210 Jahnke
destinations make it nearly impossible to estimate the average-rate of export.
In the four years between 1397 and 1400 the total western export of amber
ranged between 6.000 and 8.000 m.l., in 1498 the revenue of amber was esti-
mated by 4,400 m.pr. (c. 4.986 m.l.).53
Around 1400 the trade between Prussia and Lviv ended.54 From that time,
amber was only exported via Lübeck and Bruges. But in both cities the guilds
of the rosary-makers smarted under both the development of the European
fashion and some marketing problems.55
At the same time the Order tried to maximize the price for raw amber ini-
tially in the years after 1410.56 But the symbiosis between the Order and the two
guilds in Lübeck and Bruges was maintained until the rebellion of the Prussian
towns and the Thirteen Years’ War. In 1454 the Prussian towns became the legal
successor of the Order in some parts of Prussia and with that they got also the
amber regalia. The towns of Königsberg and Danzig took over the former rule
of the Order. Certainly they restricted the trade not only to the export of raw
amber, and in 1477 a guild of Bernsteindreher, maker of amber products, was
founded in Danzig.57
After the wars between the Prussian towns and the Order, and especially
after 1525, the duke of Prussia entrusted single merchants or companies with
the distribution of amber. In 1495–96 Augsburgian merchants, in the begin-
ning of the sixteenth century Königsberger,58 and in 1533–1545 three Danzig
merchants together with the Antwerp merchant Heinrich von Achelen were
all entrusted with this privilege.59 The proceeds of the sale of amber fluctuated
greatly, as can be seen by the following diagram.60
Nevertheless, these proceeds made a great part of the income of the Grand
Master of the order, from 35.6% of his total budget in 1500 to 57.6% of the
53 Tesdorpf, Gewinnung, 11. Conversion rate by Carsten Jahnke, Wechselkurse und
Gewichtsrelationen im hansischen Wirtschaftsraum bis 1600, Sammelkatalog, http://www
.histosem.uni-kiel.de/lehrstuehle/land/waehrung/Kurse.html, September 5th 2007.
54 The reason for this is unknown until now, but see R. Rutkowski, Histoire économique, 61f.
55 Between 1398 and 1440 the number of Bernsteindreher in Lübeck sank from 40 to 10.
Warncke, “Bernsteinkunst,” 431f. The same for Bruges J. van Houtte, “Ambernijverheid,” 61.
56 J. van Houtte, “Ambernijverheid,” 61.
57 Tesdorpf, Gewinnung, 37ff. The guilds in Elbing and Königsberg were founded in 1539 and
1641.
58 Oliver Volckart, “Kartelle und Monopole im Ordensland Preußen zu Beginn des 16.
Jahrhunderts: Bernsteinregal und Münze in der Sicht des rent-seeking-Ansatzes.”
Vierteljahrsschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 84/1 (1997), 1–32.
59 Tesdorpf, Gewinnung, 13.
60 Exchange rate: 60 m.pr. = 80 m. rig. and 100 mk. rig. = 85 m.l.