The Hanseatic League

The Peterhof in Novgorod: Hanseatic Outpost in Russia

The Peterhof was the Hanseatic kontor in Novgorod, the easternmost of the four great kontore of the League, and the kontor with the most extensive privileges of any kontor in the League’s history. The Peterhof was the principal channel through which the goods of the Russian north reached the markets of the West, and the Peterhof was a vital link in the fur trade that was one of the League’s most important commercial activities.

Foundation and location

The Peterhof had existed in some form since the 1270s, and it was formalised by the Treaty of Novgorod in 1270 and reinforced in subsequent treaties. The kontor was located on the west bank of the Volkhov River, opposite the kremlin of Novgorod, and the kontor was named after its church, the Church of Saint Peter. The kontor had its own warehouses, its own hostels, its own church, and its own cemetery, and the merchants of the Peterhof were governed by a council of aldermen, elected by the merchants of the participating cities.

A useful note: the Novgorod site is one of the most thoroughly archaeologically investigated Hanseatic sites. Excavations led by the Novgorod Archaeological Expedition (associated with the Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences) have uncovered the foundations of the Peterhof, the church of Saint Peter, the aldermen’s houses, and the warehouses. Finds include Hanseatic seals, German pottery, and weights and measures. The finds are now in the Novgorod Museum-Reserve, and the archaeological record is one of the principal sources on the daily life of the kontor.

The privileges

The Peterhof enjoyed privileges that were the most extensive of any of the four great kontore. The privileges were:

  1. The right to trade freely in Novgorod and in the surrounding region.
  2. The right to hold divine services in the Church of Saint Peter, which was exempt from Russian ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
  3. The right to bear arms within the city, in self-defence and in defence of their property.
  4. The right to be exempt from most of the customs duties that other foreign merchants had to pay.
  5. The right to be judged by Hanseatic law in disputes with the Russians.
  6. The right to maintain a permanent garrison in the kontor, the Peterhof, which was the only such garrison in any of the kontore.

The Peterhof was, in effect, an extraterritorial jurisdiction, and the merchants of the Peterhof had a substantial advantage over other foreign merchants. The Peterhof was the principal centre of the fur trade, and the merchants of the Peterhof controlled a substantial part of the trade of the Russian north. The furs came principally from the vast forests of the Russian north, and the principal furs were sable, ermine, fox, marten, otter, and beaver.

Closure

The Peterhof’s privileges were, however, constantly under threat, and the League fought several conflicts with the Russian authorities to defend them. The privileges were finally revoked in 1474, when the League closed the Peterhof in retaliation for Russian attacks on Hanseatic merchants. The Peterhof was never reopened, and the closure of the Peterhof was a major blow to the League’s commercial position in the East.

A specific note: the 1474 closure of the Peterhof was a League decision, not a Russian one. The League closed the kontor in retaliation for Russian attacks on Hanseatic merchants and for what the League considered the increasing unreliability of the Novgorod authorities. The Russian side saw the closure as a League betrayal of the trade relationship, and the closure marked the beginning of a permanent cooling in the Hanseatic-Russian commercial relationship. The Moscow-Novgorod reconciliation of 1478 — when Moscow destroyed the veche and absorbed Novgorod — would have made the kontor politically untenable in any case, but the League’s own closure happened four years earlier.

The site is in present-day Veliky Novgorod; the foundations of the Peterhof are visible in the present-day kremlin area, and the archaeological museum holds finds from the kontor.