Baltic Slavic piracy

[3] Baltic Slavs soon became interested in expanding, attempting to get a hold of the rivers in Denmark in order to control the Wendish trade.

With the decline of Danish power after the death of their leader in 1035 fueling the Saxon Germans to fight for the possession of the rivers the Baltic Slavs were originally fighting for, the bloodshed raged on and it was not until the Wendish Crusade of 1147 that the Slavs were finally sent beyond the point of recovery, ending their 100-year campaign and therefore fixing German domination over the Baltic rivers and Wendish trade.

[citation needed] During this time the merchants of the Hanseatic League (also known as the German Hansa) objected to the practice of using piracy, where fleets of pirate ships would attack and cause their trade to suffer irreparable losses from that point on.

[6] After this time measures were taken as an attempt to reduce the amount of piracy, resorting to equipping peace ships and making them patrol the seas from the beginning of sailing season until November 11 of that year.

In response to the accusations against Margaret, a truce was drawn to last from September 1381 through November 11, 1383, listing the names of pirate chiefs which included Danish nobles, knights, squires, bailiffs, councilors, and vassals of the queen.

It was made known that Mecklenburg would equip war ships and issue letters of marque to freebooters, placing the pirates under full legal protection.

Their motto was Godes vrende unde al der werlt vyande which translates to “God’s friends and the foe of all the world”.

[12] Piratical activity continued until the Hansa became an intermediate for Denmark and Mecklenburg where, this time, Queen Margaret had felt the effects of piracy.

[14] King Albert of Sweden ceded Gotland to the Order as a pledge (similar to a fiefdom), with the understanding that they would eliminate the pirating Victual Brothers from this strategic island base in the Baltic Sea.

An invasion force under Grand Master Konrad von Jungingen conquered the island in 1398 and drove the Victual Brothers out of Gotland and the Baltic Sea.