Cross and Scepter (23 page)

Thus, open conflicts between the Church and the monarchy most often ended in victory for the latter, although this victory did not greatly reduce the power and wealth of the Church. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Church remained a parallel institution to the monarchy, with large estates, its own bureaucracy, the right to tax the population, and independent jurisdiction in a variety of cases. In so far as we are dealing with a zero-sum game, the Church had a substantial share of the profit. On the other hand, we are also dealing with interests common to both, and there was opportunity for the king to profit from the services of
the prelates, employing them in his administration and using ecclesiastical offices to reward his servants. It was also an advantage for the king to deal with two aristocracies rather than one, for if the Church had not existed, he would probably have faced a stronger and wealthier secular aristocracy.

An influential school of thought in Scandinavian historiography sees the conflict between monarchy and aristocracy as the main issue in the political history of the region from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. The inner struggles in Denmark and Sweden in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century mark the beginning of this conflict. Unfortunately for the peace of the country, both King Valdemar II (d. 1241) and King Erik Klipping (d. 1286) of Denmark and King Magnus Birgersson of Sweden (d. 1290) left more than one son, which in all three cases led to rivalry and internecine struggles. Valdemar II of Denmark left three sons at his death in 1241, the eldest of whom, Erik IV Plovpenning (“Plow money”, named after a tax he imposed on the people), became king, whereas the two younger received
len
. Armed conflicts broke out between them almost immediately and continued after Erik died in 1250, probably murdered by his brother Abel. When Abel was killed on an expedition against the Frisians in 1252, his younger brother Christoffer became king, despite the fact that Abel had a son. This led to a rivalry over the throne that lasted for several generations, with Abel's descendants, in their capacity as dukes of Southern Jutland, sometimes opposing the ruling kings. One of them even became king for a short time (1326–1330) as Valdemar III. However, Christoffer's descendants held on to the throne; his widow Margrete Sambiria managed to secure the succession for her son Erik V Klipping, who was a minor at the time, and after his murder in 1286 the throne passed on to his son Erik VI Menved, also a minor. In addition to other problems, Erik during most of his reign had
to fight his younger brother Christoffer, who succeeded him as Christoffer II in 1320.

There is evidence of specifically aristocratic interests arising during these conflicts, notably under Erik Klipping. His mother Margrete Sambiria led an authoritarian royalist government, which continued unchanged after Erik reached majority. In 1282, however, Erik had to issue a charter promising to rule in the interests of the aristocracy on a number of specific points, and in the following years, until the king was murdered in 1286, members of the aristocracy played an important part in the government. The murder resulted in a return once again to a more royalist government. The leading men of the previous regime were accused of the murder and exiled, and the dowager Queen Agnes took control together with some her favorites, for a time including Duke Valdemar of Southern Jutland, Abel's grandson. The government continued strongly royalist during most of Erik VI Menved's reign, but changed after his death. In 1320, his successor Christoffer II had to issue the first real election charter with precise restrictions on royal power, including the provision that the monarchy was to be elective, not hereditary. In the following dynastic rivalries, the aristocracy was undoubtedly the driving force; Valdemar III, the king who replaced Christoffer II in 1326, was only eleven years old. The following changes, Christoffer replacing Valdemar in 1330 and the interregnum after Christoffer's death in 1332, were staged by the king's German mortgagees, who now controlled most of the country.

In Sweden, the struggle between King Birger and his brothers has also been understood as a conflict between monarchy and aristocracy, with Birger allied with the Church and his brothers with the lay aristocracy. In practice, however, it is difficult to find such a consistent pattern; both the Church and the lay aristocracy were divided. Only when Birger murdered his brothers did
the aristocracy unite against him; hardly a single member supported him in the spring of 1318; only some foreigners, mostly German mercenaries, remained on his side. In the previous period, the dukes may have had greater aristocratic support than did their brother, because of their personal popularity, possibly combined with greater generosity because of their weaker legal claim, but the universal desertion of Birger must have been determined by moral outrage. The conflict ended in the victory of the dukes' aristocratic adherents who declared Sweden an elective monarchy in 1319 and took over the regency for the infant King Magnus Eriksson until 1331.

Were these essentially conflicts between monarchy and aristocracy, or was the issue the rivalry between the king and his younger brothers? The fact that the aristocracy strengthened its position as the result of the struggles might immediately seem to point in the former direction, but it is actually of little importance. Individually or collectively, the aristocracy may well have profited from the inner struggles without being the cause of them.

The two alternative explanations may to some extent be tested by the example of Norway, which avoided internal conflicts in the period, except for a conflict with the Church in the 1280s. At his death in 1263, King Håkon IV Håkonsson left only one son, who succeeded him, Magnus VI the Lawmender (1263–80). Magnus was succeeded by two sons, both under age, Eirik (born 1268) and Håkon (born 1270). From 1284 to 1299 Håkon ruled one third of the country as duke, but then succeeded Eirik on the throne, which prevented any further division. The relationship between the two brothers seems to have been good, possibly because Eirik suffered ill health from an early age after a fall from his horse and was therefore not in a position to resist his more energetic brother. Håkon's succession led to some replacements in the king's inner circle, including even the execution of one of his brother's main counselors, but it occasioned no internal unrest.
The lack of inner conflict in Norway might possibly be explained by the weakness of the Norwegian aristocracy. However, weakness had not prevented the same aristocracy from backing various pretenders in a series of struggles over the course of a hundred years. It would therefore seem more likely that the presence or absence of internal struggles was determined by the number of pretenders to the throne rather than by an opposition between monarchy and aristocracy. As a matter of fact, all the conflicts, with the exception of the one in Denmark in the 1320s, took place in situations of dynastic conflict, as when younger brothers of the king wanted to increase their wealth and power.

Moreover, although there later were struggles over the throne, this is the last period when younger sons posed a problem. Although the impression from the later Middle Ages is that an absence of heirs to the throne was then a greater problem than a surplus of them, several kings in the following period had younger brothers, but no problems resulted from this fact. It would therefore seem that the internal struggles of this period represent the last phase in the consolidation of dynasties, whereas those in the following period represent either aristocratic or national opposition against particular forms of royal government.

Here, however, there is a difference between Norway and Denmark on the one hand and Sweden on the other. The two former seem to have created relatively stable monarchies, Norway by the middle of the thirteenth century and Denmark after the crisis of the 1330s, whereas Sweden experienced a series of rebellions and struggles over the throne in the fourteenth and fifteenth century and was without a king during most of the period from 1470 to 1523. It is tempting to seek the explanation of this in the country's late consolidation. This might in turn have been the result of its geography, which presented greater obstacles to centralization than was the case in the two other countries. It took around three hundred years for Norway and Denmark to develop a relatively
stable monarchy. As Sweden did not really begin the process until around 1250, it is perhaps not surprising that it was not finished until the first half of the sixteenth century.

There is of course no doubt that the king had to share his power with the aristocracy in medieval Scandinavia, and that this weakened his position when compared to that of the strong bureaucratic monarchies of the Early Modern Period. The king had no standing army so that his ability to fight a war depended on the support of the aristocracy, and in Norway also on the peasants; and in all three countries, kings mostly depended on members of the aristocracy for civilian government. However, the king did not face a united aristocracy, and the number of castles and their
len
was considerably less than the number of aristocrats competing for them. As a result, although the king's freedom to govern the kingdom directly was limited, he could create some maneuvering room by playing the aristocrats off against one another. The aristocracy was strongest in Sweden. There several kings were deposed during the later Middle Ages and the country was even without a king for a considerable time. The Danish aristocracy was able to appropriate a large part of the royal revenues during the troubled decade from 1241 to 1340, thus weakening that kingdom. In the long run, however, the monarchy and the aristocracy of the country were able to work together. Denmark was also by far the wealthiest of the Scandinavian countries, which explains its dominating position during the following centuries. In contrast to Denmark and Sweden, the king of Norway's reliance on the aristocracy was rather the result of the strength of the monarchy, which made it less necessary for him to recruit men from lower layers of society as a counterweight to the aristocracy. Members of the Norwegian aristocracy who were recruited to the central administration identified their interests with those of the king. Norway had the strongest monarchy of the Scandinavian kingdoms in the sense that the aristocracy depended more
on the king than in the two other countries. The thirteenth-century Laws of Succession, defining kingship as hereditary, are clear evidence of this. The strength of the monarchy is also expressed in the lack of aristocratic opposition to the Norwegian king and in the late development of a council of the realm, which continued to be weaker in the later Middle Ages than the councils of the neighboring countries. Nor was there any independent aristocratic judiciary with landowners settling cases between their peasants, as existed in many other European countries. Only the Church competed with the monarchy in this field. Thus, despite its relative poverty, the Norwegian monarchy had the advantage of strength and internal unity.

Despite the fact that the secular and ecclesiastical aristocracy controlled most of the resources of the three countries, the king could exploit the competition between them to achieve greater power than the modest resources under his direct control would indicate. However, we should hardly imagine that the king's position was based solely on the individual aristocrat's fear of losing in the competition with his equals. More fundamentally, the medieval aristocrats' attitude to the king is symptomatic of the general problem of social order. Even a military aristocracy has some need of social stability. Recognition of the legitimacy of the dynasty and of orderly succession, as well as the ban against killing the king, constitute evidence of the aristocracy's acknowledgment that the king was necessary to societal order, an attitude that was probably shared by the general population. The monarch was a neutral or relatively neutral umpire between competing aristocrats and had a sacred status that distinguished him from all other members of society. At the same time, he had a personal relationship with the leading aristocrats, which made it easier for him to gain their loyalty. As we know little about the personalities of most medieval kings, it is difficult to measure the importance of this factor. Scholars therefore tend to regard conflicts between
kings and noble as expressions of friction between monarchy and aristocracy, whereas in many cases they may equally well be explained by personal antagonism between the king and one or another individual aristocrat.

It may of course be debated to what extent the notion of loyalty to the king was internalized within the aristocracy and the population in general. Even if we emphasize interests rather than norms, however, there remain arguments for obeying a legitimate authority. The difference between norms and interests is that the former are usually easy to discern, while the latter are not. Once the dynasties had been established, there was rarely doubt about who was the lawful king, but it would often be difficult to know which course of action towards this ruler would be the more profitable. If someone risked losing his property, his position in society, and perhaps even his life should the king continue to rule, rebellion might be the only option, but such persons would normally form a minority. Close adherents and those who were likely to gain from their royal connections, would of course remain obedient, but the vast majority was unlikely to see any obvious advantage in either course of action. They might cheat or disobey when confident that they would not be detected, but would hardly undertake active resistance. Moreover, in addition to the uncertainty regarding the more profitable action for any individual, there is the problem that successful resistance would depend on the support of others, whose intentions might be difficult to ascertain. Consequently, even from a rational-choice point of view, there is much to be said in favor of loyalty towards legitimate authorities.

The end of regicide signals a major social change, the introduction of an authority above the contending parties which embodies the idea of an ordered society. This idea did not protect the king from opposition or even—in special cases—from deposition, but it did give him special status that made it more difficult
to oppose him or to remove him than other members of society. The exalted picture of the king in sources like
The King's Mirror
may seem an exaggeration to us and might to some extent have been so even in the thirteenth century, but it nevertheless expresses an essential element in the understanding of kingship at the time. The king was the guarantee of the borders of the country, which were defined as a “king”dom, and he was the guarantor of the rule of law and public justice. Thus, contemporary ideology gave him considerably greater power than his modest resources would indicate, while at the same time making him subject to some amount of control. This was in a way like squaring a circle; there was no definite answer to how to deal with the king's abuse of his authority, but eventually the idea emerged of
lawful
opposition, and, in the worst case,
lawful
deposition. This idea was eventually stated explicitly in the election charters.