With regard to the more distant relations of the three kingdoms, this period is marked by the gradual withdrawal of Scandinavian power from the oceanic lands. ♦Iceland and Greenland united to Norway. 1261-1262.♦ The union of Iceland and Greenland with Norway was the union of one Scandinavian land with another. But Greenland, the most distant Scandinavian land, vanishes from history about the time of the Calmar union. The Scandinavian settlements in and about the British Islands all passed away. ♦Ireland.♦ The Ostmen of Ireland were lost in the mass of the Teutonic settlers who passed from England into Ireland. ♦The Western Isles. Man. 1264.♦ The Western Isles were sold to Scotland; Man passed under Scottish and English supremacy. ♦Orkney pledged. 1468.♦ Orkney and Shetland were pledged to the Scottish crown; and, though never formally ceded, they have become incorporated with the British kingdom.
♦Swedish advance in Finland.
1248-1293.♦
East of the Gulf of Bothnia Swedish rule advanced. Attempts at conquest both in Russia and in Esthland failed, but Finland and Carelia were fully subdued, and the Swedish power reached to Lake Ladoga. ♦Esthland Danish. 1238-1346.♦ Denmark made a more lasting, but still short-lived, settlement in Esthland. ♦Short-lived greatness of Denmark.♦ The growth of Denmark at the other end of the Baltic lands began earlier and was checked sooner. But at the beginning of the thirteenth century things looked as if Denmark was about to become the chief power on all the Baltic coasts.
♦Holstein.♦
South of the boundary stream of the Eider the lands which make up the modern Holstein formed three settlements, two Teutonic and one Slavonic. ♦Ditmarschen.♦ To the west lay the free Frisian land of Ditmarschen. ♦Holstein.♦ In the middle were the lands of the Saxons beyond the Elbe—the Holtsætan—with Stormarn immediately on the Elbe. ♦Wagria.♦ On the Baltic side lay the Slavonic land of Wagria, which at the beginning of the twelfth century formed part of the kingdom of Sclavinia, a kingdom stretching from the haven of Kiel to the islands at the mouth of the Oder. ♦Danish conquest of Sclavinia. 1168-1189.♦ In these lands began the eastern advance of Denmark in the latter half of the twelfth century. All Sclavinia was won, with at least a supremacy over the Pomeranian land as far as the Riddow. Thus far the Danish conquests, won mainly over Slaves, continue the chain of occasional Scandinavian occupation on those coasts, from the tenth century to the nineteenth. In another point of view, the Christian advance, the overthrow of the chief centre of Slavonic heathendom in Rügen, carries on the work of the Saxon Dukes. ♦Danish advance in Germany.♦ But in the first years of the next century began a Danish occupation of German ground. Holstein, and Lübeck itself, were won; a claim was set up to the free land of Ditmarschen; and all these conquests were confirmed by an Imperial grant.[64] ♦1214.♦ The Danish kings now took the title of Kings of the Slaves, afterwards of the Vandals or Wends. ♦Fall of the Danish power. 1223-1227.♦ But this dominion was soon broken up by the captivity of the Danish king Waldemar. The Eider became again the boundary. ♦Denmark keeps Rügen, till ceded 1325, 1438.♦ Of her Slavonic dominion Denmark kept only an outlying fragment, the isle of Rügen and the neighbouring coast. This remained Danish for a hundred years longer, nominally for a hundred years longer still.
The next changes tended to draw the lands immediately on each side of the Eider into close connexion with one another. ♦Duchy of South Jutland. 1232.♦ The southern part of the Danish peninsula, from the Eider to the Aa, became a distinct fief of the Danish crown, held by a Danish prince under the name of the duchy of South-Jutland—Jutia or Sunder-Jutia. ♦United with Holstein. 1325.♦ In the next century this duchy and the county of Holstein are found in the hands of the same prince, and it is held that his grant of the Danish duchy contained a promise that it should never be united with the Danish crown. ♦Duchy of Sleswick.♦ Henceforth South-Jutland begins to be spoken of as the duchy of Sleswick. But of the lands held together, Sleswick remained a fief of Denmark, while Holstein remained a fief of the Empire. ♦Fluctuations of Sleswick and Holstein.♦ The duchy was several times united to the crown and again granted out. ♦1424.♦ At one moment of union the Roman King Sigismund expressly confirmed the union, and acknowledged Sleswick as a Danish land. ♦1448.♦ At the next grant of the duchy, its perpetual separation from the crown is alleged to have been again confirmed by Christian the First. ♦1460.♦ Yet Christian himself, already king of the three kingdoms, was afterwards elected Duke of Sleswick and Count of Holstein. The election was accompanied by a declaration that the two principalities, though the one was held of the Empire and the other of the Danish crown, should never be separated. ♦Duchy of Holstein. 1474.♦ In the same reign an Imperial grant raised the counties of Holstein and Stormarn with the land of Ditmarsh to the rank of a duchy. But the dominions of its duke were not a continuous territory stretching from sea to sea. ♦Freedom in Ditmarschen.
Bishopric of Lübeck.♦ To the west, Ditmarschen—notwithstanding a renewed Imperial grant—remained free; to the east, some districts of the old Wagria formed the bishopric of Lübeck. ♦Denmark, Sleswick, and Holstein under Christian.♦ But now for the first time the same prince reigned in the threefold character of King of Denmark, Duke of the Danish fief of Sleswick, and Duke of the Imperial fief of Holstein. Endless shiftings, divisions, and reunions of various parts of the two duchies followed. ♦Royal and Ducal lines. 1580.♦ In the partitions between the royal and ducal lines of the house of Oldenburg, the several portions of the Kings of Denmark and of the Dukes of Gottorp paid no regard to the boundary of the Eider, but each was made up of detached parts of both duchies. ♦Conquest of Ditmarschen. 1559.♦ Meanwhile the freedom of Ditmarschen came to an end, and the old Frisian land became part of the royal share of the duchy of Holstein. ♦Acquisition of Dago and Oesel.♦ And, as we began our story of Danish advance with the settlement in Esthland, we have to end it for the present with the acquisition of the islands of Dago and Oesel off the same coasts.
♦Effect of the Danish advance on the Slavonic lands.♦
After the loss of Rügen, Denmark had little to do with the Slavonic lands, except so far as the possession of Holstein carried with it the possession of the old Slavonic land of Wagria. Still the advance of Denmark at the end of the twelfth century had a lasting effect on the Slavonic lands by altogether shaking the Polish dominion on the Baltic. But it shook it to the advantage, not of Scandinavia, but of Germany. Between the twelfth century and the fourteenth Poland lost all its western dominions. Pomore, Pommern, Pomerania, the seaboard of the Lechish Slaves, is strictly the land between the mouth of the Vistula and the mouth of the Oder; but the name had already spread further to the West. ♦Pomerania falls away from Poland.♦ After the fall of the Danish power on this coast, Pomerania west of the Riddow altogether fell away from Poland. ♦Duchy of Slavia.♦ As the duchy of Slavia, it became, like Mecklenburg, a land of the Empire, though ruled by Slavonic princes. ♦1298-1305. Loss of western territory by Poland.♦ But the eastern part of Pomerania, Cassubia and the mark of Gdansk or Danzig, remained under Polish superiority till the beginning of the fourteenth century. Then the greater part fell away, partly for ever, to the Pomeranian duchy of Wolgast, partly, for a season only, to the Teutonic Knights. ♦1220-1260.♦ To the south Barnim and Custrin passed, after some shiftings, to the mark of Brandenburg. ♦Silesia. 1289-1327.♦ Further to the south, Silesia, divided among princes of the house of Piast, gradually fell under Bohemian supremacy. Thus the whole western part of the Polish kingdom passed into the hands of princes of the Empire, and was included within the bounds of the German realm.
The fate of Silesia brings us again to the history of the inland Slavonic land of the Czechs. Bohemia went on, as duchy and kingdom,[65] ruled by native princes as vassals of the Empire. Moravia was a fief of Bohemia. In the end Bohemia passed to German kings, but not till it had become again the centre of a dominion which recalls the fleeting powers of Samo and Sviatopluk. ♦Bohemia and Ottocar. 1269-1278.♦ Ottocar the Second united the long-severed branches of the Slavonic race by annexing the German lands which lay between them. ♦His German dominion.♦ Lord of Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, the Czech king reigned on the upper Oder and the middle Danube as far as the Hadriatic. The same lands were in after times to be again united, but from the opposite side.
♦Luxemburg kings of Bohemia. 1308.♦