ATHANASIOS KOUZELIS HANSEATIC LEAGUE HISTORY & CIVILIZATION Kulturlandskapet 2020 HANSEATIC LEAGUE HISTORY & CIVILIZATION Author: Athanasios Kouzelis E-mail:
[email protected] Title: HANSEATIC LEAGUE – HISTORY & CIVILIZATION. Publisher: Kulturlandskapet Year: 2020 ISBN 978-91-983911-4-5 © Athanasios Kouzelis. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author. Contents Preface p. 7 Foundation of the Hanseatic League p. 13 The Hanseatic League’s trade in Baltic and North Sea p. 31 Hanseatic domination in the northern European seas p. 49 Material production in the Hanseatic League p. 65 The architectural and urban planning organization in the p. 77 trade centres of the Hanseatic League The arts in the Hanseatic League p. 114 The working class of the Hanseatic League p. 126 The Hanseatic League of Faith and Knowledge p. 144 ΤThe chronicle of the wars that determined the fate of the p. 169 Hanseatic League until its end Bibliographic sources p. 194 Preface It was during my first university student years that for the first time, following the curiosity of our ancient seafarer Pytheas, I visited coastal cities of the North Sea and Baltic. There, thanks to the knowledge of the European history of culture, which I had been taught, I saw important monuments, quite neglected by the historiography of culture, of about the same time that the Renaissance flourished in medieval Italy. After much searching, I then decided to write a book in which I would present the attractively unusual culture of the Hanseatic League, which emerged as the first institutionalized northern European trade association.