The Economic and Political Relations of England and the Hanse (1400 to 1475)

The subject of Anglo-Hanseatic relations is something more than just one chapter in the history of English expansion. All through the Middle Ages the activities and policies of the Hanseatic towns dominated the economic configuration of Northern Europe, and thus affected everything the English did, or failed to do, in the Baltic and the North Sea. The Hanse formed a background to English commercial development, as inevitable and sometimes as unaccountable as the weather itself. ¹