220 Jahnke
figures regarding the wax export of the Baltic in Hanseatic times, because fig-
ures for the exports from Novgorod and Polozk are missing.93 What is possible
is to describe the import of Baltic wax in England using the Enrolled Customs
Accounts from the beginning of the fourteenth century.
It is clear that the import of wax in the English harbors had an enormous
impact. In the year 1303/1304 alone, 105,840½ kg and in 1306/1307 124,796
kg wax was imported. That this wax came from the Baltic became clear in
1309/10, when the import went down to 10,592¼ kg. The crown impeached the
Hanseatic merchants on charges of conspiracy against the king of England by
creating an artificial shortage of this product, an accusation the merchants
were only narrowly acquitted of.94
The wax-trade was one of the foundation pillars of the Hanseatic trade
from the beginning and continued to be so after the Reformation. The
customs-lists in the Sound in 1566 register an export of 4,926½ Schiffspfund
wax from the Baltic, which is about 787,490½ kg.95 These exports came—
though our sources are suspect—from the same areas as in the times before
the Reformation: 68.9% came from Danzig, 23.2% from Narva, 4.4% from Riga,
2% from Königsberg and 1.5 % from other harbors. It is evident—even if we
have to deal with the fact of some customs-defraud—that Danzig and not
Narva/Reval formed the main harbor of export for this product.
Fur
In addition to wax, fur was just as important if not more so to the Hanseatic
trade. In the boreal zone in the hinterland of the Baltic96 fur-bearing animals
develop a thick and valuable winter coat, which is demanded as a luxury prod-
uct all over Europe.
The main trade center for fur was, after the Russian merchants no longer
came to the Western Baltic at the end of the twelfth century,97 the Baltic east
times see W. Stark, Lübeck und Danzig, 118–125, and Marian Biskup, “Z problematyki han-
dlu polsko-gdańskiego drugiej połowy Xv wieku.” Przegląd Historyzcny 45 (1954), 393ff.
93 L. Goetz, Handelsgeschichte, 270f.
94 Ph. Dollinger, Die Hanse, 82f.
95 A. Attman, Den ryska Marknaden, 50. 1 Schiffpfund is equivalent to 159,783 kg. Klaus-
Joachim Lorenzen-Schmidt, Kleines Lexikon alter schleswig-holsteinischer Gewichte, Maße
und Währungseinheiten (Neumünster: Wachholtz, 1990), 58f.
96 See the map in A. Attman, Den ryska marknaden, Bilag 5.
97 Carsten Jahnke and Anton Englert, “The state of historical research on merchant seafar-
ing in Danish waters and in the Western Baltic Sea 1000–1250.” In Large Cargo Ships in
Danish Waters 1000–1250. Evidence of professional merchant seafaring prior to the Hanseatic
Period, ed. Anton Englert et al., Ships and Boats of the North Vol. nn (Roskilde: 2015 in