The Trade in Painters’ Materials in Norway in the Middle Ages. Part 1: The 'silent' Trade in Painters' Materials in Norway in the High Middle Ages

This paper can be read as an introduction or an appendix to Unn Plahter’s exposition, which forms the other part of this contribution. The investigations referred to by her, here and elsewhere, on the imported painters’ materials that were being used in twelfth to fourteenth-century decorative art in Norwegian churches, definitely show that some sort of trade in such commodities must have taken place in Norway in this period. I have been asked to comment on Unn Plahter’s interesting results from the point of view of the historian of trade