The Baltic Trade 235
Within this inner Baltic trade all kinds of goods were trafficked, but we can
enumerate some goods which have interregional importance for the whole
Baltic area and for the Hanseatic trade as well.
In the field of the agrarian products hop and wine were two of these impor-
tant inner Baltic goods. Hopped beer is one of the famous Hanseatic products
and it can be assumed that the German colonists learned the use and cultiva-
tion of hop from the Slavonian population at the Baltic coasts.178 The most
famous hop producing areas at the Baltic laid in Mecklenborg, Brandenborg,
and also in Prussia.179 The demand of the Hanseatic brewers was very high, so
the brewers of the city of Wismar, for example, needed 72,000 Scheffel above
hop annually,180 which demonstrates that the market was big and lucrative.
The hop was brought from the inland in the Hanseatic towns at the sea and
was distributed to the brewer cities along the Baltic coast. Beyond this, hop
was also an important export good in the trade with Russia.181
It is not well known that the Baltic is a wine producing area, and was so
in Hanseatic times as well as today.182 In the Middle Ages wine was blended
with spices and honey and because of this practice, people had other uses for
that product than they typically do today.183 The wine-producing area in the
Baltic extended from Holstein and Lauenburg in the west via Mecklenburg and
Brandenburg to Prussia in the east.184
178 W. Frontzek, Braugewerbe, 40f.
179 Jürgen Sarnowsky, “Die Entwicklung des Handels der preußischen Hansestädte im 15.
Jahrhundert.” In Die preußischen Hansestädte und ihre Stellung im Nord- und Ostseeraum
des Mittelalters, ed. Zenon H. Nowak and Janusz Tandecki (Toruń: Wydawn. Uniwersytetu
Mikolaja Kopernika, 1998), 51–78, here 58; Gerhard Theuerkauf, “Binnen- und Seehandel
zur Hansezeit am mecklenburgischen Beispiel.” 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), 179–189, here 187 f; Friedrich Techen, “Das Brauwerk in
Wismar,” Hansische Geschichsblätter 41 (1915), 263–352, here 319ff.
180 W. Frontzek, Braugewerbe, 43.
181 K.L. Goetz, Handelsgeschichte, 517.
182 C. Jahnke, “Ostseeraum,” chapter vi.δ, forthcoming.
183 Klaus Militzer, “Der Wein des Meisters. Die Weinversorgung des Hochmeisters des
Deutschen Ordens in Preußen.” In Zwischen Lübeck und Novgorod. Wirtschaft, Politik
und Kultur im Ostseeraum vom frühen Mittelalter bis ins 20. Jahrhundert. Norbert
Angermann zum 60. Geburtstag (Lüneburg: Inst. Nordostdt. Kulturwerk, 1996), 143–155,
here 151f.
184 C. Jahnke, “Ostseeraum,” chapter vi.δ, forthcoming.