Sketches of a Clerk. Pen-and-Ink Drawings in the Margins of the Medieval Account Books of Reval (Tallinn)

SKETCHES OF A CLERK
Juhan Kreem
MEDIUM AEVUM QUOTIDIANUM
HERAUSGEGEBEN VON GERHARD JARITZ
SONDERBAND XVIII
Juhan Kreem
SKETCHES OF A CLERK
Pen-and-Ink Drawings in the Margins
of the Medieval Account Books of Reval (Tallinn)
Krems 2006
GEDRUCKT MIT UNTERSTÜTZUNG DER ABTEILUNG
KULTUR UND WISSENSCHAFT DES AMTES
DER NIEDERÖSTERREICHISCHEN LANDESREGIERUNG
Copy editor: Judith Rasson
Cover Illustration: Capital letter with a face, scribe Christian Czernekow,
Tallinna Linnaarhiiv (Tallinn City Archives), account book Ad 26 (1463-1507), fol. 204r.
Photo: Ervin Sestverk
Alle Rechte vorbehalten
– ISBN 3-90 1094 21 0
Herausgeber: Medium Aevum Quotidianum. Gesellschaft zur Erforschung der materiellen
Kultur des Mittelalters, Körnermarkt 13, A–3500 Krems, Österreich. Für den Inhalt verantwortlich
zeichnen die Autoren, ohne deren ausdrückliche Zustimmung jeglicher Nachdruck,
auch in Auszügen, nicht gestattet ist.
Druck: KOPITU Ges. m. b. H., Wiedner Hauptstraße 8-10, A–1050 Wien.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations…. ………………………………………………………………………………. 7
Visual Sources ………………………………………………………………………………………… 9
The Medieval Account Books of Reval …………………………………………………….. 12
The Scribes…………………………………………………………………………………… 16
The Pictures…………………………………………………………………………………..19
Horseshoes ……………………………………………………………………………………19
Scales…………………………………………………………………………………………..26
Hands………………………………………………………………………………………….. 31
Other Repeated Pictures…………………………………………………………………. 36
Singular Pictures …………………………………………………………………………… 39
The Dynamics of the Corpus ………………………………………………………….. 63
The Parallels………………………………………………………………………………….66
The Reval Corpus of Pictures as a Historical Source …………………………. 68
Conclusion….. ……………………………………………………………………………………….. 71
Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………………. 72

7
List of Illustrations
Note: The names of the scribes indicate first of all, at whose time the picture was made. In
most of the cases it means also that the picture was drawn by the scribe. In case of singular
pictures the authorship is, however, not always certain. (TLA = Tallinna Linnaarhiiv). Photos:
Ervin Sestverk.
1. Example of the text of an accountbook, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 118r
2. Account book 1432-1463, TLA, Ad 15
3. Account book 1463-1507, TLA, Ad 26
4. Account book 1507-1533, TLA, Ad 32
5. Horseshoe, Joachim Muter, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 1v
6. Numbered horseshoes, Joachim Muter, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 190v, 191r, 193v, 194v,
195v, 196v, 198r, 201v
7. Horseshoe, Reinold Storning, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 219r
8. Horseshoe, Johann Tor Hove, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 4v
9. Horseshoe, Borchard Kenappel, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 94r
10. Crossed horseshoe, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 99r
11. Horseshoe, Christian Czernekow, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 160r
12. Hammer of the whitesmith, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 6r
13. Scales, Joachim Muter, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 14r
14. Scales (with text), Joachim Muter, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 90r
15. Scales, Reinold Storning, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 220v
16. Scales, Johann tor Hove, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 6v
17. Scales (text with finger), Johann tor Hove, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 35v
18. Scales, Reinold Korner, TLA, Ad 32, 25v
19. Scales, Otto Manow, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 57r
20. Scales, Marcus Tirbach, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 130v
21. Hand on the back cover of the first accountbook, Johann tor Hove, TLA, Ad 15, fol.
275v
22. Hand (1509), Reinold Korner, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 14r
23. Hand (1441), Joachim Muter, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 78r
24. Hand, Borchard Kenappel, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 108v
25. Hands, Borchard Kenappel, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 110, 112v
26. Wheel, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 229r
27. Beacon of Dagerort, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 111r-124r
28. Cannonball, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 140r
29. Cross, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 127r.
30. Hand and crown, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 117v
31. Mitre and crook, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 133r, 144v
32. Tower, Borchard Kenappel, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 98v
33. Tower, Borchard Kenappel, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 104r
34. Tower, Christian Czernekow, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 194r
35. Clock, Christian Czernekow, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 145v
36. Ship, Christian Czernekow, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 186v
8
37. Ship, Christian Czernekow, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 230r
38. Horse, Christian Czernekow, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 190r
39. Cannons, Borchard Kenappel, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 91r, 98r
40. Cannon, Christian Czernekow, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 135v
41. Cannon (1521), TLA, Ad 32, fol. 146r
42. Drinking vessel, Joachim Muter, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 17v
43. Drinking vessel, Joachim Muter, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 22v
44. Drinking vessel, Joachim Muter, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 41r
45. Ewer, Reinold Korner, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 16r
46. Drinking vessel (?), Reinold Korner, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 15v.
47. Tun, Joachim Muter, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 25r
48. Pfalgeld, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 118v
49. Spindle TLA, Ad 15, fol. 34v
50. Anchor, Christian Czernekow, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 190v
51. Bars, Reinold Korner, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 29v
52. Shoe, Reinold Korner, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 15r
53. Shoemaker, Reinold Korner, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 20v
54. Limestone slab (?), Reinold Korner, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 14r
55. Roof (?), TLA, Ad 32, fol. 33r
56. Bundle, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 181r
57. Face in profile, Borchard Kenappel, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 264v
58. Bird (?), Christian Czernekow, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 152r
59. Capital letter with a face, Christian Czernekow, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 204r
9
Visual Sources
Visual sources have lured historians for a long time. Pictures can tell us something
that other sources cannot; it is said that one picture is worth a thousand
words. It is, however, also true that pictures do not use words, and, thus, their
message is in a different sign system, a different language, if not, as some say,
dumb. Scholars are aware of this problem, and a historian can certainly feel the
tensions between the verbal and visual ways of expression, when working with
(and writing on) visual sources.
The visual has traditionally been the field of research for art historians.
The focus of this discipline was originally on masterpieces and their artistic and
aesthetic value. Since Aby Warburg and Erwin Panofsky, art history has been
moving away from the aesthetic assessment of works towards a wider understanding
of the content of pictures.1 Historians have been approaching the same
field with their specific skills and questions.2 The result has been a widening of
the material; not only “art” and masterpieces are nowadays considered as respectable
evidence from the past, but every kind of pictorial material. The interests
and methods differ in this field and have also sparked lively debates.3
Drawing in the margins is a widespread phenomenon. Many of us are inclined
to draw during a boring lecture or while talking on the telephone. Numerous
writers, Alexander Pushkin and Winston Churchill, for example, have
scratched in the margins of their manuscripts. Thus, it is no surprise that every
archivist or historian working with original textual sources has occasionally
come upon different kinds of drawings in the margins of documents or books.
Writing and drawing are technically not very far from each other.
The variety of marginal drawings in medieval manuscripts is huge. There
are the famous marginal illustrations of Gothic manuscripts4 and the images on
1 See Carlo Ginzburg, “From Aby Warburg to E. H. Gombrich: A Problem of Method,” in
Myths, Emblems, Clues, ed. idem (London: Hutchinson Radius, 1990), 17-59.
2 Ivan Gaskell, “History of Images,” in New Perspectives on Historical Writing, ed. Peter
Burke (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), 168-192.
3 For recent discussions, see History and Images. Towards a New Iconology, ed. Axel Bolvig
and Philip Lindley (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003); Peter Burke, Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images
as Historical Evidence (London: Reaktion Books, 2001); Historische Bildkunde.
Probleme, Wege, Beispiele, ed. Brigitte Tolkemitt and Rainer Wohlfeil, Zeitschrift für
Historische Forschung, Beiheft 12 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1991); Gerhard Jaritz,
Zwischen Augenblick und Ewigkeit (Vienna: Böhlau, 1989), 71-93.
4 Lilian M. C. Randall, Images in the Margins of Gothic Manuscripts (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1966).
10
the edge which, as Michael Camille revealed, may have been complicated, perverted
commentaries on the content of the text.5 On the other end of the spectrum
there are doodles, pen tests, sketches or graffiti.6 Interest in this kind of visual
source is confined by the fact that it is difficult to determine what information
the historian could get from them.
It is easy to dismiss marginal sketches as something frivolous. It is true
that when using them we are not dealing with the “hard evidence” of traditional
historical scholarship. Doodles are ephemeral. Very often, the subject of the
drawing is not very clear, and the relation to the text is hard to establish. Nevertheless,
pictures in the margins form a kind of evidence of the medieval mind
which we can not render from other sources and which, therefore, ought to be
taken seriously and analysed critically.
When looking for the documentary value of doodles, their first feature
seems to be lack of meaning. Even if they seem to capture a kind of emotion,
documented in the moment of drawing, it is hard to pin down what it really was.
In cases when the doodle is explicitly bound to the text, historical interpretation
may gain a firmer foothold. Nevertheless, the meanings and emotions do not
always have to be rational or coherent; even the most frivolous doodles can
show us something. At the far end of this line of thought is the hope of the surrealists
that automatic drawing can be applied to explore the subconscious.
Moving back from this extreme view, it is easy to note that most scribal “art” is
not that automatic and is rather strongly dependent on visual conventions, the
literary traditions of the scriptoria, the education, individual skills and interests
of the scribes. In short, the study of doodles shares difficulties and possibilities
with any other field of cultural history.
The following is a case study of the numerous pictures found in the margins
of late-medieval account books of Reval (ill. 1). The first goal is to present
the corpus of pictures and to analyse the forms, functions, and dynamics of this
practice of drawing. Besides particular, unique features of the Reval drawings, I
will show the connections of this corpus of pictures with the practices of other
North European urban chanceries. Along with the discussion of the pragmatic
aspects which characterise the Reval pictures, the question will be raised of the
possibilities of using these pictures for reconstructing late medieval urban mentalities.
5 Michael Camille, The Image on the Edge. The Margins of Medieval Art (London: Reaktion
Books, 1992), 41.
6 Robin Carfrae Alston, Books with Manuscript. A Short Title Catalogue of Books with Manuscript
Notes in the British Library including Books with Manuscript Additions, Proof
Sheets, Illustration, Corrections (London: The British Library, 1994).
11
Ill. 1: Example of the text of the account book TLA, Ad 15 (1432-1463), fol. 118r.
12
The Medieval Account Books of Reval
The account books of fifteenth-century Reval are a rich resource for exploring
the financial activities of the town.7 The treasury, that is, the Kämmerei, where
two members of the town council were in charge, was the central financial institution
of the town. Account books of the treasury are clean copies, written
mostly by the town scribes, although traces of other hands are also present occasionally.
The text of the account books is arranged chronologically. The entries
were usually made on a weekly basis, mostly on Saturdays. The structure of the
text for one day tends to start with income, be followed by expenses, and close
with loans. The types of entries run from minute amounts like fines or tipping
servants to larger summarised figures of, for example, expenses for delegations
or building activities. Account books touch upon many aspects of urban life and
have been the basis for a variety of studies on architecture,8 festivals,9 and daily
life,10 and other topics.
Among the medieval records of Reval’s town council, the account books
of the treasurer form an impressive series.11 The earliest fragments of account
7 Reinhard Vogelsang, “Zur Finanzverwaltung im mittelalterlichen Reval,” Zeitschrift für
Ostforschung 20 (1971), 685-708 (hereafter: Vogelsang, “Finanzverwaltung”); Lilian Kotter,
Tallinna rae finantsid 15. sajandil (1433–1507) [Die Finanzen des Revaler Rates im 15.
Jahrhundert (1433–1507)], (Tallinn: Tallinna Linnaarhiiv, 1999) (hereafter: Kotter, Tallinna
rae finantsid).
8 Rasmus Kangropool, “Rae kiviraidurite-müürseppmeistrite osast Tallinna vanema arhitektuuri
kujunemisloos kuni umbes aastani 1650,” Kunstiteadus Kunstikriitika 5, (Tallinn:
1983), 118-132; Lilian Kotter, “Die Stadtfestungen Revals,” in Städtisches Leben im Baltikum
zur Zeit der Hanse, ed. Norbert Angermann (Lüneburg: Verlag Carl Schirren-Gesellschaft,
2003), 113-124.
9 Most recently by Anu Mänd, Urban Carnival. Festive Culture in the Hanseatic Cities of the
Eastern Baltic, 1350-1550 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005).
10 Lilian Kotter, “Raekäsitöölised 15.–16. sajandi Tallinnas” [Ratshandwerker in Reval im
15.-16. Jahrhundert], Vana Tallinn I (V) (1991), 8–14; Lilian Kotter, “Muusikud Tallinna
rae kolmes arveraamatus (1432–1533)” [Musicians in the three accountbooks of Tallinn
(1432-1533)], Vana Tallinn I (V) (1991), 71-77; Juhan Kreem, “Gäster i Reval under
medeltiden. Gåvor och mottagare i stadens räkenskaper” [Guests in Reval in the Middle
Ages. Gifts and their recipients in urban accounts], Historisk Tidskrift för Finland 83
(1998), 492-506.
11 On the town books of Reval, see Tapio Salminen, “Bücher, Konzepte und Briefe: Schriftlichkeit
in der Kommunikation des Revaler Rates von Stadtschreiber Hermannus bis Joachim
Muter (1375–1456),” in Die Stadt im europäischen Nordosten. Kulturbeziehungen
von der Ausbreitung des Lübischen Rechts bis zur Aufklärung, ed. Robert Schweitzer and
13
books are preserved from the late fourteenth century.12 It is suspected that there
was another book, now lost, from the beginning of the fifteenth century.13 The
years from 1432 to 1533 are in three massive volumes, each several hundred
pages long (ill. 2-4).14 Two of these three account books have been edited by
Reinhard Vogelsang15 and preparations for publication of the third are underway.
The bindings of the two older books are contemporary with the contents of
the text, but it is probable that the books were filled when still in quires. The
unbound remains of one more account book, from the sixteenth century, have
also survived.16
Ill. 2: Account book 1432-1463, TLA, Ad 15.
Waltraud Bastman-Bühner (Helsinki and Lübeck: Aue-Stiftung, 2001), 153-168 (hereafter:
Salminen, “Bücher”).
12 Tallinna vanimad arveraamatud 1363-1374. Die Ältesten Kämmereibücher der Stadt Reval,
ed. Otto Greiffenhagen (Tallinn: Revaler Stadtarchiv, 1927); Dieter Heckmann, “Das Revaler
Kämmereibuch von 1376 bis 1380,” Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 41 (1992), 186-246.
13 Kotter, Tallinna rae finantsid, 15.
14 Tallinna linna arhiiwi kataloog. Katalog des Revaler Stadtarchivs von Stadtarchivar Gotthard
von Hansen, ed. Otto Greiffenhagen (Tallinn/Reval: Estländische Druckerei Aktiengesellschaft,
1926): Ad 15 (Kämmerei-Buch 1432-1463), 274 folios, size: 22×29 cm; Ad 26
(Städtische Kämmereirechnungen 1463 Febr. 5-1507), 238 folios, size: 28x 39,5 cm; Ad 32
(Städtische Kämmerei-Rechnungen 1507-1533), 275 folios, size: 28×38 cm.
15 Kämmereibuch der Stadt Reval 1432–1463, ed. Reinhard Vogelsang (Cologne: Böhlau
1976) (hereafter: Kämmereibuch der Stadt Reval 1432–1463); Kämmereibuch der Stadt
Reval 1463–1507, ed. Reinhard Vogelsang (Cologne: Böhlau, 1983). (Henceforth: Kämmereibuch
1463-1507.)
16 Tallinna Linnaarhiiv (Talinn City Archives; hereafter: TLA), Ad 40. Bruchstücke eines
Kämmerei-Buches 1519-1581.
14
Ill. 3: Account book 1463-1507, TLA, Ad 26.
Ill. 4: Account book 1507-1533, TLA, Ad 32.
15
In spite of their presumed completeness, account books as a source have
some serious problems. As a tool for understanding the daily administration of
town finances, account books in their preserved form are rather inconvenient.
First of all, the chronological entries do not distinguish between different fields
of urban activities. This makes it a laborious task to follow the income and expenses
in any single field. Furthermore, in calculating the “balance” according
to the registered data a serious deficit in the finances of the town has been discovered17
which is hard for historians to deal with. It is clear that the account
books were not kept for recording the balance or for getting an overview of the
state of the treasury; the most convenient way to do that would have been a
glance into the chest. Calculating the sum of the entries on one page was started
in the account books as late as 1509.18 As there is virtually no sign that the “deficit”
was a problem for the town and its council members it must be assumed that
some income was not registered in the account books. The same is true for some
expenses, for instance, for the mercenaries of the town. It becomes clear that
although the most central, the Kämmereibuch was not the only financial record
in town. Different branches of the municipal economy had relatively independent
book-keeping systems.19
The town scribes who filled the account books used different kinds of
preliminary documentation. Several notebooks from the sixteenth century have
survived which may have served this purpose.20 Some of the later entries were
written on separate leaves,21 which would, in the normal course of events, most
likely have been destroyed when their contents were written into an account
book. Although the account books are sometimes quite detailed, there are entries
which indicate the existence of separate records, with the main account book
containing only summarised figures. This is, for example, the case for the expenses
of the town in the Russo-Livonian War of 1501-1503, which were written
down in a separate book, now lost.22 It seems, thus, that the function of account
books was the preservation of information without a specific further use,
archiving it, so to speak.
Preservation was not the only function of the account books, however,
and some accounting was still done on the pages of the books. Although the account
books in general do not bear many signs of active use, in some cases it
was necessary to find earlier entries, for instance, summarising the expenses in
one particular sphere. For this, the scribes used one word in the margins to indi-
17 Vogelsang, “Finanzverwaltung,” 707-708; Kotter, Tallinna rae finantsid, 98-104.
18 Kotter, Tallinna rae finantsid, 12.
19 Kotter, Tallinna rae finantsid, 13. As an example see Tallinna mündiraamatud/Die Revaler
Münzbücher 1416 –1526, ed. Ivar Leimus (Tallinn: Tallinna Linnaarhiiv, 1999).
20 As examples of these, see TLA, Ad 39, 46, Kämmereidenkelbücher.
21 TLA, Ba, Städtische Finanzen, contains this kind of loose material, but very few from the
period of the first account books.
22 Kämmereibuch 1463-1507, no. 2643, 24. November 1503: so dat cleyne bokke beschetliken
utwißet. This book has not been preserved.
16
cate the type of entry. These words functioned to a certain extent as indices to
make the account books more user-friendly. The whole complexity of the use of
the margins for indexing could reveal more on the administration of the finances;
in this study, however, the main concern is the pictures.
The Scribes
Before turning to the pictures themselves, however, let us briefly introduce the
scribes (schriver, scriptor), the secretaries of the town council, who were in
charge of the town’s books. The role and influence of the scribes on how the
work in the town chancery was organised has already been noted by researchers.
23 On the one hand, the scribes introduced novelties, reshaped the old town
books or started new ones. On the other hand, the town needed continuity in
keeping its records and the emerging archives. The scribes were certainly also
the persons who helped keep this continuity.
Information is scattered on the scribes employed by the township of Reval.
24 The main evidence of their work is preserved in the town’s books and
other documents, where distinguishing among different handwritings is one of
the most important problems. The scribes often used auxiliary help, and members
of the town council also wrote in the town’s books. Nevertheless, most of
the time one may speak of the scribe as the main person in charge, who also
took care of the account books.25
The first of the scribes whose work in Reval is relevant here was Joachim
Muter,26 a notary from Lübeck, who made a contract with the town and arrived
there in 1427. Although his successor was appointed in 1456, Muter remained
active as an auxiliary force in the chancery and one also finds his handwriting
later in the account books. He lived at least until 1462. The beautiful handwrit-
23 See Salminen, “Bücher,” passim; Tapio Salminen, “The Earliest Missives and Missivebooks
of the Council of Reval – Some Remarks on the Management of Information in
Fourteenth-Century Town Administration,” in Verwaltung und Schriftlichkeit in den Hansestädten,
ed. Jürgen Sarnowsky (Trier: Porta-Alba-Verlag, 2006), 123-134; Tiina Kala,
“Linnakirjutaja Johannes tor Hove ja hiliskeskaegse Tallinna asjaajamine” [The town scribe
Johannes tor Hove and record-keeping in medieval Tallinn], Vana Tallinn 14 (20) (2005),
108-128 (hereafter: Kala, “Linnakirjutaja Johannes tor Hove”).
24 For the biographies of the scribes see Leonid Arbusow, “Livlands Geistlichkeit vom Ende
des 12. bis ins 16. Jahrhundert,” Separatabdruck aus dem Jahrbuch für Genealogie, Heraldik
und Sphragistik 1900, 1901, 1902 (1904), 1-160; idem, “Dritter Nachtrag,” ibidem
1911/1912 (1913), 1-432, with a list of scribes, 347-348 (hereafter: Arbusow, “Livlands
Geistlichkeit”). A revised list by Paul Johansen is available in the Lübeck City Archives,
Stadtarchiv Lübeck, Depositorium Johansen, no. 35. fol. 11-14. The most recent state of research
is reflected in Tiina Kala, “Reinold Korner, raekirjutaja” [Reinold Korner, the
scribe], in Kümme keskaegset tallinlast [Ten medieval Revalians], (Tallinn: Varrak, 2006),
121-149, here 127-130 (hereafter: Kala, “Reinold Korner”).
25 For the activities of the scribes in the account book, see Kämmereibuch 1432-1463, introduction,
3-4; Kämmereibuch 1463-1507, introduction, 4-5.
26 Arbusow, “Livlands Geistlichkeit,” 121, “Dritter Nachtrag,” 146.
17
ing of the next scribe, Reinold Storning,27 first appears in the account books in
1456. Storning has been identified as a cleric from the Utrecht diocese, and, like
Muter, he was also a notary.28 In 1455, in Copenhagen, Storning was said to be a
secretary to the Livonian master of the Teutonic Order;29 whether he was also a
member of the Order, however, is not clear.
Storning and Muter filled the first volume of the account books. Storning
also started the next one, but died in the same year, 1463. His successor was Johann
tor Hove, whose background is largely unknown.30 There were other tor
Hoves in Reval,31 but although this is a relatively widespread name, the
probability of tor Hove being of local origin is rather small. In the second half of
the 1470s some irregularities appeared in the account books. Between December
21, 1476, and April 26, 1477, one finds a gap in the entries.32 In addition, most
likely Johann tor Hove was ill for some time because his handwriting keeps disappearing
and reappearing, to vanish completely in 1476. In the years 1477 and
1478 the book was kept by a secretary named Paul Moller.33 Moller had a master’s
degree and may be traced in Livonia as early as 1470 as a cleric in the
bishoprics of Dorpat and Ösel-Wiek. Later, he can be identified as a cleric from
the bishopric of Verden in Germany. During his employment in Reval he also
represented the town’s causes in Lübeck and at the imperial court.34 His travels
were probably the reason that his handwriting appears in the account book on
only some pages (fol. 75r-82v). After leaving Reval, Moller again served the
bishops of Ösel-Wiek and is mentioned in 1488 as a canon in Ösel.
When Master Borchard Kenappel35 entered the scribe’s office of Reval in
1478 the disorderly period came to an end. Kenappel also came from the diocese
of Verden and was scribe until 1487. After that year he remained in Reval,
helped his successors in the town’s scriptorium, and held many different clerical
27 Arbusow, “Livlands Geistlichkeit,” 166. In 1437, a certain Hans Storing is mentioned as a
burgher of Reval; see Tallinna Kodanikkude raamat 1409-1624, Das Revaler Bürgerbuch
1409–1624, ed. Otto Greiffenhagen (Tallinn: Tallinna Eesti Kirjastus Ühisus, 1932), 15
(hereafter: Tallinna Kodanikkude raamat).
28 Liv-, est- und curländisches Urkundenbuch, ed. Friedrich Georg von Bunge et al. (Reval,
Riga, and Moscow, 1853 –1914) (hereafter: LECUB), vol. 11, no. 275.
29 LECUB, vol. 11, no. 461.
30 On him, see Kala, “Linnakirjutaja Johannes tor Hove.”
31 See Tallinna Kodanikkude raamat, register: van der Houe, Houwe.
32 On this, see Kotter, Tallinna rae finantsid, 21.
33 Arbusow, “Livlands Geistlichkeit,” 119; “Dritter Nachtrag,” 143. Kämmereibuch 1463-
1507, Introduction, 5.
34 After his mission in January, 1480, the town presented him with 90 marks (Kämmereibuch
1463-1507, no. 1704). In May, he received another 20 Rhine Goldens (ibidem, no. 1715).
See also Katalog des Revaler Stadtarchivs, ed. Gotthard von Hansen (Reval, 1896), 320,
322.
35 Arbusow, “Livlands Geistlichkeit,” 89; “Dritter Nachtrag,” 99.
18
offices in town. He died in 1514.36 From 1487, Christian Czernekow37 from
Danzig was employed in Reval as a scribe. He had studied and received a master’s
degree in Rostock; besides, in the sources, he is also called a cleric from
Schwerin. In Reval he was, as many of his predecessors and successors, active
as a notary and served at several altars. As a scribe, he worked in Reval until
1507, and again briefly in 1512-1513. In 1513 he was elected bishop of Reval,
but died the following year.
Reinold Korner38 from Lübeck was employed by Reval in 1507. He also
had university training. There are some signs that Korner organised the books of
the town and he is also the person who started the next volume of the account
books in 1507. In 1512, Korner fell ill and died; then the work in the scriptorium
was briefly kept up by members of the town council: Hans Rotgers, and the
former scribe Christian Czernekow.39 A new scribe, Otto Manow, licentiate of
canon law,40 arrived in Reval in 1513. He had previously been a notary in Riga.
Manow also took over some services at the altars which had been held earlier by
Borchard Kenappel; beyond that, he also had some income from the diocese of
Ösel-Wiek.41 In 1520, Manow left his job for the township of Reval in discord
and assumed a position as an official of the bishop of Reval, responsible for legal
matters. Forced to leave this office, probably by the vassals of Harrien and
Wirland and the town of Reval,42 Manow left Livonia. Years later, he quarrelled
with Reval in his position as a scribe and canon of Kolberg in Pomerania.43
Manow was followed by Marcus Tirbach44 from Danzig, who had studied in
Wittenberg and received a bachelor’s degree there. In Livonia, he had already
been a secretary of the bishop of Ösel-Wiek. Tirbach remained in the service of
Reval until 1535.
This short survey of the background of Reval’s town scribes reveals some
common features. They mostly originated from abroad. Even when, in some
cases, Reval family connections may be suspected, the education of these men
happened elsewhere. Connections of the scribes may be traced to the bishoprics
of Lübeck, Danzig, Verden, Schwerin, and Utrecht, an area that covered the
Hanseatic northern German region. The scribes had at least some university
training and many of them were also clerics. Their mobility is a difficult issue.
36 According to the account book of the St. Nicholas Church, he was buried in 1514 (Tallinn
City Archives, Die Gemeinde der Revaler St. Nikolai-Kirche, coll. 31, no. 216, fol. 104r,
236r. I am grateful to Tiina Kala for drawing my attention to this source.
37 Arbusow, “Livlands Geistlichkeit,” 100-101, “Dritter Nachtrag,” 117-118.
38 Arbusow, “Livlands Geistlichkeit,” 95. “Dritter Nachtrag,” 108. On him, see also Kala,
“Reinold Korner.”
39 TLA, Ad 32, fol. 41r, ff.
40 Arbusow, “Livlands Geistlichkeit,” 112, “Dritter Nachtrag,” 131-132.
41 Arbusow, “Dritter Nachtrag,” 131-132.
42 On the escalation of these problems, see Leonid Arbusow, Die Einführung der Reformation
in Liv-, Est-, und Kurland (Leipzig and Riga: M. Heinsius Nachfolger, 1919), 201 ff.
43 Arbusow, “Dritter Nachtrag,” 131-132.
44Arbusow, “Livlands Geistlichkeit,” 175, “Dritter Nachtrag,” 215.
19
Many of them remained in Reval after their time as scribes, many others even
died in office. The position of a scribe was most likely not the very first step in
their careers and for some of them it was also not the last.
The Pictures
The margins of the three account books from the years 1432 to 1533 contain
about 400 pictures which are contemporary to the entries themselves. In almost
all cases a direct connection between the text and the picture can be established,
sometimes stressed by a connecting line. In some cases, the ink or feather of the
picture and the text seem to differ, but it is safe to assume that even when the
pictures had not been drawn on the same day as the text entry was written, they
were done when the entry was still topical. Most of the pictures do not cause
problems of attribution. In the case of repeated pictures it can be shown that the
handwriting in the account book changes at the same time as the style of pictures,
that is, the text and the picture were both done by the same author.
There is a dynamic in the density of pictures as well as in their degree of
accuracy. For two short periods (1472-1477 and 1501-1507), the pictures are
conspicuously absent. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the number of
pictures clearly decreases, with the last one close to an entry from the year
1521.45 We can, therefore, say that the practice of drawing in the account books
ceased at the beginning of the 1520s. When the practice began is hard to determine
clearly because the account book which starts in 1432 contains pictures
from the beginning onwards. In other words, drawing in the account books was
a tradition that was carried on at least for 90 years. Although there are occasionally
pictures in other town books of Reval contemporary to the account books of
the treasurer, they were never executed with the same consistency as in the account
books. This allows us to speak of these pictures as a tradition specific to
this particular series of books of Reval’s administration.
One is tempted to treat the pictures as a corpus. Looking closer, one finds,
however, dynamics and differences. There are clearly pictures which are serial
and depict one and the same object repeatedly. There are pictures which can be
somehow grouped by the closeness of the subject or motif and then there are
pictures which appear in the account books only once.
Horseshoes
More than half of the total number of pictures depict a horseshoe (used 226
times) (ill. 5). These simple pictograms stand near the entries that refer to the
town’s payments for the work of a blacksmith (grofsmit). Sometimes it is specified
that the smith was shoeing horses, but mostly the nature of the work is not
45 There are two exceptions: one picture of a horse on the notepad bound into the account
book in 1529 and one picture from the year 1552, which is from the remains of the following
account book.
20
mentioned. The persons receiving the money were in permanent service to the
town, a certain Gotschalck until the year 1449, Hans Benne from 1449 to 1456,
Jacob Ronnenborch from 1458 to 1467, and others. During some shorter periods
the business of the town smith was carried on by the widow of the late smith
(Bennesche 1456-1458, Ronnenburg 1467).
Ill. 5: Horseshoe, Joachim Muter, TLA, Ad 15, fol 1v.
Two types of entries concerned the blacksmith; the first were those based
on small bills (10-20 marks) presented by the smith, and then were those in
which transactions over a longer period were summed up together. In the case of
the latter, the scribe had to determine from earlier entries how much the smith
had already been paid by the town in order to pay off the rest. During the years
1454 to 1456, the horseshoes are even marked with numbers and below the last
of the horseshoes there is a text about closing the bill and payment (abgereknet)
(ill. 6).46 Settling the bills was done once a year, but there seems to have been no
regularity about the day when it was done. Looking at the sense of the pictograms,
we can clearly speak of a function of the pictures in book-keeping; they
summed up the expenses for the blacksmith. One has to admit, however, that
this regularity is not absolute; there are some entries for the smith which do not
have a pictogram near them.
46 E. g., TLA, Ad 15, fol. 190v, 191r, 193v, 194v, 195v, 196v, 198r, 201v.
21
Ill. 6: Numbered horseshoes, Joachim Muter, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 190v, 191r, 193v,
194v, 195v, 196v, 198r, 201v, 203r.
The scribes had different approaches to the horseshoes. Joachim Muter
was the scribe who used them from the very beginning of the first book. All together,
most of the horseshoes are to be found before the 1470s, that is, when
Muter and his immediate successors, Reinold Storning and Johann tor Hove,
22
were in charge. While the horseshoes of Muter and Storning (ill. 7)47 are uniform
and easy to distinguish, the first three horseshoes from the time of Johann
tor Hove differ from each other.48 The handwriting of the text is attributed to tor
Hove, thus it is possible that he was experimenting in his search for the most
convenient type, the last of the three pictures then being the type of horseshoe
that he used until the end of his office (ill. 8).49 It is, of course, also possible that
these varying horseshoes were drawn by someone else.
Ill. 7: Horseshoe, Reinold Storning, Ad 15, fol. 219r.
The system of summarising with the help of the horseshoes that was used
with some variations by Muter, Storning, and tor Hove most likely decayed after
them. Horseshoes became rarer. Borhard Kenappel even had technical difficulties
in drawing them (ill. 9).50 Compared with the elegant horseshoes of Reinold
Storning, Kenappel’s look clumsy. Once, in 1481, Kenappel drew the horseshoe
in the wrong place, misreading the cutting of hay (houschlag) for the shoeing of
horses (hoffschlach). When the mistake was discovered, the picture was crossed
out (ill. 10).51 Christian Czernekow, the last scribe to draw horseshoes (ill. 11),
47 TLA, Ad 15, fol. 219r.
48 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 2r, 3v, 4r.
49 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 4v.
50 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 94r.
51 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 99r.
23
also drew one of them on the wrong place.52 The horseshoe pictogram disappeared
from the account books after 1498.
Ill. 8: Horseshoe, Johann Tor Hove, TLA, Ad 26, fol, 4v.
Why the smith, out of all artisans in the service of the town council, was
marked in this way is difficult to say. It is possible that he caught the eye because
of the relatively high circulation of money through his hands, but even
when the money paid for the smith was sometimes hundreds of marks, other larger
expenses were not marked with pictures. Of course, a horseshoe is easy to
draw, and this could have played a part in the choice of the picture. On the other
hand, some scribes clearly had difficulties in drawing them.
Ill. 9: Horseshoe, Borchard Kenappel, Ad 26, fol. 94r.
52 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 191r.
24
Among the artisans of the town, the smith belonged to the higher circles
when looking at his regular income and donations of cloth. The mason, carpenter,
brick maker, cook, and musicians also belonged to the same circle.53 One is,
thus, tempted to speculate even further. Although nothing in the source itself
supports these speculations, maybe something in the work of the smith was regarded
as special, as it is, after all, the oldest specialised handicraft. This is supported
by the fact that for a short period in the 1460s, when Johann tor Hove
was in office, another smith, the whitesmith (klensmit),54 also received a small
pictogram of a hammer near the entries concerning him (ill. 12).55 Finally,
horseshoes were regarded as objects bringing luck and this could have made
them a relevant sign to be used in account books.
Ill 10: Crossed horseshoe TLA, Ad 26, fol. 99r.
53 TLA, Ad 15, fol. 275v.
54 On the smiths in Reval, see also: Valli Konsap, Dekoratiivne sepis Tallinna arhitektuuris
XVI-XVIII sajandil [Dekorative Schmiedearbeit in der Architektur Tallinns, Zusammenfassung],
(Tallinn: Kunst, 1971).
55 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 6r, 7r, 9v, 14v, 15v, 23r.
25
Ill. 11: Horseshoe, Christian Czernekow, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 160r.
Ill. 12: Hammer of the whitesmith, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 6r.
26
Scales
Another pictogram used frequently (49 times) is scales (ill. 13). In contrast to
the horseshoe, which marked expenses, scales marked the income of the town,
based on the scales of the town where goods taxed in Reval were weighed. In
the case of the pictogram of the scales, one cannot speak of an aid to summarising
the entries, although it represents a bookmark used relatively consistently.
When we look at the density of the pictures, most of the scales were
drawn before 1466, for the most part by Joachim Muter. The scales of Muter
vary in shape and are sometimes very sketchy.56 In some cases, this led to such
simplification that Muter drew technically absurd scales, which then demanded
a clarifying text below them to recognise what the object was (ill. 14).57 Reinold
Storning (ill. 15) simplified the figure of the scales and drew them less often
than Muter.58 Johann tor Hove drew only two scales, which look cumbersome
(ill. 16).59 Tor Hove occasionally wrote the word wage (scales) in the margins
with a pointing finger (ill. 17),60 which indicates that in his time it was still
sometimes necessary to mark the entry of the scales. Between 1466 and 1509 no
scales were depicted in the account books. When they reappeared in the time of
Reinold Korner (ill. 18) they were no longer simplified pictograms as in the
times of Muter, but were rather carefully finalised pictures.61 The successors of
Korner, Otto Manow (ill. 19)62 and Marcus Tirbach (ill. 20),63 also drew quite a
few scales which resemble the earlier pictograms in their schematic outlines.
Ill. 13: Scales, Joachim Muter, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 14r.
56 TLA, Ad 15, fol. 14r.
57 TLA, Ad 15, fol. 90r.
58 TLA, Ad 15, fol. 220v.
59 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 6v.
60 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 41r, also fol. 35v.
61 TLA, Ad 32, fol. 16v, 25v.
62 TLA, Ad 32, fol. 57r.
63 TLA, Ad 32, fol. 130v.
27
Ill.. 14: Scales (with text), Joachim Muter, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 90r.
Why, then, did the town scribes use this kind of bookmark? Although the
sums of money coming from the scales were in hundreds of marks, out of all the
income of the town that from the scales only formed, according to Lilian Kotter,
a modest 5.8%.64 One of the possible explanations could be that the scribes
needed a bookmark because this income had to be divided with the overlord of
Reval, at that time the Teutonic Order.
Here, again, this explanation does not have to be exclusive. Town scales
were the place where transit trade, the main occupation of the Reval elite,
passed. It could be that the scales pictogram itself was regarded as important.
This is supported by the fact that the pictogram is once, on October 18, 1460,
used not to reflect the income but the expenses of the town. This happened when
Reval supported the reconstruction of the scales in Narva after a fire there. 65 A
unique picture in a later account book, in 1554, is also connected with the
building expenses of new scales in Reval.66 One also cannot forget that the
scales, an attribute of Justicia, were one of the most widespread signs among the
64 See Kotter, Tallinna rae finantsid, 33-35, 71-72.
65 TLA, Ad 15, fol. 245v. See also Arnold Süvalep, Narva ajalugu [History of Narva],
(Narva: 1936), 77, 290-292.
66 TLA, Ad 40, fol. 16v.
28
iconographic symbols used by town councils.67 But to move away from speculation,
one has to be aware that the text of the account book referred to actual
weighing, not to some metaphorical meaning.
Ill. 15: Scales, Reinold Storning, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 220v.
Ill. 16: Scales, Johann tor Hove, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 6v.
67 For seventeenth-century examples from Reval, see: Pia Ehasalu, “Exempla docent ehk
mõnda Tallinna raesaali pildiprogrammist ja Rootsiaegsetest portreedest” [Exempla docent
oder etwas über das Bilderprogramm und die Schwedenzeitlichen Porträts im Revaler Rathaus],
Kunstiteaduslikke uurimusi 11 (Tallinn: 2002), 165-211, here 173.
29
Ill. 17: Scales (text with finger), Johann tor Hove, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 35v.
Ill. 18: Scales, Reinold Korner, TLA, Ad 32, 25v.
30
Ill. 19: Scales, Otto Manow, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 57r.
Ill. 20: Scales, Marcus Tirbach, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 130v.
31
Hands
In contrast to the scales and the horseshoe, the third of the repeated pictures, the
pointing hand or index finger (38 times), belonged to the most widespread repertoire
of scriptoria around Europe. It is the most universal nota bene sign, and
appears in very different manuscripts. It was used frequently in one of the Reval
codices of Lübeck Town Law.68 In the account book, the hand was used in
different contexts and with different functions. Firstly, it was used to mark entries
which one needed to find later. The hand is, for instance, depicted near the
pro memoria referring to the salaries of the town servants, written on the back
cover of the first of the account books (ill. 21).69 As late as 1508, the scribe
marked the donation of cloth to the servants in a similar way in the main text of
the account book (ill. 22).70
The pointing hand was also used to single out events of political importance.
For example, when the town council spent altogether 1085 Riga marks,
half a ferding, and 4 shillings on sending its envoys to Prussia, the entry is
marked.71 This remarkable sum of money was spent by Johann Velthusen and
Johan van Richen, members of Reval’s town council who were trying to mediate
the conflict between Prussian estates and the Teutonic Order which had led to
war known in Prussian history as the Thirteen Years War (1453-1466).72
One also finds the hand near entries which refer to important guests in
Reval. When, for example, in 1509 the officials of the Teutonic Order from Jerwen,
Pernau, and Wesenberg visited Reval to negotiate the town’s conflict with
the vassals Hermann Soye and Hans Rosen,73 an index finger in the account
book draws attention to the presents made to the guests.74 In 1519, the hand, together
with a crown, is to be found near the entry which tells about the gunpowder
sent to the master of the Danish royal ship “Maria” (see below, ill. 30).75
This ship was driven to Reval by a storm and the citizens were asked to help in
its repair.76 Despite of the fact that the relations of Reval with the Danes were
tense because of the dispute over the dissolution of the union of Nordic monar-
68 TLA, Cm 19.
69 TLA, Ad 15, fol. 275v.
70 TLA, Ad 32, fol. 14r.
71 TLA, Ad 26. fol. 10r, fol. 12r.
72 Juhan Kreem, The Town and its Lord. Reval and the Teutonic Order (in the Fifteenth Century),
(Tallinn: Tallinna Linnaarhiiv, 2002), 158.
73 Est- und Livländische Brieflade. Eine Sammlung von Urkunden zur Adels- und Gütergeschichte
Est -und Livlands, ed. Friedrich Georg von Bunge and Robert von Toll (Reval:
Kluge und Ström, 1856), vol 1, no. 733 (239).
74 TLA, Ad 32, fol. 19r.
75 TLA, Ad 32, fol. 117v.
76 The tribulations of the ship are described in a letter written in Reval by the masters of the
ship and sent to the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order in Prussia, October 6, 1518. (Geheimes
Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin-Dahlem, XX. HA Hist. Staatsarchiv
Königsberg, Ordensbriefarchiv, no. 22136.)
32
chies at that time,77 the town helped to repair the ship and lent considerable sums
of money to the representatives of the Danish king.78
Ill. 21: Hand on the back cover of the first accountbook, Johann tor Hove,
TLA, Ad 15, fol. 275v.
77 Alferd Ritscher, Reval an der Schwelle zur Neuzeit 1. 1510 –1535 (Bonn: Kulturstiftung der
deutschen Vertriebenen, 1998), 41-44.
78 Regesten aus zwei Missivbüchern des XVI. Jahrhunderts im Revaler Stadt- Archiv, ed. Gotthard
von Hansen (Reval: Franz Kluge, 1895), no. I-109.
33
Ill. 22: Hand in 1509, Reinold Korner, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 14r.
Pointing hands were also used for several different economic issues.
When the town council established a company in 1465 to sell furs together with
the merchant Hinrik up der Strate, the entry was marked with a hand. 79 First of
all, these kinds of entries in the account books are exceptional, but one can also
assume that it was necessary to find them later. The arrangement with Hinrik up
der Strate is not the only event in the town’s economy marked with a hand. In
the same way, the scribe noted expenses for building activities, in 1441 the salary
of the stonemasons (ill. 23),80 and in 1465 the summarised costs of the building
of the scales house (loehus).81 In 1463, when the town sent out four ships to
fight pirates, this entry too is marked with a hand.82 The costs of this enterprise,
370 marks, were considerable, even when taking into account the revenue from
the ships to be taken from the pirates.
79 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 19r. He was a burgher of Cologne who acted also later in the interests of
Reval, Kämmereibuch 1463-1507, 74, note 3.
80 TLA, Ad 15, fol. 78r.
81 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 19r, 660 marks, Dec. 21, 1465.
82 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 4r, July 23, 1463.
34
The economic affairs listed above could be regarded as exceptional, deserving
a hand pointing to them. The pointing hand was also used in the 1480s,
however, to mark much more routine transactions. This was the time when the
town started to raise weekly money from the baths, and the hand was used from
1483 to 1485 to point to these entries (ill. 24); the scribe Borchard Kenappel
drew some very distorted or sketchy hands (ill. 25-1 and 25-2).83 Towards the
end of this short period, other town income, for example, mill and excise taxes,
was occasionally marked in a similar way.84 The pointing hand is certainly
universal, as can be seen from the variety of situations in which it was used in
the account books. The reverse of this universality is that it does not allow differentiation.
Ill. 23: Hand in 1441, Joachim Muter, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 78r.
83 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 110r.
84 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 117r-117v.
35
Ill. 24: Hand, Borchard Kenappel, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 108v.
Ill. 25-1: Hand, Borchard Kenappel, TLA, Ad 26, fol 110.
36
Ill. 25-2: Hand, Borchard Kenappel, TLA, Ad 26, fol 112v.
Other Repeated Pictures
Other motifs in the account books come up in smaller numbers. Although repeated,
they were connected with some short period or special undertaking of
the town. For example, when the town paid the wheel maker, the entry was connected
with a picture of a wheel (ill. 26). This simple and suggestive pictogram
comes up only 12 times in the account books, and most of the pictures date from
the transition of the 1450s to the 1460s. The text gereknet near one of the pictures85
suggests that wheels were also used to mark the settling of bills in a similar
way as was done with the smith. The wheel is, however, not exclusively used
to mark the entries for the wheel makers. For instance, in 1501, it indicated the
entry on the salaries of the cart drivers.86
85 TLA, Ad 15, fol. 229r.
86 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 206v
37
Ill. 26: Wheel, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 229r.
One of the significant periods when the account book had more pictures
was between October, 1518, and March, 1520,87 marking the town’s expenses
for building the beacon on Dagö (Hiiumaa), one of the western islands of Estonia
(ill. 27). One of the most dangerous reefs on the way from the west to Reval
was situated off the coast of Dagö. As early as 1500, the town was given a
charter by the bishop of Ösel-Wiek which allowed them to build a beacon in
Dagerort (Kõpu).88 These building activities, however, lasted for decades and
were interrupted by disagreements with the bishop about the remuneration of the
local peasants for their work.89 The expenses for building during this year and a
half were marked with the drawing of a tower.
The shape of the tower varies considerably and one has no reason to believe
that the scribe ever saw the building himself. Sometimes lines connect the
drawing with two entries. Looking at these particular towers as a calculating aid,
we have to admit that they are not fully reliable; not all of the entries on the expenses
of the beacon from this period were connected with these pictures of the
tower. The towers may illustrate the expenses just to underline the importance of
the enterprise for the town.
87 TLA, Ad 32, fol. 111r- 124r. The tower on fol. 111r, has earlier escaped my attention. See
Juhan Kreem, “Federzeichnungen in Revaler Kämmereibüchern, eine Quelle für die Wahrnehmung
der Stadt,” in Städteforschung, Münster (in press).
88 LECUB, Abteilung 2, vol. 1, no. 980, April 20, 1500, kenninghe edder pyler
89 A good overview on the history of the beacon is missing; see Armas Luige, Eesti Tuletornid
(Tallinn: Eesti Raamat, 1982), 15-17.
38
Ill. 27: The beacon of Dagerort, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 111r-124r.
The last of the motifs which may be regarded as repeated is connected
with the military expenses of the town. In 1490 and 1491 the scribe marked the
expenses for the cannon maker with a small cannonball (ill. 28).90 Two men,
Jurgen and Baltzer, are recorded as cannon makers at that time. They received
35 marks as salary and donations of cloth, which is considerably higher than the
salaries of ordinary town servants. The cannonball, however, indicates not only
90 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 140r ff.
39
the salary, but also the expenses of the actual work of casting the cannons. Cannons
were cast at the stables of the town, and sometimes the town borrowed the
masters who served the Teutonic Order for this purpose.91 The cannons, modern
and precious objects of which some later examples from Reval have been preserved,
92 were certainly objects of civic pride which appear among the singular
drawings in the account books (see below).
Ill. 28: Cannonball, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 140r.
Singular pictures
The rest of the pictures appear in the account book only once or twice and could
not have been used for summarising. The drawing of these unique pictures was
most likely more spontaneous in nature, inspired by some kind of emotion. It is
true that we are not able to access the emotion itself and assess how conscious or
how automatic the act of drawing was exactly, but as the explicit connection
with the text still exists we may, to a certain extent, access what provoked this
emotion. Even if the pictures themselves are unique, they also allow forming
groups according to the nature of their subject matter.
The specific feature of the unique pictures is that they draw attention to a
single entry in the account books, to a certain event in the life of the town. This
feature was already noted when surveying the pointing hand, which was used to
draw the attention to entries on delegations of Reval citizens or on receiving envoys
in the town. Twice, the same types of events were marked in the account
books with a cross. In 1487, the town was (as often happened) paying for wine
(ill. 29). What was exceptional this time was that the expenses of the town coun-
91 Kreem, The Town and its Lord, 78-80.
92 In the Tallinn Town Museum Kiek in de Kök copies are on display. The originals are kept
in St. Petersburg. See also Leida Anting, Tallinna tulirelvameistrid ja relvad XIV –XVI sajandil
[Makers of firearms and arms in Tallinn in the 14th–16th century] (Tallinn: Eesti
Raamat, 1967).
40
cil were connected with the visit of the master of the Teutonic Order in Livonia,
Johann Freytag von Loringhoven.93 Another cross was drawn in 1495, when the
town reimbursed Johann Gellinghusen for his travels to Lübeck and Walck on
matters of the town.94 Joachim Muter had earlier used a small cross to mark the
entries on lime burning or stone breaking, that is, building activities, but these
are much different. The two crosses mentioned above are drawn much more
carefully and they each single out a special event in the life of the town.
Ill. 29: Cross, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 127r.
In a similar manner, one finds symbols of dignitaries in the account
books. A crown appears twice referring to the king of Denmark. It is depicted
together with a hand pointing to the expenses on the Danish royal ship “Maria”
in 1519 (ill. 30; see also above).95 Another crown was drawn in 1518, when the
town loaned 600 marks to Knuth, the scribe of the Danish king.96 Symbols of the
bishop, the mitre and crook, appear twice in the account book (ill. 31). Both entries,
from February 1521 and 1522, concern the visit of Johann Blankenfeld, the
bishop of Reval and Dorpat, to Reval and presents of wine, beer, fish, and oats
made to him by the town.97 Although the variety of presents was quite similar to
that generally given to dignitaries visiting Reval,98 this event represented a spe-
93 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 127r.
94 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 173v.
95 TLA, Ad 32, fol. 117v.
96 TLA, Ad 32, fol. 110v. This was not the first time that the town loaned money to Knuth;
see also fol. 107v.
97 TLA, Ad 32, fol. 133r, 144v.
98 Kreem, “Gäster i Reval.”
41
cial occasion. Johann Blankenfeld99 was one of the remarkable personalities of
these years in Livonia, known for his attempts to establish his authority as a
princely ruler in his bishopric and opposition to the Lutheran Reformation. On
the local level of Reval, bishops did not play a significant role, but exactly in
these years Blankenfeld was attempting to fasten his grip there in spiritual matters.
100 Although the town authorities had only asked him to bless one of the new
bells of the church of St. Olaf, Blankenfeld wanted to make a visitation to the
Reval churches. Moreover, at the same time the quarrels with the former Revalian
scribe, Otto Manow, now an official of the bishopric of Reval, had escalated
(see above). The issue of Lutheran ideas had not come up in Reval at that time,
but the relations of the town and clergy were certainly tense.
Ill. 30: Hand and crown, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 117v
99Wilhelm Schnöring, Johannes Blankenfeld (Schriften des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte
23) (Halle: Verein für Reformationsgeschichte, 1905); Christiane Schuchardt, “Johann
Blankenfeld (+1527) eine Karriere zwischen Berlin, Rom und Livland,” in Berlin in
Geschichte und Gegenwart. Jahrbuch des Landesarchivs Berlin (2002), 27-56.
100 Arbusow, Einführung der Reformation, 150-151.
42
Ill. 31: Mitre and crook, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 133r, 144v
When the entries in the account books treated the expenses for receiving
or dispatching delegations, they represented the events themselves, elements of
political history, and were thus material for the history of the town. The town’s
books functioned as a reservoir for urban historiography, and this is also the reason
why some of the urban chronicles look very heterogeneous.101 In the meagre
tradition of Reval’s medieval chronicles102 one finds the descriptions of different
negotiations and excerpts from the town books.103 It is of course too far-reaching
to identify the drawings in the account books as the roots of Reval’s historiography,
the pictures are by far too unsystematic for that. We also have no evidence
that the pictures were used in such way. From the perspective of a writer and a
draftsman, however, marking the entries on political history indicated a certain
sensibility of the author towards the historical importance of the event in the life
of the town.
In trying to establish groups of pictures, objects of civic pride play the
most important role. This means first of all the towers. Two of them, drawn by
101 Klaus Wriedt, “Bürgerliche Geschichtschreibung im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert. Ansätze und
Formen,” in Städitsche Geschichtschreibung im Spätmittelalter und in der Frühen Neuzeit,
ed. Peter Johanek (Cologne: Böhlau, 2000), 19-50.
102 There is only one fragment of the chronicle from the beginning of the sixteenth century
(TLA, Aa 23b). It is available also in a modern German retelling by Eugen von Nottbeck,
“Fragment einer Revaler Chronik,” Beiträge zur Kunde Ehst-, Liv- und Kurlands, vol. 4
(1894), 450-468.
103 Juhan Kreem, “Between Public and Secret: Town Archives and Historiographic Notes,” in
The public (in) urban space II. Papers from the daily life strand at the International Medieval
Congress (Leeds, 2003), ed. Gerhard Jaritz and Judith Rasson, Medium Aevum Quotidianum
48 (2003), 5-12.
43
Borchard Kenappel in the years 1480 and 1481, can easily be connected with the
need for fortification works because of the war with the Muscovites fought during
these years; one of the towers is said to be the new tower.104 The entry, however,
does not treat the building works themselves, but the making and painting
of the knob (knop), the weathercock and cross of the tower (ill. 32). When one
looks at the picture one recognises that these objects are considerably oversized
compared to the rest of the tower, thus the proportions were used to underline
the importance of the accessories on the top of the tower.
Ill. 32: Tower, Borchard Kenappel, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 98v.
The other picture of a tower occurs beside a bill that was paid in 1481 for
painting the knobs of the two big towers and two small towers of Lemporte
(Loam Gate) (ill. 33).105 This gate was the one through which the overlords of
the town, the masters of the Teutonic Order in Livonia, came to the city in the
course of their festive entries. The Lemporte was, for example, decorated shortly
before the advent of the master in 1500.106 The particular account book decorations
from the time of Kenappel, however, do not fit any of the known visits of
104 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 98v.
105 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 104r.
106 Mänd, Urban Carnival, 199.
44
the master,107 but the mention of this particular gate and the drawing beside it
stresses the importance of the Lemporte among the gates of Reval.
Ill. 33: Tower, Borchard Kenappel, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 104r.
Ill. 34: Tower, Christian Czernekow, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 194r.
107 Mänd, Urban Carnival, table 8, p. 187-189.
45
The scribes not only depicted the fortification towers of the town. The
single tower drawn by Christian Czernekow is to be seen in connection with the
expenses of the town when gilding and painting the accessories of the tower of
the Holy Ghost church (ill. 34).108 Czernekow also used a sketchy drawing to
mark the costs of the new clock (wood-carving, painting, and gilding) on the
Holy Ghost church (ill. 35).109
Ill. 35: Clock, Christian Czernekow, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 145v.
The scribes concentrated on the most visible signs of urban identity and
pride, such as the knobs, weather-cocks, and clocks of the towers. One also has
to bear in mind, however, that there are entries on the same issues in the account
books, painting work or, for example, ordering a wagon cover with the coat of
arms of the town,110 which were not marked with drawings. This again indicates
how much the drawing was a spontaneous, individual act, not strictly bound to
some rigid scheme of notation.
Not only the visible signs of urban identity received attention, but also
valuable property of the town. In the time of Christian Czernekow, two ships
were drawn in the account book. The first of them (ill. 36) illustrates the entry,
which tells about the expenses for the purchase of a new ship from a certain
Hinrik Sluwerk and 66 ells of cloth for a sail, altogether 75 marks and 4 shil-
108 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 194r.
109 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 145v.
110 Kämmereibuch 1463-1507, no. 1898; the cloth for the wagon cover is also mentioned in
other places in the account book; see, for example, no. 1393.
46
lings.111 The other image (ill. 37) is situated near the entry where the costs of
building a ship are listed.112 The town built a new ship, and the works of the
smith alone cost 620 marks. Although the pictures are different in quality, they
both depict a one-masted merchantman. The first of the ships is said to have
been a holtshute, a small coastal vessel for bringing wood from Nargen, an island
in the vicinity of Reval. About the other ship, we know only that a mast and
a yardarm were purchased for 3 marks.
Ill. 36: Ship, Christian Czernekow, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 186v.
Ill. 37: Ship, Christian Czernekow, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 230r.
111 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 186v.
112 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 230r.
47
Looking at Reval’s ships in a wider perspective, we find on the basis of
the account books that the town regularly had one to three ships at its disposal.
113 Usually these were barse and snikke, the first being bigger and the second
smaller, but faster. In the sources, snikke and shute are sometimes even
mentioned as synonyms. Among the entries on ships the ones marked with a
drawing do not appear as exceptional. It was one of the scribes, Christian
Czernekow, who was eager to try to draw the ships, even when the result was
too sketchy to identify the distinct types of ships. Visually, the pictures occur in
the same generalising mode as the images of ships on town seals, presumably
depicting large merchantmen. Some interesting shifts can be found in the pictures.
In case of the schute, the drawing of a merchantman clearly makes the
event more important. In the second case, one can see a distortion of parts of the
ship, especially the top of the mast with the cross. In the same way, Borchard
Kenappel distorted the cross on the top of the tower that he drew. Therefore, one
may speak of the manipulation of proportions, that is, drawing important things
bigger.
Ill. 38: Horse, Christian Czernekow, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 190r.
In the main text of the account books, a horse (ill. 38) appears only once,
in 1498, during the office of Christian Czernekow.114 The picture illustrates the
113 Juhan Kreem, “Hans Stolmaker, sadamavaht” [Hans Stolmaker, the port guard], in Kümme
keskaegset Tallinlast [Ten medieval Revalians], (Tallinn: Varrak, 2006), 236-252, here 244
ff.
114 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 190r.
48
purchase of the horse for a price of 42 marks. The prices of animals vary considerably
in the sources. In 1500, it was decided that horses with a value of over 8
marks were of military importance and that no one should leave the country with
them.115 The horses that were used for the members of the town council to travel
to negotiations in Livonia cost around 20 marks. In 1494, when Reval negotiated
with the Muscovites over the release of imprisoned merchants,116 a horse worth
40 marks was among the presents to the grand duke of Muscovy.117 In the next
year, Reval gave the grand duke a stallion worth 100 marks.118 The picture in the
account book does not refer to these animals, which were probably bought with
other means. The point is that the picture in the account book refers to an animal
that was worthy to be given to a grand duke as a present. In other words, the
scribe stopped at a remarkable place to attempt the drawing of a horse, a rather
difficult subject.
Ill. 39: Cannons, Borchard Kenappel (2) TLA, Ad 26, fol. 91r, 98r
Firearms also belong to the spectrum of valuable equipment. Two cannons
were drawn by Borchard Kenappel, in 1480 and 1481 (ill. 39),119 when the
first Muscovite war with Livonia was fought. Christian Czernekow drew a can-
115 LECUB, Abteilung 2, vol. 1, no. 1020.
116 On the whole incident, see Anti Selart, “Zur Geschichte der Russen in Livland um die
Wende des 15. zum 16. Jahrhundert: Der Vorwand zur Schließung des St. Peterhofes in
Novgorod im Jahr 1494,” in Städtisches Leben im Baltikum zur Zeit der Hanse, ed. Norbert
Angermann (Lüneburg: Carl Schirren-Gesellschaft, 2003), 177-210.
117 LECUB, Abteilung 2, vol. 1, no. 630.
118 LECUB, Abteilung 2, vol. 1, no. 630.
119 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 91r, 98r.
49
non in 1489 (ill. 40).120 Firearms in the account books illustrate, on the one
hand, the general atmosphere of the late fifteenth century. After the Muscovite
subjection of Novgorod in 1478, communication with the neighbours to the east
became more and more troubled. In 1494, the Muscovites closed down the yard
of Hanseatic merchants in Novgorod, and the remaining years of the fifteenth
century were characterised by fear of war.121 Since most of the pictures connected
with warfare date before 1494, however, one may consider that not the
difficult times but the cannons themselves were the cause of drawing. They
were, as noted above, valuable, modern, and expensive objects. The very last
drawing in the main text of the account book from 1521 is also a firearm (ill.
41). In October the town paid cannon maker Hinrik altogether 435 marks for
casting 24 guns (bussen) and 48 chambers for them.122
Ill. 40: Cannon, Christian Czernekow, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 135v.
120 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 135v.
121 On this in general see Anti Selart, Eesti idapiir keskajal [Estlands Ostgrenze im Mittelalter,
Zusammenfassung] (Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli kirjastus, 1998), 119ff.
122 TLA, Ad 32, fol. 146r.
50
Ill. 41: Cannon in 1521. TLA, Ad 32, fol. 146r.
One of the puzzling groups of pictures is that of drinking vessels. They
were introduced into the account books as early as the time of Joachim Muter.
He drew the first one in February, 1435, when the town ordered 36 wine pots
(winpotte) and 6 jugs (kannen), altogether worth 21 marks, from Hans Kannengeter
(ill. 42).123 In the same year, an even smaller bill, 7 marks and a quarter for
beakers (bekere), was marked with a small drawing (ill. 43).124 Two years later,
Muter marked another bill for 20 wine pots (winpotte) with a drawing (ill. 44).125
One cannot recognise a common source for all these drawings; the pictures aim
to depict different types of vessels. After Muter, the vessels disappeared from
the account book. Only in 1509 did Reinold Korner draw a ewer (kanne) (ill.
45).126 The entry in the account book speaks of two silver vessels, a ewer and a
mug (stop), together worth 150 marks. At least the latter, if not both, were presented
by the town to a former town scribe, Christian Czernekow. In the same
year, Reinold Korner made a drawing near the entry about the expenses for festivities
(drunke) at Christmas and Carnival (ill. 46).127 Although the picture is
unclear, it resembles one of the vessels of Joachim Muter to a certain extent. The
context of drinking may support the interpretation of this picture as a drinking
vessel.
123 TLA, Ad 15, fol. 17v.
124 TLA, Ad 15, fol. 22v.
125 TLA, Ad 15, fol. 41r.
126 TLA, Ad 32, fol. 16r.
127 TLA, Ad 32, fol. 15v. On the terminology, see Mänd, Urban Carnival, 12-13.
51
Ill. 42: Drinking vessel, Joachim Muter, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 17v.
Ill. 43: Drinking vessel, Joachim Muter, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 22v.
52
Ill. 44: Drinking vessel, Joachim Muter, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 41r.
Ill. 45: Ewer, Reinold Korner, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 16r.
53
Ill. 46: Drinking vessel (?) to be compared with ill. 43,
Reinold Korner, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 15v.
The question of why two of the scribes, Muter and Korner, drew drinking
vessels is difficult to answer. The case of the expensive present to a former
scribe could be a good reason in itself to stop and reflect. The tableware that
caused Joachim Muter to draw is less spectacular. One could speculate, however,
that these objects had a special connotation in the life of the town council.
Common festivities at the same table were an important means of reinforcing the
ties of the council as a corporation. The word drunke, which stands for a festivity
in Middle-Low-German sources, clearly derives from drinking. The purchase
of drinking vessels, a valuable goblet as a present or simple cups in large numbers,
was also part of the expenses that the town incurrred during the stay of the
masters of the Teutonic Order in town.128 Nevertheless, as important as the objects
were, images of drinking vessels remain rare in the account books and do
not allow establishing a pattern.
A considerable number of pictures are connected with the tax income of
the town. The scales mentioned above are the most numerous, but the pointing
hand used to mark the income from the town’s baths and for other revenues of
the town in the 1480s also belongs here. Furthermore, some rare pictures may be
seen as part of this group. At the beginning of the first account book, Joachim
Muter used the drawing of a tun, once at the income from the beer excise (ill.
47),129 once at an entry on seelgelde.130
128 Mänd, Urban Carnival, 199. Paul Johansen, “Ordensmeister Plettenberg in Reval,” in Beiträge
zur Kunde Estlands 12 (1926-1927), 100 –115, here, 107, 114-115.
129 TLA, Ad 15, fol. 2r, 40 marks.
54
Ill. 47: Tun, Joachim Muter, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 25r.
Another interesting drawing is to be found beside the income from another
tax, the pfalgeld,131 that is, money for pilings (ill. 48). This was a tax used
to support Narva, gathered from merchants sailing to Narva. The question of
how and for what exact purpose this money was raised has been a matter of debate.
It has been suggested that the pilings were rammed into the Narva River to
mark the border or, what is more probable, to mark the navigable parts of the
river.132 The picture in the account book could, with some imagination, be interpreted
as a sand shoal buttressed at one end with pilings. It could be, therefore,
that the pile money was used to ram the pilings in to prevent sand from filling
the shipping route or the mooring place in Narva.
Income from taxes was vital for the town government; therefore, the tendency
to mark it in the account book seems natural. On the other hand, collecting
different taxes was one of the duties of the scribe for which he received extra
payment. Thus, the drawing of the pictures might also have had to do with the
personal interest of the scribes. One notices this personal interest of scribes on
other occasions. Although Borchard Kenappel used the margins of the account
books relatively rarely to mark words, one of the most common of his indexing
130 TLA, Ad 15, fol. 25r, 19 marks, 6 ore, literally, soul-money. The exact nature of this income
is not clear.
131 TLA, Ad 32, fol. 97r, 118v.
132 Selart, Eesti idapiir, 72 with further references.
55
terms was scriptor, which he used to mark those entries where the town paid
him.
Ill. 48: Pfalgeld, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 118v.
There is a circle of objects which is hard to put into connection with any
of the groups described above. One could call them objects of daily life. Although
the pictures of this type are rare among the drawings of Joachim Muter,
he still drew a spindle (ill. 49).133 The town gave the hemp spinner fifteen spindle
whorls (wervele) on May 18, 1437, for which the spinner had to pay 2 marks
by Easter (presumably of the next year). Spinners worked for the town in a
similar manner as the smiths, producing different kinds of ropes for the stables
or the ships of the town and receiving payment in sum after a certain time period.
However, there are no drawings in connection with the other entries on
spinners. The one entry with the picture is not connected with the work of the
spinner, but with his tools. Although the sum owed to the town looks rather
small, the picture might have been drawn because it was due in almost one year,
and the scribe needed a bookmark to look back for after this period.
133 TLA, Ad 15, fol. 34v.
56
Ill. 49: Spindle, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 34v.
In 1446, Joachim Muter drew an anchor (see ill. 1).134 The entry refers to
half a mark which was paid to the Swedes who found, or rather salvaged, an anchor
in the port. On the same day, Muter drew also a horseshoe and scales.
Muter’s drawings are generally on the left side of the text; the anchor, however,
is on the right side, which suggests a different mode of drawing than in the case
of the horseshoes. There is only one other anchor in the account book. In 1498,
Christian Czernekow reported the sale of an anchor of a kogge that remained in
the harbour (ill. 50).135 The sum that the town received was remarkable: 41 ½
marks. Rare as the picture is, it might be also connected with the earlier tradition
of the account book and perhaps Czernekow drew it because he had seen the one
in the earlier books.
There is the drawing of a window with bars in October, 1510 (ill. 51). The
text of the entry treats the expenses of cleaning the drums or bars (trumme edder
trallinge) near the house of the council member Remmlinckrode on the Monkestrate.
136 The problem here is that although the picture clearly depicts bars, the
nature of the work is unclear. We know only that the yearly cleaning cost just
one mark. There is, in other words, no satisfactory explanation for why the
scribe made a visual remark exactly here.
134 TLA, Ad 15, fol. 118r.
135 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 190v.
136 TLA, Ad 32, fol. 29v.
57
Ill. 50: Anchor, Christian Czernekow, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 190v.
Ill. 51: Bars, Reinold Korner, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 29v.
In 1509, two pictures in the account book are connected with shoemakers.
In January, the town levied a fine (brockgeld) on the shoemakers of 3½ marks
and 2 shillings.137 Near the entry, a shoe was drawn (ill. 52). The other picture is
137 TLA, Ad 32, fol. 15r.
58
beside an entry which tells about paying the shoemakers for the tanning of
leather (ill. 53).138 The word “shoemakers” is also written in the margin, but the
content of the picture itself is not clear. Even if it is a part of a shoe or the tools
of a shoemaker, the meaning of the drawing remains vague and the whole picture
looks more like a doodle, scratched in the margin absentmindedly. Nevertheless,
the fact remains that the scribe had stopped twice in one year to reflect
on entries about shoemakers.
Ill. 52: Shoe, Reinold Korner, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 15r.
Ill. 53: Shoemaker, Reinold Korner, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 20v.
Thus, we arrive at the problematic pictures, namely the ones with no explicit
meaning. In 1508, for instance, a rectangle appears in the margin and the
entry notes the purchase of a quantity of limestone from a certain Hans Fran-
138 TLA, Ad 32, fol. 20v.
59
ckenberg for 10 marks and a quarter (ill. 54).139 As the limestone was delivered
in slabs,140 the picture could, with the help of some imagination, depict such a
limestone slab. On the other hand, one cannot be sure, because the picture is just
the combination of four lines which could also have been drawn with no clear
intention.
Ill. 54: Limestone slab (?), Reinold Korner, TLA, Ad 32, fol. 14r.
A picture from 1511 is more elaborate (ill. 55.).141 The entry lists the expenses
of building activities near the large Strand Gate (Grote Strantporte), the
purchase of tree trunks and roofing material (deckebrede). Even if there is also
the possibility that the picture relates to the preceding entry on the purchase of
two oxen for the town it does not help to identify it. The scribe most likely
wanted to draw something in connection with building activities. The town at
that time took extensive care to improve its fortifications in the direction of the
harbour, which culminated in 1529 with the completion of one of the most impressive
cannon towers of Reval’s town wall, the “Fat Margaret.”142 Whether
139 TLA, Ad 32, fol. 14r.
140 On Reval’s stonemasons and their products, see Wilhelm Stieda, “Kabelgarn und Steine,
zwei Revaler Ausfuhrartikel,” in Beiträge zur Kunde Est-, Liv- und Kurlands 7 (912), 153-
208, here 184-189. See also Paul Johansen and Heinz von zur Mühlen, Deutsch und Undeutsch
im mittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Reval (Cologne: Böhlau, 1973), 168-
177, and Kangropool, “Rae kiviraidurite-müürseppmeistrite osast,” passim.
141 TLA, Ad 32, fol. 33r.
142 Rein Zobel, Tallinna keskaegsed kindlustused [Mittelalterliche Stadtbefestigungen Tallinns]
(Tallinn: Valgus, 1980), 233-250.
60
roof or crane, the (possibly unfinished) picture in the account book shows the
reflection of the scribe on the matter.
Ill. 55: Roof (?), TLA, Ad 32, fol. 33r.
There are also some exceptional pictures which do not bear any relation to
the text of the account books. Towards the end of the second book, in October,
1496, two bundles appear in the margins (ill. 56.).143 The text near them could
be read kalberner,144 that is, the lime burner, but there is no entry on lime burners
on the whole page. The bundles themselves look very much like decorative
vignettes or even pen tests.
The inclination to decorate the account book is certainly also present on
some other rare occasions. In 1462, Reinold Storning drew a face in profile out
of the first letter of an entry (ill. 57).145 In 1491, Christian Czernekow drew a
bird or a fish out of an initial letter (ill. 58).146 In 1500, he decorated another
capital letter with a face (ill. 59).147 Common to all of them is that they are to be
found at the edges of the text, either at the beginning or end of the page, and in
143 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 181r.
144 Kämmereibuch 1463-1507, 647.
145 TLA, Ad 15, fol. 264v.
146 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 152r.
147 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 204r.
61
the case of the bird, at the beginning of a new date. This kind of decoration was
in the general repertoire of scribes. In two out of three cases, the pages where
they appear in the account book do not display any exceptional entries.
Ill. 56: Bundle, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 181r.
Ill. 57: Face in profile, Borchard Kenappel, TLA, Ad 15, fol. 264v.
62
Ill. 58: Bird (?), Christian Czernekow, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 152r.
Ill. 59: Capital letter with a face, Christian Czernekow, TLA, Ad 26, fol. 204r.
63
The case with the face, drawn in 1500 (ill. 59), is different. It stands at the
beginning of the page where the long list of expenses starts for receiving the
Master of the Teutonic Order in Livonia, Wolter von Plettenberg.148 This visit
was not only marked separately in the margins of the account book with an inscription,
but was also treated at length in the preserved fragment of the chronicle
of the town written by one of the participants, Burgomaster Johann Gellinghusen.
149 The visit of the master was preceded by tense negotiations on the
conditions of his advent. Reval at that was time in a severe dispute with the nobility
of Harrien and Wirland on the question of the right of peasants to move to
town.150 Reval wished to judge some noblemen because of their violence against
the peasants on the territory of the town. The central issue was the question of
who had the right to judge crimes committed in town. Reval insisted that it was
the town’s privilege and not that of the master. At the very last moment, a compromise
was reached; the master recognised the town’s right of jurisdiction, but
took the culprit noblemen with him to town to pardon them in the course of his
festive entry.151
In other words, these were remarkable days in the history of Reval. Nevertheless,
it is difficult to say how much the face in the initial relates to these
events. It stands at the beginning of the page and depicts a bearded man who
shows his tongue (?). This widespread imagery of the devil152 could have been
meant as a kind of curse towards the master, but it is also true that the initial is
drawn at the beginning of the page and not at the beginning of the entries on the
master of the Order. Looking closer, one could even say that the face was drawn
with the same pen and ink which was used for the previous entry and that it differed
from the pen and ink used on the day when the entries on Plettenberg were
written. As a doodle, it could carry a variety of elusive meanings and would
stand as such in a wide tradition of scribal scratchings.
The Dynamics of the Corpus
From this detailed description of different pictures found in the account books, it
is time to turn towards a more general assessment of the corpus of pictures. As
was already hinted above, they are not distributed evenly. During almost a hundred
years different scribes also had different attitudes towards the margins and
148 Published separately by: Johansen, “Ordensmeister Plettenberg”, 101-102, 106-107.
149 Nottbeck, “Fragment einer Revaler Chronik,” 456 ff.
150 Vilho Niitemaa, Die undeutsche Frage in der Politik der livländischen Städte im Mittelalter
(Helsinki: Suomen Akatemia, 1949), here 137 ff.
151 On this practice, see Katkendid Tallinna esimestest turberaamatutest 1365-1458. Revaler
Geleitsbuch-Bruchstücke 1365-1458, ed. Paul Johansen (Reval/Tallinn: Tallinna Eesti Kirjastus-
Ühisus, 1929), Introduction, p. XXIII.
152 Aleksandr E. Makhov, “The Devil’s Naked Tongue as an Iconographical Motif,” Medium
Aevum Quotidianum 53 (2006), 44-73.
64
drawings. This dynamic may be seen through a survey of the pictures according
to the period each scribe held office.
Joachim Muter was the scribe whose repertoire did not change very much.
He drew most of the horseshoes and the scales. These pictures, with some reservations,
helped him in the administration of the urban accounts, that is, in calculating.
Furthermore, the time of Muter was also otherwise characterised by the
active use of the margins of the account books. He frequently wrote words in the
margins to mark, for example, the entries on delegations, on the rescue of anchors,
on setting the clock, etc. Muter also noted the money which was paid for
the scribe, that is, for himself.
Reinold Storning proceeded very much in the same way as Muter, drawing
repeated pictures, horseshoes, and scales. The number of marginal inscriptions,
however, decreased during his time in office. One of the repeated marginal
inscriptions referred to the expenses of the town during the quarrel with
Engelbrecht Sturs, the servant of Karl Knutsson, king of Sweden.153 Storning
represented the town in this series of court cases. Evidently, at one point, the
town council wanted to know the whole cost of this case.
Johan tor Hove widened the repertoire of pictures with the hammer of the
whitesmith. He also used the pointing hand for noting historic events. The same
could be said of his marginal inscriptions, which relate to diplomatic missions or
to the hosting of the master of the Teutonic Order. Although tor Hove only drew
two scales, one may still generally speak of a continuation of the tradition set by
Muter and Storning.
The time of Paul Moller in the chancery of Reval is too short to speak of
his style, but with the time of Borchard Kenappel the pictures in the account
books started to change. The margins were not used that actively for inscriptions,
aside from the fact that Kenappel almost always marked his own income.
The only serious repeated picture in his case is the pointing hand, which he used
for a short time to note the income of the town. It was new that Kenappel introduced
non-repeated pictures like the cannons and towers. He was inclined to
draw vignettes at the beginning of lines, and was able, as can be seen from the
picture of his tower, to draw beautiful pictures. All this suggests that he, at least
in some cases, regarded the pictures as a kind of decoration. When he was
forced to draw routine pictures, like hands, the images became distorted.
Similar tendencies can also be followed in the case of Kenappel’s successors,
Christian Czernekow and Reinold Korner. Czernekow used a repeated
picture, the cannonball, only once to calculate expenses. Beyond that, he drew
non-repeated pictures like the ship, the clock, and the horse. These pictures are
generally quite sketchy, and one is tempted to judge that he lacked a talent for
drawing. There is, however, also the possibility that Czernekow did not really
153 Reinold Storning was appointed representative of Reval in this complicated court case in
1457 (LECUB, vol. 11, no. 659). The issue of the disagreements is not clear; in 1461, Reval
agreed to pay 1000 marks to Engelbrecht Sturs (LECUB vol. 12. no. 88).
65
want to decorate the book, but was rather spontaneously reacting to its content.
The same may be said of the pictures by Reinold Korner. The total number of
pictures, however, declined rapidly in Korner’s period.
Otto Manow and Marcus Tirbach drew considerably less in the account
books. The drawings in their time are connected with the short period of building
the beacon on Dagö, in the case of Manow, or with some special event, like
the visit of the bishop, in the case of Tirbach. The fact that during the long career
of Tirbach as a scribe the pictures appear only at the very beginning hints at
the possibility, also in the cases of some other non-repeated pictures, that the
drawing was done by someone other than the scribe. Anyway, after 1521 there
are no more pictures in the main text of the account books; the tradition of
drawing had disappeared.
Dynamics are also characteristic of the account books as a whole. While
the structure and the flow of the text of the books did not change during the period
under consideration, the dynamics in the use of the margins indicate that
there was a certain development in the use of the books. In the fifteenth century,
the margins generally had many inscriptions, which cannot be said of the books
of the sixteenth century. It has even been assumed that in the sixteenth century
the clean copy of the account books was written at intervals of a couple of
years.154 The decline in the use of the margins could indicate a transition in the
function of the account book. In the fifteenth century it still played an important
role in the administration of the town’s finances, while in the sixteenth century it
became more and more a means of archival preservation.
The tradition of drawing in the account books thus has two different sides.
The first was connected with the need for simple pictograms to find earlier entries
to summarise. This pragmatic function of the pictures was dominant in the
time of Joachim Muter and his successors. From the second half of 1470s, in the
time of Borchard Kenappel, this started to change and the margins of the account
books were covered with pictures which did not have such an explicit,
pragmatic function as a finding aids.
Although the scribes had their preferences, and we may speak of a rough
chronology of periods of domination of two different modes of drawing, there
are also indications of the power of the book itself. The practices of former
scribes influenced their successors. This continuity shows especially when the
former scribe remained in town and occasionally helped his successor. In this
way, we find, for example, the horseshoes Joachim Muter drew in the account
books in the time of Reinold Storning155 and the horseshoe Borchard Kenappel
drew when Christian Czernekow was the scribe.156 This continuity is also revealed
in the later copying of earlier motifs at a time when they were no longer
used for calculating. This is evident in the case of Czernekow’s horseshoes.
154 Kotter, Tallinna rae finantsid, 21, note 34, referring to the opinion of Jüri Kivimäe.
155 TLA, Ad 15, fol. 245r, 27. Sept. 1460.
156 TLA, Ad 26, fol. 154v, 5. May 1492.
66
Probably in this way Reinold Korner came up with the idea of drawing a drinking
vessel157 and revived the drawing of scales.158 Korner’s competence in using
the books of the town from the remote past has been noted in other cases.159
Therefore, it is possible that he drew in the books because he found pictures in
the earlier account books, even though he was seemingly not aware of the original
function of these pictures.
The Parallels
This brings us finally to the question of parallels of the drawings in the
Reval account books. Finding such parallels is a laborious task for many reasons.
Above all, marginal drawings as something worth studying have been neglected
for a long time. For historians, the important and hard evidence has been
the text of the source, and editions of town books have treated the drawings only
superficially in the commentaries.
Scribal “art”, as already hinted above, was a widespread phenomenon.
Many of its features, like drawing faces into the initials160 or marking some lines
with a pointing hand,161 were widespread throughout Europe. These motifs were
also not specific to account books in the local context. Pointing hands can be
found, for example, in the manuscript of Lübeck law used by Reinold Korner at
the beginning of the sixteenth century.162 David Sliper, a Dominican friar in Reval,
also drew faces, among other things, in the initials in his trivium notebook.
163 Among Sliper’s drawings, there are many fabulous creatures,164 yet another
common topic of doodles. Revalian account books, however, do not contain
fabulous creatures but one (see ill. 58), and this is important to stress for the
further analysis of the context of these pictures.
Looking back to the repertoire of the scribes in the account book, the
pictures seem to be rather sober, even dull, reflections of the content of the text
157 TLA, Ad 32, fol. 15v.
158 The scales which Korner drew in 1509 (Ad. 32, fol. 16v), are the first after 1466.
159 Tiina Kala, “Reinold Korner,” 133, note 54.
160 Dick E. H. de Boer, “Illumination of accounts. Decorative tradition in the accounts of Holland,
ca. 1360-1420,” in: Masters and Miniatures. Proceedings of the Congress on Medieval
Manuscript Illumination in the Northern Netherlands (Utrecht 10-13 Dec., 1989), ed.
Koert van der Horst and Johann-Christian Klamt (Doornspijk: 1991), 303-314, here 311.
Faces appear in the margins of the Merchant Roll, c 1190-1265, ed. Philomena Connolly
and Geoffrey Martin (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1992), 56-57, 72-73.
161 Helsingør Stadsbog 1554-1555, 1559-1560 og 1561-1565. Rådstueprotokol og bytingbog,
ed. Karen Hjorth and Erik Kroman (Copenhagen: K. Rosendahl, 1981), 331, 333, 337, 338,
398, 444, 467, 491.
162 TLA, Cm 19.
163 Tiina Kala, Euroopa kirjakultuur hiliskeskaegsetes õppetekstides. Tallinna Dominiiklase
David Sliperi taskuraamat [Late medieval literary culture and school manuscripts. The
handbook of the Dominican friar David Sliper from the Tallinn friary] (Tallinn: Tallinna
Linnaarhiiv, 2001), 160.
164 Kala, Euroopa kirjakultuur, 170, 242
67
itself. This kind of practice is also known from other scriptoria of northern
Europe. The town books of Helsingør, for instance, which contain the minutes
and regulations issued by the council, contain occasional pictures: When the entry
is on fishers, there is a fish in the margin, when on pigs, there is a picture of a
pig.165 Occasionally, the famous Turmbuch of Cologne, which contains court
sentences, has drawings of the particular punishments in the margins: hanging,
beheading, etc.166 An even richer resource of pictures is to be found in the
Digestum Vetus of Kampen, which is a town book with mixed contents that
contains numerous entries on legislation and court practice.167 Not only the margins
were used for this purpose there, one also finds illustrations elsewhere in
the text.168 In other words, a drawn reflection of the content of the text in urban
records was a widespread phenomenon.
Depending on the contents of the book, drawings like those in the Turmbuch
of Cologne or the Digestum Vetus of Kampen tend to focus on sex and
crime. Even when, for instance, in the case of Helsingør, the pictures could have
served later as bookmarks to find a particular regulation issued by the town
council, this was probably not generally their function. There, the occurrence of
the pictures is too random to make such a system work or even to claim that it
existed. Most of these pictures do not seem to have had a pragmatic function,
and the impulse to draw most likely originated from the scribes’ individual interests.
In Reval’s account books, however, some of the pictures, most notably
the horseshoe, had a pragmatic function. Despite various efforts, I have, for the
time being, not found any parallel to this kind of calculating in other account
books. Pictures appear as a finding aid in some sources, as for example in one of
the late medieval Judeo-Italian prayer books.169 In other urban account books of
northern Europe, pictograms do not appear as such functional finding aids.
Tracing parallels in the Hanseatic world is hampered by the fact that urban account
books started to contain systematic entries very early, which made this
165 Helsingør Stadsbog, 47 (pig), 232, (fish).
166 Franz Irsigler, Arnold Lassota, Bettler und Gaukler, Dirnen und Henker. Außenseiter in
einer mittelalterlichen Stadt: Köln 1300-1600 (Cologne: dtv, 1989), 63, 256, 258, 261, 269,
280.
167 There is an ongoing project in the Hanze Studie Centrum, University of Groeningen,
Netherlands, to realise an electronic publication of the Digestum Vetus, now preserved in
the Municipal Archives of Kampen. I am grateful to Dick De Boer and his team in the
Hanze Studie Centrum for the opportunity to become aquainted with this remarkable
source.
168 See also, for example, the pictures in the town book of Volkach am Main: Volker
Honemann, “Stadt, Kanzlei und Kultur: Einführung in das Tagungsthema,” in Stadt,
Kanzlei und Kultur im Übergang zur Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Rudolf Suntrup and Jan R.
Veenstra (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2004), ix-xviii, here xiv-xviii.
169 Nurit Pasternak, “Graphic Drawings as Signposts for Easy Spotting of Prayers. A Curious
Navigation Aid Found in a Judeo-Italian Manuscript (MS London, BL Or. 2443)” in
Gazette du Livre Médiéval 39 (Automne 2001): http/www.oeaw.ac.at/ksbm/glm.
68
kind of detailed (but from the functional side of administration also primitive)
search tool superfluous.
Taking the wider perspective again, the occurrence of pictures in the account
books is quite a common phenomenon. Some of the accounts, for example
those of the Count of Holland from 1360 to 1420, were even decorated to an
extent which enables comparison with illustrated manuscripts.170 This kind of
successful attempt to decorate the accounts is, however, rare among urban account
books. The marginal drawings there are mostly sketchy doodles.
For the number and consistency of pictures in the account books I have
found no parallel to the case of Reval. As close as Riga, the margins of the account
book were used for writing, but only once for also drawing a pointing
hand.171 This picture, just as most marginal inscriptions, related to the expenses
of the town for a diplomatic mission. In Prussia, the margins of the account book
of Elbing contain three coats-of-arms of the Teutonic Order,172 when the entries
talk about meetings with the Order. The pictures of Elbing and Riga have analogies
in the Reval corpus. It is worth stressing, however, that in the accounts of
these two towns one finds only a few pictures, while in Reval there are hundreds.
The pictures of Reval have many common features with scribal practices
of other northern European urban chanceries, but as a corpus they are exceptionally
rich and manifold.
The Reval Corpus of Pictures as a Historical Source
The final question concerns the source value of these doodles. We have seen that
some of the pictures had a clear function as finding aids in book-keeping. There
are, however, pictures which apparently did not have this function. How can
they serve the historian in reconstructing the past? Could these pictures reveal
the mentalities of the townspeople or their perception of urban life, and if so,
then how?
The doodles are certainly rather spontaneous, one may even say accidental.
In comparison with most other “art”, which involved time-consuming efforts
of the artisan or even, in more complicated cases, lengthy elaborations of the
programme with the commissioner and patron, doodles emerged from one stroke
and do not bear many signs of cogitation. This feature certainly limits the possibilities
of interpretation in cases of unique drawings. Arguably, the moment of
drawing was random, and the drawing of the scribes could have been done absent-
mindedly, almost unconsciously. But the reaction of drawing singles out the
entries. Whatever made the scribe draw, it was something special that popped
170 de Boer, “Illumination of Accounts,” passim.
171 Kämmerei-Register der Stadt Riga 1348-1361 und 1405-1474, ed. August von Bulmerincq
(Leipzig: Duncker & Humboldt, 1909), 81, note.
172 Nowa ksiega rachunkowa starego miaste Elblaga 1404-1414, czesc 1 (1404-1410) [The
new account book of Elbing old town 1404-1414, part one (1404-1410)], ed. Markian
Peleck (Warsaw: Panstwowe wydawnictwo naukowe, 1987), 92, 161, 216.
69
out of the flow. Thus, despite the underlying randomness of the individual pictures,
when taken together into a corpus of all pictures, they may reveal cultural
patterns and could serve the historian for reconstructing the past.
The pictures witness some kind of experience. A difficulty in studying
this experience lies in the fact that we are approaching the pictorial material verbally,
while in the cases of most of the doodles the experience did not have to be
verbal at all. In a way, we are trying to describe the indescribable. In the case of
the pictures in the Reval account books, however, besides the non-verbal aspect
(the picture) we also have its verbal reference (the entry), which allows access to
the impulse for drawing.
Most of the pictures in the Reval account books depict something identifiable.
Almost all drawings make reference to a particular entry. We can, thus,
describe a circle of topics which made the scribes draw. The most conspicuous
of them is the group of objects which was in some way connected with civic
pride: towers, ships, cannons, horses or even drinking vessels. A field closely
connected to this is diplomacy. On different occasions, the scribes marked entries
that could be grouped under the denominator of historical-political events.
Repeated pictures often referred to the income of town, but besides that many of
the objects were connected with daily life in Reval: wheels, scales, and horseshoes
or shoes and limestone. Some of these objects, for example, the ships,
could also carry multiple meanings; on the one hand, they were valuable property
of the town to be proud of, but, on the other hand, just something that you
would expect to come across in a major port town.
To some extent, the contents of the account books influenced the repertoire
of the pictures. This is the reason why the Reval book, for instance, does
not contain any sex and crime pictures, which appear in the Tumbuch or the Digestum
Vetus. As the variety of entries in the Reval account books is huge, the
scribes did not reflect everything they wrote down, but only a small segment.
This may lead to the hypothesis that the pattern shown by the corpus of pictures
was not totally random, and that the preferences described above mirror the facets
of late medieval urban mentalities.
The pattern of drawing was of course not uniform. The pictures appear in
connection with various types of entries, and not all entries of the same type always
provoked drawing. The drawings were bound to the moment and to certain
emotions of the moment. The variety of emotions behind the pictures can only
be guessed at; maybe it was pain because of expenses, maybe relief because of
good income. Some of the pictures communicate pride and joy, maybe others
rather boredom or fun. Looking for the wider cultural context of the pictures, it
may be noted that many of the motifs used in the account books could have an
additional symbolic meaning, like scales, horseshoes, towers, a goblet, anchor,
wheel, ship, etc. The textual side of the account book, however, does not support
this connection; the account book was a secular pragmatic document, after all.
Recognition of the symbolism of the pictures may have played a part in making
the scribe draw, but it was certainly not the first intention of the scribes to com70
municate symbolic values. As was said above, the existence of any strong and
systematic intention of the scribes can be seriously questioned in the case of
unique pictures.
It is also important to ask about the context of the pictures, their authors,
and recipients. The pictures appear in the town’s books, which were kept by the
scribes. The audience of these pictures was therefore quite limited. Only the
council members had the right to look in the town’s books, but we may doubt
that all of them made use of this opportunity. The circle of frequent users of the
book was most likely restricted to the scribe and the council members dealing
with finances. We may regard the act of drawing, therefore, as an almost private,
individual affair of the scribes. As important as bearing in mind the individual
character of the pictures and the specific preferences that certainly existed
among the scribes, it must also be stressed that it was not only one scribe who
drew, but many. Maybe even some council members who were involved in
writing the book drew in it occasionally. This is the reason why the corpus of
pictures also hints at a perception of urban life that was collective, to some extent
maybe even institutionalised. The treasury was one of the central institutions
of the town council, and its account book was certainly among the most
important documents of the urban community, an impressive volume with a
clean copy, not a loose leaf of a draft.
71
Conclusion
Scribes drew pictures in the account books of Reval. The practice itself was
widespread and there were many motifs, for instance, hands and faces, which
can also be found elsewhere. In this sense, the pictures in the Reval account
books stand in the general tradition of European medieval chanceries. The practice
of directly reflecting the content of the text which is observed in the town’s
account books is likewise a widespread phenomenon in pragmatic literacy.
Reval’s corpus of pictures represents specific features. Some of the frequently
used pictograms, most notably the horseshoe, were used as finding aids.
The scribes utilised the pictures to trace earlier entries of a certain type in order
to calculate sums. Some pictures functioned as bookmarks to draw attention to
earlier entries which one eventually had to find later. This practice was dominant
in the account books until the late 1460s.
After that, the number of motifs among the pictures increased, but their
use became more random. One can no longer speak of pragmatic functions. The
pictures remained, however, in direct connection with the text. The scribes no
longer had a strict programme in drawing the pictures and marginal drawings
emerged out of the moment, spontaneously. Nevertheless, one may still characterise
the circle of entries and connected drawings. The scribes reflected on objects
of civic pride and valuable property of the town, as well as on smaller
matters of daily life. Besides important historic events in the life of the town,
mundane issues sometimes also received a drawing.
The image, as a perception or rather a feeling of urban life, had its limitations.
The audience for the pictures as well as the circle of draftsmen was limited,
the act of drawing itself tended to be random. The absence of a strict programme
behind the drawings may be seen, however, as a virtue of the source.
Through these doodles we are able to reach into the furthest corners of the minds
of medieval scribes in a way that could not be rendered from other, more conventional,
sources.
72
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