Welcome to the weblog about research into the late medieval and early modern international trade on the North Atlantic islands. It investigates the economic and cultural connections of merchants from Northern German cities, such as Bremen and Hamburg with the North Atlantic islands of Iceland, Shetland and Faroe during the 15th to 17th centuries. The research is based at the German Maritime Museum (Deutsches Schifffahrtsmuseum) in Bremerhaven in cooperation with the University of Highlands and Islands in Orkney. The research is carried out by four team members, each with their individual research objectives and disciplinary background. With this blog we want to provide information about the current state of our research, and create a platform to make available results and new knowledge. Read more...
Not from Bavaria but preparations of two 16th century stockfish recipes from Mainz and Gent. Photo: Bart Holterman.
Andreas Pehl, journalist from Bavaria researched traces of stockfish consumption traditions in Bavaria and created two radio podcasts. Part two is concerned with the recipes in medieval and early modern cookbooks and will be broadcasted on the 12th of April 2025 by the Bavarian radio station Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bayern 2) in the series “radioWissen”: Stockfisch in Franken – Der Kabeljau und die Bayern
including interviews with Jörg Vogel, Klaus Adelt, Bjørg Helen Nøstvold, Hans Christian Küchelmann and Bart Holterman.
Stockfish drying on the Lofoten, Norway. Photo: Wikimedia Commons / Christoph Strässler
Andreas Pehl, journalist from Bavaria researched traces of stockfish consumption traditions in Bavaria and created two radio podcasts. Part one is concerned with the history of stockfish imports and will be broadcasted on the 5th of March by the Bavarian radio station Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bayern 2) in the series “radioWissen”: Der Stockfisch – Eine geschichtsträchtige Delikatesse
including interviews with Klaus Adelt, Sören Affeldt, Bart Holterman, Hans Christian Küchelmann, Bjørg Helen Nøstvold.
Within this years Low German Language Festival “Platt Land Fluss” (Flat Land River) the Institut für Niederdeutsche Sprache (INS, Institute for Low German Language) organises a Low German Science Slam entitled “Höör to – fraag na – weet Bescheed!” (Listen – ask – know) on the 16th of September in Bremen.
Two lectures will present outputs of our research into Hanseatic North Atlantic trade respectively the projects “Between the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea” and “Looking in from the Edge” (LIFTE):
Mike Belasus Was macht die Kuh auf dem Schiff!? Wie uns eine Auseinandersetzung mit Todesfolge vor 466 Jahren Details über die Konstruktion alter Bremer Handelsschiffe verrät [What does the Cow on the Ship!? How a Quarrel with fatal Consequences 466 Years ago reveals Details about the Construction of ancient Bremen Merchant Ships]
Hans Christian Küchelmann Der geheimnisvolle isländische Hase, der sich in einen Socken verwandelte [The enigmatic Icelandic Hare, which turned into a Sock]
On the 18th of May 2023 the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) included 17 documents related to the Hanseatic League into the register “Memory of the World” (MOW). The documents stem from archives in six countries (Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Latvia and Poland). Documents from German archives are located in Braunschweig, Bremen, Hamburg, Köln and Lübeck. Particularly relevant for the Hanseatic North Atlantic trade is a trade privilege given by the Norwegian king to the town council of Bremen and the Baltic ports signed on the 6th of July 1294, the original of which is kept in the Staatsarchiv Bremen (signature StAB 1-Z 1294-Juli-6, see below). Likewise important are the legislative records of the Hanseatic League (Hanserezesse), which contain a lot of debates and decisions related to North Atlantic trade. The original copies of the Bremen town council from 1389-1517 are part of the MOW now as well.
Over the past years, our research on the German trade with the North Atlantic islands has mainly focused on the exchange with Iceland. In the case of Shetland, however, much written and archaeological material exists which is of great potential to help uns understand the operation of international trade on the North Atlantic island. We therefore, we applied for a new grant in order to continue our work with Shetland. The project also addresses the question whether Orkney, which shares many characteristics with the other islands but hardly ever appears in the written sources, was also visited by German merchants in search of dried fish and if they did, to what extent and how this trade was organised. Finally, we will broaden our view to include other international (English, Dutch, Norwegian) traders in the area.
We are happy to announce that our team, together with other archaeologists and historians from the University of the Highlands and Islands Archaeology Institute and the University of Lincoln have been awarded a grant of c. 900.000 Euros from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the German Research Foundation (DFG) to do this. Over the next three years, the members of the project “Looking in from the edge (LIFTE)” will look at a number of early modern documents, objects from archaeological excavations and also conduct fieldwork in Orkney and Shetland. This also means that we will continue blogging on Fish and Ships for more stories and short research reports about pre-modern trade in the North Atlantic. Stay tuned!
Here are the links to our announcements in English and in German, with further information.
