The Hanseatics in Southern Europe: Structure and Payment of German Long-Distance Shipping, 1630–1700

Abstract

German research on early modern maritime history was for many years (roughly 1960–1990) and in many regards disconnected from Anglo-American debates on economic development and the role of sea-borne trade, both of which gained pace strongly from the 1960s onwards.¹ One of the problems this has caused will be addressed in this chapter. The intimate connection of the ‘northern invasion’ of the Mediterranean with Dutch and English shipping generates the impression that only these two nations were able to master the challenges of long-distance commerce over the oceans after 1590. Not only is the impression of an economically backward German maritime world furthered by such an image.² More problematic, the realities of maritime trade in the early modern age become thereby partly distorted, and fundamental problems or options for the many actors involved are less understandable to us. Central Europe figures in many historical works mostly as a rather passive hinterland of the Dutch Republic, when in fact German (in the seventeenth century) and Scandinavian skippers (in the eighteenth century) were often strong competitors of the Dutch in connecting the northern European world to western and southern European waters.

I would like to thank the anonymous readers, the participants in the ‘Working Lives Between the Deck and the Dock’ conference and, especially, Maria Fusaro for their comments on this paper.