Toll Registers Research Articles

The burden of complexity: Dealing with measurement and taxation in the Sound Toll registers – a response to Yrjö Kaukiainen

This paper replies to a research note outlining a method for the conversion of weights and measures in the Danish Sound Toll registers. Whereas Yrjö Kaukiainen argues that the use of values for Danish units of measurement is sufficient, Werner Scheltjens highlights the complexity of pre-modern weights and measures, and raises concerns about the simplification of the measurement and taxation procedures at the customs office in the Danish Sound.

Hanseatic twilight? Lübeck’s shipping networks in the latter half of the eighteenth century

From the late sixteenth century, shipping in the Baltic Sea region experienced profound changes. The rising maritime powers – the Dutch Republic and Great Britain – penetrated the area and the old Hanseatic masters seem to have been relegated to a passive role. These changes are illuminated in the Sound Toll Registers but, in contrast, Baltic archival sources are so fragmentary and imperfect that it is not known how much traditional Baltic shipping was affected. Fortunately, there are printed sources – newspapers that also published shipping news. One such newspaper was the Lübeckische Anzeigen, which contained shipping lists for the city's port from the early 1750s. As Lübeck was still overwhelmingly oriented to the Baltic, this source can offer a different view from the Sound Toll Registers. It also suggests that this was not a period of stagnation for Lübeck shipping but that, in comparison with other national merchant fleets, it faired moderately well.

Sound Toll Registers Online.

In 2020, the University of Groningen and Tresoar, the Frisian Historical and Literary Center in Leeuwarden, completed the online database providing instant and free access to the complete Sound Toll Registers. This database, Sound Toll Registers Online (STRO), is already available to everyone at www.soundtoll.nl. Huygens ING is now taking over STRO from Tresoar and the University of Groningen to ensure its quality, accessibility and continuity.

Juden auf der Oberen Donau: Transport und Verkehr im Österreich des frühen 18. Jahrhunderts

Abstract The toll registers of Aschach in Upper Austria covering the period from 1627 to 1775 are an outstanding series of sources for the history of transport and trade in the early modern Upper Danube basin. At the Aschach toll station each vessel shipping up- and downstream the Danube as the most important traffic route in the Upper-German and Austrian area had to pay dues. The information comprised in the toll registers enables us to reconstruct the movement of goods and people between the Austrian Danube region and its neighbouring countries. This study analyzes the significances of the Upper Danube as a traffic route for Jews in the 1st half of the 18th century. Especially the Viennese Court Jews used the waterway for the supply of the Imperial army in Hungary with provisions and other military goods. They also received foodstuff, beverages and other consumer products via the Danube. Jewish traders, especially from Prague, used the Danube for their frequent journeys to the fairs in Linz, whereas other Jewish travelers on their way to Vienna or even further frequently embarked on vessels in Regensburg.

Destination unknown: The geography of Baltic shipping and the registration system of the Sound Toll Registers in the eighteenth century

This research note explores the specifics of the Sound Toll Registers as a historical source. It accounts for the shipmasters who sailed into the Baltic but are largely absent from the Sound Toll Registers because they were not attributed to a port. A method of detecting these shipmasters is proposed, together with an explanation as to why this administrative practice developed.

Factor endowments and international trade: a study of land embodied in trade on the Baltic Sea region, 1750–1856

AbstractBaltic trade is one of the key examples of flourishing economic activity in early modern European history. This study empirically outlines the role of comparative resource advantages between 1750 and 1856, using trade data from the Sound Toll Registers Online. On the one hand, the results show the significance of relative land abundance for trade patterns between the Baltic Sea region and North-Western Europe: the land abundant Baltic Sea region was overall exporting more land-intensive commodities. On the other hand, however, the results also show a seeming paradox: increasing trade openness during the nineteenth century was not associated with a higher degree of specialization along these comparative advantages.

Two Medieval Occitan Toll Registers from Tarascon by William D. Paden

Reviewed by: Two Medieval Occitan Toll Registers from Tarascon by William D. Paden Courtney Joseph Wells William D. Paden. Two Medieval Occitan Toll Registers from Tarascon. Toronto: Medieval Academy of America, 2016. 278 pp. ISBN 978-1442629349. $85 In the past decade and a half, the American Occitanist William D. Paden has produced a series of publications that have put previously unpublished medieval texts contained in the manuscript collection of the Newberry Library in Chicago in the hands of scholars around the world. He published the first of these critical editions in 2003, an Occitan notarial roll from Asprières, followed by two fragments of an Old French translation of the Apocalypse in 2006, and, now, a medieval toll register from Tarascon, acquired jointly by Northwestern University and the Newberry Library. Along with his recent editions of texts written in Latin ("Bernart Amoros" and Guillelmus) and studies of ritual texts ("Before the Troubadours" and "La Poésie") and prayers ("An Occitan Prayer"), Paden's publication of these manuscripts housed at the Newberry is part of a more general project of publication that seeks to establish a broader frame of reference for understanding the use of Occitan in the Middle Ages and to further contextualize troubadour poetic language as actively participating in the historical, intellectual, social, and cultural reality of the time, rather than being apart from it. Toll registers served as a guide for toll keepers in medieval cities, a record of tolls to charge, generally on goods and materials. As indicated by its title, Two Medieval Occitan Toll Registers from Tarascon is an edition of two closely connected though distinct vernacular toll registers from Tarascon. The first, ms. T, is contained on ff. 3–17 of the Livre Rouge housed in the Archives municipales of Tarascon (shelf number AA9) and was last edited in 1890 by Édouard Bondurand. The second, ms. N, was acquired by the Newberry Library and Northwestern University in 2011 (ms. 220) and is edited here for the first time. Paul Meyer had established that ms. T was copied down in 1438; Paden and Paul Saenger (Curator Emeritus of Rare Books at the Newberry) determine that ms. N is from the same period. After a breath-taking review of the registers' historical context and linguistic features, Paden argues that the [End Page 109] date of composition of T was most likely in the early fourteenth century; N may have been composed either in the late fourteenth century or in the early fifteenth century. Having firmly established that the two registers may have been composed as much as a century apart from one another, Paden argues that—far from being static, nearly-identical manuscript witnesses of toll registers from Tarascon—these texts represent a vibrant tradition whose authority was constantly adapting itself to the changing circumstances of the time. He is able to demonstrate this thesis through his review of a wealth of Latin documents (such as the investigations of revenues drawn up for Charles I of Anjou in 1252 and those made for Charles II in 1298) that provide a context for interpreting changes from register to register. Paden analyzes well how the procedures of the tollhouse change from place to place (there were multiple toll-houses in Tarascon) and register to register, though the evolution of the collection of tolls in Tarascon is made perhaps clearest in Appendix 5 of the volume, which numerically demonstrates this evolution across nine manuscripts and five toll-houses. Through a study of the manuscript evidence from the investigations of 1252 all the way to ms. N in the early fifteenth century, Paden is able to draw a number of striking conclusions that have escaped past scholars who were "lulled… into a belief" (46) that these registers were all identical, when, in fact, they show both an awareness of the passage of time and a recognition of change (40). His careful analysis of the manuscript history of the toll registers allows him to advance a number of arguments that challenge long-standing assumptions about the history of Tarascon and of the region. Perhaps the most striking of these corrections is his use of these documents to prove the existence of...

A methodology for estimating the volume of Baltic timber to Spain using the Sound Toll Registers: 1670–1806

The Sound Toll Registers Online project has opened a trove of information for historians, but calculating the actual volume of the trade it represents remains a challenge. Attempts have been made for products that were measured in weight or volume, but timber products were usually recorded by the number of pieces in a ship’s cargo. Different timber products varied greatly in size, so the amount of pieces is not useful for determining the volume of timber. Here I propose an approach for estimating the volume of Baltic timber trade using Spain as a case study. Such an estimate can be made by dividing distinct products and assigning them predictable dimensions. First, the process of converting the amount of timber pieces into volume is discussed. I then discuss the possibilities and problems with estimating tonnage. The article concludes with a discussion of the problems and limitations of this methodology.

One source to rule them all?

Even after the economic boom of the 17th century had faded away, during the 18th century Amsterdam remained an important entrepot for a wide variety of goods, especially to and from the Baltic, considered by contemporaries as the ?mother of all trades?. What role did local merchants have in the continuation of maritime trade? What were the challenges they faced? Combining different data sources might provide a better understanding of their activities. In this paper several data sources are discussed, with a focus on the Baltic trade and the use of data from both muster rolls and the Sound Toll Registers.

Northeastern Europe's timber trade between the napoleonic and crimean wars: A preliminary survey

Abstract According to the Sound Toll Registers (STR), and to one of their interpreters (W.S. Unger in Economic History Review1959/60), Finland was, in the 18th century, the leading area exporting boards (‘bredder’, in Danish) westwards through the Sound. But this is somewhat misleading statement, based on the calculation of numbers of boards as opposed to their total cubic measurement. It is true, as I revealed at the gathering of economic historians in Copenhagen in 1974, that at quite an early date Viborg and Fredrikshamn deals found a ready market in Holland and France.1 But the exports to those countries consisted of ‘thin’, pieces compared with the planks from Swedish Norrland and western Finland. The ‘heavy’, varieties of timbers from the Gulf of Bothnia first found a good but restricted market in Stockholm, or perhaps within the Baltic area,2 and only later on on the British and Mediterranean markets.

A Netherlands merchant in Stockholm in the reign of ErikXIV

Abstract The student of Baltic trade in the sixteenth century has two principal groups of sources at his disposal: the long series of statistics of the customs and other public revenue; and such business material as account-books and charter-parties, originating from the day-to-day activities of individual merchants. 1 Although charter-parties were drawn up by public officials in the Netherlands, they were intended to serve private purposes, not public. The linking of these two types of data has often proved to be a fruitful course of research. The private material provides the necessary starting-point for an analysis of the trustworthiness or otherwise of the statistical sources, while the statistical sources enable the student to visualise the transactions of individuals in their proper perspective. A juxtaposition of this sort is made by Aksel E. Christensen in his Dutch Trade to the Baltic about 1600, where the statistical material comes from the Sound toll registers, and the individual material consists mainly of the private archives of the Dutch merchant family of van Adrichem together with the charter-parties registered in the Dutch notarial registers.2 Christensen's general approach is summed up in sentences such as the following: