Word Finder - hanse

definition

A merchant guild, particularly the Fellowship of London Merchants (the "Old Hanse") given a monopoly on London's foreign trade by the Normans or its successor, the Company of Merchant Adventurers (the "New Hanse"), incorporated in 1497 and chartered under Henry VII and Elizabeth I.

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The rights and privileges of such guilds, particularly their trade monopolies.

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A commercial association of Scottish free burghs in the Middle Ages.

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The Hanseatic League: a commercial association of German towns in the Middle Ages.

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The guildhall of a Hanse.

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A fee payable to the Hanse, particularly its entrance fee and the impost levied on non-members trading in its area.

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That part of an elliptical or many-centred arch which has the shorter radius and immediately adjoins the impost.

Of this movement the Teutonic Order became, along with the Hanse, the chosen representative.

The concord of the Order with the towns and the Hanse was one great cause of its prosperity until the close of the 14th century; and the rupture of that concord in the 15th century was largely responsible for its fall.

The tsar, as protector of the Germanic System, had already been so annoyed by the seizure of the duc d'Enghien on German territory, and by other high-handed actions against the Hanse cities, as to recall his ambassador from Paris.

It was for a time a Hanse town, and came into the possession of Prussia in 1720, having belonged to Sweden since 1648.

Hattingen, which received communal rights in 1396, was one of the Hanse towns.

The law administered is that of the civil and penal codes of the German empire, and the court of appeal for all three Hanse towns is the common Oberlandesgericht, which has its seat in Hamburg.

Yzendyke represents a Hanse town which flourished in the 13th century and was gradually engulfed by the sea.

It was more Hanse than the Hanse towns.

The commercial relations with the North cannot be regarded as an important element in the union of the Hanse towns, but the geographical position of the Scandinavian countries, especially that of Denmark, commanding the Sound which gives access to the Baltic, compelled a close attention to Scandinavian politics on the part of Lubeck and the League and thus by necessitating combined political action in defence of Hanseatic sea-power exercised a unifying influence.

Money for common purposes was raised from time to time, as necessity demanded, by the imposition on Hanse merchandise of poundage dues, introduced in 1361, while the counters relied upon a small levy of like nature and upon fines to meet current needs.

Separate assemblies were held in the groups for the discussion both of local and Hanseatic affairs, and gradually, but not fully until the 16th century, thegroups became recognized as the lowest stage of Hanse organization.

The fairs of Leipzig and Frankfort-on-Main rose in importance as Novgorod, the stronghold of Hanse trade in the East, was weakened by the attacks of Ivan III.

The trade of foreigners outside the gates of Hanse towns or with others than Hanseatics was forbidden in 1417, and in the Eastern towns the retail trade of strangers was strictly limited.

The family of his mother migrated to England from Cologne in the reign of Henry II.; his father, Thedmar by name, was a citizen of Bremen who had been attracted to London by the privileges which the Plantagenets conferred upon the Teutonic Hanse.

He held an honourable position among the Hanse traders, and became their "alderman."

In 1808, as governor of the Hanse towns, he was to have directed the expedition against Sweden, via the Danish islands, but the plan came to nought because of the want of transports and the defection of the Spanish contingent.

In 1842 he became councillor of legation, and in 1847 Danish chargé d'affaires in the Hanse towns, where his intercourse with the merchant princes led to his marriage in 1848 with a wealthy heiress, Louise Victorine Rucker.

During the same time the Hanse towns were passing through a period of difficulty.

It consists of three parts - the old town to the east, and the middle and new towns to the west - of which the first retains some of the antique features of a Hanse town, while the last two are for the most part regularly and handsomely built.

Although the population, commerce and wealth of Rostock have declined since Hanse days, it has a considerable trade, being the chief commercial town of Mecklenburg and owning a considerable fleet.

Rostock, however, never entirely lost the independence which it enjoyed as a Hanse town; and in 1788, as the result of long contentions with the rulers of Mecklenburg, it secured for itself a peculiar and liberal municipal constitution, administered by three burgomasters and three chambers.

Yet, after all, the prospects of the burgesses depended mainly on economic conditions; and in this respect there was a decided improvement, due to the increasing importance of money and commerce all over Europe, especially as the steady decline of the Hanse towns immediately benefited the trade of Denmark-Norway; Norway by this time being completely merged in the Danish state, and ruled from Copenhagen.

But it rose against the French in March 1813, was re-occupied by them till the 5th of December, and was ultimately declared a free and Hanse town of the German Confederation by the act of Vienna of the 9th of June 1815.

Consequently the Portuguese merchants sent their goods by sea to England, Flanders, or the Hanse towns.

In Germany progress was hindered by the political conditions of the country under the old Confederation; for the Hanse cities, which practically monopolized the oversea trade, lacked the means to establish a consular system on the French model.

From the first colonization of the island down to the 14th century the trade was in the hands of native Icelanders and Norsemen; in the 15th century it was chiefly in the hands of the English, in the 16th of Germans from the Hanse towns.

The Hanse trade replaced the English for the worse; and the Danish monopoly which succeeded it when the Danish kings began to act again with vigour was still less profitable.

In the 13th and 14th centuries it was a flourishing Hanse town, with important woollen factories.

On receiving a favourable reply from the Holy See, Gedymin issued circular letters, dated 25th of January 1325, to the principal Hanse towns, offering a free access into his domains to men of every order and profession from nobles and knights to tillers of the soil.

He diminished the burden of taxation, suppressed the violence of the nobles, improved navigation on the Elbe and Oder, and encouraged commerce by alliances with the Hanse towns, and in other ways.

They appeared and said that they were unjustly distrained, because they were under the authority and Hanse of Almaine.

In 1270 it joined the Hanse towns, Stralsund, Rostock, Wismar and Lubeck, and took part in the wars which they carried on against the kings of Denmark and Norway.

Even the Hanse Towns, the hereditary enemies of Denmark, regarded the situation with disquietude.