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