The German Hansa and Bergen, 1100–1600

TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
1. Who were the Hansa merchants?
2. Earlier reseach
3. Issues for discussion
CHAPTER I
THE BERGEN TRADE AND THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION OF THE MIDDLE AGES, 1100–1350
1. Norwegian foreign trade befor the Hansa merchants
a The origins of Norwegian foreign trade
b. The English connection
c. Continental North Sea ports
d. The Baltic connection
2. Hansa merchants take control of trade between Norway and the Baltic a. Gotland and Russia
b. The Scania market and its off shoot in Bohuslän
c. German ports along the Baltic coast
d. Conclusion
3. Trade with England after the Hanseatic expansion
a. The expansion of the Wendish towns – the chronology
b. English customs accounts
c. Goods exported from Norway to England
d. Goods exported from England to Norway
e. Norwegian and German merchants after the Hanseatic expansion
f. English merchants
g. Quantifying stockfish imports to England
h. Local distribution of Bergen fish in England in the 14th century
i. Boston emerges as centre of the Hanseatic stockfish trade after 1303
j. Conclusion
4. Trade with continental western Europe after Hanseatic expansion
a. The Flemish connection
b. Merchants from the Zuiderzee in Norway
c. Merchants from Bremen and Hamburg in Norway
d. The marginalisation of Westphalian merchants
5. Conclusion
CHAPTER II
THE BERGEN TRADE IN THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE HANSA, 1350–1537
1. Lübeck as a “staple” for Bergen fish in the Late Middle Ages?
2. How important was Lübeck in Bergen’s foreign trade from 1518 to 1522?
3. Bergen’s Baltic trade
a. Bergen –Lübeck
b. Bergen–Wismar
c. Bergen–Rostock
d. Bergen–Stralsund
e. Between Stralsund and Danzig
f. Bergen–Danzig
g. Bergen–Livonia (Livland)
h. Bergen–Swedish and Danish ports
i. Quantifying Bergen’s Baltic trade in the Late Middle Ages
4. Bergen’s English connection
a. The Hanseatic settlement in Boston
b. Quantifying the goods of Hansa merchants
c. The Hanseatic merchants’ home towns
d. English merchants
e. Bergen–Scotland
f. Conclusion
5. Trade between the western European continent and Bergen
a. Bergen–Flanders
b. Bergen–Zeeland and Brabant
c. Bergen–Zuiderzee
d. Bergen–Holland
e. Bergen–Bremen
f. Bergen–Hamburg
g. Merchants from German inland towns
h. Trade routes from Bergen to markets along the Rhine
6. Conclusion: trade routes and merchant groups, 1350–1537
7. Conclusion: quantifying the goods exchanged 1350–1537
CHAPTER III
THE BERGEN TRADE AND THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION OF THE 16TH CENTURY
1. Quantifying the goods
a. Imports
b. Exports
2. Trade routes
3. The merchants’ home towns
CHAPTER IV
HOW THE HANSA ACHIEVED ITS DOMINANT POSITION IN BERGEN, 1250–1380
1. Economic factors
a. Landowners and professional merchants in Norwegian foreign trade
b. Capital
c. Commercial networks
d. Specialisation
2. The legal framework in a period of free trade, 1247–1299
a. Laws, ordinances and privileges
b. Developments until the national urban law of 1276
c. Privileges and ordinances in the years 1278–1299
3. The legal framework in a period of active state legislation, 1299–1380
a. Shipwrecks
b. Prohibitions against sailing further north than Bergen
c. Customs duties
d. The Crown’s right to pre-emptive purchase
e. Hansa merchants’ legal obligation to sell
f. Bans on the export of Norwegian goods
g. Price regulations
h. Winter residency and the taxation of foreign merchants
i. Prohibitions against trading in the countryside
j. Prohibitions against Hansa merchants’ retail trade
k. Prohibitions against guests trading with each other
l. Pre-emptive purchase rights which benefi tted the inhabitants
of Norwegian towns
m. The collapse of the King’s trade policy in Bergen, 1319–1380
4. Why the Hansa merchants prevailed
CHAPTER V
HOW THE HANSA RETAINED ITS DOMINANT POSITION IN BERGEN, 1366–1537
1. The Kontor – the organisation of the winter residents
a. The founding of the Bergen Kontor in 1366
b. The emergence of a Hansa identity among the Bergenfahrer
c. The German community at Bryggen as an honour group
d. Internal unity through Lübeck’s dominance
e. Lübeck caught between altruism and self-interest in the Bergen trade
f. The Kontor’s demographic strength
g. The Kontor militia
h. The Kontor’s extraterritorial jurisdiction
i. Judicial confl icts between Germans and Norwegians
j. Did the Kontor undermine state power in Bergen?
2. The winter residents’ trade with Norwegian customers
a. The winter residents’ credit system
b. The peasant fishermen’s trade with Hansa merchants in Bergen
c. The role of Bergen and Trondheim citizens in trade with the stockfishproducing regions
d. Clerical and secular offi cials’ trade between Bergen and the stockfishproducing regions
e. Local magnates’ trade between Bergen and the stockfish regions
f. The Kontor’s trade policy and its consequences
3. The winter residents’ trade with European ports
a. The winter residents’ own trade in overseas ports
b. The winter residents’ trade with Hanseatic summer guests in Bergen
4. The Kontor’s policy towards merchants from England and Holland
5. State and Kontor at the close of the Middle Ages
a. Baltic and North Sea merchants in Bergen
b. Challenges from a stronger state, 1507–1537
c. The Kontor’s response to challenges created internal tensions
d. Bergen citizens in foreign trade before the Reformation?
e. I ntegration into Norwegian state society, 1538–1560
CHAPTER VI
PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION OF BERGEN FISH, 1100–1600
1. Prices
a. Stockfish
b. Grain products
c. Stockfish compared to herring and salmon
2. Consumption and demand
a. Food products from animals, fish and grain
b. Dried and salted fish before 1370
c. Dried and salted fish after 1370
d. Why did stockfish prices fall compared to the price of saltfish?
3. Production
a. Fish resources along the Norwegian coast
b. The fl exible peasant fishermen
c. Hanseatic grain made Norway larger
d. Late medieval fishing communities – the fi rst circle of paradise?
e. Poverty without progress in the 16th century
f. The attitude of the coastal population to the Hansa
4. Could the Hansa obtain political power by creating famine?
PERSPECTIVES
1. The commercial revolutions of the Middle Ages and the 16th century
2. Rise and decline of the Hansa’s commercial network
3. The Bergen Kontor and the state
4. The consequences of Hansa trade for Norwegian society
DEUTSCHE ZUSAMMENFASSUNG
Kurze thematische Zusammenfassung
Chronologische Zusammenfassung
APPENDICES
Appendix I: Ships registered in the customs accounts from Ravensere, Hull, Lynn and Boston 1303–49, with a cargo from Norway
Appendix II: Ships registered in the English customs accounts 1350–1500, with a cargo from Norway
Appendix III: Skippers, merchants and values registered in the Lübeck Pfundzoll as departing for or arriving from Bergen 1368–1400
Appendix IV: Home towns of skippers registered in Lübeck’s Pfundzoll as sailing between Lübeck and Bergen 1368–1400. Empirical basis for table II.10
Appendix V: Home towns of merchants registered in the customs accounts from Boston 1365–1413 with goods from Bergen. Empirical basis for table II.25
Appendix VI: Home towns of Hanseatic skippers who sailed between Bergen and East England 1350–1440. Empirical basis for table II.26
Appendix VII: Shipping through Øresund on its way to or from Bergen 1566/7 and 1577/8
Appendix VIII: Prices
SOURCES, LITERATURE AND ABBREVIATIONS
Printed sources
Literature and reference books
Abbreviations
INDEXES
Index of matters
Index of place names
Index of historical persons
Index of modern scholars
Map of the Atlantic and North Sea coast of Norway (caption)