nd was an important trading post for the Slavs. Bardowick's prosperity � it had seven churches � was based purely on the fact that no other trading centres were tolerated. Only when Bardowick refused to pay allegiance to Henry the Lion was it destroyed by him in 1189, whereupon L�neburg was given town privileges (Stadtrechte) and developed into the central trading post in the region in place of Bardowick.
The Polabian name for L�neburg is Glain (written as Chlein or Glein in older German sources), probably derived from glaino (Slavonic: glina) which means "clay". In the Latin texts L�neburg surfaces not only as the Latinised Lunaburgum, but also as Selenopolis.
As a consequence of the monopoly that L�neburg had for many years as a supplier of salt within the North German region, a monopoly not challenged until much later by French imports, it very quickly became a member of the Hanseatic League. The League was formed in 1158 in L�beck, initially as a union of individual merchants, but in 1356 it met as a federation of trading towns at the first general meeting of the Hansetag. L�neburg's salt was needed in order to pickle the herring caught in the Baltic Sea and the waters around Norway so that it could be preserved for food inland during periods of fasting when fish (not meat) was permitted.
The Scania Market at Scania in Sweden was a major fish market for herring and became one of the most important trade events in Northern Europe in the Middle Ages. L�neburg's salt was in great demand and the town quickly became one of the wealthiest and most important towns in the Hanseatic League, together with Bergen and Visby (the fish suppliers) and L�beck (the central trading post between the Baltic and the interior). In the Middle Ages salt was initially conveyed overland up the Old Salt Road to L�beck. With the opening of the Stecknitz Canal in 1398 salt could be transported by cog from the L�beck salt warehouses, the Salzspeicher.
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