From the Viking Age to the Middle Ages
Since the end of the Stone Age, or about 4000 years ago, there were settlements on Gotland and in the area where Visby is today, but then the entire lower part of the current town was below sea level. During the pagan era until the 11th century, Viking chieftains and various Nordic kings ravaged the island’s coasts. However, the Gotlanders managed to fight for and pacify their island and maintain their independent position.
It’s believed that Gotland from the 6th century until 1361 was more or less self-governing as the Bonderepubliken Gotland (Peasant Republic of Gotland). However, it took until the Viking Age in the 11th century before there was a permanent population on the island. Then the current Almedalen in Visby was a protective bay with a harbor for smaller trading and fishing boats. During the early 11th century, the Norwegian king Olav Haraldsson, also known as St Olof or Olof the Holy after his canonization, came to Gotland. It’s said that he brought Christianity to the island and to those who would not listen to him, he preached the Christian doctrine through arson, mutilations or outright executions.
The heyday of Visby
In the 12th century, Gotland was a hub for trade with Russia and a significant trading town for the entire Baltic Sea area began to emerge in Visby. Through agreements, the Gotlanders established certain ties with the Swedish king and German traders as well came to Visby. The latter brought with them knowledge of the defense of northern German cities. Already in the 1150s two defense towers were built at the ports, of which the Kruttornet (Gunpowder Tower) at Almedalen still stands today. As protection against enemies and later perhaps also against the peasant population outside the town, the construction of the ring wall began in the 1250s and it was completed as we know it around 1350.
Visby reached its heyday in the 13th century when the Hanseatic League, a trade confederation between northern German towns, signed trade agreements with the Visby. In 1285, the Gotlanders also began to pay a tax to the Swedish king and the island was regarded to some extent as Swedish, although with strong autonomy. The citizens of Visby had, through their own trade agreements and with the construction of the ring wall, probably made it difficult for the peasants outside the town to conduct trade. In 1288, it led to a civil war between the peasants and the citizens of Visby, and the Swedish king had to mediate peace between the parties.
Some of the wealth the Goths amassed through trade was used to build more than 100 stone churches on the island, of which at least a dozen were inside the ring wall. The end of the island’s heyday began in 1293 when the Hanseatic League moved trade with Russia to Lübeck. After that, the miseries come blow after blow, starting around 1350 when the Black Death hit Gotland and it’s estimated that a third of the population died from the disease.
End of autonomy
Autonomy for the Gotland ended when the Danish king Valdemar Atterdag invaded island in 1361 and in connection with clashes, about 1800 peasants were killed outside the locked gates. The citizens of Visby opened the gates after negotiations and capitulated without a fight, and in return for paying a ransom, the town was also spared from looting. Then it’s written in many history books that the island remained under Danish rule for 284 years until the peace treaty of Brömsbro in 1645.
However, the island was captured in 1391 by pirates, called the Vitalie brothers, from North German Meckleburg. They fought and ravaged the Baltic Sea so that their deposed king Albrekt would get back the Swedish throne. By 1396, the Hanseatic League had enough of the piracy against their towns and merchant fleet in the Baltic Sea. They attacked and drove the Vitalie brothers out of Visby, who, however, returned the following year and again ravaged the town. The Teutonic Order, which had close ties to the citizens of Visby, came to the rescue in 1398 and finally forced the Vitalie brothers out of Gotland. It’s said that the Teutonic Order also began building what would become the Visborg Castle.
The Kalmar Union, between Denmark, Sweden and Norway, was formed in 1397 and was co-ruled by the Danish Union Queen Margareta and Erik of Pomerania until her death in 1412, when Erik alone took over as Union King. In 1408, the Teutonic Order leaves Gotland to Erik, who strove to oppose the Hanseatic League in every possible way. However, he became unpopular in all parts of the Union and was deposed as Union king in country after country and fled in the late 1430s to Gotland. He then settled in Visborg Castle and also expanded the castle while he engaged in piracy against the Hansa and other merchant ships. In 1448, the Swedish king Karl Knutsson Bonde ordered an attack on Visby and forced Erik to leave Gotland for good.
The Danish rule
However, the Danish king Kristian I saw Gotland as a Danish island and in the same year sent a fleet under the command of Olof Axelsen to the island. Olof captured the island and afterwards he and two of his brothers, also called the Axel brothers, were Danish lords of Gotland for almost 40 years. The two older brothers died in the plague in 1464 and the youngest brother Ivar Axelsen Thott took over as county lord and he also expanded Visborg’s castle. Ivar was married to the daughter of the Swedish king and when he died in 1470, a power struggle took place for the Swedish royal throne. In 1487, Sten Sture the elder forced the last Axel brother to leave Gotland. However, Ivar succeeded in consolidating Danish rule by handing the island over to the Danish king Hans, also known as Johan ll as the king of Sweden.
Then succeeded a Danish county lord named Jens Holgersen Ulfstand, who had no restrictions in terms of taxation and oppression of the Gotlanders. Rather, he saw it as an opportunity to acquire wealth and stone from Gotland for his castle, which he had built in Scania’s Glimmingehus, but in 1509 Ulfstand as well was forced out of Gotland.
Ulfstand’s successor Laurens Schinkel had worked for Ivar Axelsen Thott and he came back to Visby after a 30-year absence. Now he found a Visborg castle that was a disgrace after decades of neglected maintenance and a population in poverty and starvation. He worked for the good of the population and did not engage in piracy, but that wasn’t liked by Kristian ll, in Sweden called Kristian Tyrann, who forced him off the island.
In 1517, Sören Norby instead becomes the new county lord of Gotland and he had previously been a pirate with Ulfstand and began hijacking ships that belonged to Denmark’s enemies. Kristian Tyrann defeated Sten Sture the Younger in 1520 and then became king of Sweden, and a few years of oppression of the Swedish population followed. Under the leadership of Gustav Vasa and with the support of the Lübeckers, they managed to overthrow the tyrant from the Swedish royal throne in 1523.
The following year, Gustav Vasa sent a fleet to Gotland, but the commander Berent von Melen made only a few unsuccessful attacks against Visby. He had been a pirate together with Norby and it was suspected that he joined Norby instead. In the meantime, Kristian II had also been overthrown from the Danish royal throne. Then Norby decided to sail away and lend his support to an ongoing rebellion in southern Sweden to try to bring Kristian ll back as a king of Denmark. It gave the Lübeckers the chance to meet Norby’s fleet in May 1525 where all his ships were destroyed. The Lübecks then went to Visby to drive Norby’s men out of Gotland once and for all.
The Lübeckers anchored on the northern part of the ring wall where the cannons of Visborg Castle couldn’t reach the ships. In May 1525, they began shelling the ring wall with the ship’s cannons and it’s said that it was then that the wall was damaged where the so-called Lübecker breach still exists today. When the Lübeckers stormed over the damaged wall, Norby’s men burned the entire northern part of the town to slow down the attack. Several of the stone churches in the northern part of the town were also badly damaged in the fire. Norby’s men managed to gather the defense in Visborg’s castle and hold out against siege and storming attempts. After negotiations between the Lübeckers and the Danish king Fredrik I, the pirate Norby forever left the island.
Various Danish county lords continued to rule over Gotland for the next 120 years. Against several of the county lords complaints were made to the Danish kings about the excessive taxation and forced trade agreements. Most of the time, the population of Gotland received little or no support from the Danish king, or the reaction was delayed by several years. Erik of Pomerania and the subsequent Danish county lords had thus between 1408 and 1648 oppressed and taxed all Gotlanders so that their riches were then a thing of the past.
The Lutheran doctrine and the decay
The Lutheran teaching had taken over and during the Reformation in the 1530s, all the churches were abandoned except S:ta Maria, which still stands today as the beautiful white cathedral in the middle of the town. The majority of church ruins were used in the following centuries as storerooms and warehouses or barns and stables. The ruins were also looted during the 17th and 18th centuries for stone to be used as building material for new houses in the Visby.
The Swedes and the tourists take over
After the peace treaty of Brömsebro in 1645, Gotland became Swedish except for a few Danish years until 1679, when the Danes were finally expelled from the island. Until the 19th century, the town had fallen into disrepair, but they had managed to save the ring wall almost intact, also. there was a ban on looting the church ruins for building materials. In the 19th century, historical monuments received a lot of attention worldwide and Visby became a favorite for artists and writers.
The town finally got a boost when tourism started to take off in the mid-1800s and that invasion has only increased since then. Tourism is still today a very important source of income for Visby and also for the rest of Gotland, so feel welcome to a historically interesting island.
