The Hanseatic League in the Early Modern Period 103
with their silver, copper, fustian, and Venetian spices to Brabant, and especially
to Antwerp. The widespread control of the middle European mining produc-
tion by the Upper German capitol and the extension of Upper German com-
merce into Italy were prerequisites to this. Through an Italian trading branch,
the citizens of Nuremberg achieved a key position in the continental spice
trade that they focused on the Brabant and Frankfurt trade fairs. At the begin-
ning of the sixteenth century, the Fuggers controlled the Portuguese spice
trade in Antwerp because Portugal was dependent on Nuremberg metal-wares
(primarily brass) as well as copper and silver for its exchanges with Africa and
India. In addition, the Portuguese used the growing buying power of African
gold in Flanders and Brabant, to purchase their spices in India with silver.3
The Upper German trade with the Baltic Sea area experienced a signifi-
cant revitalization in the second half of the fifteenth century as a result of
the growing importance of the Frankfurt trade fairs and the establishment of
Nuremberg’s merchants. In Frankfurt, the Hanseatic merchants, or their busi-
ness contacts, met with the citizens of Nuremberg and Augsburg as well as
Italians, and sold them herring, stockfish (dried cod), furs, leather, and wax.
In exchange, the Hanseatic merchants obtained spices, Italian damask and
brocade, metal, and samples from the Nuremberg arms industry. Aside from
Frankfurt being the most important precious metals market of the empire,
it also served as a center of accounting and payment balancing for transac-
tions between the Hanseatic League and the Upper Germans. Upper German
“Merchant Bankers” processed not only the money transfers for the Baltic
Sea area, but they also took over a portion of the precious metals concern.
Thus, the mint in Lübeck was supplied with the silver necessary for minting
by Nuremberg merchants. At the close of fifteenth century and in the early
sixteenth century, they entrusted the firm of Mathias Mulich with this task;
the firm also served as a creditor for the city as well as for the Danish kings and
the Duke of Holstein.4
3 Herman Van der Wee, The Growth of the Antwerp Market and the European Economy,
Fourteenth–Sixteenth Centuries (The Hague, 1963).
4 Claus Nordmann, Nürnberger Großhändler im spätmittelalterlichen Lübeck (Nürnberg, 1933);
Michael North, “Banking and Credit in Northern Germany in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth
Centuries,” in idem., From the North Sea to the Baltic. Essays in Commercial, Monetary and
Agrarian History, 1500–1800 (Aldershot, 1996), 811–826; W. von Stromer, Oberdeutsche
Hochfinanz 1350–1450, vol. 1–3 (Wiesbaden, 1970). Gerhard Fouquet, “Geschäft und Politik,
Ehe und Verwandtschaft—Briefe an den Nürnberg-Lübecker Kaufmann Matthias
Mulich vom Winter 1522/23”, in Helmut Bräuer, and Elke Schlenkrich, eds., Die Stadt als
Kommunikationsraum. Beiträge zur Stadtgeschichte vom Mittelalter bis ins 20. Jahrhundert.
Festschrift für Karl Czok zum 75. Geburtstag (Leipzig, 2001), 311–346.