A kingdom that ruled the lands around the Baltic Sea
An association of trading towns around the Baltic and North Seas✓Bonne réponse
A crusading order that governed a state in the eastern Mediterranean
A guild of one craft that worked in a single German city
Explication
Merchants and town governments in the north bound themselves together to protect shipping, win trading privileges abroad and settle disputes among themselves, with no single ruler standing over the whole body. Calling it a kingdom fails because it had no crown, no fixed frontier and no subjects, only member towns that could join it or drift away from it.