Cross and Scepter

by Bagge, Sverre

  Thus, the various fields of expansion of the three kingdoms, to a great extent determined by geopolitical factors, served also to cement the apparently coincidental division between them that was established in the mid-eleventh century. However, it is difficult to imagine such clear divisions without a considerable amount of internal consolidation. That subject will form the theme of the following chapter.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Consolidation of the Scandinavian Kingdoms, c. 1050–1350

  The Dynasty and the Royal Office

  On the morning of November 22, 1286, King Erik V Klipping of Denmark was found dead in his bed with fifty-six wounds in his body. “The king was killed by his own men, those whom he loved so much,” says a contemporary chronicler. The way Erik was killed constitutes clear evidence of a conspiracy. Each of the conspirators had dealt the king one or more wounds, all of which were above the waist, suggesting an “honorable” killing by men of rank, not an attack by a band of robbers. Who the murderers were has remained unknown to this day, but there were a number of suspects. Erik had been involved in frequent conflicts both with his relative, the duke of Southern Jutland, and with members of the aristocracy. The regency for his son Erik VI Menved, led by the dowager queen, suspected the latter and half a year later accused a number of Danish magnates of the crime and forced them to leave the country. This mysterious murder and its consequences for inter-Danish and inter-Scandinavian relationship in the following years have frequently been discussed by scholars, most of whom believe that those who were convicted were actually innocent. More interesting than the identity of the murderers, however, is the fact that they are unknown.

  King Erik Klipping’s was the last instance of the murder of a Danish king and the second to the last of a ruling king in Scandinavia as a whole—the last being that of Gustaf III of Sweden in 1792. By contrast, there are plenty of examples from the previous period of kings being killed either by rivals or as the result of popular rebellions. This happened to all three royal saints: Olav, Knud, and Erik. Although the detailed accounts of the killing of the two former lament their deaths, they do not contain any reference to a ban against killing a king. Quite the contrary, the Norwegian Law of Frostating even had a paragraph demanding that the people in a district gather and kill royal officials, or even the king himself, if they have acted unjustly against a member of the community. The paragraph was not abolished until the introduction of the Code of the Realm in the 1270s.

  By contrast, the men who killed Erik Klipping were clearly aware that they had committed a crime; otherwise, they would have come forward to replace Erik with another king. There were actually candidates. These included Erik’s son, who succeeded his father at the age of twelve, but also other descendants of Erik’s grandfather Valdemar II (d. 1241), among them Duke Valdemar of Southern Jutland, who has been regarded as the prime suspect by modern historians. However, the conspirators must have been aware that the days were gone when it was possible to murder a king with impunity and replace him with someone else. They had to commit a crime that was in fact, according to the old laws, more serious than just killing another man, namely killing in secret.

  Whereas the way in which the murder was committed clearly points in the direction of a new understanding of the monarchy, the punishment seems surprisingly mild compared to what happened to such criminals in later ages. (They were most often tortured to death.) This may partly be explained by the power and status of the accused and partly by the fact that the evidence against them was only circumstantial; if they had been caught red-handed, they would probably have been killed. When one of them was caught later, he was broken on the wheel. Despite this reservation, the 1286 murder forms clear evidence of a change in the relationship between the king and his subjects. There were now rules for appointing a king, either through hereditary succession or election or, usually, a combination of the two, and once in his office, he was protected from being killed by rivals or as the result of popular rebellions. In this respect, Scandinavia conforms to the prevailing pattern in Western Europe, except that the change had taken place earlier in most other countries. The king had become qualitatively different from his subjects, an idea of dynastic continuity had emerged, and there was at least some sense of the royal office as an entity distinct from the king’s person.

  Characteristically, dynastic continuity is a central element in the rich historical literature that emerged in Scandinavia in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Although the genealogies in these sources are often later constructions, they are nevertheless significant evidence of the importance of dynastic continuity at the time when they were composed, probably in the twelfth century. A Danish dynasty had developed already in the mid-tenth century, whose members ruled the country for around a hundred years, until the death of Cnut the Great’s last son, Harthacnut, who was succeeded by King Magnus of Norway. Thus, dynastic succession seems not to have been sufficiently firmly established to prevent the election of a foreign king. However, Magnus was soon replaced by Sven Estridsen who belonged to a sideline of the old dynasty. His descendants ruled Denmark until the death of Valdemar IV, the last in the male line, in 1375.

  Exactly when the idea of dynastic succession became permanently recognized in Denmark is difficult to say; the early sources are too meager to allow us to distinguish between succession due to personal virtues or physical strength and a universally recognized hereditary succession. However, Danish kings in the tenth and eleventh centuries seem to have been strong enough to have their sons accepted as their successors, which probably led to the development of the idea of a dynasty. Individual succession also seems to have been introduced at an early stage; the five sons of Sven Estridsen ruled one after the other, not jointly (1074–1134). Legitimate birth—however this may have been defined at the time—seems to have been of no importance, whereas there was a preference for the eldest. Successions were not always peaceful, but there were no prolonged struggles within this generation, in contrast to the next, possibly because most of these kings reigned only for a short time. In 1131, Duke Knud Lavard, son of the late King Erik, was murdered by his cousin Magnus, son of the ruling King Niels. This led to the death of Niels and Magnus in the battle of Fodevig (1134) and to struggles between various members of the dynasty until the final victory of Knud Lavard’s son Valdemar I in 1157. In the following, more peaceful period, there was a strong move in the direction of a purely hereditary succession, which, however, came to an end when a new series of internal conflicts erupted between the sons of Valdemar II (d. 1241) and their successors. In the early fourteenth century, kingship in Denmark was formally defined as elective, although in fact the eldest surviving son of the previous king was always elected, if there was one. Elective monarchy in practice meant the opportunity for the electors to pose conditions for accepting the king. The new king had to issue an election charter (håndfæstning, see p. 149).

  The Norwegian dynasty originated later, although the sagas claim that all Norwegian kings were the descendants of the first king supposed to have ruled the whole country, Harald Finehair. Most probably, however, Harald’s line became extinct with his grandsons, after which there was open competition for the throne until the mid-eleventh century, when Harald Hardrada (1046–1066) and his descendants ruled in relative peace for four generations. The change must be understood partly as a reaction to the period of Danish rule 1030–1035 and partly as the result of the canonization of Olav Haraldsson (1031), from whom later kings derived their right to the throne. Olav was succeeded first by his son Magnus (1035–1047) and then by his half-brother Harald. The rules of succession were vague, but seem to have favored agnatic descendants, whether born in wedlock or not. There was no rule of individual succession; if there was more than one candidate, which was often the case, they either had to share the power between them or fight over it. During the following series of inner struggles, only members—or alleged members—of the dynasty were allowed to compete, which is evident fro
m the fact that many of the pretenders were only boys. Formal rules of succession were laid down in the Law of Succession of 1163/64, which introduced individual succession with preference for the late king’s eldest legitimate son, although it also established an element of election by prescribing an elective body dominated by the bishops.

  The Law of 1163/64 may be regarded as an attempt to assure peaceful succession to the throne, but it was first and foremost intended to protect the ruling king, Magnus Erlingsson, against his rivals, by defining their claims as illegal and stamping them as rebels and heretics. Magnus was only seven years old and related to the dynasty through his mother, but he had the advantage from point of view of the Church that he was born in marriage. The real ruler during Magnus’s minority, and even longer, was his father, the Earl Erling Ormsson, nick-named Skakke (the Wry-neck). However, far from protecting Magnus against rivals, the law occasioned a most intense period of internal conflicts. Magnus was challenged by a queue of rivals, the most important of whom was Sverre Sigurdsson, allegedly an illegitimate son of a previous king. During a series of campaigns, Sverre managed to defeat and kill first Erling (1179) and then Magnus (1184), rule until his death in 1202, and leave the kingdom to his descendants, although he had to spend most of his reign fighting rebellions. His grandson Håkon Håkonsson put an end to the internal struggles and consolidated the kingdom during his long reign (1217–1263). During his and his successors’ reigns, the principle of individual succession by the king’s eldest son was laid down in the Law of 1260, revised in 1274 and 1302. These laws were based exclusively on the principle of hereditary succession. They decreed that an assembly should meet after the death of a king, but that its duty was only to acclaim the next in the line of succession. An election would only take place in case the dynasty had become extinct.

  The first king of Sweden of whom we have any concrete knowledge is Olof Skotkonung (“the Tax King,” so called either because he taxed his people or because he had to pay tribute to King Cnut the Great), who fought at Svolder. He issued coins, some of which are extant. Olof may have been recognized as king of most of present-day Sweden, but his main area seems to have been in the west. We know the names of his successors until the thirteenth century, but very few details about them. Medieval Sweden was divided into three main parts, from west to east: Västergötland, Östergötland, and Svealand. Lake Vättern forms the line of division between the two former, whereas Svealand is the fertile area around Lake Mälaren. From the late eleventh century onwards, there were almost continuous struggles over the throne between two dynasties, the one of Erik and the one of Sverker—both named after the most frequent names of their kings, most of whom were either murdered or killed in battle. The former dynasty had its main base in Västergötland, the latter in Östergötland, but both tried to control as much as possible of the country. No real unification of the country seems to have happened, however, until the mid-thirteenth century. The Sverker dynasty became extinct in 1222, which left Erik Eriksson (1222–1250) on the throne. He was succeeded by his sister’s son Valdemar, son of the mighty Earl Birger, who was the real ruler until his death (1266), as he had also been during the latter part of Erik’s reign. Birger’s descendants continued to rule Sweden until the second half of the fourteenth century. Primogeniture and individual succession were introduced here as well, but, at least in the beginning, with limited success. There was a strong tradition of elective kingship, and after the election, the king had to travel around in the country to receive popular acclamation in the various provinces (Eriksgata). The Code of the Realm of 1350 explicitly stated that kingship in Sweden was elective and not hereditary.

  The regulation of the succession took place during periods of frequent struggles between pretenders to the throne, in Denmark between 1131 and 1170, in Norway from 1130 to 1240, and in Sweden more or less continuously until the mid-thirteenth century. Although to some extent a symptom of incomplete state formation, these struggles actually led to increased centralization. They were not struggles between the central power and magnates attempting to carve out independent territories; the contending parties all aimed at securing the central power for themselves. In contrast to some suggestions, particularly from Norwegian historians, there is also little to suggest a conflict between an emerging aristocracy and the rest of the population. Although there is clear evidence of a strong aristocracy in all three countries even before this time, the divisions are more likely to have been between various aristocratic factions than between social strata. Nor did the struggles usually transcend established borders. Admittedly, pretenders in one country often received aid from supporters in another—in particular, the king of Denmark often intervened in this way in the other countries and may indeed have had territorial gain as one of his aims. In the 1160s, he tried to annex the Oslofjord area, but in the end had to confine himself to letting the earl Erling Skakke rule it on his behalf. In most cases, however, the pretenders and factions were specific to each country. The attempts to achieve final victory and secure it led to military and administrative reforms, which were continued by the victors of the struggles, Valdemar I and his successors from 1157 in Denmark, Håkon Håkonsson and his successors from 1240 in Norway, and Earl Birger and his successors from 1250 in Sweden (as kings from 1266).

  The formation of a dynasty, combined with rules about individual succession, gave the monarchy a legal foundation. One particular person had a birthright to rule the country, which was in this sense his property, in the same way as a farmer had the right to his land. This was most clearly set forth in Norway, where the monarchy was defined as hereditary and where this analogy actually occurs in the mid-thirteenth-century King’s Mirror, but the principle of individual succession and thus of one individual’s exclusive right to the realm was equally strong in the two other countries, where the monarchy was elective. The idea of lawful succession and the king’s right to rule the country was developed in charters, historiography, and didactic works, and served to defend the monarchy against internal as well as external rivals. To this was added the ecclesiastical ideology of kingship as an office and the king as God’s representative on earth, expressed in the ritual of coronation, introduced in Norway in 1163/64, in Denmark in 1170, and in Sweden—where it never had the same importance as in the other countries—in 1210. During the coronation, the king received the symbols of his power: crown, scepter, globe, and sword, which served to distinguish him from other people and appeared in pictures, statues, and seals to represent the royal dignity. He also had a special seat, the throne, to which he was led or lifted during the acclamation and coronation, showing that it was his by right and general consent.

  The new ideology is expressed particularly clearly in The King’s Mirror, composed in Norway, probably in the 1250s. This work deals directly with the problem of regicide. Discussing God’s different judgments of the evil King Saul and the good King David, the author points out that despite Saul’s evil character and God’s rejection of him, David saved his life when he had the opportunity to kill him, adding that he was not allowed to kill the Lord’s anointed. At the end of the work, the author shows the king before God’s seat of judgment, and declares that an evil king will get his punishment from God, not from his subjects. In another passage the author accordingly states that the king represents God on earth where, like God, he is the lord of life and death: it is only he and his representatives who are allowed to kill other humans. This last passage should not be understood as an expression of the king’s arbitrary power but as the introduction of the idea of a public power with rights and duties different from those of ordinary people, in other words as an explicit expression of the ideas that brought an end to the practice of regicide.

  However, protection against murder was not the same as protection against opposition or even deposition. Kings during the following period potentially faced two problems. One was younger brothers, who were now excluded from the throne as long as their elder brother lived, but had t
o be provided for in accordance with their status, normally with a part of the country held as a fief. The other was opposition from the Church and/or the aristocracy, which rested on the idea that a king should rule in accordance with the interests of the people, in practice mainly the aristocracy. However, this opposition increasingly took legal forms. It might be violent, but not until peaceful means had been exhausted. Violence had to be preceded by a formal declaration of war or a renunciation of obedience, and its use normally preceded by prolonged negotiations. Above all, resistance to the king was increasingly formalized; it had to be carried out by an organized body, eventually the council of the realm. This combination of lawful resistance and kingship by the grace of God may at first seem paradoxical, but there is a connection between the two. The doctrine of the divine origin of kingship was the same in Byzantium and the Muslim world, but there the murder of rulers and coups d’état were commonplace. This was not the case in the West, and the explanation seems to be that here there was a lawful way of opposing the ruler. As these conflicts are particularly characteristic of the period of the Kalmar Union, however, they will be dealt with later.

  Eventually, members of the aristocracy received protection similar to that of the king. The saga of King Sverre lists sixteen members of the top aristocracy who were killed, together with King Magnus Erlingsson, in the 1184 battle of Fimreite in Norway. Captive aristocrats were frequently executed in internal conflicts in all three countries, and if they were not, the reason should probably be sought in tactical considerations rather than rules of chivalry. In the later Middle Ages, however, aristocrats profited from similar rules as the king. Although without covering up the tricks and stratagems of the dukes, the early-fourteenth century Chronicle of Erik is full of references to the chivalrous treatment of captives and honorable burials of fallen enemies. The common European rules of chivalrous behavior towards aristocratic enemies seem in most cases to have been followed in internal as well as external wars. Thus, in contrast to England, where from the late thirteenth century onwards increased respect for the king led to stricter punishments for treason or rebellion, even for aristocratic prisoners, the rules were similar for the treatment of kings and aristocrats in Scandinavia.