206 Jahnke
grain trade,32 and 2005 Wolfgang Frontzek’s groundbreaking analysis of the
Wendian beer-production.33
Therefore, it can be stated that the research of the Baltic trade is presently
in its infancy, and until now, a common overview and international discus-
sion has been missing. In 1996 the “Ständige Konferenz der Historiker des
Ostseeraumes” was founded, in 2005 the “International Commission for the
History of the Baltic Sea Region” and in 2006 the first conference on the “Baltic
until 1400” took place at Kiel University, but its minutes were not released until
n o w.34 This conference underlined the fact, that the research of the medieval
Hanseatic trade in the Baltic faces more and bigger problems than before. The
regionalization in the Baltic and the current lack of a common scientific lan-
guage in this area makes it nearly impossible to analyze the whole situation
without the help of international projects and members from different areas
and who speak different languages.
Beyond this, there are many problems with regard to medieval Baltic trade.
We are still missing an analysis of the interaction between international and
regional trade in general, for example in the trade with wood, cloth or other
regional products. In most cases regional research is either missing or is out-
dated as in Danzig, where Hirsch’s work from 1858 is still unsurpassed. The ter-
minology of trade in the Baltic is still understudied, as is the history of money
and rates of exchange.35
Another problem is the dominance of German sources in the research. As
long as we are unable to find adequate non-German sources about the trade
in the Baltic, our picture will be fragmentary. We have to challenge the alleged
Hanseatic monopoly of trade, otherwise we will fall back to the nationalis-
tic point of view. Had Hanseatic merchants no companions in Denmark or
other places? Certainly not, as the example of the Malmogian merchant Ditliv
Enbecke from the sixteenth century shows.36 But these connections over the
Hanseatic borders have not been analyzed until very recently.
32 Milja van Tielhof, The mother of all trades: the Baltic grain trade in Amsterdam from the
late sixteenth to the early nineteenth century, The Northern World, vol. 3 (Leiden: Brill,
2002).
33 Wolfgang Frontzek, Das städtische Braugewerbe und seine Bauten vom Mittelalter bis zur
frühen Neuzeit, Häuser und Höfe in Lübeck, vol. 7 (Neumünster: Wachholtz, 2005).
34 Thomas Riis ed., Der Ostseeraum bis 1400, forthcoming.
35 See the first attempt by Carsten Jahnke, Wechselkurse und Gewichtsrelationen im han-
sischen Wirtschaftsraum bis 1600, http://www.histosem.uni-kiel.de/lehrstuehle/land/
waehrung/Katalog.html, September 12 2007.
36 Emilie Andersen, Malmøkøbmanden Ditlev Enbeck og hans regnskabsbog: Et bidrag til
Danmarks handelshistorie i det 16. århundrede (Copenhagen: Munksgård, 1954).