Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading

by George Park Fisher

IV. THE SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES.

THE BALTIC LANDS.—There are three divisions of Europe which neither Charlemagne's Empire nor the Eastern Empire included. The first is Spain, which had been comprised in the old Roman Empire. The second is Great Britain and the adjacent islands. Only a portion of Britain was held as a province by old Rome. The third is the two Scandinavian peninsulas,—Denmark, and Norway and Sweden, with the Slavonic lands to the east and south, which may be said to have had a common relation to the Baltic. The Scandinavians had their period of foreign conquest and settlement, but their settlements abroad remained in no connection with the countries whence they came. Sweden was cut off from the ocean. "The history of Sweden"—as Mr. Freeman, to whom we owe a lucid exposition of this subject, has pointed out—"mainly consists in the growth and the loss of her dominion in the Baltic lands out of her own peninsula. It is only in quite modern times that the union of the crowns, though not of the kingdoms, of Sweden and Norway, has created a power wholly peninsular and equally Baltic and oceanic." The Germans and Scandinavians spread their dominion over the Aryan and non-Aryan tribes on the south and east of the Baltic. Finland, inhabited by a Turanian or Scythic people whose language is akin to that of the Hungarians, was long under Swedish dominion. Now Finland and the east of the Baltic are in Russia, while the southern and south-eastern shore of the Baltic is German. Russia, in modern days, having no oceanic character like Great Britain and Spain, has expanded her dominion westward to the Baltic, but mainly to the east over Central Asia. She has built up a continental, instead of a maritime and colonial, empire.

CONVERSION OF SCANDINAVIA.—In the earlier part of the Middle Ages, the two Scandinavian peninsulas are known only through the piratical expeditions which they send forth upon the two adjacent seas. By the way of the North Sea, the Northmen reached France, England, Greenland, and America; by the way of the Baltic, Russia. The conversion of Denmark to Christianity was completed in the eleventh century, under Canute; that of Norway in the tenth, and of Sweden in the eleventh. After the foreign settlements were made, and with the introduction of the gospel, piracy ceased, and civilization began (p. 239).

DENMARK.—After Canute VI. (1182), Waldemar II., the Victorious, was the prominent personage in Danish history. He conquered Holstein and Pomerania,—in fact, every thing north of the Elbe and the Elde. In 1219 he overran Esthonia, in a crusade for the forcible conversion of the pagans, when the Danish standard, the Dannebrog,—a white cross on a blood-red field,—began to be used. On his return, he was treacherously captured, and with his son was kept in prison in Mecklenburg for three years, by Henry, Count of Schwerin. Waldemar was defeated in 1227, in the war undertaken to recover the conquests which he had given up as the price of his release. He was the author of a code of laws.

UNION OF CROWNS.—Waldemar III. (1340-1375) regained the conquests of Waldemar II. This brought on a general war, in which the Hanseatic League, as well as Sweden, were among his antagonists (1363). Denmark, having control of the entrance to the Baltic, and exacting tolls of vessels, was a second time involved in war with that great mercantile confederacy and its allies, and was worsted in the conflict (1372). Waldemar's second daughter, Margaret, married Hakon VI., King of Norway. Hakon's son Olaf was a child at his father's death, and the regency was held by his mother. Olaf (1376-1387) was elected by the Estates king of Denmark. His mother, now regent in both countries, became queen in both after Olaf's death. In 1388 Margaret accepted the crown of Sweden; the Swedes having revolted against the king, Albert, who was defeated and captured at Falkoeping (1389).

SWEDEN.—War existed for centuries between the Swedes and the Goths, the inhabitants of the southern part of the peninsula. Each race contended for supremacy. Political union began with Waldemar (1250-1275), son of Birger Jarl (Earl Birger). Stockholm was founded in 1255. Private wars and judicial combats were suppressed, commerce was encouraged, and the condition of women improved. Large duchies were established, afterwards a source of discord. Magnus I. (1279-1290) was surnamed Ladulas, or Barnlock, for protecting the granaries of the peasants from the rapacious nobles. His reign was succeeded by war between his sons. As the result of a popular revolt in 1319, Magnus Smek, an infant, became king, and during the regency succeeded, by right of his mother, to the crown of Norway, where he (1350) placed on the throne his son Hakon. But when Magnus attempted to rule without the senate, he was deposed, and Albert of Mecklenburg was elected king (1365). But the nobles were supreme: in 1388 they deposed Albert, and gave the crown to Margaret of Norway and Denmark. Albert was held a prisoner for six years, and then renounced his claim to the throne.

NORWAY.—Magnus III. (1095-1103), called from his Scottish dress Barefoot, united the Hebrides and Orcades into a kingdom for his son Sigurd, and invaded Iceland, where he died. Sigurd inherited the spirit of Harold Fairhair (860-about 933), through whom Norway had been made a united kingdom. He made a voyage to Jerusalem through the Mediterranean, and was a renowned crusader. After his death (1130), there were fierce contests for the throne, the more fierce as illegitimate sons had the same right in law as those born in wedlock. In 1152 a papal legate established a hierarchy in Norway, which interfered in the struggle. Conflicts arose between the clerical party and the national party, in which the latter at length gained the day. Under Hakon VI., Iceland was conquered (1260). Magnus VI. (1263-1280) brought in an era of quiet, without stifling popular freedom. The cities engaged actively in manufactures and commerce. Magnus strengthened and organized the military and naval force. By him the Hebrides were ceded to Scotland. Under Eric (1280-1299), called Priest-hater, there was a struggle to curb the power of the clergy and nobles, in which the king was aided by the peasants. He was worsted in the conflict with the Hanse towns, and compelled to join their League. The accession of Magnus Smek, the son of his daughter, to the throne of Norway (1319), led eventually to the Union of Calmar (1397), in which Sweden, Norway, and Denmark were brought together.

"The situation of Norway, during the Middle Ages, might be shortly described as an absolute monarchy resting almost directly on one of the most democratic states of society in Europe." The greater families, by the partition of their estates, became a part of the class of small land-owners. Between them and the king there was no intermediate class.

AFTER THE UNION OF CALMAR.—After the death of Margaret, who governed the united kingdoms after the union, Eric XIII. of Pomerania succeeded. The union was shaken by the revolt of Schleswig and of Holstein, and was dissolved on the death of Christopher of Bavaria (1448), who had been chosen king. The Swedes broke off, and made Charles Canutson king, under the name of Charles VIII. Denmark and Norway remained united; and under Christian I. of the house of Oldenburg, whom they made king, Schleswig and Holstein were again attached to Denmark (1459).