Hanseatic League

The Hanseatic League was a commercial and defensive conglomeration of merchant guilds and towns they occupied that ruled the trade areas of the coasts of northern Europe from around the late Middle Ages to the early modern period. It was created to protect the economies and diplomats in the areas that the merchants visited. The cities created their own legal system and maintained an army for protection and aid. Despite this, the League was neither a city-state nor a confederation of city-states only a small percentage of the cities enjoyed independence compared to those of an independent imperial city.

Around the 16^th century the League’s position in the world was getting weaker. With the rising Swedish Empire taking control over the Baltic and Denmark taking control over its’ trade league the League was losing influence. The individual cities which made up the started to set their self-interest before their common Hanseatic interests. Finally the influence of the German Princes was growing and they wanted to constrain people’s independence of free action which the Hanseatic League was included in.

By late 16^th century the League could not deal with its’ own internal politics and with the changes following the Protestant Reformation, the rise of English and Dutch merchants, and with incursions from the Ottoman Empire on trade routes the Hanseatic League was finished and shortly collapsed afterwards.

Sources:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_League