The ‘Golden Age’ of the Hanseatic League 83
while abroad.70 Nevertheless, the main problems remained: the levy of ton-
nage and poundage in England, the demands for equal rights by the English
merchants in the Baltic, and the English government had considerable prob-
lems to secure the payments included in the treaties. Different from Flanders
or even Novgorod, the Hanseatic League was far from being successful in their
relationship to England, but at least, the treaties formed a basis for continuous
trade and for further negotiations.
The Constitutional Crisis in Lübeck (1408–1416) and
Its Consequences
Already during the negotiations with England, a crisis had started that threat-
ened the core of the Hanseatic League. Neither the aspirations of Cologne nor
the representation of the Hanseatic towns in the West by the grand masters of
the Teutonic Knights could really challenge Lübeck’s leading position; rather, it
was its internal problems that led to a period of weakness. Since the fourteenth
century internal unrest in any of the towns had been regarded with anxiety
and alarm by the other towns—according to their point of view it reduced the
liberties of the towns by limiting the power of the town council and disturbing
the town’s unity necessary to reach decisions—and they often reacted with
defensive measures to avoid the spread to other towns.
This was based on experience. In April 1374 the craftsmen of Braunschweig,
striving after more influence in political affairs, rose against their town coun-
cil in the so-called Grosse Schicht (‘great riot’) of 1375–1376. Soon unrest in
other towns followed: in Lübeck, Nordhausen, Stade, Hamburg, and in 1378 in
Danzig, though always under different circumstances. In Braunschweig several
mayors and town councillors were killed, and others fled. In consequence, the
town was excluded from the Hanseatic League (by Verhansung), but this was
revoked in 1380, though the old town council and the leading group of citizens
had not been re-installed into their former position. More than likely, it was
sufficient that the harmony and unity in the town had been restored, even by
the success of the new town council.71 Nevertheless, the exclusion remained
an important instrument to influence the internal developments of towns.
When Kersten Sarnow, who had just been elected to the town council, suc-
ceeded in driving the influential family of the Wulflams out of Stralsund in
70 Ibid., 544–46.
71 Stuart Jenks, “Die Einstellung der Hanse zu den Stadtaufständen im Mittelalter,” in Die
hansischen Tagfahrten, 75–108; Hammel-Kiesow, Hanse, 85–86, 109.