[gothic-l] Hansa

[Tore Gannholm]

On Nov 22, 2004, at 8:55 PM, WILHELM OTTO wrote:

>
>  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"


The correct name of that tower is "Torres lambitus"


> 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.

First of all there was no office for Novgorod trade in Visby. When 
Lübeck was populated from Westphalia in the second half of the 12th 
century also Visby got their part of Westphalians. At the Civil war in 
Gotland 1288 when Visby broke away from Gotland and formed their own 
City republic about half of the population was German speaking and the 
other half Gotlandic speaking.

Where did you find that date 1293? It is not true. It was an only an 
attempt by Lübeck to move the court handling disputes on the Novgorod 
trade from Visby to Lübeck. However that attempt failed.

All disputes for trade on Novgorod was handled at the court in Visby. 
In the 1290's Lübeck tried to have these disputes moved to a court in 
Lübeck. In 1299 Lübeck managed to prohibit the seal of "Mercantores" to 
be used any longer. Probably in the 1320 Lübeck managed to also accept 
Lübeck together with Visby as places for the court to handle disputes 
on the Novgorod trade. However disputes handled in Lübeck had to be 
approve by the court in Visby.
As you can see there was a struggle between Visby and Lübeck for the 
dominance of the important Novgorod trade.

A  common meeting in Novgorod where merchants from Lübeck and Visby 
were present  announced that "de menen stede" on May 1st 1373 in Lübeck 
had agreed that the court for disputes on the Novgorod trade should be 
moved to Lübeck.

However it was not the Novgorod trade that had any influence on the 
formning of the "Dudeschen Hanse" in 1356.
It was the problems that were in Brügge as the visiting merchats did 
not have a working organization there. Therefore when the cities from 
whom merchants traded in Brügge commonly took control of the Brügge 
office a Hanse organization was formed.

Tore



>
>  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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