Meet the Middle Ages
BackThe Merchant Hansa
Originally, the Hanseatic League was a league of merchants from northern Germany who started trading on the Baltic and North seas during the 12th century. The merchants established offices in the ports where they traded. There were, for example, such offices in Visby, Bergen and Riga.
The German merchants preferred a larger type of ship than had been used previously. These ships, called cogs, could take much more cargo than the older ones and they were safer to sail in rough weather. With the cogs, it was possible to sail right across the Baltic Sea, instead of staying close to shore. In this way, they could travel faster.
In a short space of time, the merchants became very influential in the Baltic region. Special treaties about trading rights were signed in many towns. In the middle of the 13th century a great number of German merchants were members of the Town Councils and some of these towns were even governed according to German law.