The League began as a collection of loosely associated groups of German traders and towns aiming to expand their commercial interests, including protection against robbery.

It established a network of trading posts in numerous towns and cities, notably the Kontors in London (known as the Steelyard), Bruges, Bergen, and Novgorod, which became extraterritorial entities that enjoyed considerable legal autonomy.

By the mid-16th century, these weak connections left the Hanseatic League vulnerable, and it gradually unraveled as members merged into other realms or departed, ultimately disintegrating in 1669.

[10]: 2  Historians traditionally traced its origins to the rebuilding of the north German town of Lübeck in 1159 by the powerful Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, after he had captured the area from Adolf II, Count of Schauenburg and Holstein.

[13] Well before the term Hanse appeared in a document in 1267,[14] in different cities began to form guilds, or hansas, with the intention of trading with overseas towns, especially in the economically less-developed eastern Baltic.

This area could supply timber, wax, amber, resins, and furs, along with rye and wheat brought on barges from the hinterland to port markets.

[22] Lübeck soon became a base for merchants from Saxony and Westphalia trading eastward and northward; for them, because of its shorter and easier access route and better legal protections, it was more attractive than Schleswig.

[24]: 14–17 German colonists in the 12th and 13th centuries settled in numerous cities on and near the east Baltic coast, such as Elbing (Elbląg), Thorn (Toruń), Reval (Tallinn), Riga, and Dorpat (Tartu), all of which joined the League, and some of which retain Hansa buildings and bear the style of their Hanseatic days.

Over the 13th century, older and wealthier long-distance traders increasingly chose to settle in their hometowns as trade leaders, transitioning from their previous roles as landowners.

[citation needed] Cities from the east modern-day Low Countries, but also Utrecht, Holland, Zealand, Brabant, Namur, and modern Limburg joined in participation over the thirteenth century.

The League succeeded in establishing additional Kontors in Bruges (Flanders), Bryggen in Bergen (Norway), and London (England) beside the Peterhof in Novgorod.

In Scania, Denmark, around 30 Hanseatic seasonal factories produced salted herring, these were called vitten and were granted legal autonomy to the extent that Burkhardt argues that they resembled a fifth kontor and would be seen as such if not for their early decline.

[34]: 157–158  In England, factories in Boston (the outpost was also called Stalhof), Bristol, Bishop's Lynn (later King's Lynn, which featured the sole remaining Hanseatic warehouse in England), Hull, Ipswich, Newcastle upon Tyne, Norwich, Scarborough, Yarmouth (now Great Yarmouth), and York, many of which were important for the Baltic trade and became centers of the textile industry in the late 14th century.

The league primarily traded beeswax, furs, timber, resin (or tar), flax, honey, wheat, and rye from the east to Flanders and England with cloth, in particular broadcloth, (and, increasingly, manufactured goods) going in the other direction.

[29]: 28–29  This development was delayed by the conquest of Wendish cities by the Danish king Eric VI Menved or by their feudal overlords between 1306 and 1319 and the restriction of their autonomy.

Though initially unsuccessful with a Wendish offensive, towns from Prussia and the Netherlands, and eventually joined by Wendish towns, allied in the Confederation of Cologne in 1368, sacked Copenhagen and Helsingborg, and forced Valdemar IV, King of Denmark, and his son-in-law Haakon VI, King of Norway, to grant tax exemptions and influence over Øresund fortresses for 15 years in the peace treaty of Stralsund in 1370.

Lübeck was dependent on its role as center of the Hansa; Prussia's main interest, on the other hand, was the export of bulk products such as grain and timber to England, the Low Countries and later on Spain and Italy.

[53] The Hansa-dominated maritime grain trade made Poland one of the main areas of its activity, helping Danzig to become the Hansa's largest city.

[citation needed] When Flanders and Holland became part of the Duchy of Burgundy, Burgund Dutch and Prussian cities increasingly excluded Lübeck from their grain trade in the 15th and 16th century.

[citation needed] After naval wars between Burgundy and the Hanseatic fleets, Amsterdam gained the position of leading port for Polish and Baltic grain from the late 15th century onwards.

[34]: 154 The trends of local feudal lords asserting control over towns and suppressing their autonomy, and of foreign rulers repressing Hanseatic traders continued in the next century.

After the war, Gustav Vasa's Sweden and Frederick I's Denmark pursued independent policies and didn't support Lübeck's effort against Dutch trade.

The league attempted to deal with some of these issues: it created the post of syndic in 1556 and elected Heinrich Sudermann to the position, who worked to protect and extend the diplomatic agreements of the member towns.

[63] The Hanseatic League was a complex, loose-jointed constellation of protagonists pursuing their interests, which coincided in a shared program of economic domination in the Baltic region, and a by no means a monolithic organization or a 'state within a state'.

[34]: 128–130, 134–135  The quality of goods was also examined at Kontors, increasing trade efficiency, and they served as bases to develop connections with local rulers and as sources of economic and political information.

On a more local level, league members also met, and while such regional meetings never crystalized into a Hanseatic institution, they gradually gained importance in the process of preparing and implementing the Diet's decisions.

[71]: 55–57 From 1554, the division into Drittel was modified to reduce the circles' heterogeneity, to enhance the collaboration of the members on a regional level and thus to make the League's decision-making process more efficient.

The vitten were significant foreign trading posts of the League in Scania, not cities that were Hanseatic members, they are argued by some to have been similar in status to the kontors,[34]: 157–158  and are listed in the hidden table below.

After the Second World War the conservative nationalist view was discarded, allowing exchanges between German, Swedish and Norwegian historians on the Hanseatic League's role in Sweden and Norway.

[128] The New Hanseatic League was established in February 2018 by finance ministers from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Sweden through the signing of a foundational document which set out the countries' "shared views and values in the discussion on the architecture of the EMU".