History
Historians generally trace the origins of the League to the rebuilding of the North German town of Lübeck in 1159 by Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, after Henry had captured the area from Adolf II, Count of Schauenburg and Holstein.
Exploratory trading adventures, raids and piracy had happened earlier throughout the Baltic (see Vikings)—the sailors of Gotland sailed up rivers as far away as Novgorod, for example—but the scale of international trade economy in the Baltic area remained insignificant before the growth of the Hanseatic League.
German cities achieved domination of trade in the Baltic with striking speed over 13th century, and Lübeck became a central node in the seaborne trade that linked the areas around the North and Baltic Seas. The 15th century saw the peak of Lübeck's hegemony.
Read more about this topic: Hanseatic League
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“All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“This above all makes history useful and desirable: it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)