170 Ewert and Selzer
Dietrich W. Poeck’s demonstrate how important family bonds and other infor-
mal connections between the members of the leading groups of Hanseatic
towns were for the political structure of the Hanse to persist. More precisely,
these politicians were the ones who, because of their mutual kinship-based
connections, negotiated internal settlements between towns and got even
unpopular compromises accepted in their hometowns. Those who formed the
Hanseatic leading group by sticking together because of family ties became
the key element of the Hanseatic political system. Interestingly enough, this
group was referred to by contemporaries of the sixteenth century as de herre
der Hense (“the masters of the Hanse”).20
Wills as a Source of Network Reconstruction: The Case of Lübeck
Wills have been used only during the last two decades as important sources for
social and economic history purposes. Prior to that time, it was up to legal his-
torians to analyze this sort of documents. From a socio-historical perspective,
wills offer insights into peoples’ belief and piety, but they can also answer many
other questions regarding the history of everyday life. Compared to other types
of sources for the history of the Hanse, wills have survived in large numbers.
By far the biggest German late medieval corpus consists of about 6,400 wills
from Lübeck, all originating from before 1500.21 The fact that they are serial
20 Dietrich W. Poeck, “Hansische Ratssendeboten,” in Hammel-Kiesow, ed., Vergleichende
Ansätze (see footnote 19), 97–142; Id., Die Herren der Hanse. Delegierte und Netzwerke,
Kieler Werkstücke, vol. E8 (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 2010).
21 A good overview of the surviving material can be found in Ahasver von Brandt,
“Die Hanse als mittelalterliche Wirtschaftsorganisation. Entstehen, Daseinsformen,
Aufgaben,” in Id. et al., eds., Die Deutsche Hanse als Mittler zwischen Ost und West,
Cologne, (Cologne: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1963), 9–38, but also in Gerhard Jaritz,
“Österreichische Bürgertestamente als Quelle zur Erforschung städtischer Lebensformen
des Spätmittelalters,” Jahrbuch für Geschichte des Feudalismus 8 (1984), 249–264; Urs
Martin Zahnd, “Spätmittelalterliche Bürgertestamente als Quellen zu Realienkunde und
Sozialgeschichte,” Mitteilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung 96
(1988), 55–78; and Paul Baur, Testament und Bürgerschaft. Alltagsleben und Sachkultur
im spätmittelalterlichen Konstanz, Konstanzer Geschichts- und Rechtsquellen, n.f.
31 (Sigmaringen: J. Thorbecke, 1989), 14–35. Of the more recent studies cf. for Sitten,
Hamburg, Cologne, Lüneburg, Lübeck and Stralsund, Gregor Zenhäusern, Zeitliches
Wohl und ewiges Heil. Studie zu mittelalterlichen Testamenten aus der Diözese Sitten
(Sitten: Staatsarchiv, 1992); Marianne Riethmüller, To troste myner sele. Aspekte spät-
mittelalterlicher Frömmigkeit im Spiegel Hamburger Testamente 1310–1400, Beiträge zur
Geschichte Hamburgs, vol. 47 (Hamburg: Verlag Verein für Hamburgische Geschichte,
1994); Brigitte Klosterberg, Zu Ehre Gottes und zum Wohl der Familie. Kölner Testamente
von Laien und Klerikern im Spätmittelalter, Kölner Schriften zur Geschichte und Kultur,