From the Valdemars to Valdemar Atterdag
Valdemar the Great never forgot the civil war that ravaged Denmark for a quarter of a century. Throughout his reign, he consistently fought other potential candidates for kingship at the first sign of opposition.
He clearly believed that the completely open electoral monarchy made it possible for rivalry between candidates to become a cause for civil war. Therefore, he introduced the Valdemars' custom of having the king, while still alive, elect his eldest son as co-king and heir to the throne.
King Erik Menved developed into a truly tyrannical ruler, who waged many and expensive wars. At his death, he left Denmark in a disastrous economic state, with large parts of the kingdom mortgaged to foreign creditors.
Valdemar Atterdag is Denmarks most famous king because he managed to restore the Kingdom from non-existence with the territory in the hands of numerous creditors to a European power.
13. The Valdemars
Knud Magnussen died in the Blood Feast in Roskilde in 1157. Svend fell in the battle of Grathe Heath also in 1157. After that, Valdemar was sole king of Denmark. Posterity calls him Valdemar the Great. He was bynamed "the Great" because he ended the civil war, conquered Rügen and attacked the land of the Wends, thus stopping their plundering and and in this way re-establishing peace and prosperity in the country of Denmark.
The English chronicler Radulfus Niger says about the situation in Denmark after the battle of Grathe Heath: "After that, Valdemar ruled alone, cruel and brave, but good at spreading the Christian faith. He forced the kingdom and king of Rügen to become Christians and brought them under his control."
Knud 6. and Valdemar the Victorious succeeded their father, Valdemar the Great.
Erik Ploughpenning, Abel and Christoffer were all sons of Valdemarthe Victorious and succeeded each other as kings. Christoffer's son, Erik, bynamed Klipping, became king at only 10 years old, supported by his mother Margrete Sambiria. After his death by murderhands in Finnerup barn near Viborg, he was succeeded by his son, Erik Menved, who created a emormous debt. He was succeeded by his brother Christoffer 2., who had to take over the large debt, while the possibilities of increasing the crown's income were blocked by a hand binding contract. When he died in 1332, no new Danish king was elected, and the country was for a period without a king. Own work.
Valdemar united the divided and discouraged Danes and motivated them to resist the Wendish pirates. Every year during his reign, he called for leding against the Wends and other pirate nests in the Baltic Sea. He had forts and watchtowers built and organized guard ships that patrolled Danish waters.
Svend Aggesen, who lived at the same time as King Valdemar, has many good things to say about the king: "He was a man whose conduct in every way deserved praise. He was well-built and handsome, witty, tactful, wise, extremely sharp in negotiation, powerful in action, excellent as a warrior, fine in his nature, victorious, loved by all, always followed by abundance of luck. Only towards his own (his royal relatives) was he somewhat more cruel than was reasonable".
But everything indicates that Valdemar was in everyday life a friendly and sociable man, who did not behave unnecessarily brusquely, as is said, for example, about Henrik Löwe. He ate with his courtiers - as all Danish kings before him had done since the time of Rolf Krake, and most likely before. In connection with the episode about Magnus Erikssøn's conspiracy, Saxo says: "When Valdemar a few days after he had come to Funen, sat in an open courtyard and ate with his hird men."
King Valdemar the Great as Louis Moe imagined him.
Denmark's geography made it possible for the Wends to have a take-home meal. Helmold explains: "Because Denmark is for the most part divided into islands that are washed by the sea. And it is not easy for the Danes to beware of the ambushes of the pirates, because there are protruding isthmuses that give the Wends good hiding places, and where they can advance and from their ambush strike down the unsuspecting victims."
The Wends had specialized in plundering Denmark, which was rich and fertile and lay, so to speak, right outside their doorstep. The vast majority of the Wends' slaves seem to have been brought from Denmark.
When Valdemar became sole king in 1157 after many years of civil war, he took over a ravaged country and a subdued and demoralized people. Saxo says: "that it (Denmark) had been ravaged by pirates for so many years, that almost a third lay desolate and uncultivated". and elsewhere that the common people "were far more afraid of the Wends than of disobeying the King's command."
It was also a poor king who came to power. Valdemar did not even have his own ship until King Inge of Norway gave him one.
Valdemar wanted the Danes to resist in order to "avenge all the harm that had been done to the Kingdom". One of his first acts as king was therefore to demand a leding expedition against the Wends. Knytlinge Saga says: "King Valdemar sent messengers throughout his kingdom in the winter after the battle at Grathe Hede, that a leding should be made in the spring, and he intended to go to Vindland."
But anxious and timid local leaders had many objections. They lacked food and suitable ships, the enemy knew they would come and so on. Therefore, Valdemar had to abandon the expedition for the summer of 1158.
Then he ordered a leding for 1159, and again Archbishop Eskil and the Scanians were reluctant, but the king declared that he "was so determined to get his plan into action that he would rather set out with a single ship than give up the expedition."
But finally they set off in a storm, rough seas and headwinds. The ships worked so hard in the sea that the planks began to come loose on older ships. Several had to turn back for that reason, including Eskil. Even more simply used the opportunity to turn back and sail home with a good tailwind.
But many ships reached the Barke landscape, which is separated from Rügen by a narrow strait. The Wends were completely unprepared, they did not imagine that any enemy would come upon them in such bad weather. The men came out of their houses because they thought it was one of their own, who was coming, but instead they got a spear in the belly or their head cut off.
Map of the land of the Wends, showing the various Wendish tribes. Own work.
After some skirmishes in the open sea with Wendish ships, the fleet returned to Denmark from the first Wend expedition with many prisoners and large booty.
Already in the autumn of the same year, Valdemar attacked the area around Arkona with an army of many Zealanders and Scanians and a few Jutes and made large booty. They met the Wends in a real battle for the first time. Here morale had already improved considerably: "The Danes, who were extremely hot-tempered and determined to fight, contrary to custom, broke up their battle formation and began to attack the enemies as soon as they saw them. They also won immediately at the first attack, for the Wends took flight before the battle had really begun."
In collaboration with Valdemar, Henrik Löwe of Saxony conquered the entire western Wends' area right up to Peene. The new Christian rulers opened for massive immigration from Holland and Flanders. Henrik divided the Wendish land between his warriors and supporters.
Next, the Danes attacked the area around present-day Warnemünde and Rostock: "Then they sailed to the Gudager River, whose inlet was so shallow that large ships could not enter it" - "The narrow inlet to this the Wends had blocked with a numerous fleet to prevent the enemy from entering. The Danes tried to split it up, but since they did not know the waters or how deep or shallow they were, they ran aground." The crews jumped into the water and pulled the ships off the ground under Wendish fire. In the end, they got so many ships through that they were able to defeat the Wends.
Danish morale became high. The warriors had learned, that if they simply advanced hard and decisively, the Wends would flee.
Some historians have pointed out that the Danish warfare in Wendland had the character of isolated retaliatory expeditions and was not accompanied by colonization and the construction of military bases, as was the Saxon expansion.
But it would certainly have been dangerous for Denmark to try to take possession of land, that the emperor considered his territory - at least as long as the empire was as strong as it was under Frederick Barbarossa. But with Rügen it was different, as it had been subject to the Danish kings from ancient times as many other islands in the ocean.
In 1169, King Valdemar began a siege of Rügen's fortified city of Arkona.
Reconstruction of a Slavic ringfort at Gross Raden. The palisades on top of the earthen rampart on the west side of Arkona may have been constructed in a similar way, and it was they that burned down because the Wends had very little water at their disposal: "When the water finally ran out for the Arkona people, they poured milk on the fire," as Saxo writes. Photo Morgenwacht.
The Wends' defense of the city gate, which was filled with turf, was weak and half-hearted, the gate tower was not even occupied, and they did not notice at all that some Danish boys were piling straw into a cavity between the turf and the upper part of the gate opening. They then set fire to it, burning the gate and the nearby palisades, which led to the Danes being able to take the city.
The Arkonians very quickly asked for negotiations, and they accepted Valdemar's conditions, Saxo says: "The king made peace with the Arkonians on the terms that their idol should be handed over together with all the treasures belonging to the temple, that they should set all the Christian prisoners free without ransom and introduce Christian worship as practiced in Denmark. All the land that had been set aside for the idols should be used for the good of the Christian church. Whenever circumstances required it, they were to follow the Danes in leding and must never fail to meet with the army, when the King summoned them. In addition, they were to pay an annual tax of forty silver coins for each pair of oxen and give the same number of hostages as security for their compliance with these conditions."
Saxo says that the Danish warriors became furious: "They began to complain loudly and audibly that they were being robbed the reward of victory, now that they were about to win it, so that they got nothing but wounds and spoils from their great efforts, and that they were not allowed, as they themselves saw fit, to avenge all the harm that had been done to them by an enemy they had now almost conquered" - they wanted to "take the most glorious revenge for all their raids and all the misfortunes they had caused at home in Denmark. They threatened that they would leave the King because he did not allow them to take the city and preferred a pitiful sum of money to a great victory"
Valdemar never forgot the civil war. Throughout his reign he consistently fought other potential king candidates at the first sign of opposition. These were Buris Henrikssøn, who was a son of Henrik Skadelår, Erik Lam's illegitimate son, Magnus Erikssøn, and the brothers Karl and Knud, who were sons of Archbishop Eskil's daughter and considered themselves descendants of Canute the Holy. Karl was killed by peasants in Halland, most of the others ended their lives in the dungeon of Søborg.
A double grave at Vestervig Cemetery which, according to tradition, contains Little Kirsten and Prince Buris. In the folk song, Little Kirsten is Valdemar's sister. Once when Valdemar was on a campaign, Prince Buris made Kirsten pregnant. When the king learned what had happened in his absence, he became so furious that he danced his sister to death and gouged out Prince Buris' eyes, and threw him into prison. Gradually his anger subsided, and he had the prince imprisoned in a tower at Vestervig with an iron chain around his waist; just long enough for him to reach Little Kirsten's grave, "which he visited daily" as the song says. After his death twelve years later, Buris was buried together with Little Kirsten under a common stone. Photo Vestervig Church.
Nominally, the ancient electoral monarchy still existed, but Valdemar introduced the Valdemars' custom that reigning kings had their eldest sons elected as co-kings and successors, while they were still alive. Most likely to avoid unrest and civil war upon the death of a king. There can be little doubt that Valdemar believed that the open principle of the old electoral monarchy was to blame for the 26 years of civil war.
When quite young, Valdemar had a son with a woman named Tove. The son was named Kristoffer.
In the time of Sweyn Estridsen and Erik Ejegod, it would not have mattered that a prince was born out of wedlock; as the king's eldest son, he would be a royal subject regardless. But times had changed. The chosen prince had to be legitimately born as the son of both the king and the queen. This reduced the number of candidates in the traditional electoral monarchy considerably.
Valdemar decided - with the consent of the nobles - to bypass Kristoffer and have his young son, Knud, crowned as co-king. He was then 7 years old.
Since the archbishopric of Lund was established in the time of Erik Ejegod, Denmark had had great problems with fanatical and rebellious archbishops. Asser breathed life into Erik Emune's moribund rebellion by financing a German cavalry army, which was victorious at Fodevig and thereby triggered many years of civil war. His successor, Eskil, rebelled against two kings, and he also conspired against Valdemar and also openly rebelled. Saxo writes somewhere: "The king (Valdemar) now besieged the city that the Archbishop had built on an islet in Lejre Mose, which was difficult to capture, as it was both strongly fortified by nature and abundantly supplied with food."
Eskil chose to withdraw from the archbishopric in 1177 - probably discreetly forced by the king and circumstances - and the position was then handed over to Absalon. Eskil then traveled to the Cistercian monastery in Clairvaux, where he became a monk. He died in 1181 and was buried close to the altar in the monastery church in the same place.
Dictators around the world often prefer corrupt and greedy individuals as generals and governors of their provinces over persons, who are interested in the nation's economy, freedom, equality, etc., because they believe that the former kind can betrusted more - as long as they get enough income, they will be loyal - while the latter kind are more unpredictable. Valdemar probably preferred Absalon as archbishop because he had known him all his life, and he knew that as long as he received sufficient income, he would not create theological or political problems in relation to the king.
Saxo himself describes that Absalon was not very interested in theological subtleties: "When Absalon had thus become bishop, he immediately acted as a naval warrior mor than as a bishop, for he held that it was of little use that he guarded religion at home, when it was constantly threatened by danger from abroad; for it is no less part of the holy office to fight the enemies of the faith than to take care of the church service."
It is mainly Absalon's secretary, Saxo, who has given him the immortal reputation as a leader and military commander, but Knytlinge Saga does not refrain from praising him as a military leader either. Absalon, on the other hand, is not mentioned in any sources outside the Nordic countries, except that Helmold mentions him in passing once.
We must believe that it is true that Archbishop Absalon made a great contribution to the victory over the Wends, and he should be counted among other historical Danish naval heroes such as Tordenskjold and Niels Juel. But he was not an intellectual theological personality.
Valdemar the Great died in 1182. Knytlinge Saga writes: "King Valdemar died of this illness on the fifth of May. He was taken to Ringsted, and buried there, and was generally mourned throughout Denmark. By then he had been absolute king over all of Denmark for twenty-six years, and he had fought twenty-eight battles in pagan lands, and constantly waged war on the pagans as long as he lived, to strengthen God's Christianity."
During the reign of his son Knud the Sixth, peace and prosperity reigned in Denmark. Arnold of Lübeck devotes an entire section "On the Dignity of the Danes" to describing the fertility and wealth of the country.
The seal of Knud 6. from around 1190 contains the earliest known representation of the Danish coat of arms with the three lions and a number of hearts. The only known copy of this seal was found in 1879 in the Grand Ducal Archives of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in Germany. Note the king's closed crown, which differs from the crowns on the seals of his successors. If we are to believe any portrait resemblance, the king was a long-skulled type with a narrow face. Photo Wikipedia.
Saxo makes Knud 6. a weak and immature leader by giving his superior, Archbishop Absalon, a large share of the credit for the country's leadership. But Arnold of Lübeck says that "he himself in his own person ruled the kingdom, which his father, however, had needed great effort and cleverness to come into possession of."
Arnold describes Knud as a very serious man: "Thus he did not, as is the custom of youth, run after games or plays, nor was he keen on making outings or wanderings, not given to debauchery, but lived his days most chastely with his chaste wife".
Knud was only 14 years old, when he married Henrik Löwe's daughter Gertrud in 1177, who was considerably older than him and the widow of Emperor Conrad III's son Frederick of Rotenburg. Unlike many other Danish kings, Knud did not have mistresses; he stuck to his wife. Queen Gertrud died in 1196, six years before Canute, and their marriage was childless.
Adam of Bremen writes about Hardegon, son of Sweyn, and a little later about "Hardecnudt Wurm". It is likely that a "filius" was omitted from Adam's text, so that it should have read "Hardecnudt filius Wurm", which would mean Wurm, son of Hardecnudt. This is supported by the fact that Knud the Holy in his letter of gift to the cathedral in Lund from 1085 calls himself Knud 4., from which it follows that there must have been a Knud 1. or a Hardeknud 1. before Gorm.
The first Knud was thus Hardecnudth, son of Hardegon, the latter of whom probably came from Viking territory in England and conquered part of Jutland around 917. The second Knud was Knud the Great, who ruled over both Denmark and England. His son Hardeknud was the third Knud. Knud the Holy was the fourth, and Magnus the Strong's son, Knud, who fought against Svend and Valdemar, was the fifth. Therefore, Valdemar the Great's son, Knud, could call himself "Knud the Sixth".
Immediately after Knud became sole king upon his father's death in 1182, a rebellion broke out in Scania led by a certain Harald, who was possibly a son of Olaf, the only survivor of Harald Kesja's many sons, who was briefly king of Scania. The rebellion was quickly suppressed by local nobles.
But when peace had settled over Scania, a new problem arose in the form of several envoys from the emperor, asking the new king to appear at the imperial court to seek his friendship, "as his father had done". Knud replied reluctantly, which triggered a new letter full of threats. After careful deliberation with his advisors, Knud replied "that the Danish king does not intend to show his Imperial Majesty the slightest allegiance and obedience", and thereby won the affection of his Slavic subjects.
Page of Saxo's original manuscript. Around 1500, Christiern Pedersen began sending letters to his connections all over the country to track down the missing Gesta Danorum by Saxo, which he knew must exist. He searched libraries and monasteries, but all in vain. Finally, a letter came from Archbishop Birger Gunnersen of Lund, who said that he knew of a copy that Christiern Pedersen could borrow. In 1514, he had it printed in Paris. In 1877, a few pages of Saxo's original manuscript on parchment were sensationally found in Angers, France. It can be seen that Saxo had a very neat handwriting. He used very large line spacing, so that there was room for corrections and additions. Photo Danmarks Riges Historie published 1896-1907.
The emperor then ordered his vassal Bugislav of Venden to attack the Danish possession, Rügen. In 1184 he assembled a large fleet from eastern Venden in the waters off Rügen and awaited a similar fleet from western Venden. Jarimar, King Knud's governor on Rügen, sent a messenger to the king about the impending danger. The king was in Jutland, but in furious speed Absalon assembled a fleet from Funen, Zealand and Scania consisting of the ships that could be scraped together in a hurry. The Danes attacked in dense fog, singing and with waving banners, and the Vends did not see them until they were quite close. It was an overwhelming Danish victory.
The following year, a large Danish fleet attacked Bugislav's kingdom.
The Vends held their ground in their fortified cities, but the Danes returned year after year, burning the grain in the fields and robbing the cattle. Arnold of Lübeck describes the Danish strategy: "But the king of the Danes, Kanut, practiced incessant ravaging on the land of the Slavs. The latter, however, prepared themselves to meet hard with hard, occupied a shallow place that the Danes had to pass, built fortifications on both sides, from which they could shower the Dane Vikings with throwing weapons, and also tried to block their way with iron chains. But despite their many deeds, however short they might be, at last the Danes came with a high hand, broke down their fortresses, flooded their exclusive lands, and like locusts filled the whole country, so that the Slavs, who could not withstand their attacks, had to retreat to their castles. But the Danes exhausted their landscapes and ate up the marrow of the land, after which they returned to their own; and thus they continued for several years making landings both at sowing and at harvest time, ravaging their country and forcing them solely by the unbearable hunger to surrender without a sword strike."
Saxo describes the famous scene where Bugislav in 1185 swore allegiance to King Knud and received his land as a fief from the Danish king: "The next day he came again with the most distinguished Wendish noblemen, threw himself at the King's feet with his wife and children and humbly begged forgiveness for the long-standing rebellion he had instigated, and after he had partly given and partly promised to give hostages, he did not hesitate to take the land his ancestors had owned as a fief."
That year Saxo ends his long account by describing how Bugislav took the oath of allegiance on the Danish royal ship. He says: "Thus Knud succeeded with little difficulty in subduing the Wends, which Valdemar had not succeeded in doing despite his constant efforts, so that luck was even more favorable to his weapon than it had been to his fathers. At the same moment, huge masses of clouds gathered in the sky, and there was such a tremendous clap of thunder that both the Danes and the Wends were terrified."
Fresco from 1275 in Keldby Church on Møn. The Three holy Kings worship the baby Jesus. Photo kalkmalerier.dk.
Arnold of Lübeck says: "Thus the power of the Slavs sank; as tax-payers to the Danes they had to serve them and also leave the castle of Wolgost together with twelve hostages in the hands of their lord. However, this did not go without arousing the anger of the emperor. The latter let it be known that King Kanut had inflicted a double insult on him, both by refusing to be crowned by him, and now by making the Slavs, who were subjects under the emperors rule, to his tax-paying and hired men."
During the following years the Danes conquered the rest of Pomerania and Canute could then call himself king of "the Wends". "The Goths" only came into being after Valdemar Atterdag's conquest of Gotland in 1361.
However, the emperor exiled Duke Henrik Löwe in 1176 and appointed a new Duke of Saxony named Bernhard, who quickly made himself enemy of a number of other German princes, including Counts Adolf of Holsten and Guncelin of Schwerin, who attacked the Slavic princes, whom they knew were friends with the new duke.
Prince Nyklot sought refuge with one of the enemies of the above-mentioned counts, Duke Bernhard. Arnold continues: "From there he made numerous raids and carried out incessant devastation against the land of the Slavs, supported therein by the Rugian prince Germar (Jaromar, King Canute's man on Rügen)," - "while the Pomeranian prince Buggezlav supported Burvin (another Slavic prince); thus these fleshly kinsmen were in fraternal feud with each other."
Burvin made a viking-style beach-invasion on Rügen, but was captured by Jaromar and sent in chains to King Knud.
His kinsman attacked Pomerania, but was captured by Bugislav: "On the other hand, Niklot, also called Nikolaus, was captured and thrown into chains by Buggezlav, in whose country he was collecting booty." It is not directly stated that he was sent to King Knud, he may also have been held prisoner in Pomerania by Bugislav, after the latter had sworn allegiance to King Knud. But from the following events it appears that they were both held in custody under Knud's authority.
Then the two cousins, Burvin and Niklot, were released from their prison on condition that they took their land, which was probably most of Mecklenburg, as a fief of King Knud. Arnold says: "Both, Burvin and Niklot, were kept in custody for a long time, but were finally released on the condition that they took their land as a fief of the Danish king and gave him the hostages, that he demanded. These amounted to 24 and Burvin included his own son and left the castle of Rostock, which he ceded to his cousin, whereas he himself, according to the king's decision, for the latter had every intention of subjugating the land of the Slavs and incorporating it into his kingdom, was given possession of Ylowe and Mikelenburg."
Canute conquered Pomerania, Mecklenburg and parts of Holsten - in that order. The small area in western Holsten represents the frisian Ditmarsken, which already belonged to the Danish king. Own work.
In this way King Knud came into possession of Mecklenburg. Holsten was partially conquered, and the Danish king's kingdom then extended to the Elbe to the west and east along the Baltic coast to near the mouth of the Vistula.
But Arnold of Lübeck states that in Knud's own kingdom: "the deepest peace reigned." Knud continued his father's policy by issuing orders about leding against the Wends every year, and sometimes several times. He "thought, however, that the Slavs in the days of his fathers had caused his country many losses; and when he saw, moreover, that they had lost the assistance formerly given them by Duke Henrik, who had controlled their jaws with his bridle, he seized the opportunity to make war upon them." Apart from a few setbacks, he was victorious wherever he went.
Arnold had great respect for the Danes. He devotes a whole section to describing Denmark under Knud 6. "On the Dignity of the Danes".
The Danes had learned to dress according to the latest European fashion, probably to Saxo's annoyance: "The Danes, by living side by side with the Teutons for so long, have gradually learned to adopt their customs and have adapted both their clothing and weapons to the other peoples; whereas in former times they wore sailor's clothes, when as coastal dwellers they were constantly fiddling with their ships, now they wear not only scarlet, mottled and grey furs, but even purple and linen."
Denmark is a rich country, he writes, because of the herring fishery in the Sound and the country's lush pastures. "For riches of every kind they have in abundance as a result of the fishing they do annually in Scania, on which occasion merchants from all the surrounding peoples hastily come to buy herring from the natives, which by God's generosity flow to them for free".
Denmark has lush meadows and mild winters, but still a climate that is cool enough to keep many diseases at bay. Throughout most of known history, the Danes have bred and exported horses. "As a result of its rich pastures, the country of the Danes is also full of excellent horses, which is why the natives use their supply of these animals to practice all kinds of knightly games and place just as much honor in horse racing as in fighting aboard a ship."
Seal of the Slesvig Guild of St. Canute from around 1220. The inscription reads: "The brothers of Slesvig by Duke Saint Canute". The knight wears a barrel helmet which was the preferred type around 1200. Photo Danish Guilds Seal from the Middle Ages, 1948.
Arnold was impressed that the Danish nobles send their sons to Paris to get the best education. We know, for example, that both Absalon and Valdemar Knudssøn received their education in Paris: "Also in scientific education they have made no small progress, since the nobles in the country send their sons to Parisii, not only to thereby raise the clergy, but also to have them trained in all kinds of worldly knowledge. There they acquire knowledge of the country's literary world and its language and have thus advanced far not only in the liberal arts, but also in theology."
Magnus the Strong's son, Knud, who met his death in the blood feast in Roskilde, had a son out of wedlock named Valdemar. Valdemar the Great had taken great care of the child of his murdered co-king and had him educated in Paris. It was decided that he should have a clerical career. At a young age he became Archbishop of Bremen.
However, in 1191Valdemar Knudssøn suddenly left Bremen and traveled to Sweden and then to Norway, negotiating with Denmark's enemies there. The following year, in 1192, he landed in Jutland at the head of a fleet of 35 ships and had himself proclaimed king.
At the same time, Adolf of Holsten crossed the Ejder with a considerable army. Arnold says: "When Waldemar therefore led an army into the field against Canute, Count Adolf at the same time with a mighty crowd of people crossed the river Egdora and ravaged the king's land all the way up to Slesvig." He met too much resistance and returned to Holstein: "therefore he returned to his own with great booty."
Valdemar Knudssøn entered into negotiations with the king, during which he was taken prisoner, put in chains and put in Søborg's dungeon, where he was to spend the next 14 years.
But now the Danes had imprisoned an archbishop and that was a very serious matter in the Middle Ages.
King Valdemar's wedding to Dagmar of Bohemia in 1205, three years after he became king. Detail from a painting by Agnes Slott-Møller from 1932. Photo Tutt art pitturas cultura poesia musica.
Following the episode with Valdemar Knudssøn - perhaps in 1193 - Count Adolf of Holsten prepared to receive the Danish army. He had summoned his ally Margrave Otto, as he feared that he could not handle the entire Danish army alone. Together they awaited the enemy at the Ejder. But the Danes kept him waiting, and therefore Margrave Otte became impatient and returned home with his army. But then the Danes came. But Count Adolf got away with paying a large sum of money.
The king's younger brother, Valdemar, who would later be bynamed the Victorious, was then Duke of Jutland, which is today called Slesvig. Supported by many whom the count had expelled from Holstein, he attacked the county in 1201 and took Count Adolf prisoner and then led him through all of Denmark in chains to mockery and ridicule and imprisoned him in Søborg.
The king himself visited Lübeck and received a brilliant reception: "During the summer immediately following, King Canute came to Lübeck and was received with splendor and honor by the clerics and the entire population. Upon his entry, the castle of Travenemünde was surrendered to him, which caused him no small joy. The rural population also flocked to meet him and paid him homage very willingly."
Knud the Sixth died in 1202 and was buried in St. Bendt's Church in Ringsted. He was king of Denmark for twenty years. He was not as colorful as his father, Valdemar the Great, and his successor, his brother Valdemar the Victorious, as there are no myths and folk songs about him, as there are about the other two. He was a wise and effective king - good at choosing the right advisors - internationally respected, although not always loved, especially not by the emperor. His reign was a golden age for Denmark, both politically, culturally and economically. Knud lived to be about 47 years old.
Berengaria af Portugal, som Valdemar ægtede i 1214 i "The Portuguese Generalogy". Foto Antonio de Holanda Wikipedia.
Queen Gertrude and King Knud had no children and therefore he was succeeded by his younger brother Valdemar, who later in history would be bynamed the Victorious.
The new king seems to have been very popular, as he was elected with complete unanimity. Arnold says: "With great unanimity he was then elected king, received the confirmation in Lund at Christmas time from the then Archbishop Andreas and was exalted with splendor to the royal throne."
Valdemar the Great, Valdemar the Victorious' father, conquered Rügen.
Knud the Sixth, his elder brother, received Pomerania as a fief from Prince Bugislav, and in the power vacuum created by Henrik the Lion's exile, he also obtained the rule of Mecklenburg. Valdemar the Victorious crowned his work by conquering Estonia and Northern Albingia, the latter of which means the countries of Holsten, Ratzeburg, Lauenburg and the cities of Lübeck and Hamburg. It cannot therefore be said that Valdemar the Victorious alone conquered all of Northern Germany. He stood on the shoulders of his predecessors.
However, it can be said that he was solely responsible for losing all the North German possessions, so to speak, at the same time.
In a drunken state, he and his son and co-king, Valdemar the Young, were abducted in 1223 during a hunt on Lyø by Count Henry of Schwerin, who held them prisoner in Schwerin for almost three years, until Valdemar agreed to cede all Danish possessions throughout North Germany and pay the absurd sum of 40,210 Lübsche Marks for his freedom.
Valdemar the Victorious was a much more colorful and outgoing type than his older brother, Knud the Sixth, in fact his direct opposite. Svend Aggesen was greatly impressed by the charismatic young duke, he writes: "The king's brother Valdemar, a youth with the most glorious dispositions."
He was personally brave and took part in the battles himself. Thus he lost an eye in the Battle of Bornhøved.
Valdemar the Victorious was a tall man, who towered a head above many of his contemporaries. When the royal tombs in Ringsted Church were opened in 1858, his bones were measured, and it was concluded that he had been 184 cm tall.
The Danish flag, Dannebrog, falls from the sky during the Battle of Lyndanisse in 1219 in Estonia near present-day Tallinn. Bishop of Roskilde Peder Jacobsen informs Valdemar of the victory. Detail of painting by Christian August Lorentzen 1809 - Wikipedia.
Valdemar was in no hurry to marry, and certainly not into a political mariage. Only when he was 35 years old, after having enjoyed freedom for many years, did he choose a young princess, famous throughout Europe for her beauty, but the daughter of a poor divorced mother, namely Dagmar of Bohemia.
After Dagmar's sad death, he chose Berengaria, an exotic princess from the distant Portugal, who also did not contribute much in terms of economic or political benefits to Denmark.
He had several illegitimate children, including a son with Esbern Snare's widow, Helena, who was born barely two years after Esbern's death, the same year that Valdemar the Victorious married Dagmar in 1206.
Esbern Snare was the powerful Hvide familys "grand old man," and Valdemar thus allowed himself to father a son with his widow, before the end of the traditional two-year mourning period, and then refrain from elevating her to wife and queen. Which must have aroused the Hvide family's displeasure, if not enmity.
In 1219 a large Danish crusader army landed in Estonia at present-day Tallinn. The northern provinces of the country, Reval and Harrien, submitted without a fight and everything seemed to go well. However, the Estonians had secretly gathered a large army and on June 15 1219 they fell upon the unsuspecting Danes at Lyndanisse, thus initiating the legendary Valdemar Battle. Prince Vitslav and his Rügen warriors were the first to stop the Estonians. This gave the Danes time to get their ranks in order and after a long and bloody battle the Estonians drew the shortest straw.
A legend is associated with this battle that the old Archbishop Anders Sunesen prayed for Danish victory with his arms raised, but when he became tired and his arms sank, the Estonians advanced, but when he raised his arms to the sky again, the Danish army again gained ground.
It is also said that in the middle of the battle a banner fell from the sky - a red cloth with a white cross - and a voice was heard saying that, when this banner was raised, the Danes would be victorious.
Valdemar had a castle built on the site and left a garrison in it. New expeditions to Estonia in the following years consolidated the Danish rule.
In his time his elder brother, Knud 6., consistently supported the Slaws opposition against the emperor, thereby winning the affection of the Slavic princes, who obeyed his slightest behest.
But Valdemar's relationship with the empire was more unclear.
The death of Valdemar the Young in 1231. He was killed by a stray shot from a crossbow during a hunt at Røsnæs. He was the son of Valdemar the Victorious and Queen Dagmar. Detail from a painting by Christian Emil Andersen in 1843. Bjoertved Wikipedia.
At first Valdemar supported Henrik the Lion's son, Otto IV, against Philip of Swabia, but the assassination of Philip in 1208 changed the situation. With one blow, Otto IV became the only candidate for German Emperor, and he was crowned Emperor by the Pope in Rome in 1209.
However, Pope Innocent was soon filled with resentment against the new Emperor, who did not keep the promises he had made prior to the imperial coronation. Already in 1212 the Pope proclaimed Frederick II of Sicily as the new emperor. Now there were again two rival emperors in the Holy Roman Empire.
For Valdemar it would prove fortunate that he switched to the Pope's and Frederick II's party in time. As early as March 1214 in Metz, Emperor Frederick II issued a document that gave Valdemar the right to all areas that "belong to the Holy Roman Empire beyond the Elde and the Elbe". In Emperor Frederick II's diploma it is said, among other things: "We have concluded eternal and unbreakable friendship with Our dear Mr. Valdemar, the very Christian king of the Danes" - "we have granted to him and his kingdom all the land beyond the Elde and the Elbe, which belongs to the Holy Roman Empire, and which Canute VI, offended by the great injustice that had befallen him, together with his brother, the already mentioned Valdemar, acquired by force of arms and had in his possession. To this is added everything that King Canute, through his father's and his own efforts, has acquired and possessed in the Wendland. We hereby confirm the above by this letter of privilege and its attached princely seal." Valdemar immediately had the letter confirmed by the Pope.
But having the papers in order is one thing, real power is another. When Valdemar and his son were later held captive in Schwerin in 1223-26, his Slavic subjects did not lift a finger to free their king.
In the year 1223, both Valdemar the Victorious and his son Valdemar the Young were kidnapped. The kidnapper was Count Henry of Schwerin, who demanded a formidable ransom of 40,210 Marks. They were held captive for almost three years until they were finally ransomed.
A German yearbook tells that Count Henry of Schwerin was the king's man and had sworn allegiance to him. He was the king's guest at a hunt on Lyø. In the evening they had eaten and drunk together, but the following morning Henry broke into the tent where King Valdemar was sleeping with his 14-year-old son, Valdemar the Young. The count took them both prisoner and took them away on his ships after having rendered the royal ships useless. Schwerin was still in Danish hands, so he first took them to the castle of Lenzen near Hamburg, later to Dannenberg still on the south side of the Elbe, and finally brought them to Schwerin.
In 1225 Count Otto of Lüneburg negotiated an agreement on behalf of Denmark. It read: "For their release, Count Henry of Schwerin shall be given 44,000 marks of pure silver, and each mark shall weigh one lot less than the Cologne weight. In addition, all the gold that belonged to Queen Berengaria's attire shall be given, except the crown and what she gave to monasteries and churches before her death for her soul's penance. In addition, clothes shall be given to 100 soldiers. namely, each 10 cubits of Flemish scarlet and three and a half inches of variegated leather." As security for the payment, the king was to provide his two youngest sons and several nobles.
Valdemar Sejr gives the Jutland Law in Vordingborg in 1241. The Jutland Law was the second and last of the land Laws issued by Valdemar the Victorious during his reign. It was given in the year of his death in 1241 at his castle in Vordingborg. The law's famous preface reads as follows: "Land should be built by law, but if everyone were content with their own and let others enjoy the same right, then no law would be needed. But no law is as good to follow as the truth, but where there is doubt about what is truth, the law must show the truth." Knud 6. had already given the Scanian Law and Valdemar the Victorious had given Valdemar's Zealand Law at the beginning of his reign. Detail of painting by Rasmus Christiansen 1906. Wikipedia.
Further the agreement stated on political relations : "The king shall hand over to the German Empire all the land between the rivers Ejder and Elbe and all the lands of the Wends, except Rügen. The castle of Regnoldsburg shall be handed over to Count Adolf of Holsten 10 days after the king's release."
But now Valdemar was at large, and he wanted to win back, what he had lost.
In the autumn of 1226 the Danes opened hostilities by entering Holsten and capturing the fortress of Rendsborg. They undertook a campaign to the Dithmarschen and brought it back under Denmark. The Ryd Kloster Yearbook writes: "Many Frisians fell in the Dithmarsken, which was subjugated by Denmark."
The decisive battle took place at Bornhøved on 22 July 1227 approximately halfway between Hamburg and the city of Slesvig. The Archbishop of Bremen's troops opened the battle, which was hard and long-lasting. The losses were very heavy because the cavalry on both sides was used against the infantry. The Ditmarsk men fought on the king's side, but in the middle of the battle they went over to the counts and that decided the outcome, it is said. Count Otto of Lüneburg and three Danish bishops were taken prisoner. Valdemar escaped, but lost one eye.
This was the end of Valdemar's Baltic rule. By then thirteen years had passed since the emperor had "concluded eternal and unbreakable friendship with our dear Mr. Valdemar" and given him all the land that "belongs to the Holy Roman Empire beyond the Elde and Elbe".
Valdemar the Victorious died on Thursday March 28, 1241 in Vordingborg. The king's sons, the country's bishops and many nobles were all present.
He lived to be 71 years old and ruled the country for 39 years.
Valdemar the Victorious was succeeded by his eldest son Erik Plovpenning, who was king of Denmark from 1241 until his death by murder hand in 1250 in a boat on the fjord Slien.
Erik Plovpenning, Abel and Christopher I were sons of Valdemar the Victorious and Berengaria, and they all became kings, one after the other. Own work..
Immediately after his accession to the throne, Erik entered into a struggle against his brother Abel. The latter received support from the powerful Hvide family.
The fact was that during Valdemar the victorious's reign, royal revenues had decreased significantly, partly because he had given parts of the country as fiefs to his sons, who thus gained the right to taxes and duties in their specific areas, and partly because the property of the Catholic Church and the accompanying privileges grew incessantly. Both at the expense of royal taxes and revenues.
The reduced revenues made the country unstable, as the king did not have the strength to quickly and effectively suppress any tendency to rebellion, as the previous Valdemars had.
Valdemar the Victorious had been at the forefront of this unfortunate development. When his eldest son Erik was crowned as his father's co-king in 1232, according to Valdemar's custom, the fourteen-year-old Abel was simultaneously appointed "Duke of Jutland", which duchy would later be named Slesvig. The youngest son Christoffer, thirteen years old, was appointed "Duke of Lolland and Falster" on the same occasion. Valdemar's nephew, Albert of Orlamünde, received Als.
His son with Esbern Snares' widow, Knud Valdemarsen, was appointed "Duke of Estonia" in 1219, and it is also said that Valdemar gave him several estates in Sweden that belonged to the Danish royal family. His other illegitimate son, Niels Valdemarsen, he made Count of Halland.
Wall painting in Sct. Bendts Kirke in Ringsted from 1275 with Erik Plovpenning on his throne. He is wearing the toga-like royal robe that was so popular in the Middle Ages, at least in pictures of royal persons. In his left hand he carries a staff with the French lily - fleur-de-lis - which symbolizes the Trinity and the true Catholic faith. He has a saint's glory, as they tried to have him declared a saint because of his violent death. Photo kalkmalerier.dk.
For hundreds of years, kings and nobles had bequeathed estates and farms to monasteries and churches for the salvation of their souls, areas that were then covered by church privileges, including freedom from taxes to the crown. It was a development that went only one way. Churches and monasteries were immortal, and they never let go of anything they had once received.
In the time of previous kings, the bishops had loyally followed the king in war - we remember that in the Battle of Fodevig five bishops fell on King Niels' side - but that time was over. Inspired by the ecclesiastical trends in Europe, the church was in more or less constant self-righteous opposition to the king.
In the time of King Erik, the Danish church had achieved unprecedented power and wealth. The clerical Odense Declaration from 1245 was in effect a declaration of war against the monarchy. "By the power of God the Father, the Holy Virgin Mary and this church council we abjure all those - who with violence and malice rob and attack church property." In fact, we can already recognize the phrases in the preamble to the Jutlandic Law.
The powerful Hvide family turned against Erik in irreconcilable enmity, and his younger brother, Abel, attacked Denmark with German armies. Erik managed to defeat all of Denmark's enemies. However, during a friendly and familiar visit to Slesvig with his brother, Abel, the latter had him seized, beheaded and sunk in the fjord Slien.
Erik took his royal duties with the utmost seriousness. The contemporary German poet Reinmar v. Zweter says of him: "He was benevolent towards his own, but terrible towards his opponents" and the same source continues: "in his youth he was occupied with taunts and debauchery and like an enjoyer of life he was strongly devoted to the world", but he underwent a sudden transformation, when he succeeded his father as "his mind turned more than usual with princes from love to the worldly."
The Zealand Yearbook tells of King Erik that he: "was a very handsome man and a very gentle knight, he was extremely friendly to everyone, and he performed many beautiful deeds." An old royal chronicle that tells in detail about the death of Erik Plovpenning, also speaks of the king's beautiful and winning appearance.
Only a year after Erik's accession to the throne, fighting broke out between him and Abel.
"The conflict began between the two brothers, King Erik and Duke Abel." tells the Ryd Monastery Chronicle for the year 1242."In addition, Ringsted Monastery burned. The monastery of Our Lady in Roskilde also burned."
The Zealand Chronicle describes the cause of the conflict: "Between him and his brother Duke Abel there was great disagreement, which lasted a long time. For Abel was married to a sister of the counts of Holstein, and the king wanted to bring these under Danish rule by any means, but to defend them Abel opposed his brother and fought against him many times, helped by a German army."
In 1243 it came to the point that the two brothers faced each other with their own armies. Ryd Kloster årbog writes about the year 1244: "King Erik led an army against his brother - Abel - at Kolding."
The general unwillingness of the church princes to be at the king's disposal in war cannot be doubted. In the year 1245, Innocentius, through his legate "reminds and exhorts the king to cease forcing the bishops to provide a large leading army by sea or land beyond the church's ability."
Fresco from 1250 depicting Erik Plovpenning in Tømmerup Church near Kalundborg. Photo kalkmalerier.dk
In 1246 the dispute between Duke Abel and King Erik flared up again and was worse than before. The king's other brother, Duke Christopher of Lolland-Falster, and his half-brother, Canute of Blekinge, openly sided with Abel, together with the Holsten counts and the city of Lübeck. Lübeck naval units attacked the Danish coasts like the Wends in their time, and King Erik's soldiers plundered Fehmern and Svendborg, which belonged to Abel.
The Saxon Chronicle, on the other hand, tells us that Abel received support from Count Johan of Holsten, the Bishop of Bremen and the city of Lübeck to conquer Ribe. But the king conquered the city back in June of the same year.
A settlement was reached between Erik and Abel in 1246. The Ryd Monastery Chronicle says: "King Erik led an army against his brother Abel and he met him with a large army, which was gathered in Germany, but a temporary settlement was made between them." However, the peace only lasted a short time.
The Stade Yearbook tells us that Erik's German allies invaded Holsten and captured the important city of Oldeslo.
The Ryd Monastery Yearbook writes for the year 1247: "Both Sorø and Colbaz Monastery were burned down. The Germans also burned Odense. Furthermore, the king burned down Svendborg. And what more can one say? They both lamentably claimed power and brought the kingdom into great disrepute in all countries, and one wished the other dead."
Several yearbooks tell us that it was in this year that the Lübeckers burned down and plundered Copenhagen, which had been in the king's property since Niels Stigsen, the bishop of Roskilde, had fled the country. Resistance was offered and several clergymen were killed, but the result was that the city was taken and Absalon's castle demolished. The Ryd Kloster Krønike says: "The Germans burned Copenhagen. Furthermore, Bishop Niels of Roskilde died in Clairvaux."
However, in 1249 a truce was once again established, which Erik used to personally go to the Scania county ting to extend the tax, which was called "plow penny", to also be collected in this part of the country.
But the peasants reacted very violently, and Erik had to flee with an excited crowd after him. Shortly afterwards, however, he returned with an army and enforced the plough penny in Scania as well. But the Scanian peasants took revenge by giving him the byname "Plough Penning".
In the year 1250 the war broke out again, and the king had great success. He finally succeeded in conquering the city of Slesvig with a surprise attack, thereby forcing Abel into complete submission. The Zealand Yearbook says: "The duke was forced to give his life and property into the king's hands and so they became friends, as it seemed; 20 noblemen and knights swore allegiance on the duke's behalf and promised that if the duke ever opposed the king, they would leave him and swear allegiance to the king."
It must have been on that occasion that Erik came into possession of the fortress of Rendsborg .
It seems, however, that Erik made e deal with Abel, as Abel appeared several times in letters in the spring of 1250 using kings name - which could possibly mean that Erik has followed the old practice of the Valdemars and made his younger brother co-king, as he himself had no sons - only four daughters.
This, that he has given his brother such a great honor and concession, may have made him so comfortable, that he allowed himself to visit him in Sleswig in August 1250 without sufficient bodyguards, as he was on his way south to the besieged fortress of Rendsburg with a relief army.
The Ryd monastery chronicle tells of Erik's death: "By treachery, Duke Abel took his brother prisoner in Slesvig on the night of Saint Lawrence (August 10), and one of Duke Abel's knights, named Lauge Gudmundsøn, took him away on a ship. Then he killed him and sank him in the Slien."
The historian Erik Kjersgaard quotes a "contemporary chronicle", the Næstved Yearbook, which states that it has its information from "a man who knows":
"When the king had been captured, the duke said to him: "Remember that last year, when you ravaged this city, my daughter had to flee barefoot and seek refuge among poor women!" The king replied: "Dear brother, be of good courage; for I still have such good means by God's will that I can fully replace your daughter's shoes." The duke replied: "You shall never do that!" - Since there was no one who could possibly free the king, the duke left him in the custody of one of his knights, whose name was Tyge Bost. The knight asked the duke: "Where shall I take your brother the king?" He replied: "Take him wherever you want, and do with him as you please."
Fresco in Ringsted's St. Bendts Church, showing Abel's men lowering Erik Plovpenning's decapitated body into the fjord Slien. Photo kalkmalerier.dk.
"He and his men quickly pulled the king away with them, brought him aboard a boat that was lying down by the bridge, and rowed away with him. Before they had gotten very far from the city they heard strong oars strokes behind them and the voices of the rowers, who encouraged each other to speed up. The king then said to his companions: "Who do you think it may be that is coming after us?" They answered: "We can hear by the voice that it is Lave Gudmundson." The king then said: "Then I ask you, my dearest gentlemen, all who are on board this ship, that you provide me with a priest to whom I can confess before I die; for I am certain that I shall never escape the hands of Mr. Lave alive." A priest was then sought, and by the grace of God he was found immediately, and brought out on the ship to the king. When the confession was complete, these servants of Satan seized the king, led him over to the western side of the Slien, beheaded him, and lowered the beheaded body into the depths, after having tied helmets and storm caps to the body."
"But after a few weeks it was found by fishermen, brought to the town, and buried in the nuns' little church."
This account is largely confirmed by a contemporary German chronicle: "while he (Erik) was safely sitting at a game of dice in a house down by the water, Duke Abel, his brother, came upon him unexpectedly, took him prisoner, and with hostile hands threw him into a ship that was deliberately was brought to this place. He was led out into the middle of this water, which is called Slien and Lave, one of the Danes' great men, whom the duke valued, came quickly on another ship, had him beheaded and his body sunk into the depths of the water weighed down by a quantity of iron, which was placed on it."
Hamburgische Kirchen-Geschichte for 1251 tells that a Hermanni Kerkwerder had played chess with King Erik of Denmark and had attacked him and dragged him away and then killed him.
Erik Plovpenning's body was first buried in the Dominican monastery in Slesvig and then moved three times until it ended up in Sct. Bendts Kirke in Ringsted. "During the investigation in 1855, only very insignificant remains were found to remain," says historian Olrik.
Ryd Kloster Krønike writes about "The Year of the Lord 1250": "Furthermore, Duke Abel was elected and crowned king the same year."
It is striking that the Danish nobles refused to elect Abel's son, Valdemar, as king in 1252 after Abel's death in Husum - probably because they did not want a son of a brother murderer on the throne - but the brother murderer himself, Abel, was elected two years earlier, without any major problems.
Huitfeld explains in his Chronicle of the Kingdom of Denmark that it took some time before King Erik's fate became known: "For when Erik Plovpenning had been murdered, the crime was to be kept a secret; they spread the rumor that the king had fallen on the Slie, and only when the mutilated body came to light did it become clear what fate had been prepared for the king." Which lack of information was probably a prekondition for Abel being elected king shortly after the murder.
The Abel managed to be acquitted of the murder with the help of the so-called "double oath of twelve", which consisted of 24 knights at the County Council in Viborg swearing that Abel was an honest man and innocent. He was then crowned king on 1. November 1250, 81 days after the crime.
The area from the river Kongeåen to Ejderen was called the Duchy of Jutland in the Middle Ages, and we must believe that it roughly constituted the original homeland of the Jutlanders during the Migration Period, where the kings Erik I and Erik II ruled in the time of Anskar around 850 AD. The area north of the Kongeå River came to be called Northern Jutland, logically because it lies north of Jutland. In the Middle Ages, Funen, Als and Northern Jutland belonged to the actual kingdom, while the area south of the Kongeå River constituted the Duchy of Jutland.
After the kingless period, Valdemar Atterdag managed to win most of the Duchy of Jutland back to the Danish kingdom, but by all accounts with rather hard-boiled methods. However, his daughter Margaret gave the area back to the Holstein counts as a hereditary fief. Detmar's Lübske Krønike for 1386 says: "immediately thereafter she went over to the Jutlanders and made peace with her enemies, the Holsteiners, to whom she granted the Duchy of Schleswig hereditaryally, all done with great wisdom." It was the counts who then renamed the duchy to Slesvig.
Nordalbingien means the area north of the Elbe, it included the duchies of Holstein and Ratzeburg, the Dithmarsken and the cities of Lübeck and Hamburg.
There are three letters signed by Abel - all dated 1250, several months before Erik Plovpenning's death, in which Abel calls himself king of Denmark. This supports the theory that Erik made him co-king in connection with the peace treaty early in 1250. This also explains why he could be elected king without much trouble immediately after the murder.
Something can be said about Abel's personality.
He was headstrong. In 1237 he married Mechtilde of Holsten against his father's will. Valdemar the Victorious was very much against this marriage. The Ryd Kloster Chronicle for 1237 says: "Duke Abel married Count Adolph's daughter - Mechtilde - but it was very much against the will of his father - King Valdemar - as he was very afraid that strife would arise between the brothers. And so it was, and from then on there was no lack of mutual strife between countrymen in Denmark and between kings and dukes in Denmark, and it all came from these counts, who always want the worst for Denmark."
Clerical circles did not call him "Abel" but "Babel" because of his firm episcopal appointments, which are said to have caused "confusion". Which, however, suggests determination - he pushed through his solution regardless of the monks' and bishops' protests.
A chronicle refers to him as "Abel by name but Cain by deed".
However, it must be said with certainty that he was quite unusually ambitious, going so far as to have his brother killed so that he himself could become king and carry out his plans.
In the time of Erik Plovpenning and Abel, the entire west coast of South Jutland was inhabited by Frisians, who lived along the entire coast of the Wadden Sea across the Ditmarsken north of the Elbe estuary and on to Holland.
They built dikes to protect their fields from the sea. Their farms were spread across the landscape on artificial hills called "warfs", which were supposed to protect them from floods. They were cattle breeders, as their entire country is a large fertile meadow crisscrossed by drainage ditches and canals. In the Middle Ages they got around with the help of long jumping sticks, with which they could pass even the widest canals. As a side job they extracted salt from sea water. Many were mercenaries.
In 1252 King Abel fell in battle against the Frisians. The Ryd Kloster Chronicle for 1252 briefly states: "King Abel went to Eidersted to fight, but there he fell. His brother - Christopher - became king."
Schiffbrücke in Husum, where Husum Bridge once stood, where King Abel met his end in 1252. Photo Mapio.
Arild Huitfeldt gives more details in his "Chronicle of the Kingdom of Denmark" that Abel was killed by a certain Henner Hjulmager: "In 1250 Abel killed his brother Eric and became king. In 1252 Abel learned that the Frisians living along the North Sea coast refused to pay taxes. Raising an army, King Abel marched to the sea, where he met an opposing force of Frisians organized by Sicko Sjaerdema, who pledged allegiance to William of Holland. King Abel's army was defeated at the bridge to Husem (Husembro), and it is reported that he was killed by a wheelmaker named Henner".
Abel was buried in Slesvig Cathedral. But in the 1600-hundreds complaints arose that the cathedral was haunted, and so his body was taken up and lowered into a bog in the forest near Gottorp Castle. As a precaution, a stake was driven through his chest so that he could not haunt again.
A few weeks after King Abel's death in 1252, his younger brother, Christoffer 1, was elected as his successor.
Abel's eldest son, Valdemar Abelsen, had been kidnapped by the Archbishop of Cologne on his way home from a study trip to Paris and was held captive in Cologne, and therefore could not offer election as his father's successor.
Some modern historians describe Christoffer's election as a kind of coup, an unfair departure from the old custom that a deceased king should be succeeded by his eldest son. They argue that the electoral kingship was an empty formality. This was also how the Abel family perceived it.
But only a little over a hundred years earlier, Sweyn Estridsen's sons had succeeded each other as brothers, despite the fact that several of them had sons.
After Erik Lam's death in 1147, the Jutlanders initially refused to elect Erik Emune's son, Svend Grathe, probably because they did not want a son of a brother murderer as king, as Erik Emune had murdered his brother, Harald Kesja, and eleven of his twelve sons - several of whom were minors.
In addition, Erik Lam himself had a son named Magnus, who was not mentioned at all in 1147.
Danehof was held at Nyborg Castle from the time of Christopher 1. around 1255. Here heirs to the throne were elected, handbinding contracts were passed, king murderers and traitors were judged. The very hall in which the meetings were held can still be seen. However, in one of Jacob Erlandsen's complaints about Christopher, he complains that this king had changed the meetings by moving them from his "chamber" to the open air. This indicates that already in Christopher's time the meetings were a recurring event. The last Danehof was held in 1413, when King Erik of Pomerania wanted to legitimize his claim to the Duchy of Jutland, which is today called Slesvig. Photo Htawmonzel Wikipedia.
Therefore, it is quite certain that the electoral monarchy was real and that the Danes preferred Christoffer to Valdemar Abelsen, because they did not want a son of a brother murderer as king. Furthermore, as mentioned above, Valdemar Abelsen was not available, as he was a prisoner in Cologne.
Led by Archbishop Jacob Erlandsen, large parts of the church fought fiercely for independence from the royal power, as was common in the rest of Europe at that time. Yes, they actually worked for the church to have authority over the royal power.
Archbishop Erlandsen was from the rich and powerful Hvide family, which had turned in irreconcilable hostility against Erik Plovpenning and the Danish royal power. They had actively participated in the murder of King Erik, and they continued to support the Abel family in southern Jutland.
Although Christoffer had been Abel's and the Hvide family's allies in the rebellion against King Erik, the Hvides nevertheless transferred their hostility towards the royal power to him and remained bitter enemies of the Danish king.
In addition to the uncompromising hostility of the Abel family, the Hvide family and large parts of the church, Christoffer had also inherited Sweden's and Norway's hostility towards Denmark, which had originally been created by Abel's interference in a Swedish civil war.
The king's power had been weakened during the time of the Valdemars due to the two processes of social disintegration of the Middle Ages. Namely, the ever-increasing power of the church due to the constant flow of gifts to churches and monasteries in the form of land and privileges from kings and nobles for the salvation of their souls, and the regularly recurring grants of fiefs to royal princes, who had no prospect of inheriting the throne. In addition, there were recurring demands from existing feudal lords, that their fiefs should be hereditary and even more independent of royal power.
The fortress Hammershus on Bornholm belonged to the archbishop. Photo Lilly M real name Malgorzata Milaszewska Wikipedia.
In Christopher's time, the Danehof meetings began to be held.
From ancient times, it had been customary for the king to summon his sworn men, originally the hird, to a meeting once a year, a kind of military parade, where they had to show that they were ready for war, when the king called - in return for their tax exemption.
Thanks to the weakening of royal power in the generation after Valdemar the Victorious, the nobility, the best men of the kingdom, were able to force this meeting to develop into a "hof", which became a body with the participation of the nobility and clergy in the country's governance. In later times, this assembly would be called Danehof.
The old laws - Jutland Law, Zealand Law, Scanian Law and Frisian Law - did not provide rules for the entire field of activity of a king. There was a large margin of discretion for the king's prerogative, meaning the possibility of royal decisions that were not regulated by law.
Now, however, the nobles demanded that this margin of discretion be reduced by the king being obliged to follow certain rules laid down in a binding contract between the king and the nobles present at "hof" - in the form of a "hand binding contract" - which can to some extent be compared to a constitution.
During the time since Valdemar the Great, the kings had used the concept of "crime against the majesty". The definition of this crime was not only an attack on the king's person, but also defiance and disobedience to his direct orders. For example, if the king had taken a monastery under his protection, it would be a "crime against the majesty" to violate its rights.
Local nobles, who violated such a royal protection could be subject to the king's "grace and disfavor". That is, they could be subjected to arbitrary punishment by the king - for example, confiscation of their property or the like.
But now the assembly of nobles and bishops demanded that a fixed procedure should be established for the trial of crimes against majesty. When there was an accusation, the king was to summon the accused in three successive letters. If he did not come, he had judged himself quilty. A board was to be set up, which members two respected men from the accused's home region were to appoint.
The assembly demanded that the king could only judge in cases that had already been dealt with by another court. The king could only impose standardized fines and punishments.
Examples of the coats of arms of the Hvide family. Three horizontal bars were characteristic of a Hvide knight's coat of arms.
From left to right: Sune Ebbesen's - who was a Hvide - coat of arms with the characteristic horizontal bars, a characteristic Hvide coat of arms with bars and a dove and one with bars and antlers. Photo zoizit Wikipedia.
When Christopher agreed to have his power limited by such rules, the same naturally applied to his bailiffs. They had to swear with their hands on the Bible, that they would be just in all matters, that they would refrain from inventing new taxes and that they would refrain from accepting bribes.
In March 1256 Christopher held a Danehof in Nyborg. There was a large attendance, but the country's bishops did not show up in time. Jacob Erlandsen had namely called them to a meeting in Vejle on the exact same day to discuss the safety of the clergy, as Erlandsen's large-scale reform plan had triggered physical threats against some bishops.
In Vejle, the assembled clergy formulated a declaration of war against the royal power, "Cum Ecclesia Daciana" which read: "Since the Danish Church is under such severe persecution by violent men, that one does not hesitate to denounce bishops, who stand like a solid wall around the house of God, in the king's own presence, the authority of the holy assembly has decreed that if any bishop within the borders of the Danish Kingdom is captured, mutilated or suffers other violent harm at the king's command or with his approval, or at the command of any nobles, so that there is reason to believe that it has happened with the king's will, then all church services in the kingdom shall cease."
After many days of delay Jakob Erlandsen and the bishops finally arrived in Nyborg. Christoffer greeted them with a quote from Virgil: "Tardi venere bubulci" which means "Late come the ox drivers" as the king's words are ironic about the clergy's perception of themselves as shepherds of their congregations - since pastor means shepherd. "Ox drivers" refers to - for example - the men who drove herds of oxen along the Jutlandic military road so that they could be sold and slaughtered in the large cities to the south.
The punishment that Jakob Erlandsen had in mind for the king and his people, if they did not rectify the situation, was what is called an "interdict", which means that all church services ceased, and therefore no one could get their sins forgiven, and the way to Heaven was therefore blocked for the congregations.
The king and the archbishop disagreed on many things. The king wanted to have the right to take the bishops' men for military service, which Erlandsen opposed. The archbishop claimed wrecks and treasures from the past that had previously belonged to the king. The bishop had a large number of people in Scania swear allegiance to him, with the result that the king had fewer and fewer people in Scania that he could trust. It got to the point that Jacob Erlandsen had the king and queen's chairs removed from the cathedral in Lund.
The archbishop went so far in his accusations against the king as to accuse him of heresy. The list of charges against Jacob Erlandsen, which Danish envoys brought to the Vatican in 1260, states: "21. He has made the king hateful at the Roman Court by giving his word that he was not a true believer, but a heretic. There is a letter from him about this. But his breach of faith and betrayal must be dealt with separately."
In 1257, the fourth day of Easter, Christopher was ready to strike. He appeared at the Scania Land Ting and took the judge's seat together with Bishop Niels of Viborg. Here he urged everyone, who had complaints about the archbishop to come forward. There were many who had complaints. As the king had foreseen, Jacob Erlandsen declared, that he could not be judged by a secular court but only by the Pope in Rome.
The king then declared, that since Jacob Erlandsen himself would not abide by the old laws of the church, the peasants did not have to do so either, and therefore they no longer had to pay tithes to the archbishop. This undoubtedly won him many supporters.
After Erlandsen had thus been politically isolated from the Scanians, the king was able to go a step further. A week later he issued a declaration that all the privileges of the archdiocese had been revoked and he demanded that all his men instead should enter his own service. If they did not do this, they would henceforth be considered ordinary tax-paying peasants.
The dungeon in Hagenskov Slotsbanke 5 km southeast of Assens is the only surviving part of the original medieval castle that burned down in 1741. The castle was mentioned as a crown estate in 1251. In 1396, Queen Margrethe I bought back Hagenskov from the Holstein counts, and Hagenskov was thereafter a royal fief for almost 300 years. The original Hagenskov was a four-winged medieval castle with two floors, and it was considered one of the strongest castles in the country. Photo ukw45 463 contributions Tripadvisor.
It is very likely that Jacob Erlandsen responded by sending letters and messengers to all kings and princes in the neighboring kingdoms with alarming messages that the enemies of God had taken power in Denmark led by the wicked king, who did not respect God's representatives on Earth, with an appeal to them to immediately take up the cross and come to the rescue of the beleaguered Christianity in Denmark.
King Håkon of Norway sailed through the sound with a fleet of over 300 ships. The Ryd Kloster Krønike writes for the year 1257: "King Håkon of Norway was in Denmark."
However, probably to the archbishop's great annoyance, he contented himself with giving King Christopher an ultimatum: Did he want war or peace?
Christopher without hesitation took the outstretched hand and reconciled himself in every way with the king of Norway, and they became close friends. Christopher called Håkon his "father" and he gave his "son" a magnificent longship named "Mariasuden" with golden dragon heads and pictures on the sail.
King Christopher wanted his young son Erik - who was to be bynamed Klipping - to be crowned as his co-king in a solemn ceremony, as had been the custom of the Valdemars since Valdemar the Great.
When the king made a direct request to Archbishop Jacob Erlandsen to do this, he not only refused to carry out the act, but he also forbade anyone else to do so. This is evident from the list of 21 complaints against Jacob Erlandsen that Danish envoys brought to the Vatican in 1260: "3. Although he had sworn loyality the lord King Erik, son of the late King Christopher, and sworn to serve him faithfully, he has opposed him and refused to crown him, when he was summoned to do so, although he had appointed a day for it; indeed, he has obstructed his coronation and has excommunicated those who crowned him, even after an appeal had been delivered".
Jacob Erlandsen had stretched his bow too high. This was too much for Christopher. He perceived the archbishop's refusal as support for the Abel family's claim to the throne, and he struck hard.
Jaromar and Erik Abelsen's crusader army broke through Copenhagen's fortifications at the place that is today called Jarmers Plads. Photo Ramblersen Wikipedia
On a cold winter night on February 5. 1259, the archbishop was surprised by Mecklenburger warriors - led by his own brother, Niels Erlandsen - at his farm Gisleberg north of Lund. They dressed him in a secular suit, chained his legs together, gave him a cap with fox tails on his head and led him facing back on horseback to custody in the castle Hagenskov south of Assens on Funen.
Only a little over two months later, on April 19. 1259, Jaromar of Rügen, Erik Abelsen of Holsten and Bishop of Zealand, Peder Skjalmsen Bang, landed on Zealand very near Copenhagen with an army consisting mainly of mercenaries from Rügen, forces from the Brandenburg Margraves and probably also from Holsten as Erik Abelsen was Jaromar's son-in-law.
Copenhagen actually belonged to the Roskilde Bishopric, after Erik Plovpenning had briefly held it in his possession - but apparently Bishop Peder Skjalmsen Bang was not very popular, for the citizens slammed the gate and denied the army access to the city.
But Jaromar immediately attacked and broke through Copenhagen's defenses at the place that is today known as Jarmers Plads, where Jarmer's Tower was later built.
Then Jaromar, Erik Abelsen and Bishop Peder Skjalmsen Bang turned against the rest of Zealand.
In the meantime, the king - some historians say his formidable queen - had gathered an army consisting of Zealand peasants and nobles. The peasant army was numerically superior to Jaromar's army, but most of the peasants were without military training and combat experience.
The armies met at Næstvedin May-June 1259 and it was a crushing victory for the experienced mercenaries. The Ryd Monastery Chronicle for 1259 writes: "and Jarmer of Rygen destroyed much in Zealand." The older Zealand Chronicle writes: "There was a battle at Næstved between the peasants and Jarmer."
Various authors state that between 1,800-10,000 men fell in the peasants' army. The dead on the Danish side were buried in mass graves without Christian ceremonies on the orders of Bishop Peder Bang of Roskilde - because they were heretics, who had fought against the church.
At the same time as the Battle of Næstved or a few days later, King Christopher 1. died suddenly in Ribe, aged 40. There is no information about any previous illness, on the contrary. The king was apparently healthy and able to travel around in his kingdom.
His closest friends, who were present in Ribe when the death occurred, had no doubt that he was poisoned and that Jacob Erlandsen was behind.
The queen and her advisors came to the conclusion that the perpetrator was an abbot Arnfast from Ryd Monastery, who was present in Ribe at that very time. He had poisoned the altar wine, when he offered the king the Holy Communion.
Only five years after Christopher's death, Pope Urban IV himself confirmed in a letter to Jacob Erlandsen that Arnfast was Christopher's enemy and the general opinion was that he killed Christopher with poison: "- to the other, the one in Aarhus, you actually consecrated, what was truly a curse, Arnfast, King Erik's open enemy, since it is said that he is supposed to have killed this king's father by poison, and this you did before the question of our venerable brother Tyge's election as bishop of Aarhus was decided at this see."
Danish medieval kings who died unnatural deaths, and their burial places. There was a custom in Denmark that kings, who fell in battle or otherwise died unnatural deaths, were generally buried where they fell. Canute the Holy was buried in Odense, where he fell. Niels was buried in Slevig, where he fell. Erik Emune was buried in Ribe not far from Urnehoved ting, where he was killed. Svend Grathe was buried on the battlefield itself. Erik Plovpenning was originally laid to rest in Slesvig, where he was killed. Abel was buried in his hometown, Slesvig, not far from Husum. Erik Klipping was killed by multiple stab wounds in Finderup Lade near Viborg - and buried in Viborg. Christopher 1. died in Ribe and was buried in Ribe, and therefore one must assume that his contemporaries were truly convinced that he died an unnatural death there - by poison in the altar wine given by Abbot Arnfast from Ryd Monastery - and the contemporaries were and are the closest witnesses - and the only ones - and they must know best.
A passage in the Øm Monastery Chronicle - written only 10 years after Christopher's death - tells us that Jacob Erlandsen appointed Abbot Arnfast as Bishop of Aarhus after Christopher's death, one might think as a reward for his efforts, but Arnfast did not dare to accept the appointment for fear of the queen. The abbot mentioned never appeared in Aarhus.
Another evidence that King Christopher died by murder is the fact that he was buried in the city where he died, and not in the Valdemar's buriel church in Ringsted.
Jaromar died in Scania the following year. It is said that he visited a woman, whom he had fallen in love with or simply desired, but however his feelings were not reciprocated, and this woman had hidden a small but very sharp knife in the bed, with which she separated Jaromar from his life.
Christoffer was married to the famous Margrethe Sambiria, daughter of Duke Sambor 2. of Pomerellen, which was a modest duchy in eastern Pomerania.
After Christoffer's sudden death in Ribe, she took over the government of Denmark with great energy and determination as guardian of her 11-year-old son, Erik - who was to be bynamed Klipping. Margrethe Sambiria was also bynamed Sprængghest by posterity, allegedly because she was supposed to have ridden a horse to death during the battle of Lohede, but also in recognition of her unfeminine, consistent and decisive leadership style. Folk singers called her Sorte Grethe because of her black hair.
From Christopher's death until Erik was declared of age in 1266, she fought like a lioness for her little son against Denmark's numerous enemies - who were especially Archbishop Jakob Erlandsen, the Abel family and the Holstenians.
The Danish Biographical Lexicon believes that her marriage to Christopher was extremely happy, and she bore him the son Erik and the daughter Mechtilde, who was named after Margrethe's mother. Mechtilde married Margrave Albrecht of Brandenburg.
Erik Klipping, who died in Finderup Lade, was the son of Christopher 1. and the famous Margrete Sambiria. His sons with Agnes of Brandenburg were Erik Menved and Christopher 2. who both became kings. After Christopher 2. the kingless period followed, during which Denmark almost ceased to exist.
Upon Christoffer's death, Margrete Sambiria had to face the harsh reality that the peasant army had suffered a crushing defeat against Jaromar's crusaders in the Battle of Næstved, the Holstenians and the Abel family were advancing in southern Jutland, and the imprisoned Archbishop Erlandsen's supporters among the bishops had declared an interdict over the entire country.
She had Jacob Erlandsen released from his captivity at Hagenskov near Assens, thereby satisfying Prince Jaromar and his German allies - at least the historical sources do not tell us more about his army on Zealand. Furthermore, the freedom of the archbishop was probably a prerequisite for negotiations with the pope.
She satisfied the Holstenians by promising to install Erik Abelsen as Duke of Jutland, which duchy had otherwise been canceled by King Christopher after the death of the previous duke.
On Christmas Day 1259 the dowager queen finally had her son, Erik, crowned king in Viborg Cathedral by Bishop Niels.
The stay in the dungeon at Hagenskov had not made Archbishop Jacob Erlandsen weak in the knees. He considered his recent release a great victory and followed it up by immediately - without exception - excommunicating all bishops and other clergy who had participated in the coronation ceremony.
However, the queen and the Danish government therefore chose in 1260-1261 to send a complaint to the Pope about Jacob Erlandsen as archbishop. The Danish envoys to the Papal Court brought a list of 21 complaints, which included:
"1. Although he has sworn allegiance to the king, he has conspired in Lund Church and elsewhere with the king's enemies, Jærmer and the counts of Holsten, and helped them against the king."
"2. Jærmer and the archbishop's brother Anders, as well as the same archbishop's men, have killed about 200 of the king's men on the island of Bornholm, taxed the rest heavily and disrupted the king's work there on the island; and he has confessed that these things were done at his command."
"3. Although he had sworn allegiance to the lord King Erik, son of the late King Christopher, and sworn to serve him faithfully, he has set himself up against him and would not crown him, when he was summoned there, although he had appointed a day for it; indeed, he has obstuckted his coronation and has excommunicated those, who crowned him, even after an appeal was delivered."
"9. When he was summoned to Slesvig to defend the kingdom, he did not appear with armed men, as was his duty, and left again without leave."
"10. When he was summoned to Stegeborg to defend the kingdom, he did not appear."
"14. He protects the king's enemies and persecutes his friends."
"15. He has declared in a county meeting in Roskilde that those who, together with the bishop of Roskilde, had killed the men of Sælland (in the battle of Næstved), had done right, and for them prayers should be offered, but in no way for those of Sælland - although these have fallen for their country and legal rights - and that those as banned should not be given a church burial."
"21. He has slandered the king at the Roman Court by giving his word that he was not a true believer, but a heretic. There is a letter from him about this. But his betrayal must be treated separately."
For reasons that are no longer known, Margaret and her advisors decided in 1261 to solve the problem of the Duchy of Jutland once and for all.
The monks of Øm Monastery near Skanderborg had supported Jacob Erlandsen in the dispute between the archbishop and the king. They were suspected of having hidden Abbot Arnfast, when he fled Ribe after the murder of the king.
Albrecht of Braunschweig, who was Margrete Sambiria's cousin. He was an experienced and effective military leader, who refrained from nothing. He had served under Christopher 1. who had rewarded him with the islands of Endelave and Samsø as fief. Albrecht's father was Duke Otto das Kind of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, who was Valdemar the Victorious's nephew and a faithful ally to the very end. Otto participated in the Battle of Bornhøved in 1227 on Valdemar the Victorious's side. Photo Wikipedia.
A thorough search of the monastery did not turn up Arnfast, who had probably fled the kingdom. But even if he was not found, the monks in Øm had lost the queen's trust forever.
The Monastery Chronicle laments that the queen's army ate them out of the house on its way to southern Jutland in 1261, but rejoices that she subsequently fared poorly in the field: "When she stayed with us for two nights at our expense with 1.600 horsemen in addition to the accompanying runners and footmen probably on her way to the field against the Holstenians, which did not end so well after the Battle of Lohede with her and her son's capture, even though Erik Abelsen had been installed as Duke of Slesvig."
The royal army crossed the duchy and pursued the duke southwards over the Dannevirke. But here he received reinforcements from Holsten and turned back and delivered a battle on 28 June 1261 at Lohede between Dannevirke and the river Ejder west of Rendsburg. Other sources say that negotiations with the duke had already begun, when the Danes were unexpectedly attacked by the Holstenians.
The Danes suffered a catastrophic defeat. Drost Peter Finsen led the army as a whole, and Ivar Tagesen had command of the cavalry - they were both later hanged for conspiring with the enemy - probably in connection with their leadership of the army. The Danish losses were appalling and the young king and his mother fell into the hands of the Holstenians. It is said that Margrete rode a horse to death during the battle, thereby acquiring her byname "Sprængghest".
Things actually looked really bad for Denmark in the autumn of 1261. Everything had conspired against the little King Erik and his mother. The Holstenians and Duke Erik Abelsen were sovereign on the battlefield, Jacob Erlandsen was at large and making his plots in Denmark, the Dowager Queen and the young king were prisoners in Hamburg - with no prospect of their release in the foreseeable future.
But Margaret had not lost the initiative. From her captivity in Hamburg she managed to send a message asking for help to her cousin, Duke Albrecht of Braunschweig.
Albrecht did not hesitate to come to his cousin's aid. Late in the year 1261 he invaded Holsten with an army and plundered far and wide, and before long the Holstenian counts were ready to negotiate.
Drawing of Margrete Sambiria in manuscript from Tallinn from 1282 - that is, drawn during her lifetime. After Erik was declared of age, she was appointed "Lady of Estonia". She was - as far as is known - never personally in Estonia. But the artist must have heard of her and what she looked like. Here she also has a certain resemblance to the sculpture on her grave in Bad Doberan, which makes likely portrait likeness.
The byname Sambiria comes from the fact, that she was the daughter of the East Pomeranian Prince Sambor. Her other byname "Sprænghest" supposedly came from her riding a horse to death during the battle of Lohede. In folk songs she is called "Black Grethe" because of her dark hair.
Photo Krolowa Malgorzata Sambiria byT Miniatura z 1282 r. Oryginal znajdu sie w Tallinie - Wikipedia.
The result was that the holstenian counts released both Margrethe and the twelve-year-old king in exchange for once again confirming Erik Abelsen his position as Duke of Jutland, and he was also given Als and the crown estates in the duchy. King Erik was to stay with Margrave Johan of Brandenburg until further notice as a pledge for the peace.
Queen Dowager Margrethe appointed Duke Albrecht as superintendent of the kongdom and together they immediately went to Denmark, where - probably in 1262 - they embarked on a much-needed and rather harsh-handed clean-up.
The military leaders during the Battle of Lohede, Ivar Tagesen and drost Peder Finssøn, were arrested - allegedly for conspiracies. Margaret added charges of treason during the battle. Peter Finssøn offered the Duke 10,000 marks for his life, but was rejected. He and Ivar Tagesen were hanged together with six others at Nyborg. The Ryd Kloster Krønike for 1263 writes: "The mother of the said King Erik had Per Finssøn hanged".
The crown took Kalundborg back from Esbern Snare's daughter, Ingeborg, because her son supported Duke Erik. She later died in Slesvig. The Ryd Kloster chronicle writes for 1262"Furthermore, Mrs. Ingeborg of Kalundborg was expelled." and later in 1267 "Furthermore, Mrs. Ingeborg of Kalundborg died in Hedeby."
Jacob Erlandsen's nephew, the bishop of Roskilde, Peder Bang Skjalmsen, was accused of having been in league with Jarimar in the battle of Næstved in 1259 and had to flee the country together with the archbishop himself.
The Lund yearbook for the years 1262-63 describes dramatically how Duke Albrecht, together with the papal nuntius, Magister Gerhard, and the Scanian nobleman Jon Litle, is said to have robbed the priests of Zealand and Lund of their estates and also imprisoned and plundered the lower clergy: "- priests were shamefully imprisoned, their estates stolen, and all the evil that God allowed the duke and his associates to do, is too long to report in detail." Until Albrecht "with great dishonor" left Denmark and "by God's just judgment fell into the captivity of the Margrave of Meissen," they added with malicious glee.
In 1263, a rebellion broke out in Scania against Albrecht's harsh methods. The rebels captured Helsingborg and destroyed Åhus Castle. Margaret had to withdraw Albrecht's appointment. After some time, he left Denmark - probably to take care of pressing problems in his own Braunschweig.
King Erik returned to Denmark around the year 1264 - 15-16 years old. The Ryd Kloster Chronicle for 1264 writes: "King Erik was released from prison."
A condition for the young king's freedom was, that he promised to marry Margrave Johan's daughter, Agnes of Brandenburg, without a dowry. His mother, Dowager Queen Margaret, was still his guardian.
Jacob Erlandsen returned from Rome, but did not dare to enter Denmark, but took up residence in Lübeck together with other exiled prelates.
A new pope sent a high-ranking envoy to Denmark, Cardinal Guido, with the task of ensuring that Archbishop Erlandsen and his followers could return to Denmark to be reinstated in their former offices. After that, negotiations were to be held on compensation and the like. But a meeting was never arranged, where both the king and Jacob Erlandsen were present.
In 1265, the castle of Hammershus on Bornholm was captured by royal forces under Erik Klipping.
At the end of the year 1267, the Pope recalled Cardinal Guido: "- from these wild people, who to their own detriment were so fixed in their errors that they cared neither for reprimands nor for the salvation of their souls."
Left: Jacob Erlandsen's skull. There are clear signs that he was killed with a crossbow shot.
During excavations for a district heating pipeline in Klostergade in Lund in 1972, several medieval graves were found on the grounds of the Franciscan Monastery Church, which was demolished in 1500, one of which was larger and much more special than the others. It contained a box tightly packed with the bones of a man, 60-70 years old and 170 cm tall. It had been necessary to make a hole in the skull in the forehead to make room for a thigh bone. But two other holes in the right and left temples were more interesting. A forensic expert determined that the large hole in the left temple had been blown out with great force from the inside. This can be explained by the fact that the smaller diamond-shaped hole in the right temple is a characteristic entry hole for a crossbow bolt. Since the bolt went straight through, it must be assumed that the shot was fired at close range.
If a very distinguished person in the Middle Ages died far from home, the body could simply be dismembered and boiled in order to separate the soft parts from the bones. Then the bones were simply sent home packed in a small, practical box. And that is what happened to this person. Jacob Erlandsen died on Rügen, and from there his bones were sent to his archbishopric in Lund.
Jacob Erlandsen was buried in the Franciscan Monastery Church in Lund at his own request, and since the skeleton was found in a very central location, it is likely that it is indeed him. Photo Lund Tourist Information.
Right: Memorial plaque for Jacob Erlandsen. Photo Lund Tourist Information.
But it is obvious that the efforts to have Erik Plovpenning declared a saint - and thus condemn the Abel family and thus win back the Duchy of Jutland as a natural part of the Danish Kingdom - had been completely derailed due to interdicts and excommunications and a generally problematic relationship with the papacy - all caused by Jacob Erlandsen's excesses.
In 1266 the young Erik turned eighteen and was therefore declared of age. The queen dowager handed over formal power in the country to him and retired to the Christoffer family's castle in Nykøbing Falster. King Erik appointed her "Lady of Estonia", a task she carried out actively and energetically. However, there is no doubt that as a grey eminence she still watched over Danish politics as well.
Many queen dowagers in similar situations remarried. Mechtilde of Holsten did so, and her own daughter-in-law, Agnes, would also do so. But Margrete Sambiria did not - perhaps she felt that Erik still needed a helping hand in critical situations.
King Erik built Koldinghus. The Ryd Kloster Krønike for 1268 writes: "King Erik Christoffersøn built Koldinghus."
In 1272, the Duke of Jutland, (meaning modern South Jutland or Slesvig) Erik Abelsen died - only 30 years old. He left behind two minor sons, Valdemar and Erik. The king immediately took possession of the entire Duchy. He did, however, agree to promise to bestow his eldest son, Valdemar Eriksen, with his father's duchy, but in return for the king receiving Als and the crown estate, which the duke had acquired as a condition for the release of the queen dowager and the king from their captivity in Hamburg in 1262 after the Battle of Lohede.
Perhaps in 1273 the new pope succeeded in bringing about a settlement between the Danish government and Jacob Erlandsen. It was agreed that the details of the settlement should be decided by Danish clergy. The excommunications and interdicts that had been issued were temporarily suspended until they had been considered by a group of cardinals in Rome.
Now Jacob Erlandsen could finally set off towards Denmark for an honorable recovery after seven years of exile, he thought. But he did not get further than Rügen, because there he was killed on 18. February 1274 with a shot from a crossbow at close range in the right temple.
The young Erik Menved's fight against the outlaws and Norway. Erik Menved and his mother, Dowager Queen Agnes, greet the army. Erik's younger brother, the later King Christopher 2., clings to his mother's skirts. Photo Lorenz Frølich, 1853. Statens Museum for Kunst.
We recall the last sentence in the list of complaints that the Danish envoys brought with them, when they traveled to the Pope in 1261 to complain about the archbishop: "But his treason and betrayal must be treated separately."
It may have been King Erik who was behind this murder, but his mother, Margrete Sambiria, was still active from the castle in Nykøbing Falster, and she had probably not forgotten that it was Jakob Erlandsen, who was behind the murder of her husband 15 years earlier.
Stig Andersen was the leader of the army that the king sent to Sweden in 1275 to help Birger Jarl's sons, Magnus and Erik, in the fight against their brother Valdemar Birgersson. He was victorious in the Battle of Hova. That same year, the king rewarded him with the position of marsk - leader of the kingdom's fighting forces.
But already the following year, in 1276, Stig Andersen showed defiance against King Erik, when at Danehof in Nyborg he refused to swear an oath to his young son, Erik, as the other nobles did. The Lunde Yearbook for 1276 says: "The king's son, Erik, was given the title of king and the nobles except Stig, his marsk, took a solemn oath of allegiance to him."
At the Danehof in the summer of 1282 we encounter the expression "hand binding contract" for the first time. The king accepted that a danehof should be held every year.
This triggered a wealth of detailed regulations: If someone wanted to accuse the king of having unjustly deprived him of some property, it was at the Danehof that the king had to stand trial and submit to the judgment of his faithful men. The royal court could only judge in cases that had already been dealt with at a district or county ting.
The amount of poultry that had to be delivered to the king's table was reduced. The leding tax was changed so that small landowners were completely exempted. The peasants' duty to drive for the king was limited to their own district. The nobles would no longer do garrison duty in the king's castles and so on.
In December 1282, Queen Dowager Margrete Sambiria died in Bad Doberan. The Ryd Kloster Krønike writes for this year: "In addition, Queen Magrethe died".
After his mother's death, King Erik Klipping gradually replaced his loyal ministers with people representing descendants of Valdemar the Victorious, who claimed parts of the kingdom. One could argue that this political u-turn in these years was a manifestation of realpolitik, to ward off aggression from other powers, but one could also argue that after his mother's death he simply found an excuse to throw in the towel.
In the cardinals' final report regarding the case that Archbishop Jens Grand brought against Erik Menved in 1296, it is stated about Erik Klipping: "This Archbishop's (Jens Grand's) relatives - namely Count Jacob, Marsk Stig, Peder Jacobsen, Rane Jonsen and several others of their family and relatives, they were noble by lineage, but unfortunate and unlucky in deeds. The king made them rich above all the loyal supporters of the king of the kingdom - and he appointed them as masters of all the country's revenues and incomes, so that he alone reserved the name of king."
The murder in Finderup Barn. Danmarks Historie i Billeder - 1898.
Skt. Cecilia night 1286, 22. November, King Erik Klipping was murdered in his bed in a barn near Finderup southwest of Viborg.
The contemporary gift book in Lund says: "In the year of our Lord 1286, King Erik, son of Christopher, blessed memory, fell to the daggers of the wicked on St. Cecilia night, murdered most cruelly by his own men in his own bed. His soul rests in eternal peace."
The Ryd Kloster Krønike for 1286 reports: "King Erik Christopherson was murdered in Finderup near Viborg in North Jutland by those he considered his most trusted friends." and "Furthermore, Duke Valdemar was released from prison." It is clear from other sources that Duke Valdemar of Slesvig was released about half a year before King Erik was murdered.
The Danish defense in the case that Archbishop Jens Grand brought against King Erik Menved before the papal court in Rome 1296-1297 stated: "When their blinded band of conspirators had been gathered, the sons of darkness rose up in the middle of the night with ferocity against King Erik, the Lord's anointed, and in the most cruel way they killed him with countless and horrifying wounds, which he received while he lay in his bed." It sounds like it was a very passionate killing.
Several sources, including the Jutland Chronicle, tell that Erik received "56 mortal wounds of which none but one was under the chest."
The many consistent details such as the open door, men in monk's robes, the fact that they turned off the light, etc., suggest that there were witnesses.
The murderers could have cleaned up the mess and removed all loose ends, as they say in modern action movies. But they didn't. They let the king's companions live, and for their sake - probably to avoid being recognized - they were in monk's robes, and that's also why they turned off the lights.
Who the murderers were, has never been revealed. Marsk Stig and the outlaws were convicted, but there is great doubt as to whether they were really the guilty ones.
The Ryd Kloster Chronicle for 1287 says: "Furthermore, Count Jacob of Halland and Marsk Stig were exiled together with several wealthy men, and their estates were withheld by the king." and "Furthermore, the king was consecrated and elevated to king in Lund by Archbishop Johannes on Christmas Day." Which king must have been the Erik, who later got the byname Menved.
Queen Agnes skillfully used the six months between the murder and the upcoming Danehof the following year. She very quickly brought the famous troubadour, Rumelant von Sachen, to the country, who spread songs and poems, which included the following: "See your king was your servant, who gave you power and right. You have murdered him", and "Faithful Danes, avenge your king - report the murderers and and punish them on their lives."
Rumelant sang that the murderers had done with "their own hand", what others had "advised for"
One of Rumelant's important points - which the queen had probably instructed him to make - was that the murderers should not be allowed to follow their Danish law, which allowed them to swear their freedom together with three times twelve fellow conspirators. "No, it must be different!" That was how Abel avoided being convicted in his time, and it must not happen again!
That did not happen. Erik's murderers were probably convicted according to the new laws for crimes upon the majesty that the Danehof had adopted.
Another edition of the Ryd Kloster Kronicle for 1287 states: "At a royal meeting at Pentecost that same year, Count Jacob, Marsk Stig, Peder Jacobsøn and several other powerful people of the kingdom were, by common judgment, sentenced to death for the murder of the king and became outlaws."
Meister Rumelant in the Codex Manesse. Rumelant was the first to mention the 12 "tones" which were standard melodies of the Meistersinger. He is known for the song "Daz Gedeones wollenvluis" about God's mystical love (minne) for the Virgin Mary. He is mentioned in the Codex Manesse and the Jenaer Liederbuch. Photo Master of the Codex Manesse Wikipedia.
The verdict guilty was sentenced in the case at the Danehof in Nyborg in May 1287 by a "Worthældnævn" - a word-keeping board - consisting of three times twelve men - almost unanimously - which is quite convincing. Furthermore, the verdict was confirmed by the archbishop and all the bishops and later by the German emperor Rudolf of Habsburg.
They were all declared guilty and sentenced to death, although according to old custom they were given a deadline to leave the country as outlaws. Almost all of them went to Norway, where the king, Erik Priesthater, welcomed them with open arms. However, the king would not receive Arvid Bentsson.
In the final report of the cardinal auditors regarding the case that Archbishop Jens Grand brought against Erik Menved at the papal court in 1296, it is mentioned that Count Jacob was considered the leader of the outlaws and that many of the outlaws were of the Hvide family: "The relatives of this archbishop - namely Count Jacob, Marsk Stig, Peder Jacobsen, Rane Jonsen and several others of their family and relatives, they were noble by lineage, but unfortunate and unlucky in deeds."
As mentioned above, Count Jacob was the leader of the outlaws, probably because he was of royal descent. But for posterity and in folk songs, Marsk Stig appears as the leader, probably because of his military qualifications, the good story of the king's seduction of his wife, his dramatic pirate raids down through Danish waters and his conspicuous possession of the island of Hjelm at Helgenæs off Djursland.
Historian Troels Brandt points out that although the outlaws were convinced of their own innocence, they had not the slightest idea, who really was responsible for the murder of the king.
They had not imagined that this could happen. They had been taken completely by surprise. For years they had probably carried on with small, stupid demonstrations such as being knighted by the Norwegian or Swedish king instead of their own king and the like. On festive occasions they had probably not spared amusing derogatory remarks about King Erik.
Therefore, when the king was murdered, they appeared to the whole country as the king's most bitter opponents and the most likely perpetrators, with Arvid Bentsen and his highwaymen as their tool.
King Erik Præstehader of Norway called for leding against Denmark throughout the country and in July 1289 - almost simultaneously with the election of Jens Grand as archbishop - the Norwegian fleet sailed down the Øresund.
One of the ships collided with another ship and sank, drowning 160 men. Their bodies, which washed ashore on the Scanian coast, were all beheaded there, which showed how embittered the coastal population must have been with the Norwegians.
The rest of the force went ashore in Helsingør on 13. July 1289 and burned the city down. The fleet then sailed towards Copenhagen, where it anchored in the Refshale Deep and from there besieged the city. But the Copenhageners resisted the attack, and the Norwegians had to content themselves with burning Amager and Hven. The Ryd Kloster Chronicle reports for 1289: "King Erik of Norway besieged Copenhagen with ships, and many were killed by the Northmen, but in the end he went away without victory."
The fleet then attacked Skanør a month before the market opened. The attackers failed to destroy the city, and the Norwegian chieftain Thord Krytter fell with 70 of his men.
Lead by Marsk Stig, another part of the Norwegian fleet went down through the Kattegat and the Great Belt, where they attacked and destroyed the castle of Brattingsborg on Samsø, burned down Skælskør and Tårnborg near Korsør. According to the Esrom Annals, Middelfart and Hindsholm were also burned down - quite probably also in 1289.
Marsk Stig then joined the main Norwegian force, while it was at Amager. The combined fleet then sailed south of Møn to Grønsund, where they attacked the Christopher family's hereditary possessions, the islands of Lolland and Falster.
The Norwegians came again year after year, their attacks were met everywhere with bitter resistance, which inflicted heavy losses on the attackers, but there was never any question of the Danes retaliating by attacking Norway. Queen Agnes and the Danish government probably did not dare to turn their backs on Duke Valdemar and the new archbishop, Jens Grand, and their many supporters.
Armsman Arvid Bentsen was the only one, who was convicted of physically carrying out the murder. That was probably why the Norwegian king refused to receive him. He and ten of his men were executed for highway robbery in Halland in 1288.
Crucifix by the road to Fyens Hoved with Stubberup Church in the background. For as long as anyone can remember, there has been a crucifix next to the road towards Fyens Hoved at Stubberup Church. It is said to mark where Marsk Stig was carried across the road to his burial in the church. Photo Martofte BnB.
Marsk Stig died a natural death in 1293 in his castle on Hjelm. Together with many other coastal village churches, Stubberup Church on Hindsholm claims that he is buried there.
Rane Jonsen was present in Finderup Lade and, according to Jens Grand's testimony in Rome, had tried to defend the king, but survived, which in itself was deeply suspicious and probably disgraceful. He was captured during a plundering expedition against Zealand, executed and dismembered in Roskilde in 1294.
In the eventful year 1289, when the Norwegians and the outlaws sailed down through the Danish straits and plundered and burned cities and islands, the apparently more peaceful event happened that the old archbishop, Jens Dros, died and as his successor the dom chapitel chose the 35-year-old provost of Roskilde, Jens Grand.
The new archbishop was of the Hvide family, as he was the daughter's son of Jacob Erlandsen's brother, and Bishop Peder Skjalmsen Bang was his uncle. As a child he must have experienced Jacob Erlandsen's and Peder Skjalmsen Bang's fight against the royal power.
He was an intelligent and well-educated young man, who had studied abroad, and he was extremely well versed in theology and church law.
Even as provost, Jens Grand had shown his willingness to challenge those in power. He had claimed to Erik Klipping that "neither the king nor any other layman should have the right to receive any share of the church's income, or to interfere in appointments to church offices." Later, at a public event in Zealand, he should have stated that "no one could be surprised that this king had found an end as violent as his immediate predecessors on the throne".
All in all, he was very challenging and outspoken. According to the historian Palle Lauring, he should also have said that "it was sad that Christoffer was not poisoned in his time so early that he did not manage to put successors to the throne into the world".
It was very likely that it was such daring announcements that caused the canons in Lund Cathedral to choose him as their archbishop, so that together they could "drive out this world's insane tyrant", as is written above the Peter Portal in Slesvig Cathedral.
Marsk Stig's castle on the island of Hjelm and Count Jacob's castle on the Hunehals peninsula. Both areas were declared to be the territory of the Norwegian king. According to reports, the outlaws should also have stayed on Sprogø.
The Norwegian historian, P. A. Munch, sees clear signs that in 1293 an actual coalition was established against the recently acceded King Erik of Denmark. The intention was to crush the inexperienced king with a single mighty blow.
The coalition was negotiated into place by Archbishop Jend Grand, and it included the Norwegian royal brothers, Duke Valdemar of Jutland, the outlaws and other disaffected and discontented throughout the kingdom as well as himself.
Duke Valdemar and his brother, Erik Langben, raised the banner of rebellion by claiming a number of estates on Funen and Langeland that had belonged to their uncle, Abel Abelssøn. But the young king Erik Menved did not allow himself to be silenced like that, he demanded Als, Ærø and Fehmern back to the kingdom.
But the whole campaign ended in a negotiation meeting at Hindsgaul Castle near Middelfart on 8 September 1295. Here a truce was agreed upon for all parts for three years. The Danish king made extensive concessions. Erik Præstehader had his right of inheritance to Danish estates by his mother Ingeborg, Erik Plovpenning's daughter recognized, and he kept the castles at Hjelm and Hunehals. Erik Menved had to respect his royal cousins' princedom in Southern Jutland and Halland. The outlaws were to have the right to return home and regain their rights to their properties - however, King Erik set the conditions that the production of counterfeit coins at Hjelm and Hunehals should cease, and the convicts were not allowed to appear before his eyes. The truce was extended in 1298 by two years and in 1300 by a further three years.
The Danehof was already summoned to March 28, 1294, probably to make decisions regarding an increased war effort, but Archbishop Jens Grand created such chaos in the assembly with his prohibitions and excommunications that the entire Danehoffet parted without making any decisions. At the court itself, Jens Grand excommunicated the the kingdoms military leader, Åge Johnsen. Presumably because he urged the people to support the king in his war preparations, and this, the king's own men expressly said, "created such confusion" that the whole assembly parted without making any important decisions.
The king urged the archbishop to meet for military service with his vassals as was his duty, but he ignored this order. Yes, he even forbade his peasants to obey the royal order and thus fulfill their leding duty.
Jens Grand is taken to Søborg on an old horse dressed in rags. Cover image of Ingemann's historical novel "Erik Menved's childhood" 1828. Photo DBA.
When the king nevertheless got the people to accept an extraordinary war tax, the archbishop strictly forbade his own people and those of the Lund church to pay, and when the king himself came over to Scania to inspect the condition of the fortifications and make preparations for their defense, the archbishop forbade his subjects, under threat of excommunication, to sell him and his men the necessary provisions.
On 5 April 1294 Erik Menved had had enough. His brother, Christoffer, arrested Archbishop Jens Grand - the coalition's supposed leader and coordinator - in a dramatic and humiliating way and threw him into a dirty dungeon in Søborg Castle.
The whole story of Archbishop Jens Grand's imprisonment is told in great detail in the "Prison Chronicle", which was written by an unknown contemporary provost, probably from Lund or Roskilde. It has been handed down by Arild Huitfelt in its entirety.
This is how the "Prison Chronicle" begins: "Year 1294, on the Friday before Palm Sunday, in the morning, when it was between five and six o'clock, and when the bishop himself had held mass, King Erik, who was then in Lund, sent his brother, Duke Christoffer, to the bishop to scout him out." King Erik must have been 19-20 years old at the time and his brother Christoffer perhaps 18 years old. Christoffer was the leader of the action.
He lured Jens Grand out of his residence under the pretext of wanting to reconcile him with King Erik. But when they got down to the yard, there was no Erik. The chronicle says that the bishop then said to Christoffer: "Where is my Lord the King?" He replied: "Surrender, you are captured!" The bishop replied: "Who has captured me?" Christoffer said: "My brother King Erik, and I on his behalf".
Christoffer set some men to guard the bishop, while he himself entered the church and apprehended provost Jacob, who was just saying mass in front of the altar.
Next the prisoners were dressed in some ragged clothes and put on some wretched horses with their feet tied very tightly under the horses' bellies, and then they rode over sticks and stones. Christoffer "led him and the other bare-headed in snow and rain as far in half a day as one used to travel a day and a half with ease. They galloped more on the road than they trotted, in order to get forward quickly."
The chronicle goes on to say: "When they got to Helsingborg, they threw them at the bottom of the ferry, behind the horses that stood and mucked on them. - As soon as they got to Helsingør, they tied them to their horses again and then led them on to Søborg Castle that same evening. There they threw the archbishop prisoner into the deepest basement of the tower and put heavy bolts and iron on him."
For 36 weeks, the prisoner lay in the old rags, in which he had arrived - in his own urine and filth: "Innumerable flies and mosquitoes came with his food and drink, and he could not see how to remove them. He also had countless fleas on him, because he was never given linen or woolen clothes other than, what he had on when he came down to the tower cellar. He was not given a change from the Palm Sunday he entered there, and to the second day after Lucia Day the year after, when he escaped from the tower again," - "Food and beer were often spilled on him, as it had to be hoisted down to him, but everything wet that got on him had to dry itself on his body, for he never had either fire or heat with him as long as he was a prisoner. What he himself produced, both his own water and other things on behalf of nature, remained beneath him, for he could not turn or rise from the heavy irons in which he lay chained."
But Provost Jacob managed to escape from his prison in Kalundborg: "When Provost Jacob had been in Kalundborg Tower for twenty-seven weeks, he escaped one night, with God's special help, and then came secretly to Ribe. He stayed there for some time, because he wanted to travel to Rome, when he had gotten better. When the king heard about it, he immediately sent messengers there and wanted to seize him again, but he came out of the kingdom and found The Pope in France.
But while the legates were on their way to Denmark, Jens Grand also managed "with God's special permission" to escape from his prison.
"There was a cook at Søborg," says the Prison Chronicle, "he asked the lord of the castle for his freedom, because he had served him for a long time, and received a small thing for his service. When he asked for leave, the tower keeper asked him to stay a day or two, until he was asked about another service."
A selection of historical files. Files were absolutely essential for locksmiths, and it was actually precisely in the 13th and 14th centuries that it became possible to produce files from a necessary hard material. After all, files must be harder than the material they are processing. The author of Fængselkrøniken has really followed the technical development, as he knew that these files were noisy. It was not a cheap tool, that Jens Grand used so diligently at night, on the contrary, it was the last cry in technological development. Photo wonkee donkee tools.
While the jailers were drunk or out on natural errands, the cook offered the wretched prisoner to bring messages to his men in Copenhagen.
The prisoner managed to get hold of a file - probably also through the cook - which he diligently used on his chains at night: "It was a great wonder that no one heard it, it was heard enough when the blacksmith filed outside the castle."
Moreover, by complete coincidence - but with God's help - from the day he got hold of the file, the guards became lazy in checking and inspecting his chains: "Jesper Mogenssøn, the king's chief in the castle, himself used every day to check the bolt he was in, or his lieutenant did it, and so did the guards. But since he started to file it, God helped him so that no one looked."
And not enough of that. The ship from Hammershus was already off the coast and the crew pretended to be fishing, which they had been doing for several days and people in the area had already started talking about it. "But God suppressed that conversation, so that no one spoke or thought about it any more," and furthermore, King Erik decided to bring most of the castle's crew with him on a hunt in Tikøb: "and then it struck the king in his heart, that he should ride from the castle with his people. Therefore he rode away to Tikøb hunting, and took all his people with him. He also asked those who used to take care of the bishop to come along, except one, who was the right guard. Then he let his two sisters sons stay in the castle with a few fellows. They drank bravely after the King had ridden away. The cook also drank well with the tower keeper, so he went away to sleep."
Using a rope ladder, the cook helped the weak bishop down the tower and later down the fortress wall and over the frozen moat. The cook even managed to steal a couple of horses without anyone hearing it, and one of them was a small easy walker, suitable for a week bishop: "and he took a small walker that was standing there, and another horse for himself, which the Bishop asked him for, and neither the dogs nor those, who were sleeping in the stables, heard it".
They rode out to the coast and the bishop boarded the waiting ship, which brought him safely to the fortress Hammershus on the island of Bornholm.
It was really quite lucky for Erik Menved that the bishop had escaped prison before the Pope's envoy arrived. It would not have looked good, if he had found the archbishop lying helpless in dirt, excrement and urine. Moreover, since the bishop himself had escaped and had not been released, the king had made no concessions.
After spending some months recovering his health, Jens Grand began the journey towards Rome. He laid the road around Brügge, and it became known throughout Europe that he stated that "it didn't matter to him who ruled in Denmark, whether it was Duke Valdemar or a Jew, a Saracen or a heathen, even if it was the devil himself, as long as it wasn't King Erik or his brother."
The case at the papal court in Rome started in 1296. Erik Menved sent his learned chancellor Morten Mogensen.
On Christmas Eve 1297, Pope Bonifacius VIII decided that Jens Grand should be reinstated and awarded a large compensation. The king was to be excommunicated and the country declared in interdict, until a settlement was reached between Jens Grand and the king and the fine was paid.
John the Baptist is thrown into prison and sits behind bars, miniature from Alsace, from the latter part of the 12th century. London, British Library.
The king was not personally present at the following settlement negotiations in the summer of 1299 in Copenhagen with the papal legate, Isarnus, as final arbitrator.
The archbishop's demands were hair-raising. He demanded the entire archdiocese - i.e. Scania, Halland, Blekinge and Bornholm - excepted from all royal authority, including leding duties and taxes to the king. All nobles in the diocese had to obey the archbishop and not the king. Judgments were to be made everywhere according to canon law and not according to any Danish law, and the archbishop himself was to be supreme judge.
In addition, he made demands regarding the government of the rest of Denmark: the king was not allowed to demand anything from the church tithes, the king was not allowed to visit monasteries against their will - which in practice would mean never - the church's clerks were to be free from customs and other market taxes that ordinary merchants had to pay. It should no longer be possible to fine murder with money, but they should be fined with corporal punishment - i.e. hanging and the like. The church was to be allowed to buy up all the property it could afford, and the purchased should then automatically become free of taxes to the crown.
Isarnus delivered a verdict - still in 1299 - as was his duty, but insisted on keeping it secret for his personal safety. Only when he was far out at sea on a ship on his way to Holland was his sentence announced: the king was excommunicated and the sentence awarded the archbishop all the estates that the Crown owned in Lund Diocese with the exception of Halland.
But as the archbishop himself was on the same ship as Isarnus bound for Holland, little came of the implementation of this sentence. Instead, the king's lieutenant appeared in Scania to confiscate the archbishop's estate.
The case then dragged on for another two years. Jens Grand left the papal court again and in the following time he stayed mostly out of Erik's reach in Lübeck and at his fortress Hammershus on Bornholm.
Then King Erik sent the famous letter of submission to the Pope, in which he asks for the Pope's mercy and ends with the request that St. Peter's sword be sheathed and that Christ's Vicar will heal his servant's ear, so that he can again receive the sacraments of the church and hear the word of God, "what more can I say? Speak, Lord, and let your servant hear".
This brilliant letter was undoubtedly the reason for a new judgment from the Pope in the dispute between Erik Menved and Jens Grand in the spring of 1302. The value of the church's lost property that had to be replaced was reduced to 10,000 marks of silver, which was a completely insignificant amount compared to the original. Furthermore, the Pope decided that Jens Grand should be transferred to Riga and appointed Isarnus as Archbishop of Lund instead.
Jens Grand never came to Denmark again. He rejected his new position in Riga and traveled first to Norway and then to Paris. In 1310 Pope Clement V appointed him Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen. In 1316 the clergy of the Bremen diocese declared that "he was not of sound mind" and elected an assistant to administer in his place.
He died in 1327 in Avignon, France.
A replica of the Kampen cog built between 1994 and 1998. A cog was not as seaworthy and fast-sailing as a Viking ship, but it could carry much larger loads, such as siege engines, cavalry horses and soldiers. Photo Arch on nds-nl.wikipedia.
In 1301, King Erik Menved produced his great-grandfather Valdemar the Victorious' letter from the Holy Roman Emperor, in which the latter confirmed that all land in Northern Germany north of the Elbe belonged to Denmark: "We have concluded eternal and unbreakable friendship with Our dear Mr. Valdemar, the very Christian king of the Danes" - "assigned to him and his kingdom all the land beyond the Elde and Elbe, which belongs to the Holy Roman Empire, and which Canute VI, offended by the great injustice that had befallen him, together with his brother, the already mentioned Valdemar, acquired by force of arms and had in his possession. To this is added everything that King Canute through his father's and his own efforts has acquired and possessed in Wendland. We hereby confirm the above by this letter of privilege and its attached princely seal."
Erik Menved got the reigning german king, Albrecht 1. to confirm the old letter.
Then he let action follow thought, and still in 1301 - less than a month after the presentation of the letter - he was able to put the first piece of his North German empire in place by declaring himself lord of the small principality of Rostock.
The only principality that could compete with Denmark in size and power was Brandenburg. All the small towns and principalities along the coast feared Brandenburg, and therefore it was relatively easy for Erik to create union and alliances with them.
At Travemünde at the entrance to Lübeck harbour there was also a Holstenian fortress that controlled the entrance to the city. The Lübeckers built redoubts opposite the fortress and began to shoot it to pieces with throwing machines. The conflict spread and the Holstenians allied themselves with Count Henrik of Mecklenburg. But Erik Menved showed the emperor's old letter and offered himself as a mediator, and in 1307 Lübeck "came under his protection". King Erik was to protect the city from its enemies and in return receive 750 Lübeck marks annually.
Subsequently, Erik was also hailed as a feudal lord in Pomerania and Mecklenburg.
In the summer of 1311, King Erik hosted a grand gathering in "his city", Rostock. The guests included Wartislav of Rügen, Duke Otto of Lüneburg, Prince Henrik of Mecklenburg, the Holstenian counts and not least Margrave Valdemar of Brandenburg as well as a host of other princes and free knights.
The Lüneburg Chronicle tells us: "At midsummer the king of Denmark came with his best knights. They lay waiting outside the city of Rostock until his cousin Margrave Valdemar of Brandenburg came with an exceedingly large number of people gathered from afar. Outside the city, so many other princes, counts, free knights and good people gathered that the likes of which have never been seen on land. On the open field two beautiful tents had been erected, completely covered with beautiful clothes, mostly red.".
The chronicle continues: "When everyone had heard mass in the morning, the king went forth with his people after him in his company, rode the generous and brave duke Valdemar of Southern Jutland. He brought 300 men on large war horses and he had with him 6 other lords who followed at the duke's expense."
The Trobaudur Heinrich von Meissen also called Meister Frauenlob in Codex Manesse. Photo Master of the Codex Manesse Wikimedia.
"Meanwhile, the margrave arrived with his people in a large procession. The king knighted him with 19 other princes and lords and awarded knighthood to 80 other men. He had sent each of them a scarlet cloak, an overcoat and a fur-lined coat, as well as a horse, the day before. - Then they went to the table, and at the beginning the food was served by distinguished princes and lords, who wore suits sewn for the occasion and sat on large horses dressed in shaberak."
The historian Palle Lauring says that on this occasion King Erik also knighted his brother, Duke Christopher.
The chronicle concludes the description of this unique event outside the city of Rostock: "What a feast there was in those two princes' tents, how many lances were broken in the tournament during the two days, and what other strange things happened, that had never been heard of before in the countries, and it aroused general excitement."
Lauring reports that the famous Minne singer Heinrich von Meissen - also called Frauenlob - was present, and Erik called him "the memorable one whose words are a smiling wreath of flowers, and whose praise soars over the noble princes like an eagle".
It is also said that there was enough oats for everyone freely to fetch for their thousand horses.
However, the Zealand Chronicle, the Danish translation of the Ryd Annals and the Ribe Annals agree that there was drought, crop failure and inflation in Denmark precisely in 1311.
But not long after the guests had left and the tents had been taken down - still in 1311 - everyday life came into play. The city of Rostock made an energetic attempt to shake off the Danish guardianship and allied itself with Wismar, Stralsund and Greifswald. Lübeck, on the other hand, held back.
Faced with the towns' rebellion, the princes showed astonishing solidarity. King Erik sent Henrik of Mecklenburg a fleet to help against Wismar, which belonged to Mecklenburg. Henrik was also given command of Erik's army, which besieged Rostock. Henrik had the entrance to the town blocked by building a bridge over the entrance to Rostock at Warnemünde. But the town's inhabitants made a desperate attempt and destroyed it.
But in the summer of that year, the princes did everything they could to conquer Rostock. At Warnemünde, the townspeople had built a large stone tower, which fell after the invaders had besieged it for eleven weeks. The princes expanded the fortress with three more towers and called it "Danskeborgen". The three warlords, Eric Menved, Henrik of Mecklenburg and Margrave Valdemar of Brandenburg, each occupied a tower. In December 1312, Rostock capitulated.
In Sweden, Erik's brother-in-law, King Birger, had problems with his two ambitious brothers.
In 1306, Duke Erik and his brother Valdemar came to the farm Håtuna in Uppland, where King Birger was preparing a family feast. They broke in and took the king, Queen Margrete and their young sons prisoner. They then led the government of Sweden themselves.
However, after some time, under Danish pressure - and according to historian Palle Lauring, after military intervention - the brothers were forced to release the royal family and return some of the power they had robbed Birger.
However, after a short time, King Birger was forced to call his brother-in-law, Erik Menved, for help, and in the autumn of 1309 a powerful army advanced through Sweden. It numbered 2,500 heavy cavalry in addition to infantry and foot soldiers. It included Danish lords and German knights. Henrik of Mecklenburg alone commanded 400 knights.
King Birger Magnusson of Sweden. He and his queen lived their last years in Denmark. Fresco from around 1320 in Ringsted Church. Photo unknown Wikipedia.
The army crushed all resistance in the open land. The Swedish dukes had to confined themselves in their castles. But this was precisely, what became a major problem for the attackers, because the knights had to get their pay in any case, regardless of whether there was fighting or not, and the long sieges became very expensive.
The army captured Jönköbing and lay in front of Nyköbing.
However, some of the army's Danish nobles mutinied against King Erik, who had to seek protection among his German mercenaries. Among the mutineers were Niels Uffesøn, Niels Brok and Timme Lauridsøn, who all left the army and returned home.
The weakened army had to retreat to Helsingborg without any decisive battle having taken place.
In the following negotiations it was decided that the swedish dukes would respect Birger Magnusson as king and that he would still share his power with them. In effect, Sweden was divided between the king and the dukes, much in the same way that Denmark was divided into the kingdom and the duchies.
In 1311 a peasant uprising broke out in Zealand. It was quickly put down and many peasants were hanged. But it was only a prelude to the uprising that broke out in Jutland the following year, 1312. New large taxes had brought the mood to the boiling point all over the country and some nobless called the peasants to protest meetings. The message went from village to village, calling for a gathering at Viborg.
It was only when Erik Menved himself led his German mercenary troops into the field at Horsens that the rebels were subdued. The Ribe Yearbook for the year 1313 writes: "Against the Northern Jutland peasants, King Erik Menved led a force to Horsens; he built a castle and subdued them so that they gave him the tithe of the churches, 3 marks from each plough and 1 horse from each parish and in addition they must always give a bushel of rye from each mark of gold soil." Another medieval yearbook says that the castles were built in 1313, after the king had put down a bloody rebellion.
Other Yearbooks tell of terrible punishments. King Erik ordered that "the rebels must be forced to admit that they had been misled by evil people, who made them rise up against the king." They were all convicted of crime against the majesty, and sentenced to lose life and property, but they asked for the king's mercy. Erik ordered them to name their ringleaders, who were all hanged. Several nobles were sentenced to lose life and property and beheaded. He imposed a high tax on the defeated rebels in the form of money, grain and horses. It was forbidden, under penalty of death, to convene the county tings without the king's knowledge and will.
The Zealand Chronicle writes: "He built new castles and strengthened the old ones, and in this way he subdued the stubbornness of the Jutland peasants".
The so-called forced castles in Jutland, which Erik Menved forced the peasants to build. After he had put down the rebellion, he forced the peasants to build the four "forced castles" themselves, which are mentioned in contemporary chronicles, namely Kalø near århus, Bygholm near Horsens, Borgholm near Nørresø near Viborg and probably Voldstrup near Struer - in the chronicles called Ulstrup. Own work.
In 1315, Erik Menved learned that his brother, Duke Christopher, was planning to depose him and become king himself, and Christopher had to flee the country. He allied himself with other outlawed nobles and the Swedish dukes.
Late in 1316, Duke Christopher invaded Funen, plundered Svendborg and fought against Funen's governor, Jakob Flep. At the same time, Christopher's man in Halland, the nobleman Eskil Krage, entered Scania and burned down the castle of Örkelljunga.
A royal army under the drost, Niels Olufsen Bildt, attacked the rebels at Kolding but suffered a humiliating defeat, and the drost himself had to flee.
In 1317, Erik's brother-in-law, King Birger Magnusson of Sweden, invited his two brothers to a Christmas feast at Nyköbing Castle. But he ruined the Christmas spirit by having his brothers torn out of their beds at night and thrown into the castle's prison tower, where - it turned out - he let them starve to death.
But King Birger did not have the Swedes with him. A furious army gathered in front of Nyköbing Castle, demanding the dukes be handed over. They got their wish, but by then they were already dead. The episode is known in Sweden as Nyköbing Gästbud. The rebel army subsequently captured King Birger's teenage son, who had already been crowned king, but they beheaded him anyway.
A new Danish rescue force could accomplish nothing other than bringing the remains of the royal family to Denmark, where they lived out the rest of their days. And this was the end of Erik Menved's Swedish project, which had cost enormous sums of money.
King Erik fought many and expensive wars in Sweden, Germany and even in Denmark. He liked to use well-equipped and experienced mercenaries, who were absolutely loyal - as long as they got their payment.
Mercenaries must have their pay in money, that they can take with them when they have completed their mission and want to return home. The purchase of provisions, weapons, horses and other war equipment also required payment in liquid funds, i.e. gold, silver or money.
Denmark was also a rich country at that time with great values in agricultural land, fertile meadows and industrious inhabitants - but all such things are not liquid assets and cannot be used for payments.
Pawned fiefs and similar at the death of Erik Menved in 1319 shown shaded. Rügen and Fehmarn belonged to Denmark. Own work.
Therefore, Erik Menved introduced the pawned fiefs on a much larger scale than had been used before.
A pawned fief means that a lender, who has liquid funds, money, lends them to the king, who in return gives him the right to collect the royal revenues in a given land area in the future until the loan is repaid.
The process was self-reinforcing, because each pawned fief reduced the royal revenues with taxes and duties from the areas that had been given to the creditors in security. This reduced the possibilities of redeeming the debt, while the reduced royal income created a need for new loans and new pawned fiefs.
At the death of Erik Menved in 1319, Denmark was in a sad financial state:
Estonia had been given as a duchy to the king's brother, Christoffer, in 1303.
Northern Halland was effectively lost to the kingdom as King Erik in 1304 accepted that Jacob of Halland gave the area to the Norwegian king, who in turn gave it to his future son-in-law, the Swedish Duke Erik.
Samsø and Southern Halland were handed over to junker Christoffer in 1307.
Duke Valdemar of Jutland (South Jutland) died in 1312 and his son, Erik, received the duchy as a practically independent state.
Møn was in 1314 the possession of Prince Witzlaw of Rügen as a pawn fief.
ærø was given to the Margrave of Brandenburg in 1315 as a pawned fief.
Large crown estates spread across Jutland, Lolland and Blekinge were mortgaged to Nicolaus of Werle or his widow in 1316.
Funen was given as a pawned fief to the Holstenian counts in 1317 as a guarantee for payment for the hire of 200 horsemen for the war in Sweden. They were only a small part of the army, but the amount gives an idea of how much the whole army must have cost.
Lolland and Falster were given to the queen in 1317 as security for a loan of 12,000 marks of silver.
Scania was given to the marsk, Ludvig Albrechtsen, 1318 as a pawned fief for 6,186 marks of Scania and 39 marks Lübsk.
Rostock was given as an inheritance to Henrik of Mecklenburg in 1318 as compensation for what the attack on Stralsund had cost him.
Warnemünde and "a few Danish castles" were pledged to Niels Olufsøn.
Erik Menved and his queen Ingeborg apparently loved each other, they had at least 14 children together - some sources say 12 or 8. But their tragedy was that none of the children survived childhood. Eleven were either stillborn or abortions and the last three died in their very early childhood.
It is mentioned in several sources that in 1318 Queen Ingeborg was travelling from Abrahamstrup - which is Jægerspris - to Holbæk with her little son in a carriage. When people crowded together to see the prince, she wanted to hold the child up to them, but dropped it by accident, so it was run over and killed. Other sources report that it happened when the carriage overturned.
King Erik and Queen Ingeborg both died in the year 1319. The queen died in August and King Erik died in Roskilde in November at the age of 45.
Christopher II of Denmark, detail from the tapestry at Kronborg. The tapestries at Kronborg were made in Helsingør in 1584, almost 300 years after Christopher's lifetime. They did not know him, but it is clear that the weavers worked with his tomb monument in Sorø as a model. It probably resembles him quite well. Photo: Orf3us Wikipedia.
Since Erik Menved had no surviving sons, his younger brother Christopher was elected king. He is known as Christopher 2.
For 700 years, Christopher 2. has been the favorite Prügelknabe of the historians. He was the hot-headed bastard, who caused Denmark to almost disintegrate and disappear into the myriad of German principalities of the 1330s in the kingless era.
In order to be elected king at all, Christopher had to sign a very harsh charter, which made the kingdom's large debt his personal debt and at the same time blocked his ability to pay it off, as it forbade him from issuing new taxes, and even reduced the royal revenues in the areas that were not yet mortgaged at that time.
Christopher never became popular. The Danes may have had positive expectations of him in connection with his accession to the throne in 1320. The simultaneous hand binding contract - however unrealistic - reveals a mood of new beginnings after Erik Menved's oppression, burdensome taxes and foreign adventures. One might have imagined that now a completely new king had been chosen, now everything would be better, and the exiles could return to their ancestral home.
But he had taken on an impossible task. The enormous debt that Erik Menved had created could not be eliminated by majority decisions. It had now been placed on the shoulders of Christopher, and he had to do something - which did not harmonize with the unrealistic hand binding contract - to create sufficient income for the crown.
As Peter Ingemann said about Christopher 2. in his TV series about the royal line: "He didn't have a chance."
By the death of Erik Menved in 1319, large areas of Denmark, around 35-45%, had already been laid out as the pawn fiefs or in some other way cut off from contributing to the royal income. The whole of Funen was mortgaged to the Holstenian counts, Scania was mortgaged to the marsk Louis Albrechtsen, ærø was mortgaged to the Margrave of Brandenburg and so on.
When Duke Erik of Jutland died in 1325, he left behind his 10-year-old son, Valdemar. In similar situations, both Christopher 1. and Erik Klipping, as Danish kings, had quite naturally made themselves guardians of the minor heir, since the Duchy of Jutland was a fief of Denmark. But Christopher remained passive and allowed Count Gerhard of Holsten to take possession of the duchy as guardian, with disastrous consequences for Denmark's subsequent history.
Christoffer 2's seal. Foto: Illustration by Professor Julius Magnus Petersen (1827 - 1917) in "Et dansk Flag fra Unionstiden i Maria Kirken i Lübeck" Wikipedia.
Christopher did not differ from his brother in his desire for international fame. This must have challenged the popular mood. As soon as he had become king, he created a coalition with the North German princes. He promised the Margrave of Brandenburg, the emperor's son, an astronomical sum of money as a dowry for his daughter, Margrete, and he surrounded himself with German knights and mercenaries.
But as Christopher had broken his hand binding contract, some Danish nobles allied themselves in 1325 with the Holstenian counts and started a rebellion against their king, which quickly spread throughout the country.
King Christopher summoned his German vassals, who had promised to help him in war. They met in Nykøbing Falster, where Henrik of Mecklenburg and the princes of Werle promised to provide an army of 800 armored horsemen in exchange for a payment of 12,000 silver marks in cash and 15,000 to be paid later. The princes stipulated that they would receive Lolland, Falster and Møn as security for the remaining debt.
Christoffer's young son and co-king, Erik, led an army of Danish peasants and German mercenaries against Korsør. But the Danish part of the army suddenly turned against the young Erik, and he was confined in the fortress of Tårnborg near Korsør with his loyal German soldiers. He had not foreseen such a development and was not at all prepared for a long siege, and after two weeks he had to give up and surrender, and then he was taken to Haderslev in chains.
The Lübeck Chronicle describes Erik: "whose mind was fierce and his speech foolish".
The very next night, Christopher fled under cover of darkness to Northern Germany together with Queen Eufemia and their youngest son, Valdemar, who would later be known as Valdemar Atterdag.
But only a little over a month later did Christopher and Henrik of Mecklenburg return with the promised auxiliary army of almost a thousand armored horsemen, it is said.
Henrik of Mecklenburg managed to get out of the city of Vordingborg and seek out Count Gerhard at his headquarters on Bogø. Here Gerhard offered him compensation for his receivable from King Christopher - which he would not get if he failed him - and a little more. That settled the matter, and Henrik returned to Vordingborg and informed Christopher that from now on he would have to do without him.
Most German principalities had become smaller and smaller during the Middle Ages, as they had been divided into several smaller principalities over time, because several sons had to have their own share. In the time of Christopher 2., Holsten was divided into Count Gerhard's Holsten-Rendsborg and Johan the Mild's Holsten-Plön or Holsten Kiel. Holstein was undoubtedly very fertile, but not more fertile than Denmark. As can be seen, it was a rather small area compared to Denmark. One has to wonder how such small areas could generate enough wealth for the counts there to have a mortgage on practically all of Denmark. Where were the secret gold and diamond mines? The only explanation that can be found is that the Holstenian counts were skilled and experienced mercenary commanders, who had earned a lot of money by fighting for other princes, for example Erik Menved of Denmark. Wikiwand.
King Christopher reluctantly left Vordingborg and tried for a time to establish himself on Falster, but finally - still in 1326 - had to return to Northern Germany.
Count Gerhard of Holstein-Rendsborg - called "the Bald Count" - had both Jutland and Funen under his control. The Holstenians and the rebellious nobles then appointed the only 11-year-old Duke Valdemar of Jutland as King of Denmark. Because of his young age, his maternal uncle, Count Gerhard, was also appointed his guardian and regent.
He had to sign a charter, which was very similar to the one that Christoffer signed, but it limited his royal power even more.
At the first Danehof in Nyborg, probably in 1327, the young king expressed his heartfelt thanks to his "uncle Gerhard" for his selfless help. He then appointed Count Gerhard as Duke of his own former duchy, Jutland. Count Gerhard thus became Denmark's most powerful man with three titles, Count of Holsten-Rendsborg, Duke of Jutland and head of government in Denmark in Denmark.
In addition, the Count got the Danehof assembly to adopt the binding promise that "The Duchy of Jutland should never be reunited with Denmark".
In 1329 the creditors divided the Danish territories among themselves, which triggered a new rebellion starting in Jutland.
Supported by another of Denmark's major creditors, Johan the Mild of Holstein-Plön, the rebels called Christopher home and recognized him as king again - but still with extremely limited opportunities to exercise royal authority.
By all accounts, Christopher was somewhat vain and impetuous and therefore easy to tease. Upon his return in 1329 he received word that Copenhagen would open its gates to him. But his half-brother, Johan the Mild, got wind of this and sent a detachment ahead, who pretended to be the king's men. They hoisted the Holstenian banner with the "Nettle Leaf" over the castle. This made Christopher very angry. It was all probably a joke and Johan took it easy, but some time later he only referred to Christopher as "the former king", which must have further irritated him.
Perhaps in 1330 a war broke out between Denmark's two largest creditors, Count Gerhard the Bald and Johan the Mild. Christopher sided with Johan, but in the Battle of Kropp Hede just north of Dannevirke in 1331, Gerhard was victorious. Christopher's son, Erik, fell from his horse and was fatally injured and subsequently died of his wounds.
Christopher spent the rest of his reign - and his life - in poor financial circumstances in an ordinary house in Sakskøbing on Lolland, which Count Johan had made available to his half-brother.
Two Danish noblemen, Hennike Breide and Johan Ellemose, tried to burn him in the house, but he survived by jumping out of the window, where he was captured and then imprisoned at Aalholm Castle near Nysted.
Mural in Kelby Church on Møn from 1325, showing a royal wedding. The king carries the lily staff, which represents the true Catholic faith, in his left hand and holds a falcon in his right. There is also another lily staff with a falcon sitting on it. Photo kalkmalerier.dk.
However, Count Johan did not reward the potential arsonists for this deed and ensured that Christopher was released and allowed to continue living in the house in Sakskøbing,
In August 1332 Christopher 2. died lonely and alone. He lived to be 56 years old, which is older than most men of his time. His queen, Eufemia, had died two years earlier. His eldest son, Erik, had died of his wounds, and his second eldest son, Otto, was in Holstenian captivity. His youngest son, Valdemar, who was only 12 years old at the time, he had probably not seen for the last three years, as he stayed with his older sister, Margrete, at the imperial court in Brandenburg.
After Christopher's death, no new Danish king was elected, and it seems as if Denmark was destined to disintegrate and disappear into the myriad of small German principalities.
14. The kingless period
For almost ten years after Christoffer's death there was no Danish king, nor was there a council of state, nor a court. The Danish government had ceased to exist, and the political vacuum was filled by a Holstenian military dictatorship.
Count Gerhard held Denmark west of the Great Belt in an iron grip. But apart from tax collection, power and control, society did not interest him much. He did not even bother to adopt a formal title of government. He ruled very little at all, and only when circumstances forced him to do so, for example in the event of rebellion.
Society was kept going by the inhabitants' self-created bodies, such as congregations, village tings, merchant guilds, artisan guilds, monastic communities, city councils and probably the authority of nobles, priests and bishops. Danehof was held every year, but nothing is known about what the assembly discussed.
Denmark in 1332 during the kingless period. Reddish brown - Jutland, Zealand, Scania - stands for pawn fiefs, light brown - Als, Falster, ærø - stands for "ordinary" fiefs, plain brown stands for something between the pawn fiefs and ordinary fiefs. Estonia is not shown. It was occupied by the Teutonic Order at some point after 1332, and was in its possession, when Valdemar Atterdag sold the country to the order in 1346. Photo Vesconte2 Wikipedia.
At the conciliation meeting in Kiel on 10 January 1332 between Christopher 2. and the Holsten counts, Count Gerhard and Count Johan estimated that Denmark was worth 200,000 marks of silver, all included, and they each owned half.
Only a king could give parts of his kingdom as security for a loan. The pawn fief could be redeemed, but only by the debtor - if he had the money. However, there was no longer a king, and the kingdom could also be questioned. This must have caused some nervousness among the counts. The historian Erik Kjersgaard thus quotes a chronicle writing about Count Gerhard: "He clearly realized that the Danes were very unpredictable in their actions."
Like other claims, the pan fiefs could be both bought and sold, and the original lenders could thereby get their money without the pawn being redeemed. Therefore, the counts Gerhard and Johan divided their large pawn into smaller pawns, which they sold to mercenary commanders, wealthy merchants and other German nobles.
Eggert Brockdorff received Helsingborg for 600 marks of silver. Claus Limbeck paid 10,000 marks of silver for Kalø. Markvard Stove received Copenhagen, and one of his relatives received Vordingborg. In this way, dozens of other German knights received sub-pawns in the former Danish Kingdom for payment. They thereby gained the right to all the taxes and duties that the former Danish king had been entitled to in their territory, and they collected them zealously to get their investment paid back and preferably a little more.
The Jutland Chronicle says that the Holsteians effectively won power in Denmark in 1329, but perhaps 1326, the start of Valdemar 3.'s interregnum, is a better guess. In his second period, Christopher never regained his former power, and they ruled the country both in these two periods and the following kingless time: "From then on, the Germans' heavy yoke was created over Denmark," the Jutland Chronicle writes, "and they took possession not only of the country but also of the kingdom's castles, and the country's great men, who hoped that they should rule after Christopher's expulsion, were now subdued by the Germans they had summoned. They were imprisoned and enslaved."
The local German knights also forced the tax-free estates to pay them the so-called beder, which was nominally a voluntary payment, but in reality it was compulsory. The Lund Archbishop's Chronicle states that "The counts and their servants took away all objects of value, all precious things, and everything that was beautiful to see in the kingdom, and took it away to foreign lands". The contemporary Jutland Chronicle says: "It would take too long to tell about all the injustice that befell the children of the country."
The Holstenian pawn fief owners were not content with plundering the Danes. They turned the coastal towns into pirate nests, from which they plundered the ships of the Hanseatic merchants.
King Magnus Eriksson bynamed "Smek" of Sweden, Norway and the Scanian lands, on the title page of the Swedish law book, "Magnus Erikssons landslag". It was drawn 56 years after his death and may not be entirely accurate. By virtue of his lineage, he united Sweden and Norway. He was the son of the very popular Swedish duke Erik, which made him king of Sweden. The Norwegian king Håkon 5. had no sons, but his daughter Ingeborg, who was Magnus' mother, which made him king of Norway.
He was given the byname "Smek" by the holy Birgitta, who accused him of being homosexual. Since "Smek" means caress, one can imagine that he was a friendly and accommodating person. He was the father of a rebellious son, Erik Magnusson, and Håkon 6. of Norway. He became king in 1319 at the age of 3 and was expelled from Sweden in 1364. He tried to return, but ended up in prison for 6 years and died in a shipwreck at sea off Norway, aged 59.
The reason for his expulsion as king in 1364 was most likely Saint Birgitta's accusations against him of homosexuality. It is also seen that here, half a century after his death, he is portrayed as a rather feminine type. Photo Magnus Erikssons landslag, Codex B 68, 1430 Wikipedia.
The Scania people were the first to lose patience. In the spring of 1332 they mercilessly slaughtered 300 holstenians who had sought shelter in Lund Cathedral, so that blood spattered on the altar and the furnishing shattered.
"About that time" (Christoffer's death in 1332), says the Jutland Chronicle, "the Scanians killed many Germans in Lund and around Helsingborg and they sent messengers to King Magnus of Sweden, who was the son of Duke Eric of Sweden, and offered him their land. He agreed to this and promised the Germans 70,000 marks of pure silver for this land and for the castle of Helsingborg, and Danish and Swedish hostages were given until the said sum was paid."
The fear of an impending Holstenian revenge campaign caused Archbishop Karl the Red to rush to Kalmar with a delegation of Scanian nobles to complain in their distress to King Magnus Eriksson of Sweden and Norway. "Since the German strangers, godless and cruel, have taken over Scania and begun an inhuman oppression of the country's inhabitants and a true tyranny, we can enjoy neither freedom nor peace, and all our laws have been suspended."
King Magnus took the Scanians under his protection and in June 1332 had himself hailed as their king, and they promised to be faithful to him and pay him the usual taxes. He then agreed to buy the Scanian mortgage from Count Johan the Mild for 34,000 marks of silver.
It was not easy for King Magnus to raise so much money. He imposed heavy taxes, seized the churches' tithes and mortgaged the right to mint coins in Sweden, and the Swedish nobles helped. The takeover and payment took place November 1332.
The Scanias did not become part of Sweden, but came to constitute an independent kingdom, and Magnus now became king of three kingdoms, namely Norway, Sweden and the Scania Lands.
In connection with the later wars between Denmark and Sweden, the Swedes cited this episode as an argument that the Scanian lands belong to Sweden. They had both bought them and paid dearly for them.
When Count Gerhard used Duke Valdemar as his puppet king in 1326-1329, he was only a child. In the meantime, he had become a young man of 24 years, who did not like his uncle's leadership.
At the succession meeting in Lübeck on Candlemas Day in February 1340, very shortly before Count Gerhard began the campaign in Jutland that would end with his death, he and Duke Valdemar of Jutland concluded an agreement on succession, so that the duke would take over the count's mortgage in North Jutland and in return put his own duchy as a mortgage and transfer this mortgage to Count Gerhard. It says: "We shall release and hand over to our kinsman Duke Valdemar of Slesvig the land of North Jutland and the castles therein as freely as they are pledged to us by King Christopher".
Niels Ebbesen and his men flee after the murder of Count Gerhard, in the background the broken bridge. Photo Danmarks Historie i Billeder 1898.
But Duke Valdemar exchanged his southern Jutland duchy, which his ancestors since Abel had possessed, for North Jutland, with the selfless intention of giving this latter area to Valdemar Atterdag as a start for a recreated Danish kingdom.
Early in the spring of 1340, Count Gerhard advanced into North Jutland with an enormous army of mercenaries to solve the problems there once and for all. The army numbered about 11,000 men, it is said. At Kolding he divided it, sending one division to Varde and one towards Viborg. He himself went to Randers with 4,000 men and set up his headquarters there.
But in Randers on the night after Saturday April 1, 1340, the count was killed by "a certain Jutland armsman named Niels Ebbesen". After that, his large army disbanded, probably because the soldiers feared that they would not receive their pay.
The contemporary Jutland Chronicle says: "In the year 1340, Count Gerhard of Holsten went up to Jutland with a large army and had with him more than 11 thousand men of war, as he wanted to exterminate all the great men of Jutland and hand over this land to his Germans. However, he had part of the army with him and part he sent with his sons to other parts of Jutland. While he himself was staying in Randers, a certain Jutland armsman named Niels Ebbesen, who had a total of 47 companions, came to the city of Randers over the bridge on the first day of April at night. On the way to the count's lodgings, they let the drums beat and set fire to the city, then he entered by force and he himself went in to the count together with others and he boldly killed him at the same time that there were 4.000 troops of the count's army in the city. When this was done, and he wanted to flee over the bridge, he was pursued by several banners of the count's troops. He resisted them to such a degree that he killed two of their very distinguished knights as well as several others, thus he escaped with his men as they had thrown the planks of the bridge off behind them, and he lost no one but one. But when the said count was dead, the whole great army returned with shame to their own home and left behind the treasures that had been promised them or that they had received, and moreover many of them were killed in an ambush by the Danes."
When the small group of Danes rode across the bridge over the Gudenå River, it was just after the new moon and the night was pitch dark. Uniforms were not used at that time and the group was indistinguishable from the count's troops, who were a motley crowd that came from all over. The Danes were probably mistaken for one of the army's own guard patrols.
Count Gerhard was deeply religious and the Lübeck Chronicle tells that he used to read his times that belonged to the day, like a clergyman, and he did so at night in Randers: "The count had read his times and went to bed again, when the Danes came up and killed the sick man on his bed."
That he read times means that at certain times he recited special prayers or sang special hymns.
Both Danish and German sources explicitly state that the murder took place at night. It can be safely read from the Lübeck Chronicle that Count Gerhard was killed after he had said his midnight prayer, i.e. around one o'clock in the morning.
According to a contemporary folk song, Niels Ebbesen rode straight to Count Gerhard's quarters and knocked on his door, pretending to be a messenger from the count's son, Henrik. However, the count did not want to let his door open in the middle of the night, and he replied:
"If you are Duke Henrik's messenger,
don't let yourself wait for me,
meet me tomorrow at the Brother Church.
between mass and octave song."
Niels Ebbesen tried to persuade him with good news:
"I bear your Grace message and letter,
which your son has sent you,
Ribe he has plundered,
and Kolding he has burned."
He even gave the count the news that his enemy Niels Ebbesen was dead. But nothing worked and in the end the Danes had to break open the door with force - and probably some unwanted noise.
"They came upon the door with shield and spear,
the nails all broke into pieces"
They then quickly entered the room, where they immediately killed Count Gerhard by pinning him to the bed and beheading him over the bedpost. They also killed his chaplain and three guards, who rushed to the scene.
"They took the Count Lord Gert
by his yellow locks:
then they cut off his head
all over that bedpost."
At Mindet in Skanderborg a cross was erected in 1878 in memory of Niels Ebbesen and the 2,000 other Danes who fell in 1340 in the battle against the Holstenians on Nonnebjerget near Skanderborg Photo Tripadvisor.
According to the folk song, one man remained at the bridge, when the group rode into town. It was Niels Ebbesen's nephew, Svend Trøst. He used the time to loosen the bridge planks, and when the group fled over the bridge after the murder with the Holstenians at their heels, he subsequently jumped forward and threw the bridge planks into the water, giving the Danes a head start in escaping their pursuers.
The Jutland Chronicle reports on Niels Ebbesen further achievements in 1340: "The same year, on May 2. the same Niels Ebbesen killed many Germans at Skern Å, where they were building a castle for the destruction of the Danes."
But during the siege of Skanderborg Castle, things went wrong: "But in the same year when the same Niels Ebbesen besieged the castle of Skanderborg, he was attacked by a large German army, which came upon him on All Souls' Day" (November 2). "He gave them a hard fight, but he himself succumbed there, as did other Danish armsmen."
Count Gerhard's sons found his body on the battlefield and dismembered it and put it on wheels and stakes. But at night his friends took it and carried it away and gave him a Christian burial.
15. Valdemar Atterdag
Valdemar Atterdag grew up in exile at the imperial court in Brandenburg as a poor younger prince, living at the expense of his relatives, the son of a hated king of a kingdom, that no longer existed.
At the same time, his namesake, Duke Valdemar of Jutland, who was the same age, had become fed up with his uncle, Count Gerhard of Holsten, who had seized power in his duchy. This Valdemar selflessly exchanged his southern Jutland duchy, which his ancestors had held since Abel, for Northern Jutland, and gave the latter territory to Valdemar Atterdag as the start of a reborn Danish kingdom.
To seal the friendship and cooperation between the two namesakes, Valdemar Atterdag married the sister of the southern Jutland Valdemar, who was named Helvig. The plan was for Valdemar Atterdag to pay the revenues from North Jutland to the Southern Jutland Duke Valdemar, who would use them to gradually redeem his own duchy from the Holstein counts.
Valdemar ruled Denmark for 35 years. But not all of Denmark all the time. It was a long and grueling struggle to gain control of the country. He experienced many setbacks and made countless settlements and compromises, but never lost sight of his goal, which was the restoration of all of Denmark.
He began in 1340 with the modest kingdom of North Jutland. On Zealand, he conquered castle after castle with military force over the following six years. Then he turned to Lolland and Falster. He managed to exploit internal Swedish disputes to regain the Scanian lands. In between, he had to fight off repeated Jutland rebellions coordinated with attacks from the counts of Holsten. The united Hanseatic cities attacked Denmark several times, the last time in 1368 in a powerful coalition with all of Denmark's enemies, including the King of Sweden, the Duke of Jutland, the Counts of Holsten, the Duke of Mecklenburg and the Jutland rebels.
It was during Valdemar Atterdag's reign that the plague struck Denmark, and in all likelihood took the lives of one in three Danes. The epidemic depopulated entire villages and did not spare Valdemar's family either.
Valdemar Atterdag on detail of painting by Kornerup based on fresco painting in St. Peders Church in Næstved. In connection with his overbite, he probably had a slightly receding chin, which he compensated for with various forms of full beards, as other kings have also done. He had curly hair and beard like his father, Christoffer, on grave monuments in Sorø. He was probably fair-haired, as we cannot believe that a dark-haired man's beard had turned completely white already at the age of 55. Photo Wikipedia.
It goes without saying that under such circumstances he could not be friends with everyone. All Danish lands that he reconquered were imposed extraordinary taxes to finance the redemption of other parts of the mortgaged kingdom, and this was not always popular.
From the age of probably 6-7, Valdemar grew up in Berlin with his older sister Margrete, who was married to the Margrave of Brandenburg, the emperor's son. Huitfeldt says that during a visit to the emperor "for the sake of Margrave Louis", Christopher 2. succeeded in getting Louis of Bavaria to take the young Valdemar "into his farm/ where he was educated in the art of war/ and gained great experience/ which he later used in the position that he came to".
For an intelligent and inquisitive boy, the imperial court must have been a very educational place to grow up. Here he witnessed first-hand how political intrigues, decisions and negotiations unfolded. Early on he must have been familiar with the latest developments in the art of war, which plays such a large role in politics.
Due to his childhood in Brandenburg, his preferred language was probably Low German.
Like all the old kings, Valdemar was a tall and well-built man, towering a head above other men. Measurements of his bones indicate a height of 185 cm.
Valdemar had been in war on horseback for most of his adult life, and it had begun to take its toll on him by 1375. Examination of his skeleton reveals signs that he had had a hard life. Injuries to his back and ankles show that he had had minor lesions in these places. He also suffered from osteoarthritis. Like so many others in the Middle Ages, he had good teeth - which indicates that he ate a lot of salt, like everyone else in his time. As mentioned, he had a significant overbite.
He could be quite impulsive. In 1347 he traveled to Jerusalem with his lifelong friend, Erik of Saxen-Lauenburg, without first obtaining the Pope's permission, as was otherwise required. He left to the drost Claus Lembek to complete the conquest of Lolland.
There is much evidence that he had taken some overly dramatic actions against the Hanseatic merchants - not mentioned in history - which he later deeply regretted.
Valdemar was not a man, who held grudges. For example, his drost, Claus Lembek, participated in the first Jutland rebellion in 1351, but was pardoned in 1353 and returned to his position. Nevertheless, he participated again in the third Jutland rebellion around 1368, but died before the conclusion of peace. But by all accounts, Lembek's sons escaped by paying fines, which Valdemar generally preferred to revenge and dramatic punishments.
Statue of Valdemar Atterdag made by Theodor Storm in 1882. It stands in Frederiksborg. In the background his model, which was the fresco in Næstved. Photo Erik Meistrup Kunstavisen.
Valdemar had a keen economic sense. He had tried to be a poor prince of a non-existent kingdom, and we must believe that he was firmly determined not to repeat that. Throughout his reign, he took advantage of every opportunity to scrape together money, silver, ships and provisions. In every negotiation - even those less advantageous to him - he sought to obtain small or large payments or other benefits for the crown. He knew that a king without solid financial reserves would be a mere figurehead - as his father had been.
He knew that success in political negotiations did not only depend on rational and moral arguments, but ultimately on what military means could be brought into the field if the negotiations failed.
He collected money, benefits and rights incessantly. As the Zealand Chronicle writes for 1358: "soon the king sailed into Slien and forced the Angles to pay very large supplies, money and ships".
All the money was used in the fight to redeem new territories, hire mercenaries, build fortresses and the like, all to restore Denmark. It was not that he used his scraped together funds to finance an extravagant life for his relatives and himself.
The Swedes call him "Valdemar the Evil" because of his conquest of Gotland, which included a slaughter of a primitive peasant army in front of the Visby city wall and subsequent plundering of the Hanseatic city of Visby, and because of his conquest of the Scanian lands, which they had bought so dearly.
He did not spare himself, but certainly not others either. The Zealand Chronicle tells that at a meeting in Vrangstrup south of Ringsted in 1355 the king decided that "all peasants, whoever they belonged to, were to provide the king with 14 days of work in the winter and summer at their own expense, but from the king's own peasants, as well as from those of the churches and monks, work was required without limit, and the tired ones were hardly allowed to rest."
The Chronicle says for 1357: "and then he went over to Jutland, where he stayed for a while and burdened both large and small with various burdens."
Valdemar was aware of the country's technological development, the Zealand Chronicle for 1357 says: "The king also does not stop building mills and other buildings, but in doing so he burdens monasteries, cities and the common people in every way"
It reports for 1360: "King Valdemar, who did not want to use time to sleep to no avail, but rather liked to give orders to innocent people, gathered a large fleet with crews and sought the king of Sweden's land".
By taking up residence in Zealand in 1341, Valdemar sent a clear signal about what his intentions were. He was not satisfied with a smaller Jutland kingdom. He wanted to rebuild all of Denmark.
King Valdemar's first three years in Zealand were filled with unsuccessful attempts to create progress by winning castles and lands. He fought and negotiated, but usually without much success. With great energy he tried again and again. If an attack on a castle or town failed, he tried tirelessly elsewhere.
By establising himself in Zealand, he challenged Count Johan of Holsten-Plön, also called Johan the Mild, who, together with the Margrave of Brandenburg, had strongly argued his case in Spandau and Lübeck. Count Johan had Lolland and most of Zealand as pawn fief, but had divided it up as a sub-pawns to German knights.
In a similar way, Duchess Ingeborg's possessions in North Zealand were divided up to smaller pawn for German knights. Her son, King Magnus of Sweden, followed Valdemar's movements suspiciously.
At his election as king in Viborg, a hand binding contract was out of the question. No one in Zealand talked about hand binding contracts either. But in Roskilde in January 1341, King Valdemar issued on his own initiative a letter of assurance, in which he promised forgiveness and forgetting everything that had happened to his father and brother, and promised that all acquired rights would be protected.
The Zealanders made great sacrifices. They agreed to pay a special tax for the redemption of the land, which corresponded to the silver special tax paid by the Jutlanders. Each church donated one of the holy chalices, and Bishop Johan of Roskilde handed over the revenues of Møn and Rügen to the king. But that was not enough, the king had to pledge what he had just received, namely Copenhagen city and castle, to the Holstenian Markvard Stove.
Valdemar tried to redeem Vordingborg Castle, but could not pay second installment and thereby lost what he had already paid. He besieged Kalundborg in vain. In 1342 he captured the Holstenian Markvard Strove's Stone Tower in Copenhagen. In December 1343, Valdemar managed to gather an army of Danish peasants, which he led against Taarnborg near Korsør, but the army turned back due to a "false rumors".
In 1343, Valdemar issued three letters assuring King Magnus of Sweden of his possession of the Scanian lands.
But in January 1344, luck smiled on Valdemar. After three years of hardship on Zealand, he finally gained possession of both Kalundborg and Søborg. The Zealand Chronicle is not entirely clear about how it happened, but the Lübeck Chronicle tells us: "At that time the King of Denmark got Kalundborg Castle, as one of the Holstenians betrayed the other defenders. Thus the King's power in Zealand grew ever greater little by little."
Valdemar had had a lucky hand in warfare. He captured the newly built castle at Næstved. The King's marsk, Erik Nielsen, took the castle of Gunderslevholm by the river Suså by storm and cut down the garrison, and the King took the castle of Padeborg at Præstø.
In 1346 the King marched towards Taarnborg by Korsør and urged the Holstenian garrison to surrender, which they did, and thus Valdemar gained control of this important crossing point to Funen.
Valdemar Atterdag had to make many difficult decisions. One of them was to sell Estonia to the Teutonic Order.
The nobles of Estonia were mostly of German origin, but they were more loyal to the Danish king than many Danish nobles.
Tallinn city's large coat of arms with the three lions. The three lions are one of the oldest Estonian symbols. It has been used since the 13th century and originates from Valdemar the Victorious. Other traces of the Danes are few. The city's German name was Reval but the Estonians call it Tanalin or Tallinn, which means the Danish city. There is still a St. Olav's Church in it. Until 1920 there was a St. Olav's Guild and a St. Knud's Guild. In the 1930s, the city's large guild still hoisted the Dannebrog on festive occasions. Photo Wikipedia from "Tallinnna vapp Tallinnna raekoja".
But in August 1346 an agreement was reached. King Valdemar transferred Estonia with all the rights of the Danish crown to the Teutonic Order, which in return had to pay the king 19,000 marks of silver. In addition, the Grand Master paid 6,000 marks of silver to Margrave Ludvig of Brandenburg in exchange for the Margrave renouncing his right to the country.
On that occasion, Valdemar finally got rid of the problem of the dowry for his older sister, as the Grand Master actually paid for her with the 6,000 marks of silver. He also solved the problem with his older brother, Otto, who on that occasion entered the Order.
The Zealand Chronicle writes for the year 1348: "The plague is ravaging the whole country". And for the year 1349: "Mortality was great in Denmark".
The Zealand Chronicle for the year 1348 tells us: "When King Valdemar had returned to Denmark," (from the Holy Land) "he obtained the last castles on Zealand and some in Jutland and half of Funen, Nykøbing on Falster and Stege on Møn." Since Lolland is not mentioned, one must assume that he had already gained control of this island. The chronicle also does not mention whether these islands were taken by military means or by their mortgages being redeemed.
The king's growing power and their own weakness motivated the Holstenian counts, Henrik and Claus, to seek peace. At Nebbegaard by Vejle Fjord in July 1348 it was agreed to make peace on the condition that the counts surrender Nyborg Castle and half of Funen in return for payment of 10,000 marks. The remaining half of Funen thus became a mortgage of 21,000 marks and the counts also granted the king the right to pay this mortgage in smaller installments.
In January 1349 King Valdemar convened a national meeting in Ringsted, where he explained to the nobles, what their taxes had been used for. Zealand and the nearby islands, half of Funen and three-quarters of North Jutland were now freed from the yoke of foreigners.
In 1348 the so-called false Valdemar arrived in Brandenburg. He claimed that he was in fact Margrave Valdemar of Brandenburg, who was otherwise believed to be dead. He said that the funeral 29 years earlier had been a bluff and that he had been a pilgrim in the Holy Land all these years. He quickly became incredibly popular, and in 1349 36 Brandenburg towns paid homage to the false Valdemar at the citadel in Spandau.
Emperor Karl 4. of Prague responded by stripping Ludvig of the Margraviate of Brandenburg and giving it "back" to the false Valdemar "with the same rights as when he left it".
Dannebrog in Valdemar Atterdag's coat of arms. The oldest representation of Dannebrog is found as part of Valdemar Atterdag's royal coat of arms. The three lions were introduced already by Knud 6. It was Valdemar who named the annual national meetings in Nyborg as "Danehof", and it was he, who first used Dannebrog as a royal banner. Photo About Dannebrog Our old flag and its history.
Denmark had real interests in Northern Germany, although King Valdemar's expedition to Northern Germany probably could not help but evoke memories of Erik Menved's and Christopher's magnificent international projects.
Rügen had been a fief of the Danish king since Valdemar the Great, most likely even since the Viking Age. But Emperor Karl IV had openly demonstrated that he did not recognize Danish claims to sovereignty by confirming the Pomeranian dukes' right of succession to this island on June 12, 1348.
At the end of June 1349 king Valdemar went ashore - probably in Stralsund - with a large army to support Ludvig of Brandenburg, who had not given up the fight for his county. The Zealand Chronicle writes: "The leding went to Germany".
The Danish army marched plundering through Mecklenburg and into Brandenburg, where it captured a city called Strassburg. But here the army was surrounded by Duke Albrecht of Mecklenburg.
However, the margrave's younger brother, Ludvig the Roman, and the dukes of Stettin set their armies in motion to come to Valdemar's rescue. Upon receiving this intelligence, Duke Albrecht broke off the siege and marched to meet the Brandenburgers. The battle took place at Oderberg on the Oder River between Berlin and Stettin, where the Brandenburgers suffered a major defeat.
Together with other armies, Valdemar's army now marched towards Berlin, which was controlled by the false Valdemar and his supporters. The king pitched his tents outside the city walls and awarded many knighthoods, much like Erik Menved outside Rostock.
However, a truce was concluded. Count Ruprecht was appointed as arbitrator. Valdemar, Ludvig the Roman and duke Rudolf of Saxony visited Emperor Karl. King Valdemar boldly criticized the emperor for his support of the false Valdemar, who must have been an impostor since several men, who were still alive had witnessed his death and burial in 1319.
Pfalzgrev Ruprecht afsagde voldgiftsdommen den 14. februar 1350: Den falske Valdemar var en bedrager, markgreve Ludvig skulle hylde kejser Karl og tage sit grevskab, Brandenburg, som len af ham.
From Jutland, Valdemar's German campaign must have been suspiciously reminiscent of Erik Menved's and Christopher 2.'s North German adventures.
In 1351 a storm arose against King Valdemar. The fighting against the counts flared up again. The king's brother-in-law, Duke Valdemar of South Jutland, joined the counts together with many Jutland noblemen, including the king's former drost, Claus Lembek, Niels Bugge at Hald, Erland Kalv, Ejler Splid, Iver Lykke, bishop Peder Thuressøn of Ribe and the former marsk, Erik Nielsen Gyldenstjerne.
As the king gradually redeemed North Jutland, Duke Valdemar had only been able to regain a few small pieces of his own duchy. Finally he lost patience, and when Valdemar sent him an army to help, he rejected it and instead joined the counts.
There are no surviving accounts of how the battles in 1351 in Jutland proceeded, only the Zealand Chronicle tells of castles that were fortified and royal barns that were built.
Erik Gyldenstjerne's coat of arms. Niels Bugge and the former marsk, Erik Nielsen Gyldenstjerne, were the leaders of the Jutland rebels in 1351. Photo Geni.
Around the year 1354, events took place in Sweden that shook King Magnus' position of power and brought the Scanian lands within Valdemar's reach.
Queen Blanche had two sons, Erik and Håkon.
Already around 1352, King Magnus had appointed his favorite, the young Benedikt Algotsson, as Duke of Finland and Halland, thereby arousing the anger and jealousy of his eldest son, Junker Erik.
Following an urgent request from the Norwegian Council of State, King Magnus appointed the youngest, Junker Håkon, as King of Norway. In the same year, the Swedish Council of State undertook to choose the eldest, Junker Erik, as King Magnus's successor as King of Sweden when the time came.
King Magnus was to be guardian of Håkon until he came of age and could take over the government himself. In Sweden, Magnus, on the other hand, was to have the kingship for life, as is customary for kings, and only upon his death was Erik to ascend the throne. By this arrangement, the youngest son became king before the eldest, and the latter felt further unfairly treated.
In August 1355, Junker Håkon took over the government in Norway. Junker Erik visited King Valdemar in September 1356 to ask for Danish support for a rebellion against his father. He was well received but did not obtain the help he wanted. Instead, he received support from Duke Adolf of Holsten and Duke Albrecht of Mecklenburg, who thus changed sides once again.
On 17 October 1356, Junker Erik raised the banner of rebellion in Sweden, and already on 14 January 1357, Magnus had to sign a truce. It was decided that the case should be settled by arbitration by Duke Adolf of Holsten and Duke Albrecht of Mecklenburg. The arbitration award was made in Jønkøbing April 28 with very humiliating terms for King Magnus: He was to sever all ties with his favorite, Benedikt Algotsson. Furthermore, he was to "after mature deliberation and with the consent of the council" leave to his son, Erik, the provinces of Scania with the island of Hven, Blekinge, Lister, Sønder Halland, øster Gøtaland, Småland and Finland. Furthermore, King Magnus was to pay the arbitrators for their good work. Duke Albrecht received a promissory note of 12,000 marks secured by the copper mountain in Dalarna.
King Magnus saw no other way to preserve his kingdom than to seek an alliance with Valdemar. He and Queen Blanche, together with their son Håkon, now King of Norway, went to Copenhagen, "and here Håkon solemnly betrothed himself to Valdemar's youngest daughter, Margrete, who was then in her seventh year, as is proper, with costly gifts."
The Zealand Chronicle for 1359 tells us "And since Magnus had made his son Erik king of Sweden and lord of Scania, the knights and armsmen no longer showed Magnus any honor, but eagerly followed his son, who was now powerful and seemed to everyone to be a friendly lord. When Magnus therefore saw that he was despised and mocked by his son, he sought help from King Valdemar and promised that he would surrender Helsingborg."
An abscess on the inner thigh of a person infected with bubonic plague. After an incubation period of 2-6 days, symptoms of plague appear, which include severe malaise, headache, shaking chills, fever, pain, and swelling of the affected lymph nodes, also known as abscesses. Photo Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Image Library Wikipedia.
The chronicle continues clearly: "Valdemar then went with a large army to Scania and Lister. He won Sølvitsborg (in Blekinge) and several other castles and drove out the commanders and put others in their place and put a large part of the country under King Magnus."
But Erik fell ill and died along with his wife and child. On his deathbed he reconciled with his father. The chronicle writes: "Erik made peace with his father and brought all of Valdemar's work to nothing. He became arrogant and stood up against the Lord and his church." - "But the Lord did not let his crime go unpunished, for not long after he himself, his wife and child died a sudden and pitiful death by God's just judgment." As three closely related people died almost simultaneously, it was undoubtedly an infectious disease, probably plague.
After Erik's death, Magnus no longer needed Valdemar. On the contrary, he allied himself with Duke Albrecht of Mecklenburg against Valdemar, as if the betrothal between his son Håkon and Princess Margaret had not taken place.
King Valdemar had not forgotten that Magnus had broken his promise to surrender Helsingborg to him after he had conquered most of Scania for his cause - to no avail.
The Zealand Chronicle writes that in June 1360 Valdemar conquered the Scanian lands: "At the same time King Valdemar gathered a large army and took his son Duke Christopher with him and went to war in Scania, where he vigorously pursued the siege of Helsingborg. Finally, King Magnus of Sweden came, and when he saw that he was unable to resist, he surrendered the aforementioned castle on many conditions, and when Valdemar had obtained Helsingborg, he took by force the castles of the nobility in the same country. The nobles asked the king for mercy and became his men of good will. In the year 1361 he acquired the castle of Lindholm and he won almost immediately, partly by threats and partly by a lot of money."
A Scanian yearbook laconically tells: "King Valdemar of Denmark got Scania by force of arms and Helsingborg Castle by surrender of King Magnus of Sweden."
The Chronicle of the Archbishops of Lunde says: "It was also in the time of this archbishop that the aforementioned Valdemar IV set out for Scania with a group of people and began the siege of Helsingborg Castle the day before King Canute's day, and he gained all of Scania, Halland and Blekinge and drove King Magnus out of that country. And at the same time there was great mortality in Denmark."
In 1354 the king went to Vordingborg, where he forgave Henneke Breide and Johan Ellemose and their children for what they had done against his father on condition that as long as they lived they would solemnly commemorate him in Sorø. Henneke Breide and Johan Ellemose were the two noblemen who tried to burn Christopher II to death, when he lived in an ordinary house in Sakskøbing in his last year of life.
In Bocksten Mose in Halland, the body of a man with fully preserved clothing from the first half of the 14th century was found in 1936. He wore a cloak over a knee-length jacket with a belt around his waist, and an "strudhætte" on his head. Photo Albert Sandklef, Varberg Museum.
In early 1357, Valdemar feared a rebellion in Jutland. The Zealand Chronicle writes: "and it was said that the Jutlanders gathered and grumbled against the king". He increased the castles' garrisons and supplied them with food from his barns.
Some time later, the king went to Jutland where he stayed for a while "and burdened great and small with various burdens" as the Zealand Chronicle puts it.
After he had returned to Zealand, the storm broke out. The Holstenian counts, the Duke of Jutland and the dissatisfied Jutland nobles attacked the king in unison.
They began by besieging and capturing the castle in Tønder, which had particularly aroused their displeasure. They also captured the newly built castle in Randers - built from stones from 11 abandoned churches - and the commander, Peder Lauridssen, had to flee to Zealand and seek refuge with the king, who, however, immediately put him in chains along with some others, whom he also did not trust.
The rebels' next target was Funen. They expelled the king's people from Odense and collected taxes from the city. Finally, they began the siege of the castle of Brobjerg with a large force, the location of which on Funen is not known for certain.
On Mortens Day 1357, Valdemar set out for Funen with an army to bring the besieged Brobjerg to the rescue.
When he arrived near Brobjerg, he knighted some of his men in full view of the enemy. Then he attacked the enemy with both horsemen and footmen and scattered their entire army, both rebels and Holstenians. Their defeat was complete. Many fell or were captured. Count Claus of Holsten lost one eye in the battle.
The king did not want to negotiate peace with the Jutes himself. He sent his son Christoffer and some of his men to Nyborg. However, the king had to finally approve the negotiation result. Under promise of safe conduct, some of the Jutes then traveled to Slagelse to wait for the king, who did not arrive until Christmas Eve. The king then set them some additional conditions, which aroused their anger. However, during their return journey from Slagelse, Niels Bugge, Ove Stigsen and Peder Andersen were killed in Middelfart. The chronicle writes: "Those who at that time wanted to speak ill of the king blamed their death on him".
The Zealand Chronicle further tells that "the king solemnly cleansed himself together with his son and several knights" of any responsibility for the killings in Middelfart.
On Whitsun 1360, "on the very feast of the Pentecostal spirit" at the Danehof in Kalundborg, King Valdemar presented a document that he himself called a handbinding contract, but which in reality was a social contract, which not only gave rules and restrictions for the king's office, but also gave instructions on what the people's duties were "so that our kingdom, Denmark, can gain strength and better conditions with the help of the Holy Spirit." The contract has been named "The Land Peace".
The people were "Knights and armsmen, ladies and maidens, merchants, guests, farmers and workmen" and elsewhere "We dukes, bishops, armsmen and all the common people of Denmark".
The contract guarantees that all lands in Denmark "shall freely enjoy their laws and rights, as they are contained in the right old law books, as they have most freely and best enjoyed them since the time of King Valdemar and the time of our other ancestors. God have mercy on their souls."
Glambeck Castle on Fehmern. Like so many other islands in the ocean, the island was originally under the Danish king. Valdemar the Victorious had Glambeck Castle built in 1210. Christoffer 1. and Margrete Samberia celebrated their wedding at the castle in 1248. Also under Erik Klipping and Erik Menved, Fehmern belonged to Denmark, until the latter gave it as a pawn fief to the Holstenian counts. Christoffer 2. issued the "Fehmern Landlov" in 1320. His bailiff, Reventlow, lived at Glambeck Castle. In 1326, Count Johan 3. received the island as a pawn fief and in 1340 it became an inheritance. However, in 1358, Valdemar Atterdag expelled the Holstenian counts from the island, but already in 1359 the counts and the Duke of Mecklenburg took the island back. However, in 1364, the counts again received the island as a fief from the Danish king. In 1420, Erik of Pomerania arrived with a large force and took the island back. But in connection with the fall of the same king Count Adolf of Holsten conquered the island again - it is said. From 1474, the Danish-Norwegian kings became dukes of Holsten and thus also of Fehmern, which ended in 1864. Photo Blankmaps.
He guaranteed Duke Valdemar and his son's rights - presumably as part of the Kingdom of Denmark: "The Dukes of Jutland, Mr. Valdemar and his son, Mr. Henrik, shall freely and unrestrictedly enjoy all their rights."
However, the war against Magnus of Sweden was not brought to an end with the conquest of the Scanian lands. Valdemar had to press on and fight on until Magnus was ready to acknowledge the new state of affairs.
Instead of pushing his way into Sweden through the desolate and harsh landscapes of the Götalands, which both Svend Grathe, Erik Klipping and Erik Menved had tried with little success, he chose to turn towards Öland and Gotland, which were far more accessible.
The Lübeck Chronicle writes: "In the year of our Lord 1360, King Valdemar of Denmark gathered a large army and said that he would bring the warriors to where there was enough gold and silver, where the pigs ate from silver troughs, and he led them to Gotland and knighted many there, since the peasants were unarmed and unused to fighting."
The king first went ashore on Öland. The Zealand Chronicle says: "He attacked Öland and laid siege to Borgholm on the island, took the castle and placed his own commanders there, fortified the castle and subdued the entire island."
On July 22, 1361 Valdemar's army landed on the west coast of Gotland at Fröjel, 34 kilometers south of Visby. The army consisted of 2,500 men, including 200 horsemen and many crossbowmen, all of whom were experienced and well-trained after 20 years of fighting on Funen, in Jutland, Northern Germany and Scania.
Five days after the landing, on July 27, 1361, an unusually warm summer day, Valdemar's army appeared at Visby's massive city wall.
The Lübeck Chronicle reports that a hastily scraped together army had taken up position outside the walls between Visby's city wall at Söderport and the nearby Solberga Nunnery. They were dressed in old worn armor and armed with whatever was at hand, when they were called to arms.
Valdemar Atterdag's army fought three battles on Gotland. The army landed around Fröjel 34 kilometers south of Visby, and we can guess that this is where the first battle took place. The second battle was at the Ejmundsbro bridge near Mästerby. The third battle was at Visby's city wall near Solberga's Nunnery. Photo Wikipedia.
The Gutian peasants were massacred by Valdemar's experienced and well-equipped soldiers. The priest Strelow says that 1,800 Gutian peasants fell. The Zealand Chronicle says that "infinitely many of the island's men had to give up their lives," The Lübeck Chronicle says that "Valdemar killed an immense number of people".
Modern excavations have so far unearthed about 1,185 skeletons in three out of five mass graves. The fallen were still wearing their chain mail, helmets and armour, as they were apparently buried in a hurry due to the hot summer weather.
It has been shown that at least a third of the Gotland army at Visby consisted of minors, elderly and cripples. One in five men was barely twenty years old, some were mere children, and one in seven was over 55. At least four were hunchbacked and several were stiff-legged, lame, or otherwise disabled. Their heads were pierced by up to several crossbow bolts each skull and crushed by maces. There were up to seven lesions per skull. Their legs had been chopped off by axes and swords. It seems to have been a common fighting technique to go after the legs, and when the victim fell, crush his skull.
One wonders, why the Gothic army took up position in front of the city wall, and did not enter the city and entrench themselves behind the solid walls.
The Lübeck Chronicle tells, that after the defeat of the peasants, the citizens of the city surrendered without a fight and handed over their valuables: "He marched forward to the city of Visby, but they met him outside the city and surrendered to the king's mercy, when they saw that resistance was impossible. Thus he gained control of the island and took a heavy treasure in gold and silver from the citizens of the city and then went from there."
But Valdemar's plunder of the Hanseatic city of Visby was to lead to a serious setback.
In the middle of a meeting in Greifswald in August 1361 between the Wendish and Prussian cities, news arrived of King Valdemar's conquest and plunder of Visby. The assembly became filled with horror and anger against the Danish king. They immediately decided that all trade with Denmark should be banned. Preparations were immediately initiated to unite all Hanseatic cities for war against Denmark.
It was the first time that the otherwise peace-loving cities had resorted to military means, and it was the first time they had acted in agreement, and it came as a surprise to Valdemar. Incidentally, it was only Denmark and Norway that were affected. They never before or since attacked other principalities or kingdoms in unison.
The Hanseatic cities united with the Swedish nobles, who acted on behalf of King Magnus. The Swedes were to be ready to begin the campaign the following St. Mortens Day, which was November 11. 1361.
Skull of one of the fallen men at Visby. He was hit by no less than three crossbow bolts, and his skull was also crushed on the left side. Photo Military Wiki.
But the Swedish chaos caused the campaign to be postponed several times and it was not until June 1362 that a fleet was able to sail up the Øresund under the command of Lübeck's mayor, Johan Wittenborg. It consisted of 27 cog's and 25 smaller ships with 2,730 armed men on board in addition to sailors.
The original plan was to attack Copenhagen, but at the request of the Swedish kings the fleet continued to Helsingborg. The idea was that the Swedes would attack the castle from land at the same time as the Hanseatic fleet attacked from the sea.
The Hanseatic fleet anchored off Helsingborg as agreed, but the Swedish army did not come. The Swedish nobles, who had been so eager to get the coalition in place, proved to be very lukewarm, when it came to their own physical war effort.
After some time, Johan Wittenborg got tired of waiting and sent his warriors and war machines ashore and began the siege himself.
However, Helsingborg Castle was a very strong fortress and although the war machines incessantly bombarded the castle walls week after week, there was no sign of surrender.
But shortly after St. Kilian's Day 1362, which is July 8, King Valdemar appeared at sea off Helsingborg with a strong fleet - probably early in the morning. He went straight for the sparsely manned Hanseatic ships, which were completely taken by surprise. Johan Wittenborg and his men could only watch helplessly as the king took all their ships and all their supplies.
When Valdemar then went ashore with his army, Johan Wittenborg realized that without supplies and without contact with his homeland, his army would be destroyed and therefore he asked for a truce, which was granted.
The Hanseatic cities themselves calculated that it would cost them the enormous sum of 202,000 marks of silver to ransom all the prisoners of war that Valdemar had taken. The unfortunate campaign became fateful for Johan Wittenborg. The Zealand Chronicle writes: "But their leader, Johan Wittenborg, mayor of Lübeck, was publicly beheaded on the square in Lübeck in front of the town hall since he had neither been able to destroy Helsingborg nor bring Denmark under the cities."
When the kings, Magnus and Håkon, finally moved into South Halland with an army later in the year 1362, they found that an armistice had been concluded. The cities blamed the Swedish kings for the defeat, because they had not come as agreed.
The armistice was extended in Rostock November 1362, but the peace itself was still to come.
Helsingborg Castle and Kärnan around 1580. The castle was located high in the terrain and was difficult to attack. Photo: From printed, older book Wikipedia.
Magnus and his son Håkon, the kings of Sweden and Norway, had grown tired of their nobles treating them as mere formalities. The mighty men of Sweden were secretly their enemies. They defied their authority, imposed obligations on them that they did not do the least to help them fulfill, involved them in wars that they did not help them wage, and when things went badly, they blamed the kings.
Therefore, the kings decided that it would be more advantageous for them to be on good terms with Valdemar than to be his enemy.
In December 1362, Countess Elisabeth of Holsten - the same Elisabeth, who twenty years earlier had been intended for Valdemar - was traveling from her homeland to Sweden to meet her betrothed, who was King Håkon of Norway. But a storm forced the ship to seek refuge in a port on the coast of Scania. Archbishop Niels of Lund had her detained.
Valdemar did not hesitate to seek contact with Kings Magnus and Håkon. They came to an understanding, and the wedding between King Håkon of Norway and Princess Margrete of Denmark took place in Copenhagen in 1363 Sunday after Easter, which was April 9, in the presence of King Magnus and Queen Blanche of Sweden.
Immediately after the wedding Queen Blanche fell ill and died a few days later.
Valdemar's only son, Christoffer, twenty years old, also fell ill and died. The Zealand Chronicle writes: "At the same time, Valdemar the Dane's son, Christopher, Duke of Lolland and Halland, also died - He was ill for a few weeks, and the illness did not leave him - and with solemn commemoration he was laid to rest in Roskilde Cathedral."
Margrete was 11 years old at the time and was therefore left in the care of Saint Birgitta's daughter, Merete.
In the summer, Elisabeth was sent back to Holstein. She took the humiliation very seriously and shortly afterwards went into a nonnery.
A real peace agreement was still to come. At a large conciliation meeting in Nykøbing Falster in May 1363, the towns rejected King Valdemar's peace proposal. When Erik of Saxony Lauenburg presented the king's proposal again in Lübeck in June, it was again rejected.
Damaged head from Trondheim Cathedral, which according to Prof. Jan Svanberg probably represents Queen Blanche of Sweden Photo: First images from the folkungatid by J. Svanberg Wikipedia.
In 1363, a delegation of Swedish nobles approached Duke Albrecht of Mecklenburg and asked him to appoint one of his sons as Swedish king, since they were, through their mothers, of Swedish royal blood. Albrecht's wife Eufemia was the daughter of the famous Duke Erik Magnusson of S dermanland and Ingeborg of Norway.
Albrecht of Mecklenburg's chosen son, who was also called Albrecht, then went with the Swedes and an army to Sweden at the end of 1363, and at the beginning of 1364 he succeeded in having himself elected as Swedish king.
The new Swedish king, Albrecht of Mecklenburg, was not a random German adventurer who had risen to become king of Sweden. His maternal grandfather was the son of Magnus Ladelås, his maternal grandmother was the daughter of King Håkon of Norway and a descendant of Erik Plovpenning.
In the Battle of Enköping between Västerås and Stockholm in March 1365 he defeated Håkon and Magnus, the latter of whom was imprisoned until 1371, when he gave up his claims to Sweden.
Håkon managed to escape and then traveled to Denmark to ask for help from his father-in-law, Valdemar.
But the king did not go to the field in Sweden immediately, as he wanted to arrange his own security first.
In July 1365 in Kolding, peace was concluded between the king and the counts of Holsten, where it was decided that Ærø, Tåsinge and the southern part of Funen were now in the king's hands. How this happened is not told.
In September 1365 peace was concluded between King Valdemar, ruler of the Danes, the Wends and the Goths, and the twelve cities, Lübeck, Rostock, Wismar, Stralsund, Bremen, Hamburg, Kiel, Greifswald, Anklam, Stettin, Stargard and Colberg, which contained detailed provisions for a number of taxes and rights regarding their trade in Danish market towns.
Først i maj 1366 rykkede en dansk hær ind i Sverige under ledelse af hertug Erik af Sachsen-Lauenburg samtidig med at kong Håkon angreb fra nord med en norsk hær. Om dette felttog vides kun at hertug Erik hurtigt tog Vährend og Finnveden i det vestlige Småland og desuden Varberg i North Halland og Elfsborg ved Gøtalvens munding. Allerede i juni - siges det - nåede kong Håkon frem til østersøen og tog Öland med Borgholm.
The linguistic boundary between Danish and German in Southern Jutland in the Middle Ages. From Henning Unverhau: "Untersuchungen zur historischen Entwicklung des Landes zwischen Schlei und Eider im Mittelalter", Offa Band 69, Neumünster 1990 and - Lars N. Henningsen: "Dansk i Sydslesvig", Flensburg 2009, page 13. Photo Malte89 Wikimedia Commons.
But dark clouds were gathering over Denmark.
Following a proposal from the Prussian cities, a large Hanseatic meeting was called in 1367 in Cologne on St. Morten's Day, which is November 11..
All of Denmark's enemies were breathing the morning air. Count Henrik of Holsten-Rendsburg married Duke Albrecht's daughter and revived the traditional alliance against Valdemar consisting of the Duke of Mecklenburg, the Holstenian counts, Duke Henrik of Jutland and a number of Jutland nobles.
The Swedish nobles harbored an irreconcilable hatred for King Magnus because he had restricted their freedom of taxation, but in 1368 they exceptionally agreed to pay half of their revenues to King Albrecht, a sacrifice that can only be explained by their fear of coming under the strict and ruthless King Valdemar.
A total of 43 Hanseatic cities were represented at the great meeting in Cologne. They came from Livonia, Prussia, Northern Germany and the Netherlands. The meeting resulted in the otherwise peace-loving merchants on November 17, 1367 adopting a declaration of war against Denmark and Norway: "Because of the manifold injustice and damage that the kings of Denmark and Norway had done to the merchants, they would be their enemies and help each other to equip ships and soldiers." This was followed by a list of how many ships and soldiers the individual cities would have to pay for.
At a meeting in Wismar on January 25, 1368, the princes and the rebellious Jutland nobles agreed on how Denmark would be divided between them after the victory.
Scania, Halland, Blekinge and Gotland were to go to King Albrecht. Duke Albrecht was to have Zealand, Møn, Falster and Lolland and the counts of Holsten were to have Jutland and Funen. The rebellious Jutland nobles promised to stand by Duke Henrik of Jutland and not make peace with the king until they had obtained Langeland for him.
At a subsequent meeting in Lübeck on February 2., however, the Towns were given permission - after the expected victory - to hold part of Scania until their costs were covered.
On 5. of February 1368 the Lübeck city council sent 27 identical letters to the princes and bishops of Europe, describing Valdemar's crimes in vivid terms. "The Danish king had haunted all the merchants of the Hanseatic League with arrests, bonds and imprisonment, with extortion, bloodshed, manslaughter and seizure of goods and other property."On 12. March the council sent similar letters to the Pope and the Emperor.
The cities' letters of feud were deposited in Lübeck and the 43 letters were delivered simultaneously to King Valdemar. At about the same time he must have received letters of feud from the united princes, Duke Henrik of Jutland and the rebellious Jutlanders. A large part of the Danish army was already tied up in battles against King Albrecht in Sweden.
The king appointed Henning Podebusk of Rügen as the Commander of the Kingdom of Denmark, who, together with the council of the kingdom, was to govern the country in the best possible way, while he himself, together with Erik of Saxen-Lauenburg, secretly, on April 6. 1368, sailed from Vordingborg towards Germany with a considerable sum of money to find support there in the fight against Denmark's enemies.
In April 1368 the storm broke out.
The enemies followed the distribution scheme that they had agreed upon in Wismar in January. The cities concentrated on the Øresund area. King Albrecht moved into the Scanian lands and Duke Albrecht took care of the rest of Zealand and the islands while the Holstenian counts attacked Jutland and Funen.
The Danes' strategy was distinctly defensive and did not require superior tactical leadership. There were no major decisive battles on land or sea. They retreated everywhere to many well-fortified and well-supplied castles and let the enemies consume their provisions, military supplies and not least money - for the salaries of the expensive soldiers - in front of the castles. Just as the Swedish nobles had ruined Erik Menved in 1309.
Several historians have blamed Valdemar for escaping to Northern Germany.
But let us imagine that the king had instead entrenched himself in one of the castles. Then the coalition would have put everything into conquering this very castle for precisely this reason, and they would have won it, because no castle can withstand siege forever, just as even the strong castle of Helsingborg fell in December 1369 after a long siege. Then the king would have come into the hands of the coalition, and they would have made a number of outrageous demands for his release, just as the Count of Schwerin did with Valdemar the Victorious and Count Gerhard did with Christopher 2. But the Danes avoided all this by the king instead going to Northern Germany and there worked to raise the princes against the rebellious merchants.
King Håkon Magnussen's betrothal to Valdemar Atterdag's daughter Margrete in Copenhagen in 1359. Margrete was then 6-7 years old and Håkon was 19 years old. King Magnus and Queen Blanche and King Valdemar were present. Drawing Lorenz Frölich.
The Holstenian counts united with the Jutland rebels and took Riberhus, Skodborg and Koldinghus. In May they took Viborg. In September Count Claus besieged Aalborghus, who eventually had to surrender. They took the castle in Randers. On the other hand, Fikke Moltke at Nebbegaard, Chresten Vendelbo at Skanderborg, Jens Andersen at Bygholm and Niels Muus at Kalø successfully resisted the Holstenian attacks.
The counts immediately acted as lords of the land. They called themselves "lords of Jutland", they issued letters in which they used the expression "our kingdom". They confiscated the crowns estates and the estates of their opponents and gave them to their own supporters.
The fleet of the Dutch Hanseatic cities arrived on the coast of Norway in April 1368 and caused great destruction wherever they appeared. They landed in Agder east of Lindenæs and destroyed 15 parishes. They burned the towns of Marstrand, Kongshelle and Lødøse with everything in them including castles, churches and monasteries and also hundreds of surrounding farms.
Meanwhile, Valdemar was working in northern Germany, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. His plan was undoubtedly to attack the enemies in the rear - or persuade others to do so - and thereby force them to withdraw their forces from Denmark.
However, in November 1368 Valdemar's supporter, Duke Vartislaw of Pomerania, suffered a major defeat at the hands of the Mecklenburgers in a battle at Damgarten west of Stralsund. After that, the feelings of the Pomeranian dukes for Valdemar cooled, as they felt that he had not given them any help in the war.
At the end of 1368, the king's friend, Duke Erik of Saxen-Lauenborg, died at Kalundborg Castle. "He was a man of friendly disposition" wrote the Zealand Chronicle. He was in Denmark, probably because the royal council wanted him to mediate in the war. In Saxen-Lauenburg he was succeeded by his 14-year-old son, also named Erik. Magnus of Braunschweig became his guardian.
After several and extensive destructions along the coasts of Norway, King Håkon of Norway concluded a separate truce with the cities in August 1369. The truce was to be in effect for two years.
In May 1369, the cities put all their efforts into taking the important Helsingborg Castle, which was besieged by forces from Lübeck, Rostock, Stralsund, Wismar, Greifsfeld, Stettin, Colberg and Riga. Even Mecklenburger forces participated in the siege. On 8. September 1369, the castle commanders Vicke Moltke and Hartvig Kale had to surrender.
The merchants' natural area of interest was the Øresund area with its important annual herring market. The capture of Helsingborg Castle was the turning point of the war, as the cities had thus achieved their war goals and therefore no longer had the same interest in continuing the war.
There were decisive peace negotiations in Stralsund on November 30, 1369, where a provisional peace was concluded between the cities and Denmark, which, however, would only have full validity, when it was accepted by the other warring princes and cities or at the latest in 1370.
The Danish delegation consisted of 25 men led by the Danish Kingdoms Commander, Henning Podebusk, formally on behalf of King Valdemar. A large part of the delegation members were commanders of the many Danish castles that were still resisting the coalition's attacks, and thus the opposing party was reminded that Denmark was far from broken.
Hald castle ruins on a peninsula in Hald Lake south of Viborg. The visible ruins date from the castle that Viborg's last Catholic bishop, Jørgen Friis, had built on the site around 1520. Previously, the Jutland rebel Niels Bugge's castle stood on the peninsula, which castle was probably captured by Valdemar Atterdag after his return from Germany. Photo Facebook.
It was decided that for a period of 16 years, 2/3 of all income from Skanør, Falsterbo, Malmø and Helsingborg with their associated countryside villages would belong to the towns as compensation for the losses, they had suffered in the war. The last 1/3 would belong to the Danish king. To secure these revenues for the towns, the four Scanian castles would be handed over to the towns. In addition, the king's cpmmander at Varberg would provide his castle as security for the Danish side's compliance with the agreements made. However, the Scanian castles would be administered by Henning Podebusk.
In addition, if Valdemar wanted to remain king, he would have to approve this agreement with his great seal. If King Valdemar should cede his kingdom in favor of someone else, the council of the kingdom would not accept him until he had been approved by the towns. If King Valdemar died, the council of the kingdom would similarly seek the approval of the towns for a candidate to the throne.
Many historians believe that the demands of the Hanseatic towns were quite moderate. They had no intention of territorial conquests. The demands of the towns in summer 1369 did not go beyond what they had previously thought was necessary to demand in order to enter into an alliance with Kings Magnus and Håkon against King Valdemar. One might think that they wanted peace for the sake of their trade. Furthermore, they could rightly fear a growing antagonism with the German princes, several of whom - inspired by Valdemar - were outraged that common merchants were jointly attacking princes.
During a visit to Prussia in February 1370, Valdemar declared his agreement with the council of the kingdom. But there is much to suggest that relations between the king and the towns were very poor, and the latter did not wish to negotiate directly with the king.
King Valdemar hesitated for a long time to return to his kingdom. In June 1370 he was in Kallisch in Poland to visit King Casimir. The following month he visited Emperor Karl IV in Prague.
Also in May 1370 the towns complained that the Mecklenburgers were engaging in piracy from Stegeborg on Møn. Increased lawlessness was, as always, a problem for the towns' trade, and this probably motivated them to seek understanding with King Valdemar, as in May 1371 he participated in a Hanseatic League day in Stralsund accompanied by a delegation from Denmark.
Pressured from all sides, Duke Albrecht decided to abandon his plans to take possession of the Danish islands and in August 1371 he also concluded a separate peace with Valdemar. The duke renounced all his possessions in Denmark on the condition that his grandson, Albrecht, whose mother was Valdemar's eldest daughter Ingeborg, should inherit the throne of Denmark if Valdemar died without surviving sons - which was likely.
After Denmark had made peace with the Cities and Mecklenburg, Valdemar turned his attention to the rest of the coalition, namely the rebellious Jutland magnates, their Holstenian allies and the Duke of Jutland. The Swedish king Albrecht seemed to have left Scania and remained apparently passive.
The rebellious Jutlandic nobles were - in addition to Duke Henrik of Jutland - drost Claus Lembek and the knights Stig Andersen, Ivar Nielsen Rosenkranz, Niels Eriksen Gyldenstjerne, Benedikt Ahlefeldt, Anders Offesen, Jens Nielsen, Niels Egesen, Poul Jensen and the armsmen Paul Glob, Gotskalk Skarpenberg, Tage Offesen, Hartvig Pogwich and Niels Stob.
During 1372 the counts were chased out of Northern Jutland. A Danish attack on Tørning was repelled, but the neighboring castle in Gram fell into the king's possession. The king besieged Hagenskov on Funen in vain.
It is believed that in the wake of the third Jutland rebellion, Valdemar took over the castle of the slain rebel Niels Bugge, Hald, near Viborg and several other rebels' castles in accordance with the provision of the peace treaty that said: whoever "brings in foreign lords and men who in any way can be to the harm or corruption of the Kingdom of Denmark, shall lose his peace, his estade and his life."
Now the Holstenians and the rebellious Jutlanders had also had enough. Through the mediation of Duke Albrecht of Mecklenburg, a peace was concluded in Flensburg in January 1373.
Claus Lembek and Stig Andersen had died during the war, but the rest of the rebellious nobles were hit hard, but mostly financially. When one considers that many of them had rebelled against King Valdemar for the second or third time, it must be said that they got away with it cheaply.
Under Valdemar's successor Oluf 2. a the Danehof decided in 1377 that "all real estade contracts that are forced by chains or captivity shall have no validity" and if someone claimed that he had had to give away his estates due to fear or threats and had not received half the price of these estates, then the case was to be handled by a special commission.
This undeniably raises suspicions that Valdemar had used particularly effektive methods to strengthen the royal power. But he was faced with the Jutland magnates, who for the third time had made common cause with the enemies of the kingdom in rebellion against their king. He must have felt disappointed. As we remember, he hesitated for a long time to return to Denmark after the Second Hanseatic War and in the peace with Mecklenburg the possibility of his abdication is mentioned, which states: "that if We resign or die".
At the Danehof meeting in Nyborg 1374, Duke Henrik of Jutland issued a letter, which attested that he transferred to the king his right to redeem Gottorp Castle with all its belongings from the Holstenian counts and further confirmed the king's possession of Langeland. Valdemar now offered the counts the 12,000 marks of silver for which Gottorp was mortgaged, but they simply refused to accept the money.
In the summer 1375, Duke Henrik died as the last of Abel's lineage. His widow, Kuningunde, immediately sought contact with Valdemar, who gave her a small loan.
The Holstenian counts were now in a corner. They could no longer count on support from the towns and Mecklenburg, nor from their southern neighbours Erik of Saxony-Lauenburg and Magnus of Brunswick-Lüneburg. It was only a matter of time before King Valdemar would cross the Ejder with an army. But unfortunately, Valdemar died in 1375 as told below and the southernmost part of the Duchy of Jutland did not return to Denmark on this occasion.
In documents from the time of Erik of Pomerania it appears that the king in 1375 was in possession of the castles of åbenrå, Haderslev and Lille-Tønder. Flensburg is not mentioned, but it must be assumed that the king still had this city.
Valdemar Atterdag's sarcophagus as it appears today, June 2019, in Sorø Monastery Church. Photo Hakkasberra Wikimedia Commons.
The Counts of Holsten-Rendsborg still had the city of Slesvig with Gottorp Castle and also the part of Jutland that lies between the Slien-Dannevirke and the river Ejder.
On Wednesday, October 24, 1375, King Valdemar died. The doctors had given him a fever-reducing medicine, which caused the king to sweat profusely. The door was then closed so that he could get some rest, but when it was opened again, he was dead.
He only lived to be about 55 years old. Only one of his six children survived him, namely the youngest daughter, Margrete.
He was buried in Vordingborg, as he had himself decided. He had rebuilt and expanded this castle to such an extent that it had become Denmark's largest royal castle.
However, as we know, his daughter Margrete obtained the Pope's permission to move both his grave and Queen Helvig's grave to Sorø Abbey Church so that they could be united in death and he could be reunited with his brother and his parents. Queen Helvig's grave, however, was never moved.
