Bergen and the German Hanseatic League

About 900 years ago between 1070 and 1075 the Norwegian harbor town Bergen was founded, influenced by the Hanseatic League it grew to one of the most important Nordic trading places in the Medieval era. German merchants dominated the town's scenery between the 13th and 17th centuries, the German town district Tyskebryggen German Bridge from 1945 on named Bryggen - The Bridge shows up today how the trade metropolis in the high north has looked like. One century after its founding Bergen was a splendid trading town. Regarding to Danish sources originating from that time around 1180 and researches made in recent times, in pre-Hanseatic times intense trade between Normans with Iceland and Greenland took place, English and German, Danish and Swedish merchants visited this harbor located at the transition between North Sea and Atlantic Ocean, having been the most important place of transshipment for Northland Cod. The German merchants trading there in the beginning mainly came from Cologne and Bremen. In the year 1186 they were regarding to Sverrir's Tales not welcomed by King Sverrir because they imported large amounts of wine and favored the gluttony of his people. Luebeck refounded by Henry the Lion in 1158 invited on the occasion of the granting of ducal and imperial trading privileges merchants of all Nordic realms including the Norwegians to visit his harbor, but it took 50 years to establish trade between the Trave town and Norway. Regarding to old documents, the Norvegians took initiative: in the year 1248 King Hakon IV Hakonsson (1204-1263) asked the Luebeckian council desperatly for deliveries of grain, flavour and malt, at that time Norway had an insufficient agriculture and was at the brink of a famine. This manifested the beginning of Luebeckian and the later Hanseatic economic power in Bergen. The king granted all this far existing privileges with a treaty. The Germans were able to settle down there successfully, they were given permission to buy and to rent old gild houses for a half year., according to municipal law of 1276 they were given permittance to buy own yards or to rent them over the year from now on they were allowed to to stay in Bergen over the winter month which they had not been allowed before. Soon the council of Luebeck could urge for more privileges in favour of German port towns. The time of preemption the King of Norway had for German import goods was limited to three days, later the Hanseatic League was allowed to trade freely. In matters of justice the merchants working in Bergen enjoyed many rights, no German could be jailed when guarantees were given. Legal protection and guarantees of the Hanseatic League continuously were expanded. In the beginning of the 13th century the King of Norway tried to cut Hanseatic privileges. But the merchants reacted quickly, their economic power was strong enough to wage fighting with the king. The Hanseatic Council gathered in Weismar and determined the blockade of all Norwegian harbors, especially Bergen. By threatening with high fines and by capturing of freight the Hanseatic League successfully hamstringed all grain deliveries to Norway. Norway came under the treat by a

famine in 1294, so Norway's King Erik Magnusson (1280 -1299) had to accept a peace treaty, granting far-reaching privileges to the Germans: the freedom to trade in all Norwegian harbors up to Bergen, permittance to trade inside the country and to build branch offices without having to pay royal or local customs. The only restriction the treaty said was the forbiddance to trade north of Bergen. Import customs were low. Besides that the Hanseatic League managed the annulment of the Law of the beach - regarding to old traditions stranded belonged to those who found it. For the merchants of the Hanseatic League it was important to gain back stranded ships with their valuable freight. The Hanseatic League demanded all stranded goods have to be given back to the legal owner, but those living near the shore, annoyed by this law, refused to help salavaging stranded ships so this question always remained a controversial subject to the Hanseatic League and the Lords of the Shore despite the granting of privileges. Numerous granted privileges for the Hanseatic merchants led to a dominating position compared with domestic merchants. Hakon V (1259 -1319) tried to solve this problem during his rule. He wanted to forbid Germans trading outside the towns and the stay over the winter season, which was reserved for the trade in the inner country. But his laws hardly were followed, the Norwegian Royality was to weak to encounter the mighty Hanseatic League; besides this the domestic nobility used to have good relationships with the foreigners and was keen to please the Germans. So a half century later King Magnus VII Erikson (1319 1363) had no other choice but to cancel all restrictions and to give all Merchants of the German Hanseatic League back their extensive priviliges of 1294 in 1343.

The German Kontor At that time of renewed deepening of Norwegian-Hanseatic interrelations the exact year of founding is unclear - the German Kontor (business office) in Bergen as common merchant community of interest, besides of the Stalhof in London, the Kontor in Brugge as well as the Petershof in Novgorod, as fourth Hanseatic merchant's base in foreign lands was established. The organization of a German Kontor in Bergen in form and substance seems have to be fixed in 1343, when Magnus Eriksson confirmed the Wendish towns their old privileges and acknowledged their bylaw. The Kontor in the first instance was named The Cooperative of the German Merchants in Bergen, later just Common German Merchant. The term Kontor was used from the 16th century on. The Merchant of the German Hanseatic League scaled to a climax of economical power that sporadic meant a monopol position in the political weakened Norway. The leadership layed in the hands of Luebeckian merchants. At that flourishing times for the Kontor in Bergen, that lasted until the end of the Medievial era, the Luebeckians had a overwhealming primacy compared to their non-Hanseatic trading rivals, the English and the South-Seaers - the Dutch, the Prussians - the merchants of Danzig and the three other Wendish Baltic Sea towns trading there Rostock, Stralsund and Wismar. Numerous documents of senior councillors and assessors of Bergen's Kontor and the customs registry bring

clear verification. The goods Bergen mainly imported were vital goods, predominantly grain, flavour, malt and beer. The main exported good was Northland Cod, the Luebeckians sold it salted at the continent, where it was in demand as fasting meal. Located at the Fjord of Bergen, The Balance, there was broadly based the German district Tyskebryggen. At the i nner narrow side there was the district of the German craftsmen. To face, located at the south-western side, Above Strand native citizens built their houses after the Germans came. The superiority the Hanseatic League had in foreign lands was due to their successful organization. Groups of merchants were organized after the trade treaties they had with specific harbours, and at the end of the 14th century they founded driving companies where merchants and not sailors were members. The Bergen Drivers right after the Scania Drivers were the oldest company, citizens of Luebeck that were wealthy mercantilists and great traders in Luebeck and Kontorish, young men thet were merchandiser in Bergen who came regularly to Norway and stayed there for a while in order to trade with stockfish, participated in equal numbers. The Kontor's organization was stricter than the organization in the Hanseatic towns. The Great Council of Merchants, that had more than 100 members in the 15th century, every year elected three Olderrmnner (senior chairmen) who had to serve a difficult administrative office as they had to judge over the members, to manage the exchequer and to carry out the correspondences with local offices. Bergen's Kontor of the General Merchant was led in the beginning by six senior chairmen, later by two; as possible they had to be citizens of a town of Luebeckian law and almost without exceptions were Luebeckians. Together with the Achteiner (Council of the Eighteen) as jurymen they founded the Council of the Merchants.

Tyskebryggen The isolated district of the Germans in Bergen, named Tyskebryggen by the Norwegians mainly was constructed in Gaarden, yards, that had been noble holdings before. Soon twenty premises in that privileged district became properties of the Germans. Each of them, like Goldschuh (Golden Shoe), Sonnenhof (Sunny Yard) had it's own name after special signs, like it was tradition in many Medieval German towns to name houses this way and survived in names of pharmacies and restaurants up to today. In front of every yard - it comprised a rectangle of 20 metre in width and 100 metres in length - a small bridge with cranes was constructed into The Balance as pier to enable a comfortable discharging and charging of ships. All yards were seperated by small lanes and places. This was necessary because especially buildings made out of wood were threatened by fires. However the German Bridge with it's numerous buildings, merchant houses and storages, cooking houses and Schttingen, guild houses, often was damaged or even devastated by fires. The Germans lived seperated in their district of town, they even had an own church, the St. Mary's Church, partly a Romanic stone building that was owned by the Kontor from the 15th to the 18th century.

The Schtting was a house for meetings and for staying during the cold winter. With this building the Germans took over the old Norwegian Sktstuene, originally a kind of guild room. Around a main room located in the centre, several Staven, rooms equipped with desks and sitting-tiers with high leans were grouped like in the Schiffergesellschaft (Shipping Company) in Luebeck. The Achteiner (Council of the Eighteen) had their own Kopmanstaven as meeting room. The Secretary, who was an indispensably and important man among the employed in the Kontor, had requirement for an own flat. Statutes of the Kontors demanded strict discipline. The Kontor's institutions had own judgement over their members in matters of Civil law; instance for appeals was Luebeck. The right to control the Kontor's spendings also was reserved by by Luebeck without executing it. The number of inhabitants of the Bridge only can be estimated. During the flourishing times in might have been 2000 journeymen that lived in the German branch office; the number of independent merchants remains completely unclear.

The Wintersitzer Work during summer was hard for the Kontorish. But many also stayed during the calm winter months in the district of the German Bridge, cared as Wintersitzer for buildings and property and provided goods. These Bergen Drivers mostly were of low social origin and reliant upon hard work to grow to men. Some of these simple men after all worked themselves up so they were affiliated to the councils of German towns. Some few out of the ranks of the Bergen Drivers even became mayors of Luebeck and members of the Zirkelgesellschaft (Circel Society; coterie). During the winter month of course it was not always easy to keep those inhabitants of the Bridge, who were mostly gutsy daredevils in their best ages, who had to live without enough work and without women, in good mood. Free beer and amusement games, devotions and churchgoing as well as lessons in profession furtherance for the junior staff made an compensation. Joachim Schlu for example, at the end of the 16th century a respectable merchandiser in Rostock, reported thankful about the furthering lessons he enjoyed as journeyman in Bergen in subjects like religion, elementary subjects as well as in economic studies. Theater performances nice comedies and tragedies brought diversification in this often enough boring weekday business during the winter months. Even though disciplinary measures of course became necessary to maintain order when those tough chaps kicked over the traces. It is a fact Koren Wiberg, a specialist in the matter Bergen and the Hanseatic League explains that the Germans permanently kept discipline strict and with military precision over the whole district in all yards.

Famous because of their crudeness, but also because of their magnificence, were the traditional Bergen Games which for those not directly involved brought desired diversification, with parades and custumings, dances, drinking sprees and expensive wassails. But in the centre stood the entrance examinations for the novices, brutish-hard customs that are typical for all-men socities: the torture of the Smoke Test in which the novice was pulled up the chimney and had to stay there until he almost smothered, the Water Game in which the poorest almost was drowned and barbaric flogged afterwards, the Thrashing Test in which he was made in drunk and tortured until the blood shed in Paradise, whilst the noise of cymbals and drums drowned out his screams of pain. Such games, numbered thirteen, were extended over many days. This famous-notorious selection ritual in fact was a scare off and closure measures of the dependent Bergen Drivers, that were of low social origin to prevent the foreign infiltration of sons of rich merchants that wanted to secure their preponderance in trading. The sadistic-rude negative spin-offs of those entrance examinations caused offences and protests, but clerical and Hanseatic orders did not cause a change. Not before the Hanseatic League's comedown the games came to their end.

Interfolkish relationships The living in an exceptional position for the inhabitants of the Bridge led to sequestering and therefor to an independent existence in a foreign country. This was according to trading policy of the merchants, and was written down in their bylaws: None of this guild may fraternize or have any other relationship with Nordic citizens, for he shall lose his status as merchant. But such orders not only correlated with matters of trading. In concern of tiptoeing competition marriages with Norwegian women were forbidden, such a marriage caused strictly exclusion and even outlawing. The defector had to leave his habitation in the Bridge. In the long run such obligations for living without women of course could not to be maintained. There are not just few reports about the immorally living of the Germans and their bustle in the brothels, supposedly whole shipments with whores were brought to Bergen, who calculated with a good economic situation there. Now that the Hanseatics settled down in long-term, interfolkish relationships were completely inevitable and naturally. Wiberg elaborately reports about evidence of friendship and the societal contact between high-ranking officers of the king which resident at Bergenhus Castle, the church and the ltermnner (senior chairmen) of the Hanseatic League, that were fostered only with some few interruptions. And when high-ranking officers took this stand towards the Kontor it settled trends for the citizens. Wiberg explains. An instructive evidence is handed down in Absalon Pedderson's diary of 1560. It proofes that interpersonal relationships existed for a long time, and the ltermnner and the Achteiner (Council of the Eighteen) of the Bridge as well as their merchants and warehousemen had

contacts with officers and citizens per standing postion and per position. Herewith simple diary records maks clear what official sources do not reveal. Absalon Peddersen reports about mutual visits, of bourgeois weddings at Above Strand, which were repeatedly visited by merchants of The Bridge as guests. The German vicar of St. Martin married a bourgeois daughter from Bergen, and that of course had to lead to interrelations between Germans and Norwegians. Old journeymen's notes describe beer festivities and about social contacts with Norwegian bourgeois daughters. The journeymen, is written down there, danced and skipped with the young girls and were happy doing this. The principal of seperation had to fail as such because of it's inconsistent. The Bridge depended on good relationships with the native population, therefor she could not avoid personal relationships. With the Hanseatic League's downgoing ties to the hometown loosened anyway. The Kontorish felt home in Bergen long ago, marriages were on the increase. Had the defector been forced to leave the Bridge in ancient times he now was allowed to stay and could continue trading on own calculus. In the 13th century in Bergen and in other Norwegian towns German already craftsmen lived in large numbers, generally named Schomaker. About 1350 their number increased as King Hakon, who appreciated this German feature, issued new invitations. The German craftsmen continuously spread out, ousted the lesser competitive indigenous, and dominated almost all craftsman offices in around 1450. Their relationships to the indigenous people naturally were more close than those of the Hanseatics, but they also seperated themselves on the one hand because of a time- and performance related national pride, at the other hand because gaining the Norwegian citizenship brought no benefits to them.

The end of the Kontor With the downgoing of the Hanseatic League at the end of the 17th century, the dominating position of the Kontor in Bergen diminished. Step for step indigenous started pushing forward and to buy parts of the Bridge. At the middle of the 18th century the last Kontorish dropped out of the German Bridge. Successor of the Konter became the Det Norske Kontor, that was a trading company with less fame and that just was a spark compared to the former glory of the mighty German Hanseatic League. After WWII with it's bitter time of occupation for Norway many voiced called for an demolition of the German Bridge. Oficially the term Tyskebryggen, the word that awakened this many evil associations, was deleted: since 1945 it only is named Bryggen. Despite the upstirred mood during that times prudent natures prevailed over the nationalis ressentiments and made sure restoring of old buildings was carried out. Again and again the Hanseatic League is accused of having been exploitative. A closer look to the fact proofs interrelations through the Hanseatic League brought many benefits for the participating towns. Especially Bergen depended on imports and on a strong organization that

made sure the stockfish, which was the most important good for export, was sold. The prospering of that town during the Medieval era mainly was based on the prospering of the Kontor. The goals of the Hanseatic League always were aimed at trading: it was about opening up large markets and about direction of sales. Without a doubt remains the fact this organization played a vast role as peaceful interceder between different folks. In a broadcast about Norway in the German TV channel ZDF, that was broadcasted at dec 24th 1970, also pictures of Bergen were shown. Among others a Christmas celebrity in an old Hanseatic Schtstube, the centre of social life for German merchants, was shown. In a short speech adressing the German spectators, the mayor of Bergen reminded about the great historical role the Hanseatic League played for the relationship between Germany and the old residency town. At the anniversary day on the occassion of the 1000th year of founding of Bergen as official guests also municipal president and mayor of Luebeck took part in order to renew the old and current good connections between both towns, and to build a bridge into future for common actions in trade and culture.