A road less travelled: Bergen, Norway

Last month an enjoyable sea cruise was undertaken to explore Norway’s west coast fjords. Norway has more than 1,000 distinct fjords – did you know that the longest of these very deep waterways, Sognefjord, stretches more than 200km inland?

Our first stop was Norway’s second city of Bergen, known as the gateway to the fjords, and a UNESCO World Heritage site due to its colourful, well-preserved merchants’ houses on Bryggen wharf – a Hanseatic trading point.

This is our immediate connection with the City of London which was also once a Hanseatic League trading point. The Hanseatic League’s London base, the Steelyard, was a significant trading centre from the 13th to 17th centuries, located near modern-day Cannon Street station. This walled community housed German merchants and served as a major commercial hub for the League. Although the original buildings were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, its legacy remains in the area’s place names, such as Steelyard Passage, and Hanseatic Walk. More can be read here: https://www.thehistoryoflondon.co.uk/the-german-hanse-in-london-and-the-steelyard/

The Hanseatic League, or Hanse, was an economic powerhouse in England. It was formed by a confederation of merchants from Northern Germany and its presence in London was crucial for trade. At the eventual decline of the League, its London site was sold to the South-Eastern Railway Company in 1852, with Cannon Street station built on the location.

The Hanse was the most important group of traders in northern Europe during the Middle Ages. It began as a trading association; a confederation or alliance of individual merchants who traded overseas. Its principal aims were to obtain privileges and protect its members’ interests (such as against burdensome taxes and duties) in places where they traded, and against piracy. The preferential customs’ rates the Hanse negotiated with medieval English monarchs, and the wool and cloth it could export, attracted the group to England, with London eventually becoming its local headquarters. It remained as one the most important groups of merchants in London until the late 16th century.

During the second half of the 14th century membership of the Hanse became restricted to merchants of particular market towns, and it was the towns themselves that were thereafter the members, although the emphasis of their interest remained solely commercial. It was never a sovereign or political body, and the individual towns owed allegiance to different kingdoms. There were generally about 70 member towns, mostly, but not restricted to, German-speaking areas. Non-Germanic member towns included Novgorod (a Swedish area in the Middle Ages, now in Russia) and Riga (now the modern-day capital of Latvia). Towns joined or departed from the Hanse according to their interests, activity and needs, or on very rare occasions were expelled. The Hanse had no permanent officials, but matters were debated by a central ‘diet’ or assembly of members that met, when necessary, usually at the inland port of Lübeck. Other member towns were Cologne and Hamburg.

Bergen was a major Hanseatic city, serving as a crucial trading post where the Hanseatic League established one of its four major trading offices to control the trade of stockfish and other commodities. Bergen was an extraterritorial, semi-autonomous quarter dominated by Hanseatic merchants from 1360 until 1754. The historic Bryggen wharf, pictured above, was the centre of this Hanseatic activity.

Main trading routes of the Hanseatic League