The Hanseatic League in the Early Modern Period 117
all, the trade between Hamburg and Spain, which, in the 1670s, was more or
less as important as the trade with England and according to the strong state-
ment of the toll data from 1678 easily surpassed the trade with the Dutch,
profited from this. With France, the Hanseatic Cities were likewise able to
launch a trade treaty in 1655 that above all opened the doors for an intensi-
fied trade with France in the eighteenth century. However, interest waned at
the Hanseatic Diet convoked by Lübeck. Also, in 1666, the Hanseatic branch
office of Stahlhof burned in the course of the Great London Fire, and the catas-
trophe was discussed at the Hanseatic Diet. Most cities did not react to the
warning expressed in the invitation to Lübeck—that the failure to send repre-
sentatives meant the expulsion of the offending city from the Hanseatic League.
Lübeck, Hamburg, Bremen, Danzig, Braunschweig and Cologne appeared
all the same, while the Swedish-dominated cities of Wismar, Stralsund, and
Greifswald stated their inability to continue an active participation in the
Hanseatic Alliance. Accordingly, at the last Hanseatic Diet of 1669, the renewal
of a smaller Hanseatic League was much discussed, without committing any-
one to any collective political action. With this, a collective Hanseatic Policy
gradually slipped away. The three cities of Lübeck, Bremen and Hamburg
continued to exercise the foreign privileges of the Hanseatic League, as they
were represented by it even in peace negotiations, for example, at Nimwegen
in 1679. However, more and more, the economic advantage went to Hamburg,
which, however, collaborated thoroughly with Bremen and Lübeck as a
political equal.
The Rise of Hamburg and the Intensification of the Cooperation
of the Hanseatic Cities at the Close of the Eighteenth and
Beginning of the Nineteenth Centuries
The fact that Hamburg surpassed its Hanseatic neighbors economically had
multiple explanations. Aside from readily declared neutrality during the Thirty
Years War, the city on the Elbe had an unusually favorable location which,
together with the Oder, connected Hamburg to a hinterland that extended to
Silesia and further to Bohemia. The Hamburg trade was closely connected to
the Leipzig trade fair (Leipziger Messe), which adjoined Eastern Central Europe
to western European trade.30 Connections to linen production in Silesia,
30 Yuta Kikuchi, “Hamburgs Handel mit dem Ostseeraum und dem mitteleuropäischen
Binnenland vom 17. bis zum Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts. Warendistribution und
Hinterlandnetzwerke auf See-, Fluss- und Landwegen” (Doctoral Dissertation, University