The Baltic Trade 199
In summary, one can say that these developments in the thirteenth cen-
tury were the crucial point for the economic future of the Baltic. During this
century the economic structure was built up; a structure that lasted until the
nineteenth century and the Hanseatic League was one of the main factors that
strengthened the new circumstances. As a result, the center of gravity within
this structure changed to the south east with Danzig as the new leading city
from the west and Lübeck.
The Cities and Their Hinterland Connections
One of the main characteristics of the Baltic merchant cities is that they
mainly—as opposed to those in Flanders or in the Netherlands—did not pro-
duce for the international market. This does not mean that they were without
their own “industries,” but their commercial activities were primarily based on
intermediate trade and not on the sale of “domestic” products. This means that
every important town in the Baltic had its own and very specific hinterland.10
Reval, Dorpat and Riga were the great ports to Russia, especially to the Hanseatic
kontors of Novgorod, Pleskau/Polosk and Smolensk. Reval was also in a broader
sense connected by the Neva River to the Volga and by this to the Black, White,
and Caspian Seas and the Sea of Azov. Riga had via the Daugava and Kasplja
Rivers a connection to the Dniepr and thence to an enormous hinterland.11
Königsberg connected the international trade with Kaunas. Danzig and
Thorn connected to the Vistula River and looked out on a trading area from
Lviv to Craków and Breslau (Wrocław), and included the Polesia, which was
the most important wood producing area in Europe, and the Hungarian min-
ing areas.12 At the same time, Danzig also had interests at the Nemen River,
where merchants from this town founded a filial in Kaunas and later in Vilnius,
where Danzig had a connection to the Russian market in Polotsk.13
10 Carsten Jahnke, “Der Ostseeraum,” forthcoming, chapt. i and iii.
11 Norbert Angermann, “Die Bedeutung Livlands für die Hanse.” In Die Hanse und der
Deutsche Osten, ed. Norbert Angermann (Lüneburg: Nordostdeutsches Kulturwerk, 1990),
97–115, here 103.
12 See in general Jan Rutkowski, Histoire économique de la Pologne avant les Partages (Paris:
Libraire ancienne Honoré Champion, 1927), 53–72.
13 Artur Attman, Den Ryska Marknaden i 1500-talets Baltiska politik 1559–1595 (Lund:
Lindstedt, 1944), 41f; Theodor Hirsch, Danzigs Handels- und Gewerbegeschichte unter
der Herrschaft des Deutschen Ordens (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1858), 164ff.