The Hanseatic League

The Merchant Class of the Hanseatic League

The merchants of the Hanseatic League were the dominant class of the Hanseatic cities, and they were the class that made the League’s commercial success possible. The merchants were not a middle class in the modern sense: they were an elite, often as wealthy and influential as the nobility in other parts of Europe, and they governed their cities as the nobility governed theirs. They built the great gabled houses that lined the market streets, they endowed the churches and monasteries, they commissioned the altarpieces and the tapestries, and they paid for the public works that made the cities habitable.

This article describes the merchant class of the Hanseatic cities, beginning with the social structure of the cities, continuing with the great merchant families, the apprenticeship system, and the merchant guilds, and ending with the rise of the patriciate that dominated the cities of the late Middle Ages.

The social structure

The social structure of the Hanseatic cities was, in the first instance, a structure of estates. The principal estates were the merchants, the craftsmen, and the labourers, and the merchants were the dominant estate. The merchants were the citizens of the city in the full sense, and they had the right to vote, to hold office, and to participate in the government of the city. The craftsmen and the labourers were, in the first instance, subjects of the merchants, and they had only a limited voice in the government.

A useful distinction is between the Großkaufmann (great merchant) and the Kleinhändler (small trader). The great merchant operated across borders, owned ships, dealt in bills of exchange, and sat on the city council; the small trader ran a single shop and was a member of a craft guild. The intermediate stratum was the Gewandschneider (cloth-cutter), who bought wholesale and retailed — the typical upper-tier citizen who could aspire to the council but rarely reached the patriciate proper.

The merchant class was not monolithic. Within the merchant class there were distinctions of wealth, status, family, and trade. The great merchant families, the patriciate, were at the top of the urban hierarchy, and they married among themselves. The smaller merchants, the Krämer, the shopkeepers and petty traders, were at the bottom. Between them were the craftsmen, the guild masters, the Brauer and the Bäcker and the Schmiede, who were often members of the merchant class by virtue of their guild membership but were not in the front rank of the city’s life.

A useful note: the Brauer (brewer), Bäcker (baker), and Schmiede (blacksmith) are not strictly Kaufleute (merchants) at all — they are artisans. They are included in the Bürgerschaft (citizenry) but not in the patriciate proper. The article uses the term “merchant” loosely, in the medieval sense of Bürger (citizen) who participated in trade.

The great merchant families

The great merchant families, the patriciate, were the most important class in the Hanseatic cities. The patriciate was, in the first instance, a class of great merchants, the families that had made their fortunes in the long-distance trade of the Baltic and the North Sea, and the families that had used their wealth to buy land, to build houses, to endow churches, and to support the arts. The patriciate was also a class of politicians, the families that had dominated the city councils for generations, and the families that had provided the mayors, the aldermen, and the delegates to the Hansetag.

A useful caveat: many of these family names appear in the historical record only for a generation or two — the Berings, for example, are prominent in the 14th century and largely disappear from the records by the 16th. The picture of a stable patrician class ruling the cities for centuries is partly an artefact of the surviving sources; the reality was more fluid. Recent prosopographical work (for example, the Lübeck Prosopographische Datenbank) has done much to clarify which families were actually continuous over time.

The great merchant families of Lübeck included the Berings, the Brömbsens, the Geverdes, the Klingbergs, the Lüneburgs, the Parchams, the Ritzerows, and the Warendorps. The great families of Hamburg included the Bergen, the Hummersbüttel, the Kirchhoff, the Looft, the Meierson, the Moller, the Sluter, and the Wetken. The great families of Danzig included the Ferbers, the Recks, the Ziegenhagen, and the Zielkes. The great families of Riga included the Bockelbergers, the Kerstens, the Mönnekes, the Osthues, the Proffe, the Ronnebergers, and the Staves.

The apprenticeship system

The apprenticeship system was the principal mechanism by which the great merchant families recruited and trained their members. The system was, in the first instance, a system of master and apprentice, in which a young man was bound to a master merchant for a period of several years, and the master merchant taught him the trade. The system was regulated by the merchant guilds, and the guilds set the terms of the apprenticeship, the fees, and the rights of the apprentices.

A useful detail: the standard apprenticeship was for 4 to 5 years, with 2 to 3 additional years as a Knecht (journeyman) before the apprentice could hope to become a Meister (master) in his own right. The apprentice paid a fee, was bound to the master for the duration, and was entitled to maintenance (food, lodging, training) but not, usually, to a wage. The arrangement was, in a sense, an investment by the apprentice (or his family) in the right to participate in the trade.

The apprenticeship was, in the first instance, a commercial education. The apprentice learned the techniques of the trade, the customs of the markets, the languages of the foreign merchants, and the laws of the kontore. The apprentice also learned the social skills that were essential for success in the trade, including the art of negotiation, the art of correspondence, and the art of socialising.

The apprenticeship was also a social education. The apprentice was usually sent, during his apprenticeship, to one of the foreign kontore, where he would spend several years learning the trade in a foreign city. The experience of the kontor was, for many apprentices, the formative experience of their lives, and the contacts that they made in the kontor were the basis of their future business.

A specific note: the kontor apprenticeship was the medieval equivalent of a foreign posting at a major law firm or investment bank — it was where the apprentice made the contacts that would later become his business network. The Hanseatic merchant’s career was, in a sense, an early model of the modern multinational firm apprentice in miniature.

The merchant guilds

The merchant guilds were the principal organisations of the merchant class, and they were the principal political forces in the Hanseatic cities. The guilds regulated the trade, the apprenticeship, and the conduct of the merchants, and the guilds had a substantial role in the government of the cities. The guilds were also the principal channel through which the merchants participated in the politics of the League, and the guilds appointed the delegates to the Hansetag.

The principal merchant guild of a Hanseatic city was usually called the Kaufmannsgilde or the Gewandschneidergilde, and the guild had a membership that included the great merchants, the middle merchants, and the smaller merchants of the city. The guild was governed by a board of Ältermänner or aldermen, and the board was elected by the members of the guild. The guild had its own court, its own regulations, and its own officers, and the guild had the power to fine, to imprison, and to expel its members.

A useful distinction: the Kaufmannsgilde is the generic term for the merchant guild; the Gewandschneidergilde is the specific cloth-cutter’s guild, a particular type of Kaufmannsgilde common in the larger cities (Lübeck, Hamburg, Brunswick). The Gewandschneider bought cloth wholesale and cut it for retail sale — they were, in a sense, the department stores of the medieval city.

The guilds were, in many ways, the basic units of the Hanseatic trading system. The guild of a city in the Wendish district, for example, was the principal channel through which the city’s merchants participated in the trade of the Baltic, and the guild was the principal channel through which the city’s merchants were represented in the foreign kontore. The guilds of the different cities cooperated with one another, and the cooperation was, in many ways, the foundation of the League’s commercial system.

The rise of the patriciate

The patriciate, the class of great merchant families, gradually consolidated its control of the Hanseatic cities in the late Middle Ages. The patriciate’s control was, in the first instance, the result of the patriciate’s wealth, which gave it a substantial advantage in the politics of the cities. The patriciate’s control was also the result of the patriciate’s intermarriage, which allowed it to maintain its wealth within a relatively small circle of families. The patriciate’s control was, finally, the result of the patriciate’s monopoly of the city offices, which allowed it to entrench its position and to exclude the smaller merchants and the craftsmen.

The rise of the patriciate was, in many ways, a natural development of the Hanseatic commercial system. The patriciate’s wealth was the result of the long-distance trade, and the long-distance trade required the kind of capital, connections, and experience that only the great families could provide.

The rise of the patriciate was, however, also a source of conflict, because the smaller merchants and the craftsmen resented the patriciate’s monopoly of the city offices. The conflicts took many forms, and the conflicts sometimes led to violence. The patriciate’s response to the conflicts was, in most cases, to make concessions to the smaller merchants and the craftsmen, and the concessions were, in many ways, the basis of the more inclusive political institutions of the late Middle Ages.

A useful note: the 1550s Lübeck bank failures (Lübecker Bankrott) are one of the clearest statistical markers of the patriciate’s decline. The great patrician families of the 14th and 15th centuries — the Berings, the Brömbsens, the Warendorps — were, by 1550, no longer actively engaged in trade. Their capital was in land and office, and the new ventures of the 16th century (the Atlantic trade, the joint-stock companies) were Dutch and English, not Hanseatic.

Further reading