Stop 11 of 50

The Danes sack Turku

On a night in August 1509 a Danish fleet slips up the River Aura. For five days the raiders plunder the town and the Cathedral.

Late Middle Ages · Gothic

The big story

A night in August 1509

Around midnight on 2 August 1509 Danish ships slipped up the River Aura in the dark. For five days the raiders plundered Turku and its Cathedral, then sailed off with prisoners. It was one of the worst disasters of medieval Turku.

War inside the union

A king pushed out. King Hans of Denmark was also crowned king of Sweden in 1497. In 1501 the Swedish nobles rose against him, and Sweden was again ruled by its own regents Well documented.
The regents. From 1504 the regent was Svante Nilsson. Hans did not give up his claim, and the war dragged on for more than ten years Well documented.
War at sea. From 1507 Hans sent his navy to raid the Swedish coasts. In July 1507 his captain Søren Norby burned Kastelholm Castle on Åland, a short sail from Turku Well documented.
Peace at last. The war ended with the Treaty of Malmö in 1512 Well documented.

Five days in August

An open town. Turku had at most about 2,000 people. Of the towns in Finland only Viipuri had a town wall. Turku Castle stood on its island near the river mouth, about 3 km from the town Well documented.
Past the castle. Around midnight on Thursday 2 August, a Danish force under Otto Ruud slipped past the defences in the dark Well documented.
Killing and looting. The raiders killed members of the town council, priests and others. The wall around the Cathedral did not stop them. They took the bishop’s mitre and crosier, chalices, holy images and church ornaments, and also books, copper, tin and iron Well documented.
Prisoners. The Danes stayed until Tuesday 7 August and sailed away with leading burghers as prisoners for Copenhagen. Monks from the convent at Naantali went to bargain over a ransom Well documented.
Was the town burned? A Swedish chronicle written in the 1530s says it was. The letters written in 1509 speak of destruction but not of fire Debated.

Picking up the pieces

“Immense and irreparable damage.” On 16 August Bishop Johannes Olavi described the losses in those words Well documented.
A feast to heal the wounds. In 1514 a great feast for the blessed Bishop Hemming drew crowds to Turku. The Cathedral was still not fully restored Well documented.
Not the last time. In 1522, during the war that ended the union, a Danish fleet attacked Turku again Well documented.

How do we know?

The fullest account is in a chronicle of the bishops of Finland written by Bishop Paulus Juusten in the 1570s, more than sixty years later. That is a long gap, but letters written in 1509 confirm his main points: the dates, the losses and the prisoners. Where the letters are silent, as on the fire, historians cannot be sure.

The raid in five steps. Pick a step; in step 2 watch the ships slip past the castle at night.Schematic plan, not to scale. The houses are illustrative.

Why it matters

The raid showed how open Turku was to attack from the sea: a rich town with no wall, and a castle that ships could slip past in the dark. The union wars ended in 1523, when Gustav Vasa became king of Sweden. Within a few years his Reformation took even more from the Cathedral than the Danes had (stop 12).

On the lighter side

Bad news travels: letters, ships and fires

There were no newspapers, no post office and no telegraph. So how did the rest of the kingdom learn that Turku had been plundered? Thanks to letters that survive, we can follow the news of 1509 almost day by day.

As fast as the messenger. News moved at the speed of the person carrying it. A letter was written, folded, sealed and handed to a servant, a messenger or a trusted traveller Well documented.
Sea roads and ice roads. In summer the sea was the quickest way between Finland and Sweden. In winter people travelled by sledge, even over the ice. The worst times were the spring thaw and the autumn freeze, when neither boats nor sledges could get through Likely.
1509, letter by letter. The archbishop wrote about the raid from Uppsala on 11 August. The news had reached Danzig by 13 September. In Tallinn, just across the gulf, the first surviving letter about it is from 18 November Well documented.
Old news. On 13 August an officer in the archipelago wrote that Turku was under siege. The Danes had left six days before, and he had not heard Well documented.
Word of mouth. Most people heard news at the harbour, the market or the church door. It was faster than a letter, but rumours grew on the way Likely.
Beacon fires. For a sudden attack there was a faster signal: a chain of beacon fires on hilltops. They were known in Sweden and Finland from the late Iron Age onwards and are mentioned in medieval laws Well documented.
The first post. A regular postal service in Finland began only on 6 September 1638, founded by Governor-General Per Brahe Well documented.

The church as noticeboard

Royal orders and bishops’ letters were read out in church after Sunday mass. For most people in the countryside, the parish church was where official news arrived Likely.

How to read a date in an old letter

Medieval writers often dated letters by the church calendar instead of by number. A letter might be dated “the day after St Lawrence’s Day”. St Lawrence’s Day is 10 August, so that means 11 August. Historians turn such dates into ordinary ones before they can line letters up, as on the map below.

2 August 1509

Dates come from surviving letters. Each place heard the news on or before that day.

Beacon fires along the coast

In Sweden and Finland a chain of beacons on high ground, called vårdkasar or bötar in Swedish and vainovalkeat or vartiotulet in Finnish, warned of raids from the late Iron Age onwards. They were built of tar-rich wood to burn bright, and medieval laws such as the law of Uppland mention them. In 1555 Olaus Magnus described them as a way to call out armed defenders. Well documented

Press Play or move the slider to follow the news around the Baltic. Click a place to read what its letter says. Then light the chain of beacons.The dates come from surviving letters, so each place heard the news on that day or earlier.

Sources and further reading

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