... The Man of Many Devices, Who Wandered Full Many Ways ... Festschrift in Honor of Jänos M. Bak Edited by Baläzs Nagy and Marcell Sebök ,,,~ ~., CEUPRESS 4!~ Central European University Press Budapest TRANSCONTINENTAL TRADE FROM EAST,CENTRAL EUROPE TO WESTERN EUROPE (FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES) Baläzs Nagy In 1335, a rare and almost unique event happened in the history of medieval Europe, Three monarchs of East-Central Europe assembled for a "royal summit" in Viscgräd, not far from Buda, in Hungary. At this meeting the most influential figures of four- teenth-century East-Central Europe were called together, and the most important political, dynastic, and economic questions were discussed. Charles Robert of Anjou. the king of Hungary, welcomed his Polish and Bohemian colleagues Casimir III and John of Luxemburg. The latter was accompanied by his son and heir, Charles, the Moravian margrave and the future emperor Charles IV.' In the 1330s, the three countries and the whole of East-Central Europe were enter- ing a dynamic period of growth. Bohemia had been under the rule of the Luxemburg dynasty since 1310. John of Luxemburg (1310-46) had seized the throne after the extinction of the national dy- nasty of the Przemyslids. Previously Wenceslas 11(1278-1305) had made an attempt to unite the countries of East-Central Europe under the rule of his dynasty. His son, Wenceslas Ill, also inherited the Hungarian and Polish crowns in addition to the Bohemian crown, but due to his premature death in 1306 the union broke down. Due to a lack of capable monarchs, Poland and Hungary were in political disarray in the first years of the fourteenth century. The Polish kingdom was divided into numerous independent duchies, and some parts of it were under Bohemian control. This was the situation when Wenceslas 11was elected and crowned as king of Poland in 1300. His death was followed by the crowning of Wladislaw l Lokietek (1:~06-:~:~). He and his son Casimir III (1333-70), who succeeded him, ruled Poland in the next six decades and led the country to its medieval flourishing. Wladislaw united the dismembered territories of Poland and his son acquired the duchies of Halicz and Vladimir, and later on Masovia. Both of them were forced to acknowledge the consolidating power of the Teutonic Order in Pornerania and the Baltic area. The last king of the ArpAd dynasty, the ruling family of Hungary for over three hundred years, died in 1301, and the country thereafter fell into political chaos. Wenceslas Ill, the heir of the Bohemian crown, was elected as Hungarian king, but the shortness of his reign did not allow time for a solution to the problem. The situa- tion was resolved in 1308 with the election of Charles Robert of Anjou (1308-42). lie restored the royal power and gradually brought the whole territory of the country under his administration. The royal finances were soon reorganized and income to the treasury significantly increased. Under the rule of John of Bohemia and his successor, Charles IV (1346-78), Bo- hemia entered its medieval golden age. Charles intended to make Bohemia and Pra- 348 BALAzs NAGY gue the center of his empire. He acquired Brandenburg as a new addition to his "Hausmacht." 2 The prosperity of East-Central Europe in the fourteenth century was determined by political and economic realities. In respect of politics, it is important to realize that these countries were connected by dynastic and political alliances. Until the Hussite wars there were no major military conflicts in this region, so East-Central Europe could guarantee peace and safety for economic activity. Due to family relations again, Louis of Hungary (1342-82) became the king of Po- land after the death of his uncle, Casimir, in 1370. This was the next attempt in this century to unite particular countries in East-Central Europe into an empire, this time under the rule of the Anjou dynasty. But this scheme failed as well. Louis bequeathed his empire to his two daughters, Mary inheriting Hungary, Hedwig (Jadwiga) Poland, and so the "empire" was divided. Both of them married descendants of well-known dynasties who were looking forward to a promising political career, Sigismund of Luxemburg and Jagiello of Lithuania.' Thus the plans for the unification of Poland and Hungary under the rule of the Anjou family failed to materialize. In economic terms, a common factor uniting Bohemia and Hungary was the in- crease in the mining of silver and gold. The discovery of silver mines in Bohemia (at Jihlava [Iglau] and later in Kutnä Hora [Kuttenberg]) and the gold mines in the northern parts of Hungary (present-day Slovakia) resulted in an exceptional concen- tration of financial power in East-Central Europe. One example will suffice. In 1344, the queen mother of Hungary, Elizabeth, vis- ited Naples to help with the family problems of her son Andrew. Her other son, King Louis of Hungary, provided Elizabeth with the necessary allowance. This amounted to 27,000 marks of pure silver and 17,000 marks of pure gold. Louis later sent his mother another 4,000 marks of gold. So the queen mother had at her disposal ap- proximately 5,250 kilograms of gold and 6,750 kilograms of silver." According to reliable estimates, the yearly gold production of Hungary in the middle of the four- teenth century was between 2,000 and 2,500 kilograms, the highest in Europe. Hun- garian gold production was the most significant in this period, disregarding the gold mining in Africa, and possibly reached fifty percent of world production.> At the Visegräd summit the three kings made every effort to settle the existing po- litical conflicts among their countries. Casimir III surrendered Silesia to John, the Bohemian king, who had previously conquered parts of it. John in return recognized the rule of Casimir in Poland and resigned his claim to the Polish throne. Charles Robert, the Hungarian king, secured the right of his son, Louis, to inherit the Polish throne. The conflict between Poland and the Teutonic Knights was also discussed. However, the most important matters discussed were problems relating to the economic, and above all the commercial, connections among the countries. The three kings were allied against the staple regulations in Vienna. This city had received a privilege in 1312 which obliged foreign merchants travelling through Austria to stop there and offer their goods for sale. Before 1312, the main commercial routes from Germany to East-Central Europe led through Vienna. The Luxemburgs, the Bohemian royal family of that time, were hostile to the Habsburgs. Thus they made every effort to find allies and to create a league against the monopoly of Vienna. A determined and well-considered political program commenced thereafter to re- organize the economic map of East-Central Europe. It was carried out by way of royal TRANSCONTINENTAL TRADE FROM EAST-CENTRAl EUROPE TO WESTERN EUROPE 349 decisions and privileges and by mutual agreements between the main commercial cities as well. In the year following the Visegräd summit a treaty was drawn up at a meeting between Charles Robert and John of Luxemburg. They fixed the preferred line of the main commercial route connecting Hungary and Moravia and set limits on the customs dues. The agreement was prepared on the basis of the evidence of the citizens of Brno (Brünn) and Trnava (Nagyszombat), the two main towns en route. The customs levied in these cities on the goods of merchants were much more favor- able to those cities than to cities on the other routes.s The kings' intention had be- come obvious from the privilege of 1336 which also favored foreign merchants, espe- cially those coming from Bohemia.' But it was not only a single action. John, the king of Bohemia, informed the city of Frankfurt that the "Stapelrecht" (right of sta- ple), up to that time in Vienna, was being transferred to Brno. He ordered every mer- chant coming from Austria, Hungary, and Poland to bring their goods to Brno, and promised to protect them in his country.! The traditional route of western trade ran principally from the South-Cerman me- tropolis of Nuremberg in the valley of the Danube towards East-Central Europe, via Regensburg, Passau, Vienna, Bratislava (PozsonyjPreßburg) and Buda. In the 1330s, the Bohemian, Hungarian, and Polish rulers tried to develop an alternative northern route, through Prague, Brno, Trnava, Esztergom, and Buda. It bypassed Vienna and connected Hungary and Bohemia, and also made trade with Poland easier. The archbishop of Esztergom, the owner of significant customs rights on the Da- nube, issued a privilege in 1337 to Bohemian, Swabian and Flemish merchants and to those who came from the Rhineland. He reduced the usual customs dues, since trade coming through Bohemia was very favorable to Hungary. The privilege was supported by the merchants of Mainz, Prague, Nuremberg, and Augsburg, who were obviously concerned in these matters because of their business connections." Many merchants frequented this commercial route, and not only from the neigh- boring countries. According to a privilege of Louis I (1345), the "mercatores de Sancta Colonia et de Ciuitate Hay ac de alijs partibus Reni' (that is, the merchants from Co- logne, Huy and from the Rhineland) obtained the same rights and grants as the mer- chants of Bohemia and Moravia had.t? In the next decades these terms were extended to people coming from Nuremberg and Prague (1357), from Wrodaw (German: Breslau) and Cheb (1365), and from Regensburg (1369).11 The role of the South-German cities, and especially that of Nuremberg, was deci- sive in the commercial connections of East-Central Europe.