The Battle of Hemmingstedt took place on 17 February 1500 south of the village of Hemmingstedt, near the present village of Epenwöhrden, in the western part of present-day Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It was an attempt by King John of Denmark and his brother Duke Frederick, who were co-dukes of Schleswig and Holstein, to subdue the peasantry of Dithmarschen, who had established a peasants' republic on the coast of the North Sea. John was at the time also king of the Kalmar Union.
Memorial in Epenwöhrden reciting the battlecry: "Wahr di, Garr, de Buer de kumt" (Beware guard, the farmer is coming)
The Battle of Hemmingstedt in a history painting of 1910 by Max Friedrich Koch, assembly hall of the former District Building in Meldorf. The legendary virgin Telse waving the banner of the then Ditmarsian patron saint Mary of Nazareth.
John was a Scandinavian monarch under the Kalmar Union. He was king of Denmark (1481–1513), Norway (1483–1513) and as John II Sweden (1497–1501). From 1482 to 1513, he was concurrently duke of Schleswig and Holstein in joint rule with his brother Frederick.
Sculpture from altarpiece by Claus Berg (c. 1530), St. Canute's Cathedral, Odense
Seal of King John of Denmark, Norway and Sweden
King John's gold coin minted in Stockholm in 1497
Face detail on a wall monument by Claus Berg near King John's grave
