chapter 8 Medieval Denmark as a Maritime Empire
Thomas K. Heebøll-Holm
Introduction
In the Middle Ages (c. 500–c . 1500) Denmark arguably was the centre of not one, but three successive empires. The first was the Great North Sea Empire, which existed from 1016 to 1046. It encompassed Denmark, England, Norway and, prob- ably, parts of Sweden. After the reigns of king Cnut the Great and his son, Har- thacnut, the empire fell apart and its respective territories reverted to their orig- inal state as kingdoms of England, Denmark and Norway.1 The second Danish empire lasted from 1157 to 1332. It was founded by king Valdemar i and is some- times called the Valdemarian Kingdom or Empire, while the rulers are known as the Valdemarians. This empire collapsed in the 1320s – not because of foreign invasions, but because of a royal debt crisis caused by a policy of pledging the various Danish provinces to German creditors as security for loans. From 1332 to 1340, the kingdom of Denmark had ceased to exist in all but name. In 1340, Valde- mar iv was elected king, and he eventually succeeded in reconstituting the king- dom through a combination of warfare and the redeeming of pledges. He there- by laid the groundwork for the third Danish empire, which came into existence in the reign if his daughter, the illustrious Queen Margaret i. In 1397, Margaret orchestrated the creation of the Kalmar Union which united the kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden under her grand-nephew and designated succes- sor, Erik the Pomeranian. Though Sweden definitively seceded from the Union in 1523, this empire lasted until 1814 when Norway became a Swedish protectorate. In this chapter I argue that of these medieval empires only one merits the combination of the terms, ‘Danish’ and ‘maritime empire’. This is the Valdemar- ian empire. While the empire of Cnut the Great was indeed maritime, it is de- batable if it should be termed Danish. Cnut may well have considered himself as much English as Danish and in any case, England was clearly the most im- portant part of his empire. The Kalmar Union, though dominated by a Danish royal lineage, was neither in name nor in function a Danish empire properly
1 Murray 2004, 289; Rüdiger 2012, 93–103. On the North Sea empire of Cnut, see Lawson 1993. For a broader treatment of Denmark as an empire throughout the ages, see Bregnsbo and Jensen 2005.
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | DOI:10.1163/9789004407671_009 Medieval Denmark as a Maritime Empire 195 speaking: it rather was a political union of three separate kingdoms under a single ruler. In contrast the Valdemarian empire was founded on Danish naval might and control with the waterways connecting the Baltic and the North Sea areas. Indeed, ships and waterways was what kept the empire together. In examining the maritime empire of the Valdemarians, I shall first discuss the geography of Denmark and how it influenced Denmark’s development as a maritime empire. This will be followed by a discussion of Valdemarian Denmark politically, economically and culturally from 1157 to 1332. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the specific characteristics of this Danish maritime empire.
The Geography of the Danish Medieval Kingdom
Geographically speaking medieval Denmark was extremely well-placed for seeking political and economic power through maritime might. The medieval kingdom of Denmark was terrestrially framed between the Jutland peninsula and the southern Swedish peninsula consisting of the provinces of Scania, Hal- land and Blekinge. Between these lay two major islands, Zealand and Funen, and an archipelago of hundreds of bigger and smaller islands. Thus geograph- ically the medieval Danish kingdom functioned as a sort of gateway of straits or as Kurt Villads Jensen has termed it: a delta between the Baltic Sea area and the North Sea.2 Furthermore, Villads Jensen stresses that,
the many islands separated by water also necessitated the development of a sea-based military organisation, dependent on fast-moving warships. The many river outlets and fjords and the great number of very small islands to hide behind often made raiding on ships a much more prof- itable and rational way of conducting war than employing large-scale land-based troops.3
Thus, the medieval Danish kingdom was ideally suited for – and to a certain degree depended on – control of the traffic between west and east. This was also the key component of its strength throughout the Middle Ages, where Denmark arguably was the single most powerful kingdom in Scandinavia and the Baltic Rim region.4 When it was strong it could lord over all the other realms
2 Jensen 2002a, 176. 3 Ibid., 176. 4 Defined by Nils Blomkvist thus ‘the surrounding territories, defined in a concrete sense by the waters flowing into the [Baltic] Sea’. Blomkvist 2005, 4.