Business writing in early sixteenth-century Norway Ivar Berg ([email protected]) NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology Note: This is a ost rint version of an article in Merchants of innovation. The Languages of Traders! ed. by Esther#$iriam &agner! Be'ina Beinho( ) Ben *uthwaite! . +,-./0. Boston/Berlin: de 3ruyter $outon, 4/.0. 5*I2 ./..6.61,0+.6/.6/7684#//6. For citation! please consult the published version. Abstract This article discusses the linguistic %ake#u of business writing in late %edieval 1 early %odern Norway and addresses ;uestions of language choice and language %i<ing. The %ost i% ortant foreign language was =ow 3er%an, and the wri'en culture also de ended on =atin; these %ultilingual in?uences are evident in business records and accounting %anuscri ts fro% the early si<teenth century. @ case study of language choice in international co%%uni# cation sheds light on the status of =atin as o osed to the vernaculars! as well as the relationshi between the various vernaculars. *Acial docu%ents are nor%ally wri'en in one language> however! in the %ore infor%al register of ad%inistrative and econo%ical notes we Bnd =atin and =ow 3er%an words and hrases (code#switching and loanwords) in te<ts otherwise wri'en in Scandinavian. This language %i<ing is %ar:edly di(erent fro% that of %ore for%al writings and rovides valuable insights into the general linguistic co% etence of those involved in trade! either as %erchants or scribes. It is suggested that the code#%i<ed infor%al te<ts re resent an unmar:ed! functional code for bilingual scribes. 1 Introduction The resent contribution addresses Norwegian business writing %ainly in the Brst half of the si<teenth century! albeit with so%e re%ar:s on the earlier situation. 9or reasons outlined in Section 4 on the source %aterial! there are very few wri'en traces of %erchant activities fro% this eriod. The title is thus hrased to cover business in a slightly wider sense! including notes and accounts by Norwegians dealing with %erchants who were the%selves of foreign origin. Norway entered a union with 5enmar: in .7+/ (Sweden was also inter%i'ently included in a an#Scandinavian union fro% .7,0 to .647)! with 5enmar: being the stronger and do%inant art. Union %a'ers concerning Norway were wri'en in Norwegian until 186/> fro% that year onwards oAcial roclamations fro% the :ing were only issued in 5anish. This initiated a large#scale language shiC to 5anish starting in high social layers and s reading socially downwards. The language shiC was not co% leted in docu%ents wri'en in re%ote rural areas until the la'er half of the si<teenth century! yet %ost Norwegian writing after around .6// adhered to 5anish %odels! i.e. the language of leading 5anes and the 5anish chancery! although so%e Norwegian traits usually re%ained. The differences between Norwegian and 5anish were - and %ore arguably still are - of course dialectal! and in what follows ‘Scandinavian’ is used as a su erordinate ter%. The =ow 3er%an of the Hanseatic League had beco%e the most i% ortant language of co%%erce in the North Sea area during the =ate $iddle @ges. *ne of the four %ain Fanseatic trading stations was the Kontor in Bergen, where they %aintained a hysical resence for several centuries. The long# ter% language contact with =ow 3er%an had a rofound i% act on the Scandinavian languages and es ecially on the local dialect of Bergen (see e.g. Nesse 4/.4> Gahr .,,,). The old international language =atin re%ained in use as the language of learning and the church! and was generally used in co%%unication with the British Isles. @s will be shown, the vernaculars were by this ti%e re lacing Latin in many do%ains! for instance trade. This is the general bac:dro against which two ;uestions will be addressed in Sections 3 and 4! res ectively2 .. &hat languages did those involved in trade :now! and in what situations did they use the%H 4. Fow did different linguistic varieties interact in the wri'en output of %ercantile activitiesH Section 7 e<a%ines the languages used by traders in the North Sea area, %ainly through a case study of an incident that brought a nu%ber of %erchants and %ariners of Scots! English! and 5utch origin to Norway. Section 8 loo:s %ore closely at the linguistic %ake#u of %anuscri ts wri'en by Norwegians in their dealings with %erchants! focusing on the relationshi between Scandinavian and the i% ortant foreign languages =atin and =ow 3er%an. @s both Dcode choice and code#switching in multilingual societies are de endent on si%ilar sociolinguistic factorsE (Schendl 4/.42 647-648)! it %akes sense to co% are code choice in Section 7 with code %i<ing in Section 8. The two pers ectives are brought together in a concluding discussion in Section 5. 2 Sources Preserved docu%ents fro% %edieval Norway are ublished in the series Diplomatarium Norvegicum (5N)! so far in 27 volu%es. Most of the% deal with legislation and a fairly restricted trade! that of land ownershi . These docu%ents were %ore i% ortant as titles to the land than as art of the trade act itself! and are thus connected to the legal language and follow established legal for%ulae. "<cavations in Norwegian towns! es ecially Bergen, have unearthed %any runic inscri tions on wood dealing with %a'ers of trade! ointing to the develo %ent of a %erchant literacy (Fagland 4/..> Gohnsen .,+0). $any inscri tions contain names! obviously used as ownershi labels! and a large nu%ber of tally stic:s found in Bergen also oint to co%%ercial activities (Fagland 4/..2 76). Si% le tally stic:s used for counting have a long tradition, and the line skáro á skíði Dcut in woodE in the Eddic oe% !luspá (stanza 4/) robably refers to it. Gohnsen (.,+0) takes the evidence of runic inscri tions as roof that %erchants used runes on wood for their ur oses! whereas te<ts in the =atin al habet on arch%ent were restricted to legal %atters and the church. *n the other hand! the nu%ber of inscri tions suggests that literacy - or DrunacyE - was indeed wides read among %erchants and city dwellers in general. @s trade became %ore co% le<! one would e< ect that %erchant literacy develo ed beyond the li%its of runic writing. There are! however! few traces of wri'en %aterial by %erchants in the Norwegian sources. *ne would for instance e< ect the larger %erchants to %ake accounts of inco%es and e< enses. There is no doubt that accounting was of growing i% ortance in oAcial ad%inistration! as we have %any docu%ents either as:ing for an account or stating that one has been duly %ade! although the actual accounting docu%ents have rarely been reserved. The same ap lies to writing in connection with foreign trade2 there is the occasional recei t, but not %uch %ore. It is telling of the source situation that %ost infor%ation on Norwegian trade and other connections with the British Isles during the $iddle @ges is found in English Iatent Kolls and si%ilar sources ( ublished in vols. LIL-LL of 5N). 9oreign trade increasingly came under the control of the Fanseatic =eague and to a lesser degree British %erchants! leaving Norwegians to conduct only e'y do%estic trade! where there was robably less need for writing in any case. Norwegian %erchants sailing to "ngland %ostly disap ear fro% the English records around the mid#fourteenth century! albeit with late e<ce tions such as Oluf Henri:sson fro% TMnsberg, who sailed to Hull in 17,4 (5N XIL! no. 6.0). The source situation changes around .6//. $ost of the docu%ents rinted in 5N dealing with trade belong to the $unich Oollection! the archives of Ping Ohristian II (reigned .6.7-47) and @rchbisho *lav Engelbre:tsson (.647-70). Both ?ed to the =ow Oountries due to olitical conflicts and brought their archives with the%> the two archives were %erged and later surfaced in Bavaria and hence got their resent name. Because of this s ecial situation, draCs! notes! accounts! transcri ts etc have been reserved until today! whereas in other cases docu%ents of li%ited interest for osterity have been lost in the course of ti%e. @rchival ractices %ust be at least artly res onsible for the lac: of wri'en material Drelated to the activities carried out by merchants and trades%en’ fro% the Late Middle Ages (Fagland 2/..2 2,). @ few %edieval cadastres are reserved! registers of land and revenue. This te<t ty e! though not necessarily dealing with trade as such! shows si%ilar linguistic traits as other wri'en %aterial serving an ad%inistrative or econo%ical ur ose2 stereoty ical for% (lists) and ele%ents of language %i<ing not found in le'ers or oAcial writing. Such te<ts will thus be brie?y %entioned below. 3 Language choice in international communication @ famous assage fro% the thirteenth#century Konungs skuggs"á QThe Ping’s $irrorR! an educational boo: in the "uro ean specula tradition, states that a %erchant should ‘learn all languages! and Brst of all =atin and French! because those tongues are %ost widely :nown’.. 5uring the Figh $iddle @ges! =atin also served as the ad%inistrative language of %ost "uro ean states as well as the language of the Catholic Church.