18 Hammel-Kiesow
component, the weight-money system facilitated trade in this expansive eco-
nomic area as a mode of standard currency.11
What has yet to be determined is why the influx of silver had already slowed
by the 940’s and then ended around 970. It seems more than certain that there
were a number of reasons, among them the decreased production of silver from
mines in western Asia and the collapse of Samanid rule (873–999) in Chorosan
and Transoxania (south and southeast of the Aral Sea).12 Furthermore, the
success of a Christian Mission in Sweden and Norway may have significantly
affected trade between the Baltic and the southeast due to the Catholic
Church’s prohibition of the slave trade. In response, merchants in the Baltic
Region once again oriented themselves towards the west. Meanwhile, new sil-
ver deposits had been discovered in the Hartz Mountains, the Black Forest, and
in the Vosges which now enabled the buyers of central and Western Europe
to deliver the coveted precious metal.13 Thus the initial development of the
trading system into which the early Hanses14 were integrated can be traced to
about the turn of the first millennium a.d.
During the eleventh century, the transport routes along the Baltic coast
were ruled by the traditional kingdoms of the north, namely Denmark and the
Svear Empire, as well as by the princes of the Kievan Rus and by their tributary
princes in Novgorod. In addition, the Polish Kingdom was actively engaged in
11 Wiechmann, “Wandel des Währungssystems,” 50f.
12 Newest overview of research on money circulation in the Baltic region during the time of
the Vikings until the end of the eleventh century Hendrik Mäkeler, “Wikingerzeitlicher
Geldumlauf im Ostseeraum. Neue Perspektiven,” Quaestiones Medii Aevi Novae x (2005),
121–149.
13 Heiko Steuer, “Münzprägung, Silberströme und Bergbau um das Jahr 1000 in Europa—
wirtschaftlicher Aufbruch und technische Innovation,” Aufbruch ins zweite Jahrtausend.
Innovation und Kontinuität in der Mitte des Mittelalters, ed. Achim Hubel and Bernd
Schneidmüller, Mittelalter-Forschungen, Bd. 16 (Ostfildern: Jan Thorbecke-Verlag, 2004),
117–149.
14 Strictly speaking, one should speak of the Hanse not before 1358, although the term is
already used to refer to groups of Low German merchants previously. With regard to trade
in Northeast, North and Northwest Europe, viewing Low German long-distance traders
and the councils of the cities from which they derive with their common interests as
developping the Hanse under the specific circumstances of the mid-14th century should
be avoided. But to be short and concise, we use the term “early Hanse” to express that the
more institutionalized form of “stede van der dudeschen hense” developed from these
beginnings. The essential characteristics and especially their purpose and privileges
based on foreign trade were already present in the 13th century. For joint actions of the
early Hanseatic merchants and cities in the 13th century, I use as a collective term “gemene
kopman” or “gemene stede” even if these terms were not used until the 14th century.