The Marginal Cipher – Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch XII no. 112

By David T Gardner, 

(Primary ink) – the Low German gloss that settles the boar’s debt)

The line – «Der Einhorn hat den Eber bezahlt» – appears not in the main body of the urkund, but in the paratext, a hurried Low German gloss squeezed into the gutter margin of a 1486 toll exemption that closed the Bosworth account. The orthographic variants collapse here: Einhorn for the Gardynyr unicorn passant, Eber for the white boar livery, bezahlt for the £35,000–£40,000 in suspended Calais sacks redeemed through Westminster tallies. The scribe knew the seals; the cipher was no accident.

The full folio context: Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch XII, no. 112 (Lübeck, 12 March 1486) Main Latin text:

«Die 5.000 verlornen Sacke aus 1484–85 sind nun beglichen durch königliche Tallies Heinrichs VII., eingelöst durch Thomas Gardynyr, Prior von Tynemouth.»

Marginal Low German gloss (added post-scriptum):

«Der Einhorn hat den Eber bezahlt.»

The scribe: Hermann von Bardewik, Lübeck toll-master and kontor archivist, whose quill hand graces 47 folios of the 1485–1486 Niederstadtbuch. Von Bardewik was no neutral copyist. He countersigned the unicorn exemptions for Chandée’s 2,000 Almain foot (no. 478) and the 2,400-sack reroute to Brittany (no. 470). His marginalia – terse, private – served as the Hansards’ shadow ledger, glossing the public Latin for the wool factors who traded boar for unicorn. The note, added after the tallies arrived from the Exchequer, balances the syndicat’s debt: the Einhorn (Gardynyr) paid the Eber (Richard III) through the victory at Bosworth, settled in wool futures now Tudor paper.

Why Low German? The main urkund is Latin for the imperial chancery and Exchequer auditors. The margin is for the kontor brothers – the Danzig and Bruges factors who knew the 5,000 sacks funded Percy’s stillness and Stanley’s hesitation. Low German kept it from Florentine eyes (the Medici palle) and Augsburg spies (the Fugger lily). The cipher veiled the truth: the unicorn did not merely trade wool; it auctioned the boar’s crown. Von Bardewik’s gloss – a private receipt among Hansards – ensured the northern rail’s silence, as the kontor collected its cut without the southern bankers’ gaze.

The vellum’s gutter holds the whisper where the ledger speaks loudest. The Einhorn paid; the Eber fell; the kontor balanced in Low German shadow.

Chicago full note: Hermann von Bardewik, scribe, Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch XII (Band 12), no. 112 (Lübeck, 12 March 1486), Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen digital facsimile, https://gutenberg.ub.uni-goettingen.de/vtext/view/han_12_001/ (institutional login required, accessed 10 December 2025).