Last modified: 2020-05-03 by 
klaus-michael schneider
Keywords: hanseatic league | hansa |
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![[Common Hansa Cities' Flag]](../images/d/de-hansa.gif)
Around 1400 there were over 160 cities members of the Hansa. I do not have an exhaustive list. From Nijhoff's Geschiedenislexicon:
Netherlands: Deventer, Zutphen, Arnhem, Harderwijk, Elburg, Nijmegen, Kampen, Zwolle, Stavoren, Bolsward, Groningen. Oldenzaal was not a member (possibly confused with Osnabrück)
Belgium: Dinant
Germany: Münster, Bremen, Dortmund, Köln, Braunschweig, Osnabrück, Lübeck, Wismar, Greifswald, Rostock, Magdeburg, Berlin, Berlin-Kölln, Emden, Stralsund, Anklam
Sweden: Visby
Poland: Kolberg/Kolobrzeg, Stettin/Szczecin, Danzig/Gdansk, Elbing/Elblag, Marienburg/Malbork
Russia: Königsberg/Kaliningrad, Novgorod
Lithuania: Memel/Klaipeda
Latvia: Riga
Estonia: Pernau/Pärnu, Reval/Tallinn, Narva, Dorpat/Tartu
Furthermore there were offices in a lot of cities, like Brugge and Antwerpen (Belgium) and Bergen (Norway).
Jarig Bakker, 28 Mar 2001
The Hansa existed for some centuries. Originally it was an organisation of merchants, but as their guilds were connected to the towns where they lived, it soon became an organisation for towns. The towns which were members of the Hansa were not the same the whole time.
Visby is nowadays a part of the municipality of Gotland (...). Stockholm and Calmar (Kalmar) are thought to have been members of the Hansa for short periods, because in some sources they are mentioned as Hanseatic towns, but it could also be because the Hansa had offices there.
Elias Granqvist, 28 Mar 2001
John Ayer pointed out a list of Hanseatic cities, however this does not discriminate between Hansa-cities proper and cities with Hansa offices - Auswürtige Kontore (AK), cities where the Hansa had special privileges. The following list is based on Putzger's Historischer Schulatlas, 1936, and Westermann Großer
Atlas zur Weltgeschichte, 1972:
Great Britain: AK: York, Hull, Yarmouth, Ipswich, London
Belgium: Dinant, AK: Brugge, Antwerpen
Netherlands: Deventer, Zutphen, Arnhem, Harderwijk, Elburg, Nijmegen, Kampen, Zwolle, Stavoren, Bolsward, Groningen, Venlo, Roermond; AK: Dordrecht (if Brugge could not be reached)
Denmark: Copenhagen; AK: Aalborg
Norway: AK: Bergen, Tönsberg, Oslo
Sweden: AK: Malmö, Falsterbo, Skanör, Kalmar, Wisby, Stockholm
Russia: Königsberg/Kaliningrad, AK: Naugart/Novgorod
Estonia: Reval/Tallinn, Pernau/Pärnu, Fellin/Viljandi, Dorpat/Tartu, AK: Narwa/Narva
Latvia: Lemsal/Limbaz^i, Wolmar/Valmiera, Wenden/Ce^sis, Kokenhusen/Koknese, Riga, Windau/Ventspils, Goldingen/Kuldiga
Lithuania: Memel/Klaip?da, AK: Kauen/Kaunas
Belarus: Polozk/Polotsk
Poland: Braunsberg/Braniewo, Elbing/Elblag, Danzig/Gdansk, Kulm/Chełmno, Thorn/Toruń, Marienburg/Malbork, Krakau/Kraków, Breslau/Wrocłav, Stolp/Słupsk, Rügenwalde/Darlowo, Kolberg/Kołobrzeg, Kammin/Kamien, Gollnow/Goleniów, Stettin/Szczecin, Stargard/Stargard Szczeciński,
Germany: Bremen, Minden, Osnabrück, Herford, Coesfeld, Münster, Bielefeld, Lemgo, Wesel, Dortmund, Duisburg, Neuss, Köln, Paderborn, Höxter, Warburg, Soest, Stade, Buxtehude, Lüneburg, Uelzen, Seehausen, Salzwedel, Stendal, Hannover, Braunschweig, Hameln, Hildesheim, Goslar, Helmstedt, Einbeck, Erfurt, Mühlhausen, Naumburg, Merseburg,
Halle, Göttingen, Nordhausen, Aschersleben, Northeim, Halberstadt, Kiel, Lübeck, Hamburg, Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, Greifswald, Wolgast, Demmin, Schwerin, Anklam, Pritzwalk, Prenzlau, Kyritz, Havelberg, Berlin, (Berlin-)Kölln, Tangerm(ünde?), Brandenburg, Frankfurt/Oder.
Actually Westermann has a lot more, but judging from the Dutch plain wrong entries I have followed mainly Putzger (editorial note: a wise decision).
Jarig Bakker, 28 Mar 2001
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Today, the following nine cities call themselves Hansestadt as part of their official name: Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, Wismar, Rostock, Greifswald, Stralsund, Anklam, Demmin.
Stefan Schwoon, 28 Mar 2001
Norie and Hobbs 1848 shows under
"150: Hanse Towns" a red flag, upper half white but leaving a narrow border of red along the top and fly. The German editors comment, "The hanseatic colours white and red never appeared in a common flag like no. 150. It could only represent some smaller Dutch cities which used to belong to the Hansa". They are not saying there never was such a common flag, which leaves room for the story that ships of Hansa-members raised a red pennant when entering a member-town or a town where the Hansa had privileges.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 12 Nov 2001
Further sources, reconfirming the information given by Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, are:
Alphonso Figsbee: "The Maritime Flags and Standards of all Nations", NYC, 1856(?)
Norie and Hobbs: "306 Illustrations of the Maritime Flags of all Nations" , London 1848, reprint: Hamburg 1987; ISBN 3-89225-153-3
by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 24 Jun 2011
The word "Hansa" is the shortened form of the Lower German expression der blanke Hans / de blank haans ("blowing Hans") meaning "withstand the wind".
Jens Pattke, 22 Dec 2001
H. Zimmern, The Hansa Towns, 1889, p. 46, says: "The origin of the name of Hansa is wrapped in some mystery. The word is found in Ulfila's Gothic translation of the Bible, as signifying a society, a union of men, particularly in the sense of combatants. He applies it to the band of men, who came to capture Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Later on Hansa occurs as a tax on commercial transactions, and also as the sum, a very low one, which the various cities paid as their entrance fee into the association. The league acquired its name after its first great war with Waldemar of Denmark and the peace of Stralsund (1370)."
I didn't encounter "der blanke Hans", but he may well be part of popular etymology.
Jarig Bakker, 22 Dec 2001