Lübeck

In the years around 800, Slavs immigrated from the east to build a castle at the confluence of Trave and Schwartau, thus marking the beginning of Old Lübeck. By the 11th century at the latest, the settlement will become "Liubice" (the lovely one), which later becomes the name of Lübeck. In 1127 invading barbarian hordes burned down this Ur-Lübeck. In 1143 Count Adolf II of Schauenburg and Holstein re-established the settlement as the first German port city on the Baltic Sea.

As early as 1157, the city now called Lubeke burned down again, whereupon wooden buildings were banned and strict fire protection regulations introduced. Henry the Lion rebuilt the city and gave it shortly after the town privileges. In June 1226, Emperor Frederick II presented the city with the "Reichsfreiheitsbrief", and Lübeck became a city of imperial immediacy. After 1361 Wisby, the first capital of the Hanseatic League, had been conquered by the Danish king, Lübeck became the new capital of the Hanseatic League. Lübeck developed in consequence, at times the most important trading city in northern Europe and was then not unjustifiably called "Queen of the Hanseatic League".

After gaining the city freedom in 1226 Lübeck began with the coinage of the usual means of payment of the Middle Ages: denarii and bracteates of silver. As their values ​​dwindled over the centuries, the city founded in 1379 the "Wendish Münzverein" to continue to be competitive in the long-distance trade. The characteristic nominal of this time is the so-called Witten, a fourfold denarius. Also the gold guilders - marked since 1340, when Emperor Frederick II gave the city the gold privilege - proved its suitability in mercantile concerns and retained its roughness and fine weight over 200 years.