The German Hanse shapes European trade in the Middle Ages. At its peak, it unites 200 cities across the North and Baltic Sea regions, and its trade network extends from Scandinavia to Italy and from Portugal to the Russian Empire. Politically, the Hanse also matures into an influential entity, even waging wars against principalities and entire kingdoms to assert its interests. Friedrich Wilhelm Barthold describes how a loose association of Low German merchants and cities became the most powerful trading alliance in Europe in a two-volume work on the history of the German Hanse. The first volume focuses on the origins of the Hanse and its founding phase in the 12th and 13th centuries. This is a reprint of the original edition from 1909.