36 Hammel-Kiesow
these privileges became, in turn, the rock to which the privileges of Baltic cities
were anchored and from which emerged the association of Low German mer-
chants, or the hansa Alemanie (London, 1282).
In England, merchants from the Baltic cities encountered merchants from
Westphalia and the Lower Rhine, who had already been trading there for some
time.70 The encounter did not go smoothly. The personal interests of individ-
ual groups within the city prevailed and as a result ensured that the branch of
Lower Rhenish merchants from Cologne and the branch of merchants from
the Baltic would remain distinct from one another. Until the early sixteenth
century, merchants from the Baltic, including those from Hamburg, domi-
nated trade with the eastern coast of England from Lynn to Newcastle. On the
other hand, trade conducted by the merchants of Cologne and Westphalia was
concentrated on the Stalhof in London as well as on Ipswich and Colchester.
The Stalhof served as the gildhalla for the merchants of Cologne, as docu-
mented, from 1175/76 on. Only in the mid-thirteenth century did a joint ven-
ture between merchant groups of the Empire develop.
In the Empire, the trade in Flemish cloth was still in Flemish, especially
Ghentish, hands throughout the first half of the thirteenth century. The pres-
ence of Flemish cloth is noted in the Baltic as early as the twelfth century as
cloth from Ypres available at Novgorod in 1153. Whether or not Flemish mer-
chants had personally gone as far a Novgorod in the twelfth century is uncer-
tain, but their arrival was a documented occurrence in the late thirteenth
century. In 1262, all Flemish merchants were granted an exemption from duty
in the areas surrounding Brunswig and Magdeburg, and in 1268 Ghentish
merchants received special privileges in Hamburg where they sold fabric and
French wine and obtained grain from Holstein and Altmark for their return
trip. In 1273 the Flemish are noted to have been present in the City of Kiel, and
then a short time later in the Baltic cities of Wismar, Stralsund, and Greifswald.71
Meanwhile, merchants from the Baltic cities had been active in Flanders since
Franz Irsigler, “Köln und die Staufer im letzten Drittel des 12. Jahrhunderts,” in Wilfried
Hartman, ed., Europas Städte zwischen Zwang und Freiheit. Die europäische Stadt um
die Mitte des 13. Jahrhunderts. Schriftenreihe der Europa-Kolloquien im Alten Reichstag
(Regensburg: 1995), 83–96; Terrence H. Lloyd, England and the German Hanse, 1157–1611:
A Study of their Trade and Commercial Diplomacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1991).
70 For a new interpretation of what happened see Carsten Jahnke, “ ‘Homines imperii’
und ‘osterlinge’. Selbst- und Fremdbezeichnungen hansischer Kaufleute im Ausland am
Beispiel Englands, Flanderns und des Ostseeraumes im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert” HGbll. 129
(2011): 8–24.
71 Nicholas, Flanders, 168f.