What was the reason for the city's wealth and importance at the time? For its scale and caliber were puzzlingly large to me. Too large for access to transportation - the main highway at the time was the Vistula River, which favored cities along the Vistula. The caliber of 15th-century Poznań was also a bit too large for a regional capital. Rummaging through history, I didn't find the answer in beef exports, although the Commonwealth was its largest supplier to German markets, and oxen weren't of that much interest to the Hanseatic League, which concentrated on transporting its goods by sea. Customs chambers of the time usually recorded all goods transported for taxation purposes. So we have hard data on trade, relevant ledgers have survived in places, but the inquisitive question is: did the customs chambers on the Vistula see all Polish trade?
Seemingly, we know a lot about the sources of Gdansk's wealth - mainly grain, salt and bullion from Cracow, but not only, as construction timber, tar and potash were also important. We know where Kraków's economic power came from: the largest exchange of the most important bullion at the time was the heart of its strength. But where did the scale of Poznan come from - too big for the city's parameters. And why did Jewish tenements have as many as six stories?
Well, medieval customs chambers and modern historians miss one strategic commodity that was the source of perhaps as much as a dozen percent of the entire kingdom's GDP. It is a spectacular, forgotten commodity, lost in Polish history, and was the medieval equivalent of present-day cocaine (in terms of weight, consistency and value of the "commodity"). There is evidence to support the hypothesis that it was the target of the wars waged by Boleslaw the Brave, as well as one of the ancient causes of the creation of the Polish state.
What was the mysterious powder for which millions were paid? What is the name of this magical primordial beginning of the proud red and white Republic? Well, dear friends, our country owes its existence to a bug named June Polish. This bug, or rather its purple cyst (maggot) collected in the month of June, was in the Middle Ages the only known source of high-quality dye of an intense red color. The cysts were collected every year by hundreds of thousands of people across the country, the species' range surprisingly resembling the borders of the then Polish-Lithuanian state.
Why are wars fought? To wrest control of the source of some wealth. In the case of Boleslaw the Brave, it was the Czerwieńskie Grody, because there the red bred particularly abundantly. Why did our mighty men forge an alliance with Lithuania? To be able to monopolize this production of red.
Why was this red so important? Because it was the most desirable, most expensive and most prestigious color. The greatest players of the time dressed in red from head to toe. Such a red outfit could have the value of a small town. A whole closet of red clothes cost a fortune. Why am I writing so much about this color? Well, it was what made Poznan. It was what made Poznan special. That's what explains the six-story townhouses and the growth of the city beyond the ordinary, since it was Poznan Jews who took a special interest in the red trade and gradually monopolized this business, skillfully sharing with the king, of course....
So since it was the red that contributed so much to the success of Poznan, it is worth learning a little more about it. The whole huge business looked more or less like this: in June, Polish June reds were harvested on a massive scale. It was a laborious activity, as these were tiny sacs attached to the leaves of a plant coincidentally called the perennial June. Collecting a handful of these cysts required considerable attention and a long time - the pouch was easy to crush, and then the goods lost all their value. The collected cysts were destined for drying. The resulting powder was the target dye and one of the most expensive products known in those days. And it weighed little, was irresistible to moisture, and priceless. This made it similar as a commodity to cocaine. It didn't need to be transported by ship, a horse was enough. It didn't need to be registered at the customs house, it was great for smuggling. There wasn't much of the commodity - annual production ranged from a few to probably a maximum of 50-60 tons per year. All this merchandise went to Poznan. Its value on the target market - and the powder from Poznan eventually went to cities in the Netherlands, most to Bruges - rose to unbelievable amounts. Bruges and its surroundings were home to the world's best manufactories producing the highest quality textiles, then known as "cloth." Here Polish June met Dutch cloth and another forgotten treasure of the Middle Ages - alum. June dyed the fabric, and alum fixed this color on it.
The final product - red cloth - found its way onto the backs of the most powerful people of the time: popes, emperors, kings, the richest mighty. In Cracow, you could buy them in the Cloth Hall. They did not always trade in ciupagi and kierpce.
Goats have been trumpeting since 1551; originally called a "jester's device," they remember the city's golden age
© Poznan City Hall
We have recreated a forgotten source of Poznan's power six hundred years ago. Today it is barely a curiosity from our memory erased by cochineal, discovered by the Spaniards in the New World, whose "pouches" were harvested from the Mexican prickly pear easier and faster, and therefore also cheaper. Thus ended Poznan's monopoly on the most expensive commodity of its time.
What was left behind was a significant city and many buildings still standing today that testify to the strength of medieval Poznan. But in my opinion, something else remained. For history is a powerful carrier of know-how. Poznan Jews made unimaginable fortunes in June. They reinvested them later in the city and in business diversification. This is how old money was created in Poznan. Their financial echoes still reverberate here today in many different ways. One of their dimensions is Poznań entrepreneurship. The city's know-how didn't come from nowhere, and it doesn't at all stem solely from its relationship with German culture.
Business competence from that era found its apogee in the dazzling biography of Gaspar da Gama, known to some as Kacper of Poznań. I recommend reading sources on Cognac, whom Vasco da Gama met in India during his first voyage around Africa. He later sonified him and together they changed our world.
Mateusz Zmyślony
Photos courtesy of Poznań City Hall and the author of the article.
