46 Hammel-Kiesow
within their vast hinterland. The merchant’s biggest advantage was the con-
nection between the land and sea-borne trades, which, for the domestic mer-
chants of the early Hanse and for the seafaring merchants of the Baltic, directly
linked both the purchasing and selling regions. Due to the amounts of trade
goods exchanged, they soon became indispensable to the economy of the
respective target countries and their rulers. During the thirteenth century, the
merchants and cities of the early Hanse developed the connection between
land and sea-borne trade into a superior logistical advantage, in which infra
structure provided by the cities and merchant associations, including port
facilities, shipping yards, storage locations, and displays for goods, played the
pivotal role. In those times (as today), means and routes of transportation, as
well as storage facilities, were deciding criteria in the expansion of markets.
Quite important was the cog, which in earlier historiography had been con-
sidered to be the central innovation of the Hanse merchants. Aside from the
first documented cogs of the Baltic, all of them coming from South Jutland,
the cog was not an especially large, fast, or durable ship; Scandinavian ships
were more efficient by far. And yet the cog was a completely economical form
of transportation. It could be built with reasonable effort (for example, with
sawn over hewn planks), it could be steered across the North and Baltic Seas
with relative security, and it could be hard for pirates to grapple with because
of its high sides.96
Despite these advantages, it was not the cog that aided the Hanse mer-
chants in attaining their ultimate success, but their own economic superiority.
Second, the strength of the position held by the merchants of the early Hanse
enabled them to gain extensive privileges, which, above all, contained legal
protections and custom discounts, or waivers and ensured a relatively autono-
mous position (which during the early thirteenth century applied initially only
to Novgorod and in part to the Guildhall in London) for their branches (offices,
Kontore). This relatively autonomous position was a key difference between
this and other kinds of trade branches, such as the Fondaco dei Tedesci of
96 Ole Crumlin-Pedersen, “Die Bremer Kogge—ein Schlüssel zur Geschichte des Schiffbaus
im Mittelalter,” in Gabriele Hoffmann and Uwe Schnall, ed., Die Kogge. Sternstunde der
deutschen Schifffsarchäologie, Schriften des Deutschen Schiffahrtsmuseums vol. 60,
(Hamburg: Convent-Verlag, 2003), 256–270; Christian Radtke, “Die Kogge,” in Heinrich
Mehl, ed., Historische Schiffe in Schleswig-Holstein. Vom Nydamboot zur Gorch Fock (Heide:
Westholsteinische Verlagsanstalt Boyens, 2002), 38–50. An intensive debate is taking
place between Paulsen, “Koggendiskussion”, Ellmers, “Koggen kontrovers”, Jahnke, “Kein
Ende”, Ellmers, “Kogge und Holk.”