Hanseatic Union. The trading empire of the Middle Ages from London and Bruges to Pskov and Novgorod

Hansa - or the Hanseatic Union of the merchants of trade cities in northern Germany - a unique phenomenon of European life of the XII -XVII centuries. Hanseatic merchants supplied the West by Russian furs and wax, Polish wheat, Hungarian and Swedish copper. To the east they drove the Flemish, Dutch and English cloth, French and Portuguese salt and wine. Largely thanks to them, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe met Western literature, Gothic architecture and painting of the Renaissance. For 500 years, Hansa has contributed to the establishment of economic, political, social and cultural ties between Western and Eastern Europe.
About this in detail, on the basis of numerous original documents, says in his book a historian, professor of Strasbourg University Philip Dolnger