Visby - the peasants' harbour and trading centre
Representatives of different disciplines such as history of art, archaeology, and history have shown an interest -especially since the late nineteenth century -in the early history of Visby.
The oldest dating for the town of Visby has varied in the literature from the Viking Age to the second half of the twelfth century. The settlers are assumed by some scholars to have been Gotlanders, by others to have been immigrant Germans. The twentieth century has seen the emergence of a picture of a society isolated from the surrounding agrarian countryside by rocky and forested land. The oldest detailed maps of Visby's rural parish, drawn in the late seventeenth century, show the opposite. The town was surrounded by a continuous belt of good arable land, sufficient to contain 10-15 farms.
A compilation of known prehistoric monuments in Visby's rural parish shows that the area has been continuously occupied since the Stone Age.
Nils Lithberg (1924) was the first to assemble the available archaeological material and deduce romm it a picture of the town's development from the Iron Age onwards. Today there is a large amount of archaeological material from Visby from before the Middle Ages. The paper presents this material divided into the categories of single finds, areas with graves, and areas with old occupation layers.
The place was probably used as a harbour by the surrounding farms in the early Iron Age -although this has left no traces apart from occasional single finds -and the site of the present-day Visby saw increasing activity in the Vendel Period (ca.600-800 AD). No occupation layers from this period have yet been found, but one certain grave in a grave field where there are several undated graves can be suspected to belong to this time, as well as picture stones, at least ten single finds, and three C14 datings. The establishment of a settlement at Visby probably took place in the Vendel Period. The absence of occupation layers can probably be attributed largely to the fact that the site has been occupied and utilized continuously for 1,000-1,200 years, with only fragments remaining of the prehistoric settlement.
In the project "Harbours and Trading Centres in Gotland in the Period 600-1100 AD" Dan Carlsson has concluded on the basis of a number of criteria that 40-50 harbours and trading sites were established around the coast of Gotland, mostly in the Vendel Period. Towards the end of the Viking Age and the beginning of the Middle Ages, trade in Gotland was concentrated in a few harbours (Carlsson 1988:26 f.). Development appears to have been similar in Scania and Denmark (Callmer 1986).
The paper discusses certain features that Visby has in common with other harbour trading sites in Scandinavia. Two prehistoric burial grounds have been found in medieval Visby, not counting the large Kopparvik grave-field south of the town. The two burial grounds reveal differences, which can be interpreted as socially conditioned. Different groupings of graves in the Kopparvik grave field suggest that the dead were buried according to the farm they came from. The Viking Age trading centres of Hedeby in south Jutland and Birka in Lake Mälaren were surrounded by several grave fields. The oldest phases or finds at both sites are dated to the Vendel Period.
The establishment of maritime communities in the Vendel Period is evidently nothing that is peculiar to Gotland, nor indeed to Scandinavia -Dorestad, Quentovic, York, and London are examples of trading sites that were founded or else greatly expanded at this time.
The period 600-800 appears to have brought a number of radical changes to Gotland. A religious change is suggested by the new form and content of the picture stones (cult monuments?) around 600. A change in settlement structure and economy is indicated by the establishment of harbour towns, possibly with migrations to other parts of the Baltic region. Grave fields with Gotlandic and Scandinavian finds have been excavated at Grobin in Latvia and Elbing in Poland. The transition from the Migration Period is characterized by radical changes in design, as shown by the appearance of new forms of objects.
Neither at Grobin nor at Elbing are the Scandinavian finds interpreted as remains of warlike activity; the colonies appear to have been formed for peaceful purposes (Lundström 1983; Neugebauer 1944). Nor do the grave goods from the Visby area suggest that activities around here were primarily martial. There are few weapons in graves, and the other grave goods indicate rather that the main activity was trade.
From the ninth century, there are occupation layers in the north of the harbour area, and activity increased noticeably in the tenth century. Settlement spread, and the number of burials in the Kopparvik grave field increased.
In the eleventh century, the entire coastal strip was occupied from the northern harbour entrance to the present-day Donnersplats in the south.
Settlement in Visby is arranged in a regulated system of narrow house lots between the alleys running down to the harbour. This division can be traced back to the ninth century, perhaps earlier. The same type of regulated division is found in Dorestad, Hedeby, Ribe, Sigtuna, Oslo, Bergen, Söderköping, and Stockholm, with datings from the Vendel Period to the thirteenth century. In several places, it is interpreted as a royally organized control of the land of the market towns. From Ribe 113 and Trondheim there is written evidence that the king distributed the lots. At Visby, however, it does not appear likely that the king owned the land. There is no evidence of royal involvement in the distribution of house lots.
Both grave goods and the objects found in occupation layers show - with few exceptions - purely Gotlandic forms before the Middle Ages. Occupation layers from the Viking Age and the early Middle Ages are poor in finds. This is assumed to be because the people who used Visby did not normally live here. Those who owned lots here lived on their farms around Visby and further afield on the island, and it was to these farms they brought the surplus of the activities that were based in Visby, a surplus that manifests itself in the form of a large number of hards.
The use of the harbour in Visby, as of the other contemporary harbours around the coast of Gotland, can be compared with the way fishing sites were used in later periods. Fishermen-farmers from one or more judicial districts had the right to fish at a fishing site, which laced a permanent population. Here the farmers had their sheds, landing places for boats, and places to dry their equipment. The system can be traced back to the seventeenth century, but is probably much older. It is assumed that the Vendel Period harbours were organized in the same pattern -a number of farms divided the land along the shore and organized activities in the harbour community. Operations here were for a long time in one direction only; the Gotlanders sailed away from the island to pursue the activities that brought them their income. A small number of people spent the winter at the coastal sites to guard the farmers' property.
It was only when traffic became "two-way", when interested parties from outside wanted to share the trade and contacts of the Gotlanders, that the harbours grew in the role of marketplaces. In the archaeological material from Visby there are objects from Finland, Estonia, and the Baltic, which are dated to the mid-eleventh century. The non-Gotlandic objects mark a turning point, but this need not mean that the town had become permanently settled in the sense that the landowners moved in and became full-time town-dwellers.
In the first half of the eleventh century, we can assume on the basis of Guta Saga that the first church that was allowed to stand unburnt was built in Visby. At this time there may have been Christianized foreigners or Gotlanders who supported the building project.
How should we describe Visby in its oldest form? Adolf Schück (1926:4) tried to define the concept of "town" thus: pre-1350 towns he described as "built-up settlements, whose inhabitants, on account of their shared commercial interests, form a social unit in an economic or a judicial sense or in both senses". The definition fits Visby, as well as other harbour and trading sites along the coast of Gotland from the Vendel Period onwards.
According to Hans Andersson (1971:39), the concept of "urbanization" is more appropriate than that of "town" for the older periods of Scandinavia's medieval history, since "town" is primarily associated with the judicial status of a borough.
The concept of urbanization is defined as "what happens when people come together in certain places, with a consequent concentration of settlement and the growth of differentiated spheres of activity" (Andersson 1979:6). According to this definition, Visby can be described as an urbanized settlement throughout the Viking Ages.
The urbanization process can be divided into the following phases on the basis of the material presented here:
1) The latter part of the seventh century. Increased utilization of the coastal strip below the cliff, with some simple settlement (not yet found), with distinct burial areas. The harbour is used by a number of farms in the vicinity of Visby.
2) The Viking Age. The land along the shore is regulated and divided between the members of the harbour partnership. More farms join as other landing places lose their importance as commercial harbours. On the lots are built houses of wood and wattle and daub, running in rows down to the harbour. Visby harbour is used intensively during the sailing season.
Rich grave goods from the Kopparvik grave field as well as 40-50 treasure hoards in the Visby area and the surrounding parishes, testify to the prosperity.
A few people now spend the winter in Visby.
3) The start of the eleventh century. A church is built beside the harbour settlement to the south. The church serves both the harbour community and the surrounding farms.
The traffic which was previously directed outwards is now increasingly two-way. Finnish and Baltic contacts can be detected in the archaeological material. Interested parties coming from outside are directed to land outside the lots belonging to the harbour partnership. The importance of Visby as a local market increases.
4) The twelfth century. German interests become increasingly dominant. Trade in Baltic goods becomes very profitable. Lot owners move into the town from their farms. Several churches are built, including the German church of St Mary. The town is occupied the year round.
5) The thirteenth century. Visby experiences an economic boom and leads trade in the Baltic. German merchants have moved in and bought lots. Friaries are founded by Dominicans and Franciscans. The old structure of the harbour partnership dissolves. Visby is increasingly cut off from the surrounding countryside. In 1288 civil war breaks out between Visby and the rural population.