Hanseatic League Trade Network

Timeline

1. 1351–1354Baltic Sea · Baltic SeaAfter the Black Death devastated northern port populations, Hanseatic cities such as Lübeck and Wismar quickly restored shipping, using fleets of cogs to carry grain, amber, and timber from Prussia and the Baltic coast to Western Europe, filling southern Europe's food shortfall.
2. 1352–1358Bruges · FlandersHanseatic merchants established a kontor in Bruges, trading with Flemish cloth merchants and exchanging northern furs and dried fish for fine textiles and salt. The Bruges kontor became the League's most important Western European outpost, with annual trade volume leading all Hanseatic kontors.
3. 1356–1360Lübeck · Schleswig-HolsteinHanseatic cities regularly convened the Hansetag in Lübeck to coordinate freight pricing, convoy arrangements, and foreign negotiations. The League upheld its trade monopoly through collective sanctions and armed merchant ships, and by the 1350s its network covered the entire northern trade route from Novgorod to London.