Europe in the Middle Ages

by Ierne L. Plunket

N.E. EUROPE
in the MIDDLE AGES

In early mediaeval times we have noticed Scandinavia as the home of Norse pirates; as the mother of a race of world-conquerors, the Normans; under Cnut, who reigned in England, Norway, and Denmark, as an empire-builder. The last ideal was never quite forgotten, for as late as the Hundred Years’ War King Valdemar III of Denmark planned to aid his French ally by invading England; but the necessary money was not forthcoming, and other and more pressing political problems intervened and stopped him.

Valdemar inherited from his Norse ancestors a taste for piracy that he pursued with a restless, unscrupulous energy very tiring to his people. Sometimes it brought him victory, but more often disaster, at least to his land. ‘In the whole kingdom’, says a discontented Dane, ‘no time remained to eat, to repose, to sleep—no time in which people were not driven to work by the bailiffs and servants of the King at the risk of losing his royal favour, their lives, and their goods.’ Because of his persistence Valdemar was nicknamed ‘Atterdag’, or ‘There is another day’: his boast being that there was always time to return to any task on completing which he had set his heart.

Valdemar’s chief ambition was to make Denmark the supreme power in northern Europe, and in endeavouring to achieve this object he was always forming alliances with Norway and Sweden that broke down and plunged him into wars instead. The Hanse towns he hated and despised, and in 1361, moved by this enmity, he promised his army that ‘he would lead them whither there was gold and silver enough, and where pigs ate out of silver troughs’. His allusion was to Wisby, the capital of Gothland, that under the fostering care and control of North German merchants had become the prosperous centre of the Baltic herring-fishery. Under Valdemar’s unexpected onslaught the city, with its forty-eight towers rising from the sea, was set on fire and sacked.

Since Gothland was a Swedish island, vengeance for this insult did not legally rest with the Hansa, but, recognizing that the blow had been aimed primarily at her trade, she sent a fleet northwards to co-operate with the Swedes and Norwegians. This led to one of the greatest disasters that ever befell the Hanseatic League, for her allies did not appear, and her fleet, being outnumbered, was beaten and destroyed.

Valdemar, delighted with his success, determined to reduce the North Germans to ruin, and continued his policy of aggression with added zest; but in this he made a political mistake. Many of the towns, especially those not on the Baltic, were apathetic when the struggle with the Danish king began: they did not wish to pay taxes even for a victory, and angrily repudiated financial responsibility for defeat. It was only as they became aware, through constant Danish attacks, that the very existence of the League was at stake, that a new public opinion was born, and that it was decided at Cologne in 1367 to reopen a campaign against King Valdemar, towards which every town must contribute its due.

‘If any city refuse to help’, ran the announcement of the meeting’s decisions, ‘its burghers and merchants shall have no intercourse with the towns of the German “Hansa”, no goods shall be bought from them or sold to them, they shall have no right of entry or exit, of lading or unlading, in any harbour.’

The result of the League’s vigorous policy was entirely successful, and compelled the unscrupulous Valdemar, who found himself shortly in an awkward corner, to collect all the money that he could and depart on a round of visits to the various courts of Europe. He left his people to the fate he had prepared for them, and during his absence Copenhagen was sacked, and the Danes driven to conclude the Treaty of Stralsund that placed the League in control of all the fortresses along the coast of Skaania for fifteen years.

The Hansa had now acquired the supremacy of the Baltic, and because the duty of garrisoning fortresses and patrolling the seas required a standing army and navy, the League of northern towns did not, like those in South Germany, Italy, or France, melt away as soon as temporary safety was achieved. Each city continued to manage its own affairs, but federal assemblies were held, where questions of common taxation and foreign policy were discussed, and where those towns that refused to abide by decisions previously arrived at were ‘unhansed’, that is, deprived of their privileges.