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History of Denmark

The history of Denmark as a unified kingdom began in the 8th century, but historic documents describe the geographic area and the people living there—the Danes—as early as 500 AD. These early documents include the writings of Jordanes and Procopius. With the Christianization of the Danes c. 960 AD, it is clear that there existed a kingship. King Frederik X can trace his lineage back to the Viking kings Gorm the Old and Harald Bluetooth from this time, thus making the Monarchy of Denmark the oldest in Europe.[1] The area now known as Denmark has a rich prehistory, having been populated by several prehistoric cultures and people for about 12,000 years, since the end of the last ice age.

Homann's map of the Scandinavian Peninsula and Fennoscandia with their surrounding territories: northern Germany, northern Poland, the Baltic region, Livonia, Belarus, and parts of Northwest Russia. Johann Baptist Homann (1664–1724) was a German geographer and cartographer; map dated around 1730.

Denmark's history has particularly been influenced by its geographical location between the North and Baltic seas, a strategically and economically important placement between Sweden and Germany, at the center of mutual struggles for control of the Baltic Sea (dominium maris baltici). Denmark was long in disputes with Sweden over control of Skånelandene and with Germany over control of Schleswig (a Danish fief) and Holstein (a German fief).

Eventually, Denmark lost these conflicts and ended up ceding first Skåneland to Sweden and later Schleswig-Holstein to the German Empire. After the eventual cession of Norway in 1814, Denmark retained control of the old Norwegian colonies of the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Iceland. During the 20th century, Iceland gained independence, Greenland and the Faroes became integral parts of the Kingdom of Denmark and North Schleswig reunited with Denmark in 1920 after a referendum. During World War II, Denmark was occupied by Nazi Germany, but was eventually liberated by British forces of the Allies in 1945,[2] after which it joined the United Nations. In the aftermath of World War II, and with the emergence of the subsequent Cold War, Denmark was quick to join the military alliance of NATO as a founding member in 1949.

Prehistoric Denmark edit

The Scandinavian region has a rich prehistory, having been populated by several prehistoric cultures and people for about 12,000 years, since the end of the last ice age. During the ice age, all of Scandinavia was covered by glaciers most of the time, except for the southwestern parts of what we now know as Denmark. When the ice began retreating, the barren tundras were soon inhabited by reindeer and elk, and Ahrenburg and Swiderian hunters from the south followed them here to hunt occasionally. The geography then was very different from what we know today. Sea levels were much lower; the island of Great Britain was connected by a land bridge to mainland Europe and the large area between Great Britain and the Jutlandic peninsula – now beneath the North Sea and known as Doggerland – was inhabited by tribes of hunter-gatherers. As the climate warmed up, forceful rivers of meltwater started to flow and shape the virgin lands, and more stable flora and fauna gradually began emerging in Scandinavia, and Denmark in particular. The first human settlers to inhabit Denmark and Scandinavia permanently were the Maglemosian people, residing in seasonal camps and exploiting the land, sea, rivers and lakes. It was not until around 6,000 BC that the approximate geography of Denmark as we know it today had been shaped.

Denmark has some unique natural conditions for preservation of artifacts, providing a rich and diverse archeological record from which to understand the prehistoric cultures of this area.

Stone and Bronze Age edit

 
Stone Dolmen near Vinstrup, Nørhald. Built in the 3rd millennium BC.

The Weichsel glaciation covered all of Denmark most of the time, except the western coasts of Jutland. It ended around 13,000 years ago, allowing humans to move back into the previously ice-covered territories and establish permanent habitation. During the first post-glacial millennia, the landscape gradually changed from tundra to light forest, and varied fauna including now-extinct megafauna appeared. Early prehistoric cultures uncovered in modern Denmark include the Maglemosian culture (9,500–6,000 BC); the Kongemose culture (6,000–5,200 BC), the Ertebølle culture (5,300–3,950 BC), and the Funnelbeaker culture (4,100–2,800 BC).

 
The famous Trundholm sun chariot (called Solvognen in Danish), a sculpture of the sun pulled by a mare. Scholars have dated it to some time in the 15th century BC and believe that it illustrates an important concept expressed in Nordic Bronze Age mythology.

The first inhabitants of this early post-glacial landscape in the so-called Boreal period, were very small and scattered populations living from hunting of reindeer and other land mammals and gathering whatever fruits the climate was able to offer. Around 8,300 BC the temperature rose drastically, now with summer temperatures around 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit), and the landscape changed into dense forests of aspen, birch and pine and the reindeer moved north, while aurochs and elk arrived from the south. The Koelbjerg Man is the oldest known bog body in the world and also the oldest set of human bones found in Denmark,[3] dated to the time of the Maglemosian culture around 8,000 BC.[4][5] With a continuing rise in temperature the oak, elm and hazel arrived in Denmark around 7,000 BC. Now boar, red deer, and roe deer also began to abound.[6]

A burial from Bøgebakken at Vedbæk dates to c. 6,000 BC and contains 22 persons – including four newborns and one toddler. Eight of the 22 had died before reaching 20 years of age – testifying to the hardness of hunter-gatherer life in the cold north.[7] Based on estimates of the amount of game animals, scholars estimate the population of Denmark to have been between 3,300 and 8,000 persons in the time around 7,000 BC.[8] It is believed that the early hunter-gatherers lived nomadically, exploiting different environments at different times of the year, gradually shifting to the use of semi permanent base camps.[9]

With the rising temperatures, sea levels also rose, and during the Atlantic period, Denmark evolved from a contiguous landmass around 11,000 BC to a series of islands by 4,500 BC. The inhabitants then shifted to a seafood based diet, which allowed the population to increase.

Agricultural settlers made inroads around 3,000 BC. Many dolmens and rock tombs (especially passage graves) date from this period. The Nordic Bronze Age period in Denmark, from about 1,500 BC, featured a culture that buried its dead, with their worldly goods, beneath burial mounds. The many finds of gold and bronze from this era include beautiful religious artifacts and musical instruments, and provide the earliest evidence of social classes and stratification.

Iron Age edit

 
The silver Gundestrup Cauldron, with what some scholars interpret as Celtic depictions, exemplifies the trade relations of the period.

During the Pre-Roman Iron Age (from the 4th to the 1st century BC), the climate in Denmark and southern Scandinavia became cooler and wetter, limiting agriculture and setting the stage for local groups to migrate southward into Germania. At around this time people began to extract iron from the ore in peat bogs. Evidence of strong Celtic cultural influence dates from this period in Denmark, and in much of northwest Europe, and survives in some of the older place names.

The Roman provinces, whose frontiers stopped short of Denmark, nevertheless maintained trade routes and relations with Danish or proto-Danish peoples, as attested by finds of Roman coins. The earliest known runic inscriptions date back to c. 200 AD. Depletion of cultivated land in the last century BC seems to have contributed to increasing migrations in northern Europe and increasing conflict between Teutonic tribes and Roman settlements in Gaul. Roman artifacts are especially common in finds from the 1st century. It seems clear that some part of the Danish warrior aristocracy served in the Roman army.[10]

Occasionally during this time, both animal and human sacrifice occurred and bodies were immersed in bogs. In recent times some of these bog bodies have emerged very well-preserved, providing valuable information about the religion and people who lived in Denmark during this period. Some of the most well-preserved bog bodies from the Nordic Iron Age are the Tollund Man and the Grauballe Man.

From around the 5th to the 7th century, Northern Europe experienced mass migrations. This period and its material culture are referred to as the Germanic Iron Age.

Middle Ages edit

Earliest literary sources edit

In his description of Scandza (from the 6th-century work, Getica), the ancient writer Jordanes says that the Dani were of the same stock as the Suetidi (Swedes, Suithiod?) and expelled the Heruli and took their lands.[11]

The Old English poems Widsith and Beowulf, as well as works by later Scandinavian writers — notably by Saxo Grammaticus (c. 1200) — provide some of the earliest references to Danes.

Viking Age edit

 
The extent of the Danish Realm before the expansion of the Viking Age. It is not known when, but the tribal Danes divided the realm into "herreder" (marked by red lines).
Kingdom of Denmark
in the Middle Ages
Kongeriget Danmark
i middelalderen
8th century/ 936–1397
 
Harald's realm (red) with vassals and allies (yellow).
StatusPart of the North Sea Empire (1013–1035)
Independent state until 1397
CapitalLejre in Zealand
Jellinge (until 10th cent.)
Roskilde (since 10th cent.)
Common languagesOld Danish, Latin, Estonian (Danish Estonia)
Religion

Other & non-Danish:

History 
• Formed
8th century
• Incorporated into the Kalmar Union
June 17 1397

With the beginning of the Viking Age in the 9th century, the prehistoric period in Denmark ends. The Danish people were among those known as Vikings, during the 8th–11th centuries. Viking explorers first discovered and settled in Iceland in the 9th century, on their way from the Faroe Islands. From there, Greenland and Vinland (probably Newfoundland) were also settled. Utilizing their great skills in shipbuilding and navigation they raided and conquered parts of France and the British Isles.

 
The Ladby ship, the largest ship burial found in Denmark.
 
The fortified Viking town of Aros (Aarhus), 950 AD.

They also excelled in trading along the coasts and rivers of Europe, running trade routes from Greenland in the north to Constantinople in the south via Russian and Ukrainian rivers, most notably along the River Dnieper and via Kiev, then being the capital of Kiev Rus. The Danish Vikings were most active in Britain, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy where they raided, conquered and settled (their earliest settlements included sites in the Danelaw, Ireland and Normandy). The Danelaw encompassed the Northeastern half of what now constitutes England, where Danes settled and Danish law and rule prevailed. Prior to this time, England consisted of approximately seven independent Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The Danes conquered (terminated) all of these except for the kingdom of Wessex. Alfred the Great, king of Wessex, emerged from these trials as the sole remaining English king, and thereby as the first English Monarch.

In the early 9th century, Charlemagne's Christian empire had expanded to the southern border of the Danes, and Frankish sources (e.g. Notker of St Gall) provide the earliest historical evidence of the Danes. These report a King Gudfred, who appeared in present-day Holstein with a navy in 804 where diplomacy took place with the Franks; In 808, King Gudfred attacked the Obotrites and conquered the city of Reric whose population was displaced or abducted to Hedeby. In 809, King Godfred and emissaries of Charlemagne failed to negotiate peace, despite the sister of Godfred being a concubine of Charlemagne, and the next year King Godfred attacked the Frisians with 200 ships.

Viking raids along the coast of France and the Netherlands were large-scale. Paris was besieged and the Loire Valley devastated during the 10th century. One group of Danes was granted permission to settle in northwestern France under the condition that they defend the place from future attacks. As a result, the region became known as "Normandy" and it was the descendants of these settlers who conquered England in 1066.

The oldest parts of the defensive works of Danevirke near Hedeby at least date from the summer of 755 and were expanded with large works in the 10th century. The size and number of troops needed to man it indicates a quite powerful ruler in the area, which might be consistent with the kings of the Frankish sources. In 815 AD, Emperor Louis the Pious attacked Jutland apparently in support of a contender to the throne, perhaps Harald Klak, but was turned back by the sons of Godfred, who most likely were the sons of the above-mentioned Godfred. At the same time St. Ansgar travelled to Hedeby and started the Catholic Christianisation of Scandinavia.

Gorm the Old (Danish: Gorm den Gamle, Old Norse: Gormr gamli, Latin: Gormus Senex[12][13]), also called Gorm the Languid (Danish: Gorm Løge, Gorm den Dvaske), was the first historically recognized ruler of Denmark, reigning from c. 936 to his death c. 958.[14] He ruled from Jelling, and made the oldest of the Jelling Stones in honour of his wife Thyra. Gorm was born before 900 and died c. 958. His rule marks the start of the Danish monarchy and royal house (see Danish monarchs' family tree).[14]

The Danes were united and officially Christianized in 965 AD by Gorm's son Harald Bluetooth (see below), the story of which is recorded on the Jelling stones. The extent of Harald's Danish Kingdom is unknown, although it is reasonable to believe that it stretched from the defensive line of Dannevirke, including the Viking city of Hedeby, across Jutland, the Danish isles and into southern present day Sweden; Scania and perhaps Halland and Blekinge. Furthermore, the Jelling stones attest that Harald had also "won" Norway.[15]

In retaliation for the St. Brice's Day massacre of Danes in England, the son of Harald, Sweyn Forkbeard mounted a series of wars of conquest against England. By 1014, England had completely submitted to the Danes. However, distance and a lack of common interests prevented a lasting union, and Sweyn's son Cnut the Great barely maintained the link between the two countries, which completely broke up during the reign of his son Hardecanute. A final attempt by the Norwegians under Harald Hardrada to reconquer England failed, but did pave the way for William the Conqueror's takeover in 1066.[15]

Christianity, expansion and the establishment of the Kingdom of Denmark edit

 
 
Often regarded as Denmark's "birth certificate", the large Jelling Stone announces the unification and Christianization of Denmark by Harald Bluetooth c. 980

The history of Christianity in Denmark overlaps with that of the Viking Age. Various petty kingdoms existed throughout the area now known as Denmark for many years. Between c. 960 and the early 980s, Harald Bluetooth appears to have established a kingdom in the lands of the Danes which stretched from Jutland to Skåne. Around the same time, he received a visit from a German missionary who, according to legend,[16] survived an ordeal by fire, which convinced Harald to convert to Christianity.

Sweyn Estridson (1020–74) re-established strong royal Danish authority and built a good relationship with Archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg-Bremen — at that time the Archbishop of all of Scandinavia.

The new religion, which replaced the old Norse religious practices, had many advantages for the king. Christianity brought with it some support from the Holy Roman Empire. It also allowed the king to dismiss many of his opponents who adhered to the old mythology. At this early stage there is no evidence that the Danish Church was able to create a stable administration that Harald could use to exercise more effective control over his kingdom, but it may have contributed to the development of a centralising political and religious ideology among the social elite which sustained and enhanced an increasingly powerful kingship.

England broke away from Danish control in 1035 and Denmark fell into disarray for some time. Sweyn Estridsen's son, Canute IV, raided England for the last time in 1085. He planned another invasion to take the throne of England from an aging William I. He called up a fleet of 1,000 Danish ships, 60 Norwegian long boats, with plans to meet with another 600 ships under Duke Robert of Flanders in the summer of 1086. Canute, however, was beginning to realise that the imposition of the tithe on Danish peasants and nobles to fund the expansion of monasteries and churches and a new head tax (Danish: nefgjald) had brought his people to the verge of rebellion. Canute took weeks to arrive where the fleet had assembled at Struer, but he found only the Norwegians still there.

Canute thanked the Norwegians for their patience and then went from assembly to assembly (Danish: landsting) outlawing any sailor, captain or soldier who refused to pay a fine which amounted to more than a years harvest for most farmers. Canute and his housecarls fled south with a growing army of rebels on his heels. Canute fled to the royal property outside the town of Odense on Funen with his two brothers. After several attempts to break in and then bloody hand-to-hand fighting in the church, Benedict was cut down, and Canute was struck in the head by a large stone and then speared from the front. He died at the base of the main altar on 10 July 1086, where he was buried by the Benedictines. When Queen Edele came to take Canute's body to Flanders, a light allegedly shone around the church and it was taken as a sign that Canute should remain where he was.[citation needed]

The death of St. Canute marks the end of the Viking Age. Never again would massive flotillas of Scandinavians meet each year to ravage the rest of Christian Europe.

In the early 12th century, Denmark became the seat of an independent church province of Scandinavia. Not long after that, Sweden and Norway established their own archbishoprics, free of Danish control. The mid-12th century proved a difficult time for the kingdom of Denmark. Violent civil wars rocked the land. Eventually, Valdemar the Great (1131–82), gained control of the kingdom, stabilizing it and reorganizing the administration. King Valdemar and Absalon (ca 1128–1201), the bishop of Roskilde, rebuilt the country.

 
Danish Empire and campaigns 1168-1227

During Valdemar's reign construction began of a castle in the village of Havn, leading eventually to the foundation of Copenhagen, the modern capital of Denmark. Valdemar and Absalon built Denmark into a major power in the Baltic Sea, a power which later competed with the Hanseatic League, the counts of Holstein, and the Teutonic Knights for trade, territory, and influence throughout the Baltic. In 1168, Valdemar and Absalon gained a foothold on the southern shore of the Baltic, when they subdued the Principality of Rügen.

In the 1180s, Mecklenburg and the Duchy of Pomerania came under Danish control, too. In the new southern provinces, the Danes promoted Christianity (mission of the Rani, monasteries like Eldena Abbey) and settlement (Danish participation in the Ostsiedlung). The Danes lost most of their southern gains after the Battle of Bornhöved (1227), but the Rugian principality stayed with Denmark until 1325.

 
Northern countries during the 13th and early 14th centuries
  Norway
  Conquered by Denmark in 1219

In 1202, Valdemar II became king and launched various "crusades" to claim territories, notably modern Estonia. Once these efforts were successful, a period in history known as the Danish Estonia began. Legend has it that the Danish flag, the Dannebrog fell from the sky during the Battle of Lindanise in Estonia in 1219. A series of Danish defeats culminating in the Battle of Bornhöved on 22 July 1227 cemented the loss of Denmark's north German territories. Valdemar himself was saved only by the courageous actions of a German knight who carried Valdemar to safety on his horse.

From that time on, Valdemar focused his efforts on domestic affairs. One of the changes he instituted was the feudal system where he gave properties to men with the understanding that they owed him service. This increased the power of the noble families (Danish: højadelen) and gave rise to the lesser nobles (Danish: lavadelen) who controlled most of Denmark. Free peasants lost the traditional rights and privileges they had enjoyed since Viking times.

The king of Denmark had difficulty maintaining control of the kingdom in the face of opposition from the nobility and from the Church. An extended period of strained relations between the crown and the Popes of Rome took place, known as the "archiepiscopal conflicts".

By the late 13th century, royal power had waned, and the nobility forced the king to grant a charter, considered Denmark's first constitution. Following the Battle of Bornhöved in 1227, a weakened Denmark provided windows of opportunity to both the Hanseatic League and the Counts of Holstein. The Holstein Counts gained control of large portions of Denmark because the king would grant them fiefs in exchange for money to finance royal operations.

Valdemar spent the remainder of his life putting together a code of laws for Jutland, Zealand and Skåne. These codes were used as Denmark's legal code until 1683. This was a significant change from the local law making at the regional assemblies (Danish: landsting), which had been the long-standing tradition. Several methods of determining guilt or innocence were outlawed including trial by ordeal and trial by combat. The Code of Jutland (Danish: Jyske Lov) was approved at meeting of the nobility at Vordingborg in 1241 just prior to Valdemar's death. Because of his position as "the king of Dannebrog" and as a legislator, Valdemar enjoys a central position in Danish history. To posterity the civil wars and dissolution that followed his death made him appear to be the last king of a golden age.

The Middle Ages saw a period of close cooperation between the Crown and the Roman Catholic Church. Thousands of church buildings sprang up throughout the country during this time. The economy expanded during the 12th century, based mostly on the lucrative herring-trade, but the 13th century turned into a period of difficulty and saw the temporary collapse of royal authority.

Count rule edit

 
The kingless time 1332–1340. Danish Estonia not shown on the map was under the protection of the Livonian Order.

During the disastrous reign of Christopher II (1319–1332), most of the country was seized by the provincial counts (except Skåne, which was taken over by Sweden) after numerous peasant revolts and conflicts with the Church. For eight years after Christopher's death, Denmark had no king, and was instead controlled by the counts. After one of them, Gerhard III of Holstein-Rendsburg, was assassinated in 1340, Christopher's son Valdemar was chosen as king, and gradually began to recover the territories, which was finally completed in 1360.

The Black Death, which came to Denmark during these years, also aided Valdemar's campaign. His continued efforts to expand the kingdom after 1360 brought him into open conflict with the Hanseatic League. He conquered Gotland, much to the displeasure of the League, which lost Visby, an important trading town located there.

The Hanseatic alliance with Sweden to attack Denmark initially proved a fiasco since Danish forces captured a large Hanseatic fleet, and ransomed it back for an enormous sum. Luckily for the League, the Jutland nobles revolted against the heavy taxes levied to fight the expansionist war in the Baltic; the two forces worked against the king, forcing him into exile in 1370. For several years, the Hanseatic League controlled the fortresses on "the sound" between Skåne and Zealand.

Margaret and the Kalmar Union (1397–1523) edit

 
The Kalmar Union, c. 1400

Margaret I, the daughter of Valdemar Atterdag, found herself married off to Håkon VI of Norway in an attempt to join the two kingdoms, along with Sweden, since Håkon had kinship ties to the Swedish royal family. The dynastic plans called for her son, Olaf II to rule the three kingdoms, but after his early death in 1387 she took on the role herself (1387–1412). During her lifetime (1353–1412) the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden (including the Faroe Islands, as well as Iceland, Greenland, and present-day Finland) became linked under her capable rule, in what became known as the Kalmar Union, made official in 1397.

 
The tomb of Margaret I in Roskilde Cathedral.

Her successor, Eric of Pomerania (King of Denmark from 1412 to 1439), lacked Margaret's skill and thus directly caused the breakup of the Kalmar Union. Eric's foreign policy engulfed Denmark in a succession of wars with the Holstein counts and the city of Lübeck. When the Hanseatic League imposed a trade embargo on Scandinavia, the Swedes (who saw their mining industry adversely affected) rose up in revolt. The three countries of the Kalmar Union all declared Eric deposed in 1439.

However, support for the idea of regionalism continued, so when Eric's nephew Christopher of Bavaria came to the throne in 1440, he managed to get himself elected in all three kingdoms, briefly reuniting Scandinavia (1442–1448). The Swedish nobility grew increasingly unhappy with Danish rule and the union soon became merely a legal concept with little practical application. During the subsequent reigns of Christian I (1450–1481) and Hans (1481–1513), tensions grew, and several wars between Sweden and Denmark erupted.

In the early 16th century, Christian II (reigned 1513–1523) came to power. He allegedly declared, "If the hat on my head knew what I was thinking, I would pull it off and throw it away." This quotation apparently refers to his devious and machiavellian political dealings. He conquered Sweden in an attempt to reinforce the union, and had about 100 leaders of the Swedish anti-unionist forces killed in what came to be known as the Stockholm Bloodbath of November 1520. The bloodbath destroyed any lingering hope of Scandinavian union.

 
Map of Denmark–Norway, c. 1780

In the aftermath of Sweden's definitive secession from the Kalmar Union in 1521, civil war and the Protestant Reformation followed in Denmark and Norway. When things settled down, the Privy Council of Denmark had lost some of its influence, and that of Norway no longer existed. The two kingdoms, known as Denmark–Norway, operated in a personal union under a single monarch. Norway kept its separate laws and some institutions, such as a royal chancellor, separate coinage and a separate army. As a hereditary kingdom, Norway's status as separate from Denmark remained important to the royal dynasty in its struggles to win elections as kings of Denmark. The two kingdoms remained tied until 1814.

Early Modern Denmark edit

 
Abraham Ortelius's 1570 map of Denmark including parts on the Scandinavian peninsula.

The Reformation edit

 
Hans Tausen was one of the first Lutheran preachers, and later a bishop, in Denmark.

The Reformation, which originated in the German lands in the early 16th century from the ideas of Martin Luther (1483–1546), had a considerable impact on Denmark. The Danish Reformation started in the mid-1520s. Some Danes wanted access to the Bible in their own language. In 1524 Hans Mikkelsen and Christiern Pedersen translated the New Testament into Danish; it became an instant best-seller.[17]

Those who had traveled to Wittenberg in Saxony and come under the influence of the teachings of Luther and his associates included Hans Tausen, a Danish monk in the Order of St John Hospitallers. On Good Friday in 1525, Tausen used the pulpit at Antvorskov Abbey Church to proclaim Luther's reforms. His scandalized superiors ordered him out of Zealand and held him in the priory at Viborg under close confinement until he should come to his senses.[17]

Townspeople came to see the troublesome monk, and Tausen preached to them from the window of his cell. Within days Tausen's ideas swept through the town. The then radical ideas of Luther found a receptive audience. Tausen's preaching converted ordinary people, merchants, nobles, and monks and even the Prior grew to appreciate Tausen and ordered his release. Tausen preached openly: much to the consternation of Bishop Jøn Friis, who lost his ability to do anything about the Lutherans and retreated to Hald Castle.[17]

After preaching in the open air, Tausen gained the use of a small chapel, which soon proved too small for the crowds who attended services in Danish. His followers broke open a Franciscan Abbey so they could listen to Tausen, who packed the church daily for services. The town leaders protected Tausen from the Bishop of Viborg.[17] Viborg became the center for the Danish Reformation for a time. Lutheranism spread quickly to Aarhus and Aalborg.

Within months King Frederick appointed Tausen as one of his personal chaplains (October 1526) in order to protect him from Catholics. Tausen's version of Luther's ideas spread throughout Denmark. Copenhagen became a hotbed of reformist activity and Tausen moved there to continue his work. His reputation preceded him and the excitement of hearing the liturgy in Danish brought thousands of people out to hear him. With the kings' permission, churches in Copenhagen opened their doors to the Lutherans and held services for Catholics and for Lutherans at different times of the day.

At Our Lady Church, the main church of Copenhagen, Bishop Ronnow refused to admit the "heretics". In December 1531, a mob stormed the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen, encouraged by Copenhagen's fiery mayor, Ambrosius Bogbinder. They tore down statues and side-altars and destroyed artwork and reliquaries. Frederick I's policy of toleration insisted that the two competing groups share churches and pulpits peacefully, but this satisfied neither Lutherans nor Catholics.

Luther's ideas spread rapidly as a consequence of a powerful combination of popular enthusiasm for church reform and a royal eagerness to secure greater wealth through the seizure of church lands and property. In Denmark the reformation increased the crown's revenues by 300%.

Dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church edit

Dissatisfaction with the established Catholic Church had already been widespread in Denmark. Many people viewed the tithes and fees — a constant source of irritation for farmers and merchants — as unjust. This became apparent once word got out that King Frederick and his son, Duke Christian had no sympathy with Franciscans who persistently made the rounds of the parishes to collect food, money, and clothing in addition to the tithes. Between 1527 and 1536 many towns petitioned the king to close the Franciscan houses.[18]

Frederick obliged by sending letters authorizing the closure of the monasteries, often offering a small sum of money to help the brothers on their way. With the royal letter in hand, mobs forcibly closed Franciscan abbeys all over Denmark. They beat up monks, two of whom died.[18] The closure of Franciscan houses occurred systematically in Copenhagen, Viborg, Aalborg, Randers, Malmö and ten other cities; in all, 28 monasteries or houses closed. People literally hounded Franciscan monks out of the towns.[18]

No other order faced such harsh treatment. Considering how strongly many people felt about removing all traces of Catholic traditions from Danish churches, surprisingly little violence took place. Luther's teaching had become so overwhelmingly popular that Danes systematically cleared churches of statues, paintings, wall-hangings, reliquaries and other Catholic elements without interference. The only exceptions came in individual churches where the local churchmen refused to permit reform.

 
King Christian III carried out the Protestant Reformation in Slesvig, Holsten, Denmark and Norway.

Frederick I died in 1533; the Viborg Assembly (Danish: landsting) proclaimed his son, Duke Christian of Schleswig, King Christian III. The State Council (Danish: Rigsråd) on Zealand, led by the Catholic bishops, took control of the country and refused to recognize the election of Christian III, a staunch Lutheran. The regents feared Christian's zeal for Luther's ideas would tip the balance and disenfranchise Catholics — both peasants and nobles.

The State Council encouraged Count Christopher of Oldenburg to become Regent of Denmark. Christian III quickly raised an army to enforce his election, including mercenary troops from Germany. Count Christopher raised an army (including troops from Mecklenburg and Oldenburg and the Hanseatic League, especially Lübeck) to restore his Catholic uncle King Christian II (deposed in 1523). This resulted in a three-year civil war called the Count's Feud (Danish: Grevens Fejde).

Count's Feud (1534–1536) edit

Armed rebellion by Catholic peasants led by Skipper Clement started in northern Jutland. Rebellion swept across Funen, Zealand and Skåne. Christian III's army soundly defeated an army of Catholic nobles at Svenstrup on 16 October 1534. Christian forced a truce with the Hanseatic League, which had sent troops to help Count Christopher. Christian III's army, under Johan Rantzau, chased the rebels all the way back to Aalborg and then massacred over 2,000 of them inside the city in December 1534.

The Protestants captured Skipper Clement (1534), and later executed him in 1536. Christian III's mercenary troops put an end to Catholic hopes on Zealand and then Funen. Skåne rebels went as far as proclaiming Christian II king again. King Gustav Vasa of Sweden sent two separate armies to ravage Halland and Skåne into submission. Besiegers finally starved the last hold-outs in the rebellion, Copenhagen and Malmø, into surrender in July 1536. By the spring of 1536, Christian III had taken firm control.

State Lutheranism edit

Denmark became officially Lutheran on 30 October 1536 by decree of King Christian III, and in 1537 the reconstituted State Council approved the Lutheran Ordinances which was worked out by Danish theologians and Johannes Bugenhagen, based on the Augsburg Confession and Luther's Little Catechism. The government established the Danish National Church (Danish: Folkekirken) as the state church. All of Denmark's Catholic bishops went to prison until such time as they converted to Luther's reform. The authorities released them when they promised to marry and to support the reforms.

If they agreed, they received property and spent the rest of their lives as wealthy landowners. If they refused conversion, they died in prison. The State confiscated Church lands to pay for the armies that had enforced Christian III's election. Priests swore allegiance to Lutheranism or found new employment. The new owners turned monks out of their monasteries and abbeys. Nuns in a few places gained permission to live out their lives in nunneries, though without governmental financial support. The Crown closed churches, abbeys, priories and cathedrals, giving their property to local nobles or selling it.

The King appointed Danish superintendents (later bishops) to oversee Lutheran orthodoxy in the church. Denmark became part of a Lutheran heartland extending through Scandinavia and northern Germany. The Catholic Church everywhere in Scandinavia had sealed its fate by supporting hopeless causes: Christian II and the emperor Charles V in Denmark, Norwegian independence in that country, and in Sweden the Kalmar Union. Geographical distance also prevented them from receiving anything more than a sympathetic ear from Rome.

The 17th century saw a period of strict Lutheran orthodoxy in Denmark, with harsh punishments visited on suspected followers of either Calvinism or Huldrych Zwingli. Lutheran authorities treated Catholics harshly — in the fear that they might undermine the king, government, and national church. In a delayed result of the Reformation, Denmark became embroiled in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) on the Protestant side.

The loss of Eastern Denmark edit

The Dano-Norwegian Kingdom grew wealthy during the 16th century, largely because of the increased traffic through the Øresund, which Danes could tax because Denmark controlled both sides of the Sound. The trade in grain exports from Poland to the Netherlands and to the rest of Europe grew enormously at this time, and the Danish kings did not hesitate to cash in on it. The Sound duty was only repealed in the 1840s.

The Danish economy benefited from the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) in the Netherlands because a large number of skilled refugees from that area (the most economically advanced in Europe) came to Denmark. This helped to modernize many aspects of society and to establish trading links between Denmark and the Netherlands.

Denmark–Norway had a reputation as a relatively powerful kingdom at this time. European politics of the 16th century revolved largely around the struggle between Catholic and Protestant forces, so it seemed almost inevitable that Denmark, a strong, unified Lutheran kingdom, would get drawn into the larger war when it came. The Thirty Years' War went badly for the Protestant states in the early 1620s, and a call went out to Denmark–Norway to "save the Protestant cause".

King Christian IV, who was also a duke of the Holy Roman Empire on the basis of his possessions in Holstein, decided to intervene in the conflict raging in northern Germany. The campaign ended in defeat, and Jutland was occupied by the imperial army of Albrecht von Wallenstein. In the Treaty of Lübeck, Christian made peace and agreed to not intervene in Germany again. The war in Germany had been very expensive and Christian IV saw no other recourse than to raise the Sound tolls. Unfortunately, this act pushed the Netherlands away from Denmark and into the arms of Sweden.

Torstenson War (1643–1645) edit

 
Denmark before 1645

In 1643, Sweden's armies, under the command of Lennart Torstensson, suddenly invaded Denmark without declaring war. The ensuing conflict became known as the Torstenson War. The Netherlands, wishing to end the Danish stranglehold on the Baltic, joined the Swedes in their war against Denmark–Norway. In October 1644, a combined Dutch-Swedish fleet destroyed 80 percent of the Danish fleet in the Battle of Femern. The result of this defeat proved disastrous for Denmark–Norway: in the Second treaty of Brömsebro (1645) Denmark ceded to Sweden the Norwegian provinces Jemtland, Herjedalen and Älvdalen as well as the Danish islands of Gotland and Øsel. Halland went to Sweden for a period of 30 years and the Netherlands were exempted from paying the Sound Duty.

 
Denmark before 1658
 
Treaty of Roskilde, 1658.
  Halland, previously occupied by Sweden for a 30-year period under the terms of the Peace of Brömsebro negotiated in 1645, was now ceded
  the Scanian lands and Bohus County were ceded
  Trøndelag and Bornholm provinces, which were ceded in 1658, but rebelled against Sweden and returned to Danish rule in 1660.

Nevertheless, Danes remember Christian IV as one of the great kings of Denmark. He had a very long reign, from 1588 to 1648, and has become known as "the architect on the Danish throne" because of the large number of building projects he undertook. Many of the great buildings of Denmark date from his reign. After the death of Christian IV in 1648, his son Frederick succeeded him.

Second Northern War (1655–1660) edit

In 1657, during the Second Northern War, Denmark–Norway launched a war of revenge against Sweden (then distracted in Poland) which turned into a complete disaster. The war became a disaster for two reasons: Primarily, because Denmark's new powerful ally, the Netherlands, remained neutral as Denmark was the aggressor and Sweden the defender. Secondly, the Belts froze over in a rare occurrence during the winter of 1657–1658, allowing Charles X Gustav of Sweden to lead his armies across the ice to invade Zealand.

In the following Treaty of Roskilde, Denmark–Norway capitulated and gave up all of Eastern Denmark (Danish: Skåne, Halland, Blekinge and Bornholm), in addition to the counties of Bahusia (Norwegian: Båhuslen) and Trøndelag in Norway. Holstein-Gottorp was also tied to Sweden, providing a gateway for future invasions from the south.

But the Second Northern War was not yet over. Three months after the peace treaty was signed, Charles X Gustav of Sweden held a council of war where he decided to simply wipe Denmark from the map and unite all of Scandinavia under his rule. Once again the Swedish army arrived outside Copenhagen. However, this time the Danes did not panic or surrender. Instead, they decided to fight and prepared to defend Copenhagen.

 
March across the Belts in 1658

Frederick III of Denmark had stayed in his capital and now encouraged the citizens of Copenhagen to resist the Swedes, by saying he would die in his nest. Furthermore, this unprovoked declaration of war by Sweden finally triggered the alliance that Denmark–Norway had with the Netherlands. A powerful Dutch fleet was sent to Copenhagen with vital supplies and reinforcements, which saved the city from being captured during the Swedish attack. Furthermore, Brandenburg-Prussia, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Habsburg monarchy had gathered large forces to aid Denmark–Norway and fighting continued into 1659.

 
Battle of Køge Bay in 1677

Charles X Gustav of Sweden suddenly died of an illness in early 1660, while planning an invasion of Norway. Following his death, Sweden made peace in the Treaty of Copenhagen. The Swedes returned Trøndelag to Norway and Bornholm to Denmark, but kept both Bahusia and Terra Scania. The Netherlands and other European powers accepted the settlement, not wanting both coasts of the Sound controlled by Denmark. This treaty established the boundaries between Norway, Denmark, and Sweden that still exist today. All in all, Sweden had now surpassed Denmark as the most powerful country in Scandinavia.

Absolutism edit

As a result of the disaster in the war against Sweden, King Frederick III (reigned 1648–1670) succeeded in convincing the nobles to give up some of their powers and their exemption from taxes, leading to the era of absolutism in Denmark. The country's main objective in the following decades was the recovery of its lost provinces from Sweden. In the 1670s, Denmark–Norway had regained enough strength to start a war with Sweden to recover its lost provinces. However, in spite of Denmark's outside support, naval dominance and initial support from the population of the former eastern provinces, the war ended in a bitter stalemate.

Great Northern War (1700–1721) edit

A renewed attack during the Third Northern War (1700–1721) first resulted in the unfavourable Peace of Travendal, but after Denmark's re-entry into the war and Sweden's ultimate defeat by a large alliance, Sweden was no longer a threat to Denmark. However, the great powers opposed any Danish territorial gains, which meant the Treaty of Frederiksborg did not return the former eastern provinces to Denmark. Furthermore, Denmark was even forced to return Swedish Pomerania, held by Danish forces since 1715, to Sweden. Denmark now had no hope of recovering its lost provinces from Sweden. As noted earlier, the rest of Europe was simply against the Sound being controlled by a single nation ever again.

For most of the 18th century, Denmark was at peace. The only time when war threatened was in 1762, when the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp became Tsar Peter III of Russia and declared war on Denmark over his ancestral claims in Schleswig. Before any fighting could begin, however, he was overthrown by his wife, who took control of Russia as Tsarina Catherine II (Catherine the Great).[19] Empress Catherine withdrew her husband's demands and negotiated the transfer of ducal Schleswig-Holstein to the Danish crown in return for Russian control of the County of Oldenburg and adjacent lands within the Holy Roman Empire, an exchange that was formalized with the 1773 Treaty of Tsarskoye Selo. The alliance that accompanied the territorial exchange tied Denmark's foreign policy to Russia's and led directly to Denmark's involvement in a series of wars over the succeeding decades.

With the suspension of the Danish diet, that body disappeared for a couple of centuries. During this time power became increasingly centralized in Copenhagen. Frederick's government reorganized itself in a much more hierarchical manner, built around the king as a focal point of administration. Crown officials dominated the administration, as well as a new group of bureaucrats, much to the dismay of the traditional aristocracy, who saw their own influence curtailed even further. The absolutist kings of Denmark were quite weak compared to their Swedish counterparts, and non-noble landlords became the real rulers of the country. They used their influence to pass laws that favored themselves.

The administration and laws underwent "modernization" during this period. In 1683, the Danske lov 1683 (Danish Code) standardized and collected all the old provincial laws. Other initiatives included the standardization of all weights and measures throughout the kingdom, and an agricultural survey and registry. This survey allowed the government to begin taxing landowners directly, moving it beyond dependence on revenue from crown lands.

The population of Denmark rose steadily through this period, from 600,000 in 1660 (after the loss of territory to Sweden) to 700,000 in 1720. By 1807, it had risen to 978,000.

Changes in the agricultural economy edit

Attempts to diversify the economy away from agriculture failed. During this period, little industry existed, except for a very small amount in Copenhagen (population: 30,000). In the late 17th century a small amount of industry did develop, catering to the military. Denmark suffered in part because of its lack of natural resources. It had nothing much to export except agricultural products. The Netherlands bought the largest share of Denmark's exports. The landlords, only about 300 in number, nevertheless owned 90% of the land in the country.

Rural administration remained primarily the preserve of the large landholders and of a few law-enforcement officials. In 1733, low crop prices caused the introduction of adscription, an effort by the landlords to obtain cheap labor. The effect of this was to turn the previously free Danish peasantry into serfs. The adscription system tied rural laborers to their place of birth and required them to rent farms on the estates.

As rent, peasants were required to work the landlords' plots and could not negotiate contracts or demand payment for improvements made to the farm. Peasants who refused to rent a farm were subject to six years of military service. Danish agriculture was very inefficient and unproductive as a result, since the peasants had no motivation to perform anything more than the absolute minimum of work. Attempts to sell Danish grain in Norway failed because of its low quality compared to grain from the Baltic.

In the late 18th century, extensive agricultural reforms took place, involving the abolition of the old open-field system and the amalgamation of many smaller farms into larger ones. With the abolition of the adscription system, the military could now only obtain manpower through conscription. These reforms were possible because agricultural prices steadily rose in the second half of the century.

Throughout the 18th century, the Danish economy did very well, largely on the basis of expanded agricultural output to meet growing demand across Europe. Danish merchant ships also traded around Europe and the North Atlantic, venturing to new Danish colonies in the Caribbean and North Atlantic.

The Enlightenment and Danish nationalism edit

 
Denmark's social reformers Struensee and Brandt quartered and displayed on the wheel on 28 April 1772

New propriety and Enlightenment ideas became popular among the middle classes of Denmark, arousing increased interest in personal liberty. In the last 15 years of the 18th century, the authorities relaxed the censorship which had existed since the beginning of the 17th century. At the same time, a sense of Danish nationalism began to develop. Hostility increased against Germans and Norwegians present at the royal court. Pride in the Danish language and culture increased, and eventually a law banned "foreigners" from holding posts in the government. Antagonism between Germans and Danes increased from the mid-18th century on.

In the 1770s, during the reign of the mentally unstable Christian VII (1766–1808), the queen Caroline Matilda's lover, a German doctor named Johann Friedrich Struensee, became the real ruler of the country. Filled with the ideas of the Enlightenment, he attempted a number of radical reforms including freedom of the press and religion. But it was short-lived. The landlords feared that the reforms were a threat to their power, while the commoners believed that religious freedom was an invitation to atheism.

In 1772, Struensee was arrested, tried, and convicted of crimes against the majesty, his right hand was cut off following his beheading, his remains were quartered and put on display on top of spikes on the commons west of Copenhagen. The next 12 years were a period of unmitigated reaction until a group of reformers gained power in 1784.

Reforms edit

Denmark became the model of enlightened despotism, partially influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution. Denmark thus adopted liberalizing reforms in line with those of the French Revolution, with no direct contact. Danes were aware of French ideas and agreed with them, as it moved from Danish absolutism to a liberal constitutional system between 1750 and 1850. The change of government in 1784 was caused by a power vacuum created when King Christian VII took ill, and influence shifted to the crown prince (who later became King Frederick VI) and reform-oriented landowners. Between 1784 and 1815, the abolition of serfdom made the majority of the peasants into landowners. The government also introduced free trade and universal education. In contrast to France under the ancien regime, agricultural reform was intensified in Denmark, civil rights were extended to the peasants, the finances of the Danish state were healthy, and there were no external or internal crises. That is, reform was gradual and the regime itself carried out agrarian reforms that had the effect of weakening absolutism by creating a class of independent peasant freeholders. Much of the initiative came from well-organized liberals who directed political change in the first half of the 19th century.[20]

Newspapers edit

Danish news media first appeared in the 1540s, when handwritten fly sheets reported on the news. In 1666, Anders Bording, the father of Danish journalism, began a state paper. The royal privilege to bring out a newspaper was issued to Joachim Wielandt in 1720. University officials handled the censorship, but in 1770 Denmark became one of the first nations of the world to provide for press freedom; it ended in 1799. In 1795–1814, the press, led by intellectuals and civil servants, called out for a more just and modern society, and spoke out for the oppressed tenant farmers against the power of the old aristocracy.[21]

In 1834, the first liberal newspaper appeared, one that gave much more emphasis to actual news content rather than opinions. The newspapers championed the Revolution of 1848 in Denmark. The new constitution of 1849 liberated the Danish press. Newspapers flourished in the second half of the 19th century, usually tied to one or another political party or labor union. Modernization, bringing in new features and mechanical techniques, appeared after 1900. The total circulation was 500,000 daily in 1901, more than doubling to 1.2 million in 1925. The German occupation brought informal censorship; some offending newspaper buildings were simply blown up by the Nazis. During the war, the underground produced 550 newspapers—small, surreptitiously printed sheets that encouraged sabotage and resistance.[22]

Colonial ventures edit

 
Map showing Denmark–Norway and its colonial possessions.

Denmark maintained a number of colonies outside Scandinavia, starting in the 17th century and lasting until the 20th century. Denmark also controlled traditional colonies in Greenland[23] and Iceland[24] in the north Atlantic, obtained through the union with Norway. Christian IV (reigned 1588–1648) first initiated the policy of expanding Denmark's overseas trade, as part of the mercantilist trend then popular in European governing circles. Denmark established its own first colony at Tranquebar, or Trankebar, on India's south coast, in 1620.

In the Caribbean Denmark started a colony on St Thomas in 1671, St John in 1718, and purchased Saint Croix from France in 1733. Denmark maintained its Indian colony, Tranquebar, as well as several other smaller colonies there, for about two hundred years. The Danish East India Company operated out of Tranquebar.

During its heyday, the Danish East Indian Company and the Swedish East India Company imported more tea than the British East India Company — and smuggled 90% of it into Britain, where it sold at a huge profit. Both of the Scandinavia-based East India Companies folded during the course of the Napoleonic Wars. Denmark also maintained other colonies, forts, and bases in West Africa, primarily for the purpose of slave-trading.

19th century edit

Danish Unitary State
Helstaten (da)
Dänischer Gesamtstaat (de)
1814–1864
 
Territories that were part of the Kingdom of Denmark from 1814 to 1864
Statuspersonal union between Schleswig, Holstein, Lauenburg and Denmark
Common languagesDanish, Frisian, German
Religion
Lutheranism
King of Denmark, Duke of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg  
• 1808–1839
Frederik VI
• 1839–1848
Christian VIII
• 1848–1863
Frederik VII
• 1863-1906
Christian IX
Prime ministers
(1848–1855)
Council Presidents
(1855–1864)
 
• 1848–1852
Adam Wilhelm Moltke
• 1852–1853
Christian Albrecht Bluhme
• 1853–1854
Anders Sandøe Ørsted
• 1854–1856
Peter Georg Bang
• 1856–1857
Carl Christoffer Georg Andræ
• 1857–1859
Carl Christian Hall
• 1859–1860
Carl Edvard Rotwitt
• 1863–1864
Ditlev Gothard Monrad
Historical eraLate Modern Period
• Established
1814
14 January 1814
1848–1851
• Disestablished
1864

The Napoleonic Wars edit

 
The Battle of Copenhagen, 1801.

The long decades of peace came to an abrupt end during the Napoleonic Wars. Britain felt threatened by the Armed Neutrality Treaty of 1794, which originally involved Denmark and Sweden, and later Prussia and Russia. The British fleet attacked Copenhagen in 1801, destroying much of Denmark's navy. Denmark nonetheless managed to remain largely uninvolved in the Napoleonic Wars until 1807. The British fleet bombarded Copenhagen again that year, causing considerable destruction to the city. They then captured the entire Danish fleet so that it could not be used by France to invade Britain (as the French had lost their own fleet at Trafalgar in 1805), leading to the Gunboat War (1807–1814). The confiscation of the Danish navy was widely criticised in Britain.

In 1809 Danish forces fighting on the French side participated in defeating the anti-Bonapartist German rebellion led by Ferdinand von Schill, at the Battle of Stralsund. By 1813, Denmark could no longer bear the war costs, and the state was bankrupt. When in the same year the Sixth Coalition isolated Denmark by clearing Northern Germany of French forces, Frederick VI had to make peace. Accordingly, the unfavourable Treaty of Kiel was concluded in January 1814 with Sweden and Great Britain, and another peace was signed with Russia in February.

The post-Napoleonic Congress of Vienna demanded the dissolution of the Dano-Norwegian union, and this was confirmed by the Treaty of Kiel in 1814. The treaty transferred Heligoland to Great Britain and Norway from the Danish to the Swedish crown, Denmark was to be satisfied with Swedish Pomerania. But the Norwegians revolted, declared their independence, and elected crown-prince Christian Frederick (the future Christian VIII) as their king. However, the Norwegian independence movement failed to attract any support from the European powers. After a brief war with Sweden, Christian had to abdicate in order to preserve Norwegian autonomy, established in a personal union with Sweden. In favour of the Kingdom of Prussia, Denmark renounced her claims to Swedish Pomerania at the Congress of Vienna (1815), and instead was satisfied with the Duchy of Lauenburg and a Prussian payment of 3.5 million talers. Prussia also took over a Danish 600,000-taler debt to Sweden.

This period also counts as "the Golden Age" of Danish intellectual history. A sign of renewed intellectual vigor was the introduction of compulsory schooling in 1814. Literature, painting, sculpture, and philosophy all experienced an unusually vibrant period. The stories of Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) became popular not only in Denmark, but all over Europe and in the United States.[25] The ideas of the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) spread far beyond Denmark, influencing not only his own era, but proving instrumental in the development of new philosophical systems after him. The sculptures of Thorvaldsen (1770–1834) grace public buildings all over Denmark and other artists appreciated and copied his style. Grundtvig (1783–1872) tried to reinvigorate the Danish National Church and contributed to the hymns used by the church in Denmark.

Nationalism and liberalism edit

 
Den Grundlovgivende Rigsforsamling
The Constitutional Assembly created The Danish constitution, 1860–1864 painting by Constantin Hansen.

The Danish liberal and national movements gained momentum in the 1830s, and after the European revolutions of 1848 Denmark became a constitutional monarchy on 5 June 1849. The growing bourgeoisie had demanded a share in government, and in an attempt to avert the sort of bloody revolution occurring elsewhere in Europe, Frederick VII gave in to the demands of the citizens. A new constitution emerged, separating the powers and granting the franchise to all adult males, as well as freedom of the press, religion, and association. The king became head of the executive branch. The legislative branch consisted of two parliamentary chambers; the Folketing, comprising members elected by the general population, and the Landsting, elected by landowners. Denmark also gained an independent judiciary.

Another significant result of the revolution was the abolition of slavery in the Danish West Indies, the Danish colony in the Caribbean, which at an earlier part of its history witnessed the biggest slave auctions in the world.[26] In 1845 Denmark's other tropical colony, Tranquebar in India, was sold to Britain.

The Danish king's realm still consisted of the islands, the northern half of the Jutland peninsula, and the Duchy of Schleswig in real union with the Duchy of Holstein.

 
Danish Infantry regiment in a fight with regiment "Martini". Contemporary illustration of the 1864 Second Schleswig War.

The islands and Jutland together constituted the kingdom, whereas the monarch held the duchies in personal union with the kingdom. The duchy of Schleswig constituted a Danish fief, while the Duchy of Holstein remained a part of the German Confederation.

Since the early 18th century, and even more so from the early 19th century, the Danes had become used to viewing the duchies and the kingdom as increasingly unified in one state. This view, however, clashed with that of the German majority in the duchies, also enthused by liberal and national trends, which led to a movement known as Schleswig-Holsteinism. Schleswig-Holsteinists aimed for independence from Denmark. The First Schleswig War (1848–1851) broke out after constitutional change in 1849 and ended with the status quo because of the intervention of Britain and other Great Powers.

Much debate took place in Denmark as to how to deal with the question of Schleswig-Holstein. National-Liberals demanded permanent ties between Schleswig and Denmark, but stated that Holstein could do as it pleased. However, international events overtook domestic Danish politics, and Denmark faced war against both Prussia and Austria in what became known as the Second Schleswig War (1864). The war lasted from February to October 1864. Denmark was easily beaten by Prussia and Austria, and obliged to relinquish both Schleswig and Holstein.

The war caused Denmark as a nation severe trauma, forcing it to reconsider its place in the world. The loss of Schleswig-Holstein came as the latest in the long series of defeats and territorial loss that had begun in the 17th century. The Danish state had now lost some of the richest areas of the kingdom: Skåne to Sweden and Schleswig to Germany, so the nation focused on developing the poorer areas of the country. Extensive agricultural improvements took place in Jutland, and a new form of nationalism, which emphasized the "small" people, the decency of rural Denmark, and the shunning of wider aspirations, developed.

Industrialisation edit

Industrialisation came to Denmark in the second half of the 19th century. The nation's first railroads were constructed in the 1850s, and improved communications and overseas trade allowed industry to develop in spite of Denmark's lack of natural resources. Trade unions developed starting in the 1870s. There was a considerable migration of people from the countryside to the cities.

Danish agriculture became centered around the export of dairy and meat products, especially to Great Britain. Instead of relying on German middlemen in Hamburg, the Danes opened new direct trade routes to England after the defeat by the Germans.[27] Lampke and Sharp argue that Denmark's success as in the dairy industry was not based on co-operatives, which came in the late nineteenth century. Instead leadership was in the hands of the landed, intellectual and political elites. They made land reforms, adopted new technologies, and started educational and trading systems. Together these made Denmark a major exporter of butter after 1850. Land reform enabled the growth of a middle ranking class of farmers. They copied the innovations pioneered by wealthy estate owners, and implemented them through newly formed co-operatives.[28]

Internationalism and nationalism have become very much part of the history of the Danish Labour movement. The Labour movement gathered momentum when social issues became associated with internationalism. Socialist theory and organisational contact with the First International, which linked labour movements in various countries, paved the way. Louis Pio emerged as the driving force. In 1871, following the bloody defeat of the Paris Commune, he started publishing socialist journalism. He campaigned strongly for an independent organisation of the workers under their own management, and organised a Danish branch of the First International. This became the foundation stone for the Social Democratic Party under the name of Den Internationale Arbejderforening for Danmark (The International Labour Association for Denmark). As a combination of union and political party, it adroitly brought together national and international elements.[29]

Pio saw internationalism as vital for the success of the workers' struggle: without internationalism, no progress. He pointed out that the middle classes cooperated across national frontiers and used nationalistic rhetoric as a weapon against the workers and their liberation.[30]

The Danish section started organising strikes and demonstrations for higher wages and social reforms.[31] Demands were moderate, but enough to provoke the employers and the forces of law and order. Things came to a head in the Battle of Fælleden on 5 May 1872. The authorities arrested the three leaders, Louis Pio, Poul Geleff and Harald Brix, charged them and convicted them of high treason. The three left Denmark for the United States to set up the ill-starred and short-lived socialist colony near Hays City, in Ellis County, Kansas.

Back in Denmark, the emerging political situation made possible by the new Danish door of independence alarmed many of the existing elites, since it inevitably empowered the peasantry. Simple men with little education replaced professors and professionals in positions of power. The peasants, in coalition with liberal and radical elements from the cities, eventually won a majority of seats in the Folketing. Even though constitutional changes had taken place to boost the power of the Landsting, the Left Venstre Party demanded to form the government, but the king, still the head of the executive branch, refused. However, in 1901, king Christian IX gave in and asked Johan Henrik Deuntzer, a member of Venstre, to form a government, the Cabinet of Deuntzer. This began a tradition of parliamentary government, and with the exception of the Easter Crisis of 1920, no government since 1901 has ruled against a parliamentary majority in the Folketing.

Monetary union edit

 
Two golden 20 kr coins from the Scandinavian Monetary Union, which was based on a gold standard. The coin to the left is Swedish and the right one is Danish.

The Scandinavian Monetary Union, a monetary union formed by Sweden and Denmark on 5 May 1873, fixed both their currencies against gold at par to each other. Norway, governed in union with Sweden, entered the monetary union two years later in 1875 by pegging its currency to gold at the same level as Denmark and Sweden (.403 gram).[32] The monetary union proved one of the few tangible results of the Scandinavist political movement of the 19th century.

The union provided fixed exchange-rates and stability in monetary terms, but the member-countries continued to issue their own separate currencies. In an outcome not initially foreseen, the perceived security led to a situation where the formally separate currencies circulated on a basis of "as good as" the legal tender virtually throughout the entire area.

The outbreak of World War I in 1914 brought an end to the monetary union. Sweden abandoned the tie to gold on 2 August 1914, and without a fixed exchange rate the free circulation came to an end.

20th century edit

1901–1939 edit

In the early decades of the 20th century the new Radical Party and the older Venstre Party shared government. During this time women gained the right to vote (1915), and the United States purchased some of Denmark's colonial holdings: the three islands of St. John, St. Croix, and St. Thomas in the West Indies. The period also saw Denmark inaugurating important social and labour-market reforms, laying the basis for the present welfare state.

Denmark remained neutral during World War I, but the conflict affected the country to a considerable extent. As its economy was heavily based on exports, the unrestricted German submarine warfare was a serious problem. Denmark had no choice but to sell many of its exports to Germany instead of overseas nations. Widespread profiteering took place, but commerce also suffered great disruption because of the conflict and because of the ensuing financial instability in Europe. Rationing was instituted, and there were food and fuel shortages. In addition, Denmark was forced by Berlin to mine the Sound to prevent British ships from entering it. Following the defeat of Germany in the war (1918), the Treaty of Versailles (1919) mandated the Schleswig Plebiscites, which resulted in the return of Northern Schleswig (now South Jutland) to Denmark. The king and parts of the opposition grumbled that Prime Minister Carl Theodor Zahle (in office 1909–1910 and 1913–1920) did not use Germany's defeat to take back a bigger portion of the province, which Denmark had lost in the Second Schleswig War in 1864. The king and the opposition wanted to take over the city of Flensburg, while the cabinet insisted on only claiming areas where a majority of Danes lived, which led to a plebiscite in the affected areas over whether they wanted to become a part of Denmark or remain within Germany. Believing that he had the support of the people, King Christian X used his reserve power to dismiss Zahle's cabinet, sparking the Easter Crisis of 1920. As a result of the Easter Crisis, the king promised to no longer interfere in politics. Although the Danish Constitution was not amended at that time, Danish monarchs have stayed out of politics since then. The end of the war also prompted the Danish government to finish negotiating with Iceland, resulting in Iceland becoming a sovereign Kingdom on 1 December 1918 while retaining the Danish monarch as head of state.

In the 1924 Folketing election the Social Democrats, under the charismatic Thorvald Stauning, became Denmark's largest parliamentary political party, a position they maintained until 2001. Since the opposition still held a majority of the seats in the Landsting, Stauning had to co-operate with some of the right-wing parties, making the Social Democrats a more mainstream party. He succeeded in brokering an important deal in the 1930s which brought an end to the Great Depression in Denmark, and also laid the foundation for a welfare state.

Denmark joined the League of Nations in 1920 and during the interwar period was active in promoting peaceful solutions to international issues. With the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany during the 1930s, the country found itself in a very precarious situation. Berlin refused to recognize its post-1920 border with Denmark, but the Nazi regime was preoccupied with more important matters and did not make any issue of it. The Danes tried unsuccessfully to obtain recognition of the border from their neighbor, but otherwise went out of their way to avoid antagonizing Germany.

Second World War edit

 
During the German occupation, King Christian X became a powerful symbol of national sovereignty. This image dates from the King's birthday, 26 September 1940. Note the lack of a guard.

In 1939, Hitler offered nonaggression pacts to the Scandinavian nations. While Sweden and Norway refused, Denmark readily accepted. When WWII began that fall, Copenhagen declared its neutrality. Nevertheless, Germany (so as to secure communications for its invasion of Norway) occupied Denmark on 9 April 1940, meeting limited resistance. British forces, however, occupied the Faroe Islands (12 April 1940) and invaded Iceland (10 May 1940) in pre-emptive moves to prevent German occupation. Following a plebiscite, Iceland declared its independence on 17 June 1944 and became a republic, dissolving its union with Denmark.

The Nazi occupation of Denmark unfolded in a unique manner. The Monarchy remained. The conditions of occupation started off very leniently (although the authorities banned Danmarks Kommunistiske Parti (the Communist party) when the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941), and Denmark retained its own government. The new coalition government tried to protect the population from Nazi rule through compromise. The Germans allowed the Folketing to remain in session. Despite deportations of nearly 2,000 of its members, the police remained largely under Danish control, and the German authorities stayed one step removed from the population. However, the Nazi demands eventually became intolerable for the Danish government, so, in 1943, it resigned and Germany assumed full control of Denmark. From that point, an armed resistance movement grew against the occupying forces. Towards the end of the war, Denmark grew increasingly difficult for Germany to control, but the country remained under occupation until near the end of the war. On 4 May 1945, German forces in Denmark, North West Germany, and the Netherlands surrendered to the Allies. On 5 May 1945, British troops liberated Copenhagen. Three days later, the war ended.

Denmark succeeded in smuggling most of its Jewish population to Sweden, in 1943, when the Nazis threatened deportation; see Rescue of the Danish Jews. Danish doctors refused to treat German citizens fleeing from Germany. More than 13,000 died in 1945 from various causes among them some 7,000 children under five.[33]

Post-war edit

In 1948, Denmark granted home rule to the Faroe Islands. 1953 saw further political reform in Denmark, abolishing the Landsting (the elected upper house), colonial status for Greenland and allowing female rights of succession to the throne with the signing of a new constitution.

Although not one of the war-time United Nations, Denmark succeeded in obtaining a (belated) invitation to the UN Charter conference, and became a founding member of the United Nations organisation in 1945.[34] With the Soviet occupation of Bornholm, the emergence of what evolved to become the Cold War and with the lessons of World War II still fresh in Danish minds, the country abandoned its former policy of neutrality and became one of the original founding members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1949. Denmark had originally tried to form an alliance with Norway and Sweden only, but this attempt had failed. A Nordic Council later emerged however, with the aim of co-ordinating Nordic policies. Later on, in a referendum in 1972, Danes voted in favour of joining the European Community, the predecessor of the European Union, and Denmark became a member on 1 January 1973. Since then, Denmark has proven a hesitant member of the European community, opting out of many proposals, including the Euro, which the country rejected in a referendum in 2000.[35]

21st century edit

Denmark went through some of its most serious post-war crises in the early 21st century, such as SARS outbreak in 2003, Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004,[36][37][38] Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy in 2005, Danish embassy bombing in Islamabad in 2008, Copenhagen attacks in 2015, and with COVID-19 pandemic (Including Deltacron hybrid variant) in between January 2020 and March 2022, which has been further damaged economy and met with both national and international acclaim.[citation needed]

In 2001, the Folketing agreed to enter the war in Afghanistan.[39] A total of 43 Danish soldiers were killed in Afghanistan since the first deployment in 2002.

Venstre leader Anders Fogh Rasmussen won the 2001, 2005, and 2007 Folketing elections and formed a new government and was in his first few months challenged after the Social Democrat Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen admitted defeat. Eight years later, he resigned from his office in April 2009 due to upcoming as the NATO Secretary-General, and then Lars Løkke Rasmussen will be sworn in as Prime Minister in his first term from 2009 to 2011.[40]

In the 2011 Folketing elections, the incumbent centre-right coalition led by Venstre lost power to a centre-left coalition led by the Social Democrats, making Helle Thorning-Schmidt the country's first female Prime Minister. The Social Liberal Party and the Socialist People's Party became part of the three-party government. The new parliament convened on 4 October 2011.[41]

In 2015, Lars Løkke Rasmussen won the Folketing election and formed a new twice government and was in his second office. Although the ruling Social Democrats became the largest party in the Folketing and increased their seat count, the opposition Venstre party was able to form a minority government headed by Lars Løkke Rasmussen with the support of the Danish People's Party, the Liberal Alliance and the Conservative People's Party.[42] Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen held the office between 2009 and 2011, and again between 2015 and 2019, with backing from the Danish People's Party (DF).

In the 2019 Folketing election, comprising parties that supported the Social Democrats' leader Mette Frederiksen as candidate for Prime Minister. The "red bloc", consisting of the Social Democrats, the Social Liberals, Socialist People's Party, the Red–Green Alliance, the Faroese Social Democratic Party and the Greenlandic Siumut, won 93 of the 179 seats, securing a parliamentary majority. Meanwhile, the incumbent governing coalition, consisting of Venstre, the Liberal Alliance and the Conservative People's Party whilst receiving outside parliamentary support from the Danish People's Party and Nunatta Qitornai, was reduced to 76 seats (including the Venstre-affiliated Union Party in the Faroe Islands). Following the 2019 general election the Social Democrats, led by leader Mette Frederiksen, formed a single-party government with support from the left-wing coalition.[43] Frederiksen became prime minister on 27 June 2019.[44]

 
Crown Prince Federik, with his wife Mary in 2015.

In November 2022 snap general election, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen's Social Democrats remained as the biggest party with two more seats, gaining its best result in two decades.[45] The second biggest was Liberal Party (Venstre), led by Jakob Ellemann-Jensen. The recently formed Moderates party, led by two-time former Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, became the third-biggest party in Denmark.[46] In December 2022, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen formed a new coalition government with her Social Democrats and the Liberal Party and the Moderates party. Jakob Ellemann-Jensen became deputy prime minister and defence minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen was appointed foreign minister.[47]

At her 52nd annual new year's speech, Queen Margrethe II announced her abdication of the Danish throne, to her son, Frederick. The First willingly abdication of a Danish monarch since 1146[48] On the 14th of January, exactly 52 years after Margrethe accended the throne, Frederik X was proclaimed king of Denmark.

See also edit

Footnotes edit

  1. ^ http://madmonaco.blogspot.com/2010/06/oldest-monarchy.html http://www.royalinsight.net/content/danish-monarchy-overview 2012-10-15 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ The remote Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea was liberated by Soviet forces of the Allies. This led to some political turmoil and conflict, occasionally resurfacing in modern times.
  3. ^ (in Danish). Archived from the original on 2005-03-06. Retrieved 2011-11-30.
  4. ^ "Koelbjerg Woman". Bodies of the Bogs. Archeology Magazine. 1997. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  5. ^ . og Fund Fortidsminder (in Danish). Archived from the original on 2012-04-04. Retrieved 2011-11-30.
  6. ^ Jensen 2003:12–18
  7. ^ Jensen 2003:24
  8. ^ Jensen 2003:32
  9. ^ Jensen 2003:34
  10. ^ Birger Storgaard, Cosmopolitan aristocrats, pp. 106–125 in: The Spoils of Victory – The North in the shadow of the Roman Empire, Nationalmuseet, 2003. ISBN 87-7602-006-1.
  11. ^ Jordanes. . The Origin and Deeds of the Goths. Translated by Charles C. Mierow. Archived from the original on 2001-06-08.
  12. ^ Zoega, Georg (1797-01-01). De origine et usu obeliscorum (in Latin). Typis Lazzarinii Typographi Cameralis. p. 338. gormus senex.
  13. ^ Torfaeus, Thormodus (1711-01-01). Thormodi Torfæi ... Historia rerum Noruegicarum in quatuor tomos diuisa. In qua, præter Noruegiæ descriptionem, primordia gentis, instituta, mores, incrementa; ... & inprimis heroum ac regum, tam ante qvàm post monarchiam institutam, successiones, eorumque domi juxta ac foris gesta, cumque vicinis gentibus commercia; genealogia item, chronologia, & qvæcunque ad regni Norvegici illustrationem spectant, singula ex archivis regiis, & optimis, qvæ haberi potuerunt, membranis, aliisque fide dignissimis authoribus, eruta, luci publicæ exponuntur. Cum prolegomenis & indicibus necessariis: Thormodi Torfæi Historiae rerum Noruegicarum pars tertia, continens ea quæ à tempore introductæ in Noruegiam christianæ religionis ad initium usque regni Suerreris acta sunt (in Latin). ex typographeo Joachimi Schmitgenii.
  14. ^ a b . kongehuset.dk. Archived from the original on 6 July 2015. Retrieved 15 May 2015.
  15. ^ a b Staff. Saint Brices Day massacre, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 26 December 2007.
  16. ^ Adam of Bremen, History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, trans. Francis J. Tschan (New York, 2002), pp. 77–78.
  17. ^ a b c d C. F. Bricka, ed. (1903). "Tausen, Hans, 1494–1561, evangelisk Reformator og Biskop". Dansk Biografiske Lexicon (in Danish). Gyldendal. pp. 100–114. Retrieved 2008-09-09.
  18. ^ a b c Krønike om Gråbrodrenes Udjagelse
  19. ^ Tytler Woodhouselee, Lord Alexander Fraser (1823). Elements of General History, Ancient and Modern. H. Hill. pp. 428–429. Retrieved 4 November 2016.
  20. ^ Henrik Horstboll, and Uffe Ostergård, "Reform and Revolution: The French Revolution and the Case of Denmark, Scandinavian Journal of History (1990) 15#3 pp 155–179
  21. ^ Thorkild Kjærgaard, "The rise of press and public opinion in eighteenth‐century Denmark—Norway." Scandinavian journal of History 14.4 (1989): 215–230. He stresses the role
  22. ^ Kenneth E. Olson, The history makers: The press of Europe from its beginnings through 1965 (LSU Press, 1966) pp 50 – 64, 433
  23. ^ Thór, J. Th. (2003). "Fra biland til republik". De vestnordiske landes fælleshistorie: udvalg af indledende betragtninger over dele af den vestnordiske fælleshistorie (PDF) (in Danish) (1. udg ed.). Nuuk, Grønland: Grønlands Hjemmestyre, Direktoratet for kultur, uddannelse, forskning og kirke. p. 55. ISBN 87-90948-07-6. Retrieved 25 September 2020. moreover, Greenland, which by 1800 was already described as a colony.
  24. ^ Loftsdóttir, Kristín; Pálsson, Gísli (2013). "Black on white: Danish colonialism, Iceland and the Caribbean.". Scandinavian Colonialism and the Rise of Modernity. New York, NY: Springer. pp. 37–52. doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-6202-6. ISBN 978-1-4614-6202-6.
  25. ^ Sven Hakon Rossel, ed. (1996). Hans Christian Andersen: Danish Writer and Citizen of the World. Rodopi. pp. 52–54.
  26. ^ Neville A.T. Hall, and B. W. Higman, Slave Society in the Danish West Indies: St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix (Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 1992).
  27. ^ Markus Lampe, and Paul Sharp, "How the Danes discovered Britain: the international integration of the Danish dairy industry before 1880." European Review of Economic History 19.4 (2015): 432-453 [Lampe, Markus, and Paul Sharp. "How the Danes discovered Britain: the international integration of the Danish dairy industry before 1880." European Review of Economic History 19.4 (2015): 432-453. online].
  28. ^ Markus Lampe, and Paul Sharp, A Land of Milk and Butter: How Elites Created the Modern Danish Dairy Industry (2018).
  29. ^ Harald Lövaas, The trade union movement in Denmark (European Trade Union Institute, 1987).
  30. ^ Peder Tabor, "The Oldest Social-Democratic Press in the World." Gazette (Leiden, Netherlands) 9.2 (1963): 157–164.
  31. ^ David Greasley, "A Tale of Two Peripheries: Real Wages in Denmark and New Zealand 1875–1939." Scandinavian Economic History Review 54.2 (2006): 116–136.
  32. ^ From silver standard to gold standard 2013-11-03 at the Wayback Machine, retrieved 2008-08-05
  33. ^ Manfred Ertel. A Legacy of Dead German Children Spiegel Online, 16 May 2005
  34. ^ Götz, Norbert (2004). "Prestige and lack of alternative: Denmark and the United Nations in the making". Scandinavian Journal of History. 29 (2): 73–96. doi:10.1080/03468750410004594. S2CID 145403585.
  35. ^ "Denmark says no to the euro". the Guardian. 29 September 2000.
  36. ^ "Denmark mourns its tsunami dead". 2 January 2005.
  37. ^ "Mary from the start: Thailand: tsunami memorial". Mary from the start. 19 April 2014.
  38. ^ "Beautiful Danish Memorial in Thailand". Scandasia. 16 April 2005.
  39. ^ https://www.dr.dk/undervisning/samfundsfag/tidslinje-krigen-i-afghanistan (in Danish). Retrieved 2017-11-06
  40. ^ "Rasmussen named new Danish PM". The Irish Times. 5 April 2009.
  41. ^ "Danes vote for their first female prime minister". the Guardian. 15 September 2011.
  42. ^ Welle (www.dw.com), Deutsche (19 June 2015). "Record gains for anti-immigration party in Denmark | DW | 19.06.2015". DW.COM.
  43. ^ "Denmark's new leader joins Nordic swing to left". BBC News. 27 June 2019. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  44. ^ "Frederiksen prepares to take over as new Danish prime minister". The Local Denmark. 27 June 2019.
  45. ^ "Denmark: Mette Frederiksen's Social Democrats win the best result in 20 years". The Progressive Post. 8 November 2022.
  46. ^ "Denmark election: Centre-left bloc comes out on top". BBC News. 2 November 2022.
  47. ^ "Danish PM picks right-leaning rivals as key ministers in new government". Reuters. 15 December 2022.
  48. ^ "Abdication". www.kongehuset.dk. Retrieved 2024-01-03.

Further reading edit

  • Bain, R. Nisbet. Scandinavia: A Political History of Denmark, Norway and Sweden from 1513 to 1900 (2014) online
  • Bagge, Sverre. Cross and Scepter: The Rise of the Scandinavian Kingdoms From the Vikings to the Reformation (Princeton University Press; 2014) 325 pages;
  • Barton, H. Arnold. Scandinavia in the Revolutionary Era 1760–1815, University of Minnesota Press, 1986. ISBN 0-8166-1392-3.
  • Birch J. H. S. Denmark In History (1938) online
  • Derry, T. K. A History of Scandinavia: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland. (U of Minnesota Press, 1979.) ISBN 0-8166-3799-7.
  • Lauring, Palle. A History of Denmark. (3rd ed. Copenhagen: Høst, 1995). ISBN 87-14-29306-4.
  • Jespersen, Knud J. V. A History of Denmark (Palgrave Essential Histories) (2nd ed. 2011) excerpt and text search
  • Oakley, Stewart. A short history of Denmark (Praeger Publishers, 1972)
  • Pulsiano, Phillip. Medieval Scandinavia: an encyclopedia (Taylor & Francis, 1993).

Political history edit

  • Barton, H. A. Scandinavia in the Revolutionary Era, 1760–1815 (Minneapolis, 1986)
  • Bregnsbo, Michael. "The motives behind the foreign political decisions of Frederick VI during the Napoleonic Wars." Scandinavian Journal of History 39.3 (2014): 335–352.
  • Campbell, John L., John A. Hall, and Ove Kaj Pedersen, eds. National Identity and the Varieties of Capitalism: The Danish Experience (Studies in Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict) (2006)
  • Etting, Vivian. Queen Margrete I, 1353–1412, and the Founding of the Nordic Union (Brill, 2004) online edition
  • Gouges, Linnea de (2014) From Witch Hunts to Scientific Confidence; The Influence of British and Continental Currents on the Consolidation of the Scandinavian States in the 17th Century (Nisus Publications).
  • Jespersen, Leon. "Court and Nobility in Early Modern Denmark," Scandinavian Journal of History, September 2002, Vol. 27 Issue 3, pp 129–142, covers 1588 to 1650
  • Jonas, Frank. Scandinavia and the Great Powers in the First World War (2019) online review
  • Munck, Thomas. "Absolute Monarchy in Later 18th-century Denmark: Centralized Reform, Public Expectations, and the Copenhagen Press" Historical Journal, March 1998, Vol. 41 Issue 1, pp 201–24 in JSTOR
  • Munck, Thomas. The peasantry and the early absolute monarchy in Denmark, 1660–1708 (Copenhagen, 1979)
  • Jensen, Niklas Thode; Simonsen, Gunvor (2016). "Introduction: The historiography of slavery in the Danish-Norwegian West Indies, c. 1950-2016". Scandinavian Journal of History. 41 (4–5): 475–494. doi:10.1080/03468755.2016.1210880.

Culture and religion edit

  • Eichberg, Henning. "Sporting history, moving democracy, challenging body culture: The development of a Danish approach." Stadion (2011) 37#1 pp: 149–167.
  • Jacobsen, Brian Arly. "Islam and Muslims in Denmark." in Marian Burchardt and Ines Michalowski, eds. After integration: Islam, conviviality and contentious politics in Europe (Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, 2015) pp: 171–186.
  • Kirmmse, Bruce. Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark (Indiana University Press, 1990)
  • Michelson, William. "From Religious Movement to Economic Change: The Grundtvigian Case in Denmark," Journal of Social History, (1969) 2#4 pp: 283–301
  • Mordhorst, Mads. "Arla and Danish national identity–business history as cultural history." Business History (2014) 56#1 pp: 116–133.
  • Rossel, Sven H. A History of Danish Literature (University of Nebraska Press, 1992) 714pp
  • Schwarz, Martin. Church History of Denmark (Ashgate, 2002). 333 pp. ISBN 0-7546-0307-5

Economic and social history edit

  • Abildgren, Kim. "Consumer prices in Denmark 1502–2007," Scandinavian Economic History Review, (2010) 58#1 pp: 2–24
  • Abildgren, Kim. "Estimates of the national wealth of Denmark 1845–2013" (Danmarks Nationalbank Working Papers No. 92., 2015) online
  • Hornby, Ove. "Proto-Industrialisation Before Industrialisation? The Danish Case," Scandinavian Economic History Review, April 1982, Vol. 30 Issue 1, pp 3–33, covers 1750 to 1850
  • Christiansen, Palle Ove. "Culture and Contrasts in a Northern European Village: Lifestyles among Manorial Peasants in 18th-Century Denmark, Journal of Social History Volume: 29#2 (1995) pp 275+.
  • Johansen, Hans Chr. Danish Population History, 1600–1939 (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2002) 246 pp. ISBN 978-87-7838-725-7 online review
  • Johansen, Hans Chr. "Trends in Modern and Early Modern Social History Writing in Denmark after 1970," Social History, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Oct. 1983), pp. 375–381
  • Kjzergaard, T. The Danish Revolution: an ecohistorical interpretation (Cambridge, 1995), on farming
  • Lampe, Markus, and Paul Sharp. A Land of Milk and Butter: How Elites Created the Modern Danish Dairy Industry (U of Chicago Press, 2018) online review
  • Olson, Kenneth E. The history makers;: The press of Europe from its beginnings through 1965 (LSU Press, 1966) pp 50 – 64
  • Topp, Niels-Henrik. "Unemployment and Economic Policy in Denmark in the 1930s," Scandinavian Economic History Review, April 2008, Vol. 56 Issue 1, pp 71–90

Relations with Germany edit

  • Barfod, Jörgen H.: The Holocaust Failed in Denmark. Kopenhagen 1985.
  • Berdichevsky, Norman. The Danish-German Border Dispute, 1815–2001: aspects of cultural and demographic politics. (2002) ISBN 1-930901-34-8
  • Buckser, Andrew: After the Rescue: Jewish identity and community in contemporary Denmark. ORT 2003.
  • Lund, Joachim. "Denmark and the ‘European New Order’, 1940–-1942," Contemporary European History, August 2004, Vol. 13 Issue 3, pp 305–321

Historiography, memory, teaching edit

  • Brincker, Benedikte. "When did the Danish nation emerge? A review of Danish historians' attempts to date the Danish nation," National Identities, December 2009, Vol. 11 Issue 4, pp 353–365
  • Haue, Harry. "Transformation of history textbooks from national monument to global agent." Nordidactica: Journal of Humanities and Social Science Education (2013) 1 (2013): 80–89. online
  • Jørgensen, Simon Laumann. "The History We Need: Strategies of Citizen Formation in the Danish History Curriculum." Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research (2014): 1–18.
  • Mariager, Rasmus. "Danish Cold War Historiography." Journal of Cold War Studies 20.4 (2019): 180–211.
  • Olesen, Thorsten B., ed. The Cold War and the Nordic countries: Historiography at a crossroads (University Press of Southern Denmark, 2004).
  • Pedersen, Christian Damm. "Empire and the Borders of Danish History." (2014).

In German edit

  • Robert Bohn: Dänische Geschichte. München: Beck, 2001. – (Beck'sche Reihe; 2162). – ISBN 3-406-44762-7
  • Eva Heinzelmann / Stefanie Robl / Thomas Riis (Hrsg.): Der dänische Gesamtstaat, Verlag Ludwig, Kiel 2006, ISBN 978-3-937719-01-6.
  • Erich Hoffmann: "Der heutige Stand der Erforschung der Geschichte Skandinaviens in der Völkerwanderungszeit im Rahmen der mittelalterlichen Geschichtsforschung." In: Der historische Horizont der Götterbild–Amulette aus der Übergangsepoche von der Spätantike zum Frühmittelalter. Göttingen 1992. S. 143–182.
  • Jörg-Peter Findeisen: Dänemark. Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart. Regensburg 1999.

External links edit

  • [Bad link as of 2008-05-01.]
  • History of Denmark: Primary Documents
  • Review of Danish History
  • Sources on Danish history

history, denmark, this, article, needs, additional, citations, verification, please, help, improve, this, article, adding, citations, reliable, sources, unsourced, material, challenged, removed, find, sources, news, newspapers, books, scholar, jstor, march, 20. This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources History of Denmark news newspapers books scholar JSTOR March 2021 Learn how and when to remove this template message The history of Denmark as a unified kingdom began in the 8th century but historic documents describe the geographic area and the people living there the Danes as early as 500 AD These early documents include the writings of Jordanes and Procopius With the Christianization of the Danes c 960 AD it is clear that there existed a kingship King Frederik X can trace his lineage back to the Viking kings Gorm the Old and Harald Bluetooth from this time thus making the Monarchy of Denmark the oldest in Europe 1 The area now known as Denmark has a rich prehistory having been populated by several prehistoric cultures and people for about 12 000 years since the end of the last ice age Homann s map of the Scandinavian Peninsula and Fennoscandia with their surrounding territories northern Germany northern Poland the Baltic region Livonia Belarus and parts of Northwest Russia Johann Baptist Homann 1664 1724 was a German geographer and cartographer map dated around 1730 Denmark s history has particularly been influenced by its geographical location between the North and Baltic seas a strategically and economically important placement between Sweden and Germany at the center of mutual struggles for control of the Baltic Sea dominium maris baltici Denmark was long in disputes with Sweden over control of Skanelandene and with Germany over control of Schleswig a Danish fief and Holstein a German fief Eventually Denmark lost these conflicts and ended up ceding first Skaneland to Sweden and later Schleswig Holstein to the German Empire After the eventual cession of Norway in 1814 Denmark retained control of the old Norwegian colonies of the Faroe Islands Greenland and Iceland During the 20th century Iceland gained independence Greenland and the Faroes became integral parts of the Kingdom of Denmark and North Schleswig reunited with Denmark in 1920 after a referendum During World War II Denmark was occupied by Nazi Germany but was eventually liberated by British forces of the Allies in 1945 2 after which it joined the United Nations In the aftermath of World War II and with the emergence of the subsequent Cold War Denmark was quick to join the military alliance of NATO as a founding member in 1949 Contents 1 Prehistoric Denmark 1 1 Stone and Bronze Age 1 2 Iron Age 2 Middle Ages 2 1 Earliest literary sources 2 2 Viking Age 2 3 Christianity expansion and the establishment of the Kingdom of Denmark 2 4 Count rule 2 5 Margaret and the Kalmar Union 1397 1523 3 Early Modern Denmark 3 1 The Reformation 3 1 1 Dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church 3 1 2 Count s Feud 1534 1536 3 1 3 State Lutheranism 3 2 The loss of Eastern Denmark 3 2 1 Torstenson War 1643 1645 3 2 2 Second Northern War 1655 1660 3 3 Absolutism 3 3 1 Great Northern War 1700 1721 3 3 2 Changes in the agricultural economy 3 3 3 The Enlightenment and Danish nationalism 3 3 3 1 Reforms 3 3 3 2 Newspapers 3 4 Colonial ventures 4 19th century 4 1 The Napoleonic Wars 4 2 Nationalism and liberalism 4 3 Industrialisation 4 4 Monetary union 5 20th century 5 1 1901 1939 5 2 Second World War 5 3 Post war 6 21st century 7 See also 8 Footnotes 9 Further reading 9 1 Political history 9 2 Culture and religion 9 3 Economic and social history 9 4 Relations with Germany 9 5 Historiography memory teaching 9 6 In German 10 External linksPrehistoric Denmark editSee also Scandinavian prehistory The Scandinavian region has a rich prehistory having been populated by several prehistoric cultures and people for about 12 000 years since the end of the last ice age During the ice age all of Scandinavia was covered by glaciers most of the time except for the southwestern parts of what we now know as Denmark When the ice began retreating the barren tundras were soon inhabited by reindeer and elk and Ahrenburg and Swiderian hunters from the south followed them here to hunt occasionally The geography then was very different from what we know today Sea levels were much lower the island of Great Britain was connected by a land bridge to mainland Europe and the large area between Great Britain and the Jutlandic peninsula now beneath the North Sea and known as Doggerland was inhabited by tribes of hunter gatherers As the climate warmed up forceful rivers of meltwater started to flow and shape the virgin lands and more stable flora and fauna gradually began emerging in Scandinavia and Denmark in particular The first human settlers to inhabit Denmark and Scandinavia permanently were the Maglemosian people residing in seasonal camps and exploiting the land sea rivers and lakes It was not until around 6 000 BC that the approximate geography of Denmark as we know it today had been shaped Denmark has some unique natural conditions for preservation of artifacts providing a rich and diverse archeological record from which to understand the prehistoric cultures of this area Stone and Bronze Age edit nbsp Stone Dolmen near Vinstrup Norhald Built in the 3rd millennium BC See also Neolithic Nordic Stone Age and Nordic Bronze Age The Weichsel glaciation covered all of Denmark most of the time except the western coasts of Jutland It ended around 13 000 years ago allowing humans to move back into the previously ice covered territories and establish permanent habitation During the first post glacial millennia the landscape gradually changed from tundra to light forest and varied fauna including now extinct megafauna appeared Early prehistoric cultures uncovered in modern Denmark include the Maglemosian culture 9 500 6 000 BC the Kongemose culture 6 000 5 200 BC the Ertebolle culture 5 300 3 950 BC and the Funnelbeaker culture 4 100 2 800 BC nbsp The famous Trundholm sun chariot called Solvognen in Danish a sculpture of the sun pulled by a mare Scholars have dated it to some time in the 15th century BC and believe that it illustrates an important concept expressed in Nordic Bronze Age mythology The first inhabitants of this early post glacial landscape in the so called Boreal period were very small and scattered populations living from hunting of reindeer and other land mammals and gathering whatever fruits the climate was able to offer Around 8 300 BC the temperature rose drastically now with summer temperatures around 15 degrees Celsius 59 degrees Fahrenheit and the landscape changed into dense forests of aspen birch and pine and the reindeer moved north while aurochs and elk arrived from the south The Koelbjerg Man is the oldest known bog body in the world and also the oldest set of human bones found in Denmark 3 dated to the time of the Maglemosian culture around 8 000 BC 4 5 With a continuing rise in temperature the oak elm and hazel arrived in Denmark around 7 000 BC Now boar red deer and roe deer also began to abound 6 A burial from Bogebakken at Vedbaek dates to c 6 000 BC and contains 22 persons including four newborns and one toddler Eight of the 22 had died before reaching 20 years of age testifying to the hardness of hunter gatherer life in the cold north 7 Based on estimates of the amount of game animals scholars estimate the population of Denmark to have been between 3 300 and 8 000 persons in the time around 7 000 BC 8 It is believed that the early hunter gatherers lived nomadically exploiting different environments at different times of the year gradually shifting to the use of semi permanent base camps 9 With the rising temperatures sea levels also rose and during the Atlantic period Denmark evolved from a contiguous landmass around 11 000 BC to a series of islands by 4 500 BC The inhabitants then shifted to a seafood based diet which allowed the population to increase Agricultural settlers made inroads around 3 000 BC Many dolmens and rock tombs especially passage graves date from this period The Nordic Bronze Age period in Denmark from about 1 500 BC featured a culture that buried its dead with their worldly goods beneath burial mounds The many finds of gold and bronze from this era include beautiful religious artifacts and musical instruments and provide the earliest evidence of social classes and stratification Iron Age edit See also Nordic Iron Age nbsp The silver Gundestrup Cauldron with what some scholars interpret as Celtic depictions exemplifies the trade relations of the period During the Pre Roman Iron Age from the 4th to the 1st century BC the climate in Denmark and southern Scandinavia became cooler and wetter limiting agriculture and setting the stage for local groups to migrate southward into Germania At around this time people began to extract iron from the ore in peat bogs Evidence of strong Celtic cultural influence dates from this period in Denmark and in much of northwest Europe and survives in some of the older place names The Roman provinces whose frontiers stopped short of Denmark nevertheless maintained trade routes and relations with Danish or proto Danish peoples as attested by finds of Roman coins The earliest known runic inscriptions date back to c 200 AD Depletion of cultivated land in the last century BC seems to have contributed to increasing migrations in northern Europe and increasing conflict between Teutonic tribes and Roman settlements in Gaul Roman artifacts are especially common in finds from the 1st century It seems clear that some part of the Danish warrior aristocracy served in the Roman army 10 Occasionally during this time both animal and human sacrifice occurred and bodies were immersed in bogs In recent times update some of these bog bodies have emerged very well preserved providing valuable information about the religion and people who lived in Denmark during this period Some of the most well preserved bog bodies from the Nordic Iron Age are the Tollund Man and the Grauballe Man From around the 5th to the 7th century Northern Europe experienced mass migrations This period and its material culture are referred to as the Germanic Iron Age nbsp The face of Tollundmanden one of the best preserved bog body finds nbsp The Dejbjerg wagon from the Pre Roman Iron Age thought to be a ceremonial wagon nbsp The Nydam oak boat a ship burial from the Roman Iron Age At Gottorp Castle Schleswig now in Germany nbsp Copies of the Golden Horns of Gallehus from the Germanic Iron Age thought to be ceremonial horns but of a raid purpose Middle Ages editEarliest literary sources edit Further information Etymology of Denmark and Danes tribe In his description of Scandza from the 6th century work Getica the ancient writer Jordanes says that the Dani were of the same stock as the Suetidi Swedes Suithiod and expelled the Heruli and took their lands 11 The Old English poems Widsith and Beowulf as well as works by later Scandinavian writers notably by Saxo Grammaticus c 1200 provide some of the earliest references to Danes Viking Age edit Main article Viking Age nbsp The extent of the Danish Realm before the expansion of the Viking Age It is not known when but the tribal Danes divided the realm into herreder marked by red lines Kingdom of Denmarkin the Middle AgesKongeriget Danmarki middelalderen8th century 936 1397 nbsp Harald s realm red with vassals and allies yellow StatusPart of the North Sea Empire 1013 1035 Independent state until 1397CapitalLejre in ZealandJellinge until 10th cent Roskilde since 10th cent Common languagesOld Danish Latin Estonian Danish Estonia ReligionNorse paganism state before 960 Roman Catholicism state after 960 Other amp non Danish godlauss lack of faith in any deity Estonian paganism Danish Estonia History Formed8th century Incorporated into the Kalmar UnionJune 17 1397With the beginning of the Viking Age in the 9th century the prehistoric period in Denmark ends The Danish people were among those known as Vikings during the 8th 11th centuries Viking explorers first discovered and settled in Iceland in the 9th century on their way from the Faroe Islands From there Greenland and Vinland probably Newfoundland were also settled Utilizing their great skills in shipbuilding and navigation they raided and conquered parts of France and the British Isles nbsp The Ladby ship the largest ship burial found in Denmark nbsp The fortified Viking town of Aros Aarhus 950 AD They also excelled in trading along the coasts and rivers of Europe running trade routes from Greenland in the north to Constantinople in the south via Russian and Ukrainian rivers most notably along the River Dnieper and via Kiev then being the capital of Kiev Rus The Danish Vikings were most active in Britain Ireland France Spain Portugal and Italy where they raided conquered and settled their earliest settlements included sites in the Danelaw Ireland and Normandy The Danelaw encompassed the Northeastern half of what now constitutes England where Danes settled and Danish law and rule prevailed Prior to this time England consisted of approximately seven independent Anglo Saxon kingdoms The Danes conquered terminated all of these except for the kingdom of Wessex Alfred the Great king of Wessex emerged from these trials as the sole remaining English king and thereby as the first English Monarch In the early 9th century Charlemagne s Christian empire had expanded to the southern border of the Danes and Frankish sources e g Notker of St Gall provide the earliest historical evidence of the Danes These report a King Gudfred who appeared in present day Holstein with a navy in 804 where diplomacy took place with the Franks In 808 King Gudfred attacked the Obotrites and conquered the city of Reric whose population was displaced or abducted to Hedeby In 809 King Godfred and emissaries of Charlemagne failed to negotiate peace despite the sister of Godfred being a concubine of Charlemagne and the next year King Godfred attacked the Frisians with 200 ships Viking raids along the coast of France and the Netherlands were large scale Paris was besieged and the Loire Valley devastated during the 10th century One group of Danes was granted permission to settle in northwestern France under the condition that they defend the place from future attacks As a result the region became known as Normandy and it was the descendants of these settlers who conquered England in 1066 The oldest parts of the defensive works of Danevirke near Hedeby at least date from the summer of 755 and were expanded with large works in the 10th century The size and number of troops needed to man it indicates a quite powerful ruler in the area which might be consistent with the kings of the Frankish sources In 815 AD Emperor Louis the Pious attacked Jutland apparently in support of a contender to the throne perhaps Harald Klak but was turned back by the sons of Godfred who most likely were the sons of the above mentioned Godfred At the same time St Ansgar travelled to Hedeby and started the Catholic Christianisation of Scandinavia Gorm the Old Danish Gorm den Gamle Old Norse Gormr gamli Latin Gormus Senex 12 13 also called Gorm the Languid Danish Gorm Loge Gorm den Dvaske was the first historically recognized ruler of Denmark reigning from c 936 to his death c 958 14 He ruled from Jelling and made the oldest of the Jelling Stones in honour of his wife Thyra Gorm was born before 900 and died c 958 His rule marks the start of the Danish monarchy and royal house see Danish monarchs family tree 14 The Danes were united and officially Christianized in 965 AD by Gorm s son Harald Bluetooth see below the story of which is recorded on the Jelling stones The extent of Harald s Danish Kingdom is unknown although it is reasonable to believe that it stretched from the defensive line of Dannevirke including the Viking city of Hedeby across Jutland the Danish isles and into southern present day Sweden Scania and perhaps Halland and Blekinge Furthermore the Jelling stones attest that Harald had also won Norway 15 In retaliation for the St Brice s Day massacre of Danes in England the son of Harald Sweyn Forkbeard mounted a series of wars of conquest against England By 1014 England had completely submitted to the Danes However distance and a lack of common interests prevented a lasting union and Sweyn s son Cnut the Great barely maintained the link between the two countries which completely broke up during the reign of his son Hardecanute A final attempt by the Norwegians under Harald Hardrada to reconquer England failed but did pave the way for William the Conqueror s takeover in 1066 15 Christianity expansion and the establishment of the Kingdom of Denmark edit See also North Sea Empire nbsp nbsp Often regarded as Denmark s birth certificate the large Jelling Stone announces the unification and Christianization of Denmark by Harald Bluetooth c 980 The history of Christianity in Denmark overlaps with that of the Viking Age Various petty kingdoms existed throughout the area now known as Denmark for many years Between c 960 and the early 980s Harald Bluetooth appears to have established a kingdom in the lands of the Danes which stretched from Jutland to Skane Around the same time he received a visit from a German missionary who according to legend 16 survived an ordeal by fire which convinced Harald to convert to Christianity Sweyn Estridson 1020 74 re established strong royal Danish authority and built a good relationship with Archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg Bremen at that time the Archbishop of all of Scandinavia The new religion which replaced the old Norse religious practices had many advantages for the king Christianity brought with it some support from the Holy Roman Empire It also allowed the king to dismiss many of his opponents who adhered to the old mythology At this early stage there is no evidence that the Danish Church was able to create a stable administration that Harald could use to exercise more effective control over his kingdom but it may have contributed to the development of a centralising political and religious ideology among the social elite which sustained and enhanced an increasingly powerful kingship England broke away from Danish control in 1035 and Denmark fell into disarray for some time Sweyn Estridsen s son Canute IV raided England for the last time in 1085 He planned another invasion to take the throne of England from an aging William I He called up a fleet of 1 000 Danish ships 60 Norwegian long boats with plans to meet with another 600 ships under Duke Robert of Flanders in the summer of 1086 Canute however was beginning to realise that the imposition of the tithe on Danish peasants and nobles to fund the expansion of monasteries and churches and a new head tax Danish nefgjald had brought his people to the verge of rebellion Canute took weeks to arrive where the fleet had assembled at Struer but he found only the Norwegians still there Canute thanked the Norwegians for their patience and then went from assembly to assembly Danish landsting outlawing any sailor captain or soldier who refused to pay a fine which amounted to more than a years harvest for most farmers Canute and his housecarls fled south with a growing army of rebels on his heels Canute fled to the royal property outside the town of Odense on Funen with his two brothers After several attempts to break in and then bloody hand to hand fighting in the church Benedict was cut down and Canute was struck in the head by a large stone and then speared from the front He died at the base of the main altar on 10 July 1086 where he was buried by the Benedictines When Queen Edele came to take Canute s body to Flanders a light allegedly shone around the church and it was taken as a sign that Canute should remain where he was citation needed The death of St Canute marks the end of the Viking Age Never again would massive flotillas of Scandinavians meet each year to ravage the rest of Christian Europe In the early 12th century Denmark became the seat of an independent church province of Scandinavia Not long after that Sweden and Norway established their own archbishoprics free of Danish control The mid 12th century proved a difficult time for the kingdom of Denmark Violent civil wars rocked the land Eventually Valdemar the Great 1131 82 gained control of the kingdom stabilizing it and reorganizing the administration King Valdemar and Absalon ca 1128 1201 the bishop of Roskilde rebuilt the country nbsp Danish Empire and campaigns 1168 1227During Valdemar s reign construction began of a castle in the village of Havn leading eventually to the foundation of Copenhagen the modern capital of Denmark Valdemar and Absalon built Denmark into a major power in the Baltic Sea a power which later competed with the Hanseatic League the counts of Holstein and the Teutonic Knights for trade territory and influence throughout the Baltic In 1168 Valdemar and Absalon gained a foothold on the southern shore of the Baltic when they subdued the Principality of Rugen In the 1180s Mecklenburg and the Duchy of Pomerania came under Danish control too In the new southern provinces the Danes promoted Christianity mission of the Rani monasteries like Eldena Abbey and settlement Danish participation in the Ostsiedlung The Danes lost most of their southern gains after the Battle of Bornhoved 1227 but the Rugian principality stayed with Denmark until 1325 nbsp Northern countries during the 13th and early 14th centuries Norway Sweden 1330s 1350s Denmark Conquered by Denmark in 1219 Livonia before 1343In 1202 Valdemar II became king and launched various crusades to claim territories notably modern Estonia Once these efforts were successful a period in history known as the Danish Estonia began Legend has it that the Danish flag the Dannebrog fell from the sky during the Battle of Lindanise in Estonia in 1219 A series of Danish defeats culminating in the Battle of Bornhoved on 22 July 1227 cemented the loss of Denmark s north German territories Valdemar himself was saved only by the courageous actions of a German knight who carried Valdemar to safety on his horse From that time on Valdemar focused his efforts on domestic affairs One of the changes he instituted was the feudal system where he gave properties to men with the understanding that they owed him service This increased the power of the noble families Danish hojadelen and gave rise to the lesser nobles Danish lavadelen who controlled most of Denmark Free peasants lost the traditional rights and privileges they had enjoyed since Viking times The king of Denmark had difficulty maintaining control of the kingdom in the face of opposition from the nobility and from the Church An extended period of strained relations between the crown and the Popes of Rome took place known as the archiepiscopal conflicts By the late 13th century royal power had waned and the nobility forced the king to grant a charter considered Denmark s first constitution Following the Battle of Bornhoved in 1227 a weakened Denmark provided windows of opportunity to both the Hanseatic League and the Counts of Holstein The Holstein Counts gained control of large portions of Denmark because the king would grant them fiefs in exchange for money to finance royal operations Valdemar spent the remainder of his life putting together a code of laws for Jutland Zealand and Skane These codes were used as Denmark s legal code until 1683 This was a significant change from the local law making at the regional assemblies Danish landsting which had been the long standing tradition Several methods of determining guilt or innocence were outlawed including trial by ordeal and trial by combat The Code of Jutland Danish Jyske Lov was approved at meeting of the nobility at Vordingborg in 1241 just prior to Valdemar s death Because of his position as the king of Dannebrog and as a legislator Valdemar enjoys a central position in Danish history To posterity the civil wars and dissolution that followed his death made him appear to be the last king of a golden age The Middle Ages saw a period of close cooperation between the Crown and the Roman Catholic Church Thousands of church buildings sprang up throughout the country during this time The economy expanded during the 12th century based mostly on the lucrative herring trade but the 13th century turned into a period of difficulty and saw the temporary collapse of royal authority Count rule edit nbsp The kingless time 1332 1340 Danish Estonia not shown on the map was under the protection of the Livonian Order During the disastrous reign of Christopher II 1319 1332 most of the country was seized by the provincial counts except Skane which was taken over by Sweden after numerous peasant revolts and conflicts with the Church For eight years after Christopher s death Denmark had no king and was instead controlled by the counts After one of them Gerhard III of Holstein Rendsburg was assassinated in 1340 Christopher s son Valdemar was chosen as king and gradually began to recover the territories which was finally completed in 1360 The Black Death which came to Denmark during these years also aided Valdemar s campaign His continued efforts to expand the kingdom after 1360 brought him into open conflict with the Hanseatic League He conquered Gotland much to the displeasure of the League which lost Visby an important trading town located there The Hanseatic alliance with Sweden to attack Denmark initially proved a fiasco since Danish forces captured a large Hanseatic fleet and ransomed it back for an enormous sum Luckily for the League the Jutland nobles revolted against the heavy taxes levied to fight the expansionist war in the Baltic the two forces worked against the king forcing him into exile in 1370 For several years the Hanseatic League controlled the fortresses on the sound between Skane and Zealand Margaret and the Kalmar Union 1397 1523 edit Main article Kalmar Union nbsp The Kalmar Union c 1400Margaret I the daughter of Valdemar Atterdag found herself married off to Hakon VI of Norway in an attempt to join the two kingdoms along with Sweden since Hakon had kinship ties to the Swedish royal family The dynastic plans called for her son Olaf II to rule the three kingdoms but after his early death in 1387 she took on the role herself 1387 1412 During her lifetime 1353 1412 the three kingdoms of Denmark Norway and Sweden including the Faroe Islands as well as Iceland Greenland and present day Finland became linked under her capable rule in what became known as the Kalmar Union made official in 1397 nbsp The tomb of Margaret I in Roskilde Cathedral Her successor Eric of Pomerania King of Denmark from 1412 to 1439 lacked Margaret s skill and thus directly caused the breakup of the Kalmar Union Eric s foreign policy engulfed Denmark in a succession of wars with the Holstein counts and the city of Lubeck When the Hanseatic League imposed a trade embargo on Scandinavia the Swedes who saw their mining industry adversely affected rose up in revolt The three countries of the Kalmar Union all declared Eric deposed in 1439 However support for the idea of regionalism continued so when Eric s nephew Christopher of Bavaria came to the throne in 1440 he managed to get himself elected in all three kingdoms briefly reuniting Scandinavia 1442 1448 The Swedish nobility grew increasingly unhappy with Danish rule and the union soon became merely a legal concept with little practical application During the subsequent reigns of Christian I 1450 1481 and Hans 1481 1513 tensions grew and several wars between Sweden and Denmark erupted In the early 16th century Christian II reigned 1513 1523 came to power He allegedly declared If the hat on my head knew what I was thinking I would pull it off and throw it away This quotation apparently refers to his devious and machiavellian political dealings He conquered Sweden in an attempt to reinforce the union and had about 100 leaders of the Swedish anti unionist forces killed in what came to be known as the Stockholm Bloodbath of November 1520 The bloodbath destroyed any lingering hope of Scandinavian union nbsp Map of Denmark Norway c 1780In the aftermath of Sweden s definitive secession from the Kalmar Union in 1521 civil war and the Protestant Reformation followed in Denmark and Norway When things settled down the Privy Council of Denmark had lost some of its influence and that of Norway no longer existed The two kingdoms known as Denmark Norway operated in a personal union under a single monarch Norway kept its separate laws and some institutions such as a royal chancellor separate coinage and a separate army As a hereditary kingdom Norway s status as separate from Denmark remained important to the royal dynasty in its struggles to win elections as kings of Denmark The two kingdoms remained tied until 1814 Early Modern Denmark edit nbsp Abraham Ortelius s 1570 map of Denmark including parts on the Scandinavian peninsula The Reformation edit Main article Reformation in Denmark Norway and Holstein nbsp Hans Tausen was one of the first Lutheran preachers and later a bishop in Denmark The Reformation which originated in the German lands in the early 16th century from the ideas of Martin Luther 1483 1546 had a considerable impact on Denmark The Danish Reformation started in the mid 1520s Some Danes wanted access to the Bible in their own language In 1524 Hans Mikkelsen and Christiern Pedersen translated the New Testament into Danish it became an instant best seller 17 Those who had traveled to Wittenberg in Saxony and come under the influence of the teachings of Luther and his associates included Hans Tausen a Danish monk in the Order of St John Hospitallers On Good Friday in 1525 Tausen used the pulpit at Antvorskov Abbey Church to proclaim Luther s reforms His scandalized superiors ordered him out of Zealand and held him in the priory at Viborg under close confinement until he should come to his senses 17 Townspeople came to see the troublesome monk and Tausen preached to them from the window of his cell Within days Tausen s ideas swept through the town The then radical ideas of Luther found a receptive audience Tausen s preaching converted ordinary people merchants nobles and monks and even the Prior grew to appreciate Tausen and ordered his release Tausen preached openly much to the consternation of Bishop Jon Friis who lost his ability to do anything about the Lutherans and retreated to Hald Castle 17 After preaching in the open air Tausen gained the use of a small chapel which soon proved too small for the crowds who attended services in Danish His followers broke open a Franciscan Abbey so they could listen to Tausen who packed the church daily for services The town leaders protected Tausen from the Bishop of Viborg 17 Viborg became the center for the Danish Reformation for a time Lutheranism spread quickly to Aarhus and Aalborg Within months King Frederick appointed Tausen as one of his personal chaplains October 1526 in order to protect him from Catholics Tausen s version of Luther s ideas spread throughout Denmark Copenhagen became a hotbed of reformist activity and Tausen moved there to continue his work His reputation preceded him and the excitement of hearing the liturgy in Danish brought thousands of people out to hear him With the kings permission churches in Copenhagen opened their doors to the Lutherans and held services for Catholics and for Lutherans at different times of the day At Our Lady Church the main church of Copenhagen Bishop Ronnow refused to admit the heretics In December 1531 a mob stormed the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen encouraged by Copenhagen s fiery mayor Ambrosius Bogbinder They tore down statues and side altars and destroyed artwork and reliquaries Frederick I s policy of toleration insisted that the two competing groups share churches and pulpits peacefully but this satisfied neither Lutherans nor Catholics Luther s ideas spread rapidly as a consequence of a powerful combination of popular enthusiasm for church reform and a royal eagerness to secure greater wealth through the seizure of church lands and property In Denmark the reformation increased the crown s revenues by 300 Dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church edit Dissatisfaction with the established Catholic Church had already been widespread in Denmark Many people viewed the tithes and fees a constant source of irritation for farmers and merchants as unjust This became apparent once word got out that King Frederick and his son Duke Christian had no sympathy with Franciscans who persistently made the rounds of the parishes to collect food money and clothing in addition to the tithes Between 1527 and 1536 many towns petitioned the king to close the Franciscan houses 18 Frederick obliged by sending letters authorizing the closure of the monasteries often offering a small sum of money to help the brothers on their way With the royal letter in hand mobs forcibly closed Franciscan abbeys all over Denmark They beat up monks two of whom died 18 The closure of Franciscan houses occurred systematically in Copenhagen Viborg Aalborg Randers Malmo and ten other cities in all 28 monasteries or houses closed People literally hounded Franciscan monks out of the towns 18 No other order faced such harsh treatment Considering how strongly many people felt about removing all traces of Catholic traditions from Danish churches surprisingly little violence took place Luther s teaching had become so overwhelmingly popular that Danes systematically cleared churches of statues paintings wall hangings reliquaries and other Catholic elements without interference The only exceptions came in individual churches where the local churchmen refused to permit reform nbsp King Christian III carried out the Protestant Reformation in Slesvig Holsten Denmark and Norway Frederick I died in 1533 the Viborg Assembly Danish landsting proclaimed his son Duke Christian of Schleswig King Christian III The State Council Danish Rigsrad on Zealand led by the Catholic bishops took control of the country and refused to recognize the election of Christian III a staunch Lutheran The regents feared Christian s zeal for Luther s ideas would tip the balance and disenfranchise Catholics both peasants and nobles The State Council encouraged Count Christopher of Oldenburg to become Regent of Denmark Christian III quickly raised an army to enforce his election including mercenary troops from Germany Count Christopher raised an army including troops from Mecklenburg and Oldenburg and the Hanseatic League especially Lubeck to restore his Catholic uncle King Christian II deposed in 1523 This resulted in a three year civil war called the Count s Feud Danish Grevens Fejde Count s Feud 1534 1536 edit Armed rebellion by Catholic peasants led by Skipper Clement started in northern Jutland Rebellion swept across Funen Zealand and Skane Christian III s army soundly defeated an army of Catholic nobles at Svenstrup on 16 October 1534 Christian forced a truce with the Hanseatic League which had sent troops to help Count Christopher Christian III s army under Johan Rantzau chased the rebels all the way back to Aalborg and then massacred over 2 000 of them inside the city in December 1534 The Protestants captured Skipper Clement 1534 and later executed him in 1536 Christian III s mercenary troops put an end to Catholic hopes on Zealand and then Funen Skane rebels went as far as proclaiming Christian II king again King Gustav Vasa of Sweden sent two separate armies to ravage Halland and Skane into submission Besiegers finally starved the last hold outs in the rebellion Copenhagen and Malmo into surrender in July 1536 By the spring of 1536 Christian III had taken firm control State Lutheranism edit Denmark became officially Lutheran on 30 October 1536 by decree of King Christian III and in 1537 the reconstituted State Council approved the Lutheran Ordinances which was worked out by Danish theologians and Johannes Bugenhagen based on the Augsburg Confession and Luther s Little Catechism The government established the Danish National Church Danish Folkekirken as the state church All of Denmark s Catholic bishops went to prison until such time as they converted to Luther s reform The authorities released them when they promised to marry and to support the reforms If they agreed they received property and spent the rest of their lives as wealthy landowners If they refused conversion they died in prison The State confiscated Church lands to pay for the armies that had enforced Christian III s election Priests swore allegiance to Lutheranism or found new employment The new owners turned monks out of their monasteries and abbeys Nuns in a few places gained permission to live out their lives in nunneries though without governmental financial support The Crown closed churches abbeys priories and cathedrals giving their property to local nobles or selling it The King appointed Danish superintendents later bishops to oversee Lutheran orthodoxy in the church Denmark became part of a Lutheran heartland extending through Scandinavia and northern Germany The Catholic Church everywhere in Scandinavia had sealed its fate by supporting hopeless causes Christian II and the emperor Charles V in Denmark Norwegian independence in that country and in Sweden the Kalmar Union Geographical distance also prevented them from receiving anything more than a sympathetic ear from Rome The 17th century saw a period of strict Lutheran orthodoxy in Denmark with harsh punishments visited on suspected followers of either Calvinism or Huldrych Zwingli Lutheran authorities treated Catholics harshly in the fear that they might undermine the king government and national church In a delayed result of the Reformation Denmark became embroiled in the Thirty Years War 1618 1648 on the Protestant side The loss of Eastern Denmark edit See also Dominium maris baltici The Dano Norwegian Kingdom grew wealthy during the 16th century largely because of the increased traffic through the Oresund which Danes could tax because Denmark controlled both sides of the Sound The trade in grain exports from Poland to the Netherlands and to the rest of Europe grew enormously at this time and the Danish kings did not hesitate to cash in on it The Sound duty was only repealed in the 1840s The Danish economy benefited from the Eighty Years War 1568 1648 in the Netherlands because a large number of skilled refugees from that area the most economically advanced in Europe came to Denmark This helped to modernize many aspects of society and to establish trading links between Denmark and the Netherlands Denmark Norway had a reputation as a relatively powerful kingdom at this time European politics of the 16th century revolved largely around the struggle between Catholic and Protestant forces so it seemed almost inevitable that Denmark a strong unified Lutheran kingdom would get drawn into the larger war when it came The Thirty Years War went badly for the Protestant states in the early 1620s and a call went out to Denmark Norway to save the Protestant cause King Christian IV who was also a duke of the Holy Roman Empire on the basis of his possessions in Holstein decided to intervene in the conflict raging in northern Germany The campaign ended in defeat and Jutland was occupied by the imperial army of Albrecht von Wallenstein In the Treaty of Lubeck Christian made peace and agreed to not intervene in Germany again The war in Germany had been very expensive and Christian IV saw no other recourse than to raise the Sound tolls Unfortunately this act pushed the Netherlands away from Denmark and into the arms of Sweden Torstenson War 1643 1645 edit nbsp Denmark before 1645In 1643 Sweden s armies under the command of Lennart Torstensson suddenly invaded Denmark without declaring war The ensuing conflict became known as the Torstenson War The Netherlands wishing to end the Danish stranglehold on the Baltic joined the Swedes in their war against Denmark Norway In October 1644 a combined Dutch Swedish fleet destroyed 80 percent of the Danish fleet in the Battle of Femern The result of this defeat proved disastrous for Denmark Norway in the Second treaty of Bromsebro 1645 Denmark ceded to Sweden the Norwegian provinces Jemtland Herjedalen and Alvdalen as well as the Danish islands of Gotland and Osel Halland went to Sweden for a period of 30 years and the Netherlands were exempted from paying the Sound Duty nbsp Denmark before 1658 nbsp Treaty of Roskilde 1658 Halland previously occupied by Sweden for a 30 year period under the terms of the Peace of Bromsebro negotiated in 1645 was now ceded the Scanian lands and Bohus County were ceded Trondelag and Bornholm provinces which were ceded in 1658 but rebelled against Sweden and returned to Danish rule in 1660 Nevertheless Danes remember Christian IV as one of the great kings of Denmark He had a very long reign from 1588 to 1648 and has become known as the architect on the Danish throne because of the large number of building projects he undertook Many of the great buildings of Denmark date from his reign After the death of Christian IV in 1648 his son Frederick succeeded him Second Northern War 1655 1660 edit In 1657 during the Second Northern War Denmark Norway launched a war of revenge against Sweden then distracted in Poland which turned into a complete disaster The war became a disaster for two reasons Primarily because Denmark s new powerful ally the Netherlands remained neutral as Denmark was the aggressor and Sweden the defender Secondly the Belts froze over in a rare occurrence during the winter of 1657 1658 allowing Charles X Gustav of Sweden to lead his armies across the ice to invade Zealand In the following Treaty of Roskilde Denmark Norway capitulated and gave up all of Eastern Denmark Danish Skane Halland Blekinge and Bornholm in addition to the counties of Bahusia Norwegian Bahuslen and Trondelag in Norway Holstein Gottorp was also tied to Sweden providing a gateway for future invasions from the south But the Second Northern War was not yet over Three months after the peace treaty was signed Charles X Gustav of Sweden held a council of war where he decided to simply wipe Denmark from the map and unite all of Scandinavia under his rule Once again the Swedish army arrived outside Copenhagen However this time the Danes did not panic or surrender Instead they decided to fight and prepared to defend Copenhagen nbsp March across the Belts in 1658Frederick III of Denmark had stayed in his capital and now encouraged the citizens of Copenhagen to resist the Swedes by saying he would die in his nest Furthermore this unprovoked declaration of war by Sweden finally triggered the alliance that Denmark Norway had with the Netherlands A powerful Dutch fleet was sent to Copenhagen with vital supplies and reinforcements which saved the city from being captured during the Swedish attack Furthermore Brandenburg Prussia the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Habsburg monarchy had gathered large forces to aid Denmark Norway and fighting continued into 1659 nbsp Battle of Koge Bay in 1677Charles X Gustav of Sweden suddenly died of an illness in early 1660 while planning an invasion of Norway Following his death Sweden made peace in the Treaty of Copenhagen The Swedes returned Trondelag to Norway and Bornholm to Denmark but kept both Bahusia and Terra Scania The Netherlands and other European powers accepted the settlement not wanting both coasts of the Sound controlled by Denmark This treaty established the boundaries between Norway Denmark and Sweden that still exist today All in all Sweden had now surpassed Denmark as the most powerful country in Scandinavia Absolutism edit As a result of the disaster in the war against Sweden King Frederick III reigned 1648 1670 succeeded in convincing the nobles to give up some of their powers and their exemption from taxes leading to the era of absolutism in Denmark The country s main objective in the following decades was the recovery of its lost provinces from Sweden In the 1670s Denmark Norway had regained enough strength to start a war with Sweden to recover its lost provinces However in spite of Denmark s outside support naval dominance and initial support from the population of the former eastern provinces the war ended in a bitter stalemate Great Northern War 1700 1721 edit A renewed attack during the Third Northern War 1700 1721 first resulted in the unfavourable Peace of Travendal but after Denmark s re entry into the war and Sweden s ultimate defeat by a large alliance Sweden was no longer a threat to Denmark However the great powers opposed any Danish territorial gains which meant the Treaty of Frederiksborg did not return the former eastern provinces to Denmark Furthermore Denmark was even forced to return Swedish Pomerania held by Danish forces since 1715 to Sweden Denmark now had no hope of recovering its lost provinces from Sweden As noted earlier the rest of Europe was simply against the Sound being controlled by a single nation ever again For most of the 18th century Denmark was at peace The only time when war threatened was in 1762 when the Duke of Holstein Gottorp became Tsar Peter III of Russia and declared war on Denmark over his ancestral claims in Schleswig Before any fighting could begin however he was overthrown by his wife who took control of Russia as Tsarina Catherine II Catherine the Great 19 Empress Catherine withdrew her husband s demands and negotiated the transfer of ducal Schleswig Holstein to the Danish crown in return for Russian control of the County of Oldenburg and adjacent lands within the Holy Roman Empire an exchange that was formalized with the 1773 Treaty of Tsarskoye Selo The alliance that accompanied the territorial exchange tied Denmark s foreign policy to Russia s and led directly to Denmark s involvement in a series of wars over the succeeding decades With the suspension of the Danish diet that body disappeared for a couple of centuries During this time power became increasingly centralized in Copenhagen Frederick s government reorganized itself in a much more hierarchical manner built around the king as a focal point of administration Crown officials dominated the administration as well as a new group of bureaucrats much to the dismay of the traditional aristocracy who saw their own influence curtailed even further The absolutist kings of Denmark were quite weak compared to their Swedish counterparts and non noble landlords became the real rulers of the country They used their influence to pass laws that favored themselves The administration and laws underwent modernization during this period In 1683 the Danske lov 1683 Danish Code standardized and collected all the old provincial laws Other initiatives included the standardization of all weights and measures throughout the kingdom and an agricultural survey and registry This survey allowed the government to begin taxing landowners directly moving it beyond dependence on revenue from crown lands The population of Denmark rose steadily through this period from 600 000 in 1660 after the loss of territory to Sweden to 700 000 in 1720 By 1807 it had risen to 978 000 Changes in the agricultural economy edit Attempts to diversify the economy away from agriculture failed During this period little industry existed except for a very small amount in Copenhagen population 30 000 In the late 17th century a small amount of industry did develop catering to the military Denmark suffered in part because of its lack of natural resources It had nothing much to export except agricultural products The Netherlands bought the largest share of Denmark s exports The landlords only about 300 in number nevertheless owned 90 of the land in the country Rural administration remained primarily the preserve of the large landholders and of a few law enforcement officials In 1733 low crop prices caused the introduction of adscription an effort by the landlords to obtain cheap labor The effect of this was to turn the previously free Danish peasantry into serfs The adscription system tied rural laborers to their place of birth and required them to rent farms on the estates As rent peasants were required to work the landlords plots and could not negotiate contracts or demand payment for improvements made to the farm Peasants who refused to rent a farm were subject to six years of military service Danish agriculture was very inefficient and unproductive as a result since the peasants had no motivation to perform anything more than the absolute minimum of work Attempts to sell Danish grain in Norway failed because of its low quality compared to grain from the Baltic In the late 18th century extensive agricultural reforms took place involving the abolition of the old open field system and the amalgamation of many smaller farms into larger ones With the abolition of the adscription system the military could now only obtain manpower through conscription These reforms were possible because agricultural prices steadily rose in the second half of the century Throughout the 18th century the Danish economy did very well largely on the basis of expanded agricultural output to meet growing demand across Europe Danish merchant ships also traded around Europe and the North Atlantic venturing to new Danish colonies in the Caribbean and North Atlantic The Enlightenment and Danish nationalism edit nbsp Denmark s social reformers Struensee and Brandt quartered and displayed on the wheel on 28 April 1772New propriety and Enlightenment ideas became popular among the middle classes of Denmark arousing increased interest in personal liberty In the last 15 years of the 18th century the authorities relaxed the censorship which had existed since the beginning of the 17th century At the same time a sense of Danish nationalism began to develop Hostility increased against Germans and Norwegians present at the royal court Pride in the Danish language and culture increased and eventually a law banned foreigners from holding posts in the government Antagonism between Germans and Danes increased from the mid 18th century on In the 1770s during the reign of the mentally unstable Christian VII 1766 1808 the queen Caroline Matilda s lover a German doctor named Johann Friedrich Struensee became the real ruler of the country Filled with the ideas of the Enlightenment he attempted a number of radical reforms including freedom of the press and religion But it was short lived The landlords feared that the reforms were a threat to their power while the commoners believed that religious freedom was an invitation to atheism In 1772 Struensee was arrested tried and convicted of crimes against the majesty his right hand was cut off following his beheading his remains were quartered and put on display on top of spikes on the commons west of Copenhagen The next 12 years were a period of unmitigated reaction until a group of reformers gained power in 1784 Reforms edit Denmark became the model of enlightened despotism partially influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution Denmark thus adopted liberalizing reforms in line with those of the French Revolution with no direct contact Danes were aware of French ideas and agreed with them as it moved from Danish absolutism to a liberal constitutional system between 1750 and 1850 The change of government in 1784 was caused by a power vacuum created when King Christian VII took ill and influence shifted to the crown prince who later became King Frederick VI and reform oriented landowners Between 1784 and 1815 the abolition of serfdom made the majority of the peasants into landowners The government also introduced free trade and universal education In contrast to France under the ancien regime agricultural reform was intensified in Denmark civil rights were extended to the peasants the finances of the Danish state were healthy and there were no external or internal crises That is reform was gradual and the regime itself carried out agrarian reforms that had the effect of weakening absolutism by creating a class of independent peasant freeholders Much of the initiative came from well organized liberals who directed political change in the first half of the 19th century 20 Newspapers edit Danish news media first appeared in the 1540s when handwritten fly sheets reported on the news In 1666 Anders Bording the father of Danish journalism began a state paper The royal privilege to bring out a newspaper was issued to Joachim Wielandt in 1720 University officials handled the censorship but in 1770 Denmark became one of the first nations of the world to provide for press freedom it ended in 1799 In 1795 1814 the press led by intellectuals and civil servants called out for a more just and modern society and spoke out for the oppressed tenant farmers against the power of the old aristocracy 21 In 1834 the first liberal newspaper appeared one that gave much more emphasis to actual news content rather than opinions The newspapers championed the Revolution of 1848 in Denmark The new constitution of 1849 liberated the Danish press Newspapers flourished in the second half of the 19th century usually tied to one or another political party or labor union Modernization bringing in new features and mechanical techniques appeared after 1900 The total circulation was 500 000 daily in 1901 more than doubling to 1 2 million in 1925 The German occupation brought informal censorship some offending newspaper buildings were simply blown up by the Nazis During the war the underground produced 550 newspapers small surreptitiously printed sheets that encouraged sabotage and resistance 22 Colonial ventures edit Main articles Danish colonization of the Americas and Danish colonial empire nbsp Map showing Denmark Norway and its colonial possessions Denmark maintained a number of colonies outside Scandinavia starting in the 17th century and lasting until the 20th century Denmark also controlled traditional colonies in Greenland 23 and Iceland 24 in the north Atlantic obtained through the union with Norway Christian IV reigned 1588 1648 first initiated the policy of expanding Denmark s overseas trade as part of the mercantilist trend then popular in European governing circles Denmark established its own first colony at Tranquebar or Trankebar on India s south coast in 1620 In the Caribbean Denmark started a colony on St Thomas in 1671 St John in 1718 and purchased Saint Croix from France in 1733 Denmark maintained its Indian colony Tranquebar as well as several other smaller colonies there for about two hundred years The Danish East India Company operated out of Tranquebar During its heyday the Danish East Indian Company and the Swedish East India Company imported more tea than the British East India Company and smuggled 90 of it into Britain where it sold at a huge profit Both of the Scandinavia based East India Companies folded during the course of the Napoleonic Wars Denmark also maintained other colonies forts and bases in West Africa primarily for the purpose of slave trading 19th century editFurther information Danish Golden Age Danish Unitary StateHelstaten da Danischer Gesamtstaat de 1814 1864 nbsp Territories that were part of the Kingdom of Denmark from 1814 to 1864Statuspersonal union between Schleswig Holstein Lauenburg and DenmarkCommon languagesDanish Frisian GermanReligionLutheranismKing of Denmark Duke of Schleswig Holstein and Lauenburg 1808 1839Frederik VI 1839 1848Christian VIII 1848 1863Frederik VII 1863 1906Christian IXPrime ministers 1848 1855 Council Presidents 1855 1864 1848 1852Adam Wilhelm Moltke 1852 1853Christian Albrecht Bluhme 1853 1854Anders Sandoe Orsted 1854 1856Peter Georg Bang 1856 1857Carl Christoffer Georg Andrae 1857 1859Carl Christian Hall 1859 1860Carl Edvard Rotwitt 1863 1864Ditlev Gothard MonradHistorical eraLate Modern Period Established1814 Treaty of Kiel14 January 1814 First Schleswig War1848 1851 Disestablished1864The Napoleonic Wars edit nbsp The Battle of Copenhagen 1801 The long decades of peace came to an abrupt end during the Napoleonic Wars Britain felt threatened by the Armed Neutrality Treaty of 1794 which originally involved Denmark and Sweden and later Prussia and Russia The British fleet attacked Copenhagen in 1801 destroying much of Denmark s navy Denmark nonetheless managed to remain largely uninvolved in the Napoleonic Wars until 1807 The British fleet bombarded Copenhagen again that year causing considerable destruction to the city They then captured the entire Danish fleet so that it could not be used by France to invade Britain as the French had lost their own fleet at Trafalgar in 1805 leading to the Gunboat War 1807 1814 The confiscation of the Danish navy was widely criticised in Britain In 1809 Danish forces fighting on the French side participated in defeating the anti Bonapartist German rebellion led by Ferdinand von Schill at the Battle of Stralsund By 1813 Denmark could no longer bear the war costs and the state was bankrupt When in the same year the Sixth Coalition isolated Denmark by clearing Northern Germany of French forces Frederick VI had to make peace Accordingly the unfavourable Treaty of Kiel was concluded in January 1814 with Sweden and Great Britain and another peace was signed with Russia in February The post Napoleonic Congress of Vienna demanded the dissolution of the Dano Norwegian union and this was confirmed by the Treaty of Kiel in 1814 The treaty transferred Heligoland to Great Britain and Norway from the Danish to the Swedish crown Denmark was to be satisfied with Swedish Pomerania But the Norwegians revolted declared their independence and elected crown prince Christian Frederick the future Christian VIII as their king However the Norwegian independence movement failed to attract any support from the European powers After a brief war with Sweden Christian had to abdicate in order to preserve Norwegian autonomy established in a personal union with Sweden In favour of the Kingdom of Prussia Denmark renounced her claims to Swedish Pomerania at the Congress of Vienna 1815 and instead was satisfied with the Duchy of Lauenburg and a Prussian payment of 3 5 million talers Prussia also took over a Danish 600 000 taler debt to Sweden This period also counts as the Golden Age of Danish intellectual history A sign of renewed intellectual vigor was the introduction of compulsory schooling in 1814 Literature painting sculpture and philosophy all experienced an unusually vibrant period The stories of Hans Christian Andersen 1805 1875 became popular not only in Denmark but all over Europe and in the United States 25 The ideas of the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard 1813 1855 spread far beyond Denmark influencing not only his own era but proving instrumental in the development of new philosophical systems after him The sculptures of Thorvaldsen 1770 1834 grace public buildings all over Denmark and other artists appreciated and copied his style Grundtvig 1783 1872 tried to reinvigorate the Danish National Church and contributed to the hymns used by the church in Denmark Nationalism and liberalism edit See also History of Schleswig Holstein nbsp Den Grundlovgivende Rigsforsamling The Constitutional Assembly created The Danish constitution 1860 1864 painting by Constantin Hansen The Danish liberal and national movements gained momentum in the 1830s and after the European revolutions of 1848 Denmark became a constitutional monarchy on 5 June 1849 The growing bourgeoisie had demanded a share in government and in an attempt to avert the sort of bloody revolution occurring elsewhere in Europe Frederick VII gave in to the demands of the citizens A new constitution emerged separating the powers and granting the franchise to all adult males as well as freedom of the press religion and association The king became head of the executive branch The legislative branch consisted of two parliamentary chambers the Folketing comprising members elected by the general population and the Landsting elected by landowners Denmark also gained an independent judiciary Another significant result of the revolution was the abolition of slavery in the Danish West Indies the Danish colony in the Caribbean which at an earlier part of its history witnessed the biggest slave auctions in the world 26 In 1845 Denmark s other tropical colony Tranquebar in India was sold to Britain The Danish king s realm still consisted of the islands the northern half of the Jutland peninsula and the Duchy of Schleswig in real union with the Duchy of Holstein nbsp Danish Infantry regiment in a fight with regiment Martini Contemporary illustration of the 1864 Second Schleswig War The islands and Jutland together constituted the kingdom whereas the monarch held the duchies in personal union with the kingdom The duchy of Schleswig constituted a Danish fief while the Duchy of Holstein remained a part of the German Confederation Since the early 18th century and even more so from the early 19th century the Danes had become used to viewing the duchies and the kingdom as increasingly unified in one state This view however clashed with that of the German majority in the duchies also enthused by liberal and national trends which led to a movement known as Schleswig Holsteinism Schleswig Holsteinists aimed for independence from Denmark The First Schleswig War 1848 1851 broke out after constitutional change in 1849 and ended with the status quo because of the intervention of Britain and other Great Powers Much debate took place in Denmark as to how to deal with the question of Schleswig Holstein National Liberals demanded permanent ties between Schleswig and Denmark but stated that Holstein could do as it pleased However international events overtook domestic Danish politics and Denmark faced war against both Prussia and Austria in what became known as the Second Schleswig War 1864 The war lasted from February to October 1864 Denmark was easily beaten by Prussia and Austria and obliged to relinquish both Schleswig and Holstein The war caused Denmark as a nation severe trauma forcing it to reconsider its place in the world The loss of Schleswig Holstein came as the latest in the long series of defeats and territorial loss that had begun in the 17th century The Danish state had now lost some of the richest areas of the kingdom Skane to Sweden and Schleswig to Germany so the nation focused on developing the poorer areas of the country Extensive agricultural improvements took place in Jutland and a new form of nationalism which emphasized the small people the decency of rural Denmark and the shunning of wider aspirations developed Industrialisation edit Industrialisation came to Denmark in the second half of the 19th century The nation s first railroads were constructed in the 1850s and improved communications and overseas trade allowed industry to develop in spite of Denmark s lack of natural resources Trade unions developed starting in the 1870s There was a considerable migration of people from the countryside to the cities Danish agriculture became centered around the export of dairy and meat products especially to Great Britain Instead of relying on German middlemen in Hamburg the Danes opened new direct trade routes to England after the defeat by the Germans 27 Lampke and Sharp argue that Denmark s success as in the dairy industry was not based on co operatives which came in the late nineteenth century Instead leadership was in the hands of the landed intellectual and political elites They made land reforms adopted new technologies and started educational and trading systems Together these made Denmark a major exporter of butter after 1850 Land reform enabled the growth of a middle ranking class of farmers They copied the innovations pioneered by wealthy estate owners and implemented them through newly formed co operatives 28 Internationalism and nationalism have become very much part of the history of the Danish Labour movement The Labour movement gathered momentum when social issues became associated with internationalism Socialist theory and organisational contact with the First International which linked labour movements in various countries paved the way Louis Pio emerged as the driving force In 1871 following the bloody defeat of the Paris Commune he started publishing socialist journalism He campaigned strongly for an independent organisation of the workers under their own management and organised a Danish branch of the First International This became the foundation stone for the Social Democratic Party under the name of Den Internationale Arbejderforening for Danmark The International Labour Association for Denmark As a combination of union and political party it adroitly brought together national and international elements 29 Pio saw internationalism as vital for the success of the workers struggle without internationalism no progress He pointed out that the middle classes cooperated across national frontiers and used nationalistic rhetoric as a weapon against the workers and their liberation 30 The Danish section started organising strikes and demonstrations for higher wages and social reforms 31 Demands were moderate but enough to provoke the employers and the forces of law and order Things came to a head in the Battle of Faelleden on 5 May 1872 The authorities arrested the three leaders Louis Pio Poul Geleff and Harald Brix charged them and convicted them of high treason The three left Denmark for the United States to set up the ill starred and short lived socialist colony near Hays City in Ellis County Kansas Back in Denmark the emerging political situation made possible by the new Danish door of independence alarmed many of the existing elites since it inevitably empowered the peasantry Simple men with little education replaced professors and professionals in positions of power The peasants in coalition with liberal and radical elements from the cities eventually won a majority of seats in the Folketing Even though constitutional changes had taken place to boost the power of the Landsting the Left Venstre Party demanded to form the government but the king still the head of the executive branch refused However in 1901 king Christian IX gave in and asked Johan Henrik Deuntzer a member of Venstre to form a government the Cabinet of Deuntzer This began a tradition of parliamentary government and with the exception of the Easter Crisis of 1920 no government since 1901 has ruled against a parliamentary majority in the Folketing Monetary union edit Main article Scandinavian Monetary Union nbsp Two golden 20 kr coins from the Scandinavian Monetary Union which was based on a gold standard The coin to the left is Swedish and the right one is Danish The Scandinavian Monetary Union a monetary union formed by Sweden and Denmark on 5 May 1873 fixed both their currencies against gold at par to each other Norway governed in union with Sweden entered the monetary union two years later in 1875 by pegging its currency to gold at the same level as Denmark and Sweden 403 gram 32 The monetary union proved one of the few tangible results of the Scandinavist political movement of the 19th century The union provided fixed exchange rates and stability in monetary terms but the member countries continued to issue their own separate currencies In an outcome not initially foreseen the perceived security led to a situation where the formally separate currencies circulated on a basis of as good as the legal tender virtually throughout the entire area The outbreak of World War I in 1914 brought an end to the monetary union Sweden abandoned the tie to gold on 2 August 1914 and without a fixed exchange rate the free circulation came to an end 20th century edit1901 1939 edit In the early decades of the 20th century the new Radical Party and the older Venstre Party shared government During this time women gained the right to vote 1915 and the United States purchased some of Denmark s colonial holdings the three islands of St John St Croix and St Thomas in the West Indies The period also saw Denmark inaugurating important social and labour market reforms laying the basis for the present update welfare state Denmark remained neutral during World War I but the conflict affected the country to a considerable extent As its economy was heavily based on exports the unrestricted German submarine warfare was a serious problem Denmark had no choice but to sell many of its exports to Germany instead of overseas nations Widespread profiteering took place but commerce also suffered great disruption because of the conflict and because of the ensuing financial instability in Europe Rationing was instituted and there were food and fuel shortages In addition Denmark was forced by Berlin to mine the Sound to prevent British ships from entering it Following the defeat of Germany in the war 1918 the Treaty of Versailles 1919 mandated the Schleswig Plebiscites which resulted in the return of Northern Schleswig now update South Jutland to Denmark The king and parts of the opposition grumbled that Prime Minister Carl Theodor Zahle in office 1909 1910 and 1913 1920 did not use Germany s defeat to take back a bigger portion of the province which Denmark had lost in the Second Schleswig War in 1864 The king and the opposition wanted to take over the city of Flensburg while the cabinet insisted on only claiming areas where a majority of Danes lived which led to a plebiscite in the affected areas over whether they wanted to become a part of Denmark or remain within Germany Believing that he had the support of the people King Christian X used his reserve power to dismiss Zahle s cabinet sparking the Easter Crisis of 1920 As a result of the Easter Crisis the king promised to no longer interfere in politics Although the Danish Constitution was not amended at that time Danish monarchs have stayed out of politics since then The end of the war also prompted the Danish government to finish negotiating with Iceland resulting in Iceland becoming a sovereign Kingdom on 1 December 1918 while retaining the Danish monarch as head of state In the 1924 Folketing election the Social Democrats under the charismatic Thorvald Stauning became Denmark s largest parliamentary political party a position they maintained until 2001 Since the opposition still held a majority of the seats in the Landsting Stauning had to co operate with some of the right wing parties making the Social Democrats a more mainstream party He succeeded in brokering an important deal in the 1930s which brought an end to the Great Depression in Denmark and also laid the foundation for a welfare state Denmark joined the League of Nations in 1920 and during the interwar period was active in promoting peaceful solutions to international issues With the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany during the 1930s the country found itself in a very precarious situation Berlin refused to recognize its post 1920 border with Denmark but the Nazi regime was preoccupied with more important matters and did not make any issue of it The Danes tried unsuccessfully to obtain recognition of the border from their neighbor but otherwise went out of their way to avoid antagonizing Germany Second World War edit Main article Occupation of Denmark nbsp During the German occupation King Christian X became a powerful symbol of national sovereignty This image dates from the King s birthday 26 September 1940 Note the lack of a guard In 1939 Hitler offered nonaggression pacts to the Scandinavian nations While Sweden and Norway refused Denmark readily accepted When WWII began that fall Copenhagen declared its neutrality Nevertheless Germany so as to secure communications for its invasion of Norway occupied Denmark on 9 April 1940 meeting limited resistance British forces however occupied the Faroe Islands 12 April 1940 and invaded Iceland 10 May 1940 in pre emptive moves to prevent German occupation Following a plebiscite Iceland declared its independence on 17 June 1944 and became a republic dissolving its union with Denmark The Nazi occupation of Denmark unfolded in a unique manner The Monarchy remained The conditions of occupation started off very leniently although the authorities banned Danmarks Kommunistiske Parti the Communist party when the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 and Denmark retained its own government The new coalition government tried to protect the population from Nazi rule through compromise The Germans allowed the Folketing to remain in session Despite deportations of nearly 2 000 of its members the police remained largely under Danish control and the German authorities stayed one step removed from the population However the Nazi demands eventually became intolerable for the Danish government so in 1943 it resigned and Germany assumed full control of Denmark From that point an armed resistance movement grew against the occupying forces Towards the end of the war Denmark grew increasingly difficult for Germany to control but the country remained under occupation until near the end of the war On 4 May 1945 German forces in Denmark North West Germany and the Netherlands surrendered to the Allies On 5 May 1945 British troops liberated Copenhagen Three days later the war ended Denmark succeeded in smuggling most of its Jewish population to Sweden in 1943 when the Nazis threatened deportation see Rescue of the Danish Jews Danish doctors refused to treat German citizens fleeing from Germany More than 13 000 died in 1945 from various causes among them some 7 000 children under five 33 Post war edit In 1948 Denmark granted home rule to the Faroe Islands 1953 saw further political reform in Denmark abolishing the Landsting the elected upper house colonial status for Greenland and allowing female rights of succession to the throne with the signing of a new constitution Although not one of the war time United Nations Denmark succeeded in obtaining a belated invitation to the UN Charter conference and became a founding member of the United Nations organisation in 1945 34 With the Soviet occupation of Bornholm the emergence of what evolved to become the Cold War and with the lessons of World War II still fresh in Danish minds the country abandoned its former policy of neutrality and became one of the original founding members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NATO in 1949 Denmark had originally tried to form an alliance with Norway and Sweden only but this attempt had failed A Nordic Council later emerged however with the aim of co ordinating Nordic policies Later on in a referendum in 1972 Danes voted in favour of joining the European Community the predecessor of the European Union and Denmark became a member on 1 January 1973 Since then Denmark has proven a hesitant member of the European community opting out of many proposals including the Euro which the country rejected in a referendum in 2000 35 21st century editDenmark went through some of its most serious post war crises in the early 21st century such as SARS outbreak in 2003 Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004 36 37 38 Jyllands Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy in 2005 Danish embassy bombing in Islamabad in 2008 Copenhagen attacks in 2015 and with COVID 19 pandemic Including Deltacron hybrid variant in between January 2020 and March 2022 which has been further damaged economy and met with both national and international acclaim citation needed In 2001 the Folketing agreed to enter the war in Afghanistan 39 A total of 43 Danish soldiers were killed in Afghanistan since the first deployment in 2002 Venstre leader Anders Fogh Rasmussen won the 2001 2005 and 2007 Folketing elections and formed a new government and was in his first few months challenged after the Social Democrat Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen admitted defeat Eight years later he resigned from his office in April 2009 due to upcoming as the NATO Secretary General and then Lars Lokke Rasmussen will be sworn in as Prime Minister in his first term from 2009 to 2011 40 In the 2011 Folketing elections the incumbent centre right coalition led by Venstre lost power to a centre left coalition led by the Social Democrats making Helle Thorning Schmidt the country s first female Prime Minister The Social Liberal Party and the Socialist People s Party became part of the three party government The new parliament convened on 4 October 2011 41 In 2015 Lars Lokke Rasmussen won the Folketing election and formed a new twice government and was in his second office Although the ruling Social Democrats became the largest party in the Folketing and increased their seat count the opposition Venstre party was able to form a minority government headed by Lars Lokke Rasmussen with the support of the Danish People s Party the Liberal Alliance and the Conservative People s Party 42 Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen held the office between 2009 and 2011 and again between 2015 and 2019 with backing from the Danish People s Party DF In the 2019 Folketing election comprising parties that supported the Social Democrats leader Mette Frederiksen as candidate for Prime Minister The red bloc consisting of the Social Democrats the Social Liberals Socialist People s Party the Red Green Alliance the Faroese Social Democratic Party and the Greenlandic Siumut won 93 of the 179 seats securing a parliamentary majority Meanwhile the incumbent governing coalition consisting of Venstre the Liberal Alliance and the Conservative People s Party whilst receiving outside parliamentary support from the Danish People s Party and Nunatta Qitornai was reduced to 76 seats including the Venstre affiliated Union Party in the Faroe Islands Following the 2019 general election the Social Democrats led by leader Mette Frederiksen formed a single party government with support from the left wing coalition 43 Frederiksen became prime minister on 27 June 2019 44 nbsp Crown Prince Federik with his wife Mary in 2015 In November 2022 snap general election Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen s Social Democrats remained as the biggest party with two more seats gaining its best result in two decades 45 The second biggest was Liberal Party Venstre led by Jakob Ellemann Jensen The recently formed Moderates party led by two time former Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen became the third biggest party in Denmark 46 In December 2022 Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen formed a new coalition government with her Social Democrats and the Liberal Party and the Moderates party Jakob Ellemann Jensen became deputy prime minister and defence minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen was appointed foreign minister 47 At her 52nd annual new year s speech Queen Margrethe II announced her abdication of the Danish throne to her son Frederick The First willingly abdication of a Danish monarch since 1146 48 On the 14th of January exactly 52 years after Margrethe accended the throne Frederik X was proclaimed king of Denmark See also edit nbsp Denmark portal nbsp Faroe Islands portal nbsp History portalList of Danish monarchs Danish monarchs family tree List of Danish chronicles History of Christianity in Denmark Politics of Denmark Politics of the Faroe Islands Politics of GreenlandFootnotes edit http madmonaco blogspot com 2010 06 oldest monarchy html http www royalinsight net content danish monarchy overview Archived 2012 10 15 at the Wayback Machine The remote Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea was liberated by Soviet forces of the Allies This led to some political turmoil and conflict occasionally resurfacing in modern times Koelbjergkvinden fra Danmark in Danish Archived from the original on 2005 03 06 Retrieved 2011 11 30 Koelbjerg Woman Bodies of the Bogs Archeology Magazine 1997 Retrieved 21 March 2013 Koelbjerg og Fund Fortidsminder in Danish Archived from the original on 2012 04 04 Retrieved 2011 11 30 Jensen 2003 12 18 Jensen 2003 24 Jensen 2003 32 Jensen 2003 34 Birger Storgaard Cosmopolitan aristocrats pp 106 125 in The Spoils of Victory The North in the shadow of the Roman Empire Nationalmuseet 2003 ISBN 87 7602 006 1 Jordanes III 23 The Origin and Deeds of the Goths Translated by Charles C Mierow Archived from the original on 2001 06 08 Zoega Georg 1797 01 01 De origine et usu obeliscorum in Latin Typis Lazzarinii Typographi Cameralis p 338 gormus senex Torfaeus Thormodus 1711 01 01 Thormodi Torfaei Historia rerum Noruegicarum in quatuor tomos diuisa In qua praeter Noruegiae descriptionem primordia gentis instituta mores incrementa amp inprimis heroum ac regum tam ante qvam post monarchiam institutam successiones eorumque domi juxta ac foris gesta cumque vicinis gentibus commercia genealogia item chronologia amp qvaecunque ad regni Norvegici illustrationem spectant singula ex archivis regiis amp optimis qvae haberi potuerunt membranis aliisque fide dignissimis authoribus eruta luci publicae exponuntur Cum prolegomenis amp indicibus necessariis Thormodi Torfaei Historiae rerum Noruegicarum pars tertia continens ea quae a tempore introductae in Noruegiam christianae religionis ad initium usque regni Suerreris acta sunt in Latin ex typographeo Joachimi Schmitgenii a b The Royal Lineage The Danish Monarchy kongehuset dk Archived from the original on 6 July 2015 Retrieved 15 May 2015 a b Staff Saint Brices Day massacre Encyclopaedia Britannica Retrieved 26 December 2007 Adam of Bremen History of the Archbishops of Hamburg Bremen trans Francis J Tschan New York 2002 pp 77 78 a b c d C F Bricka ed 1903 Tausen Hans 1494 1561 evangelisk Reformator og Biskop Dansk Biografiske Lexicon in Danish Gyldendal pp 100 114 Retrieved 2008 09 09 a b c Kronike om Grabrodrenes Udjagelse Tytler Woodhouselee Lord Alexander Fraser 1823 Elements of General History Ancient and Modern H Hill pp 428 429 Retrieved 4 November 2016 Henrik Horstboll and Uffe Ostergard Reform and Revolution The French Revolution and the Case of Denmark Scandinavian Journal of History 1990 15 3 pp 155 179 Thorkild Kjaergaard The rise of press and public opinion in eighteenth century Denmark Norway Scandinavian journal of History 14 4 1989 215 230 He stresses the role Kenneth E Olson The history makers The press of Europe from its beginnings through 1965 LSU Press 1966 pp 50 64 433 Thor J Th 2003 Fra biland til republik De vestnordiske landes faelleshistorie udvalg af indledende betragtninger over dele af den vestnordiske faelleshistorie PDF in Danish 1 udg ed Nuuk Gronland Gronlands Hjemmestyre Direktoratet for kultur uddannelse forskning og kirke p 55 ISBN 87 90948 07 6 Retrieved 25 September 2020 moreover Greenland which by 1800 was already described as a colony Loftsdottir Kristin Palsson Gisli 2013 Black on white Danish colonialism Iceland and the Caribbean Scandinavian Colonialism and the Rise of Modernity New York NY Springer pp 37 52 doi 10 1007 978 1 4614 6202 6 ISBN 978 1 4614 6202 6 Sven Hakon Rossel ed 1996 Hans Christian Andersen Danish Writer and Citizen of the World Rodopi pp 52 54 Neville A T Hall and B W Higman Slave Society in the Danish West Indies St Thomas St John and St Croix Aarhus Universitetsforlag 1992 Markus Lampe and Paul Sharp How the Danes discovered Britain the international integration of the Danish dairy industry before 1880 European Review of Economic History 19 4 2015 432 453 Lampe Markus and Paul Sharp How the Danes discovered Britain the international integration of the Danish dairy industry before 1880 European Review of Economic History 19 4 2015 432 453 online Markus Lampe and Paul Sharp A Land of Milk and Butter How Elites Created the Modern Danish Dairy Industry 2018 Harald Lovaas The trade union movement in Denmark European Trade Union Institute 1987 Peder Tabor The Oldest Social Democratic Press in the World Gazette Leiden Netherlands 9 2 1963 157 164 David Greasley A Tale of Two Peripheries Real Wages in Denmark and New Zealand 1875 1939 Scandinavian Economic History Review 54 2 2006 116 136 From silver standard to gold standard Archived 2013 11 03 at the Wayback Machine retrieved 2008 08 05 Manfred Ertel A Legacy of Dead German Children Spiegel Online 16 May 2005 Gotz Norbert 2004 Prestige and lack of alternative Denmark and the United Nations in the making Scandinavian Journal of History 29 2 73 96 doi 10 1080 03468750410004594 S2CID 145403585 Denmark says no to the euro the Guardian 29 September 2000 Denmark mourns its tsunami dead 2 January 2005 Mary from the start Thailand tsunami memorial Mary from the start 19 April 2014 Beautiful Danish Memorial in Thailand Scandasia 16 April 2005 https www dr dk undervisning samfundsfag tidslinje krigen i afghanistan in Danish Retrieved 2017 11 06 Rasmussen named new Danish PM The Irish Times 5 April 2009 Danes vote for their first female prime minister the Guardian 15 September 2011 Welle www dw com Deutsche 19 June 2015 Record gains for anti immigration party in Denmark DW 19 06 2015 DW COM Denmark s new leader joins Nordic swing to left BBC News 27 June 2019 Retrieved 27 June 2019 Frederiksen prepares to take over as new Danish prime minister The Local Denmark 27 June 2019 Denmark Mette Frederiksen s Social Democrats win the best result in 20 years The Progressive Post 8 November 2022 Denmark election Centre left bloc comes out on top BBC News 2 November 2022 Danish PM picks right leaning rivals as key ministers in new government Reuters 15 December 2022 Abdication www kongehuset dk Retrieved 2024 01 03 Further reading editFurther information History of Scandinavia Further reading Bain R Nisbet Scandinavia A Political History of Denmark Norway and Sweden from 1513 to 1900 2014 online Bagge Sverre Cross and Scepter The Rise of the Scandinavian Kingdoms From the Vikings to the Reformation Princeton University Press 2014 325 pages Barton H Arnold Scandinavia in the Revolutionary Era 1760 1815 University of Minnesota Press 1986 ISBN 0 8166 1392 3 Birch J H S Denmark In History 1938 online Derry T K A History of Scandinavia Norway Sweden Denmark Finland and Iceland U of Minnesota Press 1979 ISBN 0 8166 3799 7 Lauring Palle A History of Denmark 3rd ed Copenhagen Host 1995 ISBN 87 14 29306 4 Jespersen Knud J V A History of Denmark Palgrave Essential Histories 2nd ed 2011 excerpt and text search Oakley Stewart A short history of Denmark Praeger Publishers 1972 Pulsiano Phillip Medieval Scandinavia an encyclopedia Taylor amp Francis 1993 Political history edit Barton H A Scandinavia in the Revolutionary Era 1760 1815 Minneapolis 1986 Bregnsbo Michael The motives behind the foreign political decisions of Frederick VI during the Napoleonic Wars Scandinavian Journal of History 39 3 2014 335 352 Campbell John L John A Hall and Ove Kaj Pedersen eds National Identity and the Varieties of Capitalism The Danish Experience Studies in Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict 2006 Etting Vivian Queen Margrete I 1353 1412 and the Founding of the Nordic Union Brill 2004 online edition Gouges Linnea de 2014 From Witch Hunts to Scientific Confidence The Influence of British and Continental Currents on the Consolidation of the Scandinavian States in the 17th Century Nisus Publications Jespersen Leon Court and Nobility in Early Modern Denmark Scandinavian Journal of History September 2002 Vol 27 Issue 3 pp 129 142 covers 1588 to 1650 Jonas Frank Scandinavia and the Great Powers in the First World War 2019 online review Munck Thomas Absolute Monarchy in Later 18th century Denmark Centralized Reform Public Expectations and the Copenhagen Press Historical Journal March 1998 Vol 41 Issue 1 pp 201 24 in JSTOR Munck Thomas The peasantry and the early absolute monarchy in Denmark 1660 1708 Copenhagen 1979 Jensen Niklas Thode Simonsen Gunvor 2016 Introduction The historiography of slavery in the Danish Norwegian West Indies c 1950 2016 Scandinavian Journal of History 41 4 5 475 494 doi 10 1080 03468755 2016 1210880 Culture and religion edit Eichberg Henning Sporting history moving democracy challenging body culture The development of a Danish approach Stadion 2011 37 1 pp 149 167 Jacobsen Brian Arly Islam and Muslims in Denmark in Marian Burchardt and Ines Michalowski eds After integration Islam conviviality and contentious politics in Europe Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden 2015 pp 171 186 Kirmmse Bruce Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark Indiana University Press 1990 Michelson William From Religious Movement to Economic Change The Grundtvigian Case in Denmark Journal of Social History 1969 2 4 pp 283 301 Mordhorst Mads Arla and Danish national identity business history as cultural history Business History 2014 56 1 pp 116 133 Rossel Sven H A History of Danish Literature University of Nebraska Press 1992 714pp Schwarz Martin Church History of Denmark Ashgate 2002 333 pp ISBN 0 7546 0307 5Economic and social history edit Abildgren Kim Consumer prices in Denmark 1502 2007 Scandinavian Economic History Review 2010 58 1 pp 2 24 Abildgren Kim Estimates of the national wealth of Denmark 1845 2013 Danmarks Nationalbank Working Papers No 92 2015 online Hornby Ove Proto Industrialisation Before Industrialisation The Danish Case Scandinavian Economic History Review April 1982 Vol 30 Issue 1 pp 3 33 covers 1750 to 1850 Christiansen Palle Ove Culture and Contrasts in a Northern European Village Lifestyles among Manorial Peasants in 18th Century Denmark Journal of Social History Volume 29 2 1995 pp 275 Johansen Hans Chr Danish Population History 1600 1939 Odense University Press of Southern Denmark 2002 246 pp ISBN 978 87 7838 725 7 online review Johansen Hans Chr Trends in Modern and Early Modern Social History Writing in Denmark after 1970 Social History Vol 8 No 3 Oct 1983 pp 375 381 Kjzergaard T The Danish Revolution an ecohistorical interpretation Cambridge 1995 on farming Lampe Markus and Paul Sharp A Land of Milk and Butter How Elites Created the Modern Danish Dairy Industry U of Chicago Press 2018 online review Olson Kenneth E The history makers The press of Europe from its beginnings through 1965 LSU Press 1966 pp 50 64 Topp Niels Henrik Unemployment and Economic Policy in Denmark in the 1930s Scandinavian Economic History Review April 2008 Vol 56 Issue 1 pp 71 90Relations with Germany edit Barfod Jorgen H The Holocaust Failed in Denmark Kopenhagen 1985 Berdichevsky Norman The Danish German Border Dispute 1815 2001 aspects of cultural and demographic politics 2002 ISBN 1 930901 34 8 Buckser Andrew After the Rescue Jewish identity and community in contemporary Denmark ORT 2003 Lund Joachim Denmark and the European New Order 1940 1942 Contemporary European History August 2004 Vol 13 Issue 3 pp 305 321Historiography memory teaching edit Brincker Benedikte When did the Danish nation emerge A review of Danish historians attempts to date the Danish nation National Identities December 2009 Vol 11 Issue 4 pp 353 365 Haue Harry Transformation of history textbooks from national monument to global agent Nordidactica Journal of Humanities and Social Science Education 2013 1 2013 80 89 online Jorgensen Simon Laumann The History We Need Strategies of Citizen Formation in the Danish History Curriculum Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 2014 1 18 Mariager Rasmus Danish Cold War Historiography Journal of Cold War Studies 20 4 2019 180 211 Olesen Thorsten B ed The Cold War and the Nordic countries Historiography at a crossroads University Press of Southern Denmark 2004 Pedersen Christian Damm Empire and the Borders of Danish History 2014 In German edit Robert Bohn Danische Geschichte Munchen Beck 2001 Beck sche Reihe 2162 ISBN 3 406 44762 7 Eva Heinzelmann Stefanie Robl Thomas Riis Hrsg Der danische Gesamtstaat Verlag Ludwig Kiel 2006 ISBN 978 3 937719 01 6 Erich Hoffmann Der heutige Stand der Erforschung der Geschichte Skandinaviens in der Volkerwanderungszeit im Rahmen der mittelalterlichen Geschichtsforschung In Der historische Horizont der Gotterbild Amulette aus der Ubergangsepoche von der Spatantike zum Fruhmittelalter Gottingen 1992 S 143 182 Jorg Peter Findeisen Danemark Von den Anfangen bis zur Gegenwart Regensburg 1999 External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to History of Denmark Historical Atlas of Denmark Bad link as of 2008 05 01 History of Denmark Primary Documents Review of Danish History Sources on Danish history Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title History of Denmark amp oldid 1207786518, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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