Large castles and large war machines in Denmark and the Baltic around 1200: an early military revolution? Autor(es): Jensen, Kurt Villads Publicado por: Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra URL persistente: URI:http://hdl.handle.net/10316.2/41536 DOI: DOI:https://doi.org/10.14195/2183-8925_30_11 Accessed : 5-Oct-2021 17:35:20 A navegação consulta e descarregamento dos títulos inseridos nas Bibliotecas Digitais UC Digitalis, UC Pombalina e UC Impactum, pressupõem a aceitação plena e sem reservas dos Termos e Condições de Uso destas Bibliotecas Digitais, disponíveis em https://digitalis.uc.pt/pt-pt/termos. Conforme exposto nos referidos Termos e Condições de Uso, o descarregamento de títulos de acesso restrito requer uma licença válida de autorização devendo o utilizador aceder ao(s) documento(s) a partir de um endereço de IP da instituição detentora da supramencionada licença. Ao utilizador é apenas permitido o descarregamento para uso pessoal, pelo que o emprego do(s) título(s) descarregado(s) para outro fim, designadamente comercial, carece de autorização do respetivo autor ou editor da obra. Na medida em que todas as obras da UC Digitalis se encontram protegidas pelo Código do Direito de Autor e Direitos Conexos e demais legislação aplicável, toda a cópia, parcial ou total, deste documento, nos casos em que é legalmente admitida, deverá conter ou fazer-se acompanhar por este aviso. impactum.uc.pt digitalis.uc.pt Kurt Villads Jensen * Revista de Historia das Ideias Vol. 30 (2009) LARGE CASTLES AND LARGE WAR MACHINES IN DENMARK AND THE BALTIC AROUND 1200 - AN EARLY MILITARY REVOLUTION? In 1989, the first modern replica in Denmark of a medieval trebuchet was built on the open shore near the city of Nykobing Falster during the commemoration of the 700th anniversary of the granting of the city's charter, and archaeologists and interested amateurs began shooting stones out into the water of the sound between the islands of Lolland and Falster. From this humble beginning, the place has now, twenty years later, developed into a medieval re-enactment centre with more war machines, medieval houses and food, and its own harbour and replicas of ships and small boats, and the centre is visited each year by more than 60,000 guests from Denmark and abroad* (1). Considerable expertise has been assembled by those working in such centres, and experimental archaeology has contributed significantly to our understanding of how these machines actually functioned; how war was actually conducted; and how we should interpret the often fragmentary descriptions and illustrations of weapons in medieval sources. But the interest in war machines also reflects a new interest in warfare itself. Since the middle of the nineteenth century Danish historians have generally been uninterested in warfare and more or less directly assumed that Danes in the Middle Ages were as pacifistic and peaceful as their * University of Southern Denmark. (1) http://www.middelaldercentret.dk/ 179 Revista de História das Ideias modern compatriots have been obliged to be with their transition from a huge Northern European empire in the eighteenth century to a minor and politically insignificant nation-state in the twentieth^. Medieval warfare has been neglected by Danish historians, but a change seems to have taken place since the early 1990's when the first modern historical analyses of the role of warfare in medieval society began to appear2 (3). Eventually, in 2008, for the first time ever there appeared a History of Warfare in Denmark written by professional historians(4). Meanwhile after one and a half centuries of neutrality Denmark had actively joined a war with its participation in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Whether this was a result of the renewed historical interest in warfare, or vice versa, is impossible to say At least it reflects a new interest in military history, of which the present article is also a manifestation. It is the aim here to look at castles, at large war machines, and to a lesser extent at ships, in the years around 1200, and to try to argue that what might be understood as a military revolution took place in this period. Castles Castellology in Denmark has been characterized by two confident, but unfounded assumptions - that in the high middle ages the building of castles was solely a royal prerogative, and that fortifications were erected as a defence against attacks from neighbouring Scandinavian countries and especially the pagan Slavic or Wendic pirates living in scattered settlements in the areas between Holstein and Rügen (in present day Northern Germany). Castles were defensive and not aggressive, it was claimed(5). There seems to be a marked empty period with no new fortifications between the late Viking Age and the high middle ages, that is from the late tenth century and into the early twelfth century. (2) For this transition, see Bregnsbo and fensen 2004. (3) Very much inspired by the many studies by Knud J. V. fespersen, which reached a broader Danish scholarly public with fespersen 1992. For all his publications, see Bisgaardet al, 2006, pp. 339-346. (4) Frantzen and fespersen 2008. (5) Especially by Rikke Agnete Olsen, e.g. Olsen 1982, Olsen 1986. 180 Large Castles and Large War Machines in Denmark and The Baltic Around 1200 Denmark and the Wendic areas in Northern Germany. Johnny G. G. Jakobsen 2009. The Viking fortresses of the Trelleborg type have been dated by dendrochronology to the early 980's. They are not mentioned in any written source, but the first of them was found by archaeologists in the late 1920's, and systematic surveys have later identified at least four within the present borders of Denmark and possibly a couple more in former Danish territory(6). They are remarkable for their totally symmetrical lay-out with a perfect circular wall and an interior divided into four quarters by streets running exactly north-south and east-west, (6) Aggersborg, Fyrkat and Nonnebakken in the city of Odense. For the Trelleborgs, the most recent thorough summary is J. Jensen 2001-2004, vol. 4, pp. 381-392. 181 Revista de Historia das Ideias each of which contains four or three times four houses that could each accommodate a substantial number of warriors. Their purpose has been vigorously debated. A traditional explanation has been that they were barracks where the Viking army could assemble before setting out to conquer England. A more plausible interpretation is that they were the strongholds of one dynasty of petty kings in their wars against other dynasties. This conforms to the statement of King Harald Bluetooth on a monumental rune stone in Jelling from the same period, in which he claims that he conquered the whole of Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christians. The Trelleborgs were military strongholds in the war to unite the territory of Denmark under one ruler, and they were also strong ideological manifestations of the new faith through imitating in their form contemporary depictions of the holy city of Jerusalem. The Trelleborgs lasted for about 50 years, until they were burned or abandoned around 1030. They had served their purpose. Archaeologists have shown that a number of more local Danish petty kings' residences were abandoned or substantially reduced in size in this period, and also that pagan burial customs disappear around the same time, in the first couple of decades of the eleventh century(7). The descendants of Harald Bluetooth seem to have gained firm control over Danish territory, and expanded it into a North Sea empire with the final conquest of the whole of England in 1014-1016. They had no more use for the Trelleborgs. Traditionally, Danish historians have claimed that the following centuries were characterised by few, big castles that were all royally controlled, and that not until the middle of the fourteenth century with civil war and no king, could magnates and nobles begin to build their own castles. This is not true. After the Trelleborgs we can find no substantial evidence for castles or fortifications for some generations, but archaeologists have in recent years found so many, and often so small, fortifications from the beginning of the twelfth century that it is absurd to imagine that they were all royal. An impressive example is the Bastrup Tower from around 1100 or maybe the first half of the twelfth century, a strong donjon that may have risen 30 or even 50 meters over the ground and with its fine travertine stone work is among the most advanced and strongest buildings in (7) E.g. J. Jensen, vol. 4, pp. 300-308. 182 Large Castles and Large War Machines in Denmark and The Baltic Around 1200 Central and Northern Europe at that time(8). It later belonged to one of the powerful magnate families on the central island of Zealand, but whether it was originally erected by the king, is impossible to ascertain. It belongs to a handful of similar strong towers in southern Scandinavia and Northern Germany that were built in the first half of the twelfth century and which normally belonged to kings or archbishops. Much more common, however, were the numerous minor fortifications that have been detected and now, for the first time, dated to the twelfth century and not the fourteenth. They normally consisted of a central building in two or more storeys, in wood or a timber construction plastered with clay, and surrounded by an earth wall with timber palisades. Some of these fortifications had a dry or wet ditch around them; some were placed on small islands in lakes or swamps and only accessible by bridge or boat. A few were minor motte-constructions with palisades and a central building on top of a small mount.