The Origin of the Brotherhood of the Black Heads in Tallinn

The Tallinn Brotherhood of the Black Heads was an association of unmarried merchants and ship owners. For over a hundred years, the Brotherhood’s exact starting point has been debated but there is no clear answer even to this day. Even if the foundation document of the Brotherhood of the Black Heads did once exist, there is no preserved evidence about it. The earliest original document mentioning the Black Heads is the Brotherhood’s agreement of 28^th March 1400 with the Tallinn Dominican Monastery. This agreement confirms the Black Heads’ ownership of all the sacred church vessels they had deposited in the St Catherine’s Church of Dominicans’.

The Black Heads also commit themselves to decorate and light the altar of St Mary, which they have ordered for the church; the Dominicans in their turn undertake to hold services in front of this altar to bless the souls of the Black Heads. It has been presumed that the conclusion of the agreement with the church, as a significant event for the activities of the Brotherhood, must have taken place directly after the foundation of the Brotherhood. Consequently, the foundation date of the Brotherhood has been fixed to the period of some months before the conclusion of the agreement, i.e. to the year of 1399. This date remains, however, only presumable. It is highly possible that the Brotherhood could have been founded at the same time as the Great Guild, i.e. already in the middle of the 14^th century.

 

The existence of the Brotherhoods of the Black Heads in the areas of the present-day Estonia and Latvia is a unique phenomenon in the entire Europe. No such brotherhoods existed in Germany in the Middle Ages. It was only in the 17^th century that a Brotherhood of the Black Heads was founded in Wismar. In the areas of Estonia and Latvia, the Brotherhood had buildings in more than 20 towns, including the Estonian towns of Tallinn, Tartu and Pärnu.