![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Abstract
This paper gives an overview of the history and historiography of the union between Denmark, Norway, and Sweden in the late middle ages, the Union of Kalmar, trying to overcome the national bias of previous research. When seen in a state formation perspective, the union must be regarded as a serious candidate for statehood. Focusing on its last decades, it is shown that it was an important mental structure in Scandinavian political culture much longer than has hitherto been assumed.Its dissolution was not inevitable and it left a considerable legacy to coming state formation in Northern Europe.
Notes
1. My own estimates. With a more narrow definition, it is possible to get down to around 120 but hardly lower in 1500. According to CitationTilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, 42, there were in 1500 between 80 and 500 statelike organizations; he sees 200 as the most realistic estimate for the number of what reasonably could be called states.
2. Outside Scandinavia proper, today's Finland was a part of Sweden of the union period, but did not exist as a political unit, and Iceland was a Norwegian dependency but under strong English influence at the time and did not play any independent role in union politics. It is thus with some right that it hardly exists any treatments of the union from Finnish or Icelandic perspectives.
3. CitationEnemark, Fra Kalmarbrev til Stockholms blodbad.
4. CitationEnemark, Fra Kalmarbrev til Stockholms blodbad, 149.
5. CitationLönnroth, Sverige och Kalmarunionen.
6. CitationChristensen, Kalmarunionen og nordisk politik.
7. CitationLarsson, Kalmarunionens tid.
8. See especially Hørby and CitationVenge, Danmarks historie. Bind 2. Tiden 1340–1648; CitationDahlerup, Gyldendal og Politikens Danmarks historie. Bind 6.; CitationWittendorff, Gyldendal og Politikens Danmarks historie. Bind 7; CitationBjørkvik, Aschehougs Norgeshistorie. Bind 4; CitationMoseng et al. ., Norsk historie I.
9. CitationAlbrectsen, Danmark‐Norge 1380–1814. Fællesskabet bliver til. For overviews of the state of research, see the works cited above, especially CitationEnemark, Fra Kalmarbrev til Stockholms blodbad. In English see CitationRoberts, The Early Vasas, 1–24, and the introductory parts of CitationKirby, Northern Europe in the Early Modern Period.
10. Quoted from CitationAlbrectsen, Danmark‐Norge 1380–1814. Fællesskabet bliver til, 93.
11. Lönnroht, Sverige och Kalmarunionen.
12. CitationLarsson, Kalmarunionens tid, 108–109, 456.
13. This deliberate act of the Norwegian elite is stressed by CitationAlbrectsen, Danmark‐Norge 1380–1814. Fællesskabet bliver til, 87–90.
14. The debate is summarised in CitationEnemark, Fra Kalmarbrev til Stockholms blodbad, 19–23, and CitationAlbrectsen, Danmark‐Norge 1380–1814. Fællesskabet bliver til, 98–103. The most thorough modern treatment is CitationChristensen, Kalmarunionen og nordisk politik, 147–163.
15. According to CitationReinholdsson, Uppror eller resningar?, 65, the term ‘union era’ should not be used after 1434, since there was in fact no union any more. As this article bear witness of, I have a different opinion.
16. CitationSchück, “Sweden as an Aristocratic Republic”.
17. CitationEnemark, Fra Kalmarbrev til Stockholms blodbad, 150.
18. CitationLarsson, Kalmarunionens tid, 391.
19. CitationGustafsson, Gamla riken, nya stater. The rest of this article can be seen as a presentation in English of some of my results from this study.
20. CitationRydberg (ed.), Sveriges traktater med främmande magter III, no. 574.
21. CitationRydberg (ed.), Sveriges traktater med främmande magter III, no. 580 a and b.
22. CitationCarlsson, “Sten Sture den yngre”, 92.
23. The letter is published in CitationAllen, De tre nordiske Rigers Historie vol. 2, 584–585.
24. The idea that each country should in turn choose the union king has seldom been observed by the historians; see, however, CitationJørgensen, “Kopiebogen B9 og det turvise kongevalg”. According to CitationJørgensen, Ture Jönsson's letter is the first time the idea occurs.
25. Recent overviews of the state of research in CitationAlbrectsen, Danmark‐Norge 1380–1814. Fællesskabet bliver til, 295–299, CitationLarsson, Kalmarunionens tid, 439–448, CitationHamre, Norsk politisk historie 1513–1537, 122–129.
26. CitationAlmquist (ed.), Konung Gustaf den förstes registratur vol. I, 56–57.
27. I have discussed the fallacies of this national interpretation more closely in my Gamla riken, nya stater, 95–97.
28. This is a very much discussed document in Danish and Norwegian history. A good account of the discussion is given in Ladewig CitationPetersen, “Norgesparagrafen i Christian III's håndfæsting 1536”, 393–395, and CitationHamre, Norsk politisk historie 1513–1537, 603–609. See also CitationRian, “Why Did Norway Survive as a Kingdom?”. My own valuation in CitationGustafsson, Gamla riken, nya stater, 248–255.
29. Shown in CitationGustafsson, Gamla riken, nya stater, 68–69.
30. The term from CitationReynolds, Kingdoms and communities in Western Europe.
31. CitationGustafsson, Gamla riken, nya stater, 275–320, on the identity questions in the late union period.
![Supercharge Your Next Research Paper: Research and write your next paper with Jenni AI.]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/112441/MPU-humanities-jenniai.png"})