| Paper 1311-b | Winter Lodgings of Shippers and Merchants around the Baltic Sea
(Language: English)
Lovisa Olsson, Institutionen för historia och samtidsstudier / Centrum för Östersjö- och Östeuropastudier (CBEES), Södertörns högskola, Stockholm
Index terms: Economics - Trade, Economics - Urban, Law, Social History |
|---|
| Abstract | Paper -a:
This paper explores how environmental, political, and cultural climates affected mobility in the Carolingian world. Based on around twenty miracle collections from across the 9th century, this study of pilgrims' origins and destinations examines travel distances with respect to the travelers' gender, age, ailment, occupation, and travel conditions, including the year, season, and method of travel. It incorporates a statistical approach and considers regional and temporal differences, building on existing studies that have focused on a single region or text. My findings will shed light on the hagiographers and their view of sanctity and suggest how war and changing views of pilgrimage affected pilgrimage distances.
Paper -b:
In the 16th century trade across the Baltic Sea was booming, bringing more merchants and shippers to the busy port towns. As the Nordic climate made sailing in the winter months hazardous, some of these visitors needed to spend the winter in foreign towns. This paper will examine the reception and lodgings of these visitors and expand upon how the close relations between the trading ports of the Baltic Sea resulted in that social positions within the hometown travelled with visitors and determined their access to winter lodgings, opportunities to trade and their legal position within the visited communities.
Paper -c:
In the Middle Ages vital trade routes ran along the eastern Adriatic coast whereby sailing from NW to SE or vice versa was facilitated by two most dominant winds, bora and sirocco. The coast together with numerous islands provided protection from foul weather while hills and sea cliffs served as landmarks for navigation. These routes supported trade between Venice and the eastern Mediterranean as well as among major Dalmatian communes like Zadar, Šibenik, Split and Dubrovnik, thus bringing about profit and prosperity. By combining diverse sources such as medieval nautical charts and portolans, maritime contracts, contralitterae, pilgrimage accounts, and even hagiographies, I seek to present the most notable among hundreds of shipwrecks: e.g. the demise of Upper Dalmatian bishops (yr 998), the transfer of relics of Saint Anastasia to Zadar (yr 804/807), and the miracle performed by Ivan, the bishop of Trogir, who reputedly saved the crew and cargo of a sunken ship by walking on water (late 11th c.).
|
|---|
