The central question of this thesis was whether the occurrence of stoneware on different sites in the Netherlands could be caused by membership of the Hanseatic league. This idea was proposed by...Show moreThe central question of this thesis was whether the occurrence of stoneware on different sites in the Netherlands could be caused by membership of the Hanseatic league. This idea was proposed by Prof. Gaimster in many of his articles. He argues that the stoneware can be seen as a ‘Kulturträger’, an object one, as member of the large multiregional trading confederation called Hansa, could identify with. So according to this theory, towns that were part of the Hanseatic league should receive more stoneware than towns that were not. To test this idea, the model was shaped into executable research using data from 280 different Dutch complexes. To make fair comparisons, the amount of stoneware was noted as a relative percentage, opposed to other contemporary ceramic wares. It was shown that Hanseatic towns indeed gained more stoneware, but their location to Cologne, the source, was also closer. Therefore, the idea of a link between distance from source and occurrence of stoneware was proposed. The percentage of stoneware was compared to the distance from source, Cologne. This resulted in scatterplots per century. The scatterplots showed that the alternative theory indeed worked both for the Hansa and for the non-Hanseatic towns. Nevertheless, the amount of stoneware for Hansa towns is still higher than the amount of stoneware in non-Hansa towns, who were more or less located at the same distance from Cologne. The idea of an identity of Hansa linked to stoneware could thus not completely be rejected. Rather, urbanism seems to be the main driving mechanism behind the spread of stoneware.Show less
