Visby is an outstanding example of a north European medieval walled trading town which preserves with remarkable completeness a townscape and assemblage of high-quality ancient buildings that illustrate graphically the form and function of this type of significant human settlement. The urban fabric and overall townscape of Visby is its most important quality. By virtue of its position, Gotland has played a dominant role in Baltic trade for many centuries between Western Europe and Russia. Excavations have indicated that there was a trading settlement in the early Viking Age on the site of Visby.
Visby and its trade
The trading settlements banded together for the protection of their chains of trading posts and to assert their interests vis-Ã -vis the rulers of the territories through which they passed (and also against their rivals) into a federation or Hansa. By the 12th century Visby dominated this trade: all the commercial routes of the Baltic were channelled through the town. German merchants began to expand their sphere of interest into the Baltic and to settle in Visby, henceforward the main centre of the Hanseatic League in the Baltic.The Germans were followed by Russian and Danish traders; guild houses and churches were built in the town, and stone warehouses were constructed along the harbour. The earlier small wooden buildings were replaced during the 13th century by large stone houses, built in parallel rows eastwards from the harbour. Pressure on the original centre was such that the surrounding land was used for housing, as well as the erection of churches and guild houses. Visby changed from a simple Gotland village to an impressive international town, enclosed by a strong defensive wall, and increasingly divorced from its rural hinterland.
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