The Hansa Towns

by Helen Zimmern

If this was not the language of insubordination, it is difficult to say what else would be. Whither had vanished the blind obedience which the League had ever exacted, and till now obtained from all its members, and which was the source of its greatness and strength?

Whether all that was stated by the Steelyard in this memorandum was true, it is difficult to decide. Substantially no doubt it was so, but in the reports of the Hansa Diets during these years, we come across frequent complaints of the prevarication practised by the aldermen of the London factory.

Perhaps we must not blame either the towns, or the factories too much for yielding to the all-powerful instinct of self-preservation. When the Hanseatic towns as a whole recognized that they were impotent to demolish the rising commerce of England, or to break the firm will of its lady sovereign, they were almost forced to desert a cause which was a losing one, and to work each for their own separate advantage.

Hamburg was the first among the confederate cities to recognize whither matters were tending, and to adjust its policy with a due regard to the new spirit of the age. It concluded a convention on its own account with England. Matters came about in this wise. The chief foreign trade of England was gradually passing into the hands of the Merchant Adventurers. Now to this company the Netherlands were closed, owing to the conflict raging between Elizabeth and King Philip of Spain. Hence these merchants had to seek elsewhere the depôt which they had found in the Low Countries for their English merchandise. Owing to its situation and its excellent harbour the town of Embden, which did not belong to the Hanseatic League, seemed to unite in itself all requisite conditions, and it was indeed towards this place that English commerce was directed. In consequence Embden, within a brief space, grew most prosperous.

This prosperity, however, speedily proved noxious to the city of Hamburg, till then one of the great staple towns for the traffic in English woollens. Seeing its gains passing thus into the hands of strangers, the city deliberated whether the situation could not be changed, and whether it would not be wiser, more lucrative, and altogether better, to open its own gates to the Merchant Adventurers, conceding to them a factory, various privileges, and great commercial liberties. Thus it would secure the double profits arising from their sojourn, and from the commerce that passed through.

In 1567, Hamburg put this project into execution, concluding a formal treaty with the Merchant Adventurers for the space of ten years. It was cautious at first not to name a longer term. The experiment was but tentative, as it assured those of its burghers, who, clinging to the old Hanseatic ideas, opposed the scheme.

That the project was also opposed by the Hansa Diet will be easily inferred. Bitter reproaches were addressed to Hamburg by the Diet held at Lübeck in 1572. They were told that they had been guilty of treason to the common cause. Their delegates replied with warmth, rejecting this reproach. They recalled to the memory of their hearers the treaty of Utrecht which stipulated reciprocity for England, and they endeavoured to prove that their townsmen had acted, not only in no spirit of narrow egoism, but in the interests of the entire League, since in consequence of their treaty with the Merchant Adventurers, the export of undyed cloths from England had been permitted in larger quantities, and that the German waters were freed from British pirates. Further they contended that every town had a right to think also of its own interests. Embden had received the Merchant Adventurers, and had extracted profit from them; why then should such profit be grudged to a town that was a portion of the Hansa?

The delegates were able to point also to the tangible fact, that in the short space of the first two years, the factory of the Merchant Adventurers had turned over in Hamburg, the sum of three and a half million of dollars.

This was all well and good for Hamburg, but beyond question the treaty still further disturbed the relations of the cities towards each other, and helped on the pending catastrophe. And the worst of all was that Elizabeth could not be induced to reconfer the old Hanseatic privileges, even after her subjects had been received by Hamburg.

Still, for the moment, nothing was changed with regard to the new position taken up by Hamburg, though the agitation on the subject within the League itself continued unabated. When the ten years of treaty were ended, and the Hansa was desirous of renewing the convention, then the storm broke forth with fresh fury. Appeal was even made by the Hanseatic League to the Emperor Maximilian II., who decreed solemnly that no town might treat with England without the consent of its allies.