Reconstruction
Between about 1100 and 1400, preserved cod became one of northern Europe’s most consequential traded foods. Bergen served as the principal collecting and redistribution port for fish arriving from northern Norway and, increasingly, the North Atlantic islands. Contemporary narratives from the late twelfth century describe the town crowded with dried cod and visited by English and German merchants. By the fourteenth century, stockfish accounted for most of the recorded value of many Norwegian export cargoes.
The commodity was principally stockfish: cod preserved by drying without salt. Along the Arctic Norwegian coast, especially around Lofoten, spawning cod were caught during late winter and early spring. Fish were gutted, usually beheaded, and exposed to cold, dry, windy conditions on wooden racks. Removing most of the water produced a light, compact food that could remain edible for years if kept dry. This reduced the risks of transporting a perishable catch over long sea routes without refrigeration.
Northern producers and coastal carriers delivered stockfish southward to Bergen. Merchants then exchanged it for grain, flour, beer, cloth, metal goods, and other commodities scarce or expensive in Norway and the North Atlantic islands. German merchants began residing through the winter in Bergen during the later thirteenth century. Their trading organizations, eventually formalized as the Hanseatic Kontor around the mid-fourteenth century, developed warehouses, credit relationships, and shipping connections linking Bergen with Lübeck and other North and Baltic Sea ports.
Iceland’s role changed over time. Before the early fourteenth century, its trade through Bergen was important to island communities but comparatively small within Bergen’s overall commerce. Larger shipments of Icelandic stockfish reached Bergen from the 1340s and were re-exported through the Hanseatic settlement. Archaeological cod bones from London and other consumer cities independently show increasing quantities of imported, processed cod during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Bone-element patterns, stable isotopes, and, more recently, ancient DNA support long-distance movement, although they cannot identify every shipment or merchant route.
Christian fasting rules contributed to demand because fish could replace terrestrial meat on numerous abstinence days. Before cooking, the board-hard stockfish required softening and rehydration; exact household methods varied, but soaking, pounding, boiling, and stewing are historically defensible practices. The trade therefore joined seasonal Arctic fisheries to urban kitchens, monasteries, merchant households, and ordinary consumers far from the fishing grounds.
The period was not a simple story of Hanseatic monopoly. English merchants remained important, and by the 1390s they were beginning to obtain fish directly from Iceland. Salting cod also appears in English activity from about 1370, but it should not be projected across the entire 1100–1400 trade: the dominant Norwegian and Icelandic product was unsalted stockfish. The medieval network did not directly originate every later European cod dish, yet it established northern cod as a durable export and helped create the commercial geography inherited by later stockfish and salt-cod cuisines.
Historical context
Norway may have had roughly 300,000–500,000 inhabitants, overwhelmingly rural, while Bergen probably approached 7,000 people around 1300 and was among Scandinavia’s largest towns. Around 1320 its skyline included approximately twenty churches and five major monasteries, reflecting strong royal and ecclesiastical institutions. Sea travel was often easier than crossing Norway’s mountains and fjords, making Bergen a natural junction between Arctic fisheries, the North Atlantic islands, England, and Baltic ports. The Black Death reached Bergen in 1349, disrupting population and labor just as larger Icelandic stockfish shipments and the organized Hanseatic presence were reshaping the port’s commerce.
Evidence
Written sources
StrongMedieval narratives and administrative evidence document dried cod in Bergen, foreign merchants, German trading privileges, exchanges involving grain, and larger Icelandic stockfish shipments from the 1340s.
Archaeological
ModerateExcavated urban deposits contain cod remains and evidence for specialized waterfront storage and commerce, but archaeology in Bergen offers comparatively little direct evidence specifically distinguishing trade with individual North Atlantic islands.
Zooarchaeological
StrongLarge cod, changing skeletal-element representation, and increasing cod frequencies at consumer sites such as London support the importation of processed fish and a marked expansion in northern supply during the thirteenth century.
Residue chemical
ModerateStable-isotope analysis of archaeological cod collagen supports movement from distant fishing grounds. Geographic assignments are probabilistic and cannot reconstruct every route.
Food identification
StrongAtlantic cod is securely represented in written and biological evidence. Some archaeological assemblages include other gadids, so not every traded dried fish can be identified as cod.
Dating
ModerateCommercial stockfish shipments are attested by the early twelfth century, while evidence becomes substantially clearer around 1300 and for Icelandic shipments from the 1340s. The expansion was gradual rather than a single dated event.
Preparation method
StrongCold-air drying without salt is well supported for northern Norwegian stockfish. Specific medieval household procedures for rehydrating and cooking the imported fish varied and are less consistently documented.
Geographic attribution
StrongBergen is securely documented as the principal medieval hub, but production was geographically dispersed across northern Norway and, increasingly, Iceland and other North Atlantic islands.
Historical interpretation
ModerateUrban growth, Christian abstinence, preservation advantages, merchant credit, and demand for imported grain all plausibly reinforced the trade. Their relative importance cannot be quantified precisely.
Sources
- 1.Stefan Figenschow (2022). The Rise and Extent of Commercial Stockfish Production and Trade in Medieval North-Norwegian Coastal Society. Food Culture in Medieval Scandinavia. doi:10.1017/9789048540235.004Modern synthesis
- 2.Knut Helle (2019). Bergen’s Role in the Medieval North Atlantic Trade. AmS-Skrifter 27. doi:10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.254Modern synthesis
- 3.James H. Barrett, Cluny Johnstone, Jennifer Harland, et al. (2008). Detecting the Medieval Cod Trade: A New Method and First Results. Journal of Archaeological Science 35(4). doi:10.1016/j.jas.2007.06.004Scientific literature
- 4.David C. Orton, James Morris, Alison Locker, James H. Barrett (2014). Fish for the City: Meta-analysis of Archaeological Cod Remains and the Growth of London’s Northern Trade. Antiquity 88. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00101152Scientific literature
- 5.Lourdes Martínez-García, Angélica Pulido, Giada Ferrari, et al. (2024). Tracing 600 Years of Long-distance Atlantic Cod Trade in Medieval and Post-medieval Oslo Using Stable Isotopes and Ancient DNA. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 291. doi:10.1098/rspb.2024.2019Scientific literature
- 6.Hans Christian Küchelmann (2019). Hanseatic Fish Trade in the North Atlantic: Evidence of Fish Remains from Hanse Cities in Germany. AmS-Skrifter 27. doi:10.31265/ams-skrifter.v0i27.257Modern synthesis
Limitations
- moderatedescription
The phrase “dried and salted cod” conflates distinct preserved products. The principal Norwegian and Icelandic export during most of 1100–1400 was unsalted, air-dried stockfish. Written evidence summarized by Helle places English salting of cod from about 1370, with salted Icelandic cod becoming more important later; salting should not characterize the entire period.
