Hain Rebas Gbg, Oct 3Rd, 2010
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1 Hain Rebas Gbg, Oct 3rd, 2010 Frustration and Revenge? Gotland strikes back - during the long 15th Century, 1390’s -1525.1 1. Agenda After having enjoyed increasing prosperity from the time of the Viking Age, the overseas commerce of the Gotlanders and the Visby traders began to decline sometime around the beginning of the 14th century. Navigation and ships improved, trade routes changed. Waves of unrest and pestilence around 1350, followed by the Danish violent conquest 1361, slowed down business even more. In the following years the Danish king rigorously contested Hanseatic supremacy at sea, but was definitively beaten 1370. Then the lines of royal succession became blurred both in Denmark and Norway, as well as in Sweden. The following rumbling and warring for the Scandinavian thrones, with Mecklenburgers and Hanseats actively involved, further reduced Gotlandic/Visbyensic positions in Baltic Sea matters. Finally in 1402 the Gotlanders were compelled to lease out their centuries- old trading station (Faktorei) Gotenhof in Novgorod, i.e. their pivot point on the lucrative Russian market, mercatura ruthenica, to the newly emergent Reval/Tallinn. Questions: Could the subsequent dramatic history, beginning with the arrival of the Vitalian Brethren in the early 1390s on the island, and ending with Lübeck’s sacco di Visby 1525, be defined as outbursts of Gotland frustration and attempts at come-back, even revenge? Can we identify a line of continuity whereby this prolonged 15th century is essentially a continuing story, instead of a rhapsodic chain of single, more or less ad hoc-events?2 In short: We know quite well what happened. But how shall we explain it? Can we - by cautiously addressing the question of minds and thoughts of the 15th 1 To the memory of a great friend of Gotland then and now, professor Erik Lönnroth, Göteborg, 1910-2002. 2 Cf. H. Yrwing, Gotlands medeltid. Visby 1978. 2 century Gotlanders - recognise a previous commercial sea power, a former thalassocracy,3 striking back? 2. Sources, literature, aim The sources for the following deliberations are the usual Gotland, German, Scandinavian and Baltic publications for the Baltic Sea area in the Late Middle Ages.4 Also, the basic literature is nowadays well received internationally.5 By re-shuffling these well-known decks of cards, this article aims more at creating insights and understanding (Verstehen) for long lines of history than to discover mere bits of facts as supplements for what nevertheless remains insufficient knowledge. 3. The protagonists Three prominent historical-political “players” on Gotland of the late Middle Ages are the island itself, the town and the castle. By implication these represent the seafaring farmers, the Visby burghers and the captains of 3 Cf. theoretical and methodological deöiberations 30. Sept. - 2. Oct. 2005 in HGO Visby, Febr. 4-5 in Schloss Gottorp in Schleswig and culminating so far Oct. 1st 2010, during the 48. Deutscher Historikertage in Humboldt- Universität in Berlin, in the Section „Über die Küsten hinaus: Thalassokratien im Mittelalter“. 4 Hansisches Urkundenbuch (HUB), Hanserecesse (HR), Regesta ordinis Sanctae Mariae Theotonicorum (ROSMT), Danish and Swedish Diplomataria, (DD resp SD), Danish and Swedish Scriptores (SRD resp SRS), Sverges Traktater (ST), Styffe (BSH), Lief-, Est- und Curländisches Urkundenbuch (LECUB), Akten und Recesse der Livländischen Ständetage (A&R), contemporary chroniclers, esp. Detmar of Lübeck, the 14th and 15th century Pfund- und Palgeldbücher of Lübeck resp. Danzig. 5 Mainly E. Lagerlöf, G. Svahnström, Gotlands kyrkor. Uddevalla 1973; H. Rebas, Infiltration och handel …Göteborg 1976; H. Yrwing, Gotlands medeltid. Visby 1978; S.-O. Lindqvist, Sextio marker silver vart år… In: Gotländskt Arkiv 1984; T. Siltberg, Gårdar, mark och människor 1413- … In: Gotländskt Arkiv 1986; H. Yrwing, Visby, Hansestad på Gotland. Stockholm 1986; L.J. Larsson, Sören Norby och Östersjöpolitiken. Lund 1986; E. Melefors, Ed., Ivar Axelssons räkenskapsbok … Visby 1991; Kulturführer Gotland. Visby 1993; E. Melefors, Ed., Sören Norbys räkenskapsbok… Visby 2003; G. Westholm, In: Gotländskt Arkiv 2007; Cf. professional current yearly reviews in Hansische Geschichtsblätter: Hansische Umschau: Skandinavien. 3 Visborg castle. In strict chronological order, this analysis should have begun with the role of the Gotlanders, from time immemorial. Then, in about 1160, the Visby burghers stepped onto the scene, eager and ambitious, even aggressive. Finally, from the beginning of the 15th century, we would have dealt with the captains of the castle. But for reasons of disposition, we will do it the other way round. To set the historical context, however, let us note the prolonged armed struggles and bloody fighting on and around the island in the 1390s, in1408, in the beginning and at the end of the 1440s, in the 1480s, at the very beginning of 16th century and especially in the early 1520s, up to the Visby devastation by the Lübeckians. Clearly, the warring parties wanted to gain power over town and island. To what end? To master the strategic position in the middle of the Baltic Sea? To gain control of the island’s natural riches (wool), its possible tax and import/export revenues (salt, herring, iron, arms)? Pre-emptively to keep enemies away? To some degree these were all considerations. There was also some motivation to pacify the tumultuous island itself, as will be discussed, but the predominant goal was to rule surrounding waves and sea. The Vitalian Brethren The upsurging Vitalian Brethren began their mass privateering in the early 1390s while the Swedish throne was at stake They acted in the service of the Duke of Mecklenburg and for some years supported his beleaguered Stockholm with victualia, vegetables. They soon developed an attractive, self-propelling movement of their own and spread widely into the North and Baltic Seas.6 Bergen was captured in 1393; Malmö and Gotland with Visby 6 K. Koppmann, Die Vitalienbrüder. In: Hanserecesse I, 4, p. V-XXII; F. Benninghoven, Die Vitalienbrüder als Forschungsproblem. In: Kultur und Politik in Ostseeraum und im Norden 1350-1450. Visbysymposiet 1971. Acta Visbyensia IV. Visby 1973, p. 41-52; H. Yrwing, Art. Vitalianer. In: Kulturhistoriskt lexikon för nordisk medeltid, Bd 20. Viborg 1982, p. 197 f ; M. Mogren, Die Vitalienbrüder und deren Burgenbau im nördlichen Ostseegebiet. In: Die Hanse. Lebenswirklichkeit und Mythos, 1. Hamburg 1989, p. 627-633; G. Rohmann, Der Kaperfahrer Johann Störtebeker aus Danzig. Beobachtungen zur Geschichte der „Vitalienbrüder“. In: HGbll 2007, p. 77-119. 4 were taken in 1394, and they also got foothold in Livland. Visby, where the strongly fortified Kruttornet (Powder Tower, still in situ) commanded the port, became one of their main operative bases. In 1395 they formally switched allegiance and began to support Queen Margarethe of Denmark. Turning from official privateering to rough piracy, their Gotland wing was led by Sven Sture, a Swedish mercenary of some status. On behalf of the queen he had three fortifications erected on the island: Slitehus and Lojsta in Stånga parish and Hallbros in Västerhejde. The youngest biographer of the Hanseatic League, Stephan Selzer (2010), even compares their holdouts to later more (in-)famous pirate nests on Jamaica and Madagascar.7 In 1396 the Mecklenburgers arrived from across the sea and erected Landescrone/Vivesholm close to Klinte. But for another two years the rest of the island and Visby remained in the hands of Sven Sture and his swarms of Vitalians. They attacked ships ad hoc at sea and in harbours wherever. Consequently, they became a public nuisance for all friends of regulated commerce, i.e. the Hanseatic League and its well-organised part-time business partner, the Teutonic Order in Prussia, the war machine par préférence of the whole Baltic Sea region. The engagement of the martial Teutons was to prove fatal for the Vitalians. The Teutonic Order These German knights forced the Vitalians from the island in a first wave in 1398, had the Vitalian fortresses burned and remained on the island until 1408. The always well-fortified Teutons, cf. their centre Marienburg/Malbork in Westpreußen/Poland, then laid the foundation for Visborg castle, just south of Visby town wall. It is mentioned for the first time 1408: dat buwent, and is well depicted on the “Kutatavla” from 1618 in Fårösund parish church. Visborg emerged as one of the strongest fortresses in Scandinavia and remained so until Danish forces blew it up in 1679.8 7 S. Selzer, Die mittelalterliche Hanse. WBG Darmstadt 2010, p. 71. 8 E. Lundberg, Visborgs slott. Stockholm 1950. 5 However, after the knights had left the island, swarms of Vitalians returned and re-established themselves, remaining into the 1420s, once again disrupting Baltic Sea navigation, trade and business. In this context, one might wonder where all the skippers with know-how, crews, soldiers, artisans and all the labourers working for at least a generation at the bases of the Gotland Vitalians have come from, if not mainly from the island itself. The Vitalians seem to have had little trouble for decades to recruit groups of willing and competent locals. The Visborg Captains The first captains (hövitsman) of Visborg castle were Jösse Eriksen (mentioned in 1410, in the early 1430s infamous in Sweden during the Engelbrekt-rebellion), Marquard Steen (1412), and above all Trudgot Has (1420, 1425, 1427, 1437): miles et capitaneus tocius Gotlandie, qui maximum partem castri Wisborg fecit.9 To finance the immense construction, the captain in 1412 on behalf of the inter-Scandinavian king, Erik of Pomerania, levied an enormous tax on the inhabitants, 1110 silver marks pro year, a 1000 % rise.10 Ex-king Erik of Pomerania, 1438/39-1448. At the end of the 1430s, king Erik of Pomerania was expelled from both his Danish and Swedish kingdoms and withdrew to – Visborg, as captain and governor of the island. He immediately started to use the castle as a base to attack old enemies at sea.