The Battle of Visby is recreated every three years during “Medieval Week” in Visby, Sweden. It’s actually this year. I can absolutely recommend going and checking it out, the whole week is fun and the city filled with reenactors (private, or professional). The city itself has a preserved city core within actual medieval walls, almost 1000 years old.
The battle of Visby is actually a very important archeological find, because it is one of the few medieval sites where we have soldiers being buried in their gear.
One might think this would be common, battlefields strewn with swords and armor but this is not the case. Battles back in the day worked much like they do in video games. What is the first thing one does after a battle in a video game? You loot.
Battlefields with the dead intact and equipment still in situ are so rare that when the Battle of Visby was excavated is caused a bit of a sensation, and is still a unique insight into medieval warfare. On that occasion there was a pursuit on conclusion of the battle so the fallen lay where they fell, when the victors came back the hot weather had started to rot the dead so badly that they were heaped into a mass grave without being fully stripped.
The sites of battles were usually scoured clean by soldiers, looters and locals after the combat had died down. Mostly because armor, weapons etc were valuable and as much as possible was recycled (especially arrows and such). Plunder was seen as part of a soldiers pay and an important part of motivating new solders to join. Hundreds of dead on a battlefield meant good money laying about. Often traders moved with the army and bought the plunder for a nice price from overburdened soldiers, only to sell it somewhere else for a higher price. But no one wants to strip swollen and rotting corpses and so the world was blessed with this gem of insight.
AyeAye_Kane on January 2nd, 2019 at 14:09 UTC »
holy shit this is actually extremely interesting
Endemoniada on January 2nd, 2019 at 14:32 UTC »
The Battle of Visby is recreated every three years during “Medieval Week” in Visby, Sweden. It’s actually this year. I can absolutely recommend going and checking it out, the whole week is fun and the city filled with reenactors (private, or professional). The city itself has a preserved city core within actual medieval walls, almost 1000 years old.
Gulanga on January 2nd, 2019 at 14:57 UTC »
The battle of Visby is actually a very important archeological find, because it is one of the few medieval sites where we have soldiers being buried in their gear.
One might think this would be common, battlefields strewn with swords and armor but this is not the case. Battles back in the day worked much like they do in video games. What is the first thing one does after a battle in a video game? You loot.
Battlefields with the dead intact and equipment still in situ are so rare that when the Battle of Visby was excavated is caused a bit of a sensation, and is still a unique insight into medieval warfare. On that occasion there was a pursuit on conclusion of the battle so the fallen lay where they fell, when the victors came back the hot weather had started to rot the dead so badly that they were heaped into a mass grave without being fully stripped.
The sites of battles were usually scoured clean by soldiers, looters and locals after the combat had died down. Mostly because armor, weapons etc were valuable and as much as possible was recycled (especially arrows and such). Plunder was seen as part of a soldiers pay and an important part of motivating new solders to join. Hundreds of dead on a battlefield meant good money laying about. Often traders moved with the army and bought the plunder for a nice price from overburdened soldiers, only to sell it somewhere else for a higher price. But no one wants to strip swollen and rotting corpses and so the world was blessed with this gem of insight.