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- Title
THE NORWEGIAN KINGDOM IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
- Authors
OPSAHL, ERIK
- Abstract
During the Middle Ages, the Norwegian kingdom developed into a European Latin Christian Kingdom but entered the Kalmar Union with Denmark and Sweden in 1397. Norway's outcome of the union was loss of its political independence in 1537. Norway is a mountainous country. Thus, one have to consider the long coastline and rich fisheries to understand why a Norwegian Kingdom could be founded and exist as an independent political unit for centuries. The main royal revenues were taxes, crown lands, fines and customs. Norway's total population in the Middle Ages was probably half a million people just before the Black Death and approximately 200 thousands at the lowest around 1500. Like any other kings in medieval Europe, the Norwegian king was ambulant. We can discern a pattern where the king and the court stayed in certain towns for shorter or longer periods. Bergen was the largest town and became the most prominent royal residence after the end of the civil wars in 1240. Both domestic kings and the bishops built stone castles. We know few aristocratic stone castles. Due to the landscape, economy, political and military situation four royal castles made up a sufficient administrative network for a royal military and administrative control of Norway. The formal Norwegian aristocracy was never numerous; and the upper ranks (the nobility), were always few. The weakness of this group in the beginning of the 16th century is one of the main reasons for Norway's loss of independence in 1537. Norwegian peasants were free men, but the majority of them became tenants during the high Middle Ages. The Hanseatic dominance of Norway's foreign trade probably hindered a national merchant group developing. The Norwegian merchants ended up as mediators in the Norwegian trade system. Besides merchants, the towns had royal and ecclesiastical representatives, aristocratic residents, different artisans and workers. As elsewhere in medieval Europe the Kingdom and the Church both cooperated and rivalled as "state institutions". The Church's dominant position in Norway came into reality because of the king being a Union king not a domestic king after 1397. Norway became one of the few hereditary monarchy in medieval Europe. One reason was probably the balance of resources and power between different groups in Norway due to Norway's landscape and natural resources. Due to relatively scarcity of natural resources, the Norwegian political system was probably more vulnerable to challenges from a political union with neighbor countries than for instance Sweden.
- Subjects
MIDDLE Ages; BLACK Death pandemic, 1348-1351; ECONOMIC history; POWER (Social sciences); HISTORY of Norway
- Publication
Quaestiones Medii Aevi Novae, 2017, Vol 22, p23
- ISSN
1427-4418
- Publication type
Article