What was founded in the twelfth century and had become known by the thirteenth as the Hanseatic League was  essentially an  alliance of mercantile  guilds in maritime cities bordering the North Sea and Baltic, extending from Edinburgh in Scotland in the west to Novgorod in Russia in the east.

In London, its headquarters was the so-called “Steelyard”, which for much of its existence was essentially an  enclave of Germany.  Here, the relationship between local and German  merchants was  sometimes strained (*).  The following writ was issued in Westminster on this day in 1388:

“Whereas the merchants of the cities of London and Norwich and the boroughs of [King’s] Lynn, Great Yarmouth, St Botolph [Boston] and [Kingston on] Hull had complained that the men of Lubeck, Rostock, Wismar, Stralsund and Hamburg in Germany had arrested their servants and goods in … Stralsund, … whereof the said merchants were innocent, the King commanded the mayor and sheriffs of London to arrest all the men, goods and merchandise of the towns of … Germany being in the ports of London or elsewhere … , and to detain them until they … answer to such charges as may be made against them on behalf of the King …  ”.

The site of the Steelyard is visited on our “Medieval London” walk.

Further details of all our walks are available in the Our Guided Walks section of this web-site.

Bookings may be made through the “Contact/Booking” section of the web-site, or by e-mail (lostcityoflondon@sky.com).

(*) Indeed, London merchants forced the – albeit only temporary – expulsion of German ones  in  the early post-Medieval period.