90 Sarnowsky
crisis of Lübeck to keep the town out of the conflict, and when the old town
council returned to Lübeck, the mayor Jordan Pleskow followed a policy of
appeasement towards Eric, perhaps also because the counts of Holstein mean-
while had employed pirates who not only attacked Danish but also Hanseatic
ships. After the end of the truce in 1416, war broke out again, only interrupted
by further truces in 1418 and 1420. In 1423, Lübeck under Pleskow and other
Wendish towns allied with Eric though they claimed that there should be
intensive mediation before starting military activities. But at this point, the
Hanseatic League was divided. The Prussian cities did not follow the demand
of the grand master to form an alliance with Denmark,88 while Hamburg sided
with the Schauenburg counts.
Only when Pleskow died in 1426 did the situation change. Meanwhile, Eric
had erected a new fortress at the Øresund and started the exaction of a new
custom for ships passing the Øresund, which was to continue until 1857.89 The
towns at first tried to mediate between Denmark and the counts of Holstein,
but this failed because they demanded Eric’s renunciation of Schleswig.
In October 1426, the Wendish towns allied with the counts of Holstein and
declared war on Denmark, followed by the Saxon towns in March 1427. While
count Adolf viii finally regained most of Schleswig after the conquest of
Flensburg in 1431, the Wendish towns were less successful. When Hamburg
and Lübeck supported the first Schauenburg attack on Flensburg in 1427, it
ended in failure, and the Hamburg town councillor Johann Kletze was made
responsible for the defeat—though it had been caused by internal quarrels—
and executed. Also, the fleet led by the mayor of Lübeck, Tidemann Steen, suf-
fered heavy losses on sea, and one fleet with salt from Southern France was
captured by the Danish. Then the Wendish towns which only had received
some support from the Saxon towns resorted to piracy and employed the
‘victual brothers’ under Bartholomäus Voet.90 Their operations, the conquest
of Flensburg, and internal problems of Eric, especially in Sweden, finally
averted a complete failure. In 1435, the towns and Eric concluded the peace
of Vordingborg which brought a confirmation of the towns’ privileges, though
Eric continued the exaction of the Øresund customs.
Though Vordingborg had been a partial success, Eric soon lost the support
of his subjects. In 1438/39, the three councils of the realm of Denmark, Norway,
and Sweden deposed him, and he withdrew first to Gotland, later to Pomerania.
88 hub 6, 521.
89 Dietrich Schäfer, “Zur Frage nach der Einführung des Sundzolls,” Hansische Geschichts-
blätter Jg. 1875 (1876), 33–43.
90 Clarus, Bartholomäus.