Kontors and Outposts 151
Fire protection was another big issue. At the kontor in Bergen, all houses
were built of timber. The only exceptions were the so-called firehouse (ildstue),
the kitchen of each yard, and the adjacent meeting room. Since these were the
only two rooms of each yard where open fire and heating were permitted, they
became the natural meeting places in the cold and moist Norwegian climate.
Further actions were taken to prevent the kontor from burning down. Several
yards were pulled down in the fifteenth century, leaving fire protection lanes
between the islands of yards left at the kontor. Furthermore, it was forbidden to
tar the roofs of the houses, a regulation that did not directly lead to improving
living conditions in the rainy town. Still, Bergen was struck by devastating fires,
destroying parts or the whole kontor and the town several times during the
Late Middle Ages. In these times, Hansards and Norwegians, Englishmen and
Dutchmen worked hand in hand to protect the houses because in the wooden
medieval towns, the spreading of the fire to a neighbor’s house, even if he was
a competitor, meant immediate danger to one’s own property.
The Hansards didn’t only contact the townspeople for official and business
affairs. Many had friendly relations with denizens. English merchants regularly
stood surety for Hanseatic merchants, and the merchants in Novgorod had
close relations with Russian peasant families who regularly welcomed new
boys to their household for some months.66 From testaments of merchants
who did business in Bergen, we know of friendships with Norwegians,67 and in
Bruges, close contact with townspeople was already shown by the fact that mer-
chants had to rent rooms from local hosts.68 A special problem at the kontors was
women contact and sexuality. When discussing the kontors in London, Bergen,
and Novgorod, we are talking about a large number of young men gathered
in a small fenced area. In Novgorod, up to 800 men lived at the kontor;69 in
Bergen, up to 2000;70 and in London, estimations get to even higher numbers.
In other words, there was a large overdose of testosterone that needed an out-
let to prevent violent clashes. Prostitution was one solution to this problem.
Most famous is the red-light district in Bergen, which directly bordered on
Bryggen,71 but there is information about prostitution in the other kontors as
well. The kontor in Novgorod had its own bathhouse where, according to a note
66 Angermann (1997), 284.
67 Bruns (1900), p. 1ff.
68 Greve (1994).
69 Angermann (1997), 282.
70 Bowitz Andersson (1982), 20.
71 Burkhardt (2005a), 139, 148f.