Randers

Randers stands at the narrow crossing where the Gudenå meets the head of Randers Fjord, so that roads running north and south through Jutland and the sea route out along the fjord came together here. King Canute IV minted coins in the town in the 11th century, and the market town, burned and rebuilt more than once in the 13th century, received market privileges in 1302. Salmon fishing and the harbour supported its merchants, and a ring of ramparts enclosed the streets.

In the Kingless Time, when Denmark was pledged to German counts, the Jutland noble Niels Ebbesen killed Count Gerhard III of Holstein, nicknamed the Bald, in Randers on 1 April 1340. Ebbesen was himself killed in battle at Skanderborg that November, but his act touched off a revolt against the pledgeholders. When Valdemar IV rebuilt the realm, Randers was strengthened as a fortress, the Randershus, yet discontented nobles seized it in 1357, and the king attacked it with all his forces in 1359. The town prospered in the 15th and 16th centuries from trade at home and overseas, withstood a peasant assault in 1534, and gained wide moats under Christian III.