Bart Holterman The Fish Lands Bart Holterman The Fish Lands German trade with Iceland, Shetland and the Faroe Islands in the late 15th and 16th Century ISBN 978-3-11-065165-2 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-065557-5 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-065182-9 DOI https://10.1515/9783110655575 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Library of Congress Control Number: 2020936382 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2020 Bart Holterman, published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston. The book is published with open access at www.degruyter.com. Cover Image: Olaus Magnus’ Carta Marina (1539), Section A, Iceland Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com Preface The current work was defended as a PhD thesis at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Hamburg in 2019. The supervisors were Jürgen Sarnowsky (University of Hamburg) as primary and Carsten Jahnke (University of Copenhagen) as secondary. The work you are reading now is a slightly revised version of this thesis, with minor points added or corrected, and an updated bibliography. However, the publication of this book marks only the end of a process that was set in course long before I started to work on the subject. At an interdisciplin- ary conference about the medieval North Atlantic trade in Avaldsnes, Norway, in 2013, the idea came up that it would be good if someone would compile an exten- sive overview of the German trade with the North Atlantic, based on historical written sources. This idea was included in the project “Between the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea: Interdisciplinary Studies of the Hanse”,whichwasledby Natascha Mehler, funded by the Leibniz Association, and took place at the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven from 2015 to 2018. It included a PhD position for a historian, at which point I entered the process. It has been a great pleasure to work as part of this wonderfully inspiring in- terdisciplinary project, and my sincerest gratitude goes out to Natascha Mehler, whose advice and feedback on the texts, enthusiasm for the North Atlantic is- lands, and interdisciplinary research have been incredibly helpful. The same goes for the other team members, Mike Belasus and Hans Christian Küchelmann, and associated researchers Philipp Grassel and Florian Dirks, for their ideas and comments from different perspectives. For the archival work in various countries, I owe thanks to Adolf Hofmeister, Hrefna Róbertsdóttir, and Símun Arge, who acquainted me with the archives and the sources, as well as Brian Smith and John Ballantyne, who have been very helpful in providing me with and helping me to understand the sources written in sixteenth-century Scots. Alessia Bauer and Philip Lavender helped me with the Icelandic sources. Of great value has also been the work of Inga Lange, who transcribed large parts of the donation register of the confraternity of St Anne, as well as John Nicholls and Hans Martin Horst for programming and entering data into the source database HANSdoc. Conversations with many people have helped me to sharpen my thoughts and have provided valuable input, both related to content and on a more gen- eral level. Among others (in alphabetical order by first name): Angela Ling Huang, Árni Daníel Júliússon, Christian Ashauer, Christian Manger, Christoph Dartmann, Daniel McNaughton, Esther Sahle, Helgi Þorláksson, Kevin Martin, Kilian Baur, Mark Gardiner, Pétur Kristjánsson, Philipp Höhn, Sarah Lentz, and Open Access. © 2020 Bart Holterman, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110655575-202 VI Preface Vilborg Ísleifsdóttir-Bickel. Special thanks go out to Rolf de Weijert-Gutman, for his input on digital editing and for giving me good advice I chose to ignore. Graphical support was provided by Sophie Holterman, who designed the timeline of harbours in Iceland and the Faroes, and Natalie Lehbrecht-Zollgreve, who helped with the creation of the maps. My gratitude goes out to Helgi Michelsen, Armgarð Weihe, and Laurie Goodlad for accommodation, transport, and guidance in the Faroes and Shetland. Catering was provided for a large part by the cafés Lisboa, Karton, Frida, Heinrich and Pour pour in Bremen, who should thank me indeed, as I don’t want to know how much money I spent on coffee and cakes during the writing of this thesis. Finally, I would like to thank my colleagues at the German Maritime Museum and flatmates past and present, as well as my dear family and friends for their continued mental support. And last but certainly not least, thank you, my dearest Nina, for enduring me. Contents Preface V List of Tables XIII List of Figures XV Abbreviations XVII 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Sources 6 1.2 State of the art 15 1.3 Methods, theory, and terminology 19 Part I: Historical background 2 Economic background: Traded commodities 27 2.1 Fish 27 2.1.1 Stockfish 27 2.1.1.1 Consumption 28 2.1.1.2 Production 33 2.1.2 Fisheries in the North Atlantic 37 2.1.3 Salted fish 41 2.1.4 Other fishes and fish oil 44 2.2 Sulphur 46 2.3 Butter 47 2.4 Falcons 49 2.5 Other North Atlantic commodities 51 2.6 Commodities brought from Germany to the North Atlantic 54 2.7 Price developments 57 3 Political background: The Hanse, urban centres, and foreign authorities 61 3.1 Skattlands of the Norwegian king 61 3.2 Bergen and the Hanseatic Kontor 64 3.3 The English century 70 VIII Contents 3.4 Direct German trade with the North Atlantic 76 3.4.1 Beginnings before 1468 76 3.4.2 The attitude of the Hanseatic Diets 81 3.4.3 Conflicting interests within the Hanse after 1468 84 3.4.4 The sixteenth century: Gradual Hanseatic acceptance 88 3.5 Policy of the Danish-Norwegian crown 93 3.5.1 Developments up until the Count’s Feud 93 3.5.2 The reformation and mercantilism in Iceland 98 3.5.3 The 1561 sulphur monopoly 103 3.5.4 The licence trade in Iceland 107 3.5.5 Influence of the nobility 116 3.5.6 The Danish trade monopoly in 1602 120 3.6 Hamburg and the Faroe Islands 124 3.7 Scottish rule in Shetland after 1469 131 Part II: The situation on the North Atlantic islands 4 Relations between German merchants and islanders in the North Atlantic 139 4.1 Sailing to the North Atlantic 139 4.1.1 Ships and crews 139 4.1.2 The voyage 141 4.1.3 Kaupsetning 148 4.1.4 Life on board and in the trading stations 150 4.2 The credit system 154 4.2.1 The credit system in Bergen 155 4.2.2 The credit system in Iceland and the Faroes 158 4.2.3 Credit in Shetland 164 4.3 Networks 167 4.3.1 Providing services to customers 168 4.3.2 The role of the winter stay 171 4.3.3 Islanders as passengers, guests, and crew members 174 4.3.4 German barber-surgeons in Iceland 175 4.3.5 Family connections with islanders 178 4.3.6 Islanders as trading partners 181 Contents IX 4.4 Relations with the local authorities 185 4.4.1 Iceland 185 4.4.1.1 Germans as office-holders in Iceland 189 4.4.2 The Faroe and Shetland Islands 194 4.5 Relations with the church 197 5 Harbours and trading places 207 5.1 Harbours in Iceland 208 5.2 Harbours in Shetland 215 5.3 Harbours in the Faroe Islands 221 5.4 Booths and other buildings 221 5.4.1 Construction 225 5.4.2 The archaeological evidence 228 5.4.3 The German church in Hafnarfjörður 233 6 Overview of harbours in Iceland 237 6.1 Vestmannaeyjar 237 6.2 Southwestern Iceland: Reykjanes peninsula and surroundings 239 6.2.1 Eyrarbakki / Þorlákshöfn 239 6.2.2 Grindavík 243 6.2.3 Básendar 246 6.2.4 Keflavík 249 6.2.5 Vatnsleysa / Straumur 250 6.2.6 Hafnarfjörður 252 6.2.7 Hólmur (Reykjavík) 256 6.2.8 Hvalfjörður / Akranes 259 6.3 Western Iceland: Snæfellsnes 261 6.3.1 Búðir 261 6.3.2 Arnarstapi 263 6.3.3 Ríf 265 6.3.4 Grundarfjörður 267 6.3.5 Kumbaravogur / Landey 271 6.3.6 Nesvogur / Stykkishólmur 275 6.3.7 Flatey 279 6.4 The Westfjords 281 6.4.1 Barðaströnd: Patreksfjörður, Tálknafjörður, and Arnarfjörður 282 X Contents 6.4.2 Ísafjarðarsýsla: Dýrafjörður / Ísafjörður / Álftafjörður 285 6.5 Northern harbours 288 6.5.1 Skagaströnd and Hrútafjörður 288 6.5.2 Skagafjörður (Hofsós) 290 6.5.3 Eyjafjörður (Akureyri) 291 6.5.4 Húsavík 293 6.5.5 Þórshöfn 294 6.6 Eastfjords 295 6.6.1 Vopnafjörður 296 6.6.2 Reyðarfjörður 298 6.6.3 Berufjörður 298 6.6.4 Hornafjörður 304 Part III: The situation in Germany 7 The organisation of the North Atlantic trade 309 7.1 Institutions in the North Atlantic trade: Societies and confraternities 309 7.1.1 Hamburg 311 7.1.1.1 The community of Iceland merchants and their relation to the city’s merchant societies 312 7.1.1.2 The confraternity of St Anne of the Iceland Merchants 316 7.1.2 Bremen 323 7.1.3 Lübeck and Oldenburg 327 7.2 Trading companies 329 7.2.1 The maschup 331 7.2.2 Shipowners 337 7.2.3 The role of the skipper 339 7.2.4 Seafaring merchants or commissioned trade? 343 7.2.5 Factors and Danish merchants 347 7.2.6 Case study: the network of Luder Ottersen 350 7.3 Conflict resolution 355 7.4 The communities of Islandfahrer: Actors, social structure, and social position 359 7.4.1 Careers of merchants and skippers 362 7.4.2 Family ties 364 7.4.3 Women in the North Atlantic trade 367 Contents XI 7.4.4 Social stratification within the community