The Viking Island

The Baltic isle of Gotland, forty-five kilometres from Stockholm, is indeed almost another little country. It is an unspoiled island with pine and spruce forests, hay meadows full of wildflowers, wide deserted beaches, old farmsteads, a profusion of country churches and a capital city, Visby, with charming medieval houses and one of the best preserved ring walls in Europe.

What makes it special, however, is that it offers an unparalleled way to experience a sense of history while still benefiting from the twenty-first century’s conveniences and comforts. Here on Gotland, for example, the same beer is brewed as was drunk all over Europe in the Middle Ages while at the same time you can find locally produced art and craft items of modern, cutting-edge design.

A brief overview of the island’s history explains why you can feel as though you have stepped back in time. That it is a very ancient land as is evidenced by discovery of fossils, some over 400 million years old. There are traces of the Tjelvar, or Palaeolithic, people who arrived 7,000 years ago. From the Bronze Age there are almost 400 cairns and 350 stone ship-settings (boulders set out in the shape of a ship symbolizing death as a voyage to the unknown) together with large numbers of prehistoric grave fields, house foundations, hill forts and rune stones – an incredible total of 3,100 registered sites make this the richest archaeological region in Sweden.

The island was powerful during the early Viking age.  Archaeological research revealed that not only Visby but around forty other harbours and trading centres existed at this time. The island was effectively an independent republic of seafaring farmers and its situation at the meeting point of east and west made it one of the centres of world trade. In the eighth and ninth centuries the Mediterranean had come under Muslim domination and a new trade route through the Baltic linking northern Europe with the Orient via rivers became an alternative to the Mediterranean route. 

The early Hanseatic League developed around the Baltic Sea and the Gotlanders, who had already explored along the Russian rivers and established a trading station at Novgorod, bought furs, wax, tar and timber, some of which they sold to the English kings. Wealth continued to accumulate: huge hoards of silver have been and are still being found all over the island.

With the advent of Christianity came a spate of church building – the presence of ninety-two magnificent parish churches in such a small island  (120 km long and 56 km wide) are further evidence of its wealth. Gradually however, power had moved from the seafaring farmers to the burghers of Visby. The Germans, mainly from Lübeck, arrived in the 1150s and built their own church, St Mary’s, which was used both for religious and commercial purposes. It was here that the chest containing the Hanseatic trading agreements was kept, the annual opening of which marked the start of the trading year.  In the thirteenth century the small wooden houses of the city were rebuilt as the beautiful large stone buildings we see today. Some thirteen new churches were erected and the streets were paved with limestone. Visby was then the most modern town in northern Europe and it remains one of the most perfect examples of Hanseatic architecture.

St Mary’s Church is still in use (it is now the cathedral) and picturesque ivy-covered ruins of eleven other medieval churches remain – some used in summer for open-air concerts and plays. There are over 200 medieval houses in the city: on Strandgatan, previously occupied by the wealthiest merchants, there are some wonderful old stone warehouses, including the Galma Apotek with its hoist beams tucked under corbie-stepped gables through which the merchandize was hauled up to different storeys. The city wall built around 1280, is 3.5 km long and 11m high; it has a parapet walk, three gates and over fifty towers, all  in good condition.

During the last years of the thirteenth century however, Gotland lost its importance. In 1259 the Germans had established their own Hanseatic Kontor  in Novgorod and so no longer needed the Gotlanders. Meanwhile Denmark, which had also seen a diminution of strength at the hands of the Germans, was seeking, under its newly crowned king Valdemar Atterdag, to increase its power. In 1361 Valdemar invaded and conquered Gotland.

This marked the end of Gotland’s glory days. What had been the foundation of the island’s prosperity, the sea, became a drawback. Having been sacked and occupied first by pirates, then by The Order of Teutonic Knights, Visby gradually became a backwater and by the sixteenth century all the churches except St Mary’s were abandoned and the settlement was in decay.  

In 1645 Gotland became Swedish but its isolation meant that industrialization came late to the island – but its poverty did ensure that the old medieval buildings were not torn down and replaced with newer more fashionable edifices. This, however, together with the fact that it  retained its agricultural, building and craft traditions – and even its distinctive folk-speech – make it the unique place we can enjoy today. Visby became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995.