The Collaborative International Dictionary
Hanse \Hanse\, n. [G. hanse, or F. hanse (from German), OHG. & Goth. hansa; akin to AS. h[=o]s band, troop.] An association; a league or confederacy.
Hanse towns (Hist.), certain commercial cities in Germany which associated themselves for the protection and enlarging of their commerce. The confederacy, called also Hansa and Hanseatic league, held its first diet in 1260, and was maintained for nearly four hundred years. At one time the league comprised eighty-five cities. Its remnants, L["u]beck, Hamburg, and Bremen, are free cities, and are still frequently called Hanse towns.
Usage examples of "free cities".
By floater, then, he proceeded up the flank of the Mount, through the ring of Slope Cities and that of Free Cities and that of Guardian Cities, past Morvole, where Elidath was born, and Normork of the great wall and the great gate, past Huyn, where the leaves of all the trees were scarlet or crimson or ruby or vermilion, past Greel of the crystal palisade and Sigla Higher of the five vertical lakes, and onward still, to the Inner Cities, Banglecode and Bombifale and Peritole and the rest, and on, on, the party of floaters racing up the enormous mountain.
Soon as you give the order, he'll cut your throat, drop you over the side, winter with the pirates of the Sunset Islands, then head straight for the Free Cities come spring.
It was time for the harvest, but the fruit was plucked by the burghers of the free cities.
Take ship for the Free Cities with my horse and my hammer, spend my time warring and whoring, that's what I was made for.
The bravos use swords like this in Pentos and Myr and the other Free Cities.
Soon as you give the order, hell cut your throat, drop you over the side, winter with the pirates of the Sunset Islands, then head straight for the Free Cities come spring.
But we of the Free Cities hold that we are not required to provide goods for the government, beyond the legally specified taxes.
Pa-Kur's horde had been defeated by an alliance of free cities, led by Ko-ro-ba and Thentis, under the command of Matthew Cabot of Ko-ro-ba, the father of Tarl of Bristol, and Kazrak of Port Kar, sword brother of the same Warrior.
It would not, of course, be to the benefit of Turia, or the farther cities, or indeed, any of the free cities of even northern Gor, if the isolated fierce peoples of the south were to join behind a single standard and turn their herds northward—.
He turned back to the map on the table and studied the eleven once Free Cities that now bore the Empire flag.
They now control all the Free Cities to the north, as well as the Nathilog Confederacy.
The Free Cities of Genabackis were a squabbling, back-stabbing lot.