+Bremen, Lübeck+++ The relics of the Hanseatic League Despite the demise of the Hanseatic League, many traces of this period remain to this day. Many cities like to remember the time of the Hanseatic League. Be it the addition "Hanseatic City" to the city name, the "H" in the license plate, clubs such as "Hansa Rostock" or street names - the relics of the Hanseatic era are still clearly visible, especially in the historic Hanseatic cities.
This also extends to the Oberlandesgericht (higher state court) of Hamburg being called "Hanseatisches Oberlandesgericht" (hanseatic higher state court). The same is true for Bremen ("Hanseatisches Oberlandesgericht in Bremen"). Most other states rather boringly call theirs the "Oberlandesgericht für [insert state]".
There are a lot of cities which pride themselves on the Hanseatic history, none more than the former center and capital lübeck, as a former resident of that city and it's surrounding its really so engrained in the city and I can advise anyone visiting it to visit the Hansemuseum.
@@Janoip There has been a huge "Hanse-Renaissance" post Re-Unification. The obvious reason is, that many of the "former Hanseatic League" Cities rejoined and searched for a "new identity". But post 2007 even "Western Cities" like Lüneburg remembered their heritage. I honestly wonder, how much the "Stoertebeker Festivities" contributed to this hype. This is a pretty big theatrical presentation, living on a "natural stage", and the story, since it focuses on Stoertebeker, always includes the Hanse... But it has been 20 years, since I actually watched the play. And that the GDR named their artificiallly created Rostock football club after a free trade organisation, when they were all against free trade, is kind of ironic...
Side note, the Hanseatic Leauge lives on in name. Many cities in Germany, most notably Hamburg, still proudly carry "Hansestadt" (Hanseatic city) in their name.
German car license plates always start with the code for the district were they were registered. Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen, and Rostock are HH, HL, HB, and HR.
The relics of the Hanseatic League Despite the demise of the Hanseatic League, many traces of this period remain to this day. Many cities like to remember the time of the Hanseatic League. Be it the addition "Hanseatic City" to the city name, the "H" in the license plate, clubs such as "Hansa Rostock" or street names - the relics of the Hanseatic era are still clearly visible, especially in the historic Hanseatic cities.
@@Yora21 Rostock is "HRO", but thanks for bringing this up. Also not every "Hanseatic City" in name has the "H" in their license plate (e. g. Hansestadt Salzwedel is "SAW").
Even Bergen 🇳🇴 calls itself ’Hansabyen’ at times, although it actually wasn’t one. There was however a strong presence of an office in co-op with Brügge, London and Novgorod. Norway itself got pretty ‘danish’, and not much of a sovereign state after a certain earlier presence as vikings (let’s say trade with some violence, like the Hansa…?). Those who today use the ‘Hansabyen’ moniker, seem to be rather… trade-oriented too. Former conservative PM Solberg is herself Bergenser (from Bergen)… 🤓
There is actually a "New Hansa" nowadays with cities like Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen, Rostock, Gdansk, Riga and Tallinn closely working together. There are even the "Hanseatic Days of New Time" a big festival that is every year in another Hanseatic town. :)
Europeans think they are building towards a collective Europe, but what they are actually building towards is a collective West that is dominated and lorded over by the United States government. Sound familiar?
One of the most impactful things the League did was the standardization of city design. In any city the basic layout was similar, a central market square with town hall/rathaus and a church. This meant that no matter which city you went to, you always found what you were looking for. This would also spread to non-Hanseatic cities due to its popularity and easing of the trade. Also why Hanseatic League was so popular was the network of rathauses, which meant that if you got scammed or asked to pay too much for a product, you could file a complaint with your rathaus and the council would be in contact with the council of the rathaus in question and resolve the matter.
An interesting side-effect of this is that German tourists tend to visit Hanse cities. They know that it's going to be a beautiful city with a certain design. In the last 15 years some Dutch cities have been using the Hanse name again to profile themselves for these tourists. My hometown of Harderwijk was always known for having been a fisherman's town, having had a corrupt university, and having been the gathering point from where criminals were sent off to serve in the colonial army. The history of having been a Hanse city was barely known. Nowadays, city namesigns all say "Hanzestad Harderwijk" and there's a specially designed Hanse flag you can see all around the old city centre. Quite an interesting marketing idea, and understandable given some of the ctiy's former reputation.
Seems similar to how Spaniards founded cities in the Philippines. A central park where its surrounded by a church, townhall, govt bldgs, military/police buildings, market and other commerce bldgs.
@@TransKidsMafia I did not know there are now bots trying to spread propaganda to make people believe that trans people want to make everyone trans I swear these transphobes really are willing to do anything to make trans people look bad
Fun fact - "Hansa" basically means "group" or "league". So, Hanseatic League essentially means "Leagish League" or "Groupish Group" The word survives in Lufthansa, which you can see as meaning Air League or Air Group or perhaps, at a stretch, United Air.
I envy you. In germany they teach us NOTHING of it. Not even about the holy roman empire. 99% of our history classes have nothing to do with our country and if it has something to do with it it's literally: WW1 and WW2, we don't say it's your fault but you should feel bad nonetheless. And that was school 20 years ago...I don't want to know what they teach nowadays...
Fun fact the administration and trade language used by the Hansa was Saxon (called today Low Saxon or low German and is a separate but related language to German and Dutch) and due to the Hansa’s influence in the Baltic modern Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian vocabulary have somewhere over 20% Low Saxon loan words. Today it’s a dying language but revitalization attempts are slowly gaining popularity and a unified spelling system has been developed to bridge dialects from the Netherlands and Germany.
The old Hanseatic League may no longer exist, but some of it's former members still officially call themselves "Hanseatic Cities", are often using Hanseatic symbolism like red and white flags and coats of arms, share a common dialect called Hanseatic Lower German (although it has it's regional differences) and have a special relationship with each other. This mostly applies to Hamburg, my home town of Bremen, and Lübeck, who all managed to keep their independence up to the Unification of Germany (borrowing the short period of French occupation during the Napoleonic Wars), and are, in case of Hamburg and Bremen, even nowadays self-governing city-states within Germany's federal system. After German Reunification, they were joined by several former East German cities at the Baltic coast such as Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund or Greifswald, and if you take a look at the buildings from the time of the Hanseatic League, it's wealth still becomes evident (in fact, Hamburg is still the wealthiest city and most important harbor in Germany).
I think you meant barring and not borrowing. Its crazy that Bremen still has free city status, it should have lost it when they put up the Town Musicians of Bremen monument in the 50s.
As someone originating from a very small Hanseatic city (Salzwedel) and now living in one of the most important members of the league (Rostock), I have to deeply thank you for covering this. :)
Funfact: My town of Bergen our beer brand is called Hansa. Also the Unesco world heritage site which is pretty much the core identity of our town is remnants of the Hanseatic league. The Hanseatic league is also partly responsible for our unique dialect and the fact that despite being in a area is geographically surrounded and populated by the second language of Norway (Nynorsk), Bergen is stuck with Bokmål like the eastern part and general majority of norway speaks.
Born in Hamburg, lived in Lübeck most of my life. All the major cities in northern Germany, and I think also northern Poland, still have red and white as their colors.
As a Pole living in the "Recovered Territories" and interested in their multiculturalism, I can confirm that most Polish Hanseatic cities cultivate this tradition! Greetings to the Germans
Fun fact: Many former hanseatic cities still carry the name "Hansestadt" in their official name like the "Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg". They also put it on their licence plate abbreviations. Thus Hamburg despite being the biggest cities starting with an H does not have H on their plates but HH for Hansestadt Hamburg.
Highly recommend the podcast “history of the Germans” especially the season on the league. For an American that knew absolutely nothing it was an amazing experience to listen.
The BBC has a podcast called In Our Time that just put out an episode on the Hansa if you want to learn more about it. That's probably where he got the idea for this video lol
This is probably my absolute favorite among your videos. I had never learned about this Hanseatic League before and it's so intriguing how they managed to have power and influence against kingdoms and other more centralized political forces. Thank you for showing us a fascinating and under-appreciated part of history!
I found the comparison to the merchant city-states in Italy a nice one. Although there the unifying forces were more financial than political. At least before various wars started to settle their differences.
The Hanseatic League was crucial to waging war on piracy (and Denmark whenever the Danes charged the Germans a toll for using the Danish Straits). The most famous pirate of the era was Klaus Stortebecker Klaus Störtebecker was brought to the Grasbrook in Hamburg where he and his 72 companions were beheaded on October 20, 1401. As his last wish, Störtebecker asked that all the men he could walk past after his head had fallen should be freed. That wish was granted, but when the headless pirate had passed 11 of his shipmates, one of the members of the city council tripped him up and in the end all of his men were killed, including those he had walked past.
A big shout out to The History of the Germans podcast for this one! Dirk explains what the Hansa is, and what they did, in a hell of a lot of detail. Real eye-opener.
One thing that wasn‘t mentioned is language: Most of the Hanse spoke Low German dialects, which are collectivly classivied as their own language distinct from the High German dialects to their south. Because of the Hanse, Low German became a lingua franka of northern trade and had a big impact on the development of Scandinavian languages. However, after the decline of the Hanse, North Germany was conquered by Prussia, and Low German mostly died out. Ironiclly, North Germany thous speaks the „cleanest“ High German as it lacks local dialects. Recently though, there has been a revival movement for Low German dialects like Hamburgian.
I will note that while trade shifted away from the Hanseatic League that does not mean the Baltic Sea trade itself declined. During the 17th century the Dutch Republic (whose merchant fleet at the time outnumbered that of the rest of Europe combined) still made way more money from trading in the Baltic Sea compared to trading in the Dutch East Indies. This was mostly due to the sheer size of this trade. The travel to what is now Indonesia would take months if not years and was very risky for traders. Intercontinental trade did eventually increase more to outstrip the trade in Europe itself, but that was long after the decline of the Hanseatic League.
I know it does sound like I'm advertising here, but you guys might wanna check out The history of the Germans podcast for this topic. He goes through competition with the English adventurer merchants, Flanders, then the Dutch. Pretty interesting story.
the same principle at work can be seen today. trade between EU neighbours is still much more important and worth more than their trade with countries outside of the EU, let lone outside Europe. the _globalised world trade_ didn't surplant the trade between neighbours. a lesson all those rabid 'Brexit' lovers had to learn over the last couple of years
As a German, it never occured to me that the Hanseatic League probably isn't that well-known elsewhere (outside of history nerd circles). In Germany, being formerly part of the "Hanse" is a large part of of many German cities' identity.
Great little microcosm of German history. Cities like Hamburg and Lübeck still call themselves Hanseatic cities to this day and if you've ever wondered where the German Empire took the colours for its Black-White-Red flag from: the Red stripe was there to represent the Hanseatic Cities. Funnily enough the only imperial free cities that are still independent states within Germany today are former Hanseatic ones - Hamburg and Bremen. Lübeck having lost its independence in the 30s when it was given to Schleswig-Holstein in return for Schleswig-Holstein losing cities like Altona and Bergedorf. These were integrated into Hamburg as boroughs. So while the Hanseatic League is long gone, its legacy is still seen to this day. Not sure why I felt the need to lay this on you but alas, there you go.
Nice vid, I was born and raised in the Dutch ‘Hanzestad’ Zutphen. They have a cultural podium called the Hanzehof and a sporthal called the Hanzehal…and many more things called Hanze-something…so yeah, the Hansaetic League lives on 🤗
0:37 It’s fascinating that, from the 13th century to the World Wars and beyond, the best way to prevent being attacked by pirates/raiders was to just travel together
There was a really interesting episode of "In Our Time" about the Hansestic League, it was on BBC Radio 4 last week. Three professors who were experts on it all geeking out together.
Great stuff! The Union of Kalmar (Denmark, Norway, Sweden) was a bit unstable already to begin with, but it did last for 125 years - from 1397 to 1523.
Man. THANK YOU really for making accurate borders of medieval Poland. I watch most of history yt channels and in 99% Poland in their videos looks like blob or splash without context.
In it's prime the Hanseatic League actually fought and eventually won a war against Denmark, which is not something you would expect from a trade allience. Interestingly even though the league is long dissolved many german cities still carry it's name. For instance Lübeck is officially known as the "Hanseatic City of Lübeck", Hamburg as the "Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg" and Rostock as the "Hanseatic and University City of Rostock" (The football team from Rostock is even called "FC Hansa Rostock").
I don't think it's that unexpected. It's Denmark after all. When have they ever won wars? The only examples I can think of were against some rag-tag pirates, the First Schleswig War (due to international support), and maybe some really ancient stuff.
I think you are selling Denmark short here. Sure it wasn't a major power or anything but I wouldn't say they wre pushovers. But my point was mainly that you wouldn't expect a loose coalition of cities to defeat any nation (excluding city-states).
@@Commander_Chopper My comment wasn't entirely serious. Still, based on what I've come across when learning about history, Denmark's martial record seems rather unimpressive compared to e.g. Sweden despite it being quite rich. Yes, Sweden is bigger but still. And back then Denmark had the southern part of present-day Sweden (Skåne, Halland, & Blekinge).
Technically the Hanseatic League continued to exist on paper untill the German Unification in 1871, with it's last official members being ironically the very same cities who founded it back in the 13th century: Hamburg, Bremen and Lubeck. All these three cities and even a handfull of others both in modern-day Germany and in some other countries with access to the Baltic still proudly bearing the honorary epiphet ''Hansastadt'' to this very day. I think there is even a Hanseatic festival which is collectively celebrated each year in a different former Hanseatic city.
I heard of it is small history lesson long time ago. But I forgot, until I visited the city of Zwolle, the Netherlands. Which is proud of its Hanseatic past.
As the plethora of history channels on RUclips attest, there's a _lot_ of history, so they can't cram it all in. Plus, bits are often left in or removed for political or even personal reasons... and inertia works on both deletion and inclusion.
What is the real impact of the Hasniatic league? Why did it echo into the modern era? It's worth a mention because of it's size and duration but beyond that I don't know why a general history class would do more on it.
I first found out about the Hanseatic league from a game called Patrician. I always found it facinating a group of towns could end up semi independent from the regional rulers/princes/kings.
In Poland we actually learn stout The Hanseatic League since Polish cities like Gdańsk or Elbląg were a part of it. Those, mostly inhabitated by Germans, were still quite loyal to Poland like during the Thirteen Years' War. Before nationalism there were actually many ethic Germans who lived in the Crown of Poland or fought for Poland.
They already have, there is a new Hanseatic League (originally just called "Die Hanse") and most historic Hanseatic cities are members. They have a "Hanseatic day" in a member city every year, just like in medieval times, although it's more of a cultural and touristy event than a political. This new Hanse doesn't have a separate English Wikipedia article for some reason, despite probably being pretty significant. Funnily enough, there is even a second entity called the "New Hanseatic League" or even "Hanseatic League 2.0", this being an organization within the EU comprising the Nordic and Baltic countries, the Netherlands and Ireland which was created for stronger cooperation after Brexit.
Three other often-overlooked states video topics from a Patreon backer: 1.) What was the State of the Teutonic Order? 2.) Why did New Sweden and New Netherland fail? 3.) Why was the Sultanate of Zanzibar so short-lived?
Cool topic! It would be nice to see another video about the Hansa vs pirates, which could also tackle the following. The Hansa actually declined before globalization. Besides the growing power of nation states such as England, the Hanseatic traders couldn't compete with cities in Holland and Zeeland such as Amsterdam, which had innovative shipbuilding and fishing technology. This was covered in Episode 23 of the podcast History of the Netherlands. In 1438, after a series of conflicts and blockades, the Council of Holland declared war against the Wendic cities of the Hansa, including Hamburg and Lübeck, in the name of their Burgundian Count Philip the Good. Philip was not amused, but he had his hands full with rebellious Flanders while he was switching sides in the Hundred Years' War. After three years, the Hollanders decisively defeated the Hansa cities, destroying their fleets at anchor in the winter. The peace agreement gave them tax-free access to the Baltic grain trade.
I went on a day trip to Lübeck last summer. They're license plates say HL if my memory serves me correctly for "Hansestadt Lübeck". Very pretty old town, I'd recommend visiting
This was truly an excellent one. Also makes me think that a major factor of England’s relative richness to France in the late medieval period was their trading relationship with the League.
Kings Lynn in Norfolk was part of the Hanseatic League. Since it was flat, a nifty item of bling a rich merchant could have was a tower where he could stand with a telescope and look out for his ship while also maintaining a hot fire and a mistress in the rooms below. At least that's what I was told when I visited.
one of my favourite subjects! and also there is a great game series called Patrician (1-4) that is based on being a merchant in the Hanseatic League. 4 is my favourite (mainly due to it being the only one i have played) but I have seen many saying 3 is better in many ways.
Lübeck dominated the herring fishery and trade and therefore lost a lot of it's importance when the Dutch invented gibbing and on ship processing of the herring. 20k people was a big city back then, it's just that other cities kept growing and growing in times of huge population growth and urbanization later.
They just did a big series on the Hanseatic League on the History of the Germans podcast if you want an expanded explanation. This video sums it nicely!
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Hamburg still officially calls itself the "Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg". It's still a big part of their folklore there.
It's like every second company in Schleswig-Holstein is named "Hansa-something".
+Bremen, Lübeck+++
The relics of the Hanseatic League
Despite the demise of the Hanseatic League, many traces of this period remain to this day. Many cities like to remember the time of the Hanseatic League. Be it the addition "Hanseatic City" to the city name, the "H" in the license plate, clubs such as "Hansa Rostock" or street names - the relics of the Hanseatic era are still clearly visible, especially in the historic Hanseatic cities.
This also extends to the Oberlandesgericht (higher state court) of Hamburg being called "Hanseatisches Oberlandesgericht" (hanseatic higher state court). The same is true for Bremen ("Hanseatisches Oberlandesgericht in Bremen"). Most other states rather boringly call theirs the "Oberlandesgericht für [insert state]".
There are a lot of cities which pride themselves on the Hanseatic history, none more than the former center and capital lübeck, as a former resident of that city and it's surrounding its really so engrained in the city and I can advise anyone visiting it to visit the Hansemuseum.
@@Janoip There has been a huge "Hanse-Renaissance" post Re-Unification. The obvious reason is, that many of the "former Hanseatic League" Cities rejoined and searched for a "new identity". But post 2007 even "Western Cities" like Lüneburg remembered their heritage.
I honestly wonder, how much the "Stoertebeker Festivities" contributed to this hype. This is a pretty big theatrical presentation, living on a "natural stage", and the story, since it focuses on Stoertebeker, always includes the Hanse... But it has been 20 years, since I actually watched the play.
And that the GDR named their artificiallly created Rostock football club after a free trade organisation, when they were all against free trade, is kind of ironic...
Side note, the Hanseatic Leauge lives on in name. Many cities in Germany, most notably Hamburg, still proudly carry "Hansestadt" (Hanseatic city) in their name.
Same with multiple towns in the Netherlands
German car license plates always start with the code for the district were they were registered.
Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen, and Rostock are HH, HL, HB, and HR.
The relics of the Hanseatic League
Despite the demise of the Hanseatic League, many traces of this period remain to this day. Many cities like to remember the time of the Hanseatic League. Be it the addition "Hanseatic City" to the city name, the "H" in the license plate, clubs such as "Hansa Rostock" or street names - the relics of the Hanseatic era are still clearly visible, especially in the historic Hanseatic cities.
@@Yora21 Rostock is "HRO", but thanks for bringing this up. Also not every "Hanseatic City" in name has the "H" in their license plate
(e. g. Hansestadt Salzwedel is "SAW").
Even Bergen 🇳🇴 calls itself ’Hansabyen’ at times, although it actually wasn’t one. There was however a strong presence of an office in co-op with Brügge, London and Novgorod.
Norway itself got pretty ‘danish’, and not much of a sovereign state after a certain earlier presence as vikings (let’s say trade with some violence, like the Hansa…?).
Those who today use the ‘Hansabyen’ moniker, seem to be rather… trade-oriented too. Former conservative PM Solberg is herself Bergenser (from Bergen)… 🤓
There is actually a "New Hansa" nowadays with cities like Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen, Rostock, Gdansk, Riga and Tallinn closely working together. There are even the "Hanseatic Days of New Time" a big festival that is every year in another Hanseatic town. :)
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both my parents came out as trans and are now my mom and dad
@@TransKidsMafia transphobe bot
EUROPA FUCK YEAH 🇪🇺🇪🇺🇪🇺🇪🇺🇪🇺
Europeans think they are building towards a collective Europe, but what they are actually building towards is a collective West that is dominated and lorded over by the United States government. Sound familiar?
One of the most impactful things the League did was the standardization of city design. In any city the basic layout was similar, a central market square with town hall/rathaus and a church. This meant that no matter which city you went to, you always found what you were looking for. This would also spread to non-Hanseatic cities due to its popularity and easing of the trade.
Also why Hanseatic League was so popular was the network of rathauses, which meant that if you got scammed or asked to pay too much for a product, you could file a complaint with your rathaus and the council would be in contact with the council of the rathaus in question and resolve the matter.
An interesting side-effect of this is that German tourists tend to visit Hanse cities. They know that it's going to be a beautiful city with a certain design. In the last 15 years some Dutch cities have been using the Hanse name again to profile themselves for these tourists. My hometown of Harderwijk was always known for having been a fisherman's town, having had a corrupt university, and having been the gathering point from where criminals were sent off to serve in the colonial army. The history of having been a Hanse city was barely known. Nowadays, city namesigns all say "Hanzestad Harderwijk" and there's a specially designed Hanse flag you can see all around the old city centre. Quite an interesting marketing idea, and understandable given some of the ctiy's former reputation.
Sounds dubious.
@@_blank-_It doesn't but okay
@@Paul83121 my hometown is also known for being a fisherman's town with a corrupt university
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it's Boston
Seems similar to how Spaniards founded cities in the Philippines. A central park where its surrounded by a church, townhall, govt bldgs, military/police buildings, market and other commerce bldgs.
I was just wondering how I could dominate the trade of the northern seas and inland rivers. Thank you for the tips and tricks!!
you can dominate the trade by forming an army of trans kids.
@@TransKidsMafia I did not know there are now bots trying to spread propaganda to make people believe that trans people want to make everyone trans I swear these transphobes really are willing to do anything to make trans people look bad
@@TransKidsMafia transphobe bot spotted
Same I was annoyed by all of these "Independent nations" so I wanted to get some tips on "trade"
@@GwainSagaFanChannel tf was he on about?
Fun fact - "Hansa" basically means "group" or "league". So, Hanseatic League essentially means "Leagish League" or "Groupish Group"
The word survives in Lufthansa, which you can see as meaning Air League or Air Group or perhaps, at a stretch, United Air.
Huh. I thought a "Hanse" was a kind of warehouse.
Leagy McLeagueface
@@TigerofRobare Hanse is also a special building for Germany in Civ 5 😛
Sahara desert
East Timor
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A lot of this is taught in Latvian history classes and I always found Hanseatic league interesting
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Probably a Baltic thing, Riga was one of the most prominent cities too so maybe it's more the main reason?
@@dariusgunter5344 that would make sense i'm from hamburg and it was very prevalent in school here as well
Same in Finland, not that much but definetly to make it a known entity and big part of history
I envy you. In germany they teach us NOTHING of it. Not even about the holy roman empire. 99% of our history classes have nothing to do with our country and if it has something to do with it it's literally: WW1 and WW2, we don't say it's your fault but you should feel bad nonetheless.
And that was school 20 years ago...I don't want to know what they teach nowadays...
Fun fact the administration and trade language used by the Hansa was Saxon (called today Low Saxon or low German and is a separate but related language to German and Dutch) and due to the Hansa’s influence in the Baltic modern Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian vocabulary have somewhere over 20% Low Saxon loan words. Today it’s a dying language but revitalization attempts are slowly gaining popularity and a unified spelling system has been developed to bridge dialects from the Netherlands and Germany.
It is a shame that the Saxon regional languages in the Netherlands is hardly spoken anymore.
Sadly, almost all revitalization happening only after young people have stopped using a language is less revitalization than life support
You can tell its german because its name is Hans
a-Ahah!!
You can tell that society will be better once all the kids transition.
Good one 💀👍
@@TransKidsMafia Huuuuhhhhh bot spotted?????
Funny joke but the name would ne Hanz so no
The old Hanseatic League may no longer exist, but some of it's former members still officially call themselves "Hanseatic Cities", are often using Hanseatic symbolism like red and white flags and coats of arms, share a common dialect called Hanseatic Lower German (although it has it's regional differences) and have a special relationship with each other. This mostly applies to Hamburg, my home town of Bremen, and Lübeck, who all managed to keep their independence up to the Unification of Germany (borrowing the short period of French occupation during the Napoleonic Wars), and are, in case of Hamburg and Bremen, even nowadays self-governing city-states within Germany's federal system. After German Reunification, they were joined by several former East German cities at the Baltic coast such as Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund or Greifswald, and if you take a look at the buildings from the time of the Hanseatic League, it's wealth still becomes evident (in fact, Hamburg is still the wealthiest city and most important harbor in Germany).
I think you meant barring and not borrowing.
Its crazy that Bremen still has free city status, it should have lost it when they put up the Town Musicians of Bremen monument in the 50s.
As someone originating from a very small Hanseatic city (Salzwedel) and now living in one of the most important members of the league (Rostock),
I have to deeply thank you for covering this. :)
Doesn't the football team in Rostock make reference to this League?
@@TheWoollyFrog Yes, they're called "Hansa Rostock" and currently play in the second division of the Bundesliga. ^^
No one asked for your history
@@balabanasireti I asked.
Long past glory, as much else in that desolate region!
Funfact: My town of Bergen our beer brand is called Hansa. Also the Unesco world heritage site which is pretty much the core identity of our town is remnants of the Hanseatic league. The Hanseatic league is also partly responsible for our unique dialect and the fact that despite being in a area is geographically surrounded and populated by the second language of Norway (Nynorsk), Bergen is stuck with Bokmål like the eastern part and general majority of norway speaks.
Born in Hamburg, lived in Lübeck most of my life.
All the major cities in northern Germany, and I think also northern Poland, still have red and white as their colors.
born in HL; lived in HL, stayed in HL :)
As a Pole living in the "Recovered Territories" and interested in their multiculturalism, I can confirm that most Polish Hanseatic cities cultivate this tradition! Greetings to the Germans
Lübeck most beautiful city in the north :)
The Hanseatic League only existed thanks to the approval and financial backing of the Holy Roman Emperor, James Bisonette.
😅
Fun fact: Many former hanseatic cities still carry the name "Hansestadt" in their official name like the "Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg". They also put it on their licence plate abbreviations. Thus Hamburg despite being the biggest cities starting with an H does not have H on their plates but HH for Hansestadt Hamburg.
Awesome! There are far too few videos about the Hanseatic League.
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Highly recommend the podcast “history of the Germans” especially the season on the league. For an American that knew absolutely nothing it was an amazing experience to listen.
I think this one needs at least a 10 minute history version.
Yeah, I don't like him only putting shorter videos out
@@balabanasireti, it's probably the only way he can keep a consistent upload schedule without overworking himself.
@@occam7382 if not mistaken, it also had sth to do with monetization / sponsorship tied to the length of the videos.
The BBC has a podcast called In Our Time that just put out an episode on the Hansa if you want to learn more about it. That's probably where he got the idea for this video lol
It's a six month history unit at university and that's not really considered 'in depth'
This is probably my absolute favorite among your videos. I had never learned about this Hanseatic League before and it's so intriguing how they managed to have power and influence against kingdoms and other more centralized political forces. Thank you for showing us a fascinating and under-appreciated part of history!
I found the comparison to the merchant city-states in Italy a nice one. Although there the unifying forces were more financial than political. At least before various wars started to settle their differences.
The Hanseatic League was crucial to waging war on piracy (and Denmark whenever the Danes charged the Germans a toll for using the Danish Straits). The most famous pirate of the era was Klaus Stortebecker
Klaus Störtebecker was brought to the Grasbrook in Hamburg where he and his 72 companions were beheaded on October 20, 1401. As his last wish, Störtebecker asked that all the men he could walk past after his head had fallen should be freed. That wish was granted, but when the headless pirate had passed 11 of his shipmates, one of the members of the city council tripped him up and in the end all of his men were killed, including those he had walked past.
And boy did we want to charge those tolls. We REALLY did not like the league.
A big shout out to The History of the Germans podcast for this one!
Dirk explains what the Hansa is, and what they did, in a hell of a lot of detail.
Real eye-opener.
One thing that wasn‘t mentioned is language: Most of the Hanse spoke Low German dialects, which are collectivly classivied as their own language distinct from the High German dialects to their south. Because of the Hanse, Low German became a lingua franka of northern trade and had a big impact on the development of Scandinavian languages. However, after the decline of the Hanse, North Germany was conquered by Prussia, and Low German mostly died out. Ironiclly, North Germany thous speaks the „cleanest“ High German as it lacks local dialects. Recently though, there has been a revival movement for Low German dialects like Hamburgian.
I will note that while trade shifted away from the Hanseatic League that does not mean the Baltic Sea trade itself declined.
During the 17th century the Dutch Republic (whose merchant fleet at the time outnumbered that of the rest of Europe combined) still made way more money from trading in the Baltic Sea compared to trading in the Dutch East Indies. This was mostly due to the sheer size of this trade. The travel to what is now Indonesia would take months if not years and was very risky for traders.
Intercontinental trade did eventually increase more to outstrip the trade in Europe itself, but that was long after the decline of the Hanseatic League.
Yep, the competion with merchants from Holland is the hole in this story
The moedernegotie!
Dutch republic was a wonderful monster. A very little country with very little population sucked the blood of the world very successfully..
I know it does sound like I'm advertising here,
but you guys might wanna check out The history of the Germans podcast for this topic.
He goes through competition with the English adventurer merchants, Flanders, then the Dutch.
Pretty interesting story.
the same principle at work can be seen today. trade between EU neighbours is still much more important and worth more than their trade with countries outside of the EU, let lone outside Europe. the _globalised world trade_ didn't surplant the trade between neighbours. a lesson all those rabid 'Brexit' lovers had to learn over the last couple of years
I didn't even know this was a thing! Thanks, History Matters!
As a German, it never occured to me that the Hanseatic League probably isn't that well-known elsewhere (outside of history nerd circles). In Germany, being formerly part of the "Hanse" is a large part of of many German cities' identity.
@@hansnase364 same here in the Netherlands it is very important since the Hanseatic trade and later on the Bulk trade are important over here
Great little microcosm of German history. Cities like Hamburg and Lübeck still call themselves Hanseatic cities to this day and if you've ever wondered where the German Empire took the colours for its Black-White-Red flag from: the Red stripe was there to represent the Hanseatic Cities.
Funnily enough the only imperial free cities that are still independent states within Germany today are former Hanseatic ones - Hamburg and Bremen. Lübeck having lost its independence in the 30s when it was given to Schleswig-Holstein in return for Schleswig-Holstein losing cities like Altona and Bergedorf. These were integrated into Hamburg as boroughs.
So while the Hanseatic League is long gone, its legacy is still seen to this day. Not sure why I felt the need to lay this on you but alas, there you go.
E
@@GwainSagaFanChannel Sweden teached about Hansa in middle school as well.
Nice vid, I was born and raised in the Dutch ‘Hanzestad’ Zutphen. They have a cultural podium called the Hanzehof and a sporthal called the Hanzehal…and many more things called Hanze-something…so yeah, the Hansaetic League lives on 🤗
Always a good day when History Matters uploads a new video!
HE IS BACK
He never went away, tho? 🤔
The Hanseatic League declined because James Bissonette stopped supporting them
I love the community of followers this channel has. You all are intelligent and have a great sense of humor. Also, no drama!
I'm from a german town that got thrown out of the Hanse twice.
The hansa conflicts with the pirates are super fascinating too
0:37 It’s fascinating that, from the 13th century to the World Wars and beyond, the best way to prevent being attacked by pirates/raiders was to just travel together
There was a really interesting episode of "In Our Time" about the Hansestic League, it was on BBC Radio 4 last week. Three professors who were experts on it all geeking out together.
Yes - as soon as I saw his video I thought of that. HM achieves in around 2 mins what the BBC gave about an hour to. Both worth listening/watching
After years of “how” and “why videos” we finally get a proper history lesson again! But the old videos were cool too
@1:33 “Made fat stacks” might just be my favourite quote from this channel 😂
Thanks!
Cool that James Bisonette founded the Hanseatic League to help McWhopper expand his franchise…
Indeed, with a HUGE influx of cash from Kelly Moneymaker, a chief investor.
Great stuff! The Union of Kalmar (Denmark, Norway, Sweden) was a bit unstable already to begin with, but it did last for 125 years - from 1397 to 1523.
The Swedes became too uppity to let Scandinavia have nice things. 😅
A return to form IMHO. I have from time to time wondered what the Hanseatic League was. All my questions answered. Throughly satisfied with this post.
Man. THANK YOU really for making accurate borders of medieval Poland.
I watch most of history yt channels and in 99% Poland in their videos looks like blob or splash without context.
I was searching this up a few days ago because of metro, this is amazing timing
Hanzas great in metro
@@kartikpathak629central metro command is better
Can we just take a little bit of time appreciating History Matters for being the best history teacher?
It'd be great if you did a video about religious heretics in Europe, like Cathars, Hussites etc. I think it's a very interesting topic
that is a thing in history that I literally never heard of but I found very interesting
These are by far my favorite videos on RUclips.
I’m very glad to finally see some medieval stuff again
Short and compact! Awesome how many information was condensed in only 3mins. Nice video!
In it's prime the Hanseatic League actually fought and eventually won a war against Denmark, which is not something you would expect from a trade allience.
Interestingly even though the league is long dissolved many german cities still carry it's name.
For instance Lübeck is officially known as the "Hanseatic City of Lübeck", Hamburg as the "Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg" and Rostock as the "Hanseatic and University City of Rostock" (The football team from Rostock is even called "FC Hansa Rostock").
I don't think it's that unexpected. It's Denmark after all. When have they ever won wars? The only examples I can think of were against some rag-tag pirates, the First Schleswig War (due to international support), and maybe some really ancient stuff.
I think you are selling Denmark short here. Sure it wasn't a major power or anything but I wouldn't say they wre pushovers.
But my point was mainly that you wouldn't expect a loose coalition of cities to defeat any nation (excluding city-states).
@@Commander_Chopper My comment wasn't entirely serious. Still, based on what I've come across when learning about history, Denmark's martial record seems rather unimpressive compared to e.g. Sweden despite it being quite rich.
Yes, Sweden is bigger but still. And back then Denmark had the southern part of present-day Sweden (Skåne, Halland, & Blekinge).
I'm glad for a new upload. Keep up the great work
1:07 The Hanseatic Empire for all you alternate history fans out there.
Every day you upload is a good day.
These types of videos where you take some time to explain certain nations or wars in history are very cool and I would love if you did more.
I've been curious about the Hanseatic League for a while. Thanks for clearing that up!
You've taught me about the Hanseatic League and the League of Nations, but I'm still confused about the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Technically the Hanseatic League continued to exist on paper untill the German Unification in 1871, with it's last official members being ironically the very same cities who founded it back in the 13th century: Hamburg, Bremen and Lubeck. All these three cities and even a handfull of others both in modern-day Germany and in some other countries with access to the Baltic still proudly bearing the honorary epiphet ''Hansastadt'' to this very day.
I think there is even a Hanseatic festival which is collectively celebrated each year in a different former Hanseatic city.
I call the Hanseatic League a triple city state. The league was never dissolved and Lubeck only lost its autonomy because they protested the Nazis.
I love your work but this would have been super helpful a week ago for my presentation on them but great work.
Literally never heard of it before and finded it trully amazing, thanks HM
I heard of it is small history lesson long time ago. But I forgot, until I visited the city of Zwolle, the Netherlands. Which is proud of its Hanseatic past.
@@mardiffv.8775 Apparently, they are so proud of their Hanseatic past that they re-established the Hanse outright in 1980.
1:39 does James Bissonette have enough money to buy the Hanseatic Vision Pro
Genuinely fascinating subject - still can't understand why it was never covered in History classes in school. Thank you from Dublin. + + + + +
As the plethora of history channels on RUclips attest, there's a _lot_ of history, so they can't cram it all in. Plus, bits are often left in or removed for political or even personal reasons... and inertia works on both deletion and inclusion.
What is the real impact of the Hasniatic league? Why did it echo into the modern era? It's worth a mention because of it's size and duration but beyond that I don't know why a general history class would do more on it.
Genuine LOL with the "luxury goods" guy wearing an Apple Vision Pro.
1:39 Dude has Apple Vision Pro lol. Gotta love the witty humor.
I first found out about the Hanseatic league from a game called Patrician. I always found it facinating a group of towns could end up semi independent from the regional rulers/princes/kings.
A man of culture
Where are you from?
Only knew a little about this topic because of the Patrician series. Wish there were more baltic/north sea trading simulators
One of the most fascinating aspects is that they actually I produced a form of "standardised container" in the form of normed barrels
I can always trust History Matters on the good stuff.
FINALLYYYYY, I WAS WAITING THIS VIDEO FOR SO LONG 😭❤️
In Poland we actually learn stout The Hanseatic League since Polish cities like Gdańsk or Elbląg were a part of it. Those, mostly inhabitated by Germans, were still quite loyal to Poland like during the Thirteen Years' War. Before nationalism there were actually many ethic Germans who lived in the Crown of Poland or fought for Poland.
When you are researching the Hanseatic League on Friday for a DnD campaign idea and this video drops on Monday.
The king of history has returned. welcome back history matters!!!
Bring back the Hanseatic league!!!!
Lübeck, Hamburg and Bremen are technically still in it, it was reformed a couple years ago
They already have, there is a new Hanseatic League (originally just called "Die Hanse") and most historic Hanseatic cities are members. They have a "Hanseatic day" in a member city every year, just like in medieval times, although it's more of a cultural and touristy event than a political. This new Hanse doesn't have a separate English Wikipedia article for some reason, despite probably being pretty significant.
Funnily enough, there is even a second entity called the "New Hanseatic League" or even "Hanseatic League 2.0", this being an organization within the EU comprising the Nordic and Baltic countries, the Netherlands and Ireland which was created for stronger cooperation after Brexit.
Honestly never heard of the Hanseatic League until this video came out. Great lesson. 👍
Three other often-overlooked states video topics from a Patreon backer:
1.) What was the State of the Teutonic Order?
2.) Why did New Sweden and New Netherland fail?
3.) Why was the Sultanate of Zanzibar so short-lived?
Cool topic! It would be nice to see another video about the Hansa vs pirates, which could also tackle the following. The Hansa actually declined before globalization. Besides the growing power of nation states such as England, the Hanseatic traders couldn't compete with cities in Holland and Zeeland such as Amsterdam, which had innovative shipbuilding and fishing technology. This was covered in Episode 23 of the podcast History of the Netherlands.
In 1438, after a series of conflicts and blockades, the Council of Holland declared war against the Wendic cities of the Hansa, including Hamburg and Lübeck, in the name of their Burgundian Count Philip the Good. Philip was not amused, but he had his hands full with rebellious Flanders while he was switching sides in the Hundred Years' War. After three years, the Hollanders decisively defeated the Hansa cities, destroying their fleets at anchor in the winter. The peace agreement gave them tax-free access to the Baltic grain trade.
One of the best channels on youtube
I would LOVE more videos like this where, instead of answering a specific question, just explaining historical leagues/things/events.
Man, this is an AMAZING, Tutorial thanks man!
Hansa left an impact on the Bergen dialect to this day.
I was so incredibly excited to see this in my feed
I always look forward to these videos! & I always Enjoy them! Keep them coming!!!😁👍
I went on a day trip to Lübeck last summer. They're license plates say HL if my memory serves me correctly for "Hansestadt Lübeck". Very pretty old town, I'd recommend visiting
Never even heard of them. Fun bit of history learned today!
I was thinking of them the other morning and now this video is in my feed.
I just had an exercise at university about the historiography of the Hanseatic League. So this was a very nice coincidence.
Fascinating!
James Bisonette personally funded the Hanseatic League
Lame
This guy never disappoints.
Did I just see the apple vision pro as luxury goods? Lol you guys are incredible
Please make a video on if the Inca Empire and Aztecs were aware of each other or not
This was truly an excellent one.
Also makes me think that a major factor of England’s relative richness to France in the late medieval period was their trading relationship with the League.
The league dissolved, leaving behind some fabulous architecture!
Nice explanation as always. Surprised it took so long for them to dissolve though.
Kings Lynn in Norfolk was part of the Hanseatic League. Since it was flat, a nifty item of bling a rich merchant could have was a tower where he could stand with a telescope and look out for his ship while also maintaining a hot fire and a mistress in the rooms below. At least that's what I was told when I visited.
Nothing like chowing down onto a chicken shawarma while listening to a new history matters.
The reason the league dissolved was because they realised they could never match the financial domination and political hegemony of James Bissonette
Great video, always enjoy topics like this
A fascinating and well-organised network, even back then.
one of my favourite subjects! and also there is a great game series called Patrician (1-4) that is based on being a merchant in the Hanseatic League. 4 is my favourite (mainly due to it being the only one i have played) but I have seen many saying 3 is better in many ways.
I approve of "explained" videos' return.
10 minute videos are next.
Great vid as always. Keep it up! 👍
The weirdest part for me to find out was that Lübeck of all places was the headquarter, not Hamburg. Its just a city which is kinda there these days.
Lübeck dominated the herring fishery and trade and therefore lost a lot of it's importance when the Dutch invented gibbing and on ship processing of the herring. 20k people was a big city back then, it's just that other cities kept growing and growing in times of huge population growth and urbanization later.
@@DenUitvreter Dont get me wrong, its mostly crazy because the city is over a quarter million people now, it just really does not feel like it
@@cc0767 That's probably because it didn't reach that size as an important city anymore.
They just did a big series on the Hanseatic League on the History of the Germans podcast if you want an expanded explanation. This video sums it nicely!
As a swede, all learn in school is that the Hanseatic league was a main driving force for the establishment of the Kalmar union
That makes sense, down with the trade competition of the Hanseatic League.
@@mardiffv.8775 they were much more involved, fighting a pirate group allied to sweden...
@@nox5555Thanks.