214 Jahnke
table 6.1 The import of Scanian herring in the harbor of Lübeck in Rostocker Barrel
Port of Origin 1384/85 1398 1399 1400
Malmö 32.636¼ 27.289 29.142
Skanör/Falsterbo 26.425 32.243¾ 28.340
Dragør 8.082½ 10.965½ 6.885½
Ystad 5.988 3.354½ 9.258¼ 3.072
Trelleborg 6.493 732 1.416 2.536
Summa? 71.230¼ 81.199½ 69.975½
C. Jahnke, Silber des Meeres, 421
Table 6.1 shows only a small part of the Hanseatic and non-Hanseatic herring
trade from the Scanian Markets. From the Sound area this fish was distributed
throughout Europe from Novgorod aud Lviv in the east, to Italy and Spain in the
south, and England and Scotland in the west. The Scanian herring was by this
time one of the main Hanseatic products and remained so until the Atlantic
herring surpassed the Scanian variety at the end of the fifteenth century.
Cereals and Hemp
The discovery of the Scanian markets by western merchants opened the
gate for a direct trade between the Baltic east and the Western Seas, even if
the trade around the Skaw was very dangerous. One of the Baltic products
demanded throughout Western Europe was grain. Since the seventeenth cen-
tury, the trade in grain has held the status of “the mother of all trade”. However,
it is questionable whether this appellation is also valid for the Middle Ages.71
It is apparent that in the thirteenth century Baltic grain was exported to the
West, for example to England, where the city of London was salvaged from
a great famine by Baltic grain in 1258.72 Also, Norway was another receptor
71 Nils Hybel, “The foreign grain trade in England, 1250–1350.” In Cogs, Cargoes, and
Commerce. Maritime Bulk Trade in Northern Europe, 1150–1400, ed. Lars Berggren, Nils
Hybel and Annette Landen, Papers in Medieval Studies, vol. 15 (Toronto: Pontifical
Institute, 2002), 212–241.
72 Eleanor Carus-Wilsen, “Die Hanse und England.” In Die Hanse in Europa. Brücke zwischen
den Märkten, 12.–17. Jahrhundert, Katalog des kölnischen Stadtmuseums (Cologne:
Stadtmuseum, 1973), 85–106, here 96. See also Rolf Hammel-Kiesow, “Lübeck and the
Baltic trade of bulk goods for the North Sea region 1150–1400.” In Cogs, Cargoes and