In June 1397 the archbishops of Lund and Uppsala
crowned 15-year-old Erik of Pomerania
King of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.
The written agreement of the Kalmar Union stated that each
country was to be governed by its own laws but was to give
assistance to the others in case any one of them was attacked.
The three countries agreed to be ruled by Erik,
and his successors were to be chosen
from his direct descendants.
If his line died out, the counselors from the three kingdoms
were to elect a king acceptable to all.
An outlaw banished by one kingdom
was banned also from the other two.
All previous feuds were to be forgotten.
Yet the agreement lacked legality
because of Norway’s failure to sign.
Erik’s great aunt Margrete continued to rule the
three kingdoms until her death on October 28, 1412.
She had most of the forts built during the war taken down.
She visited Sweden and appointed many Danes to Swedish
and Norwegian fiefs, but she never appointed
a Swede or a Norwegian in Denmark.
Taxes could not be imposed without
a written order from the government.
She levied the “stake tax” on each home, the “rump tax”
on each head of cattle,
and the most criticized “Gotland’s release.”
Prussians seized Gotland illegally in 1398, but she bought it
back from the Grand-master of the Teutonic Order in 1407.
Margrete arranged for Erik to marry Philippa,
daughter of England’s Henry IV, on October 26, 1406.
Margrete also tried to get South Jutland back
from the Holsteins; but her interference was resented,
and the Holstein nobles rebelled in 1410.
After a year of fighting, an armistice led to an
agreement of arbitration shortly before she died.
Margrete raised much revenue for herself,
but she was generous to religious institutions,
donating 26,000 marks in 1411.
A Court of Arbitration opened at Nyborg in 1413
with King Erik as prosecutor, and Chancellor Peder Lodehat
for the Court awarded the duchy of Schleswig to Erik.
By getting the hof to recall the fiefs of the Holsteiners
in 1413 Erik started a long war.
He fortified his position, and the war began in 1416.
The fighting continued on and off until 1422 when Denmark
only held the east coast and Flensborg.
Heinrich Rumpold of Silesia ended hostilities in 1423,
and on June 28, 1424 Emperor Sigismund decided that
Schleswig and Frisia were part of Denmark.
Erik had gone to Hungary to see the Emperor;
he was happy and from there
went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
King Erik brought the Carmelites and Carthusians to Denmark.
He gave Danish merchants control over trade, limiting inland
Hanseatic business and making peasants
bring their goods to the market place.
In 1425 he imposed a toll on every ship
passing through the Sound; but this could not be enforced
until he defeated a Hansa fleet four years later.
In 1426 Lübeck and other Hansa cities
began blockading Scandinavian ports.
This especially affected miners,
and they began rebelling in the early 1430s.
Despite the Germans executing many of them, piracy continued.
After Hanseatic merchants left Bergen in 1426
with all their goods, the Victuals Brothers sacked it
two more times in 1428 and 1429.
A Norwegian fleet of one hundred ships attacked
the seven pirate ships; but the old Norwegian ships were
so inferior that they were either sunk or fled.
After losing the city of Schleswig, Erik’s powerful navy
defeated the Hanseatic League in 1429,
and the tolls on ships passing through the Sound were collected.
Queen Philippa had governed well as regent during Erik’s
travels abroad, and she was a good influence on him.
After she died in 1430, he reclaimed
more lands from aristocrats as “reductions.”
Swedes got tired of supporting his wars and resented
the King’s cruel administrator Jens Erikson.
Erik refused to bring him to justice,
but the Swedish Council dismissed him.
When Flensborg was lost in 1432, Erik began peace
negotiations that were concluded at Vordingborg in 1435.
After years of trying to keep England
from trading with Norway’s colonies,
he made a peace treaty with Henry VI in 1432.
News of a worse administrator coming
provoked Engelbrekt Engelbrektson.
He was from the mining region and appealed directly
before King Erik in Denmark.
The King gave him a letter to the Swedish Council
so that they could investigate.
When Engelbrekt came back with the results,
Erik sent him away.
So Engelbrekt led the angry Swedes.
The noble Erik Puke supported the revolt
and destroyed forts in Norrland.
Soedermanland rose up on their own and destroyed Gripsholm.
People in Vermland and Dal also rebelled.
Jens Erikson was found hiding in the Cloister
of Vadstena and was executed.
There Engelbrekt accompanied by a thousand soldiers met
with the Swedish Council, and on August 16, 1434
they renounced their allegiance to King Erik.
Engelbrekt’s army grew to fifty thousand men as it marched,
and by September three rebel armies were being led
by Engelbrekt, Bo Stensson Natt och Dag,
and Karl Knutsson Bonde.
King Erik’s fleet attacked Stockholm in October
and quartered royal troops in the castle.
Erik and Engelbrekt met in November and agreed on
an arbitration court, but military action continued.
In January 1435 the Arboga parliament proclaimed
Engelbrekt the commander in Sweden.
However, in October the Swedish Council affirmed their loyalty
at Halsted if Erik would respect Swedish rights and privileges.
Krister Nilsson Vasa of Viborg was appointed Viceroy (Drots),
and Karl Knutsson became Marshal.
Erik then made peace with the Hanseatic League and Holstein.
Karl Knutsson led the Swedish nobles against Engelbrekt,
who was murdered by Magnus Bengtsson on May 4, 1436.
The peasants had lost, and the parliaments stopped meeting.
A Norwegian revolt against the King began in 1436 and was
led by Amund Sigurdsson Bolt and five other noblemen.
They attacked Oslo but then withdrew.
An armistice was made on June 23, and the Council
met at Tunsberg to negotiate with the rebel leaders.
They agreed to expel all foreign lords by July 29.
A conference was held at Kalmar in the summer of 1436,
and Erik promised to recognize the rights of every state.
He went to Gotland and then to Prussia to raise troops to
support his choice of Duke Bogislaus of Pomerania as his heir.
He returned to Denmark in the fall of 1437 and acted
arbitrarily, giving fiefs to his Pomeranian relatives.
The Danish Council refused to accept the nomination
of his cousin Bogislav as his successor
because it violated the Kalmar agreement.
Erik sailed back to his castle in Gotland, and in October 1438
Karl Knutsson was appointed regent in Sweden.
Norwegians led by Halvard Graatop marched on Oslo,
but they were defeated by the royal forces
commanded by Svarte-Jons of Akershus castle.
In Denmark peasants rebelled against the nobility and the clergy.
The Council invited Erik’s nephew, Duke Kristofer of Bavaria,
and promised him the crowns of the three kingdoms.
In March 1439 Erik appointed Nils Stensson Marshal and
Commander of the Danish troops in Sweden,
and they accused Karl Knutsson of treason.
In 1438-39 mutinies had broken out in Satakunta, Tavastia,
and Karelia in western Finland,
where most of the taxes were collected.
In 1440 Karl escaped to Finland,
and he urged withdrawal from the Union.
Bishop Thomas of Strangnas in response wrote a poem
that described Erik’s tyranny and the quest
for liberty led by Engelbrekt and Karl.
In July the Danes deposed Erik and elected
his nephew Kristofer king of Denmark.
Erik left Denmark to live in Gotland.
For the next ten years he was at Visburg castle
organizing raids against the Swedes.
When the Swedes besieged him in 1449,
he surrendered the castle to a Danish fleet commanded
by Olaf Akselsen Thott and retired to his
Rügenwald castle in Pomerania.
Kristofer III was crowned King of Sweden
on September 14, 1441 and King of Norway
and Denmark in the two succeeding years.
Karl Knutsson renounced his claims
and was given important fiefs that included Finland.
Kristofer’s land law in 1442 allowed Finland’s two provinces
to send representatives to the assembly electing the monarch.
That year Krister Nilsson Vase died,
and Karl took over the other half of Finland.
He made Viborg (Viipuri) his stronghold.
Peasants in North Jutland led by the nobleman Henry Tageson
were in rebellion against the Council, but they were defeated
by Kristofer’s large army at St. Jorgensbjerg.
Thousands of peasants were killed,
and Tageson and other leaders were executed.
In Sweden and Denmark the noblemen compelled Kristofer
to accept a charter that reduced his power and strengthened
the Council, and Sweden gained complete autonomy.
Norway made no such agreement; but King Kristofer never
came back there after he was crowned.
People complained that taxes were so unjust that grain fed the
King’s horses while they had to make bread from bark;
so they called him Kristofer Bark-king.
The Hanseatic League signed a ten-year commercial agreement.
When Hanseatic merchants entered the Bergen city council
with swords, the Norwegian Council at Bergen met in 1444
and decided to scale back German privileges to what
they had been in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
However, in 1447 the King gave Rostock merchants
unrestricted privileges in Oslo and Tunsberg.
King Kristofer died on January 6, 1448
at Helsingborg at the age of 33.
Karl Knutsson went to Stockholm on May 23, 1448 with
eight hundred men and was elected king of Sweden in June
despite the opposition of the clergy and Oxenstiernas.
Karl VIII began his reign by taking Gotland from Erik.
Duke Adolph VIII of Holstein declined the throne of Denmark
and proposed his 22-year-old nephew Kristian (Christian) of
Oldenburg, who promised to respect the rights of the Council.
He was elected king of Denmark on September 1, 1448,
and at Copenhagen on October 28, 1449 Kristian was
crowned king of Denmark
and married the widowed Queen Dorothea.
In Norway the richest noble, Sigurd Jonsson,
had been chosen regent; but he declined the throne
even though he was descended from Haakon V.
Archbishop Aslak Bolt favored union with Sweden,
but Bishop Jens of Oslo and Baron Hartvig Krummedike
were Danes and led the Denmark faction that wanted
Kristian of Oldenburg to be king of Norway.
The Swedish party met at Baahus in February 1449
and chose Karl Knutsson.
The Danish party met at Oslo,
and on June 3 they elected Kristian.
He granted Norway a charter in July, promising that
they could keep their laws, liberties and privileges,
that no foreigners could receive fiefs nor be members
of the Council, and that no important matter could be
decided without the advice of the Council.
Karl was crowned king of Norway
at Trondheim on November 20, 1449.
He returned to Sweden, but in early 1450 he tried to
seize Oslo which was held by Hartvig Krummedike.
That failed, and they agreed on an armistice.
On May 1, 1450 the Swedish Council decided that
Karl Knutsson should surrender Norway to
King Kristian (Christian) I of Denmark (r. 1448-81),
and they made him cede his claim.
After Norway’s Council nullified the crowning of Karl,
Kristian went to Trondheim and was crowned
King of Norway on August 2.
Later that month representatives from the Councils of Denmark
and Norway met at Bergen and agreed that both kingdoms
should obey the same king and that a common election
should be held by the two Councils after the death of a king.
When Sweden did not provide Dorothea’s “morning gift”
promised to Kristofer in properties or 15,000 guilders,
old grievances led to a war between
Denmark and Sweden that lasted several years.
In 1451 Kristian came into conflict with Sweden over
who owned Gotland, and in 1452 Karl Knutsson
with a large army invaded Skane.
Archbishop Jöns Bengtsson Oxenstierna of Uppsala was
secretly supporting Kristian, and he laid down his cross
in his cathedral and picked up a sword, which he said
he would not sheath until the tyrant
was expelled from the country.
After the two-year armistice 1453-55
Karl was driven out of Sweden.
In 1456 Kristian signed a treaty with France.
At Uppsala on July 3, 1457 he was crowned king of Sweden,
and his promises to the nobles persuaded them
to elect his three-year-old son Hans his successor.
Kristian tortured men suspected of corresponding with the
exiled Karl, and he became unpopular for
imposing taxes without the consent of the Council.
Adolf von Schauenberg had been Duke of Schleswig
and Count of Holstein since 1427, and he died
on December 4, 1459 without a brother or son to succeed him.
In Schleswig the Holsteiners held the castles and large estates
while German nobles were in the high ecclesiastical offices.
Otto of Schauenberg had a right to inherit Holstein
but had no claim to Schleswig.
However, the nobles wanted to unite Holstein and Schleswig,
which was expected to revert to the Danish crown.
So to avoid a fight in March 1460 by the treaty of Ribe
the nobles elected Kristian duke of Schleswig
and Count of Holstein, and he promised never to separate them.
Kristian had gained Gotland from Erik of Pomerania.
He owed 103,000 gulden to the former princes
of Schleswig-Holstein, and he levied heavy taxes
and borrowed money secured
by mortgages of castles and crown lands.
During his absence he let the Grand Bailiff of Schleswig
and the Marshal of Holstein act with the
approval of the senate of each province.
He persuaded Otto to renounce his claims
for money and three bailiwicks in Holstein.
Kristian’s brothers Gerhard and Maurice
gave up their claims for 40,000 florins.
After Maurice died, Gerhard demanded the unpaid money,
and when not paid he seized castles in Holstein.
In 1467 Kristian ceded to Gerhard the revenues of Schleswig
and Holstein for four years and let him govern both provinces.
However, he was so tyrannical that Kristian had him arrested.
Gerhard promised to be good; but in 1473 he invaded
Schleswig with troops, and the King forced him to flee.
Archbishop Bengtsson had supported Kristian in Sweden;
but while he was in Finland, he relieved people
of their most burdensome taxes.
When Kristian summoned him to his castle,
the Archbishop began a revolt in 1464.
Kristian came to Stockholm in April with a large army,
but they were defeated by peasants
at Haraker in Westmanland.
Karl Knutsson came back as King of Sweden,
but the nobles helped Kristian force him back
to Finland in January 1465.
However, the Swedes did not invite Kristian to rule them again.
In Denmark King Kristian included five burgesses from each
town as well as two peasants from every district
in the first meeting of the Estates in 1468.
He approved renewing the ban on German internal trade.
In 1469 Kristian’s daughter Margarete married King James III
of Scotland, and Kristian mortgaged the Orkneys and
Shetland Islands to cover her dowry of 60,000 guilders.
After Karl died in 1470,
Kristian tried to regain the throne in Sweden.
He got money from Holstein and with seventy ships
and an army invaded Sweden,
arriving at Stockholm in July 1471.
Sten Sture led the Swedish army of 10,000 men that
in October attacked Kristian’s army three times.
On the third assault Kristian was wounded by an arrow,
and his army fled.
Swedes cut the bridge to the ships, and many Danes drowned.
Kristian did not try to regain the Swedish throne again.
In 1473 the German Emperor Friedrich III turned to
Kristian for help and granted him the fief of Ditmarschen,
which had not yet been subjugated by Holstein.
The next year Kristian took a large retinue
on a pilgrimage to Rome.
At Rotenberg the Emperor invested him with Ditmarschen,
Holstein, and Stormarn, and Holstein became a duchy.
Kristian visited Pope Sixtus IV
and returned to Denmark after seven months.
Two months later he tried to mediate between Duke Charles
of Burgundy and Emperor Friedrich without success.
He had to borrow money from the towns,
and many Dutch towns stopped paying the Sound dues.
Kristian tried to improve Danish trade by not allowing foreign
merchants in Denmark during the winter
and by dissolving all German companies.
To counter the Hanseatic League he made treaties with
France, England, Scotland, Burgundy, and the Netherlands.
In 1478 his son Hans married Kristina,
daughter of Duke Ernest of Savoy.
Kristian became ill and died on May 21, 1481.
He was known for his financial problems and for his failed
attempt to regain the throne of Sweden by force of arms.
Denmark was monarchical because the Council
was not elected but was chosen by the King.
The Council of Denmark delayed in electing Hans in order to
get the approval of Sweden, Norway, and the duchies.
Hans promised not to add new taxes without the approval
of the Council, which was also made
the highest tribunal in Denmark.
Hans became king of Denmark and Norway by 1483,
but Sweden remained independent for many years.
Queen Dorothea claimed two provinces for her younger son
Friedrich, and he was allowed to choose Gottorp,
but the parliament at Kalundborg in 1494
proclaimed the unity of Denmark.
Dorothea was an influence for maintaining peace,
but she died in 1495.
After the Swedish Council deposed Sten Sture,
he raised an army.
Moscow helped the Danes by invading Swedish Finland.
Then a Danish army from Saxony invaded the province
of Bleking, and they routed Sten’s army
at Rotebro on September 28, 1497.
Hans went to Stockholm, and on November 26
he was crowned King of Sweden.
Because of spreading venereal disease,
in 1496 Danish prostitutes were required to wear
red-and-black hoods and to live in special districts.
In February 1500 Kristian and his brother Friedrich
invaded Dithmarschen in Holstein, a peasant republic that
had become independent in the 1227 Battle of Bornhoved.
The Frisians routed their army of 14,000 in the marshes,
and 4,000 men were killed or drowned.
This disaster stimulated the Swedes to revolt, led by Sten Sture.
King Hans went back to Denmark to gather forces
while his Queen Kristina held out in Stockholm.
The garrison of one thousand
was reduced by scurvy to seventy.
After eight months she surrendered on May 6, 1502
and was imprisoned for six months.
King Hans arrived three days after the surrender
but returned to Denmark with their first ships
that had been especially built for war.
In 1502 King Hans sent his 21-year-old son Kristian
to command their army in Norway against an insurrection
led by Knut Alfson and Swedes.
Kristian’s army drove away the forces besieging Akershus
in southern Norway, and then the Danes
captured the Swedish fort of Elfsborg.
Hans set up a tribunal at Kalmar with Danish and Swedish
councilors who convicted all the
disloyal Swedish nobles of treason.
He even managed to get Emperor Maximilian
to confirm the convictions.
Kristian returned to Norway as Viceroy in 1506
and helped suppress a religious revolt in 1508.
While living in Norway, Kristian took the Dutch Dyveke
as a mistress, and her mother Sigbrit Willums became
a close advisor, especially after Dyveke died of poison in 1517.
King Hans made a treaty with England’s Henry VII
that lasted seven years and gave the English
trading and fishing rights in Scania and Zeeland.
Hans supported the towns against the German traders
even though it caused a three-year war against Lübeck
which the Danish fleet helped end in 1512.
Hans fell from his horse and died on February 20, 1513.
He had urged his son to consult wise men, forswear violence,
employ natives rather than foreigners,
and win the people’s love by governing moderately.
Kristian II immediately claimed the thrones of Denmark,
Sweden, and Norway, and he secured the first two
by the end of the year; but the Swedes
were in rebellion against him until 1521.
King Kristian formed alliances with France, Scotland,
Poland, Prussian and Livonian Orders, Riga, and Danzig.
He married Elizabeth of Austria on July 12, 1515,
and her brother would become
Emperor Carlos (Charles) V in 1519.
Kristian II would continue his violent ways
and would be called “the Tyrant.”
During the war between the rival kings Kristian
and Karl Knutsson, Olaf Nilsson captured Fort Elfsborg
in Sweden and offered it to King Kristian (Christian)
who reinstated him as commander at Bergen.
The Germans gathered a force of 2,000 men and attacked
the cloister of Munkeliv where Olaf had taken refuge.
Bishop Thorleif tried to appease the Germans,
but they killed him, three priests, Olaf, and a total of
sixty people and burned the cloister on September 1, 1455.
In 1457 the lords under Archbishop Jons Bengtsson
Oxenstierna,and the peasants revolted against Karl Knutsson,
who fled to Stockholm and then escaped to Danzig.
The Archbishop and Erik Axelsson Tott became regents,
and Kristian was crowned king of Sweden at Uppsala
on July 3, 1457, affirming the Kalmar Union.
He inherited Schleswig-Holstein in 1459 and imposed
special taxes so that he could pay off his brothers.
His Swedish supporters complained,
and they took over several castles.
In 1463 peasants in Upland refused to pay increased taxes
and were backed by Archbishop Jons Bengtsson Oxenstierna.
In January 1464 Bishop Kettil Karlsson Vasa of Linkoping
led the effort to free the Archbishop.
The common people of Dalarna joined the rebellion,
and in April an army led by Nils Bosson Sture and Sten Sture
defeated the royal troops at Haraker’s church in Westmanland.
They marched to Stockholm, and Karl Knutsson was
welcomed back from Danzig by those who had banished him.
However, he came into conflict with Oxenstierna and Vasa,
and on January 30, 1465 Karl abdicated his throne and retired
at Raseborg in Finland, though he retained the title of king
and his estates from his first reign.
Sweden was administered by Archbishop Bengtsson
and Bishop Kettil Karlsson.
Ake Axelsson commanded Varberg castle and most of Halland,
and in 1466 his brother Ivar with property in Skane
and Blekinge married a daughter of Karl Knutsson.
Some Council magnates replaced regent Jons Bengtsson
Oxenstierna with Erik Axelsson Tott,
who had married Karl’s sister.
Erik erected Olof’s castle in northern Finland
in territory claimed by Russians.
Nils Shure led Swedish nationalists
who fought the Oxenstiernas.
King Kristian had taken the Danish fiefs away from the
Axelssons who joined the nationalist movement.
They invited Karl Knutsson to return and hailed him
as king in 1467, the year Bengtsson died.
Nils Bosson Sture, who refused to be regent, and Sten Sture,
who married Ingeborg Tott that year,
helped install Karl for the third time as King of Sweden.
However, Ivar Axelsson Tott, whose fief was the island
of Gotland, governed for his father-in-law, a shadow-king.
When Karl died in 1470, Sten Sture inherited Karl’s land
in Finland and was his executor and guardian of his son;
he also inherited estates in the
south central provinces of Sweden.
Sten had married Ake Axelsson’s daughter
and he became the leader of the Swedish national movement.
King Kristian tried to revive his authority
in Sweden by re-establishing the Union.
He formed an alliance with the Hanseatic League
which blockaded Sweden.
On May 18, 1470 Sten Sture announced at Saint Erik’s fair
that he had taken over the government of Sweden.
Kristian came to Stockholm in September 1471.
The Oxenstierna faction supported the gentry and farmers
in Upland as well as the Union,
and they negotiated with Kristian.
Sten Sture refused and led the Axelsson aristocrats,
mining men of Dalarna, farmers in central Sweden,
and the merchants of Stockholm.
The two armies clashed at Brunkeberg on October 10,
and after a difficult battle the Sture forces were victorious.
Before this, town laws stipulated that
half of each town council had to be Germans.
Burghers of Stockholm distributed a petition,
and the Council of Sweden abolished those laws.
The University of Uppsala was founded in June 1477.
Pope Sixtus IV sanctioned the university,
enabling them to teach theology.
Many Swedes went to universities in Cologne, Prague, Leipzig,
Bologna, and especially Paris, where they had three colleges,
and three Swedes held the top administrative position of rector.
Sten Sture’s wife Ingeborg Tott paid to have books printed,
and she collected a large library at the Mariefred convent.
Sten Sture also opposed Kristian’s son Hans
who became king of the Kalmar Union in 1481.
Negotiations resulted in the Kalmar Recess of 1483
that guaranteed the privileges of the clergy
and nobles but delayed the election.
The Axelssons were losing influence, and in 1483
Ivar Axelsson tried to replace Sten with Arvid Trolle;
but a majority of the Council stayed with Sten.
That year Sten began his hegemony in Finland,
but he did not take over the stronghold at Raseborg until 1487.
Ivar went back to Gotland and turned over
the island to the King of Denmark.
The Song of Gotland describes how King Kristian
won Gotland from demonized Swedes.
Hans ceded the isle of Oland to Sweden,
but they still would not accept him.
German printers came to Stockholm in the 1480s,
and presses were operating in Vadstena
and other places in the 1490s.
In 1493 Denmark formed an alliance with Russia.
In this crisis the council of Sweden made Sten Sture
accept Hans as king of Sweden.
Sten met with popular representatives
at Linkoping to preserve his independence.
In 1494 Nils Sture died, and Sten took control of his fiefs,
disappointing his son Svante Sture.
On November 30, 1495 the Swedes and Finns under
Commandant Knut Posse turned back the Russians
from the siege of Viborg (Viipuri).
The next year the Russians ravaged eastern Finland while
Svante Sture sacked Ivangorod.
In March 1497 they made a six-year truce with Ivan III.
That month the Council dismissed Sten and confiscated his fiefs.
While he was appealing to the people, the Danes invaded
from the south and west,
defeating Sten’s Dalsmen at Rotebro near Stockholm.
Sten accepted Hans and was given Finland and fiefs in Sweden.
Hans was crowned on November 26, reviving the Union;
but he was not in Sweden where the Council ruled.
Archbishop Jacob Ulfsson (1469-1514), Bishop Henrik
of Linkoping, Svante Nilsson, and Sten Sture were on the
executive committee, the latter two having been bitter rivals.
The Swedish Council agreed that Kristian,
the son of King Hans, would be proclaimed heir
to the throne of Sweden at Stockholm in 1499.
By 1500 Sweden had about 750,000 people.
That year King Hans suffered a defeat against Dithmarschen
on the southern border of Denmark,
and in 1501 Sten Sture led a revolt in central Sweden.
Hans convened an estates assembly
and accused Sten of treason.
Prince Kristian attacked the east coast, and angry Swedish
lords renounced the King and made Sten national administrator.
He traveled much in Sweden, and plundering Church property
caused him to be excommunicated twice.
Yet he built churches and donated to cloisters.
Queen Kristina stayed in Stockholm castle with a thousand
soldiers while Hans went to Denmark
to get an army and the fleet.
After eight months all but seventy of the garrison
had been wiped out, mostly by scurvy.
She surrendered on May 6, 1502 and was kept as a prisoner
in the convent of Vadstena until October.
Later that year Abo and Viborg in Finland were captured.
Svante Nilsson invaded Norway.
Sten Sture died on December 14, 1503, but his death
was kept secret until Svante Nilsson was elected in early 1504.
He began by besieging Kalmar and Borkholm,
the only forts remaining loyal to the King.
He had trouble with the Council and fought
occasional wars against King Hans.
Silver was discovered at Sala.
In 1505 Danish and Norwegian councilors meeting in Kalmar
condemned the Swedish uprising of 1501,
and the German empire ordered the
Hanseatic League to embargo Sweden.
In 1509 the Danes raided Turku in Finland.
That year Sweden agreed to pay King Hans an annual tribute
of 12,000 marks; but Sweden did not pay because in 1510
a conflict between Denmark and Lübeck enabled the Swedes
to capture Kalmar and Borgholm.
Bishop Hemming Gadh negotiated an alliance with Lübeck;
but he was never recognized by the Pope
and lost his bishopric in 1512.
After the death of Svante Nilsson on January 2, 1512
his 20-year-old son, who was called Sten Sture the Younger,
managed to cancel the election of Erik Trolle
as administrator while they negotiated with Denmark.
In the summer Sweden agreed to pay the annual
12,000 marks to King Hans or to his heir Kristian.
Sten then forced the Council to elect him administrator,
and he promised to rule according to their will.
After the death of Hans in 1513 the Younger Sten
delayed the acceptance of Kristian II
even though the Council wanted to submit.
Sten roused the people to protest.
Swedish representatives negotiated with Kristian at
Copenhagen in 1515 and demanded that Sweden be
a free realm governed by consent of the common people.
Eighty-year-old Archbishop Jacob Ulfsson retired so that
Erik Trolle’s son Gustav could replace him and oppose Sten,
who accused him of conspiracy to recognize King Kristian II.
The regent Gustav set up a court at Staeket in Upland
and received subsidies from Denmark.
In 1516 Sten besieged the castle north of Stockholm,
and the next year Kristian invaded Sweden
with support from Russia.
Sten called a general meeting at Arboga in November 1517,
and they agreed never to recognize Trolle
as the Archbishop nor Kristian as king.
Kristian (Christian) was elected king of Denmark on
September 1, 1448 and king of Norway on May 13, 1450.
He was escorted to Trondheim by five Hanseatic ships,
and on July 29 he was crowned by a German bishop.
From there he went to Bergen, and on August 29
Norway and Denmark agreed on a closer union.
The Swedes made Karl Knutsson cede his claim in Norway
to Kristian, who immediately became
occupied fighting Karl in Sweden.
In 1452 Karl and his army invaded Norway and occupied
Trondheim; but they were driven back across the border
by Bergen’s commander Olaf Nilsson
who made the Germans pay heavy taxes.
They appealed to King Kristian,
who removed Olaf lest he help Karl.
Olaf led raids on Hanseatic towns and captured
several of their ships at sea.
An armistice began in May 1453.
Kristian had married Dorothea of Brandenburg on
October 26, 1450, and he came to Bergen
in 1453 with his queen.
The 1453 armistice in Sweden lasted only two years,
and then the war continued.
Kristian summoned Olav Nilsson, who had been
charged by merchants, but he fled.
Kristian confiscated his fiefs and appointed the Swede
Magnus Gren to command at Bergen.
The Hanseatic merchants devastated Bergen.
Nilsson took over the castle of Elfsborg
and threatened to give it to Sweden.
The King yielded, and Nilsson came back to Bergen.
Olav sent out privateers against the Hanseatic ships,
and those merchants planned to kill him and did so
at the Munkeliv convent, killing also Bishop Thorleiv,
several priests, and sixty people in all on September 1, 1455.
That year a royal decree promised that officials were
not allowed to oppress the people, impose unlawful taxes,
or arrest anyone without due process of law.
Kristian called himself King of Denmark-Norway,
and he often decided Norwegian issues
by only consulting the Danish Council.
In 1457 Sweden submitted,
and Kristian
became their king too on June 29.
When King Kristian imposed another tax in 1463
for a campaign against Russia, Archbishop
Jons Bengtsson Oxenstierna of Uppsala led a revolt.
In the winter of 1464 Kristian took his army to Sweden
and crushed the peasants led by Sten Sture.
When German residents in Bergen murdered the King’s
castellan they only had to pay a fine of 700 marks,
which was less than a tenth of what
the Church demanded for the murder
of the bishop in the same riot.
In 1469 Kristian’s daughter Margarete married King James III
of Scotland, but he could not pay her dowry of 60,000 guilders.
Without consulting the Norwegian Council he mortgaged
the Orkneys to Scotland for 50,000
and the Shetland Islands for 8,000.
He also gave up the payments for the Hebrides and
Isle of Man, and they were all eventually annexed by Scotland.
He needed financial help from the Hanseatic cities
for his war in Sweden and so stopped opposing
the Hansa domination of Norway.
In 1471 King Kristian led seventy ships to Kalmar
and Stockholm; but his army was defeated at Brunkeberg
on October 10, and Kristian was seriously wounded.
He went on a journey to Rome in 1474 with a large retinue,
and he had to borrow from Hanseatic merchants in Italy.
Kristian spent little time in Norway and was resented
for appointing many Danes.
He died on May 22, 1481.
Kristian’s son Hans had been elected King of Sweden
and Norway in 1458,
but in 1481 only his throne in Denmark was secure.
Like his father, Hans had spent time in Norway as
crown prince; but Norwegians wanted redress
of the wrongs they had suffered under Kristian.
On February 1, 1482 at Oslo the Norwegian Council
and deputies from Sweden agreed that they would defend
their rights and liberties, and neither would elect
a king not sanctioned by the other.
Norwegians complained that foreigners were
not brought to justice, but their own citizens
were severely punished for any violation.
They wanted redress of grievances before
they would accept Hans as their king.
In the interim the Norwegian-born Archbishop
Gaute Ivarsson was in charge of the government.
The Danish noble Jorgen Larensson had been made
commandant of Behus castle without approval
of the Norwegian Council, and so they besieged the castle.
After the Danes removed the commandant,
the Norwegians agreed to attend a conference
at Halmstead on January 13, 1483.
Sixteen Danes and nine Norwegians chose Hans
as their king,
but the four Swedes who arrived late had no power to decide.
King Hans promised that he would maintain the rights
and privileges of the clergy, that no foreigners should be
members of the Council, that foreign merchants would
not have privileges without permission of the Council,
and that each kingdom would have
its own archives, treasury and coins.
He also promised to return lands and revenues
taken from Norway during his father’s reign.
King Hans was then crowned at Copenhagen on May 18
and at Trondheim on July 20, 1483.
During his reign Danish nobles were appointed
at Akershus, Bohus, and Bergen.
The Dane Anders Muus was made bishop of Oslo.
Fighting occurred over these castles.
In 1502 the half-Swedish, half-Norwegian Knut Avsson,
the commandant of Akershus, quarreled with the Bahus
commander Henrik Krummedike and the King,
who suspected him of favoring the Swedes and removed him.
He was replaced by a Danish castellan
who lured him out of the castle.
Avsson led an uprising of the Swedes against the King’s party
in Stockholm and defeated the Danes.
Then he invaded Norway and captured
the forts at Akershus and Tunsberghus.
Krummedike led a large army to Oslo to besiege Akershus,
and negotiations began.
Krummedike offered Avsson safe conduct
on his ship but then murdered him.
King Hans sent an army commanded by his 21-year-old son
Kristian to the region where the three kingdoms meet
near modern Gothenburg to quell the revolt.
After torturing some Norwegians
he invaded Sweden and besieged two forts.
In 1506 Prince Kristian returned to rule Norway
as Viceroy and heir to the kingdom.
At Bergen he fell in love with the Dutch girl Dyveke,
and in 1511 he brought her back to Copenhagen as his mistress.
Her shopkeeper mother, Sigbrit Willums,
became one of his main advisors.
Kristian gave permission for merchants from Amsterdam
to trade anywhere in Norway.
In 1508 he cancelled the privileges of Rostock merchants
in Oslo and Tunsberg so that they had the same rights
as native citizens after they permanently settled in the city.
That year Herlog Hofudfat of Hedemarken led a revolt
against Danish nobles and killed one of them.
Kristian had the leaders captured, tortured,
and executed as traitors.
On slight evidence Bishop Karl of Hamar was put in prison
without a trial and remained their until his death four years later.
The Council was often disregarded, and Norwegian nobles
lost their fiefs to Danes in violation of the charters.
When Archbishop Gaute of Nidaros (Trondheim) died in 1510,
Kristian forced the canons to elect the Dane Erik Walkendorf.
King Hans died in 1513 and was succeeded
by his son Kristian (Christian) II.
He had been tutored by the humanist Konrad of Brandenburg
and became a man of the Renaissance.
In 1513 the councils of the three kingdoms met at Copenhagen.
The Norwegian councilors complained that Kristian had
already called himself the rightful heir of what they believed
had become an elective monarchy.
Also King Hans had not retained the Orkney
and Shetland Islands nor the annuities owed for the Hebrides
and Isle of Man according to the 1266 Treaty of Perth.
The Norwegians demanded equality with Denmark in the
Union, but the Danish Council of 29 members voted
with only seven or eight Norwegian representatives
(four of whom were Danes) to elect Kristian king of Norway.
King Kristian II (r. 1513-23) cooperated with the Danish
Council but treated the Norwegians with disdain.
He argued that the nobility in Norway was nearly extinct,
and so he granted their offices and castles
to native-born Danes and Norwegians.
Church positions and councilors would also be filled
by native-born Danes as well as Norwegians.
He was crowned King Kristian II at Copenhagen
on
June 11, 1514 and king of Norway at Oslo a short time later.
He married 13-year-old Isabella (Elizabeth) of Spain on the
same day he was crowned at Copenhagen,
and she brought him a dowry of 250,000 gulden.
His mistress Dyveke died suddenly in June 1517.
Poisoned cherries were suspected, and the chief steward
Torben Oxe was convicted by twelve peasants and beheaded.
Dyveke’s mother Sigbrit Villums became an even more
important advisor and befriended the young Queen Elizabeth.
Sigbrit hated the nobles and persuaded Kristian
to curb their power and help the peasants.
Kristian appointed her the administrator of the Sound dues
and all the tolls in Norway and Denmark.
The Black Death came to Iceland in 1402, and in two years
nearly two-thirds of the population was wiped out.
In 1413 Arni Olafsson, the new bishop of Skalholt,
was appointed hirostjori, putting him over all of Iceland,
combining the secular and religious authorities.
He collected property from all around but was
considered generous for giving some of it away.
In 1419 they pledged their allegiance
to King Erik of Pomerania,
but they added the demand that the promise
of at least six ships per year must be fulfilled.
Arni was succeeded by Jon Gerecksson,
who had been bishop of Uppsala but was
so vicious that he had been forced to resign.
He arrived in 1425 with a band of adventurers
who ravaged the country; he was eventually killed.
English fishermen and traders began to deal secretly
with
Icelanders, and they are first mentioned in the annals in 1412.
The next year thirty English fishing-smacks came to Iceland.
On April 13, 1419 the annals recorded that 25 English ships
were wrecked on the coasts during a storm.
In 1420 English traders attacked Bessastadir,
arrested a royal official, and killed his assistant.
Two years later two English captains killed some people
at the same place, and in 1423 English buccaneers plundered
northern Iceland and even took people into slavery.
The next year the pirates John Percy, John Pasdal,
and Thomas Dale plundered Bessastadir again
and abducted several officials.
John Selby led a band that captured Brand Halkdorsson
at Fljot in northern Iceland
and traded him for a ransom of codfish.
In 1431 King Erik asked England to pay an indemnity of
£40,000 for their crimes of the last twenty years in Iceland.
King Henry VI prohibited trade with Iceland
on April 28, 1433, but some illicit trade continued.
In 1440 Henry allowed two ships belonging to the
Bishop of Skalholt to buy goods in England,
but in 1449 Henry negotiated a treaty with King Kristian
(Christian) that prohibited English trade with Iceland
without his permission for the next two years.
In 1453 King Kristian appointed the chieftain
Bjorn Thorleifsson to govern Iceland and resist British trade.
In 1456 while on a voyage to Iceland Bjorn and his wife
were captured by the British and taken to England.
In 1463 Kristian decreed that Icelanders could not trade
with any foreign merchants who did not pay the duty levied
on Icelandic goods going to Norway;
but in 1465 he made a friendship treaty with England’s
Edward IV, who agreed to get permission from the
King of Norway to trade with Iceland.
After a while Bjorn Thorleifsson was allowed to go to Iceland,
and he had duties strictly collected;
but angry British merchants killed him in 1467.
His wife Olof paid a ransom for her son
and sent forces to attack the defiant merchants at Rif.
They seized three ships and killed many sailors;
fifty more were captured and released.
In 1468 Olof and her son sailed to Denmark
and told King Kristian what happened.
He sent Thorleif Arason to govern Iceland,
and four English ships were seized
in the Sound as compensation.
War was declared in 1469, but the English trade continued.
They made a peace treaty in 1474.
Bishop Marcellus of Skalholt was German and did not even
go to Iceland but used it for income until his death in 1460.
His successor Jon Stephansson Krabbe died in 1465,
but the next three bishops of Skalholt were native Icelanders—
Svein Pétursson 1465-75, Magnus Eyjolfsson 1477-90,
and Stephan Jonsson 1491-1518.
Jonson was a good administrator
and maintained the cathedral school.
Bishop Olaf Rognvaldsson of Holar engaged in several lawsuits
to make his adversaries pay fines, and he died in 1495.
His successor Gottskalk Nikolasson lived with a concubine,
and he was also rapacious to acquire property
for himself and his children.
He was arrogant and came into conflict with leading men.
He ordered the lawman Jon Sigmundsson to come before him
at Holar and levied heavy fines when he refused.
Jon cleared himself of most of the accusations;
but he was banned, and his wife was summoned to Holar.
She was forced to confess and pay a fine of 300 hundrad.
Bishop Gottskalk summoned Jon again
and imposed more fines on him.
He appealed to the King and the Archbishop,
who sent Jon to Bishop Stephan Jonsson of Skalholt.
He upheld Gottskalk’s decree, and Jon agreed to pay
200 hundrad and obey the rules.
After Jon was wounded with a knife in Holar
both bishops put him under a ban for refusing to appear again.
Jon went to the King who gave him a letter of protection
and instructed the Governor of Iceland
to make sure he got his estates back.
Yet Bishop Gottskalk bribed the Governor and had Jon
pushed off a bridge into a river, but Jon was rescued.
Chieftains tried to form a confederation to protect
themselves from the aggressive bishops,
but the people were too much under their influence.
Jon Sigmundsson died in poverty in 1520
the same year as Gottskalk Nikolasson died.
In 1481 Kristian’s son Hans became
king of Denmark and Norway.
He agreed to a convention with the Swedish and Norwegian
councils that prohibited Hanseatic
merchants from trading with Iceland.
On January 20, 1490 King Hans and King Henry VII
made a treaty to allow free trade for seven years
between Iceland and England
and also for Holland and the Hanseatic cities.
Englishmen who had established themselves in Iceland
were driven away in 1510 or 1511,
but they came back in 1512 with enough force to capture
one of the royal ships and kill one of the King’s secretaries.
King Hans was succeeded by his son Kristian II in 1513,
and he complained to Henry VIII.
He also issued an ordinance against Hansa trade with Iceland.