Victual Brothers
Encyclopedia
The Victual Brothers were a companionship of privateer
s who later turned to piracy. They were hired in 1392 by the Dukes of Mecklenburg
to fight against Denmark
, because the Danish Queen Margaret I
had imprisoned Albrecht of Mecklenburg
and his son in order to subdue the kingdom of Sweden. Albrecht had been King of Sweden
since 1364 and Duke of Mecklenburg
since 1383.
n supremacy and Margaret's forces were besieging Stockholm
, privateers named the Victual Brothers engaged in war at sea
and shipped food to keep the city supplied. The name Victual Brothers is derived from the Latin
word "victualia" — meaning provisions — and refers to their first mission, which was to supply food to the besieged city of Stockholm.
The Victual Brothers were organised as a brotherhood or guild
, and attracted men from all over Europe. Their main naval enemy in 1392 was the powerful Hanseatic town of Lübeck
, which supported Denmark in the war. Apart from Lübeck, the Hanseatic League
initially supported the Victual Brothers. Most of the Hanseatic towns had no desire for a victory for Denmark, with its strategic location for control of the seaways.
For several years from 1392, the Victual Brothers were a strong power in the Baltic Sea
. They had safe harbours in the cities of Rostock
, Ribnitz
, Wismar
and Stralsund
. They soon turned to open piracy and coastal plunder. In 1393 they sacked the town of Bergen for the first time and in 1394 they conquered Malmö
. They also plundered Turku
, Vyborg
, Faxeholm, Styresholm
and Korsholm
and occupied parts of Frisia
and Schleswig
.
At the climax of their power, the Victual Brothers occupied Gotland
in 1394 and set up their headquarters in Visby
. Maritime trade in the Baltic Sea virtually collapsed, and the herring industry suffered from their depredations. Queen Margaret even turned to King Richard II of England
and sought to charter English ships to combat the pirates.
From 1395 onwards, Queen Margaret gained the upper hand politically. She united Denmark, Sweden and Norway
and formed the Kalmar Union
. The Hanseatic League
was forced to cooperate with her, foreshadowing its eventual decline.
At the same time, the Victual Brothers were impartially raiding everyone's shipping. Their famous battle cry
was "God's friends and the whole world's enemies". Queen Margaret and King Albert of Sweden
conceded Gotland to the allied Teutonic Order
as a pledge
(similar to a fiefdom
). An invasion army under Konrad von Jungingen
, the Grand Master of the Order, conquered the island in 1398, destroying Visby
and driving the Victual Brothers out of Gotland.
, the Gulf of Finland
and Gotland, they operated from the Schlei
, the mouth of the river Ems and other locations in Friesland
. The successors to the Victual Brothers gave themselves the name Likedeelers ("equal sharers"): they shared with the poor coastal population. They expanded their activities into the North Sea
and along the Atlantic
coastline, raiding Brabant
and France and striking as far south as Spain.
Their most famous leader was Captain Störtebeker
. He allegedly got his name because he could swallow four litres of beer without taking the beaker from his mouth. However, it might simply be a family name
from Wismar
. The Low German
word Störtebeker means "Down the drink in the beaker". In 1401 the Hamburg
warship Bunte Kuh, leading a small fleet
under Commander Simon of Utrecht
, caught up with Störtebeker's forces near Heligoland
. After three days' running battle, Störtebeker and his crew were finally overpowered and trapped by means of a trick.
However this was not the end of piracy and coastal raiding by the Likedeelers. In 1429, some 28 years after the execution of Störtebeker, other members of the Victual Brothers attacked and plundered the city of Bergen
in Norway, eventually burning it to the ground. Until about 1440, maritime trade in both the North Sea and the Baltic Sea was seriously in danger of attack by the Likedeelers.
Privateer
A privateer is a private person or ship authorized by a government by letters of marque to attack foreign shipping during wartime. Privateering was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors without having to spend public money or commit naval officers...
s who later turned to piracy. They were hired in 1392 by the Dukes of Mecklenburg
Mecklenburg
Mecklenburg is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern...
to fight against Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, because the Danish Queen Margaret I
Margaret I of Denmark
Margaret I was Queen of Denmark, Norway and Sweden and founder of the Kalmar Union, which united the Scandinavian countries for over a century. Although she acted as queen regnant, the laws of contemporary Danish succession denied her formal queenship. Her title in Denmark was derived from her...
had imprisoned Albrecht of Mecklenburg
Albert of Sweden
Albert was King of Sweden from 1364 to 1389 and Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin from 1384 to 1412.-Background:...
and his son in order to subdue the kingdom of Sweden. Albrecht had been King of Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
since 1364 and Duke of Mecklenburg
Mecklenburg
Mecklenburg is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern...
since 1383.
Guild of the Victual Brothers
While Queen Margaret and Albrecht of Mecklenburg were battling for ScandinaviaScandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
n supremacy and Margaret's forces were besieging Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, privateers named the Victual Brothers engaged in war at sea
Naval battle
A naval battle is a battle fought using boats, ships or other waterborne vessels. Most naval battles have occurred at sea, but a few have taken place on lakes or rivers. The earliest recorded naval battle took place in 1210 BC near Cyprus...
and shipped food to keep the city supplied. The name Victual Brothers is derived from the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
word "victualia" — meaning provisions — and refers to their first mission, which was to supply food to the besieged city of Stockholm.
The Victual Brothers were organised as a brotherhood or guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
, and attracted men from all over Europe. Their main naval enemy in 1392 was the powerful Hanseatic town of Lübeck
Lübeck
The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...
, which supported Denmark in the war. Apart from Lübeck, the Hanseatic League
Hanseatic League
The Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...
initially supported the Victual Brothers. Most of the Hanseatic towns had no desire for a victory for Denmark, with its strategic location for control of the seaways.
For several years from 1392, the Victual Brothers were a strong power in the Baltic Sea
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
. They had safe harbours in the cities of Rostock
Rostock
Rostock -Early history:In the 11th century Polabian Slavs founded a settlement at the Warnow river called Roztoc ; the name Rostock is derived from that designation. The Danish king Valdemar I set the town aflame in 1161.Afterwards the place was settled by German traders...
, Ribnitz
Ribnitz-Damgarten
Ribnitz-Damgarten is a town in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is situated at the Ribnitzer See . Ribnitz-Damgarten is the largest town of the district Vorpommern-Rügen, but not its capital.-Geography:...
, Wismar
Wismar
Wismar , is a small port and Hanseatic League town in northern Germany on the Baltic Sea, in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,about 45 km due east of Lübeck, and 30 km due north of Schwerin. Its natural harbour, located in the Bay of Wismar is well-protected by a promontory. The...
and Stralsund
Stralsund
- Main sights :* The Brick Gothic historic centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.* The heart of the old town is the Old Market Square , with the Gothic Town Hall . Behind the town hall stands the imposing Nikolaikirche , built in 1270-1360...
. They soon turned to open piracy and coastal plunder. In 1393 they sacked the town of Bergen for the first time and in 1394 they conquered Malmö
Malmö
Malmö , in the southernmost province of Scania, is the third most populous city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg.Malmö is the seat of Malmö Municipality and the capital of Skåne County...
. They also plundered Turku
Turku
Turku is a city situated on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River. It is located in the region of Finland Proper. It is believed that Turku came into existence during the end of the 13th century which makes it the oldest city in Finland...
, Vyborg
Vyborg
Vyborg is a town in Leningrad Oblast, Russia, situated on the Karelian Isthmus near the head of the Bay of Vyborg, to the northwest of St. Petersburg and south from Russia's border with Finland, where the Saimaa Canal enters the Gulf of Finland...
, Faxeholm, Styresholm
Styresholm
Styresholm was a mediaeval fortress near the present-day community of Kramfors. Today it is on the banks of the Ångermanälven, although in the 14th century it was on an island in the river, as the water level was some 5 metres higher than today....
and Korsholm
Korsholm
Korsholm is a municipality of Finland. The town of Vaasa was founded in Korsholm parish in 1606 and today the municipality completely surrounds the city. It is a coastal, mostly rural municipality, consisting of a rural landscape and a large, fractured archipelago...
and occupied parts of Frisia
Frisia
Frisia is a coastal region along the southeastern corner of the North Sea, i.e. the German Bight. Frisia is the traditional homeland of the Frisians, a Germanic people who speak Frisian, a language group closely related to the English language...
and Schleswig
Schleswig
Schleswig or South Jutland is a region covering the area about 60 km north and 70 km south of the border between Germany and Denmark; the territory has been divided between the two countries since 1920, with Northern Schleswig in Denmark and Southern Schleswig in Germany...
.
At the climax of their power, the Victual Brothers occupied Gotland
Gotland
Gotland is a county, province, municipality and diocese of Sweden; it is Sweden's largest island and the largest island in the Baltic Sea. At 3,140 square kilometers in area, the region makes up less than one percent of Sweden's total land area...
in 1394 and set up their headquarters in Visby
Visby
-See also:* Battle of Visby* Gotland University College* List of governors of Gotland County-External links:* - Visby*...
. Maritime trade in the Baltic Sea virtually collapsed, and the herring industry suffered from their depredations. Queen Margaret even turned to King Richard II of England
Richard II of England
Richard II was King of England, a member of the House of Plantagenet and the last of its main-line kings. He ruled from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. Richard was a son of Edward, the Black Prince, and was born during the reign of his grandfather, Edward III...
and sought to charter English ships to combat the pirates.
From 1395 onwards, Queen Margaret gained the upper hand politically. She united Denmark, Sweden and Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
and formed the Kalmar Union
Kalmar Union
The Kalmar Union is a historiographical term meaning a series of personal unions that united the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway , and Sweden under a single monarch, though intermittently and with a population...
. The Hanseatic League
Hanseatic League
The Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...
was forced to cooperate with her, foreshadowing its eventual decline.
At the same time, the Victual Brothers were impartially raiding everyone's shipping. Their famous battle cry
Battle cry
A battle cry is a yell or chant taken up in battle, usually by members of the same military unit.Battle cries are not necessarily articulate, although they often aim to invoke patriotic or religious sentiment....
was "God's friends and the whole world's enemies". Queen Margaret and King Albert of Sweden
Albert of Sweden
Albert was King of Sweden from 1364 to 1389 and Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin from 1384 to 1412.-Background:...
conceded Gotland to the allied Teutonic Order
Teutonic Knights
The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem , commonly the Teutonic Order , is a German medieval military order, in modern times a purely religious Catholic order...
as a pledge
Oath
An oath is either a statement of fact or a promise calling upon something or someone that the oath maker considers sacred, usually God, as a witness to the binding nature of the promise or the truth of the statement of fact. To swear is to take an oath, to make a solemn vow...
(similar to a fiefdom
Fiefdom
A fee was the central element of feudalism and consisted of heritable lands granted under one of several varieties of feudal tenure by an overlord to a vassal who held it in fealty in return for a form of feudal allegiance and service, usually given by the...
). An invasion army under Konrad von Jungingen
Konrad von Jungingen
Konrad von Jungingen was the 25th Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, serving from 1393 to 1407...
, the Grand Master of the Order, conquered the island in 1398, destroying Visby
Visby
-See also:* Battle of Visby* Gotland University College* List of governors of Gotland County-External links:* - Visby*...
and driving the Victual Brothers out of Gotland.
Likedeelers, the successors of the Victual Brothers
After the Victual Brothers' defeat and expulsion from Gotland in 1398, the Hanseatic League tried repeatedly but unsuccessfully to completely control the Baltic Sea. Many Victual Brothers still remained at sea. When they lost their influence in the Gulf of BothniaGulf of Bothnia
The Gulf of Bothnia is the northernmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It is situated between Finland's west coast and Sweden's east coast. In the south of the gulf lie the Åland Islands, between the Sea of Åland and the Archipelago Sea.-Name:...
, the Gulf of Finland
Gulf of Finland
The Gulf of Finland is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland and Estonia all the way to Saint Petersburg in Russia, where the river Neva drains into it. Other major cities around the gulf include Helsinki and Tallinn...
and Gotland, they operated from the Schlei
Schlei
The Schlei is a narrow inlet of the Baltic Sea in Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany. It stretches for approximately 20 miles from the Baltic near Kappeln and Arnis to the city of Schleswig. Along the Schlei are many small bays and swamps...
, the mouth of the river Ems and other locations in Friesland
Friesland
Friesland is a province in the north of the Netherlands and part of the ancient region of Frisia.Until the end of 1996, the province bore Friesland as its official name. In 1997 this Dutch name lost its official status to the Frisian Fryslân...
. The successors to the Victual Brothers gave themselves the name Likedeelers ("equal sharers"): they shared with the poor coastal population. They expanded their activities into the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
and along the Atlantic
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
coastline, raiding Brabant
Duchy of Brabant
The Duchy of Brabant was a historical region in the Low Countries. Its territory consisted essentially of the three modern-day Belgian provinces of Flemish Brabant, Walloon Brabant and Antwerp, the Brussels-Capital Region and most of the present-day Dutch province of North Brabant.The Flag of...
and France and striking as far south as Spain.
Their most famous leader was Captain Störtebeker
Klaus Störtebeker
Nikolaus Storzenbecher, or Klaus Störtebeker , was a leader and the best known representative of a companionship of privateers known as the Victual Brothers...
. He allegedly got his name because he could swallow four litres of beer without taking the beaker from his mouth. However, it might simply be a family name
Family name
A family name is a type of surname and part of a person's name indicating the family to which the person belongs. The use of family names is widespread in cultures around the world...
from Wismar
Wismar
Wismar , is a small port and Hanseatic League town in northern Germany on the Baltic Sea, in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,about 45 km due east of Lübeck, and 30 km due north of Schwerin. Its natural harbour, located in the Bay of Wismar is well-protected by a promontory. The...
. The Low German
Low German
Low German or Low Saxon is an Ingvaeonic West Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands...
word Störtebeker means "Down the drink in the beaker". In 1401 the Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
warship Bunte Kuh, leading a small fleet
Naval fleet
A fleet, or naval fleet, is a large formation of warships, and the largest formation in any navy. A fleet at sea is the direct equivalent of an army on land....
under Commander Simon of Utrecht
Simon of Utrecht
Simon of Utrecht was a warship captain of the Hanseatic League during the Middle Ages. He was probably born in Flanders, but emigrated to Hamburg, Germany, where he received citizenship in 1400...
, caught up with Störtebeker's forces near Heligoland
Heligoland
Heligoland is a small German archipelago in the North Sea.Formerly Danish and British possessions, the islands are located in the Heligoland Bight in the south-eastern corner of the North Sea...
. After three days' running battle, Störtebeker and his crew were finally overpowered and trapped by means of a trick.
However this was not the end of piracy and coastal raiding by the Likedeelers. In 1429, some 28 years after the execution of Störtebeker, other members of the Victual Brothers attacked and plundered the city of Bergen
Bergen
Bergen is the second largest city in Norway with a population of as of , . Bergen is the administrative centre of Hordaland county. Greater Bergen or Bergen Metropolitan Area as defined by Statistics Norway, has a population of as of , ....
in Norway, eventually burning it to the ground. Until about 1440, maritime trade in both the North Sea and the Baltic Sea was seriously in danger of attack by the Likedeelers.
External links
- Agreement on reparations for injuries and damages by vitalians (made between King Henry IV of EnglandHenry IV of EnglandHenry IV was King of England and Lord of Ireland . He was the ninth King of England of the House of Plantagenet and also asserted his grandfather's claim to the title King of France. He was born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, hence his other name, Henry Bolingbroke...
and the Hanseatic League) - Vitalienbrüder (in German)