Cross and Scepter

by Bagge, Sverre

  In contrast to the two other countries, there was little trace of Protestant influence in Norway before 1536. In the following year, by Danish decree, Protestantism was instated, and Christian III fulfilled the promise in his election charter that Norway should be a part of Denmark forever, like Jutland, Funen, and the other Danish landscapes. Norway was incorporated into the Danish realm and ceased to be an independent kingdom.

  The twelve years between 1524 and 1536 are full of drama and have been much discussed. So has also the interpretation of the paragraph in Christian’s election charter, as well as its legal status. Admittedly, the status of Norway was not identical to that of the Danish landscapes. The king of Denmark always referred to himself as king of Norway and Denmark; there was a clear distinction between the two territories, and even during the most centralizing phase of the period of absolutism, the revision of the laws resulted in a separate law for Norway (1687). Nevertheless, a drastic change from equality or near equality to subjection took place in 1536–37, and its course was largely a consequence of the Reformation.

  The Norwegian council of the realm was dominated by the bishops and chaired by the archbishop. The archbishop rebelled against Frederik in 1531–32 and actively sought an alternative to Christian III as his successor, although he accepted him in the end. By then, however, it was too late. Drastic administrative changes would in any case be necessary to introduce the Reformation in Norway, and there was not much point in upholding the council of the realm if there were no bishops. The members of the Norwegian high nobility were too few to uphold the council as an effective institution, or, from the king’s point of view, to necessitate such a concession on his part. Nor could they expect much solidarity from their equals in Denmark who now got free access to len in Norway. It must also be added that the fall of the Catholic Church was probably a greater blow against national interests in Norway than the fall of the council of the realm; the Church was the most important path to a career for the lower nobility in Norway, either as bishops or canons, or as the numerous laymen in the bishops’ service. From the point of view of the Danish aristocracy, the elimination of Norway as a separate kingdom also had the advantage that the king could not use the Norwegian tradition of hereditary kingship to weaken the Danish council’s right to elect his successor.

  What accounts for the different fates of Norway and Sweden? The most obvious explanation is the difference in wealth and population between the two countries. In the early sixteenth century, the population in all countries was still smaller than it had been before the Black Death, but their relative size was probably similar. However, as we have seen, the economic decline hit the upper classes considerably harder in Norway than in the other countries. Moreover, it seems that Norway lost its independence at the time when its economic weakness relative to the neighboring countries was greatest. While Denmark and Sweden were on their way to recovering from the crisis by about 1450, it would last nearly a hundred years longer in Norway. In the following period, however, from around 1550, Norway experienced rapid growth, demographically, agriculturally, and economically, through the export of new commodities like timber and metals. Thus, Norway was more vulnerable in the period between 1450 and 1550 than ever before or after.

  Not only did Norway succumb to Denmark, but the process also took place easily and without much violence. Although there had been rebellions against Danish rule during the union period, among the peasants as well as the aristocracy, they were significantly rarer and less serious than in Sweden. During the final stage, in 1536–37, the Danes already controlled the most important castles in the southern part of the country—Bohus, Akershus and Bergenhus—and a force of three hundred men was sufficient to conquer the rest without much fighting. This points to a strategic explanation, much the same as explains the ease with which the country was unified. During the later Middle Ages, Denmark had once again become the leading sea power in Scandinavia and could therefore easily control Norway from the coast. Once the Danes had taken the few important castles, which were all in reach of the coast, they had full control. When attempting to conquer Sweden, they usually managed to gain bridgeheads along the coast, notably Stockholm and Kalmar, but this was insufficient for control of the whole country. Conquering the inland regions was considerably more difficult and was only achieved for brief periods of time and with the aid of Swedish allies. Thus, we have come back full circle: the same factor that explains the rise of the kingdom of Norway also serves to explain its decline. A Danish conquest of Norway in the Viking Age would have meant a piecemeal struggle against various power-holders along the coast, but the Norwegian dynasty had eliminated these long before the sixteenth century, so that the Danish king could now take over the country as their successor. Politically, the Danish king had become the legitimate successor to the strong Norwegian monarchy, and the status of the legitimate dynasty was considerably stronger in Norway than in Sweden. In addition, the Norwegian elite had become even more dependent on the king’s service in the later Middle Ages than before, because they had lost other incomes with the economic crisis.

  Danish economic and military superiority over Norway would probably have led to Norway’s subordination even without the Reformation, but the process would have been more gradual and might not have been carried so far. It might even have been halted by Norway’s economic revival in the following period. Thus, while long-term economic and political factors explain Norway’s increasing dependence on Denmark, the form this dependence took can only be explained by the Reformation.

  The Reformation changed the relationship between the three kingdoms by abolishing what remained of Norwegian independence. It also had far-reaching consequences for internal conditions in all three countries. There were no longer two independent organizations within each country; the king had taken full control of the Church and gained an enormous profit from confiscated church lands. Of equal importance was his ideological gain in having the priests now as loyal servants of the monarchy, preaching obedience to the lawful ruler and even—particularly in Sweden—mobilizing the population for a new kind of crusade, the defense of the true faith against the “Papists” during the Thirty Years War. Admittedly, the Church had served somewhat similar purposes in the past, but the king’s control over it had never been so direct. The second winner from the suppression of the Church was the secular aristocracy, which got hold of a large part of the former ecclesiastical lands and increased its position in the king’s administration, centrally as well as locally. In Denmark, the period between 1536 and 1660 (the introduction of absolutism) is usually referred to as “Adelsvælden” (the Dominance of the Nobles). It has been debated who benefited more, the king or the aristocracy, but whatever the answer, there can be hardly any doubt that it was a considerable step forward in state formation. The conditions for holding len became stricter, and the courts of law and the central administration more centralized and efficient. The king had to share his power with the council of the realm, which, in the case of seventeenth-century Denmark-Norway led to considerable rivalry, as well as other problems, until a series of disasters resulted in the introduction of absolutism in 1660. By contrast, Sweden had the advantage of good cooperation between the two powers, which in part explains her military successes during the Thirty Years War and the following period.

  CONCLUSION

  Scandinavian State Formation 900–1537: Break and Continuity

  ACCORDING TO SOME SCHOLARS, notably Charles Tilly, the European state was formed during the Early Modern Period rather than the Middle Ages, not only in the sense that the change from personal to impersonal rule took place in this period, but also because it was then that the territorial divisions themselves were formed. It was therefore still an open question around 1500 whether Europe would be divided into national states or petty principalities or would become one great empire. The preceding examination of the Scandinavian kingdoms has not confirmed this hypothesis. Although the three kingdoms were apparently the p
roducts of a series of struggles between individual warlords from the ninth to the mid-eleventh century, the units formed by the end of this period show remarkable stability over the course of the following centuries, and this despite a series of internal and external conflicts. Petty principalities formed within one kingdom as the result of dynastic divisions (or through other causes) did not develop into independent kingdoms, but either returned to their original units or remained in some kind of feudal subordination. Land conquered by one kingdom from another was returned to the original possessor relatively quickly. Scania remained under the king of Sweden for thirty years in the fourteenth century (1332–1361) and the border regions for around half of this time in the sixteenth century. Only Gotland, conquered by Denmark in 1361, was transferred from one kingdom to another. However, Gotland was only nominally under Swedish suzerainty even before its conquest. It was contested during the struggles over the union in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century and recognized as Danish as part of the settlement between Gustaf Vasa and Christian III. It was ceded to Sweden in 1645, as a result of the major changes in the Scandinavian borders consequent to Sweden’s rise to the status of a great power.

  This stability is also evidence of internal consolidation, of the formation of political entities held together by something more than a ruler’s personal charisma or the decision by a certain number of people to keep together as long as it serves their interests. The dynastic unions from 1319 onwards are a test of the achievements in the previous period. They had their origin in the ambitions of the kings, together with marriage patterns and rules of succession introduced during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which increased the likelihood that the same person would succeed to the throne in more than one country. The union of the three countries in 1397 might seem to have opened the possibility of obliterating the eleventh-century borders and creating a Nordic super-state. That possibility might, in fact, have been entertained by the king and the circle around him, but there is little evidence that it was ever a realistic alternative. As expressed in its contemporary name, “the three kingdoms,” the union consisted of three realms governed by one king. Moreover, the unions accelerated the movement towards an impersonal government by making an institution, the council of the realm, the bearer of its sovereignty and responsible for appointing its king. When Sweden ceded from the union in the 1520s, the old borders between this country and the two others were quickly reestablished after a short period of Swedish occupation of Danish and Norwegian territory. By contrast, the extinction of Norway as an independent country was a drastic change from the Middle Ages. However, Norway was never eliminated as a separate entity. Nor was it conquered in the real sense; the king of Denmark could claim a legitimate right as the successor of the ancient line of Norwegian kings. Finally, the Danish takeover in 1536–37 would hardly have assumed such a drastic shape if it had not been for the Reformation, which eliminated the strongest segment of the Norwegian political elite in order to introduce religious reform. Characteristically, the period of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation also saw the most drastic changes that would occur in the relationship between the European states before the French revolution. The state system that had developed during the Middle Ages was not resistant to any change, but quite substantial forces were needed to shake it.

  LITERATURE

  The Historiography of the Scandinavian Countries

  There is a continuous tradition of historical writing from the Middle Ages to the present day in all three of the Scandinavian kingdoms, as well as in Iceland, though admittedly it began later (not until the early fourteenth century) in Sweden than in the other countries. The works dating from the Middle Ages have already been discussed. Those of the Early Modern Period are of interest as evidence of learning and for an understanding of how “history” was viewed at the time, and also because they contain a number of documents from the Middle Ages whose originals have been lost. However, the beginning of modern scholarly historical writing is usually dated to the early nineteenth century, in Scandinavia as in the rest of Europe. The professionalization of history, which started in Germany, quickly spread to Scandinavia. Throughout Europe, this professionalization was related to a national revival that typically placed great emphasis on a nation’s medieval past.

  In all three Scandinavian kingdoms, this resulted in more university positions devoted to history, particularly national history; in the publication of scholarly editions of the sources; the inauguration of professional historical journals; and the appearance of a considerable volume of books and articles on national history based on the study of original sources. Throughout the nineteenth century, there was some tension between the use of history for national purposes and objective history, based on close examination of the sources. Erik Gustaf Geijer (1783–1847) in Sweden and J. E. Sars (1835–1917) in Norway are examples of the former, while the Danish historian Kristian Erslev (1852–1930) represents the latter. As in the rest of Europe, this latter approach gained ground towards the end of the century, which in Scandinavia led to important changes in the attitude of historians to the narrative sources.

  Throughout the nineteenth century, extensive work was carried out to ensure that all available sources were used when confronting historical problems, in particular the oldest sources. Nevertheless, there were widely differing opinions on how to deal with these sources, notably with the narrative ones. The main sources for the early histories of Denmark and Norway were Latin chronicles, the most important of which was Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum and the Old Norse sagas, which date largely from the late twelfth or thirteenth centuries. In the mid-nineteenth century, these sources were regarded as derived from an oral tradition going back to the events themselves and thus as largely reliable. Consequently, the Norwegian historian P. A. Munch could write several large volumes on the earliest history of the Norwegian kingdom and even discuss in detail the political conditions of the country before the reign of Harald Finehair (c. 900), according to the sagas the first ruler of the whole of Norway. In the following period, a more critical attitude to the sagas gradually gained ground.

  Then, in 1911, the Swedish historian Lauritz Weibull published his Kritiska undersökningar i Nordens historia omkring år 1000 (Critical Examinations of Nordic History around the Year 1000), in which he rejected most of the information in the sagas about this period. The book was regarded as revolutionary and gave rise to a heated debate and much opposition. Theoretically, the novelty of Weibull’s approach was his demand for absolute certainty, while his predecessors had been content with probability. However, this hardly explains the importance of his contribution; few historians will claim certainty for their results. Weibull’s main importance therefore lies on the empirical level. His method as such was not new; it can be found in earlier European scholarship, as well as in handbooks of historical method, but up to now it had not been applied to the sagas, either because of their deceptively realistic appearance or because of continued belief in the reliability of the oral tradition.

  By systematically examining the literary tradition that formed the basis of the later sagas, notably Snorri’s Heimskringla, Weibull could show that what in many cases had been believed to be independent oral evidence was actually a transformation of earlier extant written statements. Thus, by examining the sources for the Battle of Svolder, he showed how new elements were gradually added to the original narrative, which in the end gave it an entirely different context and placed its site off Rügen, instead of Øresund, its location in the earlier sources. Later, his younger brother Curt Weibull did the same for Saxo’s account of St. Knud of Denmark, showing that Saxo’s changes and additions to the previous sources were not based on new evidence, but on a transformation of the previous sources to better fit a new purpose.

  The Weibull revolution also had consequences for the link between historiography and the nation. The ideal of absolute certainty and objectivity was, not infrequently, at odds with the role of hi
story in the nation building. Besides, without being political radicals, the Weibulls were not in sympathy with the conservative trend and the cult of the state in Swedish historiography. Their methods were developed further by Curt Weibull’s pupil Erik Lönnroth in his rejection of the national interpretation of the Kalmar Union (Chapter 5 above). Discontent with national interpretations was also expressed in Erik Arup’s History of Denmark (1925), in which the kings were mostly regarded as insignificant, whereas the important figures in history were the common people, the aristocracy, and the Church.

  Norway differed somewhat from its neighbors during the first half of the twentieth century. Although influenced by the Weibulls, Norwegian historians were generally less critical of their narrative sources. They were also politically more radical; the most influential of them were even Marxists. Nevertheless, with one exception, Edvard Bull (1881–1932), they had fewer reservations about nationalism. This applied particularly to Halvdan Koht (1873–1965), a leading Social Democrat, who attempted a synthesis between Marxism and a national interpretation, in many ways continuing in the tradition of Sars. In practice, the Marxist historians paid more attention to social and economic history. In particular, Andreas Holmsen (1906–1989) did ground-breaking work in the areas of settlement, landownership, and demography. He was also one of the founders of the great Nordic project that studied deserted farms (1964–1981).