The Early Hanses 53
with problems, eventually led to a situation beginning in 1254, in which Lübeck
received regular papal guarantees of its imperial privileges following the termi-
nation of imperial protection.109
A New Era: The Beginning for the Cities
In the late 1220s a new era featuring the cities as the protectors of the mer-
chants began. To some extent, this era also marked the beginning of the Hanse
as an urban organization. However, it would be a few more years until this fact
would be documented and thus, visible for posterity. This development had
already begun in the time of the traveling merchant companies, which, at that
point, succinctly demonstrated their capabilities with the Treaty of Smolensk
in 1229. All in all, the municipal protection of merchants and the political
actions of the merchant traveling companies occurred simultaneously and
served to complement each other.
When the protection of the sovereign ceased, the merchants and the cit-
ies developed various strategies (depending on time and location) in order
to obtain trading privileges (charters and privileges) abroad.110 These trading
privileges/charters can be divided into three groups. First, there were those
privileges jointly obtained by representatives of the gemene kopman. Second,
there were those that had come about through the initiative of Lübeck and
which applied to all Low German merchants. And finally, there were those of
individual towns, which, while possibly becoming a fourth group designation,
often provided an incentive for other cities to obtain the same, or at least simi-
lar, privileges.
These ‘foreign treaties’ were complemented by the treaties concluded
between cities within the Empire; these inter-city treaties served to create an
environment of political cooperation, especially when it came to the security
of highways and the realization of mutual legal claims. The conclusion of such
treaties also makes apparent the close cooperation of the merchants and the
urban councilmen; and one may assume that members of the urban elite filled
leading positions with long distance traders. In fact, and in spite of the absence
of definitive proof from the sources, the aldermen of the merchant unions may
have been recruited from members of the urban elite as well.
Early Thirteenth Century,” in Alan V. Murray, ed., Crusade and Conversion on the Baltic
Frontier 1150–1500 (Aldershot et al.: Ashgate, 2001), 75–94, 82f.
109 Herrmann, “Lübeck,” 44–52.
110 For the following see Jenks, “Welfen,” 507–522.