Seafarer's Guild Lübeck

The history of the building and the foundation of the Seafarers’ fraternity stretches far back into Hanseatic times. Still today, numerous traces of the past can be discovered here. For example, when you sit down to eat, you will be sitting at long tables made of old ship’s planks. In German, these are called Gelagen, which has come to mean a drunken get-together. But originally it was the name of the narrow oak tables with high-backed benches where the Hanseatics always enjoyed rubbing shoulders (and drinking, which explains how it came to mean a drinking session). These were the regular places occupied by merchants who were organised in “companies” – depending on where their trading routes on the Baltic Sea led them. The Novgorod traders brought furs, wax and honey by ship from Russia, the Scania traders herring which was of special significance as Lenten fare. Traders to Sweden had ores on board and those going to Bergen supplied dried cod, the coveted stockfish from Norway. Fabric and finished metal goods came from England and Flanders. Even 500 years ago, the coats of arms on the sides of the benches already determined the seating order, and every seafarer had his seat.