Travel and long-distance trade were dangerous in the Middle Ages. In the 12th century long-distance merchants therefore joined forces and travelled together. This is how the Hanseatic League came into being, an association of merchants from many cities whose foreign trading centres stretched from England to Novgorod in Russia. Especially in the Baltic Sea region the Hanseatic League was of great importance. Riga was the second-oldest city foundation after Lübeck and together with Reval (today Tallinn) and Dorpat (today Tartu) they were important for Hanseatic Russian trade.
Special trade privileges laid the foundation for personal wealth and the enormous prosperity of the 200 Hanseatic towns that flourished in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Among many other things they traded from west to east were cloth, salt, weapons, copper and ceramics, from east to west fish, furs, wax, amber, grain, pitch, hemp and wood. Seafaring was more comfortable than the hassle of impassable roads, but also more dangerous and, depending on weather conditions, difficult to calculate.
Illustration:
Important European trade routes of the Hanseatic League.