Hanseatic merchants¶

Overview¶

[Historical record] The German merchant league. The Prussian towns (Danzig, Thorn, Elbing, Königsberg) are the Order’s subjects and increasingly its opponents: the Prussian Confederation of 1440. Riga dominates Daugava trade and Polotsk. The Hanse’s Peterhof sits at Novgorod; a Hanseatic Kontor at Kaunas is dated 1441 (most sources; one gives 1445). A Riga-born merchant, Hanul, was a burgher and namiestnik of Vilnius in 1382-87 and in 1382 led the townsfolk who yielded Vilnius to Jogaila.

Hanseatic merchants


Tipas	grupuotė
Pastaba	Hanseatic merchant league operating Baltic maritime trading outposts and credit networks.

Wants (by book)¶

Book	Goal	Leverage	Red line
I	A friendly lord in Vilnius; safe roads	Silver and the chain from Riga (I ch. 1, 5); the Trakai envoys (I ch. 28)	The Reise closing the rivers
II-III	Privileges, wax, furs, amber, grain	Credit	Monopoly breaches
IV	Trade through the Order’s war with Poland	Ships	War closing the rivers
V	A Kontor at Kaunas; relief from the Order	Hansa merchant Tilmanas of Riga at Goštautas’s feast (V ch. 17)	The Confederation going to war

Patron Force¶

[The saga’s invention] The Gold-Glutton (Mercator-Rex): tolls, ledgers and warm coins. Its envoys walk Trakai in Book I ch. 28. The Shadow-Seller’s first mask, Hanulas, is a Riga merchant.

Internal tensions¶

Prussian towns against the Order; Riga against its archbishop and the Livonian Order; Lübeck against the rest. The amber trade is the Order’s monopoly and the towns want it.

Notable members¶

Hanulas (the Shadow-Seller’s mask).

Ryšiai

Feeds: Aukso Rijūnas (Mercator-Rex)

Sąsajos¶

graph LR
  gold_glutton["Aukso Rijūnas (Mercator-Rex)"]
  hanse["Hanseatic merchants"]
  gold_glutton -->|Fed by| hanse
  style hanse stroke-width:3px