ABSTRACT
With proximity to Scandinavia and the Low Countries, medieval Lynn, in addition to Boston and Yarmouth, was among the most active English ports for trade across the North and Baltic seas. A tax on sea trade in 1203 shows that after the port of London, Boston, Lynn, and Southampton contributed the largest sums. AT the time of the 1474 treaty, the position of the Hanseatic merchants in Lynn must have seemed full of promise. The Steelyard may be dated to the years after the treaty, but the Hanseatics had been trading actively in Lynn since the mid-13th century, living in their own houses by 1310 and maintaining their own warehouses no later than 1424. As a north European trading organization, the Hanse established counting-houses, both temporary and permanent, in many of the coastal cities on the North and Baltic seas. The Hanseatic trading station was also known as a Kontor, comptoir, counting-house, or business-house.
