Hanseatic League, a combination of towns in North-western Germany for the mutual protection of their commerce against the pirates of the Baltic and the mutual defence of their liberties against the encroachments of neighbouring princes; it dates from 1241, and flourished for several centuries, to the extension of their commerce far and wide; numbered at one time 64 towns, and possessed fleets and armies, an exchequer, and a government of their own; the League dwindled down during the Thirty Years' War to six cities, and finally to three, Hamburg, Lübeck, and Bremen.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Hansard * Hansteen, Christoph