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At the end of the Viking Age the establishment of three separate Nordic kingdoms hardly seemed a self-evident course of future events. The prospect of direct Danish rule over most of southern Scandinavia, combined with an indirect overlordship of other parts of the region, must have appeared at least as likely. Yet, in the course of the early Middle Ages the kingdoms of Norway and Sweden came to comprise most of their later territories on the Scandinavian peninsula and developed far enough for their survival to be secured. During the same period Christianity was firmly established in all Scandinavian-speaking communities and its Church reached the organisational stage where bishops ruled territorial bishoprics from permanent sees with cathedrals, monastic institutions were firmly established, and payment of tithe was being introduced. From the beginning of the twelfth century the Nordic churches were also organised as a separate church province under the supremacy of the archbishop of Lund (Part II). All this does not mean that the political and ecclesiastical situation was stable at the onset of the high Middle Ages in the mid-twelfth century. The three kingdoms lacked centralised systems of government and their unity was seriously threatened by dynastic rivalry and succession disputes. In Iceland the original distribution of power among numerous chieftains within an all-embracing community of laws was in the process of being disrupted by the concentration of power in the hands of a small number of prominent families whose leaders ruled territorial lordships. As a separate legal entity on a smaller scale, the archipelago of Føroyar seems to have been dominated by chieftains and large landowners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the mid-fourteenth century, when the Black Death reached Scandinavia, there were about a hundred towns in the region. They varied greatly in size and importance, and were unevenly distributed. Denmark was the most densely urbanised with some sixty towns scattered all over the realm; almost all of them were (or had once been) accessible by sea. Norway only had about a dozen towns, all but one (Hamar) situated on the coast. In Sweden, including the Finnish part of the kingdom, there were almost thirty towns, most of them – and the most vigorous – along the Baltic coast and in the Lake Mälaren region. There were no towns in Iceland and the northern parts of Norway and Sweden. The only possible exception was the important trading place of Vågan in the Lofoten Islands whose urban status is a matter of debate (see Chapter 11). In the early fourteenth century there was, therefore, a relatively dense pattern of towns in the southern part of Scandinavia, which were concentrated in the coastal areas and linked by the traditional sailing-routes. This pattern was to determine the urban system of Scandinavia for the rest of the Middle Ages (and long afterwards). The few new towns established between 1350 and 1520 were complementary and generally unimportant. No new Danish towns were founded or granted privileges in the second half of the fourteenth century but in the fifteenth century Denmark saw almost thirty new foundations, many more than in the other kingdoms. However, with one exception, Landskrona in Skåne, they were of little importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The beginning as well as the end of the period 1350–1520 is marked by historical events of considerable significance both in Nordic and general European church history. In 1350 most churches with their institutions faced the acute as well as the long-term effects of the Black Death. The year 1520, on the other hand, was the year in which Luther definitely broke with the papacy, publishing two of his main programmatic works, An den Adel deutscher Nation and the treatise on the Babylonian captivity of the Church, and burning the papal bull of excommunication. It was also the year of the ‘Stockholm Massacre’ in which two bishops were executed in flagrant disregard of privilegium canonis. In 1350 the Church, like the State, faced new and great challenges just when its resources had been greatly reduced. Its national and international organisation was in principle still intact, and in Scandinavia no doubts were raised about its raison d'être. In 1520, however, questions were raised about its organisation, teaching and practices. At the beginning of the period the Danish ecclesiastical sphere of influence had already been reduced by the sale of Estonia to the Teutonic Order in 1347. In the course of the period the Norwegian church province lost several of its suffragan sees. In 1349 the bishop of the Hebrides (Sodor) was exempted by the pope from his obligation to visit his metropolitan, the archbishop of Nidaros. The papal schism also led to a division of the see, as Man was subordinated to York in the fifteenth century and to Canterbury in the sixteenth century, while the Hebrides (Episcopatus Insularum), for a period directly subordinated to the pope, followed the obedience of Avignon like the other Scottish sees and was in 1472 together with Orkney subordinated to the recently established province of St Andrews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the eleventh century Christianity was accepted as the public religion in most of Scandinavia (see Chapter 7). By the end of that century the Christian faith had superseded pagan beliefs in Denmark, Norway and the Norse island communities of the Atlantic, but this happened more slowly in eastern Scandinavia. In Sweden, pagan attitudes persisted even in regions where many people had been converted. The situation there was described in about 1130 by the Anglo-Danish monk Ailnoth: “The Svear and Götar, however, seem to honour the Christian faith only when things go according to their wishes and luck is on their side; but if storm winds are against them, if the soil turns barren during drought or is flooded by heavy rainfall, if an enemy threatens to attack with harrying and burning, then they persecute the Christian faith that they claim to honour, and with threats and injustice against the faithful they seek to chase them out of the land.” In some areas pagan burial customs continued to be practised long after churches were built. For example, on the island of Öland off the coast of south-east Sweden a community that had a stone church by the early twelfth century continued to cremate some of their dead even in the second half of that century. In the sparsely populated northern provinces of Hälsingland, Medelpad and Ångermanland on the west coast of the Gulf of Bothnia it was not until the first half of the thirteenth century that the settled agrarian population completely abandoned paganism for Christianity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decline and stagnation in settlement caused by the Black Death and the ensuing plague epidemics led to various kinds of crisis phenomena in rural societies throughout central, western and southern Europe. This is the reason why the term ‘late medieval agrarian crisis’ has been coined to describe the period from the mid-fourteenth to the mid-fifteenth centuries, though the grounds for using it have also been questioned. The effects of population losses and settlement contraction varied considerably among the European countries but certain structural changes occurred in most parts of Europe. As shown above (Chapter 18) rural society in Scandinavia was also marked by the repercussions of a dramatic loss of population well into the second half of the fifteenth century when the first signs of recovery manifested themselves in some areas. The decrease of population led to great economic and social changes, set in motion by the attempts of different groups to adapt to and take advantage of the new situation. Developments in the Nordic countries were in some respects similar to those in the rest of Europe but many differences can also be noted. As Scandinavia was neither economically nor socially a homogeneous area before the mid-fourteenth century the results and effects of the population loss also varied considerably within the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early and high Middle Ages there was a considerable expansion of population, settlement and production not only in Scandinavia but all over Europe. By the early decades of the fourteenth century it appears that this expansion had begun to slow down in western and northern Europe and that a decline even occurred in places. Clearing of the land had advanced into areas of poorer soil or less favourable climate, or had led to the establishment of farms that were too small to be viable. Population sizes may thus have been approaching the limits of subsistence. It should be noted, however, that this ‘marginal land theory’ and the assumption that a decline in population had, for example, already set in around 1320 in England have also been criticised as insufficiently evidenced. Another factor was that serious epidemics were beginning to break out by that time. Moreover, the climate started to turn colder towards the end of the thirteenth century and the period from approximately 1330 to 1390 appears to have been a cold interval in Scandinavia. In 1931 the historian C. A. Christensen showed that land prices in Sjælland dropped dramatically from about 1330, reflecting a corresponding fall in land rents. From this it has generally been assumed that an agrarian crisis was in evidence in Denmark by the first half of the fourteenth century, with deserted farms being referred to around 1315 and abandoned churches in the diocese of Ribe by the beginning of the fourteenth century. More recently, however, it has been argued that the latter signs of crisis have not been sufficiently documented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of mentality deals with a great variety of topics; ultimately, it is a way of regarding history rather than a particular discipline. For this reason, a short survey like the present chapter has to be fairly selective, the more so as this approach to history – with some exceptions – has been introduced fairly recently to Scandinavia and has not resulted in many empirical studies. This treatment of mentality will be linked to the two great organisations that were built up in Scandinavia in the high Middle Ages: the monarchy and the Church. In this way, it will also be possible to treat mentality in close connection with ideology, i.e. to discuss changes in the implicit aspect of thought and behaviour as well as doctrines and constitutional principles. The old society and the new: a royalist programme of the thirteenth century A main theme in most surveys of the Scandinavian countries until around 1300 is the growth of the state (cf. Chapter 12). The mental aspect of this development is illustrated particularly clearly in The King's Mirror, a Norwegian work from the mid-thirteenth century, formed as a dialogue between a father and a son. To its author the king is first and foremost a judge, a picture which accords well with the above-mentioned development of royal justice in Norway at the time. As God's representative on earth, he should represent an impersonal justice above the parties and judge them according to their merits, taking into account not only the external facts of the case but also its circumstances, the intentions of the criminal, as well as his or her whole personality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development of settlement Sedentary settlement in Scandinavia was predominantly agrarian during the Iron Age and the Middle Ages. Grain cultivation and animal husbandry were the basic means of providing sustenance, but were complemented, according to local conditions, by various forms of hunting, fishing and gathering. We have seen (Chapter 1) that large parts of Scandinavia are marginal for agriculture. In high-lying areas and in the far north climate does not permit grain growing. Areas of high elevation also lack the necessary conditions for pastoralism, which can, on the other hand, be successfully practised in Iceland and also in favourable locations in Greenland. Nevertheless, the Nordic climate is considerably more favourable than at the same latitudes in many other parts of the globe. This is mainly due to the effects of the Gulf Stream. The positive difference between mean annual temperature in various parts of Sweden and global mean temperature at the same latitudes is between 5 and 7°C. The distribution of sedentary settlement at the beginning of the Middle Ages, i.e. around AD 1000, can be established in various ways. The archaeological record, mainly cemeteries and dwelling sites, points to the extent and locations of such settlement. With the exception of Finland, types of place-names can be used to determine the age of settlements; for example, certain types of suffixes in place-names belong largely to the Viking Age and earlier periods, others to the Middle Ages and later periods. However, there are also types of names that were widely used during both the Viking and Middle Ages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, the two royal rune stones at Jelling (see Chapter 6) mark the beginning of Danish history. The smaller one bears the inscription ‘King Gorm made this monument in honour of his wife, Tyre, the pride of Denmark’. The larger one relates that ‘King Harald ordered these monuments to be made in honour of his father, Gorm, and his mother, Tyre – that Harald who won for himself all Denmark, and Norway, and made the Danes Christian’. Exact dating of runes is rarely possible, but on the basis of the royal names, known from foreign written sources, the Jelling inscriptions have been dated to the second half of the tenth century. They present the first two generations of the royal dynasty that has reigned in Denmark ever since. In the ninth and tenth centuries the title of konungr (king) could be used by several petty rulers at the same time but on the Jelling stone it is reserved for the single ruler of the whole of Denmark and at least part of Norway. In the country itself the name of Denmark (tanmaurk, modern Danish Danmark) first occurs on the Jelling stones. However, Denamearc was already known to the Norwegian magnate Ohthere (Ottar) who visited King Alfred in England in about 890, and shortly afterwards Abbot Regino of Prüm (d. 915) mentions the name of Denimerca in his Chronica. The name consists of two parts: ‘Dan’ designates the people, the Danes (OD danir), whereas ‘mark’ has several meanings. One of them, ‘borderland’, would seem to fit the situation of the country at that time, though it is uncertain which border is meant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]