![[Haupthandelsroute_Hanse.png]] The Mongol Empire and the *Pax Mongolica* created a stable environment for long-distance trade and the Silk Road across Central Asia thrived. The safety of these overland caravan routes would allow Europeans like the Venetian Polo brothers and their young nephew Marco Polo to reach the court of Kublai Khan in 1271. By 1200 Venice had become one of the Mediterranean world's major trade hubs. But at the same time, a northern European trade alliance was growing in a region around the Baltic Sea that had long been dominated by Scandinavian merchants descended from the Vikings. Merchant guilds or associations that became known as *Hansa* formed to protect trade routes and cargoes, beginning in the 1140s and 1150s. In 1159 Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, rebuilt Lübeck (which had been destroyed in a fire) as a German merchant city whose strategic location between North Sea and Baltic on the Trave River made it the future center of the Hanseatic League. ![[Stadtrecht_P.Schiffrecht.MHG.ajb.jpg]] *Foundation of the alliance between [Lübeck](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCbeck "Lübeck") and [Hamburg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburg "Hamburg") in the part about ship law (Van schiprechte) in the Hamburg city right* After Henry the Lion granted German merchants equal rights to Gotlanders (Scandinavians), they became increasingly active in Visby (Gotland) and Novgorod. This gave them access to Russian furs, wax, and honey and made Novgorod a key eastern trade hub. In 1176, merchants from Cologne were exempted from tolls and allowed to build their own Guildhall in London. Europe adopted magnetic compasses for navigation in 1199, allowing more dependable travel by sea, especially out of sight of land. By the early thirteenth century, Germans had founded outposts on the eastern Baltic coast at places such as Riga (1201), Reval/Tallinn (1248), Danzig/Gdańsk (1236), and Elbing (1237). In 1241 Lübeck and Hamburg established a formal alliance to protect trade routes and share privileges such as access to salt from Lüneburg and herring. This was the first major city-to-city pact, often considered the "nucleus" of the future League. ----- Next: [[14.2 - Hansa Wars]] Back: [[13.17 - Mongol Empire]]