Maastricht trade with Hungary protected against trade barriers imposed by citizens of Cologne in 1259 (no. 18)

Maastricht trade with Hungary protected against trade barriers imposed by citizens of Cologne in 1259 (no. 18)

Most charters of the chapter of Onze-Lieve-Vrouw concern ecclesiastical or financial matters of the chapter. The charter of 12 June 1259 is an exception to that rule: at the request of the chapter's cantor, Konrad of Hochstaden, Archbishop of Cologne, confirms that Maastricht merchants travelling to Hungary have the right to pass through Cologne unhindered. In particular, they may not be subjected to the practice of “hansen”. Hansen or hanseln in this context meant a forced submission to the rules of the Cologne merchants: citizens of Cologne claimed the right to arrest foreign merchants symbolically by tying them up with a reed stalk or rushes. If the merchant broke that bond, he forfeited his life and goods to his captor.

Although the symbolic character of hansen is of course remarkable to legal historians as an example of German Rechtsalterümer, social and economic historians may find it more interesting to note that around the middle of the thirteenth century there were evidently regular trade relations between Maastricht and Hungary. Was Maastricht cloth exchanged for Hungarian furs or Tokaji wine? The charter leaves us in the dark.

That there were also reciprocal contacts between Hungary and Maastricht in this period is further shown by two charters from May and June 1300 (nos. 58, 59 and 60), according to which the Maastricht-born Hungarian merchant Reinier, resident in the small town of Esztergom on the Danube, some 50 km from Budapest, bequeathed his possessions in Maastricht to his two daughters, Margareta, wife of Michael, burgher of Esztergom, and Mathilde, his still unmarried daughter, to own in perpetuity.

Even then, Maastricht already lay at the heart of Europe!