and East Frisia. Eventually, as the efforts became more thoroughly the efforts of commoners, and especially, as the band turned to piracy, their activities were aimed at their own enrichment, and not the provisioning of others. As historian Jörgen Bracker of Hamburg's Municipal Museum notes, the "Vitalien Brothers divided up all their loot among themselves", arguing that the notion that "these men were willing to give up any of their booty" was a false notion. History of the Guild During the 14th century, Queen Margaret I of Denmark was battling Albert of Mecklenburg for Scandinavian supremacy; Albert had been King of Sweden since 1364 and Duke of Mecklenburg since 1383. Queen Margaret imprisoned Albert and his son Eric of Mecklenburg in order to subdue the Kingdom of Sweden, and her forces began a siege of Stockholm. As the dukes of the House of Mecklenburg were without a navy, they sought instead to wage a Kaperkrieg (Privateers' War) against Denmark and in the relief of Stockholm; to do so it engaged both the owners of commercial ships and the seafaring masses through issue of letters of marque to authorize the taking and disposal of plundered goods—letters that included the ports and towns of Rostock, Wismar, Ribnitz, and Golwitz and that, in the words of Dirk Meier, likely offered a way that the "nobility of Mecklenburg", through their "compact with bands of roving and unorganised pirates", could also encourage some among the minor aristocrats of Mecklenburg to "support and indeed join the pirates, in the hope of sharing some of ther booty". Through these letters, Mecklenburg was able to raise a force of Baltic Sea pirates that would rise to number on the order of 1400 persons, a force that in 1392 was pressed into the fight against Denmark, including as blockade runners in the supply of Stockholm. These privateers and pirates came to be known as the Vitalienbrüder, and later, in English, the Victual Brothers, and they brought food and other provisions through the Danish forces to keep the city supplied, and otherwise engaged in war at sea. Alongside their breaking the blockade, Margaret and Albert came to agreement in 1395, with Stockholm "pantsatt til hanseatene [pledg[ing] to the Hanseatic League]", that led to Albert's freedom; city and sovereign thus freed, the troops of Queen Margaret were withdrawn, and peace returned. Despite having been denied a "grunnlag [basis, for operations] and