The Baltic Trade 237
Lüneburg/Lübeck, the city of Kolberg was also famous for its salt springs191 and
in fact, this town was the oldest salt-city in the inner Baltic trade.
But not only Lüneburg and Kolberg contributed to the salt supply of the
Baltic, but also the Polish salt mines in Cracow, Salzberg, and Groß Salze. At
these mines rock salt was extracted, which from 1329 had to be stapled in
Cracow.192
These three main sources of salt secured the constant supply of salt in the
Baltic, and the Scanian Fairs served as the central salt-market at this area. For
example, the City of Danzig exported in 1409 2,148½ tons of salt to Scania but
purchased in return 10,967 tons of Luneburgian salt, which meant that a quar-
ter of all salt-imports came from there.193 Besides Lübeck and Scania, Danzig
was the third important center of salt-trade in the Baltic. Danzig was not only
an entrepôts for Luneburgian salt but also ceased importing cheaper Western
sea-salt from the Baie de Bourgneuf and from the Iberian Peninsula, had been
distributed to other cities in the eastern Baltic like Thorn, Riga or Reval or fur-
ther to Russia.194 In Russia salt functioned alongside silver as one of the most
important goods in the trade with Novgorod and the other Hanseatic kontors.
Until the end of the fourteenth century the Baltic salt-market from Lübeck
to Russia was dominated by Luneburgian salt. In the next centuries this domi-
nance was challenged by an increased import of cheaper western sea-salt, so
that the Luneburgian trade lost its dominance late in the sixteenth century.195
But nevertheless the trade in regional salt was one of the important main
pillars of the Hanseatic trade in the Baltic.
The last item that will be mentioned is Baltic cloth and linen. Previous
research focused only on the import of expensive Flemish and English cloth
to the Baltic. But if we examine the inner Baltic customs accounts, we can find
56–71; Hermann Heineken, Der Salzhandel Lüneburgs mit Lübeck bis zum Anfang des 15.
Jahrhunderts, Historische Studien, Heft lxiii (Berlin: Ebering, 1908).
191 Peter Tepp, Untersuchungen zur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte der Hanse- und
Salzstadt Kolberg im Spätmittelalter (Diss. masch.: Hamburg, 1980).
192 Józef Piotrowicz, “Die Versorgung der Krakauer Salinen mit Roh- und Hilfsstoffen sowie
Lebensmitteln als Faktor des Aufschwungs des Lokal- und Fernhandels vom 13. bis
- Jahrhundert.” In Bergbaureviere als Verbrauchszentren im vorindustriellen Europa,
Fallstudien zu Beschaffung und Verbrauch von Lebensmittel sowie Roh- und Hilfsstoffen
(13.–18. Jahrhundert), ed. Ekkehard Westermann (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1997), 331–343, here
331 and 342f.; vswg, Beihefte, 130; J. Rutkowski, Histoire économique, 60f.
193 St. Jenks, “Hansischer Salzhandel,” 270f.
194 St. Jenks, “Hansischer Salzhandel,” 272f.
195 See the maps in W. Fellmann, “Salzproduktion.”