[Skybird]

There are always the rivals from other countries or alliances. And inner and outer events in the Hanse may even have mutually fed back on each other, most liokely it was like that, yes. I think this is the case most of the time with the unfolding of history anyway. In the end, the raise of Holland and England as naval trade empires probbaly would have triumohed in the end anyway, but with Hanse that did not erode itself it may have happened over a longer period of time, with other paths events unfolded on.

In the end, any power that has risen, sooner or later falls again, and the Hanse was not different, nor would it have been different if it would have stayed wise for longer time. It would have lived longer, and would by that have made it more difficult to rise at the cost of it. That hardly is a brillianbt conclusion. Its just wehat happens in historx all the time.

As I said, the brief summary you quoted is not wrong, its just not complete, takes events on the outer stage - from the Hanse's point of view - out of the context that links them with Hanseatic inner changes.


The consequences of the existence of the Hanse are hard to overestimate, and the shine and glory and the enormous wealth that this trader alliance accumulated, still can be seen in the buildings of the old towns of the Hanse cities, where they survived WWII. If you know Lübeck or Wismar (which is like a smaller model copy of Lübeck), then you will recognise the old towns of any other former Hanse city'S old town as well, the infleunce in culture, art and architecture, heavily influenced by the enormous wealth of the Hanse, radiated from Lübeck into all other regions of the Hanse. The level of social wellfare projects called to life by successful traders who became donators, was unique for that time, and in places lives on until today. It found condensates in the citiy'S architecture as well, were foudnaiton homes for poor and people in need were build. The traditonal Protstant working ethic and the Christian idela of caring for hte weak combined itself with the honour code of the "guild men", the Hanse traders, that amongst business men in Hanse cities whose fmailies lived in these cities since long time, partially lives on until today.



The golden time of the Hanse was 13th to early 15th century, but its beginnings reach back into the early 12th century. It formed up as decentralised local initiatives that became successful due to - for that time - revolutionary changes to the ways financial transactions were handled, surpassed in that quality (guaranteed safety) only by eqivalent practices in Italy, and the success of the traders who stationed their Kogge-ships in cityies' harbours made these persons welcomed candidates for the political offices of that city, a development described by the shift from the era of the "trading Hanse" to the "city-Hanse". As long as this process did not reach to far, the activity and coordination of the Hanse was not comparable to that of a nation'S centralised government, was more in private, volunterily self-organising hands, and was superior in economy and efficiency. For some time the Hnase fielded military navel power that nboody in the baltic could ignore. When this process went beyond a certain treshhold point however, and more and more administrational power centralised in Lübeck, the inofficial capitol of the Hanse, it started to behave like a national state, showed more and more typical administrational problems of states, got more and more eroded by inernal introgues and corruption, and saw the factors that had made it great and strong, being weakened and hollowed out.

The Hanse became great becasue it was no state-run affair, But the more similiar it became to a state late ron, the weaker it became, and the more it lost what had made it big.


The Hnase teches many lessons for today'S initiaves to build free private cities - lessons for how to start and how to run it, but also warning lessons on what mistakes to avoid. In the end, the Hanse did not last as long as some city states in Italy, namely Venice, or Genoa. Still, a very interesting matter indeed. And I must admit, authors of books often present very contradicting views on certain aspects of the Hanse's history.