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| Valdemar Atterdag holding Visby to ransom, 1361 Carl Gustaf Hellqvist (PD) |
Gotland is an island in the Baltic Sea, part of Sweden. Back in 1361, the King of Denmark decided to invade it. The locals were defeated on a hot summer day. The town of Visby was forced to put up a sizeable ransom, or suffer the consequences.
Normally those killed in battle were stripped of everything and anything of value, then buried in a mass grave. No ceremony, no honors, just buried to avoid disease and pestilence.
After Visby, the dead were not stripped, they were buried with everything they had on them. Nikolas Lloyd, AKA Lindybeige, has this interesting take as to why this may have happened.
All that metal (and gold coins!) just dumped and covered over in dirt. Perhaps the stench was a factor, who knows.
As you may gather, lately I've been fascinated by things medieval, battles and the like. It was a hard life back in those days if you were born to the wrong people. The rich and mighty might live to their three score and ten, the peasants were probably lucky to get two score, if that!
But Beans mentioned this battle the other day (him being our resident medievalist, if you will) and I've had it on my own radar for a while, mostly for the archeological aspects. I'm a big artifact guy (my own very small collection is of World War II items) and I always find it of interest when old stuff is unearthed. Gives us a bit of insight into "olden times." As an amateur historian, it makes the blood run hot at the idea of finding these kind of things.
But what about that battle?
Well, I could explain it, but I'll go with a video. (I'm still on the mend from last weekend's malady, and other things. Busy, busy, busy, no rest for the wicked and all that.)
Enjoy and be educated!
I might just start a new fictional series based in medieval times. I've been thinking of what it must have been like for the common soldiers back in that day. On a cold, wet night marching to Towton, or perhaps waiting in the ranks to try and stop an invading army of Danes. (Which could apply to both Gotland and England depending on the time period.)
We shall see, it all depends on how much time I can free up in the days and weeks to come. The holidays are upon us and, pour moi, retirement looms on the horizon.
'Tis all a bit daunting.
Enjoy what's left of the weekend!
Couple of more vids.......ah....very good, very good. Interesting that the town of Visby used their wall to charge surrounding farmers in order to enter the city and sell their goods in the market.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I was not impressed with the denizens of the city of Visby.
DeleteFortifications are expensive to build and maintain. So charging farmers and travellers was a common practice across medieval and Renaissance Europe.
DeleteAnd it continues into modern times. NYfC charges $20 either way to cross their stupid bridges. All those toll roads everywhere. And the hidden tolls contained in both car registration fees and gas taxes.
I'm very familiar with those tolls.
DeleteWell Sarge, not sure I'd use the term "looming" ref retirement; more like "beckoning". Retirement is something to be embraced; trust me, you'll still work, you just won't have some job taking up your remaining days.
ReplyDeleteAs I am anything but a medievalist, I'll not jump for joy at you being distracted by " harsh, brutish and short " when you have so many other period pieces in the hopper. Myself, I prefer 18th century and newer accounts; you'll never see me at one of these silly "Renaissance Fairs". I greatly appreciate good blades and horses, but the rest of that strange amalgam leaves me disdainful because of the historical inaccuracy.
If actual Renaissance tales had not been done so well by Mr Shakespeare, I'd encourage a venture there.
Boat Guy
I'm still up in the air as to what I'll write about next. Reading a very good account of Custer's Last Stand at the moment. That area of history is tempting.
DeleteActual medieval or Renaissance people going to a modern medieval or Renaissance faire would be shocked by all the open paganism and hedonism and just butt-ugly clothing. And that's just from the people running all the venues.
DeleteWound up with an interesting book when I visited the Custer site back in the 80's. It's titled "66 years in Custer's Shadow" IIRC. Written by a rancher from adjacent property who walked/rode the ground. Haven't read it in a generation or so.
DeleteBG
I strongly second "Boat Guy"'s adjective for and definition of retirement; a period to be embraced:
Deleteunless the wifely person first rubs her hands together and then hands you list of honey-do's written on a roll of TP
"with all that free time you now have on your hands, honey..."
not from personal experience, you understand
Beans - Heh.
DeleteBG - Sounds like a very good book, the guy walked the ground, and used his head in his investigation.
DeleteI don't do "honey do" lists. It will be an adjustment being retired after being somewhat useful to the nation's defense for nearly fifty years.
DeleteThe eternal question of "What should we do with the bodies?" has always fascinated me. Loot the bodies becomes a real issue in summertime under the hot summer sun.
ReplyDeleteBut Visby? That was during a period of unusually cold summers. Tail end of, but still. So it must be just the sheer scale of dead-ers vs live-ers must be the factor that determined lack of looting. Truly a horror show.
And it begs the question, where are all the bodies from other battles, like Stamford Bridge (Harold Godwinson won vs Harald Hardrada of Norway.) The answer for Stamford was there were so many bodies that they were stripped of any useful goods and then left to rot. Bones were still visible for 50 years after. Hastings, the Norman dead were supposedly buried in a mass grave but the English were left to rot. The pattern continues with many other famous battles, so many dead that the bodies were left to rot.
So Visby? Burying everyone was rather unusual. Fortunately for historians and re-enactors, not so fortunate for the families of the fallen.
Can't even imagine what those battlefields smelled like for months or years after. Bleh.
Something that most historians don't consider, the smell of a battlefield, even when it's still raging. Blood, voided bowels, it gets nasty as hell.
DeleteAt Agincourt, reliable sources say the English were more mobile as infantry than expected. Why? Because they all pretty much had some form of the bloody flux, dysentery or mild diphtheria, and weren't wearing leg armor. Some sources said they weren't wearing trews or leggings as they were literally pooping while fighting.
DeleteSo, the smells of mud, dead horses, blood, shit and piss, sick digestive systems (which smell much worse than just voided bowels) and vomit. All packed into a small battlefield that was basically a very shallow micro-valley.
Unless there was a heck of a wind, all that funk and madness just hung in the air.
So... romantic, no? Yeah.
I have experienced something like that. Used to be, at Gulf Wars (A battle in Mississippi between Mostly Texas (Ansteorra) and Mostly Florida (Trimaris.) The More-than-Mississippi (Meridies at the time) would have a huge gumbo-fest on Wednesday night (Cajuns will gumbo for any reason.) The following day was the Ravine Battle, yes, a battle in a small ravine, and I got trapped under a pile of about 10 people. All who seem to be experiencing gumbo-butt, that is, smelly shrimp/fish/other meat not best considered farts and possible anal leakage. It was a nightmare. Horrible to the extreme. I'm surprised I survived it. That day still haunts me.
Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and Gumbo-night was quietly eliminated, much to the relief of all.
Oh dear.
DeleteI ran across an account of the Marine retreat from the Chosin Reservoir noting that eating frozen c-rations had a strong laxative effect. A marine would start frantically trying to open his parka, undo his heavy trousers and get his long underwear down. He would then stop, curse, and start dressing again. Once the deed occurred, there was no way to clean up the mess in the foreseeable future and he would just have to live with it.
DeleteWar is not neat.
DeleteTowton!
ReplyDeleteGreat post and interesting to boot.
A fascinating time period to me.
DeleteSarge, did you ever read Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth series?
ReplyDeleteYes. one of my favorites!
DeleteLindybeige can rob me of enormous amounts of my time.
ReplyDeleteWhy yes, yes he can.
DeleteInteresting stuff about which I know literally nothing.
ReplyDeleteTip to Sarge- All of your writing is great, and I enjoy the short pieces of one or a few installments just as much as a lengthy series. You don't have to dish out a constant stream out of a sense of commitment to "finish" a story getting deeper and deeper into more characters and events. You have a platform which is GREAT for "short stories."
John Blackshoe
I've been leaning towards the short series thing, it's probably what's going to happen.
DeleteI for one would welcome your take on the medieval period, Sarge. Such a rich time of history (and finally, maybe something I can intelligently comment on).
ReplyDeleteI'm not ruling that out, especially the Wars of the Roses.
Delete