In the summer of 1508, Magnus Buck, the vicar of the Nykyrko (Fin. Uusikirkko) parish in coastal Karelia, sailed to Tallinn (Ger. Reval) on his small ship of six lasts. In the Gulf of Tallinn, Danish privateers captured the ship with the crew and the goods, but the vicar escaped to the shore. There, he met with people from his parish, Finns and Karelians. He explained his despair to them, and, against a promise of one last of beer, enlisted their help in a venture to take his ship and goods back from the enemy. They found the ship in anchor at the beach of Pirita (at the cloister of St. Birgitta, now part of Tallinn), unguarded and with the vicar's crew bound in ropes, and were able to seize it back without harm to either themselves or the Danes.

The reason for the bishop and two city magistrates of Tallinn to document and to testify in detail to this incident mirrored the precarious situation among the Baltic Sea powers: Denmark, Sweden, and the Hansa (here: Lübeck and Tallinn). In the summer of 1508, the tripartite conflict between Denmark, Sweden, and Lübeck had come to a momentary standstill, and Tallinn was very careful not to incite the warring parties. Both the spiritual and secular rulers of Tallinn wanted to make it clear to anybody inquiring about the incident that it was firmly between the vicar of Nykyrko and the Danish privateers, and did not involve the bishop or the city of Tallinn. In this they succeeded, because four days later the Danish privateer captains promised not to press charges in the case.

The present chapter is not primarily focused on politics among the great Baltic Sea powers. Rather, the case of the Nykyrko vicar is interesting for three reasons. First, it shows a Finnish priest trading and becoming indebted in the Hanseatic port of Tallinn, with a very modest ship and small cargo. Second, it shows that many ‘Finns and Karelians’ – i.e. people from Finland and Karelia, probably from the provinces of Finland Proper (Fin. Varsinais-Suomi), Uusimaa (Swe. Nyland), and Vyborg (Swe. Viborg, Fin. Viipuri) – were present in Tallinn, some of them living and working there, others visiting, probably also because of trade.