Hanseatic Cities
A Guide to Hanseatic Towns
The Guide to Hanseatic Towns is meant to describe in short words the historical development of the respective hanseatic town as well as its archival tradition concerning its hanseatic period and its history throughout. Thus the project is a combination of town marketing and self-advertising of the town archives.
The enclosed form has been presented to the working group “Hanseatic History” and for a long time discussed and altered until it has been adopted in the end of 2004.
In the first part, the basic elements of the town’s development through the hanseatic period as well as within the hanseatic organisation are outlined shortly and precisely, focusing the characteristics of the respective town. Yet the historical development of the hanseatic towns is further depicted in posthanseatic times up to the present .
In the second part the archival tradition preserved in the respective town archive is described and how it can be used. Finally, basic literature on the town is listed as well as information about museums, collections and exhibitions.
So this guide will make available data on the hanseatic towns that are easy to survey as well as further information. The Hanseatic Guide will thus be a complement to the very short information of the Online Visiting-Cards showing that the foundation of today’s Hanseatic towns’ identity is to be found in the hanseatic archives.
Dr. Rolf Hammel-Kiesow, Lübeck, and other colleagues will partake in revising the contributions according to the adopted form. When needed, the institute for comparative towns history in Münster will be called upon.
The towns of the Hanseatic League are invited to join this project. The articles contributed by the towns are presented in the Net. Later it will be decided on whether to publish them in traditional paper form. A sample article about Stade has already been put in the Net, others are to follow.
To finance the work on the project and the revision of the articles the partaking towns are expected to take a share of the costs that will amount to 70,-- Euro, calculated on 50 partaking towns.
