Vågan and Kabelvåg
Vågan and Kabelvåg

Lofoten
Lofoten

Finnesset in Vågan
Finnesset in Vågan

Vågan Church
Vågan Church

A saint from Alstahaug Church
A saint from
Alstahaug Church


A 15th-century altarpiece
A 15th-century
altarpiece


Northern cargoboats
Northern cargoboats

Vågen at Bergen 1827
Vågen at Bergen 1827
The Hansa and the Nordland Trade

Throughout the late Middle Ages, annual trade fairs were held during the summers at Vågan, in Lofoten. Northern Norwegian fishermen traveled to Vågan to sell their stockfish to traders from Bergen and Trondheim. The traders would have goods that the fishermen traded their fish commodities for. Following the Black Death, Vågan ultimately lost its trading privileges and became a traditional northern Norwegian fishing village. The crisis of the late Middle Ages also affected the few Norwegians whose livelihood was trading. At approximately 1350, the fishermen themselves began conveying stockfish to Bergen. The German Hansa of Bergen, too, were in the process of creating a monopoly on grain supplies to northern Norway and, because of this, a barter trade developed between the Germans of Norway's largest city and the fishermen-farmers of northern Norway. Small, northern cargo boats arrived in Bergen during the summer trading season to barter cod, cod-liver oil and furs in exchange for essential products such as grain, flour and beer.

A marked increase in stockfish prices occurred in the second-half of the 14th-century. Hoping to secure the merchants' interests in the lucrative stockfish trade, the Germans founded the Hanseatic Office, around 1360, in Bergen. And it was the growing sense of unity between the so-called Vendic towns of the eastern Baltic, with Lübeck as a center, that helped the Hansa to gain a leading role in Norwegian foreign policy for the following two centuries. Professional trading and abundant capital characterized the league. In addition, nearly one-thousand Germans moved into the homes and storehouses located on Bergen's main wharf. There they started their characteristic guilds. The Hanseatic era led to greater internationalization of the coastal economies, in northern Norway, and a growing number of typical fishing villages which stretched from Vesterålen to Varanger.

The Hansa strengthened their position in the Nordland trade by offering credit to their contacts. In reality, this meant giving credit in advance on equipment to their northern Norwegian suppliers. The fishermen received flour, clothing, beer and tools in exchange for fish the following year. In this way the merchants were guaranteed regular supplies of stockfish and other seafood commodities. Nearly all transactions of fish from northern Norway could thus be channeled through the Hansa. To give credit to the fishermen-farmers meant that the latter were financially bound to individual Hansa merchants. The German credit system has been called "Nordfarergjelda" because of this. And even though poor fishermen were exploited in some cases, the Hanseatic role in the Nordland trade proved to be favorable for the development of the northern Norwegian coastal economy during the Late Middle Ages.

The Hansa represented a significant economic and political power in Norway until the second-half of the 16th-century,. Their organizational skills opened for the sale of stockfish on the European markets, but it also stifled domestic attempts within Norway to develop independent trading. Much of the nation's trade surplus vanished abroad at this time. The conflict, too, between the Norwegian king and the towns of the German Hansa happened to be occasionally difficult; this controversy became one of the central conflicts of interest in Norwegian and Nordic politics at the beginning of the Early Modern Era. In the wake of the Germans' economic position, a cultural influence and procurement occurred. Popular culture, along the coast of Norway, picked up on many foreign influences. Numerous churches and chapels that had been built upon the coast of northern Norway, for instance, frequently were adorned with altarpieces and pulpits from northern Germany. The art of the Hansa, and various works of art originating from Lübeck, marked the stamp of quality, but, unfortunately, much of this wonderful religious art was lost forever following the 1537 Reformation.

The Hanseatic Office lost much of its power in Norwegian foreign policy throughout most of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The office was dissolved in 1766 when the remaining German trading firms were bought by Norwegians. This development happened when Norwegian merchants were granted concessions by the Danish-Norwegian government during the 16th-century. The citizens of Bergen, Trondheim, and even Copenhagen replaced the northern Germans and entered the trade with fish from the north.

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   © University Library of Tromsø - 1999.
The Northern Lights Route is part of The Council of Europe Cultural Routes. The Cultural Routes are an invitation to Europeans to wander the paths and explore the places where the unity and diversity of our European identity were forged.
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