, the leading role of the Wendish towns was defined, and many other
issues were decided upon. Though plans for a closer military co-operation did
come into fruition before the middle of the fifteenth century, at least from the
internal point of view, the Hanseatic League was in a new period of bloom. But
at this point, the dangers were coming from outside.
The Wars with Denmark and Holland-Zeeland and Other
Regional Conflicts
By around 1400, the Hanseatic League had finished most conflicts with its
trading partners successfully or at least had maintained the status quo. In
Flanders and Novgorod, privileges had been confirmed or even extended. The
treaties of Den Haag (1408) and London (1409) had contributed to stabilize
84 hr i 6, 556 § 62.
85 Ibid., §§ 17, 87.