Documents on the history of the Hanse

For over 600 years, the history of Northern Europe was shaped by a unique organization of merchants and towns: the Hanse. Uniting some 200 towns, its commercial realm extended to some 25 present-day European states. Bridging the chasms which yawned between different states, cultures and languages, the Hanse maintained, from the 12th to the 17th century, a commercial network reaching from Flanders to Novgorod and from Bergen (Norway) to Cracow. A surprising amount of the unity of today's Europe can be traced back to the contacts between individuals and regions engendered by the Hanse. The Hanse utilized its privileges to organize the exchange of products over immense distances, enabling people to acquire products and resources which they could not obtain locally. On the heels of the exchange of products followed cultural exchanges: language and architecture, the arts and the law.