After the Victual Brothers' defeat and expulsion from Gotland in 1398, the Hanseatic League tried repeatedly but unsuccessfully to completely control the Baltic Sea. Many Victual Brothers still remained at sea. When they lost their influence in the Gulf of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland and Gotland, they operated from the Schlei, the mouth of the river Ems and other locations in Friesland. The successors to the Victual Brothers gave themselves the name "Likedeelers" ("equal sharers"): they shared with the poor coastal population. They expanded their activities into the North Sea and along the Atlantic coastline, raiding Brabant and France and striking as far south as Spain.