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By Janne D. Kosior, archaeologist curator, Museum of Horsens

The written and archaeological sources show a great variety in the medieval town fortification system in Denmark. The physical town limit, in effect an administrative border, was a defining element of a medieval town due to the system of tax control. But of the one hundred medieval towns in the old Danish area (the present Denmark including parts of southern Sweden and Schleswig and Holstein), only 30 are known to have had a town border in the shape of a military fortification.

Through the Middle Ages, the location of the fortified towns changed. Before 1200 mainly the major inland towns with an important strategic value were fortified. This changed in the High and Late Middle Ages, when mainly coastal towns with an important location for defending Denmark against outer enemies were fortified.

The early medieval fortifications, such as those found in Aarhus, Ribe, Lund, Viborg, Roskilde, Kalundborg, and Copenhagen (1000-1200), were earthen works and took advantage of the topographic conditions and natural wet areas to the maximum. All fortifications from this period were probably abandoned after only a few years. From the thirteenth century and the next century onwards, larger waterworks with dams became characteristic. Such dams are found in towns like Ribe, Kolding and Aalborg. During the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, brick walls were erected in towns like Åhus and Trelleborg, Kalundborg, Copenhagen and Flensburg, followed by the introduction of great bastion-based earthen works and citadels during Renaissance.