As mentioned before, as part of my retirement I want to combine some local history with cycling trips and photography. See my latest update on all that.
Anyway, being somewhat methodical and also easily distracted, I choose to have a look at trading goods, where they came from and where they went. The idea being, if the from and to was close enough, I could go there by bicycle, and take photos. But, of course, there is no ready made list of trading goods (that I could find).
Therefore, back to being methodical. I started collating a list of goods and started with the so called Stapel Goods, basically any trader passing Cologne had to unload and offer their goods to Cologne traders for three days (thereby creating harbour, unloading, and inspection fees, tolls, not to forget, as the trader had to spent three days (and nights) food and lodging).
Here is the draft list of Stapel Goods
The columns:
Deutsch - the German term
English - yes, the translation
Road Name - Road/Place/Street name in medieval Cologne
Source - Where the goods came from
Destination - Where the goods went
Visit? - Future plans to visit a source/destination
Remarks - remarks
Anyway, while researching, I also found a category called Ventgüter These were goods that were not only unloaded, offered for sale and then loaded again, no, these goods were also, for a fee, unpacked, inspected, marked as inspected and repacked or destroyed if they did not pass.
- This was good for Cologne because of opportunities, fees and reputation
- Semi good for the trader, as they could get somewhat better prices for inspected goods
- Goodish for customers, as they got quality goods but for a higher price
Here is a good German article from museen.koeln on all of this Erfolgreich gegen die Wirtschaftskrise: Mittelalterlicher Protektionismus
