Tag: medieval piracy

36. The Piratical Victual Brothers, North and Baltic Seas, 1393-1440

Klaus Stortebeker
A reconstruction of what Klaus Störtebeker, the most famous of the Victual Brothers, might have looked like, built on the skull which is probably his. You can go see it at the Hamburg Museum, Hamburg being the place where he and several of his comrades were executed. You might think that, since he was a pirate, that he’s reviled. Nope. He’s both famous and beloved. Go figure.

After being hired to help run victuals into Stockholm through Queen Margaret of Denmark’s blockade, the Victual Brothers turned to piracy, decimating the herring trade and annoying the Hanseatic League.  Anne explains all that stuff, and Michelle waxes poetic about the medieval cog, which was apparently an awesome sort of ship. And as a special treat, we append the recording we made wherein we figured out why our sound issues hadn’t been solved. 

Link to the Podcast

Link to the Show Notes

Link to the Transcript

12. Eustace the Pirate, Battle of Sandwich, England 1217

medieval rendition of the Battle of Sandwich
Here you can see the English using grappling hooks, the longbow, and a hurled missile which we’re going to guess is lime, on the French vessel, where some of their compatriots are slaughtering the French, including Eustace. This is Matthew Paris’s illustration of the Battle of Sandwich, from his Chronica maiora, dating not long after the battle (MS CCC 16, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge).

Eustace the Monk, AKA Eustace the Outlaw, AKA Eustace the Pirate, AKA Eustace the Mercenary, AKA Eustace the Admiral of the French Fleet, led a varied and exciting existence, hired as a pirate mercenary first by the English, then by the French. Everything was great until the Battle of Sandwich, at which he lost his head.

Link to the Podcast

Link to the Show Notes

Link to the Transcript