240 Jahnke
was able to rake off enormous earnings, and the European west received for
its input of silver only non-durable goods, which had consequences for the
European economy.
At the end of the fourteenth century the system changed. The direct trade
between the west and the eastern Baltic harbors grew in importance and as
a result, the connection points lost their leading rule as the eastern kontors.
At the same time the spectrum of traded goods changed. In addition to wax,
new bulk goods such as wood, copper, and not least grain grew in importance
while the importance of fur declined. Also, these new goods were products of
the Baltic east, which meant that the western Baltic could enter the lee side of
international trade.
The cities of the Wendian quarter were partly able to absorb this develop-
ment by their privileged trade with the Hanseatic kontors, by the trade with
their own products, primarily beer and perhaps cloth, and by their position in
the regional and interregional trade.
In the Hanseatic trade-system of the Baltic the function of the inner Baltic
regional and supra-regional trade cannot be overestimated. The big cargos of
the east-west trade were bundled and cleaved for this regional trade, while the
constant influx of goods secured the supply and distribution of the goods of
international trade. The Hanseatic trade comprised not only the large-scale
trade between Novgorod and Bruges, but also the small traffic in the Baltic
and with the Baltic hinterland. The palette of goods in trade was composed
of a blended assortment of international, supra-regional and regional goods.
The Hanseatic merchants of the Baltic can be characterized by their ability to
blend the various spheres and operate in the large as well as in the small, at the
long distances as well as in the short.
und Früher Neuzeit. Festschrift für Peter Nitsche zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Eckhard Hübner,
Ekkehard Klug and Jan Kusber, Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des östlichen Europa
vol. 51 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1998), 415–422; Artur Attman, The Russian and Polish markets
in international trade 1500–1650 (Göteborg: The Swedish Council for Social Science
Research, 1973), 103–193, and A. Attman, Den ryska marknaden, 107–117.