This stems from the decision to "de-state" the Hansa in EU2
First a brief comment: This is NOT a dig at Paradox or the EU2 beta testers or anyone else. EU necessarily is a reductionist model of a complex reality. The Hansa don't fit really well into the model and tough choices must be made. Either choice is a valid option. I posting this here rather than the EU2 forum in the hope of avoiding the usual kinds of rants on these issues and to focus on the historical dimension.
Now for the substance.
The Hanseatic League was a City League. Such leagues were quite common throughout much of European history, but disappeared after the Westphalian peace agreement in the 17th century.
The Hanse was not a mere alliance of separate cities. It had a number of coordinating and centralizing institutions including the Hansetag, the regional Drietal groupings and the Kontors. Further coordination was promoted by linking dominant large cities with subordinate sister cities. For an idea of how these institutions worked in practice, heres a quotation from Hendrik Spruyt's excellent study, THE SOVEREIGN STATE AND ITS COMPETITORS (Princeton Univ. Press 1994):
"It is wrong to see the Hansa as merely a loosely bound interest group. As Wernicke and Dollinger have pointed out, the weight of contemporary evidence belies that position. Wernicke and Dollinger argue that the Hansa had the ability to send emissaries, sign treaties, collect revenue, and enforce Hansetag decision. Lensen and Heitlig concede that although the Hansa was a confederation that did not have a founding constitution, it could raise an army, conduct foreign policy, decree laws, engage in social regulation and collect revenue."
He goes on to say: "Wernicke argues that through reciprocity between towns, bilateral treaties, and intervention by the Hansa, 'the Hansa towns created a relatively coherent legal system.' It would therefore by incorrect that the individual town was the actual political unit with which we should be concerned. This was not the devlopment of territorial city-states as in Italy."
Basically, the Hansa had as much in the way of state-like characteristics as any 15th century European territorial state. Spruyt argues that sovereign states had certain advantages in eliminating feudal legacies and attacking free rider problems and had the incentive to cooperate to eliminate organizational alternatives. Hence the policy of refusing to recognize the Hanse as an entity for the purposes of political negotiations which eventually undid the League for good.
But IMO its not a huge stretch to imagine that from a 1419 starting point that the Hansa could have expanded the League and gradually altered it to enhance centralization. Such a course of action would have required careful leadership and may well have given rise to revolts or resistance from individual members. But that is not to say it couldn't have happened.
Thus I would contend that it should be feasible for a player in a historical strategy game to guide the Hansa through the early modern epoch and maintain its existence as an entity over that entire period.
First a brief comment: This is NOT a dig at Paradox or the EU2 beta testers or anyone else. EU necessarily is a reductionist model of a complex reality. The Hansa don't fit really well into the model and tough choices must be made. Either choice is a valid option. I posting this here rather than the EU2 forum in the hope of avoiding the usual kinds of rants on these issues and to focus on the historical dimension.
Now for the substance.
The Hanseatic League was a City League. Such leagues were quite common throughout much of European history, but disappeared after the Westphalian peace agreement in the 17th century.
The Hanse was not a mere alliance of separate cities. It had a number of coordinating and centralizing institutions including the Hansetag, the regional Drietal groupings and the Kontors. Further coordination was promoted by linking dominant large cities with subordinate sister cities. For an idea of how these institutions worked in practice, heres a quotation from Hendrik Spruyt's excellent study, THE SOVEREIGN STATE AND ITS COMPETITORS (Princeton Univ. Press 1994):
"It is wrong to see the Hansa as merely a loosely bound interest group. As Wernicke and Dollinger have pointed out, the weight of contemporary evidence belies that position. Wernicke and Dollinger argue that the Hansa had the ability to send emissaries, sign treaties, collect revenue, and enforce Hansetag decision. Lensen and Heitlig concede that although the Hansa was a confederation that did not have a founding constitution, it could raise an army, conduct foreign policy, decree laws, engage in social regulation and collect revenue."
He goes on to say: "Wernicke argues that through reciprocity between towns, bilateral treaties, and intervention by the Hansa, 'the Hansa towns created a relatively coherent legal system.' It would therefore by incorrect that the individual town was the actual political unit with which we should be concerned. This was not the devlopment of territorial city-states as in Italy."
Basically, the Hansa had as much in the way of state-like characteristics as any 15th century European territorial state. Spruyt argues that sovereign states had certain advantages in eliminating feudal legacies and attacking free rider problems and had the incentive to cooperate to eliminate organizational alternatives. Hence the policy of refusing to recognize the Hanse as an entity for the purposes of political negotiations which eventually undid the League for good.
But IMO its not a huge stretch to imagine that from a 1419 starting point that the Hansa could have expanded the League and gradually altered it to enhance centralization. Such a course of action would have required careful leadership and may well have given rise to revolts or resistance from individual members. But that is not to say it couldn't have happened.
Thus I would contend that it should be feasible for a player in a historical strategy game to guide the Hansa through the early modern epoch and maintain its existence as an entity over that entire period.
