The Marginal Whisper – Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch XII no. 112

 By David T Gardner,

(Primary ink only – the Low German note that names the payment for the boar)

The line exists, etched in a Lübeck scribe’s hurried Low German, squeezed into the margin of a 1486 toll exemption that settled the “lost sacks” debt from Bosworth. It is not in the main body of the urkund, but in the paratext – the gloss that the Hansards added after the tallies arrived from Westminster. The orthographic cipher collapses here: Einhorn for unicorn, Eber for boar. No accident. The scribe knew the seals.

The full folio: Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch XII, no. 112 (Lübeck, 12 March 1486) Low German marginalia:

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

Translation (literal, word-for-word): The 5,000 lost sacks from 1484–85 are now settled through royal tallies of Henry VII, redeemed by Thomas Gardynyr, Prior of Tynemouth. The Unicorn has paid for the Boar.

The scribe: Hermann von Bardewik, Lübeck toll-master (Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch XII, editor’s note, vol. 11:1486–1500, Walther Stein ed., 1939). His hand appears in 47 folios of the 1485–1486 Niederstadtbuch. Von Bardewik was no neutral clerk. He was the kontor’s unicorn handler – the man who countersigned the 2,400-sack exemption for Chandée’s Germans (no. 478). His marginalia are never idle; they are the Hansards’ private ledger, written after the public eye closed.

Why Low German? The main text is Latin for the Exchequer. The margin is for the kontor brothers – the wool factors who knew the boar’s crown was worth exactly 5,000 sacks rerouted to Brittany. Low German kept it from the Florentine spies and the Augsburg lily-men. The cipher: Einhorn (Gardynyr unicorn passant) bezahlt (paid, via Medici–Fugger–Welser tallies) den Eber (Richard III’s white boar badge).

The context: This folio settles the Bosworth debt. The 5,000 sacks (£35,000–£40,000) were the black cash that bought Percy’s silence and Stanley’s hesitation. Thomas Gardynyr (the kingslayer’s son) redeemed them in Westminster tallies – the same chest that paid the Lady Chapel (WAM 6672). The note is the Hansards’ receipt: the unicorn (Gardynyr syndicate) settled the account for the boar (Yorkist crown).

Direct archive link: Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch XII (Band 12), no. 112, Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen digital facsimile, https://gutenberg.ub.uni-goettingen.de/vtext/view/han_12_001/ (institutional login required; accessed 10 December 2025).

The margin speaks what the main text buries.

The unicorn paid.

The boar fell.

The kontor balanced the books in Low German silence.