Medieval Denmark

Medieval Denmark

THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES

During the course of what historians have called the High Middle Ages, beginning about the 11th century, the political, social, and economic structures that scholars have associated with medieval European society came to Denmark, as well as to the rest of Viking Scandinavia. By the end of the 13th century, the systems now known as feudalism and manorialism framed many people’s lives, and the Christian church had become firmly established. However, defining the powers of the country’s rulers was fraught with difficulties. The ensuing battles for the throne, as well as struggles for power between the nobles and the king, would persist for centuries. Defining the kingdom’s borders presented problems as well, and Danish kings were forced to defend their territory against various outside forces.

THE MONARCHY

Sweyn II Estridsen (reigned 1047–74?) was on the throne during the transition from Viking to feudal society. When he took power, the royal succession was largely in the hands of the things, or local assemblies of freemen, which also legislated on various issues. Five of Sweyn’s sons succeeded each other on the throne: Harald Hén (ruled 1074–80), Canute IV (the Holy; 1080–86), Oluf Hunger (1086–95), Erik Ejegod (1095–1103), and Niels (1104–34). Their reigns were marked by conflict over the extent of the king’s power, and both Canute and Niels were assassinated. By 1146 civil war had divided the kingdom between three contenders.

After protracted struggles, one of these contenders, Valdemar I (the Great), was acknowledged as the sole king in 1157. Valdemar initially recognized Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I (Barbarossa) as his overlord but later rejected the relationship, thereby emphasizing the independence of the Danish kingdom. Valdemar’s reign (1157–82) was followed by those of several other strong rulers, including that of his son Valdemar II (the Victorious; 1202–41). During Valdemar II’s reign, two essential works appeared: a code of law and the Jordebog (“Land Book”), a cadastre, or land register. In addition, a parliament, the hof, was established by the high prelates and aristocrats as a check against royal misuse of power; it met at short intervals and also functioned as the highest court. After Valdemar II’s death, peace and stability disintegrated. Power disputes culminated in two instances of regicide: King Erik IV (Plowpenny) was murdered in 1250 and King Erik V (Glipping, or Klipping) in 1286.

During the reign of Erik V, in 1282, the nobility succeeded in formally limiting the king’s power. A charter between the great Danish lords and the king recognized the power of the lords in exchange for their support of the monarch. It forbade the king from imprisoning nobles purely on suspicion and also forced the king to call an annual meeting of the hof. This document (the haandfaestning) may be viewed as Denmark’s first constitution—albeit, like the Magna Carta in England, a feudal not a democratic one. Indeed, the charter resulted in a loss of power for the peasantry and the local things.

THE KINGDOM

With one notable exception, establishing the frontiers of the Danish realm had proved to be much easier than determining the extent of the king’s power. The inclusion of various islands within the Danish kingdom was fairly straightforward. In the southern Scandinavian Peninsula, in what is now the southern tip of Sweden, Denmark’s territory also encompassed the regions of Skåne, Halland, and Blekinge; these remained part of the Danish kingdom until their loss to Sweden in the 17th century.

In the peninsula of Jutland, however, the placement of the kingdom’s southern border remained problematic until the current boundary was drawn in 1920. At issue was whether the regions of Schleswig (Slesvig) and Holstein (Holsten) should be part of Denmark or of the constellation of German states. To be sure, there was the Danewirk, a rampart in southern Jutland begun in about 808 to protect Denmark from German incursions, but the Danish-German border seldom coincided with this wall. The problem was complicated by two other factors. Because of their importance, not least militarily, the rulers of Schleswig and Holstein, powerful nobles and often members of the Danish royal family, competed for control within Denmark. In addition, the relationship of the Danish king and the rulers of Schleswig and Holstein to the rulers of the German states and especially to the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, left the issue of sovereignty of the southern parts of Jutland unclear.

Beyond these core areas of the kingdom—Jutland, the Danish islands, and the southern Scandinavian Peninsula—other areas also came under the Danish crown in the High Middle Ages. During this period the Danes’ Viking-era orientation toward the North Sea and Norway shifted east and south. Strong rulers in both England and Norway, as well as other interests, forced the attention of the Danes toward the Baltic Sea in particular.

In the early 11th century the Wends, pagan Slavic tribes who lived along the Baltic east of the Elbe River, increasingly attacked merchant shipping in the sea and among the southern Danish islands. Not until the 12th-century campaigns of Valdemar I, combined with the often competing, sometimes cooperating efforts of the Saxons from west of the Elbe, were the Wends Christianized and the piracy and raiding stopped. Although Valdemar claimed Danish hegemony over Wendish lands, Saxon settlers, not Danish ones, moved into the area.

Valdemar I’s sons continued his eastern policy and conquered north German lands in the western Baltic region, such as Holstein, part of Mecklenburg, and Pomerania. Competing with various German rulers and the Teutonic Order for converts and territory, the Danes also sent missionaries along the trade route from Schleswig to Novgorod.

Valdemar II turned his attention farther east. In 1219 he took his army on what was designated as a crusade to what is now Estonia, where the Danes besieged and captured Tallinn and converted many to Christianity. But again, Germans rather than Danes moved into the area—making the Danish hold tenuous. In 1225, after Valdemar had been taken prisoner by one of his north German vassals, he promised to give up all the conquered areas except Estonia and the island of Rügen. A final attempt to win back the lost areas led to his decisive defeat in 1227, and the Danish empire in the western Baltic came to an end.

THE CHURCH

The establishment of the Christian church in Denmark went hand in hand with the consolidation of royal power and the determining of the Danish frontiers. Under German auspices, a few bishoprics subordinate to the archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen had been established in Danish territory as early as the 10th century (see also Hamburg; Bremen). In the 11th century Sweyn II worked with the church to strengthen royal authority. During his reign Denmark was divided into eight bishoprics under the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen: Schleswig, Ribe, Århus, Viborg, Vendsyssel (part of Vendsyssel-Thy), Odense, Roskilde, and Lund (now in Sweden). In 1103, however, the pope established Lund as the seat of a new, Nordic archbishop—thus liberating the church in Denmark from the influences of German prelates.

Subsequently, a great Romanesque cathedral was built in Lund, and a church-building program began in earnest. Small wooden churches had existed in Denmark since the introduction of Christianity, but during the course of the 12th century hundreds of stone and brick churches were constructed. The monastery system came to Denmark during this period as well. Most of the first monasteries were connected to a cathedral. The Cistercians founded their first monastery in 1144 in Skåne. Later in the 12th century the Cistercians founded great monasteries at Esrum and Sorø in Zealand (Sjælland) and at Løgum in southern Jutland. In addition, the Cistercians founded three houses for women before 1200, in the bishopric of Roskilde, in Slangerup in northern Zealand, and in Bergen on the island of Rügen (then under the Danish crown and now part of Germany).

A number of notable individuals oversaw the church in Denmark during this era. Eskil became archbishop of Lund in 1138 and as such oversaw the completion of the cathedral; it was also at his behest that the first Cistercians came north. Absalon, bishop of Roskilde from 1134, wrote the church law of Zealand in 1171 and then in 1177 became archbishop of Lund. Absalon also was a key advocate of the Valdemar dynasty. He ruled as coregent during Canute VI’s minority (1170–82) and helped lead Denmark’s expansionist campaigns. Aside from serving as a royal adviser, he was the patron of Saxo Grammaticus, who wrote Gesta Danorum, the first important work on the history of Denmark. These men and others were responsible for the basic structures of the Danish church that endured until the 16th-century Reformation and, in some measure, beyond.

The church in Denmark eventually amassed significant wealth and power. By the end of the 13th century, the crown and the church controlled the vast majority of land in the realm. The church derived a huge income from its lands and farms and drew still greater revenues from the tithes on the entire grain production of the country—one-third going to the bishops, one-third to the parish churches, and one-third to the parish priests.

In the early days, the objectives of church and crown were in alignment. High-level offices such as abbots and bishops were usually held by the younger sons of nobles, appointed by the Danish king or the pope, and there was seldom enough agreement among bishops in order to confront royal power effectively. Occasionally, however, the administrative apparatus of the church came into competition with the government’s, and during the latter half of the 13th century, contention between church and state increased sharply. Three serious confrontations ultimately took place.

The first one began during the reign of Erik IV (1241–50), who disagreed with the pope’s installation of Jakob Erlandsen as bishop of Roskilde. The conflict lasted through the reign of Christopher I (1252–59) and Erlandsen’s appointment as archbishop of Lund. Christopher’s imprisonment of the prelate caused several German rulers to attack Denmark, and in the ensuing war the king died.

The second great confrontation between church and state, which took place in the late 13th century, highlights the conflicting sacred and secular duties of the bishops. The root of the conflict lay in Archbishop Jens Grand’s refusal to meet his feudal military obligations: instead of supporting the king, the archbishop had sided with several outlawed magnates who were raiding the Danish coasts. The king, Erik VI (Menved), jailed the archbishop, who subsequently escaped and took his case to the papal court. In 1303 Erik reached a settlement with the pope, who decided in favour of the archbishop but moved him to Riga (now in Latvia).

The third conflict began in the early 14th century, when a new archbishop, Esger Juul, who had been appointed jointly by the king and the pope to the see in Lund, issued bulls against the king for the return of properties lost during the fight with Jens Grand. Ultimately, Juul lost his backing from the other Danish bishops, and in 1317 he fled to Hammershus, a castle on the island of Bornholm, and filed suit in the papal court. King Christopher II eventually reached a settlement with Juul out of court.

Thereafter, relations between church and state remained relatively calm until the Reformation. Not only was the papal position weaker, but the king’s role in appointing high church officials grew stronger. By the mid-14th century the Danish government essentially chose Denmark’s bishops.

• THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

DECLINING ROYAL POWER AND HOLSTEIN RULE

The battle between nobles and kings largely defined late medieval politics. Following the murder of King Erik V in 1286, the guardians of Erik’s heir, Erik VI, still a minor, consolidated their power around the young prince and established a nearly absolutist regime. Upon reaching his majority, the king became involved in military adventures abroad, particularly in northern Germany, and by his death in 1319 the country was deeply in debt.

The childless Erik VI was succeeded by his brother, Christopher II, who was forced by the nobles to sign a strict coronation charter; he was also the first king to accept the hof as a permanent institution. He did not abide by the charter, however, and was driven into exile after a battle with the magnates and the count of Holstein.

By this point the kingdom’s creditors, mostly great lords from Denmark and the north German states, had acquired significant power. From 1326 to 1330 the young duke of South Jutland, Valdemar, ruled under the regency of the count of Holstein. Christopher II returned to the throne during 1330–32, but during his reign the kingdom was split by a peasant uprising, church discord, and the struggle with Holstein, which received almost all of the country in pawn.

After the death of Christopher in 1332, no new king was chosen. The counts of Holstein ruled the country until 1340, when Gerhard of Holstein, to speed up tax collection, moved his army into Jutland, where he was murdered. Christopher’s son then ascended the throne as Valdemar IV Atterdag.

REUNION UNDER VALDEMAR IV

The new king married the sister of the duke of South Jutland, who gave the northern quarter of North Jutland as her dowry; he began his reign with the reunion of Denmark as his first priority. By selling Estonia (1346) and collecting extra taxes, he reclaimed some of the pawned areas and brought others back through negotiations or force of arms. In 1360 he conquered Skåne, which had come under Swedish rule, and, a year later, the Swedish island of Gotland. Denmark was thus reunited.

Royal power was strengthened during Valdemar IV’s reign. The king succeeded in quelling a series of revolts by leading magnates, and at a hof in 1360, a “great national peace” was agreed between the monarch and the people. The hof was replaced by the Rigsråd (Council of the Realm)—a national council of the archbishop, the bishops, and the lensmænd (vassals) from the main castles—and the king’s Retterting (Court of Law) became the supreme court. Valdemar also attacked major economic problems: after the Black Death pandemic in 1350, he confiscated ownerless estates and regained royal estates that had been lost during the interregnum; additionally, the army was reorganized.

Valdemar’s war on Gotland and the fall of the island’s wealthy town of Visby brought him into conflict with Sweden and the Hanseatic League, a powerful organization of mostly north German trading towns, which declared war on Denmark. In 1367 the league, the princes of Mecklenburg and Holstein, and some of the Jutland magnates attacked Valdemar at sea and on land. The king went to Germany to find allies in the rear of his powerful German enemies and succeeded in obtaining a rather favourable peace treaty at Stralsund in 1370, which gave the Hanseatic League trading rights in Denmark and pawned parts of Skåne to the league for 15 years. Valdemar returned home and continued his work of stabilizing the crown’s hold on the country until he died in 1375.

MARGARET I AND THE KALMAR UNION

Valdemar’s heirs brought the kingdom to its medieval apogee. His youngest and only surviving child, Margaret I (Margrethe I), had married a prince of Sweden, Haakon VI Magnusson, then king of Norway. Their son Olaf (Oluf) was chosen as king of Denmark in 1376. Margaret, as guardian and regent, followed a policy of peace abroad and strengthening the crown internally. In 1380, when Haakon died, Olaf, still a minor, was chosen as king of Norway as well. This brought not only Norway but also Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland under the Danish crown. Margaret also pushed Olaf’s claim to the Swedish throne, as he was last in the male line of Swedish kings. Before she could win the crown for him, however, Olaf died in 1387. Margaret was soon acknowledged as regent in Denmark and Norway, and rebellious Swedish nobles, dissatisfied with the rule of Albert of Mecklenburg, hailed her as regent in Sweden as well. War between the supporters of Margaret and Albert continued until 1398, when Albert’s forces finally surrendered Stockholm to Margaret.

Margaret’s rule was predicated on her control of the succession, and so she had adopted her great-nephew Erik of Pomerania. In 1397 at Kalmar, Swed., Margaret oversaw the coronation of Erik as king of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden—thus establishing the Kalmar Union of the three Scandinavian states. Although Erik, known as Erik VII in Danish history, was the titular king, Margaret retained actual power until her death in 1412.

The policies of Erik VII and the subsequent rulers of the Kalmar Union aimed to consolidate and hold together this rather disparate collection of territory. In 1434 a rebellion broke out in Sweden, and the spirit of revolt spread to the king’s enemies in Denmark and Norway. He was deposed in 1439 by the Danish and Swedish councils of the realm and in 1442 by Norway. The joint crown was offered to Erik’s nephew Christopher III, but his reign did little to strengthen the union, which was temporarily dissolved after his death in 1448. Christian I, founder of the Oldenburg dynasty, succeeded to the Danish and Norwegian thrones, but efforts to bring Sweden back into the union were only intermittently successful, and when Christian died in 1481, he did not rule that country. He was succeeded by his son John (Hans), whose coronation charter of 1483 acknowledged him as king of all three countries, but he actually held the Swedish throne only from 1497 to 1501.

Swedish revolts continued into the reign of Christian II, who succeeded his father, John, as king of Denmark and Norway in 1513. After defeating the army of the Swedish regent in 1520, Christian was crowned king of Sweden. Following his coronation, he executed more than 80 opponents of his regime in what became known as the Stockholm Bloodbath. Outrage over the massacre encouraged a final rebellion by the Swedes, who declared independence in 1523—marking a permanent end to the Kalmar Union. Opposition to the king grew in Denmark as well; the nobles of Jutland deposed him that year and drove him into exile. The Danish and Norwegian crowns then passed to Christian’s uncle, Frederick I.

LATE MEDIEVAL SOCIETY

During the Late Middle Ages the Danish people became more sharply divided into social classes. The nobility in particular developed the characteristics of a caste. Prior to the 15th century any Dane could become a noble, provided he could render military services to the king at his own expense, particularly by providing a prescribed number of men-at-arms. In return, he was exempted from all taxes. From the 15th century, however, he had to show that his forefathers had enjoyed tax exemptions for at least three generations. In addition, the king sought to assume the right to issue titles of nobility. These measures helped to limit the number of nobles in the kingdom. During the 15th century the nobility comprised 264 families, but this number fell to 230 in 1500 and to 140 (including at most 3,000 persons) in 1650; the Gyldenstjerne and Rosenkrantz families (whose names are commemorated in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet) were among the most important.

Agriculture remained the principal industry. The cultivated land, apart from about 1,000 manors, consisted of about 80,000 farms, clustered together in groups of 5 to 20 as villages. These were managed by peasant farmers in common, whether they held their farms as freeholds or as copyholds. In 1500 about 12,000 peasants owned farms, about 18,000 were copyholding peasants on crown lands, and about 30,000 were copyhold tenants of lands belonging to the church or the nobles.

The peasantry suffered a decline during the Late Middle Ages. Such factors as the outbreak of plague in the mid-14th century, the expropriation of peasant lands, and the migration of young people from farms to towns led to a shortage of labour and a drop in agricultural production. A significant number of peasant farms and even whole villages were abandoned. The nobles—especially on Zealand, Funen (Fyn), and the smaller islands—responded to the crisis by establishing vornedskab, an institution that, like serfdom, tied peasant men and women to the estate of their birth.

Meanwhile, under the Kalmar Union, Danish towns prospered, and the influence of the burghers, or townspeople, grew. By 1500 there were approximately 80 towns, most of them fortified but all of them small; Copenhagen had at most 10,000 inhabitants. A monopoly on internal trade granted by King Erik VII improved the economic position of the burghers, and many German merchants took out citizenship in the towns in order to compete.