Baienfahrt

Excerpt from a Dutch nautical map around 1700: The Bay of Bourgneuf with depth information, directions for navigation and salt gardens

The bay of Bourgneuf around 1695 with salt pans and villages. The bay is only hinted at by the absence of the island of Noirmountier

The Baienfahrt was one of the most important undertakings in the history of the Hanseatic League , in which their ships brought salt from the French west coast. This trade, whose beginnings go back to the 13th century, was of decisive importance for the potency of the Hanseatic system and a very lucrative business, for which at certain times more than half of the total shipping tonnage was used. This is particularly true of the 15th century, when this Hanseatic salt trade only began to boom and which, according to Walther Vogel, can be described as the age of the Baienfahrt in shipping history .

The Bay of Bourgneuf

Up until the end of the 15th century, the main trading point was a bay south of the Loire : the Baie von Bourgneuf, which was only known to the Hanseatic seafarer and merchant for short as the Baie and which was used to speak of Baienfahrt, Baienflotte or Baiensalz , all of which are terms in Hanseatic documents keep appearing. The bay of Bourgneuf is formed by the island of Noirmountier off the mainland , after which the bay has been named in some sources. The beginnings of salt production on the Baie go back to the Carolingian times. Over the centuries, countless salt ponds, also known as salt ponds or salt marshes, had been created and places such as Bourgneuf or La Barre de Monts emerged.

The Hanseatic Baienfahrt

The Hanseatic ships on baien voyage did not go empty directly to the French west coast, but initially to Flanders or England with goods such as wood or grain and after unloading their cargo they headed for agreed collection points, mostly in the Dutch coastal area, to and from there, often together with Dutch ones Ships, in convoy the Bay of Bourgneuf. Later on, French ports still further south, such as Brouage, were called and finally the boat trip went to Portugal and Spain (Castile). The return trip then mostly went directly to the Baltic Sea area, often far to the north ( Livonia ) to supply the low-salt east. A trip from the bay to Livonia (also the other way round) took about 2 to 3 months and because of the latent piracy it was almost always undertaken in large naval units. The preferred type of ship for the Baienfahrt (next to the cog ) was probably the Kraier , which is well suited for long-distance journeys . Another type was the Pleyte , a flat- going cargo ship of southern sea origin, which was mainly used by the Dutch but also occasionally by Hanseatic seaside towns.

A worthwhile trade

With the Baienfahrt, the Hanseatic League has considerably increased its trade-policy factor and gained in importance first in France and later in Portugal and Spain. After a long pirate war that ended around 1446, the Baie gradually established peaceful trade relations with Spain, for which the Baie has been an important trading area since ancient times, and exported large quantities of salt from it, like Portugal.

The salt voyage to the Biscay and Iberian Peninsula was also of great importance in the later centuries . In Dutch merchant shipping , it was an essential area in addition to numerous other target regions (whaling, the Baltic Sea and Levant voyages and the voyage to the East and West Indies). Most of the French salt and wine trade was in Dutch hands for almost the entire 17th century. For the Dutch traders, however, Setúbal in Portugal was the main port for loading salt.

literature

Walther Vogel: History of German shipping: First volume: From primeval times to the end of the XV. Century , Salzwasser Verlag, Paderborn 2013 (reprint from 1915)

Arthur Agats: Der hansische Baienhandel , unique in the European university publishing house , Bremen 2012 (reprint from 1904)

Karl Pagel: The Hanseatic League , Georg Westermann Verlag, Braunschweig 1965

JR Bruijn: De vaart in Europa , in Maritieme Geschiedenis van de Nederlanden , Bussum 1977, Part II, pp. 200–241

Remarks

↑ The peak of salt production was on the Baie in the 16th century. From the 17th century onwards, the bay became increasingly silted up and production declined. In 1711, 34,000 salt pans were still in operation.
↑ For example in the first sea book in Low German from 1470.
↑ This sea salt was the only bulk good in the West. It did not have the high quality of the Lüneburg salt , but was very cheap despite the transport costs. Lübeck's monopoly on the Lüneburg salt, its Trave salt , was damaged a lot by the trip through the Baien, which, however, should not have been too much given the high salt demand at the time.
↑ Some historians have mistakenly understood the bay to be the Bay of Biscay (French Baie de Biscaye); at Dahlmann the Baische Hansa fleet is called Biscay.

[1] The peak of salt production was on the Baie in the 16th century. From the 17th century onwards, the bay became increasingly silted up and production declined. In 1711, 34,000 salt pans were still in operation.

[2] For example in the first sea book in Low German from 1470.

[3] This sea salt was the only bulk good in the West. It did not have the high quality of the Lüneburg salt , but was very cheap despite the transport costs. Lübeck's monopoly on the Lüneburg salt, its Trave salt , was damaged a lot by the trip through the Baien, which, however, should not have been too much given the high salt demand at the time.

[4] Some historians have mistakenly understood the bay to be the Bay of Biscay (French Baie de Biscaye); at Dahlmann the Baische Hansa fleet is called Biscay.