quality:corruption, information:classification
Major trade goods

Starting with trade in coarse woollen fabrics, the Hanseatic League increased both commerce and industry in northern Germany. As trade increased, finer woollen and linen fabrics, and even silks, were manufactured in northern Germany. The same refinement of products out of cottage industry occurred in other fields, e.g. etching, wood carving, armour production, engraving of metals, and wood-turning.

The league primarily traded beeswax, furs, timber, resin (or tar), flax, honey, wheat, and rye from the east to Flanders and England with cloth, in particular broadcloth, (and, increasingly, manufactured goods) going in the other direction. Metal ore (principally copper and iron) and herring came south from Sweden, while the Carpathians were another important source of copper and iron, often sold in Thorn. Lubeck had a vital role in the salt trade; salt was acquired in Lüneburg or shipped from France and Portugal and sold on Central European markets, taken to Scania to salt herring or exported to Russia. Stockfish was traded from Bergen in exchange for grain; Hanseatic grain inflows allowed more permanent settlements further north in Norway. The league also traded beer, with beer from Hanseatic towns the most valued, and Wendish cities like Lübeck, Hamburg, Wismar and Rostock developed export breweries for hopped beer.