8

According to the records of the Hanse diets (the Rezesse) in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, these meetings were supposed to be open only to members of the municipal councils in the Hanseatic cities. The municipal clerks (Stadtschreiber) were explicitly excluded, although in the past they had been highly engaged in diplomacy. However, a closer look at the sources reveals that these officials played an important role behind the scenes, and that at certain times they even had opportunities to speak in a public forum. This article examines these clerks’ agency and seeks to show that they performed various tasks during the diets: providing information, transmitting messages, and giving advice, as well as informal conflict management. Some clerks also played an important role in drafting and archiving the Rezesse. Their agency seems to have depended both on personal qualities and on the involvement of their hometown in the Hanse.