Hanseatic sailors in the Mediterranian?

What kept the Hanseatic merchants from travelling into the Mediterranean with their own ships? What was so different with the Italians travelling the searoute to Flanders?

A couple of reasons are obvious:

  • The Northeners took several centuries longer to get acquainted to compasses and maps.
  • While there were hardly any illiterate Hanseatic merchants, their captains often were analphabets. Which makes the use of maps more problematic.
  • The Atlantic is much more dangerous than the sheltered North Sea,Baltic and Mediterranean. Which makes compasses almost indispensable.
  • They did not really need to go there. The Italians were coming to Bruges and London anyway, and the landroute through France and Germany was also relatively reliable.


But I don't really understand why they did not try compasses. Was knowledge of them not accessible?

Which dire situation is needed to stir up the sedate traders and make them risk the voyage?

And do I miss more important reasons?
For instance, I don't know whether their ships, mostly cogs for that matter, are suitable for the Atlantic, and how their cargo capacity compares to Italian ships of that time.



Looking forward to your replies!
 
I note a reference in Wikipaedia to the Hanse selling ships to Italy. One presumes that they had to be delivered.

Most likely, they just never got round to going so far afield.

The Italians capitalised on Burgundian ownership of territory in Flanders, the Hanse had no equivalent "friendly territory" in Italy.
 
I note a reference in Wikipaedia to the Hanse selling ships to Italy. One presumes that they had to be delivered.

That sounds interesting. Is there a time specified? I was wondering about the late 13th and 14th century primarily.


More ideas:
- Were the Straits of Gibraltar particularly dangerous in that time?
- Was Cordoba a threat to seafarers? I guess no, as the Italians also dealt with them ...
 
There really is no particular technological reason why, and some Hanseatic ships in the fifteenth century did go to the Mediterranean. Neither charts nort compasses are needed to ply that route - English and Flemish ships, built much like Hanseatic ones, did it. I rather suspect the reason is simply one of culture. The Hanseatic trade network was regional - even more so than the maps suggest because most ports had a number of destinations they 'did' and others they didn't do. Going beyond that would have meant forgoing a reasonably certain and predictable profit for a risky, potentially far less profitable venture. If you look at the way things were set up you get the impression that new routes were only opened up once their profitability was established and the resources to exploit them freed up by older ones shrinking or being made nonviable.

Now, the Mediterranean wasn't exactoy a promising area for bulky cargoes. I can't see there being a big market for wax, iron, herring, beer, rye, malt, stockfish or linens. Conversely, what trade goods from the Med the Hansa wanted would not have filled too many keels, either. The biggest item most likely would have been wine, followed by dried fruit. Spices and alum, dyestuffs and luxury fabrics were never traded in large quantities. It was probably just more profitable to take beer and rye to the Netherlands and buy from the Italians who came there for cloth than to sail all the way with empty holds. Hansa ships went all theway to Bourgneuf every year, and probably also to Iceland, so seaworthiness or fear of the open ocean can't have been the issue.
 
I believe I saw a map of Italian city state trade routes and it showed Genoa, Pisa, and Venice all sailed passed the strait of gibraltar and hugged the coast all the way to the channel-netherlands area. If the Italians were willing to make the costly and dangerous journey, then why should the Hansa? Escpecially when you can just conduct Mediterranean trade from Rotterdam or London?
 
The Hansa League relied upon a system of Kontors, warehouses with wharves and merchants' inn-type accommodation. Most were sited in the Holy Roman Empire and the coasts of the Baltic, but there were many in Scandinavia and the eastern side of the British Isles. The Hansa kontor or warehouse at King's Lynn was one of these outlying Kontors, but the most important in England was the Steelyard in London. The Merchant Venturers' Hall in York was similar in nature to one of the bigger Kontors but belonged to a rival organisation.

Venice still has the Fondago di Tedeschi, to which Hansa merchants would have come overland from Bavaria and the Rhineland. The merchants only traded there for half the year and anything left over could be sold by the Republic of Venice for its profit.

Russian furs should be added to the list of Hansa goods; stockfish was their primary source of wealth, coming possibly from as far afield as Iceland and Greenland, but walrus and narwhale ivory were also sought after. Baltic amber has also been traded to the Mediterranean since classical times.

Hope this helps:)
 
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