The Fish Lands

The late medieval German trade with the North Atlantic islands, in the margins of the Hanseatic trade network, has received only limited scholarly attention. Merchants from predominantly Hamburg and Bremen established direct trade relations with these islands in the late 15th century, and managed to control the international trade with Iceland, the Faroes and Shetland for much of the 16th century. However, the Hanseatic commercial infrastructure was absent in the North Atlantic, which forced the