Bergen, a Hanseatic city; an interesting museum; “Little Sir Alf”; the greatest military genius Norway ever had; the struggle between “Birchlegs” and “Baglers”; further historical connections of Bergen; Haakon Haakonsson.
Bergen, May 1.
My dear Judicia,
I am comfortably situated in Hotel Norge, on Ole-Bulls-Plads. Directly beneath my window stands Ole Bull himself, continually though silently playing his violin, through rain and hail and snow and vapor and stormy wind. Bergen is a thoroughly old-world city. To be sure, it has a modern section, but the whole flavor of the place is ancient. Like all other towns in Norway, it has suffered time after time from fire, but, strangely enough, it has been built up on the old lines. Another thing that lends a flavor of antiquity is the fact that it is surrounded (supposedly) by seven hills, like the seven hills of Rome, though it is an unfortunate geographical fact that there are not seven but four in the case of Bergen. Of course there are countless little unevennesses in the ground, some of which might even be called hillocks. With more romance than accuracy the citizens have selected three of these mounds, added them to their four real hills, and put seven on their armorial bearings.
There is a wide street, which assumes the proportions and name of a square, which separates the old town from the new and also serves in the capacity of fire road. When we cross this square, which bears the name of Torv-Almenning, we are in fairyland—a dirty, medieval, Hanseatic fairyland. The streets are very narrow, and the white timber houses with their red-tiled roofs certainly lay claim, along with the Lofoten Islands and the Damascus rag fair and the Nile dahabiyeh, to the right of being called picturesque. The vaagen, or harbor, is inclosed on all sides by ancient warehouses, suggesting fish. At the end of the harbor is a market, where fish are sold with considerable bargaining.
A great part of Norway’s fish trade passes through Bergen, though the principal reason for this seems to lie in the fact that it always has been so. Formerly it was compulsory. The German merchants settled in Bergen and succeeded in gaining an absolute monopoly on the trade, which they maintained for nearly three centuries. At one end of the market lies the Hanseatic House, now made into a museum. It is the only genuine house of its kind now in existence, anywhere, and gives a good idea of the manner in which these selfish old merchants conducted their business. Here we find the merchant’s office and his manager’s bureau, the clerk’s apartments, and even the common bedroom. An old ledger is exhibited, which, as Goodman says, “contains, no doubt, the record of many a fraudulent transaction.” The whole house, inside and out, is profusely ornamented and painted in lurid colors, which make not the slightest pretense of harmonizing. All sorts of articles are exhibited, which formerly made up the merchant’s office and household property, “such as their scales and weights, the latter [here a little sidelight on Hanseatic methods] being of two sorts, for buying and selling; their cloaks, lanterns, candlesticks, fire engines, snuff boxes, washing bowls, drinking cups and tankards, machines for chopping cabbage, and staves with bags for making collections in church.”
The arms of the leaguers were half an eagle and half a codfish, or a cornucopia with a cod supplanting the usual fruit or flowers.
The merchants trusted each other no more than they trusted outsiders, and their strong-box is fitted with three locks, the keys to which were possessed by three different members of the league.
These “crooks” were very modest about some things. Their bedrooms were arranged in a peculiar way, with the beds along the side of the wall, each bed opening out through a sort of lattice work to a main corridor. This was to enable the female domestic to make the gentleman’s bed without having to enter his room.