The Outdating of Medieval Fortifications – The Castle of Raseborg and the Town Wall of Vyborg
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 27/01/2017

The castle of Raseborg (Finland) and the town of Vyborg (Russia) both locate on the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland. Raseborg was built in the 1370s by the Swedes and during the next 150 years the castle was gradually enlarged. The town of Vyborg situated close to the eastern border of the Swedish realm and it was continuously threatened by the Russians. There was an older castle close to the town of Vyborg but in the 1470s the town itself was fortified too. From now on high walls surrounded the medieval town. When Raseborg was founded fire arms were not yet in use along the northern Baltic Sea. A century later when Vyborg was surrounded by the walls fire arms were known but on those days most of them were light weapons making no harm to stone structures. In dawn of the early modern era or the early 16th century, the role of the fire arms had changed. New guns were heavier and more effective than the earlier ones. Simultaneously the range of the fire arms had become much longer. Old medieval fortifications offered not anymore a safe heaven. The new era meant remarkable changes for the old fortifications. The castle of Raseborg had lost its military importance already in the 1520s. In 1550 King Gustaf Vasa made a decision to abandon the old castle and build a modern one called Helsingborg in his new town called Helsinki. This was a part of his large castle building program but in the case of Helsingborg the King was not able to realize his ambiguous plans. In Vyborg a fortified suburb with two modern bastions was built ahead of the weakest part of the old town wall in the middle of the 16th century. These arrangements combined with the old town walls secured the urban settlement for another hundred years. However, in 1700 when a new war between Sweden and Russia broke out, the old town wall was in bad condition. Three years later an officer called Lorentz Stobaeus was ordered to modernize the fortifications. The outdated town walls were now pulled down. Fortunately, before he began replacing the fortifications Stobaeus documented the old structures offering later generations a possibility to get an overview of the Europe’s northernmost medieval town wall.

PhD docent Haggren, Georg, University of Helsinki, Espoo, Finland (Presenting author)