Hanseatic League

(The.) (hăn-se-at'ik-.) [From Ger. hanse, a protective a ociation.] (Hist.) The title a umed by a powerful commercial confederacy entered into the 12th cent. by the chief cities of N. Germany, for mutual support and protection against the exactions of rulers and princes, and for furthering the interests of trade. This a ociation was inaugurated at Hamburg in 1239, and in course of years received acce ions of membership from foreign commercial cities, until during the 14th and 15th cent., the number of municipalities represented numbered not le than 85. For centuries the League controlled the marts and finances of Europe, and commanded the respect and defied the power of kings and governments. Its members enjoyed specific rights, privileges, and immunities; held their own diets for the regulation of commerce; established factories in foreign countries; and po e ed in their own cities the absolute control of all affairs civil, commercial, and political. Its power, though still very formidable, began to decline from the middle of the 15th cent This, however, was not owing to any misgovernment on the part of its chiefs, but to the progre of that improvement which it had done so much to promote. The civilization which had been at first confined to the cities, gradually extended over the contiguous country, and feudal anarchy was everywhere superseded by a system of subordination and the progre of the arts. The last diet of the confederation met at Lübeck in 1630, after which the union was di olved. The cities of Hamburg, Lübeck, and Bremen (the only Hanse towns existing at the present time) retained, however, their anc. bond of a ociation as free republics till 1810, when they fell under French rule. In 1813 they regained their independence, and admitted Frankfort-on-the-Main into their confederacy, a city which in 1866 was annexed to the Pru ian dominions. [s. 438]