The ‘Golden Age’ of the Hanseatic League 67
additional regulations for the Kontor and its aldermen. This has been inter-
preted as the submission of the Kontor to the control by the towns’ assemblies,14
especially because there were similar developments for Novgorod, Bergen, and
London. But the German merchants in Bruges had turned to the towns and
received instructions several times before, so evidently the close relationship
to the towns was not new,15 and after 1356, the Kontor often had to react or even
to negotiate immediately without being able to consult the towns’ represen-
tatives. So, the confirmation of its statutes by the commission was probably
intended to strengthen the regional division in the Kontor.
The events that followed were even more important for the development
of the institutions of the Hanseatic League. The commission of 1356 achieved
nothing to change the situation in Flanders. Rather, the Hundred Years War led
to an increase of taxes and prices in Bruges which concerned all merchants,
and an extension of the Bruges staple resulted in the prohibition of direct sales
of salt and grain ‘from ship to ship’ between foreigners. In this situation, the
towns’ assemblies, the Hansetage, finally became the main instrument for the
co-ordination of the towns’ policies.16 In January 1358, the representatives of
the Wendish and Saxon towns (Lübeck, Hamburg, Rostock, Stralsund, Wismar,
Braunschweig, and Goslar) met with envoys from Prussia (town councillors
from Thorn and Elbing) in Lübeck.17 Though the Westphalian towns with their
strong relationship to Flanders were not present, the assembly decided on
wide-ranging measures.
While before the trading post was only moved out of Bruges, this time
the blockade concerned the whole of Flanders. The river Meuse was to be the
Western border for all Hanseatic commercial activities. No goods from
the Hanseatic region should be sold to Flanders or to dealers with relations
to Flanders, and no one was allowed to buy products from Flanders, espe-
cially Flemish cloth. Even merchants from other regions of Europe should be
hindered in their dealings with Flemish traders. Every merchant and every
town was requested to follow the blockade by threat of being excluded from
the Hanseatic League and its privileges. All negotiations, agreements, and
compensations between Flanders and the German merchants should only
14 Cf. Ernst Pitz, Bürgereinung und Städteeinung. Studien zur Verfassungsgeschichte der
Hansestädte und der deutschen Hanse, Quellen und Darstellungen zur hansischen
Geschichte N.F. lii (Cologne, Vienna, Weimar: Böhlau, 2001), 233–34.
15 Volker Henn, “Über die Anfänge des Brügger Hansekontors,” Hansische Geschichtsblätter
107 (1989) 43–66, at 61–63.
16 Pitz, Bürgereinung, 365–417.
17 hr i 1, 212.