48 Hammel-Kiesow
simultaneously ‘present’ in several places at once, thus increasing his volume
of trade. Because this kind of trade required more money than before (in Italy
the trading of goods and money was combined), and as a result of the introduc-
tion of documents for credit, new dimensions of trade became possible. From
the end of the thirteenth century, these new dimensions of trade were known
and learned by the Low German merchants attending the fairs of Champagne.
As a result, a division of labor occurred, which, in turn, divided the traditional
career of the traveling merchant into three professional fields: (1) the settled
merchant concerned with financing and the organization of his wholesale and
long distance trade; (2) the carriers, land carters, and skippers who delivered
the merchants’ goods to the desired location, and (3) the factor, or associate of
the trading company, who resided abroad.98
However, one did not operate through resident factors within the Hanse’s
region, rather one appointed a representative or junior (younger) trade part-
ner for each individual trade excursion. This development in the Low German
region seems to have occurred over an extended period of time, which began,
at the latest, in the twelfth century. This is proved in the city charter for the
tiny Westphalian town of Medebach (dated to the mid-twelfth century), which
mentions the practice of entrusting another merchant with a trip ‘to Denmark
or to Russia’ with one’s own goods or buying money.
The transition from traveling merchant to resident merchant also had a
social aspect rooted in the individual choice of lifestyle. Obviously, the suc-
cession of various trade forms had already taken the course that follows long
before the thirteenth century: to begin with, a young traveling merchant would
extend his business, eventually trading with areas where he could not be pres-
ent himself, and then, later, would completely settle down and dispense with
seafaring altogether. The life of a landowner possessing private means would
have been the next logical step.99 In this regard, it was probably not older
merchants settling down, a practice which must already have existed in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries, but rather the greater number of individuals
choosing this profession in the thirteenth century and the correspondingly
enormous economic potential of expansion for these individuals, which led to
98 Peter Spufford, Power and Profit. The Merchant in Medieval Europe (London. Thames &
Hudson, 2002), 19. For a new approach on the political impacts which led to the commer-
cial revolution which differs from Raymond de Roovers theory see Edwin Hunt and James
Murray, The History of Business in Medieval Europe 1200–1550 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999), 55–57.
99 Gerhard Rösch, “Zur Bildung des Kaufmanns und Seefahrers in Nordeuropa. Zwei Texte
des 13. Jahrhunderts,” Hansische Geschichtsblätter 110 (1992), 17–41, 38f.