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ON the PERIPHERY of the KINGDOM, 1351–1397 in Norway the Plague and the Agrarian Crisis Led to a Reorganization and Rationaliz

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ON the PERIPHERY of the KINGDOM, 1351–1397 in Norway the Plague and the Agrarian Crisis Led to a Reorganization and Rationaliz CHAPTER SEVEN ON THE PERIPHERY OF THE KINGDOM, 1351–1397 In Norway the plague and the agrarian crisis led to a reorganization and rationalization of local administration after 1351. Sheriffdoms and offices were amalgamated and more fiefs were held on lease, whereby the occupant paid an annual fee to the king, without any obligation to present accounts. It is assumed that most sheriffdoms in the kingdom had previously been held on account, with the occupant having to provide the king with a full account of income and expenditure, but it became more common in the fourteenth century for sheriffs to retain a greater share of the revenue, and some indeed kept all the revenue for themselves in return for payment of a leasing fee or other compensa- tion to the king. The crown calculated that fiefs like these were more profitable than the regular sheriffdoms. The new administrative system is often called lensvesen by Scandinavian historians—an administra- tion by fiefholders. In the fifteenth century it becomes common, in keeping with Danish administrative terminology, to call the fiefhold- ers lensmenn. They should not be confused with the sheriffs’ agents (lénsmenn) or the bondelensmenn ‘farmer’s agents’ we find in the late medieval Norwegian local communities. Before 1400, however, the new term had not yet gained currency in Norway. It would take a long time before the new designations were established.1 In 1355 King Håkon VI Magnusson came of age and took over the rule of Norway. Magnus Eriksson nevertheless continued to rule the tributary lands and parts of Norway after his son became king. From 1357 King Magnus also shared the kingdom of Sweden with his oldest son Erik. After the death of King Erik in 1359, Håkon was the first in line for election as king of Sweden after his father. He was indeed elected king in 1362, but was deposed again in 1364. In Iceland it has been common to regard the whole period from 1319 until the death 1 See Imsen 2002, pp. 62, 69, 77–83 on older and more recent views of administra- tive development in Norway up to 1397. See ch. 3 on sheriffs and sheriffdoms. 230 chapter seven of King Magnus in 1374 as an unbroken personal union with Sweden,2 but since Magnus Eriksson was a prisoner of his rival, Albrekt of Mecklenburg, from 1365 to 1371, it was in reality King Håkon who governed his father’s part of the kingdom of Norway. King Magnus died in 1374. After King Håkon’s death in 1380, his son Olav became king of Norway. Olav had been elected king of Denmark in 1376, and a new personal union was the result, this time with Denmark. As long as Olav was under age, the country was governed by the Norwegian Council of the Realm. The Council gave Olav’s mother, Queen Margrete, the authority to settle relations with the Hanseatic League. In reality she had a free hand in foreign policy. The Council continued to govern the country after Olav’s death in 1387. There was a close and trusting relationship between the queen and the councillors, who ensured in 1388 that she was elected regent of Norway and simultane- ously determined that the line of inheritance should now be counted from her. This paved the way for Margrete’s niece’s son Bugislav of Pomerania to assume the Norwegian throne. In 1389 he was accepted as heir to the crown of Norway and acclaimed at the Eyrating in Trondheim under the name Erik. In 1395 and 1396 Erik was elected king in Denmark and Sweden, and in 1397 he was crowned king of the Nordic Union in Kalmar. By agreement with Queen Margrete, the Norwegian Council of the Realm continued to govern Norway until 1397, but in 1398 important functions of central administration were moved to Denmark.3 Between 1355 and 1380 the Norwegians once again had a king for themselves. But the new Norwegian king was mostly preoccupied with regaining the throne of Sweden, and in alliance with Denmark, Norway became increasingly involved in the game of winning Scandinavia. The question to be considered here is whether or how circumstances in Norway and the joint Scandinavian policy affected the government of the tributary lands. 2 Björn Þorsteinsson and Guðrún Ása Grímsdóttir 1989, pp. 236–37. See also Blom 1983, pp. 19–21. 3 See e.g. Imsen and Sandnes 1977 for a survey of political development in Norway and the rest of Scandinavia from 1319 to 1397..
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