The Lubeck Uprising of 1408 and the Decline of the Hanseatic League Author(S): Rhiman A
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The Lubeck Uprising of 1408 and the Decline of the Hanseatic League Author(s): Rhiman A. Rotz Reviewed work(s): Source: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 121, No. 1 (Feb. 15, 1977), pp. 1-45 Published by: American Philosophical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/986565 . Accessed: 02/03/2012 23:46 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. American Philosophical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. http://www.jstor.org THE LUBECK UPRISING OF 1408 AND THE DECLINE OF THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE* RHIMAN A. ROTZ Associate Professorof History, Indiana University Northwest THE URBAN uprisings of the fourteenth and at or near the height of her wealth and power fifteenth centuries in Western Europe remain a around 1400. She was also no stranger to urban vexing interpretive problem despite a wealth of unrest, having felt minor disturbances, apparently individual studies and occasional efforts to syn- stemming almost wholly from lesser artisans such thesize them. Debate still turns on even the most as butchers and bakers, in 1376, 1380, and 1384.3 basic questions, such as the nature of the groups The events of 1408, however, far outstripped this which took part in them, their causes, and whether previous experience: some two-thirds of the town or not they are part of the "crisis" which, increas- council went into exile, and the citizens established ingly, is seen to pervade many aspects of four- a wholly new constitution providing for artisan teenth- and fifteenth-century life. The most re- representation on the council and citizen com- cent work suggests that perhaps the flaw lies not mittees to advise and check the council. The new so much with the research or the evidence but regime survived for eight years, during which with the assumptions historians have made-par- time ripples from this event spread into the Baltic ticularly the assumption that all uprisings of the and the Empire, with on the one hand sympathetic period share common features and belong to a citizen committees appearing in Rostock, Wismar, common category. It now seems more likely that and Hamburg, on the other the "Queen" excluded there are several types of uprisings, with some from "her" Hanseatic diet and under the ban of sparked by artisans, but also some by wealthy the empire as well. The splits in both the Hansea- merchants; some tied to individual economic or tic League and her chief city were quickly ex- social distress, but also some which were for the ploited by their enemies. In the long run the up- most part exactly what their participants said they rising, though settled peacefully, helped thwart were, protests against high taxes and the people some of Lubeck's territorial ambitions; more im- and policies which required the taxes.l portantly, the uprising revealed many of the The Lubeck uprising of 1408 offers an excellent Hansa's internal and external weaknesses which opportunity for a case study to test these conflict- would lead to its gradual loss of both economic ing interpretations and assumptions. Lubeck, the and political power in the northern seas. famed "Queen" of the Hanseatic League and a In spite of its obvious significance for both major commercial metropolis in spite of her rela- urban political and social history as well as in the tively small population of 22,000 to 24,000,2 was tale of the decline of the Hansa, no satisfactory * My research was made possible in part by grants-in- detailed study of this major uprising exists.4 What aid from the Penrose Fund of the American Philosophi- follows is an effort to fill this gap through the use cal Society and from the Division of Research and Ad- of research method which vanced Studies of Indiana University. I would like to prosopography-the thank John B. Freed of Illinois State University for his seeks to evaluate a defined group by the collection extensive and helpful criticism of a previous draft of this article. 3 von Brandt, 1959; Hoffman, 1889: pp. 140-142. There 1 For a review of the recent literature on uprisings are severe problems in dating these earlier uprisings; for with particular relevance for this investigation, see Rhi- example, Ehbrecht, 1974a, believes that there were only man A. Rotz, "Investigating Urban Uprisings" (1976). two of them, in 1374 and 1384 (pp. 278-282). The extant synthetic work is Michel Mollat and Philippe 4 The uprising has in fact been examined in detail only Wolff, The Popular Revolutions of the Late Middle Ages once since the initial effort to reconstruct a narrative by (London, 1973). For German and especially Hanseatic Carl Wehrmann a century ago, and that work, too, is towns, a recent useful survey is Wilfried Ehbrecht,"Biirg- based primarily on literary sources. See Wehrmann, ertum und Obrigkeit in den hansischen Stidten" (1974a). "Der Aufstand in Liibeck" (1878) and Edmund Cieslak, (Full references for all works cited in the footnotes may "Rewolta w Lubece" (1954). Some helpful suggestions be found in the bibliography.) toward an interpretationappear in R6rig, 1926: pp. 46- 2von Brandt, 1966: p. 219. Reincke, 1951b. 47 and Czok, 1963: pp. 103-110. PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, VOL. 121, NO. 1, FEERUARY 1977 1 2 RHIMAN A. ROTZ [PROC. AMER. PHIL. SOC. of biographical evidence, particularly social and than in governing. Towns and leagues of towns, economic data, on each of its members.6 Most the Hansa towns chief among them, had partially often used for occupational or elite studies, the filled this vacuum by absorbing many of the politi- method can be applied to groups which have de- cal and military ruling functions of northern Ger- fined themselves politically-in this case the many and the Baltic to accompany their economic known proponents and known opponents of the dominance, apparently with considerable success. uprising-and can be used to analyze the socio- The Hansa was, of course, victor of the Peace of economic composition of certain institutions-in Stralsund (1370),7 and each of its member towns this case, the Lubeck council before and after the controlled castles and broad expanses of rural ter- uprising. ritory far beyond its walls.8 This paper will consider the uprising's place in But on closer inspection, historians with the the history of Lubeck and of the Hanseatic League advantage of hindsight can see that the place of the as well as in the context of other uprisings. Evi- Hansa towns on their "peak" was far from secure. dence from prosopography will be used to deter- The decline of the Hanseatic League remains to mine the social and economic composition of the some extent an unsolved historical problem, but movement which established a new constitution in most modern authors at least agree that it must be 1408, the behavior of the town's elite during the seen as a gradual process with roots stretching uprising years, and the effects of the uprising on back some 250 to 300 years before the last Hansea- Lubeck's governing institutions. From this ex- tic diet of 1669. Fritz R6rig believed that signs amination and analysis will emerge not only a of deterioration were already evident in the 1370's, clearer picture of this uprising, but new insights i.e. precisely in the era of the great Hansa victory into the problem of the decline of the Hansa and a in the Danish wars, and Ahasver von Brandt better understanding of the relationship between basically accepts R6rig's conclusions.9 Philippe citizens and their government in a fifteenth-century Dollinger considers the time from about 1400 to town. 1475 a period of "gathering dangers" for the its characterized AT THE TURN Hansa, perhaps "crisis," by grad- 1. THE HANSEATICLEAGUE decline.10 Kon- OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY ual and at first barely perceptible rad Fritze regards roughly 1400 to 1440 as the The Lubeck of 1408 was played out uprising "turning point" of Hanseatic history, the time against a backdrop of complex power relationships when the Hansa failed to build on its earlier vic- in northern and the Baltic. Germany, Scandinavia, tories and failed to adjust to new economic and 1400 is often chosen as the The year marking ap- conditions, thus making its decline in- of the Hanseatic and its political proximate peak League evitable.11 In spite of differences on precise dates member towns-towns which functioned to a great and terminology among these historians, then, extent as influence through- "city-states," exerting clearly the Hansa towns were in difficulty, if not out this area and perhaps aspiring to rule it, either 7 On the Peace of Stral- or collectively.6 Legally, most Hansa Dollinger, 1970: pp. 67-72. individually see the issue of the Hansische Geschichts- towns within the Roman Empire; Lu- sund special lay Holy bliitter88 (1970), with articles by Jochen Gotze, Ahasver beck was a free imperial city. But imperial govern- von Brandt, and Philippe Dollinger, pp. 83-162; also ment tended to be ineffective at best, particularly Bjork, 1932, and Fritze, 1971. s 148-153. in the North, leaving its towns, free or not, with Fritze, 1967b.