92 Sarnowsky
staple for stockfish from Bergen for Lübeck, Wismar, and Rostock in 1446.93
This led to tensions between the towns—and later favoured the increasing
importance of the Iceland trade—while in 1455 there was also a violent attack
by Hanseatic merchants, killing the bishop of Bergen, the Danish king’s official
at Bergen (who had before expanded his jurisdiction on the German crafts-
men at Bergen and otherwise restricted the rights of the Kontor), and 60 of his
supporters.
In Bruges new conflicts arose as well. When Burgundy changed sides in
the Hundred Years’ War, 80 Germans were killed at Sluis in June 1436, accused
of supporting the English. In consequence, the trading post was moved to
Antwerp. The Hanseatic blockade resulted again in a famine in Bruges, while
Duke Philip of Burgundy favoured the demands of the German merchants.
Finally, their privileges were renewed. The Kontor returned to Bruges but soon
complained again about breaches of the privileges, attacks against Hanseatic
ships, and Flemish efforts to form a monopoly for spices and rare materi-
als. Therefore, the assembly of the representatives of 39 towns at Lübeck in
May 1447 discussed measures to strengthen the standing of the Kontor. They
subjected more goods to the Bruges staple and extended the exaction of the
Kontor’s dues also to Brabant, Holland, and Zeeland. When negotiations only
led to mutual accusations, in 1451, the towns discussed moving the trading post
again, first to Deventer, but this was not accepted by most of the merchants,
and then to Utrecht. When Duke Philip occupied Utrecht in 1455, negotiations
started. The return to Bruges was celebrated by an entry of 200 merchants on
horses led by the mayors of Lübeck, Hamburg, Bremen, and Cologne, in August
- But in fact not much had been reached. The blockade had lost its impor-
tance as a means of securing the towns’ privileges, because many merchants
were not willing to follow the common decisions and because Bruges had
lost its commercial role to other trading centers like Antwerp. The Hanseatic
League was very slow in reacting to the changes in the West, perhaps also
because now it was also threatened in its core region, by the policies of the
Northern German princes.
93 Cf. Mike Burkhardt, “Das Hansekontor in Bergen im Spätmittelalter—Organisation
und Struktur,” Hansische Geschichtsblätter 124 (2006), 21–70; Thomas Brück, “Die
Korporationen der Bergenfahrer in den wendischen Städten unter besonderer
Berücksichtigung Stralsunds,” in Genossenschaftliche Strukturen in der Hanse, ed. Nils
Jörn, Detlef Kattinger, and Horst Wernicke, Quellen und Darstellungen zur hansischen
Geschichte, N.F. 48 (Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau, 1999),135–63, at 147.