218 Jahnke
this time. Wendian beer was exported to the west in addition to Hamburgian
brews, and also found a significant outlet in the three northern kingdoms, and
primarily at the kontor of Bergen.
Products Imported via the Baltic
Wax and Honey
One of the staples that kept the Baltic trade going was wax and its related prod-
uct honey. Wax was increasingly demanded in Europe because of the Christian
veneration of saints with candles and bells in addition to all the offices that
were in need of material to seal their documents. Wax is a by-product of apiary,
which was practiced all over Europe, but the eastern and southeastern hinter-
land of the Baltic produced the most wax of the best quality. The area from Lviv
to Warsaw and from Smolensk to Novgorod was one of the most important
wax-producing areas beside the areas around Kazan and Ryazan.90 Here, most
of the wax consumed in medieval Europe was produced, and it was the Hanse
who organized the trade between the producers in the east and the consumers
in the west. The most important transfer points of wax trade were the kontors
in Novgorod and Polozk and, after the closing of the Novgorodian kontor in
1494, Reval, Dorpat and Narva, besides Warsaw and Thorn. At these transfer
points the direct trade between producer and Hanseatic merchants took place,
the quality of the greenware was controlled, and the wax was remelted, sealed
and brought to western European packaging units and standards.91
Until now it has not been clear how much wax was exported via Novgorod/
Polozk and Kowno/Warsaw/Thorn. But it is evident that the exports travel-
ling on the Vistula were important to the trade as was the famous wax-route
Novgorod-Dorpat/Narva-Reval. Merchants in Thorn declared to customs in
1362/63 1,225 pieces of wax in a value of 41.620 m.l. and in 1369 1,666 pieces
in the value of 46,070 m.l.92 However, it is impossible to give complete
90 A. Attman, Den ryska Marknaden, 10f. and Bilag 4.
91 Stuart Jenks, “Die mittelalterlichen Schraen des hansischen Kontores in Nowgorod, cd-
rom.” In Das Gedächtnis der Hansestadt Lübeck. Festschrift für Antjekathrin Graßmann zum
- Geburtstag, ed. Rolf Hammel-Kiesow and Michael Hundt (Lübeck: Schmidt-Römhild,
2005), iv.97; Leopold Karl Goetz, Deutsch-Russische Handelsgeschichte des Mittelalters,
Quellen und Darstellungen zur Hansischen Geschichte, N.F., Band v (Lübeck: Waelde,
1922), 261–269.
92 C. Jahnke, “Der Ostseeraum,” chapter vii. β, forthcoming; Karl-Otto Ahnsehl, Thorns
Seehandel und Kaufmannschaft um 1370, Wissenschaftliche Beiträge zur Geschichte und
Landeskunde Ost-Mitteleuropas, No. 53 (Marburg: Herder Institut, 1961), 21–25. For later