Visby's minting rights derived from its Hanseatic dominance over Gotland's trade, but the city's ability to exercise them collapsed abruptly in 1361 when Valdemar IV of Denmark sacked the island. The townspeople famously refused to open the gates to the fleeing rural Gotlanders during the battle, a decision that left thousands dead in the fields outside the walls. That Visby continued striking coin through 1365 under Danish overlordship makes this type a direct artifact of that uneasy occupation period, before the Hanseatic League's eventual punitive campaign against Valdemar.
Visby's minting rights derived from its Hanseatic dominance over Gotland's trade, but the city's ability to exercise them collapsed abruptly in 1361 when Valdemar IV of Denmark sacked the island. The townspeople famously refused to open the gates to the fleeing rural Gotlanders during the battle, a decision that left thousands dead in the fields outside the walls. That Visby continued striking coin through 1365 under Danish overlordship makes this type a direct artifact of that uneasy occupation period, before the Hanseatic League's eventual punitive campaign against Valdemar.