History of Schleswig-Holstein - 15th Century

15th Century

Gerhard VI died in 1404, and soon afterwards war broke out between his sons and Eric of Pomerania, Margaret's successor on the throne of Denmark, who claimed South Jutland as an integral part of the Danish monarchy, a claim formally recognised by the emperor Sigismund in 1424, it was not till 1440 that the struggle ended with the investiture of Count Adolphus VIII, Gerhard VI's son, with the hereditary duchy of Schleswig by Christopher III of Denmark.

In 1409, King Eric VII of Denmark (Eric of Pomerania) forced the German nobles to surrender Flensburg to him. War broke out in 1410, and Eric conquered Als and Ærø. In 1411, the nobles retook Flensburg, but in 1412 both sides agreed to a count of Mecklenburg to settle the dispute (Danish history claims his name was Ulrich of Mecklenburg). He awarded the city to Denmark, and Margaret I of Denmark took possession of the city. In Flensburg she was struck by the plague and died shortly after. A new mediation attempt was undertaken in 1416 by the Hanseatic League. Both sides accepted, and Denmark pledged the city of Schleswig as security, and the Holsteiners the stronghold of Tönning. The mediation was unsuccessful. In 1421, the Holsteiners succeeded in regaining Haderslev, Schleswig and Tønder.

In 1422, Duke Henry X of Silesia-Sagan (also known as duke Heinrich Rumpold), envoy of the Holy Roman Emperor, was recognised by both sides as arbitrator. He died, however, on January 18, 1423 before reaching a settlement. His master, Emperor Sigismund now wished to settle the issue, a decision strongly opposed by the nobles of Holstein. In 1424, Emperor Sigismund ruled, based on the fact that the people of Schleswig spoke Danish, followed Danish customs and considered themselves to be Danes, that the territory rightfully belonged to the King of Denmark. Henry IV, Count of Holstein-Rendsburg, protested and refused to follow the verdict.

In 1425 war broke out again. In 1431, a group of pro-German burghers opened the gates of Flensburg and an army of German nobles marched in. In 1432 peace was settled, and Eric recognised the conquests made by the German nobles.

In 1439, the new Danish king Christopher III (also known as Christopher of Bavaria) bought the loyalty of count Adolphus VIII of Holstein-Rendsburg by granting him the entire Duchy of Schleswig as a hereditary fief but under the Danish crown. On the death of Christopher eight years later, Adolphus' influence secured the election of his nephew Count Christian VII of Oldenburg to the vacant Danish throne.

In 1448 Adolphus, as Adolphus I Duke of Slesvig and as Adolphus VIII Count of Holstein-Rendsburg, who himself was one of the closest heirs to Scandinavian monarchies, was influential enough to get his nephew Count Christiern (Christian VII) of Oldenburg elected King of Denmark.

When the Adolphus had died in 1459 without issue the Schauenburg dynasty in Holstein-Rendsburg had thus went extinct. The Schauenburg counts of Holstein-Pinneberg had no claim to succession in Schleswig; their election in Holstein-Rendsburg would have separated Schleswig and Holstein-Rendsburg. The separation of Schleswig and Holstein would have meant economic ruin for many nobles of Holstein. Moreover, the Holsatian nobles, mostly of German ethnicity, failed to agree on which course to take.

Therefore it was easy for King Christian I of Denmark (son of Hedwig, the sister of the late duke-count Adolphus) to secure his election both as duke of Schleswig and count of Holstein-Rendsburg. In 1460, King Christian called the nobility to Ribe, and on March 2, 1460, the nobles agreed to elect him as successor of Count Adolphus VIII as the new count of Holstein-Rendsburg, in order to prevent the separation of the two provinces. King Christian I, though he had been forced to swear to the Constitutio Valdemariana, succeeded in asserting his claim to Schleswig in right of his mother, Adolphus' sister. On 5 March 1460 Christian granted a coronation charter (or Freiheitsbrief), issued first at Ribe (Treaty of Ribe, Danish: Ribe-brevet, German: Vertrag von Ripen) and afterwards at Kiel, which also repeated that Schleswig and Holstein-Rendsburg must remain united "dat se bliven ewich tosamende ungedelt" (Middle Low German or Low Saxon, i.e. that they remain for ever together undivided). Christian's ascension in the County of Holstein-Rendsburg was the first succession in Holstein in female line.

The Treaty of Ribe was a proclamation made by King Christian I of Denmark to a number of German nobles enabling himself to become count of Holstein-Rendsburg and regain the Danish duchy of Schleswig. Another clause gave the nobility the right to revolt should the king break the agreement (a usual feature of medieval coronation charters). Regarding Holstein-Rendsburg, the arrangement was pretty straightforward, the King of Denmark became in personal union count of Holstein-Rendsburg but was not allowed to annex the county, which was part of the Holy Roman Empire, to Denmark proper in real union.

Regarding Schleswig the arrangement seems at first rather odd, since Schleswig was a fief under the Danish crown, thus making the Danish king his own vassal. However, the nobles saw this arrangement as a guarantee against too strong Danish domination and as a guarantee against a partition of Holstein between Danish nobles. The most important consequence of this agreement was the exclusion of Schleswig in subsequent Danish laws (although the medieval Danish Code of Jutland (in Danish: Jyske Lov) was maintained as the legal code of the duchy of Schleswig.

Finally, in 1472 the emperor Frederick III confirmed Christian I's overlordship over Dithmarschen (by claim, conquered only in 1559). Frederick III elevated Christian as Count of Dithmarschen, Holstein-Rendsburg, and Stormarn to Duke of Holstein, thus elevating Holstein-Rendsburg, a Lower Saxon subfief to imperial immediacy. In Holstein-Pinneberg, however, the emperor remained only the indirect overlord with the Lower Saxon Duke John V being the immediate liege lord. In the following period of a hundred years, Schleswig and Holstein were many times divided between heirs. Instead of incorporating South Jutland with the Danish kingdom, however, he preferred to take advantage of the feeling of the estates in Schleswig and Holstein in favour of union to secure both provinces.

An important development was the gradual introduction of German administrators in the duchy of Schleswig leading to a gradual Germanification of southern Schleswig. The Germanification did not catch wind, however, before the end of the eighteenth century.

Schleswig-Holstein soon got a better educational system some centuries before Denmark proper and Norway. The German nobility in Schleswig and Holstein was already a numerous range of people, and education added plenty of people to administrative officials pool of the kings. In 16th and 17th centuries particularly, educated Schleswig-Holsteiners were recruited to government positions in Norway (where they supplanted indigenous lower Norwegian nobility from its public positions, being a cause of them developing more like odalbonde class than privileged) and also in Denmark, where very many government officials came from German stock (but the Danish nobility was not suppressed, they other immersed most successful of the newcomers into their ranks). This feature of Schleswig-Holstein being a utilised source of bureaucrats was a reason of Denmark's governmental half-Germanisation in the subsequent centuries before 19th century romantics.