Introduction to Estonia – Part 9

The Hanseatic League

During the previous articles, I have mentioned the Hanseatic League without any explanation. As it features heavily in many of the sights and history of Tallinn, which we will talk about later, it is worth a brief overview of how it affected the area.

The merchants of Tallinn, then known as Reval, opted to join the Hanseatic League in 1285, a move that made their city part of one of the largest trade networks of medieval Europe. It brought them the protection of a mercantile alliance whose activities ranged south as far as Bruges in Flanders, eastward to Novgorod in Russia, northward to Bergen on the west coast of Norway and westward to London.

The Hanse, which is medieval German for 'guild', was founded by north German merchants. It controlled much of the trade of northern Europe from the early 13th century until the late 15th-century. It was based in Lubeck, on the Baltic coast of Germany, but the Hanse quickly expanded its Baltic operations to Visby, on the island of Gotland in Sweden. Visby had been a centre of Baltic trade since the time of the Vikings, and Hanseatic merchants followed long-established trade routes to bring Reval, Dorpat (Tartu) and Pernau (Parnu) into their commercial network.

Arguably, the Hanse was Estonia' s first true civilising influence. Its traders built walled towns, harbours, castles and lighthouses to protect their ships and their overland caravans, most of which can be seen today. The regions of Muscovy (Russia) and the Baltic provided raw materials and products such as furs, amber, timber, pitch, honey and flax which the Hanseatic merchants sought. In exchange, they brought cloth, iron tools and weapons, and other manufactured goods from the more sophisticated economies of Britain and central Europe.

In the 1360s, the Hanse showed that it could act forcefully to defend its members' interests, raising an army of mercenary soldiers to defeat the ambitions of King Valdemar IV of Denmark and force him to acknowledge the League' s control of virtually the entire Baltic coast. It was at its most powerful during the late 14th century. At that time the Hanse comprised an alliance of more than 100 seaports and trading posts. It held regular assemblies or diets which were usually held in Lubeck. The aim of these meetings was to resolve disputes between member cities peacefully. However as the nation states of northern Europe grew larger and stronger during the 15th century, the Hanse cities were less able to maintain their alliance.

The Novgorod settlement was closed down by Ivan Ill, Czar of Muscovy, in 1494. Eastward trade then dwindled and Tartu lost its importance as a staging-post. Meanwhile, Sweden had become the dominant economic and military power in the Baltic and the long conflict between Swedes and Russians in the second half of the 16th century ruined Baltic trade for decades. By the time the Hanseatic League' s last Diet met in 1669, Reval and Dorpat had passed into Swedish hands and the Hanse had long ceased to be a significant force in Estonian history.

Now you know about Estonia it will make the articles on Tallinn more understandable.