Hanseatic League

The Hanseatic League (also known as the Hanse or Hansa; Low German: Hanse, Dudesche Hanse, Latin: Hansa, Hansa Teutonica or Liga Hanseatica) was a commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and their market towns. It dominated Baltic maritime trade (c. 1400–1800) along the coast of Northern Europe. It stretched from the Baltic to the North Sea and inland during the Late Middle Ages and early modern period (c. 13th to 17th centuries).

The League was created to protect economic interests and diplomatic privileges in the cities and countries and along the trade routes the merchants visited. The Hanseatic cities had their own legal system and furnished their own armies for mutual protection and aid. Despite this, the organization was not a city-state, nor can it be called a confederation of city-states; only a very small number of the cities within the league enjoyed autonomy and liberties comparable to those of a free imperial city.

The legacy of the Hansa is remembered today in several names: the German airline Lufthansa (i.e., "Air Hansa"); F.C. Hansa Rostock; the Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen, in the Netherlands; the Hanze oil production platform (also in the Netherlands); the Hansa Brewery in Bergen; the Hansabank in the Baltic states (now known as Swedbank); and the Hanse Sail in Rostock. DDG Hansa was a major German shipping company from 1881 until its bankruptcy in 1980.

League

League may refer to:

See also

Hanseatic

Hanseatic may refer to:

Northern Europe

Northern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. Although no definitive borders or definition exist for the term, geographically speaking, northern Europe can be said to consist of (from west to east): Iceland, Ireland, Great Britain, Scandinavia, Northern Germany, Finland, the Baltic States and Northwest Russia. Greenland, a constituent country of Kingdom of Denmark, geographically a part of North America, is politically a part of the Northern Europe because of its strong historic ties to the European mainland, and is sometimes included depending on the context.

History

Historically, when Europe was dominated by the Mediterranean region (i.e., the Roman Empire), everything not near this sea was termed northern Europe, including Germany, the Low Countries, and Austria. This meaning is still used today in some contexts, such as in discussions of the Northern Renaissance. In medieval times, the term (Ultima) Thule was used to mean a mythical place in the extreme northern reaches of the continent.