Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark Factsheet Denmark NOVEMBER 2003 HISTORY In 1939, a diplomat observer at the Bri- stated on his runic stone in Jelling, where tish legation in Copenhagen wrote in a the word Denmark appears for the first report on the Danes: ‘A few decades of time. The Jelling stones are often regarded material prosperity and the ministrations as Denmark’s birth certificate. of an over-paternal Government seem to have sapped the spirit of a Viking race Viking Age which can point to 1500 years of vigorous During the Viking Age, c. 800-1100, a and independent history’. strong royal power developed, as is The statement contains the official’s demonstrated for instance by several understanding of Denmark’s history and strategically placed circular fortresses of the Danes’ transformation from hardy, impressive size. free-born Vikings to a soft and docile The period was characterised by the breed. He also indicated why things had frequent Viking expeditions which led to The large Jelling stone set up by Harold I gone wrong: material wealth and an over- the conquest of England for a short peri- Bluetooth (d.987). The stone is decorated with protective Government. od in the 11th century and took the pil- an image of Christ, and the runic incription There is no reason to regard the state- laging Vikings as far away as Ireland, announces that it was Harold who united Den- ment as anything other than a worried Northern France and Russia. mark inti one realm and made the Danes Christians. In the foreground is the small Jelling diplomat’s hasty assessment, but he put The Vikings’ long boats brought rich stone set up by Gorm the Old in memory his finger on two characteristic features of booty back to their native country, but of the queen Thyra. Photo: Wedigo Ferchland. the Danish society in the first half of the the Danish Viking kings never managed 20th century, i.e. increasing affluence and to turn their conquests into a lasting the growth of the welfare state. empire. The murder of Canute IV the The Kalmar Union Holy in 1086 ended the strong royal The Black Death, around 1350, wiped Prehistory power, which had been one of the secrets out a large part of the Danish population, The oldest existing evidence of human behind the victorious Viking expeditions. which resulted in major economic and habitation in Denmark is traces of hunters’ social changes. settlements from the end of the last Ice Christianity The main political event of the period Age c. 12500 BC. Organised farming At the same time, Christianity reached was the establishment of the Kalmar Union communities did not appear until the Denmark. About 965, Harold I Bluetooth in 1397, combining Denmark, Norway Neolithic Age c. 3900 BC and villages are was baptised and the new faith soon estab- and Sweden in a personal union under the known from the centuries before Christ’s lished itself. The country got a clergy, who Danish Queen Margrete I. birth. Regular towns, such as Ribe, do not saw to the dissemination of Christianity. The union lasted until Sweden, led by appear until the Germanic Iron Age c. In the following centuries the Catholic Gustav I Vasa, broke away in 1523. Den- 400-750 AD. Church consolidated its influence; church- mark and Norway remained united until The unification of the country under a es were built, and the Danish farming 1814. Norway’s former North Atlantic central power began 700 AD. As the community, which now numbered c. possessions, Greenland, Iceland and the Frankish empire declined, a stable royal 700,000, organised itself according to Faroe Islands, remained part of the Da- power developed which, although it prob- Christian social standards. nish kingdom and still are, with the ably did not cover the entire Danish terri- It separated into a powerful clergy, exception of Iceland, which declared its tory, nonetheless managed to defend itself asecular nobility of great land-owners who independence in 1944. against enemy invasions from the south. also formed the core of the country’s The unification of the country was defence, an urban middle class which Rivalry with Sweden finally completed under the son of Gorm increased as the towns grew, and finally a The break with the Roman Catholic the Old, Harold I Bluetooth (d. 987), as large peasantry. Church in 1536, after three years of civil reduced by almost a third and the popula- the Liberal party (Venstre), which came tion declined from 800,000 to 600,000. into power in 1901. Denmark was helplessly caught in the Absolutism conflict between Napoleon and the rest of The catastrophe caused a political crisis Europe. For fear of the consequences, the which in 1660-1661 brought about a new Danish government refused to take sides form of government. By coup-like means, in the conflict, which led to English naval the old elective monarchy dominated by attacks on Copenhagen in 1801 and 1807 the aristocracy was replaced by a heredi- and seizure of the Danish fleet. At the tary monarchy. The new hereditary king, same time, the loss of Norway in 1814 Frederik III, and his successors gained meant that the former dual monarchy, absolute power. which geographically had stretched from The king’s unrestricted authority was the North Cape to the Elbe, was reduced subsequently codified in the Royal Law of to include only Denmark itself and the 1665, which in general remained in force German duchies. Permanent cedings of Danish territory from until the abolition of absolutism in 1848 the 17th to the 19th centuries. and the adoption of a democratic consti- Democracy and the Schleswig Issue Source: Danmarks Nationalleksikon. tution in 1849. In 1683, the Royal Law As the national movements developed, the was supplemented with a Statute Book duchies’ position within the monarchy war, changed the Danish Church into a applying to the entire country, King Chri- became a key issue until 1864. Almost a Lutheran princely church. Denmark thus stian V’s Danish Law. Insofar as the means third of the nation’s population was joined the Protestant side in the lengthy were available, Denmark was transformed German. religious wars which ravaged Europe until into a well-organised bureaucratic state Holstein and Lauenburg belonged to 1648. Internally, the new State Church under the paternal leadership of the the German Confederation, while Schles- became a tool for ideological and moral absolute monarch. wig was nationally divided. The crucial indoctrination of the population by the question of Schleswig’s affiliation became greatly strengthened central power. Agricultural Reforms and Wars acute in 1848 when the pro-German The period 1560-1720 was dominated with England Schleswig-Holsteiners demanded a liberal by the intensified rivalry with the neigh- The main achievement of absolutism was constitution and the incorporation of bouring Sweden for the position as the the extensive agricultural reforms of the Schleswig in the German Confederation. leading Baltic power. Denmark had hith- late 18th century. They were motivated Conversely, liberal circles in Copen- erto held this position, as was symbolically by the desire to make farm production hagen demanded a democratic constitu- reflected in the charging of Sound Dues, more efficient in order to derive maxi- tion for the monarchy and the inclusion which were not abandoned until 1857. mum profit from the 18th century pros- within it of Schleswig in it, which con- The rivalry triggered six wars between the perty. The reforms involved a shift from flicted with a long-standing promise that two nations (1563-1570, 1611-1613, ecological farming – i.e. farming on the duchies would never be separated. 1643-1645, 1657-1660, 1675-1679 and nature’s terms – to economic farming – This triggered a revolt in the duchies, 1709-1720). i.e. farming on the market’s terms. The and in Copenhagen led to Frederik VII After Denmark had been weakened by old open-field system was dissolved and declaring himself constitutional king, Christian IV’s unsuccessful intervention each farm was allotted a single parcel of thereby paving the way for a democratic in the Thirty Year War (1625-1629), the land. At the same time, the farms were constitution which was codified in The conflict developed into a struggle for sur- often moved onto the land itself, so that Constitution of the Kingdom of Denmark of vival on Denmark’s part, and for a while the ancient village community was also 5 June 1849. the country was on the point of becoming dissolved. The result was the Three Years’ War of part of a large Swedish Baltic empire. This The reforms created an entirely new 1848-1851, which ended with a Danish fate was only avoided because the Nether- class of independent farmers, who in the victory insofar as the duchies after great- lands and England intervened, but the following century became the driving power mediation remained part of the price was the ceding of all Scanian force behind the folk high schools and the Danish united monarchy. However, a sat- provinces east of the Oresund in 1658. co-operative movement. Politically, the isfactory solution to the basic contentious The total area of the kingdom was thus farmers united in the late 19th century in issue had not been achieved. 2 The ceding of the duchies In 1863, the Danish parliament passed Historical Survey the November Constitution which in prac- c. 12500 BC Immigration of the first hunters tice separated Holstein and Lauenburg 3900 BC Agriculture and animal husbandry from the kingdom while incorporating 400-700 Incipient urbanisation Schleswig. This was a clear infringement 866-867 Viking conquest of York of the great-power agreements.