ANNO DOMINI MCCCLXI FERIA III POST JACOBI ANTE PORTAS WISBY IN MANIBUS DANORUM CECIDERUNT GUTENSES HIC SEPULTI. ORATE PRO EIS.

In the year of Our Lord 1361 on the 27th of July in front of the gates of Visby, the Gotlanders who are buried here fell at the hands of the Danes. Pray for them.

THIS TEXT IS carved into a stone memorial cross (depicted on the cover of this book), and it was erected at the site of the mass graves from the Battle of Visby. This cross is believed to have been raised about 1375.

On a hot summer day, two armies clashed outside the walls of the rich and mighty city of Visby on the island of Gotland. The result was catastrophic for the roughly two thousand defenders who were killed by the soldiers of invading King Valdemar IV Atterdag of Denmark. The dead bodies were buried in haste in large mass graves and lay undisturbed until archaeologists began excavating them in the first half of the twentieth century. Visby became an early example of medieval battle field archaeology and awakened much interest in Scandinavia and internationally, but very little new source material has been brought to the attention of scholars since before the Second World War.

The mass grave findings and the archaeological excavation are internationally renowned through the comprehensive book by Bengt Thordeman, Armour from the Battle of Wisby 1361, published in 1939, which gives a thorough account of the excavations and finds. This has since become the main academic work about the invasion of Gotland, often used as reference in works related to medieval wars and battles.