page_title: Hanseaten (class)
section_title: Relationship to the nobility
hierarchical_section_title: Hanseaten (class) / Relationship to the nobility
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Johann Heinrich Burchard (1852–1912), Hamburger Bürgermeister
context_page_description: The Hanseaten is a collective term for the hierarchy group consisting of elite individuals and families of prestigious rank who constituted the ruling class of the free imperial city of Hamburg, conjointly with the equal First Families of the free imperial cities Bremen and Lübeck. The members of these First Families were the persons in possession of hereditary grand burghership of these cities, including the mayors, the senators, joint diplomats and the senior pastors. Hanseaten refers specifically to the ruling families of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen, but more broadly, this group is also referred to as patricians along with similar social groups elsewhere in continental Europe.
  The three cities since the Congress of Vienna 1815 are each officially named the "Free and Hanseatic City Hamburg", the "Free Hanseatic City Bremen" and the "Free and Hanseatic City Lübeck", since 1937 merely the "Hanseatic City Lübeck".
  Hamburg was one of the oldest stringent civic republics, in which the Hanseatics preserved their constitutional privileges granted in 1189 by Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, until the German Revolution of 1918–19 and the Weimar Constitution.
context_section_description: The relationship between the Hanseatic and noble families varied depending on the city. The most republican city was Hamburg, where the nobility was banned, from the 13th century to the 19th century, from owning property, participating in the political life of the city republic, and even from living within its walls. Hamburg, however, was not a true democracy, but rather an oligarchy, with the Hanseaten as its elite occupying the position held by noble and princely families elsewhere. According to Richard J. Evans, "the wealthy of nineteenth-century Hamburg were for the most part stern republicans, abhorring titles, refusing to accord any deference to the Prussian nobility, and determinedly loyal to their urban background and mercantile heritage." Many grand burghers considered the nobility inferior to Hanseatic families. A marriage between a daughter of a Hanseatic family and a noble was often undesired by the Hanseaten. From the late 19th century, being integrated into a German nation state, a number of Hanseatic families were nevertheless ennobled (by other German states, e.g. Prussia), but this was often met with criticism among their fellow Hanseaten.  As the Hanseatic banker Johann von Berenberg-Gossler was ennobled in Prussia in 1889, his sister Susanne, married Amsinck, exclaimed "Aber John, unser guter Name! [But John, our good name!]" Upon hearing of the ennoblement of Rudolph Schröder (1852–1938) of the ancient Hanseatic Schröder family, Hamburg First Mayor Johann Heinrich Burchard remarked that the Prussian King could indeed "place" (versetzen) Schröder among the nobles, but he could not "elevate" (erheben) a Hanseatic merchant.
caption: First Mayor Johann Heinrich Burchard
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