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Russia and the Baltic 1494–1558

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Thomas Esper
Thomas Esper*
Affiliation:
Western Reserve University
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Extract

Historians have customarily treated two major periods of Russia's commercial relations with Western Europe (defined as Western Christendom) in the pre-Petrine period: (1) until 1494, the year in which Ivan III closed the Hanseatic establishment in Novgorod and which is generally viewed as the end of Hanseatic dominance in the Russian trade; and (2) from 1553, when the English first sailed around the North Cape to establish regular commercial relations with Russia via the northern route, or from 1558, when Ivan IV conquered the Baltic port of Narva (he then maintained direct trade with Western merchants there until he lost that port to the Swedes in 1581).

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , September 1966 , pp. 458 - 474
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1966

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References

1 The most recent general history of the Hansa is Philippe Dollinger, La Hanse: XIIe- XVIIe siécles (Paris, 1964).

2 L. K. Goetz, Deutsch-russische Handelsgeschichte des Mittelalters (Lübeck, 1922), p. 436 (“Hansische Geschichtsquellen,” N.S., Vol. V).

3 L. K. Goetz, Deutsch-russische Handelsverträge des Mittelalters (Hamburg, 1916), pp. 3f. (“Abhandlungen des hamburgischen Kolonialinstituts,” Vol. XXXVII). There were secondary establishments in other cities, notably Pskov, but the one in Novgorod was of overwhelming importance.

4 Goetz, Deutsch-russische Handelsgeschichte, pp. 93-94.

5 Kulisher, I. M., Ocherk istorii russkoi torgovli do deviatnadtsatogo veka vkliuchitel'no (Petrograd, 1923), p. 77 Google Scholar. See Khoroshkevich, A. L.'s fine work Torgovlia Velikogo Novgoroda Pribaltikoi i Zapadnoi Evropoi v XIV-XV vekakh (Moscow, 1963)Google Scholar, which deals with the articles of export and import, their origins and destination, and the significance of Novgorod's trade in the formation of the Russian state.

6 N. A. Kazakova, “Iz istorii snoshenii Novgoroda s Ganzoi v XV veke,” lstoricheskie zapiski, XXVIII (1949), 111-31.

7 N. A. Kazakova, “Iz istorii torgovoi politiki russkogo tsentralizovannogo gosudarstva v XV v.,” Istoricheskie zapiski, XL (1954), 259-90. These Russian merchants may have been petty traders. The Germans, on the other hand, were generally merchants of importance.

8 Arthur Winckler, Die deutsche Hansa in Russland (Berlin, 1886), pp. 61 ff. K. V. Bazilevich likewise accepts this interpretation, without presenting adequate evidence. But he also admits that the Russo-Danish treaty was not the only reason for closing the Kontor (Vneshniaia politika russkogo tsentralizovannogo gosudarstva: Vtoraia polovina XV veka [Moscow, 1952], pp. 381-82).

9 Kazakova, “Iz istorii torgovoi politiki.“

10 Deutsch-russische Handelsgeschichte, p. 187.

11 N. Kostomarov, Ocherki torgovli Moskovskago gosudarstva v XVI i XVII stoletiiakh (St. Petersburg, 1862), p. 2. Most likely Muscovite capital replaced that of the Novgorodian boyars and middle-class burghers (zhit'ie liudi), most of whom had been deported from Novgorodian lands to other areas. These persons had been both the major landowners and the greatest capitalists of Novgorod. The ordinary merchants of Novgorod, who were probably not deported en masse, had been dependent upon such capitalists in their commercial enterprises.

12 S . A. Pokrovskii, Vneshniaia torgovlia i vneshniaia torgovaia politika Rossii (Moscow, 1947), p. 41.

13 Kazakova, “Iz istorii snoshenii Novgoroda.“

14 See Gunnar Mickwitz, Aus Revaler Handelsbüchern. Zur Technik des Ostseehandels in der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts (Helsingfors, 1938), pp. 33 f. (Societas Scientiarum Fennica, “Commentationes Humanarum Literarum,” Vol. IX, No. 8).

15 Kazakova, “Iz istorii torgovoi politiki.“

16 Kirchner, “Die Bedeutung Narwas im 16. Jahrhundert,” Historische Zeitschrift, CLXXII (1951), 265-84.

17 Hanserecesse, 3d series (1477-1530), ed. Dietrich Schäfer (9 vols.; Leipzig, 1881-1913), Vol. II, No. 136. Henceforth cited as HR.

18 Goetz, Deutsch-russische Handelsgeschichte, p. 106.

19 Ibid., pp. 183-84.

20 HR, Vol. Ill, No. 353, par. 75.

21 Hansisches Urkundenbuch, Vol. XI (1486-1500), ed. Walther Stein (Leipzig, 1916), No. 817. Henceforth cited as HU.

22 HR, Vol. V, No. 43.

23 Ibid., No. 51.

24 Ibid., No. 61.

25 Ibid., No. 243, par. 149.

26 Russko-Livonskie akty, ed. K. E. Nap'erskii (St. Petersburg, 1868). No. 306.

27 HR, Vol. V, No. 466.

28 Ibid., No. 468.

29 Ibid., No. 470, par. 79.

30 Ibid., No. 544.

31 Ibid., Vol. VI, No. 311.

32 Ibid., No. 421, n. 4.

33 Ibid., No. 521. This document also contains the interesting information that Vasilii demanded that payment precede delivery. The people at Narva complained that this was contrary to all former practice, because a buyer had always received the goods from the seller before paying. And the Germans had “always been buyers and not sellers” with the Russians (“So weren de unsen alle tydt koeper unde gene vorkoepere“).

34 Ibid., No. 525.

35 Ibid., Nos. 526, 527.

36 Ibid., No. 543.

37 “And if a Novgorodian is to be punished in the seventy [Hanseatic] cities, no single person shall punish him, but the governor of Great Novgorod shall be informed and shall send two or three good men to Riga, Dorpat, or Reval” (ibid., No. 554).

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid., No. 552.

40 Ibid., Nos. 587, 588.

41 Ibid., Nos. 589, 592.

42 HU, Vol. XI, No. 1210.

43 HR, Vol. V, No. 118. 44 Ibid., No. 705a, par. 9. 45 Ibid., Vol. IV, No. 423.

46 Mickwitz, p. 38.

47 Some maps of trade routes and areas of Russian production are appended to Artur Attman's fine work Den ryska marknaden i 1500-talets baltiska politik, 1558-1595 (Lund, 1944)-

48 HR, Vol. IX, No. 131, pars. 34-42.

49 Gerd Hollihn, “Die Stapel-und Gästepolitik Rigas in der Ordenszeit (1201-1562),“ Hansische Geschichtsblätter, LX (1935), 124.

50 Kölner Inventar, ed. Konstantin Höhlbaum (Leipzig, 1896), p. 322, n. 4 (“Inventare hansischer Archive des sechszehnten Jahrhunderts,” Vol. I): “The South Germans, Turks, Armenians, etc., travel freely to Moscow, buy up all the staple goods and ship them through Lithuania. In this manner the goods are shipped to foreign places, and the [Hanseatic] cities are deprived of their livelihood because so few staple goods go [through them] to the West.“

51 Hollihn, p. 151.

52 HR, Vol. VI, No. 117.

53 Götz Freiherr von Pölnitz, Fugger und Hanse: Ein Hundertjähriges Ringen um Ostsee und Nordsee (Tubingen, 1953), p. 17.

54 The Gotenhof was established by merchants from Gotland before the Peterhof was set up by the Germans. Together they formed the Kontor, although the Gotenhof was in another part of Novgorod and had become a mere warehouse. Gotland at this time belonged to the king of Denmark.

55 HR, Vol. VI, No. 705.

56 Ibid., No. 585.

57 “Item. My Lord requests the Grand Prince kindly to permit Danish subjects of my Lord to establish a warehouse in Novgorod for the use of both princes and their subjects and to grant them certain special privileges. My noble Lord is willing to grant similar privileges to the subjects of the Grand Prince who wish to visit his realm of Denmark and Norway.” Kopengagenskie akty otnosiashchiesia k russkoi istorii, I: 1326-1569, ed. Iu. N. Shcherbachev; published in Chteniia v Imperatorskom obshchestve istorii i drevnostei rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom universitete, Vol. CCLV (1915), No. 13.

58 HR, Vol. VI, No. 727, par. 27.

59 ”… A plot and a building, the building being 40 vaden wide and 60 vaden long, which, some say, will soon be built” (ibid., p. 819, n. 2).

60 Ibid., Vol. VII, No. 39, par. 244; Vol. VIII, Nos. 94, 127, 467.

61 Pölnitz, p. 35.

62 “[Otherwise] the Fuggers and great merchants, who were there, would have gotten control of the wax trade, in which they are already powerful” (HR, Vol. VIII, No. 113).

63 Kölner Inventar, p. 341.

64 HR, Vol. VI, No. 585, par. 27.

65 Ibid., No. 601.

66 Ibid., No. 593.

67 Ibid., No. 708.

68 Ibid., p. 556, n. 2.

69 Ibid., No. 695.

70 Ibid., Vol. VII, No. 39, pars. 140-43.

71 Ibid„ No. 581.

72 Ibid., No. 413.

73 Russko-Livonskie akty, No. 369.

74 HR, Vol. VIII, No. 201, pars. 4-6.

75 An excellent map is contained in John Leighly's work “The Towns of Medieval Livonia,“ University of California Publications in Geography, VI (1932-44), 235-313.

76 HR, Vol. VII, No. 372.

77 Ibid., No. 413, pars. 247-52.

78 Ibid., Vol. VIII, Nos. 204, 513-16.

79 Ibid., No. 516.

80 Ibid., No. 893, par. 7; No. 894.

81 Ibid., Nos. 895, 898; Vol. IX, No. 138, par. 1.

82 Ibid., Vol. IX, No. 588, pars. 248-49.

83 Kölner Inventor, pp. 327, 330, 340, 355, 363, 372, 373, 376, 396; Nos. 863, 973.

84 Ibid., No. 335.

85 Ibid., No. 338. See also Nos. 338, 342, 343, 348, 353, 356.

86 Ibid., p. 513, n. 2.

87 Ibid., No. 368.

88 Ibid., No. 374.

89 Ibid., No. 382.

90 Ibid., No. 427. Norby was killed during a battle in Italy in 1530, at which time he was in Emperor Charles V's service.

91 Russko-Livonskie akty, No. 377.

92 “And when our [Russian] merchants and traders demanded justice according to the treaty and the oath, the mayor and the councilmen said that they knew nothing about the treaty and the oath; that they had their own laws and had not sworn an oath” (ibid., No. 381).

93 Ibid., No. 386.

94 Kölner Inventor, pp. 438-39.

95 See Alfred Dreyer, Die lübisch-livländischen Beziehungen zur Zeit des Unterganges livländischer Selbstständigkeit. 1551-156) (Lübeck, 1912) (“Veröffentlichungen zur Geschichte der freien und Hansestadt Lübeck,” Vol. I, Part 2).

96 Danziger Inventor, 1521-1591, ed. Paul Simson (Munich and Leipzig, 1913), No. 3173 (“Inventare hansischer Archive des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts,” Vol. III).

97 Hollihn, p. 189. For the contrary position see Sven Svensson, Den merkantila bakgrunden till rysslands anfall på den livländska ordensstaten, 1558 (Lund, 1951) (“Skrifter utgivna av vetenskaps-societeten i Lund,” Vol. XXXV).

98 See Walther Kirchner, The Rise of the Baltic Question (Newark, Del., 1954) (“University of Delaware Monograph Series,” Vol. III).