Viking times and the Middle Ages

Since the 13th century Stubbekøbing has been situated on Stubbe headland by the mouth of the Fribrødre Stream in Grønsund Sound. Fribrødre is a Danish translation of the Wendish expression ”Pri-brod”, which means ”by the midstream”. The Slavonic place name is testament to the presence of Slavs or Wenders on Falster in Viking times and during the Middle Ages.

Narrow streets connect the harbour by the Grønsund Sound with the main pedestrian street in the market town. The two medieval pedestrian streets in the town run parallel to the Grønsund Sound with laneways going down to the harbour. Between the main streets lies a square where the chalkstone church, built near the end of 1100, forms the centre of the town.

In Viking times the Fribrødre Stream flowed into a narrow fjord which made an ideal natural harbour that afforded anchoring. The fjord had been used as a rallying area for the fleet of warships, until it was cut off from the Grønsund Sound by a milldam at Stubbekøbing in the Middle Ages.

Throughout the Middle Ages, Stubbekøbing’s fishing fleet took part in the great annual herring fishery each September, where the herring were caught, salted and sold at the Skåne Market. The herring adventure stopped with the reformation. The town was nearly wiped out and lost both its town council and mayor after a long series of fires, floods, and wars with Sweden in the 17th century. In 1694, the customs house on the harbour was washed away in a storm surge. A new pier was first constructed in 1839 and later the harbour was developed to include a proper basin.

Building and expanding

While the new pier was under construction in 1839, a footpath was laid to the west. Here the senior teacher Andersen created an impressive recreation ground, a park with an open-air stage, a pavilion and path systems. Today the Stubbekøbing town park covers 5 hectares.
The ferry service between Falster and Møn from Grønsund Sound ferry terminal at Næs moved to the town in 1940 after the establishment of a new and bigger ferry between Bogø and Stubbekøbing.
In 1911 the Stubbekøbing-Nykøbing Nysted railway was laid to the east of the town and ran into the harbour, across a barrage crossing over Fribrødre Stream and on out to Grønsund Sound. The railway was closed in 1966. Initially, the railway station was converted into a police station and then later sold for private development.

Today there is a stone and gravel works on the site of the station. The railway barrage is used as a road to the holiday centre on the Kongsnæs headland. The backfilled area between the railway barrage and the old road and the milldam is used as a water treatment plant and sports ground.

The Kongsnæs headland, east of the harbour market town was subdivided and developed in the 70’s into a detached housing estate and a large holiday home development, which by and large cannot be seen from the water.

Falsterbo and herring fishery

There were so many temporary dwellings or cabins (called a ”bo” in Danish) used by the fishermen from Falster that the location was named Falsterbo. Stubbekøbing’s harbour and fishing fleet, together with a number of other significant ports along the Øresund Sound and the Great Belt, were ravaged just as the great herring market was starting at Falsterbo in 1289. The month-long commando style raid was led by the marshal Stig, aided by a Norwegian fleet after the marshal had been outlawed for the murder of King Erik Klipping in Finderup, a couple of years earlier. In 1494 there were no fewer than 434 fishing cabins in Denmark. 31 of these were from Nykøbing and in all 66 from Stubbekøbing on Falster.

According to the chronicles of Saxo, the herring were so concentrated in the Øresund Sound in the 13th century that you could not row a boat through the dense shoals; the oars simply got stuck when you tried to pull them through the shoal. The herring could be caught with bare hands and quite literally scooped up into a bucket! Estimates show, that indeed there were huge amounts: up to 10,000 tonnes of herring annually, or the equivalent of 300,000 barrels of salted herring. The salted herring was a much-coveted commodity in medieval catholic Europe due to the many fast days. The herring fishery in the Øresund Sound had already a great significance towards the end of the 11th century, when King Knut the Holy threatened the Scanians with a ban on herring fishing at Scania.

Late summer and autumn herring catches were salted in barrels and exported far across Europe via, amongst others, the German Hanseatic towns, especially Lübeck, but also Rostock, Wismar, Stralsund and Greifswald. The Scania market was the largest of all free-trade markets of the time, where skippers and merchants came from near and far to sell their catch. Danish coin was the currency of trade. The Lübeckians delivered the salt and the local coopers supplied the barrels.

The Victual Brothers and privateers 

The Victual Brothers (from the Latin word ”victualia” meaning provisions) was a 14th century name for a type of privateer ship and crew who acting on behalf of local seats of power such as the Hanseatic cities Rostock and Wismar, captured trading ships and seized their cargoes. In time, the Victual Brothers became ordinary pirates and started attacking all shipping in the Baltic Sea.

Similar legal piracy occurred when the English captured the Danish fleet in 1807.The Danish king permitted the arming of privateers for the purposes of piracy against English ships carrying wood and tar. For local skippers who knew their own waters well, there was a lot of money to be made.

St. Hans market in Stubbekøbing

In Stubbekøbing, St Hans Day on the 24th June used to be market day. In 1556, the town’s bailiff and mayor were opposed to the market and a royal decree abolishing the market was issued from Nykøbing Castle. This led to a full-blown riot in Stubbekøbing on the fourth day of Easter 1559, when 24 men elected by the town had as usual shared a barrel of beer when the town accounts balanced. They elected a new mayor, town council and bailiff, who undertook a commitment to attend the next sitting of parliament armed so as to get the town's St Hans market reinstated. The first attempt failed and the rebels were sent to the Blue Tower in Copenhagen. However, the St. Hans market was eventually resumed in 1569.

Falster’s East Coast –the sale of the crown lands in 1766

In 1776, the bailiff in Stubbekøbing tried in vain to hold on to the kings "16 Stubbekøbing lands" as the property of the market town, when the crown lands on Falster belonging to Nykøbing Castle estate were divided into ten plots and sold at auction. Instead, a new estate was established where Bredemad had been situated in the Middle Ages. The estate was named Carlsfelt after Prince Carl of Hesse.

Carl of Hesse was the chairperson for the sitting state-appointed council of war, while his good friend Major General Classen was the king’s national weapons manufacturer. Carl of Hesse was acting as a front man for Classen when he purchased the two designated estates of Carlsfelt and Corselitze on East Falster in 1766. The estates were sold on to Classen in 1768. Today the Classenske Fideicommis (Classen Estate Foundation) owns the large woods which stretch for almost 20 kilometres along Falster’s East Coast from Næsgård in the north to Sdr. Alslev in the south, including the original fishing village and harbour in Hesnæs.

In 1801, there were 467 inhabitants in Stubbekøbing, 1079 inhabitants in Nykøbing, 931 in Vordingborg, 1785 in Næstved, 917 in Stege and 480 on Præstø.