Hansa

The Hansa was a trading and defensive network of merchants and towns that grew from Lübeck and other northern German ports in the late twelfth century. Its merchants established trading posts at London, Bruges, Bergen and Novgorod and gained privileges across the North and Baltic Seas.

After Denmark seized Visby in 1361, Hanseatic towns formed the Confederation of Cologne in 1367 and fought back. The Treaty of Stralsund in 1370 secured their trading privileges in the Baltic. The league gradually weakened as towns left or passed under other rulers; its last diet met in 1669.