The Baltic Trade 221
coast, specifically the kontors in Novgorod, Polozk, Pskow, Smolensk98 and the
Hanseatic cities, foremost Riga, but also Dorpat and Reval. Warsaw and Thorn
were also centers of the Hanseatic fur trade.99
At these entrepôts Russian boyars and Karelian hunters brought their catch,
usually white and grey squirrel,100 to the Hanseatic merchants, who traded
directly with them.101 To secure their dominance at these markets Hanseatic
merchants jealously did everything they could to ensure that their non-Hanse-
atic competitors could not learn Russian or even get contact with the Russian
hunters.102 At the kontors the furs were inspected (gewrackt),103 divided into
the multitudinous categories of quality and sorts104 and packed in barrels for
the international transport.
From the Baltic East, from the kontors but also from Thorn, fur was exported
by Hanseatic merchants to Western Europe. Despite the importance of the
preparation); E.A. Rybina, “Beziehungen zwischen Novgorod und der Hanse.” In Beiträge
zur hansischen Kultur-, Verfassungs- und Schiffahrtsgeschichte, ed. Horst Wernicke and
Nils Jörn, Hansische Studien, x (Weimar: Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1998), 323–330, here 325.
98 Raymond Henry Fisher, The Russian fur trade, 1550–1700 (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1943), 7f.
99 See the map in Robert Delort, Le commerce des fourrures en occident à la fin du moyen
age (vers 1300–vers 1450), ii Vol., (Paris: École Française de Rome, 1978), lxvii and pages
1037–1065; M.P. Lesnikov, “Der Hansische Pelzhandel zu Beginn des 15. Jahrhunderts.”
In Hansische Studien, Heinrich Sproemberg zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Gerhard Heitz and
Manfred Unger (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 1961), 219–272, here 240–258.
100 I am very gratefully to Prof. Dr. John Lind, Odense/Denmark, about his comments and the
assignment of a manuscript of a forthcoming article about fur-trade.
101 Janet Martin, Treasure of the Darkness. The fur trade and its significance for medieval
Russia (Cambridge: University Press, 1986), 68–81. Anna Leonidovna Choroškevič, “Der
deutsche Hof in Novgorod und die deutsche Herberge (Fondaco die Tedeschi) in Venedig
im 13./14. Jahrhundert. Eine vergleichende Studie.” In Zwischen Lübeck und Novgorod.
Wirtschaft, Politik und Kultur im Ostseeraum vom frühen Mittelalter bis ins 20. Jahrhundert,
Norbert Angermann zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Ortwin Pelc and Gertrud Pickhan (Lüneburg:
Inst. Nordostdt. Kulturwerk, 1996), 67–87, here 74f; R.H. Fisher, Fur trade, 3–7; K.L. Goetz,
Handelsgeschichte, 248f.
102 In terms of the language of the Russian merchants see Elisabeth Timmler, Die Sprache der
Kaufleute in Novgorod des 12. bis 15. Jahrhunderts, (Phil. Diss: Berlin, 1991).
103 Jenks, Novgoroder Schra, ii L, 63. ii K, 65. ii R, 63. iii, 2a. iv, 56. iv, 58f. v, 66.
104 Until now the best overview over sorts and qualities is in Wilhelm Stieda, Revaler
Zollbücher und—quittungen des 14. Jahrhunderts, Hansische Geschichtsquellen, V (Halle
a.S.: Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, 1887), cii. See also in a broader European per-
spective R. Delort, Les commerce des fourrures, 9–92 and M.P. Lesnikov, “Hansischer
Pelzhandel,” 222–240.