See also wikipedia for Hanseatic League. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_League https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_League Explaining the decline

See also wikipedia for Hanseatic League. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_League https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_League Explaining the decline of the Hanseatic League: "New vehicles of credit were imported from Italy, where double-entry book-keeping was invented in 1492, and outpaced the Hansa economy, in which silver coins changed hands rather than bills of exchange."