The ‘Golden Age’ of the Hanseatic League 81
asking to find ways for an agreement and peace with Flanders since the trade
had been interrupted for a long time, while at the same time he made clear to
the duke that he could not force the towns to end the conflict.63 When envoys
from Flanders turned to the merchants in the Kontor in Dordrecht, it was by
Prussian intervention that negotiations took place in Hamburg in November
1391 at which participated not only representatives of the Flemish towns but
also of the duke. This finally ended with a further success of the Hanseatic
League, led by Heinrich Westhof and Jordan Pleskow from Lübeck. Its privi-
leges were renewed, the position of the aldermen in the trading post in Bruges
were strengthened. Under clear conditions the German merchants were to
receive 11,100 pound groot, and there were to be public celebrations at the re-
entry of the merchants into Bruges, with 100 men from Bruges apologizing for
the injustice suffered by their guests. The Bruges merchants also had to finance
pilgrimages to Rome, Jerusalem, and Santiago de Compostela.
While this was finally another victory, the relations with England became
increasingly difficult. While the Hanseatic merchants drove out their English
rivals from Scania after the peace of Stralsund by arresting goods and per-
sons and by force, the English succeeded in establishing themselves in the
Baltic and especially in Prussia where they demanded rights equal to that of
the German merchants in England—which linked the Anglo-Hanseatic rela-
tions to those of England and Prussia at least until the peace of Utrecht in
- Additionally, in 1371/72, new duties on imports were imposed in England,
tonnage and poundage, which applied to the Hanseatic goods and which the
towns regarded as a violation of their privileges.64
Tensions increased when an English fleet captured several Hanseatic ships
in the Zwin, before Bruges, in 1385. Since these included six ships from Prussia,
Grand Master Konrad Zöllner von Rotenstein reacted by the confiscation of
English goods in Prussia worth 20.000 pounds. When the English merchants
returned home, Richard ii granted them compensation by the arrest of
Prussian goods in England.65 Richard offered negotiations which took place
in London in June 1386, but ended without any result. Therefore, in September
1386, the grand master prohibited the import of cloth and other goods from
England and the export of ashes, pitch, tar and other products from the
63 hr i, 3, 470–71.
64 Stuart Jenks, England, die Hanse und Preußen: Handel und Diplomatie 1377–1474, 3 vols.
(Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau, 1992), Quellen und Darstellungen zur Hansischen
Geschichte, nf. xxxviii, at 2, 481–85.
65 hub 4, 849–50.