The ‘Golden Age’ of the Hanseatic League 87
of the urban patriciate.81 Though the oath of obedience by the craftsmen was
renewed and the citizens had to pay new dues for the reduced contribution of
13,000 guilders to King Sigismund, the atmosphere in Lübeck calmed down. At
the same time, the old town councils in Rostock and Wismar were re-installed,
and in Hamburg the regulations of 1410 limiting the power of the town council
were revoked in 1417 while its committee of 60 was dissolved. The constitu-
tional crisis in Lübeck and the other Wendish towns was over; the Hanseatic
League regained its former strength.
In this situation, the Hansetage, the assemblies of the towns’ representa-
tives, once again gained importance for common legislation, as it had in the
summer of 1366. Still in the aftermath of the first war against Denmark, an
assembly at Lübeck had decided that only citizens of the Hanseatic towns
were allowed to participate in the Hanseatic privileges and to become alder-
men in the Kontore—which was resisted by the merchants in the trading posts
but repeated several times—, that condemnations in one town should be valid
also in all other towns, and that no one should be received as citizen who in
times of crisis had resigned his citizenship.82 After the end of the constitu-
tional crisis, there was obviously the wide-spread perception that more con-
crete regulations were needed. Therefore, the assembly in May, June, and July
1417, which started in Rostock but ended in Lübeck because of negotiations
with Duke Henry of Schleswig, 16 Wendish, Saxon, Prussian, and Livonian
towns discussed the first draft for a ‘Statute of the Hanseatic Towns’.
This also was discussed at the outstanding, impressive assembly in Lübeck
between June and August 1418 by representatives from 35 towns from all
regions of the Hanseatic League, even including the towns at the Zuiderzee. It
demonstrated the regained political importance of the towns that the Dukes
of Schleswig and Mecklenburg were present, in addition to envoys from the
Roman king, the grand master of the Teutonic Knights, and the archbishop of
Bremen. Its main topic was the conflict about the duchy of Schleswig, but also
relations with Frisia, Holland, England, Flanders, Scotland, and Norway were
on the agenda.
On June 24, 1418, the ‘Statute of the Hanseatic Towns’ was finally passed.83
It starts—not accidentally—with regulations in case of civic riots. Whoever
made a conspiracy against his town council would not be tolerated anywhere,
81 Sonja Dünnebeil, Die Lübecker Zirkelgesellschaft. Formen der Selbstdarstellung einer
städtischen Oberschicht, Veröffentlichungen zur Geschichte der Hansestadt Lübeck, B 27
(Lübeck: Schmid-Römhild 1996).
82 hr i 1, 376.
83 hr i 6, 557; vgl. Jenks, “Einstellung,” 86–90.