Merchant Republics - landed or maritime?

I'm sorry, did you just implied Lubeck wasn't a fucking sea-power, you complete imbecile?!

All right, then: Everybody is acquainted with Venice. The only people who care about the Hansa are a few Europeans. The only people who care about Samarkand are a few Muslims.

Yes user, half of the continent is "few Europeans".
Sounds almost like Venice, only that it's contained to fucking Balkans, that nobody gives a fuck about.

I didn't know it was already daytime in the States

can you think of any good primers for the HRE in this aspect? I've always found it interesting and didn't know they had a merchant republic-like system. My curiosity is piqued

The fucking Hansa? All sorts and types of free imperial cities? I mean it's impossible to never heard about those if you know what HRE is.

Wow that’s very interesting. I really need to learn more about tuscany.
Thanks for making me less of a brainlet today. Any other tidbits on the Florentine relationship with subject regions/cities?

I’m an amateur at HRE stuff, but effectively the Imperial cities had their own charters/constitution and reported directly to the Emperor/diet rather than any higher lord. This gave them the freedom to manage their own affairs as they saw fit without as much feudal red tape - naturally appealling to burghers and merchants. The great trading centers of the northern Empire (as well as outsiders such as Novgorod, and even merchant cities in England) formed a league (Hansa) for common defense from piracy/feudal overreach and to work for common profit. It was an enormous deal and made the cities stupidly rich to the point the Hansa could leverage power and influence in its own right.

There isn't really much. Medici were perfectly content with controlling almost all of Tuscany and that was it - they didn't need more nor there was any real point in getting more. All the cities outside easy-to-maintain control or with no real value were simply left alone for their doing. Some of them even joined on their own later, with no war or even diplomatic actions. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany is also one of those rare cases where Habsburgs came into the power vaccum (in 1737 last Medici died) and didn't turn things into worse.

So it was effectively another example of the city (Florence) more or less being the feudal overlord of the countryside/subject cities/regions right? The Medici/Priori could just dictate to these subjects as long as they had the cash and arms to enforce their will?

All you need to know they've conquered Pisa for its port and Siena got taken over during Italian Wars nominally for Charles V, but Gian Giacomo Medici (who commanded the army busy conquering Siena) was granted it as a governor, which laid fundation for creation of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. There was also official "imperial" area known as State of the Presidi, eventually going to Spain, but that's not Florentine ownership. Lucca was also left ot its own devices, being a small-fry merchant republic that nobody wanted to conquer (for no good reason, since it was a rich and strategically important land).

In fact, Lucca was probably the most democratic of all Italian states, as it maintained functional democracy for most of its existence, only in the later phases turning into oligarchy of most influential families.

If you greatly simplify things, then yeah. See, the point of the Grand Duchy was the immense stability it brought. No more backstabbing of patrician families, no never-ending revolts of the peasants/city workers and eventually - no more wars. So people were perfectly fine with Medici rule once the onslaught ended, precisely because it ended. Meanwhile, the urban areas still had a lot of liberty, so nobody complained.

What about river ports? You know, Rhineland managed to be prosperous and full of trading city-states, without having access to the sea or bothering with sea trade - they just traded between each other, which was more than enough. And it was traders coming to them via Rhine from outside, not the other way around, which meant each city was able to dictate their own rules and prices, rather than being subject to the whims of the traders in the final port.

Baltic not Balkans.

What are yeomen?

Here are some book charts for those interested.

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Peasants that owned their own land.

This looks like something that'd happen in a fucking cartoon?
>At last, we've finally completed our great and magnificent city! Now none will overtake us in trade!
>But the sea is all the way over there!
>[One building montage later]

True, but keep in mind that while other countries had their equivalents the term "yeoman" wasn't actually used outside of England. Something like "Freeman farmer" or whatever would be more accurate if you want to satisfy your autism, because there'd be minor legal differences depending on where these folsks were. They'd have different rights and obligations.

Since we're on the subject of city states, free citizens and rights anyway, wouldn't it be a good idea to start your city state by having its own constitution? I mean, things like the codified US Constitution weren't around but didn't these city states have certain founding documents from which citizens derived certain rights not even higher feudal lords could intervene with?

They certainly did. The old civic charters were not to be fucked with. They were a major symbol of legitimacy and the root of the legal code.
Interestingly you then have cities plaguarizing one another’s codes, resulting in cities that have similar baselines for their governance - not to mention ‘we wuz romans n shiiettt’ larpers in Italy.

why not both?

But that's what city charter is for. Magdeburg, Lubeck and Kulm were most influencial in HRE and eastward (so Poland, Bohemia and all what's nowdays Baltic states), since others were just copying their charters and applying only cosmetic changes to it. And those were based on Flemish rights, which were based on local traditions mixed with Roman law.

Also, you are aware that the fact City A had its sets of laws didn't meant shit outside the Town A and Lord B, if he was strong enough and his overlord, Duke C, wasn't strong enough or interested, could still try to subdue the town?

Don't want to break it for you, burger boy, but just because a medieval city had its set of laws didn't meant it was magically protected from feudal lords in given area. If not by directly pushing into the city (or being located into the city and working its inner politics), they could still starve it economically (or literally) by applying tolls all around given city, raking pure profit and nobody could do shit about this, unless applying physical resistance with a proper army and fortifications.
Then there are also tolls on roads and rivers, too, on scale of a duchy/kingdom. In fact, all the way until free floating on any given river was declared by anyone strong enough, use of rivers for trade wasn't profitable at all. Best case example is France all the way to the fucking 18th century. It was cheaper to import timber/lumber from what's today Estonia and Latvia by sea-worthy ships than to float it downstream of Loire and Seine due to local nobility taking their tolls and lack of any legal protection or "police" (in any form), which meant more was looted and taken as tolls than it ever reached final destination. Just for the record - not even Louis XIV with both Colberts managed to do anything about it and they are considered the guys who curb-stomped noble economic rights whenever possible.

Wasn't the concept of resisting feudals the main reason behind formation of the Hanseatic League? So a bunch of towns could send out their own army, that they could never muster on their own, make sure everyone listens and maybe even kick Danes from the Sund.