Baltic Slavic piracy

Baltic Slavic piracy is a term for military campaigns in the Baltic Sea carried out by pirates of Slavic origin from the 8th to 12th centuries.

Baltic Slavs, whose agriculture was not highly developed in early 7th century, were in dire need of resources since the dry islets of southwestern Baltic were the only ones capable of cultivation and cattle were scarce.^[1] Flax could be grown, and was turned into linen or canvas for cloth and used as a form of currency.

At this time the Baltic Slavs were also known for bee-keeping, trading their honey and wax to the Germans for use in church candles and in sealing documents.^[2] Once trade began, the German form of currency circulated amongst the group. After this point information on specifics of the trade between Germans and Slavs is unknown through the ninth century.

During this time period it is known that the Slavs crossed paths with the Danes, leading to a series of fateful events. The Slavs of the Baltic had engaged in piratical activity before, while the Danes felt that trade and piracy went hand in hand, making for an interesting attempt at commercial relations.^[3]

Baltic Slavs soon became interested in expanding, attempting to get a hold of the rivers in Denmark in order to control the Wendish trade. The Danes would not stand for this, causing war to arise between the two groups. With the decline of Danish power after the death of their leader in 1035 fueling the Saxon Germans to fight for the possession of the rivers the Baltic Slavs were originally fighting for, the bloodshed raged on and it was not until the Wendish Crusade of 1147 that the Slavs were finally sent beyond the point of recovery, ending their 100-year campaign and therefore fixing German domination over the Baltic rivers and Wendish trade.^[4]

In 1135, Duke Ratibor I commanded a force of 1,000–1,500 Pomeranian raiders on 50–70 boats during a major raid on the Norwegian city of Kungahälla.^[5] In a successful raid on Kungahälla, Pomeranians enslaved thousands. However, this raid became one of the last successful actions of the Pomeranians on this scale.^[6]

One of the activites of the Baltic pirates was to capture people for trafficking slaves to the Southeast to the Black Sea slave trade.

When the Norse Vikings became Christian and ended their piracy in the 11th century, they were succeeded by Pagan pirates from the Baltics, who raided the coasts of the Baltic Sea, such as now Christian Sweden and Finland, for slaves.^[7] When the Viking slave trade stopped in the mid 11th century, the old slave trade route between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea and Central Asia via the Russian rivers was upheld by Pagan Baltic slave traders, who sold slaves via Daugava to the Black Sea and East, which was now the only remaining slave trade in Europe after the slave market in Western Europe had died out in the 12th century.^[8] In the 13th century, the Latvian reportedly had found slave trade to be so lucrative that many used it has their main income. ^[9] The island of Saaremaa was a base for the Baltic pirates, who were noted for selling women captives to the slave trade.^[10] In 1226, the pagan Baltic pirates from Saaremaa conducted a slave raid toward now Christian Sweden, where they captured many Swedish women and girls with the purpose to sell as slaves.^[7]

The Baltic slave trade ended after conquest of the Baltic by the Teutonic order during the 13th century.

• Thalassocracy
• Narentines
• Ushkuyniks
• Victual Brothers
• Kylfings

• Bjork, David K. "Piracy In The Baltic, 1375-1398." Speculum, 1943: 39-68.
• Thompson, James Westfall. "Early Trade Relations Between the Germans and the Slavs." The Journal of Political Economy, 1922: 543-558.

• Gaca, Andrzej (2020). "Baltic Slavs fighting at sea from the ninth to twelfth century. The phenomenon of over a hundred years of Slavic domination over the Baltic Sea". apcz.umk.pl. Studia Iuridica Toruniensia.