ABSTRACT
As opposed to HG, the history of LG is conventionally divided into three sections: Old, Middle and New, with MLG beginning and ending somewhat later than MHG, from the thirteenth century to the beginning of the sixteenth century. What is often referred to as the Blütezeit of MLG – roughly between 1370 and 1530 – falls therefore into the ENHG period and is synonymous with the Hanseatic League. The Germanic term *hanso (OHG/ Go hansa, OE hôs) which originally meant ‘group’ (normally of warriors), began appearing in mercantile contexts from the twelfth century (e.g. hanshûs, ‘guild house’), and was used (first in an English royal document from 1267) to designate a conglomerate of traders based along the coastline of northern Europe. From the fourteenth century the stede van der düdeschen hense incorporated between 70 and 80 towns (with more than double as associates), stretching along the North and Baltic Seas from Antwerp in the West to Königsberg in the East with outposts in London, Edinburgh, Bergen and Nowgorod.
