Book Launch Museum Night La Rochelle

I will be spending this weekend in the very historic port city of La Rochelle where the bi-lingual book on the Hanseatic League will be launched this evening, fittingly at the Protestant Museum.

On that topic and the celebrations by the British Monarchy yesterday, with lunch for the crowned heads of other states at Windsor Castle, and a similar event at Buckingham Palace last evening hosted by Prince Charles, I again query why the actual day of the sixtieth anniversary of her accession to the throne the Queen (or Palace) chose to celebrate such an important British event, at the sole surviving Hanseatic building in the UK in Kings Lynn? (Hansa rights in Kings Lynn were part of the peace treaty terms granted by England's Kings brought on by the defeat resulting from our weakness due to their family quarrels in France).

If any blog readers know of an official explanation, perhaps they would provide it in the comments section to this post, or email me if they prefer it to remain private - martin.coleatgmail.com

Blogging will resume on Monday.

Return of the Easterlings

There are some sources that attribute the term sterling for Britain's currency and silver as derived from the merchants, referred to initially as Easterlings who dominated the nation's trade for much of the Middle Ages and eventually became better known as the Hanseatic League.

In this Google Book link for the year 1442 we find this entry:

"In this year," says Sir Robert Cotton's Posthuma,  "being the twentieth of HenryVI.........."the privileges of the Prussians and Hans-town merchants be suspended, until compensation be made to the English for the wrongs done them."

Listening to our Deputy Prime Minister this morning it seems clear that he is clearly following in the footsteps of the Easterlings, listen from here, and read the post immediately beneath this to see how one such, Volker Beckers, is set on destroying our trading potential - cheaper energy ever forming the foundation for prosperity and a competitive trading economy - Chris Huhne, Clegg's side-kick is clearly intent on depriving the country of that.

We urgently need a Parliament with the courage of that of 1442 under Henry VI!

(Update 1400 GMT :MT More worthwhile reading on the early influence of Cologne etc., on Richard I and John is here.)

The Steelyard & German gains from 10 years of the Euro.

There is a good assessment of the gains made by Germany in the economic sphere following ten years of the circulation of euro notes and coins, this morning in AsiaOne news, linked here. Some quotes:

"With a single currency zone, all the uncertainties about exchange rates (within today's eurozone) disappear," Henrik Uterwedde, deputy director of the Franco-German Institute in Ludwigsburg, pointed out.

For Germany's car industry which boasts heavy hitters such as Daimler, BMW and Volkswagen, this has certainly been good news.

Since the euro was introduced, German carmakers have saved between 300-500 million euros (S$500-850 million) annually on transaction costs, according to Juergen Pieper, analyst at German bank Metzler

Ferdinand Fichtner, economist at the Berlin-based DIW economic institute, highlighted the importance of the eurozone as a marketplace for German goods.

"About 40 per cent of its exports are destined for the eurozone and 20 per cent for the rest of the European Union," he said.

It is somewhat surprising, given the substantial nature of these gains, the dangerous games the German government seems recently prepared to play with the underpinnings of the common currency, which is why a research on the history of the Hanseatic League, provides such fascinating reading over this holiday period. Here is the Wikipedia entry on the Steelyard, the German factory in London, eventually removed by Queen Elizabeth the First, in 1598, predictably re-opened by James I, but never subsequently regaining its same power or influence.

German trading practices from the Hanseatic League.

I have selected a quote from a book written in 1889, long before the two world wars and during a period of great pro-German feeling in Victorian Britain. (As proof see W.T. Stead's Europa, 1899 link here). In so doing I hope that this account of what occurred in Bergen over hundreds of years will not be put down to war induced jingoism. Significantly the Norwegians have sensibly remained out of the EU since the people overturned the entry terms negoiated by their leaders!

The book titled "The Hansa Towns" was written by Helen Zimmern, first published 1889 by T. Fisher Unwin, London and republished by Elibron Classics 2005 Paperback version ISBN 1-4021-8483-2. I am quoting from Chapter IV on page 137:

Their purpose, simple enough in conception, was carried out with a disregard of other claims than their own, and often a violence which made them encounter resistance, and which in the end was largely the cause of their fall.

The political agitations and confusions which disturbed the Scandinavian kingdoms early in the fifteenth century were astutely utilised by the Hanseatics, who, having their settlements at Bergen and Scania, were able to keep out the Dutch and the English, then just attempting to begin a rivalry with them in the northern trade. The Dutch were easily disheartened. Not so the English; and we read of instances in which the Hanseatics and English acted towards one another with a savagery which proves that commercial rivalry can excite hearts as bitterly and furiously as poltical or religious fanaticism.

No matter at what cost, monopoly the Germans were resolved to have, and they succeeded in forcing the kings of Denmark to place an interdict on English trading. This prohibition corresponded to another that they had extorted according to which all merchandise coming from the extreme end of the Norwegian kingdom was obliged to pass through Bergen. The purpose of the latter regulation was to concentrate all the productions of the country at a single point; thus offering to the Hanseatics the first refusal of goods, and a power of dominating the market.

Indeed nowhere did their imperious and self-seeking policy show itself in a less amiable light than in the dealings of the Hansa with the poor inhabitants of Norway's sterile coasts. The history of their factory at Bergen is from its earliest foundation the history of a relentless despotism, disfigured by violence and breach of faith in treaties.

There is of course more, much more, too much so for quotation here. Further reading online is possible from another source online, pages 237 to 243 linked here.

What we should learn from this history should be obvious. So mis-educated and confused are the leaders of our political parties, however, that I am not yet sure that even now they have seen it! Even after what has happened to Greece over two long years, the fate of its democratic government; Portugal, the broken people of Ireland and now the removed elected Government of Italy. It follows a pattern, if European countries with their land borders refuse to see it, we in Britain should, buy the book I have quoted above, read the difficulties we had in removing the Germans from the site where Cannon Street station now stands, read the draft treaty prepared after the 8th/9th December EU Council meeting, linked here, consider this passage, repeated from above "... breach of faith in treaties"!