[gothic-l] Hansa

[WILHELM OTTO]

Dear Francisc, Tore, Dirk and others,
Let us sum up our position of the word Hansa/Hanse.

The word is used in the Gothic Bible translated by Wulfila about 370
The word is used in the title Hansa Graf in Regensburg 12 century
The word is used in London in connection with a Flemish Hanse from London
1267
The word Hanse does not appear in the middle Baltic until after 1356
So far the Gothic list members. Thanks a lot for the help.

There are a few complicating factors.
One is that at first it is used of tradesmen, and later as a groupword for
merchant towns. Some towns contained hanseatic tradesmen, and did a lot of
trade, but were not hanseatic towns, Bergen, Stockholm. Later a group of
towns were formally organised as a Hanse, with an organisational
constitution and such paraphernalia.
"London's Cannon Street Station was formerly the site of the hanseatic
steel-yard, and remained hanseatic property until 1853." (Heer p. 64.) So it
was a long-lived organisation.
The origin seems to be a company of traders calling themselves "Gotland
merchants of the Holy Roman German Empire or something the like. In the
beginning they cooperated with the Gotland farming merchants (farbönder) on
the Novgorod trade.
There are traces in Visby of an old wall encircling at least three church
ruins, and two profane buildings, an old town hall and the oldest profane
building in Scandinavia, the "Gunpowder tower" just at the entrance of the
harbour. This small town is conservatively dated about 1000. It is probable
that there lived Gotland tradesmen, Russians and Germans. The Germans built
their quarters to the south.
1293 was the office for Novgorod trade moved from Visby to Lübeck.

Here were a lot of people doing a lot of work and by no means keeping to
themselves. And people are usually called something. There are two
descriptive names for these traders. They differ those who stayed the winter
from them coming back next season; mercatrores frequentes and mercatores
manentes respectively.

I am telling this because if you should happen to see The Lone Trader, on a
bench in a bierstube or a tap hall, giving such an impression of extreme
honesty and trustworthiness that you might be tempted to give him your
account number of your Cayman Island Bank, don't do it. Instead you should
ask the landlord what he called; not by what name, but by what profession.
Even if you have to pay for his bier, it could be worth it.

Cheers
Wilhelm







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