The Hanseatic Network
The Hanse towns and their trading routes across the Baltic and North Sea, from Novgorod to Bruges and London.
The Hanse was not a state and had no standing army, no capital and no permanent government. It was an association of merchant towns that agreed on privileges, arbitration and — when pressed — collective embargo, which turned out to be leverage enough to negotiate with kings. The map shows the real source of that power: control of the routes carrying grain, timber, wax, furs and salted herring. Read the full story in our article on The Hanseatic League: Shaping Northern European Trade in the Medieval Era.
CC BY-SA 3.0 — source (Wikimedia Commons). Free to reuse under the stated licence.
