William Edward Collins

“ For years his dominions were torn asunder by civil war; and Christian was still recognised as the lawful King by the Pope, the Emperor, and the Lutherans. The new King owed everything to those who had elected him, and concession was naturally the order of the day. To Norway he granted that henceforward it should be a free elective monarchy, as Denmark and Sweden were. To the nobles he made even greater concessions than Christian II had made at his coronation, promising amongst other things that none but noble-born Danes should be appointed to bishoprics in future ”

“ But the great revolt of the Ditmarsch peasants, ending in the destruction of the Danish army, with two Counts of Oldenburg and the flower of the Schleswig-Holstein nobility, in 1500, further weakened the Danish throne, and indirectly helped to break up the Union of Kalmar.
The general effect of the changes which had taken place in the Scandinavian kingdom since the twelfth century had been to strengthen the power of the nobles at the expense of the King and the bonder or free peasants. Neither in Denmark nor in Sweden was there a law of heredity ”

“ Under Gustavus' influence the mines of the north became vast sources of wealth; manufactures grew up everywhere, and commerce was fostered by treaties with England, France, Denmark, and Russia. Before his death, which took place on Michaelmas Day, 1560, he had raised Sweden to a condition of unexampled prosperity, and had prepared the way for the great epoch of the next century.
We now return to the Swedish Church. Although the Ordinances of Vesteräs had shorn it of its grandeur and delivered it into Gustavus' hands, they had not abolished its essential character. ”

“ The result of these Ordinances was to give the King all the power that he could wish for over the Church. Dispirited and almost heartbroken, the aged Brask before long obtained permission to visit the island of Gottland, which was part of his diocese, crossed the Baltic, and joined Archbishop Magni at Danzig. None of his brethren dared to oppose Gustavus' will.
Nor was it only the ecclesiastical order that suffered. In Sweden, unlike Denmark, none but the King gained power through the Reformation. The Riksräd, once all-important, was now nothing more than a complaisant royal Council. ”

“ Christian had himself reconquered Norway for his father: at his own accession he found Sweden practically independent. On the death of the administrator Svante Sture in 1512 the Rigsraad had chosen the old Erik Trolle in his place and had decided in favour of union with Denmark. But a popular party led by Hemming Gadd, the Bishop of Linkœping, had risen against him and set up Sten Sture the younger in his stead; who, being a wise and statesmanlike leader, soon obtained the upper hand. ”

“ Gebel Pederssön, the Bishop elect of Bergen, a man of far nobler character, had become a convinced Lutheran: in 1537 he went to Denmark, where Bugenhagen laid hands on him, and returned to take charge as Bishop of Bergen and Stavanger. For the rest, little or none of the care which was taken in Denmark to supply teachers, preachers, and schools, was extended to Norway. The under-manning of the Bishoprics was typical of what went on elsewhere. In large numbers of country places the old clergy were left till they died; at their death their places were left unoccupied. ”

“ From this time forward the power and the riches of the clergy had rapidly increased. They held large fiefs in all three countries; it is said that more than half of Denmark was in the hands of the Bishops, and Copenhagen itself was built on a fief of the Bishop of Roskilde. Their possessions, like those of the nobles, were exempt from taxation, nor were they liable to the same restrictions with regard to trade as the people at large. With some conspicuous exceptions, they were not less opposed to the Kings than were the nobles ”

“ But no man in all Sweden died for the old faith. A certain number of the clergy were deprived, but the bulk of them still went on; and their general condition may perhaps be gauged by the fact that in not a few cases they married their former housekeeper or mistress in order to legitimatise the children. The Bishops had lost much of their property, but were still comparatively well off; for many years the new Archbishop of Upsala, Laurentius Petri (called Nericius) , consecrated in 1531, used to support some fifty students in Upsala, and Bishop Skytte of Âbo supported eight abroad. ”

“ On the accession of the House of Oldenburg to the throne of Denmark in 1448, Karl Knudson was proclaimed King of Sweden, and soon afterwards of Norway also. Christian I soon regained his hold over the latter realm; but from this time forward the Danish Kings were seldom able to make good their claims over Sweden, which continued to be ruled by Swedish administrators until 1520, when the death of Sten Sture the younger placed Sweden for the moment entirely in the hands of Christian II of Denmark. ”

“ A general diet, so-called, met at Strengnäs on May 27, 1523. It is not clear whether the few magnates who still survived were summoned, but the diet nominated a new Riksrad, and then, on June 7 proceeded to elect Gustavus as King of Sweden.
The new King's position was no easy one. Although he had been duly elected he had little power; the peasants who were his strongest supporters were impatient of control, and the older nobles looked on him with jealousy, and almost with contempt. Sweden was so devastated by the war as to be practically bankrupt ”

“ The Swedish Church was definitely committed to Lutheranism; the clergy continued to be an estate of the realm down to the middle of the nineteenth century; and separation from the national communion was so severely punished that until modern days organised dissent was practically unknown. The endeavours of Charles IX, the most learned of the royal brothers, to widen the doctrinal basis of the Swedish Church, were on the whole unsuccessful. But it was not only in Sweden that the mote had far-reaching consequences. ”

“ Swedish Church, whilst his love for his consort, Catharine, the sister of Sigismund II of Poland, who was a Roman Catholic, inclined him to seek a reconciliation with the Pope, if it could be obtained on reasonable terms. Under his influence a new Church order (Kyrko-ordning) was drawn up by the aged Archbishop Laurentius Petri and put forth by authority, which became the basis of the practice which prevails at the present day. Care is taken for the education and examination of the clergy, though the use by them of books of Homilies, such as the Postilla of Olaus Petri, is permitted. ”

“ This was granted, in return for concessions to the nobles; as was also the claim that they should be supported in the exercise of Church discipline. But when they went on to protest against the propagation of the new doctrines and the protection of the preachers, Frederick replied that faith is free, and that each man must follow his conscience; that he was lord of men's bodies and of their goods, but not of their souls; and that every man must so fashion himself in religion as he will answer for it to God at the Last Day. ”

“ A letter from Adrian VI was presently received, saying nothing about the confirmation of the Bishops elect for which Gustavus had asked, and insisting on the restoration of Archbishop Trolle. The King wrote back in no measured terms, refusing to restore him; and in November 2, 1528, in demanding confirmation for the Bishop elect of Âbo, he threatened that if it was refused they would do without it, and that he himself would carry out the reformation of the Church. "Let not your Holiness imagine," he concludes, "that we shall allow foreigners to rule the Church in Sweden." ”

“ Thus the three realms were united under Queen Margaret, for her son Olaf had died in 1387. The personal union before long became a constitutional one. In 1397 Margaret caused her grand-nephew Erik to be crowned King at Kalmar; and on that occasion there was concluded, by nobles representing the three kingdoms, the famous Union of Kalmar, by which Sweden, Norway, and Denmark were declared to be for ever united under one King, each retaining its own laws and customs. ”

“ The Norwegians, fully occupied by their activities beyond the seas, in Iceland, in parts of Scotland and Ireland, and even in far-away Greenland, never acquired much strength at home. Denmark was usually the most powerful kingdom of the three. Under the Kings of the Estridsen line the Danes vindicated their independence of the Empire, and conquered large territories from the heathen Wends and Esthonians on the shores of the Baltic; in fact, there was a time, under Valdemar the Victorious (1204-41) , when the Baltic was to all intents and purposes a Danish lake. ”

“ Preachers were to set forth the pure Word of God and nothing else, whilst on the religious question in general a disputation was to be held in the presence of the Diet, and a settlement to be made on it as a basis. The disputation, if held at all, was naturally of no importance; and the Diet proceeded, on June 24, to pass the Vesteräs Ordinantie, consisting of twenty-two regulations on the subject of religion. By these, detailed provision was made for the confiscation of the bulk of the Church property, in accordance with the terms of the Recess. ”

“ On his way home the Archbishop had visited Copenhagen, and had done homage to Frederick I; nor does he seem to have flinched from his allegiance. But the spoliations in Norway now made him feel that the Church would be safer under Christian, or at any rate that they could get on better without Frederick. He was by no means the only man in Norway who held this view; and Christian himself was at this very time seeking an opportunity of invading Norway. Before long it came. The Bishops and the Danish nobles in Norway were summoned to a Herredagto meet in Copenhagen in June, 1531 ”

“ Such was the state of religion in Denmark when the struggle began which led to the overthrow of the Danish Church. In May, 1525, the nobles complained to Frederick I that the see of Lund had been over-long vacant: they pointed out that the Archbishop of Lund was "the gate and bulwark between Denmark and Sweden, as the Duke of Schleswig is between Denmark and Germany," and begged the King "no longer to allow that the Church in this land should be thus dealt with." ”

“ The Rigsraad, or Council of State, consisting entirely of the nobles and the higher clergy, altogether supplanted the ancient assemblies of the people as the final legislative authority. In Sweden King Albert (Count of Mecklenburg) was little more than the President of this Council. Even in Denmark things were not much better; and they did not improve. Under the Oldenburg Kings the Court was German rather than Danish, and its influence was none the greater on that account. ”

“ Christian directed that schools should be opened for the poor throughout his dominions; he exerted himself to provide better school-books; he actually went so far as to enact that education should be compulsory for the burghers of Copenhagen and all the other large towns of Denmark. ”

“ From 1517 onwards, therefore, Christian was endeavouring by negotiation or otherwise to take possession of Sweden. At first he had little success, excepting that in 1518, after an attack on Stockholm which failed of its object, he suggested an interview with Sten Sture, demanded hostages for his own safety, and then carried them off to Denmark, Bishop Gadd and a young man named Gustaf Eriksson among them. In the following year he returned to Sweden with a large army of mercenaries. ”

“ The Scandinavian nations had entered somewhat late into the general stream of European history, and, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, were still not a little behind the rest of Western Europe in civilisation. ”

“ As Duke of Schleswig he made peace with Lübeck, thus becoming free to use his army elsewhere. Then he dispatched his best general, Hans Ranzau, against the peasants of Jutland, who shut themselves up in Aalborg. Ranzau took the town by assault, and crushed the rising in Jutland by putting the enemy to the sword, sparing none but women and children. Thence he passed into Fyen, and inflicted a crushing defeat upon the main body of Christopher's army on the hill of Oxnebjerg, near Ässens, in which Gustaf Trolle was mortally wounded. ”

“ The property of the Bishops suffered in like manner, and especially that of the richest of them, the aged Brask, whom the King seems to have despoiled with special malice or policy. Archbishop Joannes Magni suffered even worse things. Injudicious letters which he had written to ecclesiastics abroad subjected him to a charge of conspiracy, on which he was arrested and imprisoned. The King allowed him to leave Sweden in the autumn of 1526, ostensibly on an embassy to Poland ”