Borre

Facts

The vanished town

By Mette Svart Kristiansen, Middelalderarkæolog (10 stories)

Standing on the square in Borre, surrounded by the low houses from the 1800-1900s, and the decorative redbrick church, it is difficult to imagine that it was once a thriving port based on herring fishing. In the Middle Ages, Borre was a town on a small island in the navigable fjord of Borre Sømose. Its original name, Østerburgh, meaning 'eastern stronghold', may have referred to a lost fortification or to its position east of Stege Castle. But a decline in herring fishing, attacks by the Hanseatic State of Lübeck in the 1500s, and more than anything, the sanding up of the fjord in the 1600s, spelled the end of the town.

Public place

Selected entry

Herringed out

Story written by Mette Svart Kristiansen

Time / Periode 1400 1700

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Every autumn, dense shoals of fat herring would migrate up through the Sound, attracting a lively mix of local fishermen, foreign merchants and all and sundry to the annual markets along the shores of the Sound. Scania herring was much in demand on the European market, and a staple of Danish exports. German Hanseatic merchants were heavily involved in the herring trade, and through the Late Middle Ages locked horns with the Danish king for their rights to the market. In 1510, soldiers from Lübeck plundered Møn, destroying Borre. The merchants of Lübeck were angered that King Hans had granted English and Dutch merchants access to the key herring markets with the same rights which the Hanseatic States wanted to retain exclusively for themselves.