Eine Karre schwimmt, Archimedes geht an Land: das messende und gemessene Schiff und seine Ladung vom frühen Mittelalter bis um 1600

Abstract

Wherever early records are found of ship calculations - i.e. of the size of the ship and the load - a sensible, rational network of numbers comes to light, an elementary system of numerically practical routines for the transport of goods by water as well as by land. This article takes up themes occasionally referred to by Detlev Ellmers, ties up selected loose ends, brings up relevant sources and finds and looks for systematic structures. With regard to the calculation of ships and loads, there is a thread - however fragile - connecting Anglo-Saxon finds above all with the Elbe/Weser region and the western Baltic Sea coasts - Bremen, Lüneburg, even Hamburg on the one hand, Schonen, Lübeck and Greifswald on the other - by way of the pondus Normannorum or ship’s pound. Numerical records over a long period of time bear witness to both constancy and change in the system since the Early Middle Ages. Selected units of weight and measurement set accents in pre-Hanseatic and early Hanseatic history. They allow us to view in a critical light the biased viewpoints often characterising the research and basic conceptions of Hanseatic history. The argumentation revolves around the records concerning the following aspects: 1. The Anglo- Saxon laws and the "assize of measures": 7th-12th centuries; 2. The "capitulare de villis" and Adalhard von Corbie around 800; 3. The customs regulations of Raffelstetten/Danube around 900; 4. Libra, pondus, ship's pound and the counted unit "240"; 5. Lüneburg-Hamburg-Lübeck: Ship channel and "ship" on the Ilmenau, Elbe and Stecknitz, 13th-16th/19th centuries; 6. Johannes Kepler, the Austrian wine barrel and the ship calculations on the Danube, 1615/16; 7. The ship: measurement, number and standardised goods; 8. Load, Saum, ton and shipload - Pfündung and Pfund Schwer; 9. Measurement/weight and the Elbe-Weser region: transformation and constancy.