Kontor

The vitten at the Scanian herring fairs were not as important as the kontors but more significant than the average outpost.

The typical Hanseatic outpost, also called factory, had a representative merchant and a warehouse; many did not operate all year.

The kontors were legal entities established as a merchant's corporation (universitas mercatorum) and served to facilitate the Hanseatic League's trade.

[6]: 100–101 Aldermen were supported by the achteinen or Achtzehnmänner, officials that fulfilled special functions and had the authority to represent the kontor when needed.

[4]: 100-101 The kontors of Bruges, London and Bergen got a new secretarial position in the middle of the 15th century, the clerk.

A clerk had gone to university to study law and was highly literate in Latin and in difficult legal literature.

[4]: 100-101  The statutes were written in Middle Low German and recited to the trader community once a year.

[1]: 142  They regulated matters like the authority of the kontor leadership, trade, taxes, duties, rights and contact with natives and outsiders.

The Hanseatic Warehouse in King's Lynn in England, Norfolk, which was actually a factory, not a kontor, managed to survive, but was converted into offices in 1971.

Probably from Dutch, and quite possibly thanks to Peter the Great, the word, as конто́ра (kontora), is also one term for "office", "department", "organization", "bureau", etc.