Free City of Lübeck

The Free City of Lubeck was the Queen of the Hanse, the German city-state that ran northern trade from 1226 to 1937. Emperor Frederick II freed it as an Imperial City, its Lubeck law made adopted towns independent of kings in theory, and in the fourteenth century no hull moved on the Baltic without Lubeck's leave. The city bought lordships like Molln in 1359 for nine thousand-odd marks, guarded the safe freight roads, joined the Schmalkaldic League, bled in the Count's Feud of 1534, allied Hamburg to win Bergedorf as joint condominium, and wrote the commercial law of the north. Kings came and went, the League faded after the defeat: France swallowed the city as Bouches-de-l'Elbe till the 1813 restoration of its sovereignty, Vienna counted it among the thirty-nine, 1871 brought autonomy with tax rights, yet Lubeck kept its freedom and its merchants until 1937 closed seven centuries of the free city.