Ready to launch your business? Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs.

Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run and grow your business with easy customizable themes that let you build your brand.

Marketing tools that get your products out there. Integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time.

From startups to scaleups, online, inperson and on the go. Shopify is made for

entrepreneurs like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup.

Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC

History magazine. The Hanseatic League was often compared to a crocodile, because it was a shadowy,

somewhat sinister entity that kept its true intentions concealed. But here, in conversation

with Spencer Mizzan, Professor Sheila Ogilvie answers your questions on this medieval

trading federation. She considers whether it was a precursor to the European Union, what tactics

it employed to intimidate nation-states,

and how it helped King Edward III secure the English throne?

I'm going to start with a question that was submitted by someone called Angus Fraser on X.

A pretty straightforward one, but pretty important question.

And that is, what was the Hanseatic League? I wonder if you could just spend a few minutes

giving us kind of an overview of this medieval trading federation?

So that's a really good question, and it's one that medieval and economic historians

keep asking themselves, and they seem to have been asking themselves that for at least

a hundred years. So I'm going to give you my answer. What we call the Hanseatic League in English, or the German Hansa, as people called it at the time.

What it was was a network, a very loose, informal, amorphous, and sometimes very mysterious network of long-distance traders, so merchants who traded internationally.

They were mainly merchants across northern Germany and the Baltic, but as we'll see a bit later,

they actually came from what are now probably eight or nine different European countries.

...