hanse

See Hanse.

• hans
• haunse, haunce

• IPA^(key): /hæns/, /hænzə/

hanse (plural hanses)

1. (historical) Alternative form of Hanse, a merchant guild or a former commercial league of German cities.
   • 1911, John Rhys, An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Wales and Monmouthshire, page 252:

     The town does not seem to have had a hanse, nor have there been discovered any records showing the existence of medieval trade guilds; […]

   • 2011, Sheilagh Ogilvie, Institutions and European Trade, page 95:

     In this, they resembled the alien merchant guilds and hanses of the medieval period.

   • 2002, P. Boissonnade, Life and Work in Medieval Europe, page 208:

     Gilds and hanses seized control of the export trade […]

   • 2002, T. H. Lloyd, England and the German Hanse, 1157-1611: A Study of Their Trade, page 1:

     For the sake of convenience the title is generally shortened to Hanse, but the initial capital is retained, not least to prevent confusion with other hanses.

2. (historical) The guildhall of a Hanse.
3. (historical) A fee payable to the Hanse, particularly its entrance fee and the impost levied on non-members trading in its area.

• (merchant guild): See guild
• (Hanseatic League): See Hanseatic League
• (headquarters of a Hanse in a city): guildhall, hanse-house
• (fee paid to enter the Hanse): hansing, hansing-silver
• (any fee paid to the Hanse): hanse-penny, hanse-gild

• Oxford English Dictionary, 1st ed. "Hanse, n." Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1898.

Compare French anse (“handle”), anse de panier (“surbased arch, flat arch, vault”), and English haunch (“hip”).

hanse (plural hanses)

1. (architecture) That part of an elliptical or many-centred arch which has the shorter radius and immediately adjoins the impost.
   • 1736, Richard Neve, Neve's The city and country purchaser and builder's dictionary:

     Now Workmen call each End of these Arches the Hanse, which Hanses are always the Arches of smaller Circles than the Scheme, which is the middle Part of these Arches, and consists of a Part of a larger Circle […]

   • 1846, Cambridge Antiquarian Society, Quarto Publications, volume 1, page 60:

     The building, from the tenor of the whole description, was in the style of the Renaissance, and the pillars (spiral or wreathed) probably supported the hanses, or spring of the arch.

• Ehsan, Haens, Hanes, Sanhe, Shane, Shean, ashen, heans