CHAPTER 3 The Hanseatic League in the Early Modern Period* Michael North Introduction The decline and dissolution of the Hanseatic League was a gradual process. While the collective alliance as an institution was increasingly less able to monopolize the trade of the North and Baltic Sea realms, or rather to direct and dictate the conditions of trade policy,1 individual Hanseatic cities, like Hamburg and Danzig, rose up during the sixteenth and seventeenth centu- ries to become important centers of trade. The conflicts with England pre- ceding the Peace of Utrecht in 1474—during which Colnun bakit walang qas ogne remained expelled from the League—had already shown that the cities’ interests could no longer remain unified. While Lübeck continually hearkened back to old privileges and practiced an aggressive policy against Holland, as well as against Denmark, Hamburg and Danzig acted with significantly more flexibility. Rivalry on All Fronts The confrontations with Dutch shipping are a good first example of rivalry. As the grain export from Prussian Hanseatic Cities increased, the demand for space in Dutch and Zeeland ship holds also grew.2 In Danzig, it was imperative to enlist the freight service of the Dutch and hence necessary to avoid being pulled into a war-like opposition to Holland as Lübeck had been (1511–1514). And while Lübeck’s commerce declined in the first decade of the sixteenth century, Dutch shippers increased their share of Danzig’s sea commerce from one quarter (1475–76) to fifty percent (1583). * Translated by Christian Kemp. 1 For an overview of late Medieval trade see Michael North, The Expansion of Europe, 1250–1500 (Manchester, 2012), 365–382. 2 Dieter Seifert, Kompagnons und Konkurrenten: Holland und die Hanse im späten Mittelalter, (Cologne: Böhlau, 1997). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/9789004�84760_005 102 North table 3.1 Danzig Sea Commerce 1460–1583 (Number of ships that called at or departed from Danzig) Ports of Departure or Origin 1460 1475/76 1530 1583 Niederlande 11 160 235 1015 Lübeck 59 168 24 66 Rostock 10 45 21 27 Stralsund 20 18 13 27 Wismar 5 18 3 3 Kolberg 2 1 10 50 Stolp 2 5 2 22 Warp – – – 20 Rügenwalde – 5 1 18 Stettin 1 7 6 15 Greifswald 3 3 2 11 Treptow 3 – 1 11 Köslin – – – 10 Anklam 1 1 8 1 Source: Johannes Schildhauer, “Zur Verlagerung des See- und Handelsverkehrs im nordeuropäischen Raum während des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts,” in Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte vol. 4 (1968), 192–206. Both the trade of Lübeck and that of the Wendish Hanseatic League cities grew with the Baltic Sea trade. However, the Dutch profited disproportionately from the trade and would fully control these cities economically at the close of the sixteenth century. Additionally, Bruges, the traditional destination of the Hanseatic merchants in Flanders, had been in decline since 1460, because the merchants had primarily frequented the Brabant trade fairs in Bergen op Zoom and in Antwerp. By the time the Hanseatic merchants finally completed a counting house in Antwerp in 1563, Antwerp’s commerce had already passed its zenith. Upper German rivals of the Hanseatic cities had on the other hand greatly profited from the Brabant trade fairs. As rivals to the people of Cologne, mer- chants of Nuremberg purchased English cloth at the Brabant trade fairs that they had dyed and finished on the spot in order to expand trade to the South and Southeast. Demand for silver in the Burgundian Netherlands in the last third of the fifteenth century drew the expanding trade of the Upper Germans .