Victual Brothers The Victual Brothers ( the Vitalians or Vitalian Brotherhood ) were a companionship of privateer s who later turned to piracy . They were hired in 1392 by the Dukes of Mecklenburg to fight against Denmark , because Queen Margaret I of Denmark had imprisoned Albert of Mecklenburg and his son in order to subdue the Kingdom of Sweden . Albert had been King of Sweden since 1364 and Duke of Mecklenburg since 1383 . Guild of the Victual Brothers . While Queen Margaret and Albert of Mecklenburg were battling for Scandinavian supremacy and Margaret ' s forces were besieging Stockholm , privateers named the Victual Brothers engaged in war at sea and shipped food to keep the city supplied . The name Victual Brothers is derived from the Latin word " " victualia " " — meaning provisions — and refers to their first mission , which was to supply food to the besieged city of Stockholm . The Victual Brothers were organised as a brotherhood or guild , and attracted men from all over Europe . Their main naval enemy in 1392 was the powerful Hanseatic town of Lübeck , which supported Denmark in the war . Apart from Lübeck , the Hanseatic League initially supported the Victual Brothers . Most of the Hanseatic towns had no desire for a victory for Denmark , with its strategic location for control of the seaways . For several years from 1392 , the Victual Brothers were a strong power in the Baltic Sea . They had safe harbours in the cities of Rostock , Ribnitz , Wismar and Stralsund . They soon turned to open piracy and coastal plunder . In 1393 they sacked the town of Bergen for the first time and in 1394 they conquered Malmö . They also plundered Turku , Vyborg , Faxeholm , Styresholm and Korsholm and occupied parts of Frisia and Schleswig . At the climax of their power , the Victual Brothers occupied Gotland in 1394 and set up their headquarters in Visby . Maritime trade in the Baltic Sea virtually collapsed , and the herring industry suffered from their depredations . Queen Margaret even turned to King Richard II of England and sought to charter English ships to combat the pirates . From 1395 onwards , Queen Margaret gained the upper hand politically . She united Denmark , Sweden and Norway and formed the Kalmar Union . The Hanseatic League was forced to cooperate with her , foreshadowing its eventual decline . At the same time , the Victual Brothers were impartially raiding everyone ' s shipping . Their famous battle cry was " " God ' s friends and the whole world ' s enemies " " . Queen Margaret and King Albert of Sweden conceded Gotland to the allied Teutonic Order as a pledge ( similar to a fiefdom ) . An invasion army under Konrad von Jungingen , the Grand Master of the Order , conquered the island in 1398 , destroying Visby and driving the Victual Brothers out of Gotland . Likedeelers , the successors of the Victual Brothers . After the Victual Brothers ' defeat and expulsion from Gotland in 1398 , the Hanseatic League tried repeatedly but unsuccessfully to completely control the Baltic Sea . Many Victual Brothers still remained at sea . When they lost their influence in the Gulf of Bothnia , the Gulf of Finland and Gotland , they operated from the Schlei , the mouth of the river Ems and other locations in Friesland . The successors to the Victual Brothers gave themselves the name " Likedeelers " ( " equal sharers " ) : they shared with the poor coastal population . They expanded their activities into the North Sea and along the Atlantic coastline , raiding Brabant and France and striking as far south as Spain . Their most famous leader was Captain Klaus Störtebeker . He allegedly got his name because he could swallow four litres of beer without taking the beaker from his mouth . However , it might simply be a family name from Wismar . The Low German word " Störtebeker " means " Down the beakerful " . In 1401 the Hamburg warship " Bunte Kuh " , leading a small fleet under Commander Simon of Utrecht , caught up with Störtebeker ' s forces near Heligoland . After three days ' running battle , Störtebeker and his crew were finally overpowered and trapped by means of a trick . However this was not the end of piracy and coastal raiding by the Likedeelers . In 1429 , some 28 years after the execution of Störtebeker , other members of the Victual Brothers attacked and plundered the city of Bergen in Norway , eventually burning it to the ground . Until about 1440 , maritime trade in both the North Sea and the Baltic Sea was seriously in danger of attack by the Likedeelers .