Kalmar Union
The Kalmar Union refers to the Nordic dynastic state that emerged from the merger of the three Nordic monarchies (Denmark, Sweden and Norway) in the same person, Queen Margrethe I of Denmark, Queen of Norway and Denmark in 1387, and appointed Queen of Sweden in 1397. The Kalmar Union eventually covered a total area of approximately 3,000,000 km².
The Scandinavian kingdoms attempted on various occasions throughout the xiv century to achieve political unity through marriage. The first Union was achieved in 1319 between Norwegians and Swedes. Later the three kingdoms would form part of the Union with the marriage in 1363 between Margarita of Denmark and Haakon VI of Norway, at that time also king of Sweden.
In this way, a great Nordic kingdom was created that included not only the current kingdoms that formed it, but also its dependent territories, such as Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands (then dependent on Norway) and Finland (belonging to Sweden).
However, the Nordic kingdom was not consolidated due to the suspicion of the Swedish aristocracy towards Denmark, which was the dominant power within the Union. After several revolts by the Swedes (in 1444-1446, in 1464 and the final revolt of 1521), the Union dissolved in 1523 with the election of Gustav Vasa as King of Sweden. Denmark and Norway, for their part, remained united until 1814.
History
Formation of the Union
The process that would culminate in the union of Kalmar began with the Danish king Valdemar IV Atterdag, who, finding himself with only two female daughters and no male heirs after the death of his son Christopher in 1363, began a marriage policy to ensure the positions of his daughters in the kingdom, thus, Margarita Valdemarsdotter, his youngest daughter, married Haakon VI when she was ten years old.
In the year 1370, Marguerite has her only son, Olaf. When Valdemar IV of Denmark died in 1375, Olaf succeeded his grandfather on the Danish throne the following year, but due to his early age, who was six years old at the time, his mother Margarita exercised the regency in the Danish kingdom. In 1380 Haakon VI would also die, leaving Margarita a widow and Olaf as King of Norway, although by continuing to be too young (she was ten years old on this occasion), Margarita assumed the regency of this new kingdom. The kingdoms of Norway and Denmark, with the support of the Hanseatic League, were then united under the reign of Olaf and the regency of his mother.
In 1387, the premature death of the young Olaf, who was only seventeen years old, leads to a tense situation in both countries that are left without rulers. After a week, Denmark, in honor of the regency that Margarita had exercised over her, chooses her as her sovereign queen, after months, in 1388, the Norwegians did the same.
Seeing herself with both crowns in her own right, Margaret did not hesitate to claim for herself the kingdom of Sweden, to which she had rights, since she had administered it as queen consort when she married Haakon VI (who was co-king of Sweden). Therefore, she challenged the usurper Albert III of Mecklenburg, who had come to the Swedish throne. Supported by a good part of the local nobility, Margarita defeated Albert in the battle of Alse, in the current Swedish municipality of Falköping, on February 24, 1389.
Eight years after that event, on July 20, 1397, Queen Margaret's power over the three countries was strengthened with the Union of Kalmar, by which the councils of each kingdom signed that act of union in which embodied the unity of the three kingdoms.
Daisy, Queen of Kalmar
After the signing of the act that established the Kalmar Union, Margarita began to rule over Scandinavia in the style of other European rulers, trying to imitate the centralist policies that were beginning to take place in other states.
This reality produced a situation of relative peace among the Scandinavian states, very used to fighting each other. This allowed the monarchs to lower their military spending, while still being able to deploy a sizable force against their enemies, as in the case of Margaret's military campaign against the County of Holstein in order to win the Duchy of Schleswig.
Another of Margarita's claims was the island of Gotland, which was occupied by members of the Livonian Order, and later passed into the hands of the Teutonic Order, which held several previous Danish territories that were sold to them by the Daisy's father She managed to make a purchase deal to the Order of the Teutons for the island of Gotland, which swelled the Danish territories already in the reign of Eric of Pomerania, a fact that Sweden, to whom the island traditionally belonged, did not sit very well.
Margarita's successors
Margarita did not remarry, so she did not have any descendants who could inherit her vast kingdom. Because of this, she decided to appoint a successor while she was alive to safeguard the Kalmar Union from a possible internecine war to decide her successor after her death.
For this reason, on June 17, 1397, he named Eric of Pomerania as the new king of Kalmar, although he did not relinquish his throne until the date of his death, on October 28, 1412, when he was 55 years old and was in the midst of his campaign against Holstein.
Erico the Pomeranian
In 1412 Eric came to the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish thrones, after which he continued the campaign against the County of Holstein. It was here that he proved far beyond the capabilities of his predecessor in office, as the campaign damaged the Kalmar economy without resulting in the addition of new territories to the crown.
Diplomatically he did prove to be more skilful, getting an imperial decree in 1424 to recognize him as sovereign of the entire Jutland peninsula, although the county of Holstein never accepted the decree or recognized him, so it remained a simple honor on paper that never occurred in practice.
After the imperial decree, he made some decisions of great importance for Denmark, his favorite Kalmar kingdom, such as the establishment of tolls in the Oresund Strait, which served to clean up the royal accounts of Denmark and the accession of the city of Copenhagen in Danish possessions, which years later will be decisive in establishing said city as the Danish capital.
After these displays of diplomatic genius, he once again demonstrated his few military skills by navally confronting the Hanseatic League to establish Viking naval power over the Baltic Sea. It failed to achieve that goal, leaving behind the Danish fleet in shambles as well as its economy again in crisis, although this time Sweden's economy was also in crisis due to having to depend on it in the last stages of the war.
These defeats, coupled with his habit of meddling in church affairs by appointing bishops of dubious ability but politically close to him, as well as putting noble oppressors and faithful to him, in the case of the ruler of Sweden, would get his government became really unpopular in Sweden, where the future dismemberment of the Union began to be foreseen. In addition, his disposition to the claims of Holstein and the Hanseatic League made him unpopular in Denmark as well, forcing him to settle in the gotland island. But he was eventually deposed as King of Kalmar in 1439. His successor would be Christopher of Bavaria, who had to deal with acts of piracy led by Eric, who used Gotland as his Baltic piracy headquarters.
Christopher of Bavaria
Christopher of Bavaria was king of Kalmar for a short period of time, barely seven years. These years were marked by the economic misery derived from the military disasters of the previous king.
The most remarkable thing about his reign was that he achieved the acceptance of the nobles of the three countries (since on his arrival in 1439 he was only king of Denmark, it would not be until 1442 that he became king of the three countries, and therefore of Kalmar). This treaty with the three countries to become the rightful king of Kalmar led to a positive turn in internal relations in Scandinavia, which was truly the highlight of Christopher's short reign.
Christian I of Denmark
After Christopher's death, the Kalmar Union had a crisis of unity, due to the lack of direct heirs, the kingdoms again became separated in their politics. The Danish council chose the feudal lord Adolf VIII of Holstein (the most powerful nobleman in all of Jutland) as King of Denmark, but he declined the honor and proposed his nephew Christian of Oldenburg to his.
For their part, the Swedes, who were no longer very much in favor of continuing the unitary project because they felt belittled by the favoritism shown by the rulers for Denmark, leaving Sweden as just another province of the kingdom, they chose Carlos Knutsson as king of Sweden, who wanted to recover the Kalmar Union project, but establishing himself as king of Kalmar and adopting the capital in Sweden, instead of Denmark.
Cristian wanted to maintain the unity of Kalmar, and for this reason he convened a council in Halmstad where he (with twelve Danish advisers) and Carlos (with twelve Swedish advisers) attended. In this meeting, Cristián recognized Carlos as king of Sweden if he renounced his rights to Norway.
This relative peace did not last long, because in 1457 a war broke out between Denmark and Sweden for the possession of the island of Gotland, in this war Carlos was defeated, for which Christian was crowned as king of Kalmar that same year, on September 29. It was in this year also that he named his son John I of Denmark as successor to the Kalmar throne.
In 1459 Adolf of Holstein died without heirs, which resulted in the Treaty of Ribe of 1460, by which the county of Holstein and the duchy of Schleswig became governed by Christian of Kalmar, and therefore, they adhered to the Viking possessions of Denmark, thus fulfilling the claims of Margarita, 48 years after her death. Although Cristián had to promise that he would not act as king of Denmark in those possessions, but as count and duke of such regions respectively, to which he accepted for fear that the same thing that happened to Eric of Pomerania would happen to him and that, If conflicts began on the Jutland peninsula, Sweden would take the opportunity to become independent.
At the beginning of 1460, the financial problems of the kingdom forced Christian to collect new and high taxes on the kingdoms of Kalmar, which in Sweden earned him the nickname of "the devastater of the kingdom", and in 1463 a revolt broke out against his government led by Archbishop Jöns Bengtsson, who was imprisoned, but the revolt became general and inflamed the following year, even the deposed king Carlos Knutsson (Charles VIII of Sweden) returned, he was again defeated, but he was also crowned again that year, losing Sweden to the Kalmar Union.
However, in 1470, Charles VIII of Sweden would die, which Christian of Denmark (no longer king of Kalmar, losing Sweden) took advantage of to recapture Sweden for the union, starting the first Swedish-Danish war, but he was defeated in 1471, at the Battle of Brunkeberg by Sten Sture the Elder, Regent of Sweden at the time.
After the disastrous diplomatic and military campaigns in Sweden, Christian I of Denmark found himself in a disastrous economic situation, which he tried to alleviate with a greater weight in European diplomacy, which led him to make quite expensive trips in order to stand as a known king to the emperor, the papacy, and other rulers.
During his rule, Norway lost the Orkney and Shetland islands, not militarily, but because, unable to give his daughter's dowry when he married James III of Scotland in 1369, he had to give these possessions instead.
John of Denmark
John of Denmark came to the throne of the kingdom of Denmark in 1481 and in 1483, after the approval of the Norwegian council in Halmstad also king of Norway, succeeding his father in the government of what was left of the Kalmar Union. He did not become count of Holstein because the privileges granted to them by Christian of Denmark allowed the county to choose his successor from among all the sons, and they favored Frederick as count of Holstein. However, in 1482 it was decided that both brothers would be co-rulers of the county.
On the subject of Sweden, Juan proved to be a diplomatic genius of the same caliber or more than his father, as he made a treaty with the Principality of Moscow for them to attack Sweden. In 1493, the Muscovites invaded Finland (which belonged to Sweden), the defeat in this war made the Swedes lose confidence in Sten Sture the Elder, which meant that most of the Swedish nobility supported John of Denmark, who He entered Sweden in 1497 with a large army, mostly German mercenaries, and had himself crowned John II of Sweden at the end of 1497 (which in turn made him King of Kalmar).
In 1500 he launched into the conquest of the Dithmarschen region (which belonged to Holstein, but acted as an independent republic in practice) with the intention of fully adhering it to the kingdom of Denmark, although he officially allied with his brother Federico for such an undertaking. The task was entrusted to armies made up mostly of German mercenaries. They were defeated after the inhabitants of Dithmarschen opened the coastal dikes and destroyed the camp of the invading army. This made Juan lose the military prestige that he had gained in his first campaigns.
With its prestige lost, Sweden offered its rule again to Sten Sture, who accepted it and started the widespread revolt of Sweden, which gained independence from the Kalmar Union that year, virtually complete except for Stockholm, which would be besieged by Swedish rebels and finally fell in 1502. It was the start of the so-called Dano-Swedish War of 1501-1512.
After that, John tried to make a diplomatic agreement with the Swedes without any results, so in 1507 he started a war that led to the destruction of the Swedish coast that year. Norway also took the opportunity to start a revolt, which was crushed by John's son in 1508.
Due to worsening Swedish trade relations with the Hanseatic League, it is led by the Lübeck city government; declared war on Denmark in 1510, forcing John to abandon his campaign in Sweden and focus on a campaign against the League, which was quite successful, ending in several Danish victories, which led to a peace treaty in 1512. It was the end of the Dano-Swedish war. The following year he would die and his son Cristián would succeed him.
Christian II of Denmark
Christian II of Denmark was the last king of the Kalmar Union. He succeeded his father in the government of Denmark, Norway and Holstein-Schleswig, not without controversy, as the Danish nobles wanted to give the crown to his uncle, brother of the previous king, Frederick, but his iron rule as co-king of Norway during his father's reign earned him recognition as king.
During 1513 and 1514 he would obtain all the titles that he inherited from his father, after his nuptials with Elizabeth of Austria in 1515 he had some friction with the Austrian royal family due to his extramarital relationship with a maiden, but this would not be most notable for the maiden's untimely death in 1517.
Also in 1517 an internal war broke out in Sweden, between Sten Sture the Younger (a supporter of independent Sweden) and Archbishop Gustavo Trolle (a supporter of the Kalmar Union), Christian wanted to take advantage of this situation to conquer Sweden and reclaim the title of King of Kalmar. He entered Sweden with a large army to support the archbishop, but was defeated at the Battle of Brännkyrka.
In 1519, Christian prepared an even larger army, and with the support of Pope Leo X (who had excommunicated Sten Sture and legalized war) entered Sweden again in January of that year. He defeated the Swedish army at the Battle of the Åsunden Ice, where Sten Sture himself was mortally wounded.
He defeated the Swedes again at the Battle of Tiveden, after which Christian became the owner of almost all of Sweden, except for Stockholm; which resisted a siege until the beginning of September. Although Cristián had already been recognized King of Sweden since March, after dominating Stockholm, he wanted to consolidate his dominance in this area, which was the most pro-independence, for which he accused many followers of Sten Sture of heresy and ordered their execution, which ended becoming known as the Stockholm bloodbath.
In 1521, the discontent of the Swedes caused them to choose Gustav Vasa as regent of the kingdom and they rebelled for the umpteenth time against Danish rule under the framework of the Union of Kalmar. On this occasion, the Hanseatic League sided with the Swedish rebels, as they were unhappy with the Danes for strengthening their trade with the Dutch at the expense of trade with them.
To this Cristián had to add the tense relations with his uncle Federico, and to fix the situation, he had to renounce his title of Count of Holstein in 1522, a title that Emperor Charles I of Spain had officially recognized in 1521.
In 1523 Christian had to face the discontent of the Danes, produced by his ecclesiastical reforms of 1517 that turned the church of Jutland against him. This ended up leading to the exile of Cristián II and the end of his reign.
Dismemberment of the Union
In 1523, Gustav Vasa was elected King of Sweden by the Riksdag, while Christian II was succeeded by his uncle Frederick I on the throne of Denmark.
At this time, Gustav I of Sweden will begin the definitive separation of the Kalmar Union from the kingdom of Sweden, while Denmark began to suffer an internal war over Christian II's claim to recover his throne.
It is therefore in this year that the Kalmar Union project is definitively dynamited and a bloody era begins in Scandinavia, a prelude to the Count's and the Seven Years' Wars.
Chronology of rulers
Kalmar Union member kingdoms
Integrated Territories
Economy
The economy of the kingdoms that made up the Kalmar Union was based, like all the nations of that time, on the primary sector, with a lot of fishing, rather than agriculture or livestock, since the territories were quite poor.
They also gained a lot of foothold in trade with other nations, which led to a relative improvement in their economy. Although, in particular, they gained a lot of weight with the collection of taxes and tolls in the different maritime zones that they controlled.
Relationships
The Kalmar Union maintained extensive diplomatic relations with nearby states:
- Sacro Empire: The Christianity of the kingdom kept him submissive to the decisions of the imperial decrees. Out of that, from Cristián I of Denmark, the relations between the Kalmar Union and the Sacro Empire approached, supporting the second even Holstein's annexation to the kingdom of Denmark.
- Hanseatic League: The Baltic trade relations greatly influenced diplomacy during these centuries. In fact, most of the clashes between the League and the Union were caused by trade problems among them. The Hanseatic League supported almost all the opponents of the Kalmar Union in their armed conflicts, such as in the Dano-Hansian war or the Danish-Susca war in which the Free City of Lübeck supported the partisans.
- England: Erico de Pomerania married Felipa of England, although this never led the kingdoms to a true close relationship between both kingdoms.
- Scotland: The sister of John I of Denmark married Jacob III of Scotland, which led to good relations in the North Sea, especially improved the trade relations of Norway and Scotland.
- Netherlands: The centuryxv It marked Scandinavia's commercial relations, from having almost exclusively with the Hanseatic League to have the United Provinces as one of its largest trading partners. There will also begin here the relations that will end the alliance of these kingdoms with the provinces united in the war of the Thirty Years.
- Principality of Moscow: King John began diplomatic relations with this principality on the basis of his anti-Swedish plan, after which relations continued, although not very assiduously.
- Principality of Novgorod: This principality had regular clashes with the Kalmar Union in the framework of naval supremacy in the Baltic Sea.
Military field
The Kalmar Union's armed forces translated into its naval forces, in the traditional style of the Scandinavian kingdoms.
When large land armies were required, most Kalmar monarchs turned to the feudal armies of the lords and, above all, to German mercenaries from the states of the Holy Roman Empire. This was because the Royal Army was very meager.
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