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The Rostock Islet
From a book: "Emmaboda - Pictures in One's Mind" by Erik Ottosson.
Translated into English by Håkan Larsson, Johannes-branch.
There are few places in the Emmaboda region that are associated with so many question marks and so much mysticism as the Rostock islet. When a child, one heard the story about the stronghold that had been located on the islet between the Rostock lake and the Grimmansmåla lake and from which a bridge of copper was said to have been laid to the mainland. |
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| Rostock islet fortress as it may have appeared in the fourteenth century |
Many facts indicate that in the years 1300 - 1400 there actually was a stronghold located on the Rostock islet. The main function of the stronghold was likely to be able to control the communications on the trade routes of that time in an effective manner. The stronghold probably also had a defensive and strategic importance due to the nearness to the Danish border of that time.
Actually there is quite a lot written down about the Rostock islet. The following transcription from a press cutting from 1950 can give you a picture of how the place looked then and probably still looks like: "A visit to the Rostock islet then was made by rector Axel Henriksson, the reverend Olsson, county archivist J.E. Andersbjörk, administrative assistant Sölve Olsson, Växjö, and some other persons. The place where the stronghold had been located probably was of about 200 meters length and 80 meters width and is situated to the south side of the islet. There you can find marks of several buildings, of which one has been furnished with a really good size cellar. At the far south end the islet ends with a huge depression in the ground with sloping edges. Human hands have made this embankment, which has a length of about 70 meters and a width of 30 meters. In the bottom it has marsh vegetation, in the old days when the water level was higher it was surely filled up with water."
In the book "Wärend during the Middle Ages" you can, among other things, read the following: "At Rostock, in the parish of Algutsboda, just close to the border of Möre and Blekinge there are remnants of a fortified estate from the Middle Ages. This estate has been situated on the narrow neck of land between the lake of Rostock and the lake of Grimmansmåla where the important trade route from Lyckå on the Blekinge coast passed the border of Wärend.
The stronghold had been able to keep complete control of the border passage and it had obviously been built in that distinct purpose. An almost identical position had another stronghold in the southeast of Wärend, situated close to the church of Vissefjärda where a crossroad to the Lyckå road westward through Konga passed the Lyckeby river and the border of Wärend.
The strongholds, both Rostock and Vissefjärda, obviously had been built in the distinct purpose of being able to keep control of these roads in strategic places. Direct defense questions naturally have played an important role but at first hand it must have been the purpose of achieving an effective control of the traffic that went along these trade routes.
At the end of the Middle Ages there were a distinct accumulation of bishop estates and cathedral estates in connection with Rostock and Vissefjärda and in that neighbourhood. This can be explained by the fact that they have earlier been support estates of the fortified main estates.
You see, in the year of 1349 the bishop Thomas in Växjö by the Swedish king was given a great estate donation in the northern part of Blekinge in close connection with the estates in Vissefjärda which later on showed as belonging to the episcopal. Probable reasons also speak for the theory that the bishops were behind the strongholds at Rostock and Vissefjärda.
From "Description of Småland from the Year 1848" you can read the following about the Rostock islet and that there lived a ruler with the name of Algut: "In the Rostock lake, which is situated close to the border of Kalmar, there is an islet, the Rostock islet where in olden days a ruler Algut is said to have lived.
In 1758 there were still many remnants of cellars and four houses which had been bigger than ordinary country churches. Algut possessed the entire parish and had the greatest power, he even had the power to hang people in the gallows beside a big oak at Getasjö vicarage.
These tales the dean A. Almgren at his arrival in 1743 found so general and well in memory with the country people that he thought this ruler Algut must have lived back in old ages. He said: "It is told that when queen Margareta ruled Sweden, Norway and Denmark in the fourteenth century, Engelbrekt complained of the fact that she had given all castles and estates to foreign men but he was then told that she also had favoured Algut Månson (Sture) great grandfather of the later on so well-known Sten Sture the older.
From 1374 to 1427 Algut Månson (Sture) is often mentioned in the diplomas. That a fortress was built here close to the Danish border is obvious."
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