Supply and Distribution of Foodstuffs in Northern Europe 1450-1500

Supply and Distribution of Foodstuffs
in Northern Europe 1450-1500
JOHN D. FUDGE
By the late medieval period a number of established distribution networks
and transportation systems interconnected the major commodity markets of
northern Europe, facilitating the movement of a wide variety of goods over
vast distances. Within this broad commercial framework a kcy sector was the
seaborne traffic in bulk foodstuffs, whose basic structure and scope is quite
discernible in varions customs and toll records at thrce corners of Europe’s
northern maritime network – the Prussian staple at Danzig, London and ports
i n eastern England, and finally the Brabantine fair towns of Bergen op Zoom
and Antwerp and their outports in Zealand. Together these sourccs provide
an indication of the fundamental commodity structure as wcll as the maritime
distribution networks that linked the markets of England, the Lowlands and
the eastern Baltic in the second half of the fiftecnth century.
A principal eastcrn link in the long-distance carriage trade of northern
Europe at the close of the Middle Ages was the Baltic port of Danzig, whcre the
traffic in seaborne imports centred primarily on three main commoditics: salt,
herring and cloth. Locally based Hanseatic mcrchants controllcd the Skania
herring fisheries that supplied Danzig and much of the eastern Baltic, and some
Atlantic herring was shipped there by Hollandcrs. Foremost among the sources
for imported salt was the Bay of Bourgneuf, while the supply of imported cloth
was tied to the woollen industries of Flanders, Brabant, Holland and England.
Although it dates from 1460, when Baltic commcrcc was disrupted by
war between Poland, the Prussian towns and the Teutonic Order, the earliest
surviving Danzig toll book for this period nevertheless illustrates the essential
characteristics of the maritime trade.1 The majority of high-vatue cloth imports
at the Prussian staple came via Lübeck, whlle from the Bay and ports in the
Lowlands twenty-two ships reached Danzig either in ballast or laden exclusively
with salt. It is very evident that many of the same merchants importing these
cloth and salt consignments also shared in other cargoes brought from England
and the Atlantic seaboard. There was, in fact, an clement of specialization,
for while members of this circle of merchants occasionally imported bulk forest
1 Archiwum Pan•lwow􀁙 w Gdarid:u (= WAPG.) 300.19/1.
8
products and iron from Reval and Stockholm, they were noticably insignificant
i n the brisk coastal traffic to and from the Wendish ports of Rostock and
Stralsund. Nor were they important in another major facet of intra-Baltic
commerce – the substantial trade in Danish meat and butter. Within the
port’s mercantile community as a whole, however, there was wide participation
in the seasonal importation of herring from Skania. The traffic in imported
cloth and Bay salt therefore was tied to a fairly well-defined core of merchants,
whose trade had a distinctly western focus, with Lübeck as a major transit
point. The next surviving record of seaborne imports at Danzig reflects no
appreciable change in this basic pattern again in 1468.2 The end of the war
two years earlier had foreshadowed a surge i n the volume of shipping from west
of the Danish Sound, but many )arge consignments of cloth continued to reach
Danzig distributors via Lübeck, and Bay salt also continued to rank as one of
the three principal imports.
Though not in itself a food, salt was of course an indispensable preservative
and therefore part and parcel of the foodstuff trade. Moreover, the traffic
in cheap Bay salt from Bourgneuf, Brouage and La Rochelle was an integral
feature of the European trade structure i n the fifteenth century, not only for
the Atlantic seabord, but as weil for the Baltic, where demand far exceeded
supply from indigenous sources like those at Lüneburg. So )arge convoys of
Lowland and Baltic ships weighed anchor for the Biscay coast each year, i n
ballast o r sometimes carrying fish , grain o r cloth, and returned t o northern
waters laden with salt. Some also brought back wine cargoes from La Rochelle,
while still others ventured as far south as Lisbon for spices, fruit, sugar and
l berian salt from Setubal.3 Some salt was off-loaded in English and Lowland
ports, and )arge shipments were brought to the Baltic in Hanseatic hulks and
other vessels chartered in Holland and Zealand. Much of it supplied the fish
curing industries at Skania and at the Hanseatic comptoirs in Norway, which
in turn furnished the eastern Baltic with fish imports. Other fleets, including
those from Holland,4 hauled salt directly from the Bay to Danzig, Königsberg,
Riga and Reval, for redistribution to the markets of the Prussian and Livonian
hinterland. In 1468 some sixty ships reached Danzig with salt and wine cargoes
2 WAPG. 300.19/3.
3 HanJi􀃐cheJ Urkundenbuch (= H UB.), ed. K. Höhlboum, K. Kunze, W. Stein, Holle/Leipzig,
1876-1939. 1 1 vols., VII no. 21, 84, 215, 538; Han􀃑ereceue ( = HR.), ed. K. Koppmonn,
G . von der Ropp, D. Schäfer, Leipzig, 1870-1913. 24 volo., (2) V no. 666-71 . Aloo A. R. Bridbury,
England and lhe Sall Trade in lhe laler Middle Agu. (Oxford, 1 966), 76-93.
4 For the Hollanders troding to the eoltern Baltic see HUB. VIII no. 4 1 2 and H. A. Poelman,
ed., Bronnen lol de ge􀃐chiedeni• l!an den Oo1tzeehandel. ( 1 ) II (‚aGravenhage, 1917),
1\0. 2278.
9
from the Bay. 5
The crucial consumer link in Danzig’s trade is revealed in a 1465 record of
inland commerce,6 the only one of its kind to have survi ved for the later fi fleenth
century, which shows that the same merchants who imported from Lübeck and
points west heavily implicated in the exchange of salt, herring and cloth for the
grain and forest products that reached Danzig via Thorn and the river Vistula,
and ultirnately forrned the cornerstone of Danzig’s seaborne export trade. Of
interest in the foodstuff sector are the cereal exports – especially barley, rye and
wheat from Mazovia and greater Poland – that were transhipperl to western
markets from ports in Prussia. Originally, much of Prussia’s grain export
trade was controlled by agents of the Teutonic Order, who relied heavily on
tithes to fill quotas. But the subjugation of the knights by Poland in the
middle decades of the century opened the way for the Danzigers themselves to
monopolize access to producers, especially in Poland, where advance cash and
cloth payments were common practice, and producers pledged sums to cover
failure to deliver.7
Reduced to its simplest terms, then, the comrnodity structure of Danzig’s
overseas trade in the 1460s and 1470s can be surnmarized, insofar as foodstuffs
are concerned, as a consumer-driven traffic in fish and fish products, primarily
from Skania and the Hanseatic controlled Norwegian fisheries, plus salt and
subsidiary wine cargoes from the Bay. Relatively little of the salt and fish
imported into Danzig was transshipped elsewhere by sea. Meat and dairy
imports were part of the intra-Baltic trade, and Danzig’s food export sector
was concerned principally with grain shipments. It is the relative importance of
these key products – grain, fish and salt – on western rnarkets, and specifically
in England and the Lowlands, that helps establish the broader distribution
network and identify any subsequent changes in the trade structure.
English custorns accounts offer a second essential source for delineation of
the international traffic in foodstuffs, and the records of a nurnber of different
ports are fairly complete for short periods in the late fifteenth century. 8
5 WAPG. 300.19/3 20r-29r.
G WAPG. 300.19/2.
7 M. Malowisl, „A cerlnin lrnde lechnique in lhe Baltic Countries in the 15th-18th Centuriea“
, Pole1nd 11t the Xlth lntern<1lion<1l Congreu of Hioloric11l Studie• in Stockholm. ( Wnraaw, 1980), 103-12. 8 Public Record Ofjice (=PRO.) E122 9/53, 54, 56, 59, 65, 68; 10/1, 3, 4 , 5, 6 , 7, 8, 9, 10, 22, 24, 25, 26; 11/2, 3, 4 , 6, 8, 14, 17, 18, 20 [Boston). E122 61/71, 75; 62/1 , 3, 4 , 5 , 6, 7, 10, 11; 63/1, 2, 8, 1 3 [Hull). El22 52/42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 52, 54, 55, 58; 53/3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 1 1 , 17, 18[lpawich], E122 96/37, 40, 41; 97/1, 2 , 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 17, 18; 98/1, 2 , 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 1 1 , 12, 13, 14, 15, 1 6 [Lynn], E122 107/53, 61; 108/1, 2 , 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1 2[Newcnstle), 10 In order to retain the northern European focus in this brief study, however, analysis here is necessarily confined to London and ports of eastern England. Discernible trends in this sector therefore may or may not apply to the south coast and particularly Southampton, whose overseas trade had a more southern orientation and strong lberian links. The trade of Hanseatic merchants, and in particular the traffic in bulk goods from the Baltic, was an integral part of England’s maritime commerce. However, while Danzig skippers were predominant in the Hanseatic trade to eastern England in the late medieval period, there is scant evidence of Baltic grain cargoes being off-loaded there. lndeed, cereal imports were rare on the whole, and those recorded in English customs accounts usually coincided with shortfalls in the kingdom or periods of war, during which foods supplies had to be found for military expeditions. Such quite possibly was the case, for example, of a !arge cargo of rye freighted from Danzig to Hull in 1453,9 the final year of fighting in Brittany. Otherwise England seems to have been largely self-sufficient in grain production, and in the later years of the century exports of wheat and corn from East Anglian ports were not uncommon. Nevertheless, England was integrated into the seaborne trade between Baltic and Atlantic centres, particularly insofar as the traffic in Bay salt was concerned. Hanseatic ships, off-loaded in England before late autumn, often saw winter service in southern waters where they were freighted with salt. The English also sent their own salt ships to the Biscay coast, but customs records for the 1450s and 1460s contain numt’r0us examples of Hanseatic and Lowland shippers bringing in Bay salt and wine, especially to London and lpswich, for both denizen and non-denizen merchants. 10 U nlike the grain producers in Prussia and Poland who often enjoyed tht> 􀕨ccurity of advance payments for their
commodities, the Atlantic salt shipper􀕩 had few if any guarantees that sojourns
to the Bay would be profitable. PriCt“> feil at Danzig when the market there
became glutted periodically, and in the mid-1480s Cologne merchants who had
salt shipped to London lost heavily on their investment when the mayor arbitrarily
fixed the selling price far below cost.11 Moreover, there always existed
E 1 2 2 76/42, 48; 78/3, 9; 79/12; 194/1 1 , 1 2 , 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 (London]. E 1 2 2 1 5 1 /69,
70, 75, 71; 152/3, 6, 7, 12 [Yarmouth].
9 Calendar of Patent Roll•. 1462-1461. (London, 1 91 1 , 174; HUB. VIII no. 297.
10 PRO. E122 151/69, 70; 76/42, 46 [Hans Schomaker], E 1 2 2 52/43 , 44 (Heyne Yake bringing
salt to lpswich in Mny 1462), and E 1 2 2 52/46 (Deryk Beme, Thomaa Jonneason and Walter
Herrnanssan bringing anlt to lpawich in May 1464]. See alao H UB. X no. 1130.
11 B. Kuake, ed., Quellen zur Ge1chichte de• K ölner Handel• und Ver.l:ehr1 im Mittelalter.
li (Bonn, 1917), no. 1 206#36; „Caapar Weinreichs Danziger Chronik“, Scriptoru Rerum
Pru11icarum. IV ed. T. Hinch et al., (Frankfurt, 1965), 733.
1 1
the prospect of contradual default. While this was true of any commercial
transaction, it likely was a particularly important consideration for the ßay
salt traders freighting salt over long distances for foreign clients. Baltic skipper
Gasper Sculte, for instance, was freighting salt to England in the late 1450s, and
agreed to hau! seventy charges of Bay salt to London for Winchelsea merchant
lohn French, only to discover on his arrival at the Bay that the Englishman
did not have the means to pay for a cargo. Tlte resultant confusion caused the
ship to be delayed at the Bay for eight weeks while Sculte secured a loan on
behalf of his dient. When he eventually did reach the Thames whith his cargo
of salt he was delayed at least another twenty-four days awaitiug payment, and
again obliged to „abide behynd other hulkes of his contre in grete peril“ .12
During the early decades of the period under review !arge quantities of fish
were imported into England by non-denizens to supplenaent the catches of the
domestic fleets off north Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and East Anglia. There were
numerous varieties of pickled, smoked or salted herring, as weil as whiting,
mackerel, and dried or salted cod: staplefish or stockfish. A nurober of the
peculiar names used to identify several other types – „blakfyssh“, „lotfyssh“,
„rokelfyssh“ 13 – shed little light on the species or the way they may have been
packed or preserved. One of the more curious examples comes from the customs
accounts of lpswich for 1466, wherein Harnburg merchants are listed as having
off-loaded several hundred „halffwayfyssh“ .14
Some though not all ports in eastern England were dependent on the
Hanseatic Bergenfahrer – primarily Lübeckers and other Hansards from the
neighbouring Wendish ports – who supplied stockfish through their Norwegian
factory. Until the late-fifteenth century English reliance on thc Bergen
connection could be legally circumvented only through direct trade by special
liceuce15 to lceland. At the northern ports of H ull and N ewcastle, however, fish
cargoes imported by non-denizens were rare, as locaJ fleets, drawing on North
Sea stocks and eventually penetrating the lcelandic trade, evidently were able
to meet regional consumer demand throughout the second half of the century.
12 PRO. C1/20/193. Scultc’s undated petition to Chanccry rcgarding this cpisode is addrcssed
to thc bishop of Winchestcr, Chancellor during 35-38 of Henry VI. He ulso freightcd
Bay aalt to London for nnother English merchant in Decembcr 1467. PRO. E122 203/4.
13 PRO. E122 62/43, 44, 49; E122 10/22, 24, 25, 26.
14 PRO. El22 52/49 (skippcr Tydkyn Millcr off-loading fish and bulk cargo &t lpswich for
Harnburg mcrch1mh on 01 August 1466].
15 -45th Report of the Deput11 Keeper of the Public Record•, appendi:z: 2. (London, 1885), 5;
Calendar of Patent Roll•. 1446-1452. (London, 1910), 156, 430; Calendar of French Roll•
– Henr11 VI: 48th Report of the Dcputy Keeper of the Public Record•, appendi:z: 2. (London,
1887), 385, 386, 395, 405,408,427, 437, 438, 441, 442, 448, 449.
1 2
In particular the Danzig shippers, who otherwise were very important in the
overseas trade of northern England, were not significant in the fish trade there
during the 1450s and 1460s, nor in the foodstuff sector as a whole. Except
for some cargoes of „rye mele“ delivered to Hull in 1 4 6 1 , the Baltic contribution
amounted to a few barreis of beer, eels, and spiced bread occasionally
shipped as subsidiary cargoes with the skippers hauling bulk freight to England.
16 Far greater quantities of imported fish were brought to the Lincolnshire
port of Boston, headquarters for the Hanseatic Bergenfahrer. They imported
vast quantities of herring and Norwegian stockfish, and there was a considerable
trade in herring from the Lowlands as well.17 I n return, Boston offered
occasional grain shipments to the Lowlands, as did the East Anglian ports of
Lynn and Yarmouth. At Yarmouth, local fleets also competed with the Hollandcrs
in a brisk herring import trade, 18 while at Lynn the Hansards were more
significant, especially as the Bergenfahrer gradually abandoned the Hanseatic
fish trade at Boston in the waning years of the century. Shippers from Harnburg
and Danzig eventually supplanted the Lübeckers as the principal Hanseatic fish
importers, and brought herring, eels, sturgeon and Icelandic stockfish seldom
to Boston, but regularly to Lynn. 19 Further south, at Jpswich and London,
denizens, Hansards and alien skippers alike served a flourishing fish import
trade, which toward the end of the century became heavily dependent on the
Icelandic fisheries. 20 As far as exports from England were concerned, other
than a few cross-Channel shipments of Suffalk cheese, butter, English beer and
grain, little in the way of foodstuffs was sent abroad to foreign markets, although
some Gascon wine was transshipped from English ports to the Baltic
along with the regular consignments of English woollens. 21
Shippers from Holland and Zealand were the principal non-Hanseatic carriers
in the trade that exchanged Atlantic salt for Baltic grain. Fleets of four
or five dozen vessels continued to reach Danzig from Brouage and the Bay from
1468 through the early 1470s, and in 1470 they brought so much salt to Danzig
16 PRO. E122 61/11; 62/1-7.
17 PRO. E122 9/68; 10/1, 3-10.
18 PRO. E 1 2 2 1 51 /69, 70, 76, 77; 152/3, 6, 7.
19 PRO. El22 10/22, 24, 26, 26; 1 1 /2, 3, 4, 6, 7 (Boston]; E 1 2 2 96/37, 40, 4 1 ; 97/1-4, 6-9,
17, 18; 98/1 , 2, 6, 7-11 (Lynn].
20 PRO. E122 5 2/42-49, 52, 54, 56, 68 (lpswich); E 1 2 2 76/42, 48; 78/3, 9; 79/12; 80/2;
194/11, 12, 19, 20, 22-26 (London].
21 For exnrnple, shipper Richard Outlnwe departing Lynn for Danzig on 1 2 May 1468 with
n cnrgo of cloth nnd seven barreis of Gnscon wine. PRO. E122 97/9. Danzig shippers also
brought wine home from England. WA PG. 300. 19/3 2 1 v , 28v.
13
that prices feil. 22 Actually, many shippers who sailed to Prussia from the Bay
are easily identifiable as Hollanders, Zealanders and Danzigers, although there
is little doubt that most of them were in fact returning from the Biscay coast.
Many other ships identified as coming from Zealand likely weighed anchor at
the Bay as weil, and had called at Middelburg, Veere or Arnemuiden to revictual
and take on additional cargo. Or, alternatively, they refreighted salt
already stockpiled at the Zealand quays. The roJe of the Zealand carriers i n
the salt trade to Danzig was especially important i n 1472, when a Bay fleet o f
29 vessels was augmented b y 2 6 Zealand and Veere ships also laden at least
partly with salt. 23
The Zealand quays not only functioned as depots, transit centres and
provisioning stations for the Bay salt traders, they also formed the gateway
to the great Brabantine fair towns of Bergen op Zoom and Antwerp and the
vast inland markets they served. Moreover, it was here that the long-distance
carriage trade that linked the Atlantic to the Baltic was transected by the
flourishing cross-Channel trade between England and the Lowlands.
During the middle decades of the fifteenth century a nurober of economic
circumstances combined with political developments to favour the ascendency
of the Brabantine fair towns. Above all, protectionist statutes at Bruges, aimed
specifically at the competitive English textile industry, invited a general shift
to the comparatively unrestrictive markets of Antwerp and Bergen op Zoom,
and the transfer was accelerated when the Bordeaux trade of the merchant
adventurers was pushed northward after 1453. Also, Bruges and her outport
of Sluis were waging a losing battle against the silting of the Zwin estuary, and
were increasingly unable to accommodate the deep-draft vessels from Prussia
and their heavy cargoes. By mid-century cargoes from and for the Flemish staple
were routinely handled at Middelburg, Veere, Arnemuiden and other quays
on the easily navigable Scheldt-Honte channels that also served the seaborne
trade of the great fair towns in Brabant. Bruges‘ susceptibility to civil revolt
after the death of Charles the Bold in 1477 also worked in Antwerp’s favour,
and as political turmoil engulfed Flanders during much of thc 1480s, the flourishing
market and comparative security of the Brabantine ports attracted an
expanding foreign merchant community.24
22 „Caspar Weinreichs Danziger Chronik“, op. eil., 733.
23 WAPG. 300.19/3 1 77r-180v, 181r, 186r-188r. Sevcral wcrc Inden cxclusivcly wilh snlt, ns
wcrc nine ahips reaching Ormzig „uth Amsterdem“ . lbid., 179r-182v. For Henscntic shippera
hauling aalt to nnd from thc Zcalnnd porls sec Dc tol van lcr6ckcroord: Documcnlcn cn
rckcningcn 1312-1572. cd. W. S. Ungu, ’sGrnvenhage, 1939, 310-1 1 , 325.
24 R . Oavis, „The Riac of Anlwcrp nnd ita English Conncclion 1406-1510“, Tradc, Govcrnmcnl
and Economy in Prc-lndu6lrial England. cd. 0. C. Colcmnn nnd A. H. John, (London,
14
Records of the m are fragmentary, however, and especially so since the destruction of the Middelburg
archive in Word War I I . Moreover, there were numerous exemptions from
ducal tolls, which in any event were very often farmed in the fifteenth century.
However, in conjunction with the English and Danzig records, survi ving toll
accounts do offer some insight iuto the maritime trade links of the Lowlands
vü d vi.! England and the Baltic for substantial periods from the 1470s uutil
the end of the century. 25 From the Danzig sources it is evident that the Bay
salt ships continued to call at the Zealand outports on a regular basis. 26 The
Zealand toll records indicate that Hanseatic fish imports to the Lowlands also
were common, as were shipments of beer, especially from Wismar and Hamburg.
27 And, although references to Baltic grain imports in the toll accounts
are few, exhaustive research by M-J. Tits-Dieuaide has shown that the trade
was significant enough to cause speculative price rises whenever shipments were
unavailable. 28 M uch of the vital cross-Channel traffic was geared to the trade in
English woollens, which were marketed at Antwerp and Bergen op Zoom. But
in addition, English cheese, butter and beer were off-loaded in Zealand, as were
occasional cargoes of meat and grain from East Anglia. 29 lndeed, by the end of
the century, if not before, such cargoes had become quite typical. In 1499, for
instance, Lynn merchant Thomas Bose off-loaded cargo at Veere that included
„6 tonneu vleesch, . . . 12 hoet roggen, 14 hoet geersten“, while still other English
venturers from Hull, Boston, Yarmouth and Woolwich brought in several
tons of butter, „lngels hier“ and „Ingels caes“ .30 Virtually nothing in the way
of locally produced agricultural products was sent in the opposite direction to
English markets, except onions and onion seed. 31 But English accounts also
1976), 2-20; HUB. VIII no. 244; HR. (2) IV no. 52; S. T. Bindotf, The Scheldt Que.tion
to 1839. (London, 1945), 34; J. Munro, „Bruges and the abortive staple in English cloth“ ,
Revue Beige de philologie et d’hi•toire, XLIX (1966), 1 1 37-59; H . va.n der Wee, The Growth
of the Antwerp Marlr.et and the European Econom11. (The Hague, 1963), II 7G-83.
25 W. S. Unger, /er•elr.eroord. 260-516.
26 WAPG. 300.19/5-10.
27 Ibid., 332, 386, 387, 482.
28 M-J. Tits-Dieuaide,La formation de• pri􀈑 cirialicr• en Brabant et •iecle. (Brussels, 1975 ), und „The Bnltic Groin Trade and Ceren! Prices in Flnnders ot the
end of the Middle Ag es“, Thc Baltic Grain Trade. ed. W. Minchinton, ( Exeter, 1985 ), 1 1-20.
29 W.S. Unger, Jer•e/r.croord. 287, 293, 334, 344, 388, 491-93, 501.
JU /bid., 504, 505, 508, 613, 615.
31 PRO. E122 96/37 [shippers Lambnrt Domeson and Johann Waltenon bringing onions nnd
other miscelloneous corgo to Lynn in January 1458], E122 52/42 [shlpper Walter Herrnanssan
bringing onion seed to Ipswich for Hanseatic merchants in January 1459] and E122 108/2
15
show that shippers from the Lowlands did bring herring to England, and many
a cargo of Gascon or Rhinish wine, Bay salt, or N orwegian stockfish was transshipped
there from the Zealand quays. This was especially true during periods
when England’s political relations with the Hansards werc strained.32
As with the Danzig records it is possible to identify i n the Lowland sources
a prirnary extension of the inland distribution network, for while the Zealand
water toll accounts offer a picture of the seaborne imports, surviving certificates
for overland traffic to and from Antwerp33 ultimately Iead to the markets of
the Rhineland and points south and east. In addition to irnported salt and the
herring supplied by the Lowland fishing fleets, fish brought by the Lübeckers
and merchants of the Hanse’s North Sea ports was distribnted via the Lowlands
to Cologne and inland centres like Frankfurt. Overland grain shipments,
however, were very rare, as most irnported cereals – from the Baltic and from
England – were intended for local Lowland markets.
The seaborne commercial traffic to aud from Danzig, England and the
Lowlands over the final quarter of the fifteenth century points not so much to
an altered trade framework as an cxpanding cornmodity base within the foodstuff
sector.34 True, the English fish import trade shifted away from dependence
on the Hanseatic comptoir at Bergen as English fteets and ships from Harnburg
and Danzig exploited the Icelandic fisheries. English prescnce at the Danzig
staple remained quite nominal until the 1490s, and in any event the English
traders did not send food products there. The most important development
was the ascendency of Antwerp and the expansion of trade from and through
the Lowlands. For a combination of reasons, both political and economic,
Antwerp and the Zealand outports collectively became the focal point of the
northern European trade and evolved as the principal transit and distribution
conduit for an extended network in which the traffic in foodstuffs played an
increasingly significant roJe. Salt, fish and grain remained central to the trade,
but Baltic and Harnburg shippers began to bring more beer with their grain
and bulk freight cargoes, and English cloth shiprnents were supplemented more
regularly with consignments of cheese and dairy products. As the international
(shipp“r w.,rn“r Brownson bringing Bay sall, Rhinish win.,, „r.,syns“, garlic, onion „““d nnd
oniono lo Newcasll“ in Jnnuary 1489).
32 PRO. E122 cusloms uccounls.
33 Slad,archief Anlwerpen. c.,rl. 1,2; R. Do.,huerd, .,d., Etude1 Anver1oi•os: Documenl1
•ur /e commerce international d Anver1 1.488-1514. 11 (Paris, 1962).
34 lbid.; W. S. Unger, ler•el:eroord. 260-516; WAPG. 30Q.19/5-10; PRO. El22 107/61;
108/1, 2, 4-9 (N.,wcasll.,), E122 63/1, 2, 8 [Hull), E122 10/24-26; 11/3, 4, 8, 14 (Boslon),
E122 152/12 [Yarmoulh), El22 97/17, 18; 98/1, 2, 5, 7-11, 14, 16 (Lynn), E122 52/68; 63/3,
4, 6, 8, 9 (lpswich), E122 73/41; 78/3, 9; 80/2; 194/26 [London].
16
merchant community in Brabant expanded, so too did the selection of commodities
available there. By the end of the century English and Baltic ships
departed the Zealand quays laden with cargoes that typically included lberian
wines, imported fruits, figs, olives, and sugar from Madeira. And all or any
of these commodities, together with Baltic beer and English dairy products,
could augment the fish and salt cargoes being carted overland from Brabant to
Cologne, Frankfurt and points east.
17
MEDIUM AEVUM
QUOTIDIAN UM
newsletter 13
Krems 1988
Herausgeber: Medium Aevum Quotidiamun. Gesellschaft zur Erforschung der materiellen
Kultur des Mittelalters. Körnermarkt 13, A-3500, Ösl(rreich. ·- Für den lnhult verantwortlich
zeichnen die Autoren, ohne deren ausdrückliche Zustimmung jeglicher Nachdruck,
auch in Auszügen, nicht gestaltet ist. – Herstellung: Druck & Kopie Wille • Tel. 587 97 12
Inhaltsverzeichnis/ Contents
Editor’s Preface 4
Terence Scully: Studies in Medieval Food 6
John D. Fudge: Supply and Distribution of Foodstuffs
in Northern Europe 1450-1500 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Mary Frances Zambreno: The Moral Ambiguity of the
Medieval Feast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Liliane Plouvier: La confiserie europeenne au Moyen Age 28
Berichte – Besprechungen – M itteilungen 48
Adressenverzeichnis der Autoren 59
Editor’s Preface
The present volume of Medium A evum Quotidianum-Newsletter is an indirect
result of the editor’s participation at the 23rd International Congress on Medieval
Sturlies at Kalamazoo this May. Among the numerous other papers
delivered there, which have been relevant for historians of material culture and
daily life of the Middle Ages, my attention was particularly drawn to a session
on medieval food organized by Terence Scully from the Department of
French Language and Literature of Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario.
Terence Scully is one of the few specialists on medieval food and cooking
in North America and weil known for his editions of French cookery books and
recipe collections ( cf., e. g., „Du fait de cuisine par M aistre Chiquart 1420“,
Val/e$ia 40, 1985, 130-231; Chiquart 1$ On Cooleery. A Fifteenth-Century Savoyard
Culinary Treatüe. New York, Berne, Frankfurt/M., 1986; The V iandier
of Taillevent, to be published this October by the University of Ottawa Press).
For several years now, he has been organizing sessions on „Foods in the European
Middle Ages“ at Kalamazoo.
When I offered Terence Scully and the speakers of his session – John D.
Fudge, Mary Frauces Zambreno and Liliane Plouvier- to publish the papers in
Medium Aevum Quotidianum-Newsletter, they all immediately accepted. By
that, we get the opportunity to be quickly informed about some important new
research. I would like to thank the authors, particularly for their readiness to
send their manuscripts in such a short time after the conference, in spite of
their many other obligations.
This Newsletter 13 will soon be followed by Newsletter 14, which is dedicated
to the conference „Mensch und Objekt im M ittelalter. Leben – Alllag –
Kultur“, organized by Medium A evum Quotidianum and the Institut für mittelalterliche
Realienkunde Österreichs, taking place in Krems from September
27 to 30, 1988. As in the years 1984 and 1986, we would like to present summaries
of the papers delivered at the conference to inform our members about
the main topics and aspects to be discussed.
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Two gucst editors will be responsible for Newsletter 15. Grethe Jacobsen
and Jens Christian Johansen, both from Copenhagen, have agreed to edit thc
volume, which will be dealing with the research on daily life and material
culture of the Middle Ages in Denrnark. It will be the first of the already
announced volumes concerning research in particular countries. We hope that
this newsletter will be published at the end of 1988.
For 1989, we already have started the preparations for two volumes continuing
our select bibliographies. One volume will be devoted to medieval dress,
the other to medieval ships. We also plan an updated version of the general
select bibliography, which was published as Medium Aevum QuotidianumNewsletter
7/8 in 1986. Numerous new books and articles have come out since
then; a second edition seems to be necessary.
At last, I would like to thank those members of our society who have been
– some of them continuously – contributing to Medium A evum QuotidianumNewsletter.
All others, I again would like to invite to send us articles, reviews,
notes or announcements.
Gerhard Jaritz, editor
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