Early Commercial Contacts Between England, Prussia, And Poland

Abstract

From the second half of the fourteenth century commercial contacts between Poland and England are rather well recorded. Before 1350 the history of Anglo-Polish commercial relations are more obscure because the sources are sparse. Substantial parts of contemporary Poland were under Teutonic Rule from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. Therefore, it is an anachronism to include Prussia when detecting the early beginnings of commercial contacts between Poland and England. The cargo represented the typical export articles from Prussia and Poland to England and the rest of western Europe, that is with the exception of one group of items: timber and forest products like tar, pitch, and ashes. The import of timber to England can be traced back to the thirteenth century. Imports were never really large scale because England was not particularly short of forest products in the Middle Ages. Keywords: early Commercial Contacts; England; imports; Poland; Prussia