144 Burkhardt
town, Bergen. The fish was caught in the northern Norwegian areas, primar-
ily at the islands Vesterålen and Lofoten in February and March. They were
then hung up in large wooden stands to dry in the cold fresh air. When the cod
dried, the fishermen sold it to an intermediary, the so-called Norderfahrer, who
then brought the goods in smaller vessels down to Bergen. Here the German
merchants waited for their partners. The busiest months in Bergen were July
and August, when thousands of Norderfahrer entered the small bay with their
vessels packed with stockfish. Usually the Norderfahrer were not free to choose
with whom they wanted to do business. Most of them had already taken
loans from a Hanseatic merchant to buy flour, malt, beer, and other goods.
Most of next summer’s purchase would be used to pay back this loan. Thus,
the Norderfahrer had to take new loans to buy new goods from the merchant.
Thus each Hanseatic merchant had its fixed group of suppliers. Often these
dependencies lasted for generations. Still, this system had also advantage for
the Norwegians. Many farmers gave up work on the fields and concentrated
on fishing and drying as a full-time occupation. They could earn more money
and increase their families’ living standard, as long as the system worked well.37
However, this development also led large parts of northern Norway to depend
greatly on grain imports. Only Hanseatic merchants were able to cover this
demand, as their Dutch, English, and Scottish competitors did not have access
to the large grain resources that the Hanseatic towns had in their hinterlands.
As in Bergen, Hanseatic merchants did not look for produced goods in
Novgorod either. When the steady stream of Arabic luxury goods and silver
died down in the eleventh century, the Russian town developed into the main
supplier of wax, furs, and honey for the Baltic and North Sea markets.38 The
Hansards imported mainly salt, herring, and metal in exchange.39 To guaran-
tee a steady supply with the raw materials, the Russian sellers had their own
cooperation. Still, there seem to have been some difficulties to ensure each
merchant a large enough pile of export goods to make the journey profitable.
Therefore the kontor had some very clear restrictions on trade in Novgorod.
Merchants were only allowed to travel to the town once a year, in summer or
in winter.40 Summer travels lasted from April to October. In the winter season,
which lasted from October to March, the merchants traveled with sleighs over
land from Dorpat via Pskow to Novgorod. The advantage of winter travels was
that it was much easier to reach large parts of the swampy hinterlands of the
37 Nielssen (1994).
38 Mühle (1997), 159.
39 Angermann (1997), 283f.
40 Angermann (1989), 174, Kattinger (1999), 220ff.