It was very probably during the actual fighting that those further additions were being made to the ramparts that cause them to look so impressive to-day. The walls were heightened and made thicker by building on the arch-supported walks, or even enclosing them in new masonry. About forty fresh towers were added, projecting toward the open country; some reach the height of seventy feet. Towers were likewise raised above the gates that were not so protected before.
Between the great bastions, upon the walls were perched in many cases bartizans or saddle towers, projecting on either side, resting on large corbels built in between the huge battlements of older date; their outer walls rest upon arches that spring from corbel to corbel. Within they are open to the city like the great towers themselves. This is a curious feature of the work; the floors were all of timber and to make up for the lost stone walks double timber galleries ran along the walls within, one above and one below. The holes for their joists may still be seen, and ledges in the towers for the floors. All this open woodwork created a huge danger of fire, especially in the great towers, and, compared with other mediæval defences, particularly in France, the ramparts of Visby give the impression of being the work of amateurs. Nevertheless, from some points of view, the combination of low hills and sparkling sea and lofty towers recalls the mighty walls of the City of Constantine, whose capture by the Turks in 1453 was the beginning of the last act in the long mediæval drama.
Little, however, did these brave defences effect against the forces of the Danes when in 1361 Visby was attacked and sacked by Waldemar IV., surnamed Atterdag, because, if once foiled, he was sure that his day of success would arrive. Close to the sea one of the city bastions is known as the Maiden Tower (Jungfrutornet).[78] There dwelt Nils the goldsmith, the liar, the loathsome traitor, the hideous thief. Such language his fellow-townsmen did well to use if in very truth on account of a petty slight he suggested the sack of Visby to the robber Danish king. A young girl, it was fabled, gave Waldemar information which enabled him to capture the fair town, and not unfitly she was walled alive into this very tower, from which circumstance it has its name.
There can be little doubt that the only real foundation for these foolish tales was the fact that the merchants were somewhat ashamed of the very poor defence they made. Instead of defying the robber behind their strengthened walls, they abjectly permitted a breach to be torn when he refused to enter by a gate.
He had led his army to Gothland and made knights in that land and struck down many men, for the peasants were unarmed and unused to war. And he set his face toward Visby and the citizens came out and surrendered, for they saw that resistance was impossible. This we learn from a Franciscan chronicler of Lübeck, the chief headquarters of the Hanseatic League.
In the market-place of captured Visby were placed the three largest vats that in the city could be found, and these the Danish king insisted should be filled with glittering gold. The ransom received, the town was treacherously and pitilessly sacked and the Danish ships at length sailed off as encumbered with loot as no doubt the Mayflower was with furniture. But by far the greater portion—almost the whole—it was fated should merely sparkle in the depths of the tossing sea, for the vessels were wrecked in a fearful storm and the king came very near being drowned. Fittingly his body might have lain amidst those ill-gotten spoils till the day of Holy Doom, but he was rescued by his men and continued to rule the Danes.
Not wholly a bad King of Denmark, for he governed with might and power and in some ways really sought to enlarge his country's weal. His insult to the Hansa League was too great even for merchants to endure, and in striking contrast with the unchivalrous action of the king, who smote a peaceful city without excuse, without declaring war, a herald bore to Waldemar a formal notice that the towns would fight. Copenhagen was captured and plundered in the May of 1362, but then the Danes gained a considerable victory and the beaten burgomaster of proud Lübeck paid for failure with life.
In 1367 the deputies of seventy-seven towns met at Köln, and in formal manner confirmed the League which even then was centuries old. Waldemar contemptuously likened the citizens to cackling geese, but ill-founded was his foolish mirth. After a few years of war, disastrous to the Danes and very profitable indeed to the traders, he was compelled to sign the humiliating Treaty of Stralsund, by which he virtually ceased to be an independent king. The League took its place as a first-rate power and for generations dominated the North.
Visby was very fully avenged, but could never really recover from the staggering blow. The ancient port now fell on evil days. The city whose maritime code of laws was to Northern Europe very much what that of Rhodes was to the Mediterranean, slipped so low as to be made, helplessly, the headquarters of Baltic pirates and a pest to the shipping of that sea. The great Margaret (p. [120]) cleared them out and annexed the island to Denmark,[79] but her worthless successor, Eric of Pomerania, erected at the southern end of the walls the Castle of Visborg,[80] to be a stronghold for himself. The city suffered further from his blighting presence and piracy sprang up again (p. [132]). The saddest blow fell in the seventeenth century when the burghers of Lübeck, former sister city and close ally, plundered and sacked the sinning port and almost ended its being.
Gradually it shrank to the quiet little market town that it remains to-day, nestling amid gardens and roses and the lofty ruins of its past. But even yet there is not the sleep of some little English cathedral towns. The railway runs along the quays by the harbour, where is sometimes a busy scene. Southward the chimneys of a factory pour their smoke into the clear air. The vigorous life of an older day still stirs in the picturesque market-place by the ruined Friars' Church. From it wind about to every part of the city narrow streets between garden walls that tunnel here and there under the whitewashed houses.