Maritime Trade in the Baltic Sea Region

Trade in the Baltic Sea region was profitable yet volatile. For centuries, the Hanseatic League sought to monopolise it and, for merchants with access, to establish legal frameworks and a network of friendly ports and trading posts to make trade predictable and profits secure. But storms, ship losses, war, disease and political turmoil always posed risks.

In the Middle Ages, merchants sailed from port to port to buy and sell goods. The risks of these endeavours were high, and the loss of ships, cargo and lives was ever-present. To spread risk and reduce costs, merchants stopped financing their own ships and instead paid for transport. Within the Hanseatic League’s network of large Kontors (offices in London, Bruges, Bergen and Novgorod) and small trading posts in other cities, merchants soon stopped accompanying their goods. Instead, they maintained a permanent presence, a subordinate merchant or servant, in the cities they traded with.

As the League declined, other parties gained access to the Baltic Sea market. First and foremost among the new merchant powers in the Baltic were the Dutch. Grain and salt were bulk goods, and modern Dutch ships, developed in the sixteenth century, could carry more cargo at lower cost. Samuel Kiechel noted the large number of merchant ships entering and leaving the Baltic Sea when he was in Helsingør on the Øresund.

In Kiechel’s case, the ship’s owner also appears to have been the merchant who tried to sell the salt. Salt was an important and lucrative trade commodity in the early modern period. It was one of the few ways to preserve food. Initially, most of the salt traded in the Baltic Sea region came from Lüneburg in northern Germany. Kiechel had visited the city and seen the saltworks. But in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, French sea salt from the Atlantic coast became a popular alternative because it was cheaper.

Samuel Kiechel wrote that the recipient of the salt in Reval refused to accept it. He might have gone bankrupt or at least no longer had the money to pay for it. Alternatively, he may have been unhappy with the salt’s quality. The risk fell to the ship’s owner, who had just sailed all the way to Reval for nothing. Every further day at sea cut into his profits, and now he was doubling back along the coast. The closer he got to Lüneburg, the lower the price would be.

Navigating the Baltic Coast

Maritime trade was central to the Baltic Sea region. Many ships sailed from west to east each year. Yet despite the high volume of traffic, each ship’s safe passage depended on many factors. One crucial factor was the helmsman’s and crew’s experience. In the sixteenth century, sailors navigated the Baltic Sea largely by following sailing instructions, using coastal landmarks and measuring depth to avoid running aground. The new instruments used by the Portuguese, Spanish and other seafaring nations were not really necessary in the comparatively narrow confines of the Baltic. In contrast to Atlantic voyages, or even the Mediterranean, a ship sailing the Baltic Sea was never far from the coast.

Naval charts were a relatively late introduction to the region. To accommodate the prevalent use of landmarks, many charts included drawings of coastal profiles. I have previously mentioned Lucas Jansz. Waghenaer and his two collections of naval charts, the “Spieghel der zeevaerdt” (1584) and “Thresoor der zeevaert” (1592).³ The following map from the “Spieghel der zeevaerdt” shows the coast between Königsberg (Kaliningrad) and Danzig (Gdańsk).

Samuel Kiechel wrote that the entrance to Königsberg was called the Nehrung. A ‘Nehrung’ is a long, narrow sandbar that separates a lagoon from the sea. Two ‘Nehrungen’ lie on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea: the Curonian Spit, which separates the Curonian Lagoon from the sea north of the large Sambia peninsula, and, south of it, the Vistula Spit, which forms a barrier to the Vistula Lagoon. Both lagoons could be entered via a narrow strait.

The owner of Kiechel’s ship wanted to sail into the Vistula Lagoon because, at its northern end, the Pregel River (Pregolya) led to the harbour of Königsberg. The map shows the narrow entrance and includes information on water depth. In the upper-left corner is a coastal profile of the area, and the Dutch text above it reads: The rising sands (or rising coastline) near Loockste, situated north of the Königsberg Diep. The Königsberg Diep is the strait into the Vistula Lagoon (Strait of Baltiysk). In German, it is called Pillauer Tief after the town of Pillau (Baltijsk) on its northern shore (Pillo on the map).

Loockste, in the coastal profile and on the map, was Lochstedt Castle. The Teutonic Order founded the castle in the thirteenth century during its conquest of Prussia. However, once the better-located Königsberg was founded in 1255, Lochstedt had no meaningful function and fell into decay. It nevertheless survived until after the Second World War, and its remains were demolished in the 1960s. In the early modern period, it seemingly served as a landmark for ships entering the Vistula Lagoon. On the other side of the Königsberg Diep, some burnt trees (“brande boomen”) served as a landmark.

The strait is not actually visible in the profile because the opposite coastline of the Lagoon was too close. To give sailors another landmark to establish their position, a place called “Pobeten” appears on the left side of the profile. However, the map shows no such location nearby. Pobethen (Romanowo, Oblast Kaliningrad) was not on the coast but about thirty-five kilometres inland, north-east of the strait. It was actually closer to the north coast of Sambia. However, Pobethen had a church from the fourteenth century that was considered the largest village church in Sambia. Its tower could be seen from far away. Apparently, from a position close to the Königsberg Diep, the Pobethen church tower was visible between two low hills. With some knowledge of the area and the use of lead and line, an experienced helmsman could use this position to approach the strait and sail into the Lagoon.

Nevertheless, as Kiechel mentioned, the Königsberg Diep remained dangerous to navigate, and the ship’s helmsman did not feel confident enough to proceed. According to Samuel, the helmsman said he was no longer familiar with the area. This familiarity included knowledge of landmarks, currents, depths and local underwater hazards, which was the most important part of navigation, despite the naval charts. The weather eventually became the deciding factor, with the wind pushing the ship away from the coast.

The helmsman of the ship was again reluctant to approach the coast in the stormy weather. But Kiechel wrote that he watched about thirty ships enter the harbour. This might again be a question of experience. The ship carrying our traveller had sailed to Reval, and the journey to Danzig was not planned. For direct trips to Reval from the western Baltic Sea, ships could sail along the Swedish coast to Gotland and then cut across to Livonia. Maybe the helmsman was used to this northern route and was indeed unfamiliar with the south-eastern coastline. In contrast, the other Dutch ships sailing to Danzig came to pick up grain for western Europe. This was such a regular and profitable route that the crew on those ships must have been familiar enough with the area to enter the Vistula even in bad weather.