The 400-Year Night — When the Northern Lion lay dormant

The joining of the Norwegian and Danish crowns on a single head began in 1380, when Hákon VI Haakon VI Magnusson × Drawing by Hakon Thorsen, after the seal of Haakon VI Magnusson (1358–76), public domain About this image ▸ King of Norway (1340–1380), only surviving son of Magnus VII Eriksson and the last king of the Sverre dynasty in the male line. Proclaimed king of Norway as a child in 1343, he assumed personal rule at fifteen in 1355 when his father Magnus formally handed over the Norwegian crown under pressure from the depleted post-plague Council. Briefly co-ruled Sweden in 1362–1364 before being driven out by Albert of Mecklenburg. Married the ten-year-old Margaret of Denmark in 1363 — the marriage that would, through their son Olav IV, join the Norwegian and Danish crowns and open the way to the Kalmar Union. Died in 1380 at forty, leaving the ten-year-old Olav as king of both Norway and Denmark. Also discussed in The Long Fall — the sudden loss of Norwegian nobility, the end of the kings, and half of Norway gone foreverThe Quiet Revolution — how Norway won its independence without a war of Norway died and his ten-year-old son Olav Olav IV Håkonsson × Agnes Slott-Møller, Oluf, Margrethes søn (1890s), public domain About this image ▸ King of Denmark and Norway (1370–1387), only son of King Haakon VI of Norway and Margaret of Denmark. Born during the marriage alliance his maternal grandfather Valdemar IV had arranged to link the two crowns. Elected king of Denmark in May 1376 at five years old after Valdemar's death without a male heir, with his mother Margaret as regent. Became king of Norway in his own right on his father Haakon's death in 1380, joining the two crowns on a single ten-year-old. Died at Falsterbo on the southern coast of Skåne in August 1387 at sixteen — cause recorded only as illness — leaving no son and no will. With his death ended the line of Norwegian kings that the sagas had traced back to Harald Fairhair. Also discussed in The Long Fall — the sudden loss of Norwegian nobility, the end of the kings, and half of Norway gone foreverThe Quiet Revolution — how Norway won its independence without a war , already king of Denmark, inherited the Norwegian throne under his mother Margaret Margaret I of Denmark × Photo: Jebulon, Tomb of Margrete I (1423), Roskilde Cathedral — CC0 About this image ▸ Queen-regnant of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden (1353–1412), daughter of King Valdemar IV Atterdag of Denmark and wife of King Haakon VI of Norway, mother of King Olav IV. After her son's death at sixteen in 1387 she was acknowledged as ruler in her own right by all three Scandinavian kingdoms in turn — the first woman in Danish history acclaimed sovereign — and was titled by the Swedes fullmäktig fru och rätt husbonde, plenipotentiary lady and rightful master, the constitutional language having no formula for a queen who governed three kingdoms in her own name. In 1397 she gathered the three realms at Kalmar to crown her great-nephew Erik of Pomerania as joint king, founding the Kalmar Union. Died at Flensburg in 1412. Also discussed in The Long Fall — the sudden loss of Norwegian nobility, the end of the kings, and half of Norway gone foreverThe Quiet Revolution — how Norway won its independence without a war ’s regency. Olav died at Falsterbo Falsterbo × A. T. Gellerstedt, Falsterbo Church from the southwest (undated drawing), Riksantikvarieämbetet (KMB) About this image ▸ Small town on the southwestern tip of the Skåne peninsula, facing the entrance to the Øresund. In the late medieval period one of the most important seasonal trading sites in the Baltic — the August Skånemarknad (Scania Fair) drew Hanseatic merchants from across northern Europe to its herring market. Falsterbo Castle was a Danish royal residence through the fourteenth century. King Olav IV Håkonsson of Norway and Denmark died there in August 1387 at sixteen, ending the medieval Norwegian male royal line the sagas had traced from Harald Fairhair. Today a small resort town in southwestern Sweden. Also discussed in The Long Fall — the sudden loss of Norwegian nobility, the end of the kings, and half of Norway gone foreverThe Quiet Revolution — how Norway won its independence without a war seven years later and the regency passed into her own name. The Kalmar Union Kalmar Union × Union letter of Kalmar (1397) About this image ▸ Personal union of the three Scandinavian kingdoms — Denmark, Sweden, and Norway — under a single monarch, established at Kalmar (in modern southeastern Sweden) in 1397 by Margaret of Denmark. Lasted 126 years until Gustav Vasa's revolt of 1523 took Sweden out of the union. Denmark and Norway remained joined as the Dano-Norwegian union (1523–1814), with Norway treated as a Danish province governed from Copenhagen. The Kalmar Union shifted Scandinavian political power decisively to Copenhagen and gradually placed the senior Norwegian clergy under Danish appointment — one of the long political conditions for the imposed Lutheran Reformation in Norway in 1537. Also discussed in A Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutions and the stave churchesThe Long Fall — the sudden loss of Norwegian nobility, the end of the kings, and half of Norway gone forever of 1397 placed the three Scandinavian kingdoms under a single named monarch. Sweden seceded under Gustav Vasa Gustav Vasa × After Jacob Binck, Gustav Vasa (copy after a lost original, 16th c.), Uppsala University Collections About this image ▸ King of Sweden (1496–1560), reigned 1523–1560. Founder of the Vasa dynasty and the modern Swedish state. Raised in rebellion against the Danish king Christian II during the Stockholm Bloodbath of November 1520, in which Christian executed roughly eighty Swedish nobles and clergy in the capital square. Elected king at Strängnäs on 6 June 1523 — Sweden's national day — and immediately took Sweden out of the Kalmar Union, ending the personal union with Denmark and Norway after 126 years. Imposed the Lutheran Reformation on Sweden through the 1527 Västerås Recess. His reign transformed Sweden from a medieval elective monarchy into a hereditary national state with a state church and a centralised treasury. in 1523. The Danish-Norwegian double monarchy continued for another two hundred and ninety-one years. By the time it ended in 1814, the only living link to an independent Norwegian state was textual — Magnus Lagabøte Magnus VI Lagabøte × Stone head of Magnus VI Lagabøte (13th c.), Stavanger Cathedral; photo: Gunleiv Hadland (CC BY-SA 3.0) About this image ▸ King of Norway 1263-1280, bynamed Lagabøte ("Law-mender") in recognition of his promulgation in 1274 of the Landslov, the Code of National Law that unified the four regional thing-law traditions (Gulating, Frostating, Borgarting, Eidsivating) into a single national code. The Landslov remained the law of Norway for more than four hundred years and made Norway one of the first European kingdoms with a unified national legal code. Also discussed in Before There Was Norway — petty kingdoms at the edge of the worldThe Golden Age — a North Atlantic empire … reaching farther than you thinkThe Long Fall — the sudden loss of Norwegian nobility, the end of the kings, and half of Norway gone foreverThe Germans Who "Ruled" Bergen — the Hanseatic merchants on Bryggen WharfAllemannsretten — the right to roam ’s medieval law-code Landslov (1274) × Magnus Lagabøtes landslov, AM 305 fol., fol. 10v (13th-14th c.), via Wikimedia Commons About this image ▸ Norwegian Magnus Lagabøtes landslov — the Code of National Law promulgated by King Magnus VI Lagabøte in 1274. Unified the four separate regional thing-law traditions (Gulating, Frostating, Borgarting, Eidsivating) into a single code applying across the whole Norwegian kingdom. Made Norway one of the first European kingdoms with a unified national legal code, decades ahead of similar developments in England or France. Remained the law of Norway for more than four hundred years, until Christian V's Norske Lov superseded it in 1687. Also discussed in Before There Was Norway — petty kingdoms at the edge of the worldThe Golden Age — a North Atlantic empire … reaching farther than you thinkAllemannsretten — the right to roam , preserved in libraries and no longer operating in any court.

The Norwegian name for the long period is firehundreårsnatten — the four-hundred-year night. Henrik Ibsen Henrik Ibsen × National Library of Norway, photograph of Henrik Ibsen (1897-1898) About this image ▸ Norwegian playwright (1828–1906), born in Skien in Telemark and dead in Christiania. The central figure of nineteenth- century European theatre and one of the founders of modern drama. Best known for Brand (1866), Peer Gynt (1867), A Doll's House (1879), Ghosts (1881), An Enemy of the People (1882), The Wild Duck (1884), and Hedda Gabler (1890). Spent twenty-seven years in self-imposed exile in Italy and Germany before returning to Norway in 1891. Coined the phrase firehundreårsnatten — the four- hundred-year night — in Peer Gynt, where it appears in the Cairo madhouse scene as satire of romantic-nationalist mythology about Norway's lost language. The phrase was then adopted in earnest by the mythology Ibsen had been mocking. Also discussed in Friluftsliv — the open-air lifeSøndagstur — the Sunday walk coined the phrase in Peer Gynt Peer Gynt × Theodor Kittelsen, Peer Gynt i Dovregubbens hall (1890) About this image ▸ Verse drama by Henrik Ibsen, published 1867. A five-act poetic play following the lifelong wanderings of the picaresque Norwegian peasant Peer Gynt — through the mountains of Norway, the trolls' court of the Dovregubben, Morocco, a Cairo madhouse, and home at last to die in the arms of Solveig, the woman who had waited for him. The Cairo madhouse scene in Act 4 contains the first known use of the phrase firehundreårsnatten — the four-hundred- year night — placed in the mouth of a satirical character to mock the romantic-nationalist mythology of Norway's lost language. Edvard Grieg's 1875 incidental music — Morning Mood, In the Hall of the Mountain King, Solveig's Song — became the best-known Norwegian music of the nineteenth century. (1867), put in the mouth of Huhu, a satirical madhouse patient in Cairo, mocking the romantic-nationalist mythology that had grown up around Norway’s lost language. The mythology then adopted the phrase in earnest, without the irony, and it has been Norwegian schoolroom common-sense ever since. The round number is itself a polemical flourish, not a measurement: the actual span is four hundred and thirty-four years. Modern historians of Denmark Denmark × Johan Thomas Lundbye, En dansk kyst (A Danish Coast, 1843), Statens Museum for Kunst About this image ▸ The southernmost of the three Scandinavian kingdoms, consisting of the Jutland peninsula and the islands between Jutland and the Swedish coast. Unified under Harald Bluetooth in the late tenth century and Christianised in his reign, Denmark was the dominant Scandinavian power through most of the medieval and early modern centuries. From the 1397 Kalmar Union onward Denmark ran the joint Scandinavian monarchy from Copenhagen; after Sweden left the union in 1523, Denmark and Norway remained joined as the Dano- Norwegian state until 1814, with Norway governed as a Danish province through that period. Also discussed in The Long Fall — the sudden loss of Norwegian nobility, the end of the kings, and half of Norway gone foreverThe Quiet Revolution — how Norway won its independence without a warWorld War II — the King’s “No” and the Nazis in Norway -Norway handle the period more carefully. There was no formal occupation. Norwegian law continued to apply to Norwegian citizens. The crown lands stayed crown lands. The fishing and timber industries made Norway one of the wealthier provinces in the Danish kingdom. By 1800 the population had reached nearly nine hundred thousand, roughly five times the post-plague floor of three centuries earlier. The four centuries were not empty. They were also not free.

A slow absorption

For the first century and a half, Norway retained the outward forms of statehood. The Council of the Realm — the Riksråd Riksrådet × The Council of the Realm — the medieval and early modern Norwegian royal council of magnates and bishops, the body through which the senior secular aristocracy and the Norwegian church together advised and constrained the king and negotiated the succession when a line failed. In the high-medieval kingdom the Council was the institutional counterweight to the crown; in the post-plague century it was the body that should have negotiated Norway's next king on Norway's terms after the dynastic collapse of 1387. The Black Death reduced both the Council's numbers and the noble incomes that had sustained its independence — leaving it unable to assert Norwegian autonomy when the crown passed by inheritance to Margaret I and her Danish line. In this article By the fifteenth century the Council was fading — thinned by the plague's losses among the families that had staffed it, its noble incomes shrunken, its bishops increasingly appointed from Copenhagen. In 1536 Christian III abolished it outright, decreeing that Norway would thereafter be governed as part of the Danish realm — the erasure of the last institutional form of a separate Norwegian state. Also discussed in The Long Fall — the sudden loss of Norwegian nobility, the end of the kings, and half of Norway gone forever of magnates and bishops — continued to meet, though less often and with fewer members at each gathering. Successive Danish kings were still formally elected by the Norwegian Council to the Norwegian throne, and Magnus Lagabøte’s Landslov of 1274 remained the operating law of the country. The plague kept returning in waves through the fifteenth century, knocking back each slow recovery. The Norwegian nobility, never large and reduced to almost nothing by the first wave of mortality, lost its standing as a distinct political class and was absorbed into the Danish nobility. The bishops of Bergen Bergen × Photochrom print, General view from Fjeldveien, Bergen (c. 1890–1900), Library of Congress About this image ▸ Norway's western trading capital, founded around 1070 on the inner Byfjorden. For four centuries the largest city in the country and the wharf through which the entire western export economy ran — dried cod from the Lofoten fisheries, stockpiled and traded by the Hanseatic merchants at Bryggen from 1360 to 1754. Norway's commercial and intellectual heart through the Hanseatic period; overtaken in size by Christiania (Oslo) in the 1830s. The painted wooden Bryggen wharf is on the UNESCO World Heritage list and substantially what it was in the late seventeenth century. In this article The Hanseatic Kontor at Bryggen ran Norway's western export economy outright through the long Danish-union period, paying roughly half its profits to the Danish crown in customs and largely insulating the western coast from the political relegation of the rest of the country. On the trip The Ungdommene (the Youngsters) reach Bergen late on Day 3 via the Norway-in-a-Nutshell train-and-ferry route from Oslo. On the Day 4 morning they walk Bryggen and ride the funicular up Mount Fløyen before flying back to Oslo and driving on to Lillehammer that evening — a day ahead of the Gråhårsklubben (the Oldsters), who spend the split days north in Trondheim and the heritage country of Stjørdal, Hegra, and Kylloplass and come south on Day 5. Bergen Also discussed in The Germans Who "Ruled" Bergen — the Hanseatic merchants on Bryggen WharfBefore There Was Norway — petty kingdoms at the edge of the worldThe King Who Became a Saint — how the Nordmen came to ChristA Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutions and the stave churchesThe Long Fall — the sudden loss of Norwegian nobility, the end of the kings, and half of Norway gone foreverThe Golden Age — a North Atlantic empire … reaching farther than you thinkThe Crusades?!!!! — sixty ships from Bergen, bound for the Holy LandThe Reformation, 1537 — one church eradicated and another imposedWorld War II — the King’s “No” and the Nazis in NorwayKraken — the island-sized beast, logged as factSjøormer — the serpents in the deep lakes and fjordsPesta — an old woman walking from farm to farmFossegrimen — the waterfall fiddler who teaches you to playAlcohol and Vinmonopolet — when and where to buy a drinkEveryday etiquette — quiet voices, wide space, no smilingFood and dining customs — having patience, free water, brunost on everything🚨 Emergencies - important numbers, hospitals, and what you can doLanguage basics — just enough Norwegian to be politeWhat to wear — the layering system, on the ground , Nidaros Nidaros Cathedral × Unknown photographer, Nidaros Cathedral from the northeast (1857), Wikimedia Commons About this image ▸ The principal cathedral of Norway and the burial place of Saint Olav, on the bank of the Nid River in Trondheim. Built and rebuilt in stages from the late eleventh through the early fourteenth centuries around the shrine site at the cathedral's east end. The octagonal east end, raised directly over Olav's grave, was the devotional core of the medieval building. Substantially damaged by fires and the 1531 lightning strike, then by neglect across the Lutheran centuries. The west front a visitor sees today is a nineteenth- and twentieth-century reconstruction, completed only in 1983. The cathedral is the coronation and consecration church of Norwegian kings; Haakon VII was crowned there in 1906, Olav V consecrated in 1958, Harald V in 1991. On the trip Day 3 of the trip brings the Gråhårsklubben (the Oldsters) to Nidaros Cathedral. The shrine is gone but the spot is marked on the cathedral floor in the octagonal east end. The west front is the twentieth-century reconstruction of the face the medieval pilgrims saw. The pilgrim road comes in past the south door — the same door medieval pilgrims walked through. Nidaros Cathedral, Trondheim Also discussed in The King Who Became a Saint — how the Nordmen came to ChristA Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutions and the stave churchesThe Crusades?!!!! — sixty ships from Bergen, bound for the Holy LandThe Golden Age — a North Atlantic empire … reaching farther than you thinkThe Long Fall — the sudden loss of Norwegian nobility, the end of the kings, and half of Norway gone foreverThe Reformation, 1537 — one church eradicated and another imposedLutheran Norway and Pietism — a farmer named Hans Nielsen Hauge and a lay revival that could not be silencedThe Quiet Revolution — how Norway won its independence without a warTradisjoner — celebrations across the Norwegian year , Stavanger Stavanger × Knud Knudsen, Stavanger (1888-1894), National Library of Norway About this image ▸ City on the southwestern Norwegian coast in Rogaland; modern Norway's fourth-largest city and the operational capital of the Norwegian petroleum economy since the 1970s. The traditional site of the sea-battle of Hafrsfjord that completed Harald Fairhair's consolidation lies at the city's southwestern edge, marked by the Sverd i fjell monument. The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, the safety regulator (Havtil), and Equinor (formerly Statoil) are all headquartered in or around the city. Population around one hundred and forty thousand in the municipality; metropolitan area roughly twice that. Stavanger Also discussed in Before There Was Norway — petty kingdoms at the edge of the worldThe Viking Age — longships, legends, and the first "Norway"A Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutions and the stave churchesThe 'Lucky Country' — the discovery that changed everything800,000 Norwegians Leave — the century that built a Second NorwayWorld War II — the King’s “No” and the Nazis in Norway , Hamar Hamar × Axel Lindahl, the cathedral ruins in Hamar (c. 1880-1890), Norwegian Museum of Cultural History About this image ▸ City on the western shore of Lake Mjøsa in the inland east of Norway. Founded as a market town and episcopal seat by the papal legate Nicholas Breakspear in 1152, when it was also made one of the four Norwegian suffragan dioceses of the new Nidaros archdiocese. The medieval cathedral was destroyed by Swedish forces in 1567; the surviving ruins on the Hamar peninsula are preserved under a protective glass-and-steel canopy. The modern city has around thirty thousand people and is the seat of the Eidsivating Court of Appeal — the inheritance of the medieval inland law-tradition. Hamar Also discussed in A Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutions and the stave churchesThe Reformation, 1537 — one church eradicated and another imposed , and Oslo Oslo × Anders Beer Wilse, Kristiania Indre Havn (1923), National Library of Norway About this image ▸ Capital of modern Norway, at the head of the Oslofjord on the country's southeastern coast. Founded according to the sagas by Harald Hardrada about 1049 and known through the medieval period as a secondary royal seat behind Bergen and Nidaros. Hákon V moved the royal residence permanently to Oslo about 1300 and built Akershus Fortress to guard the harbour. After a fire in 1624 the medieval town was abandoned and Christian IV rebuilt the city to the west under the new name Christiania (later Kristiania); the name Oslo was restored in 1925. The original medieval street pattern survives as the Gamlebyen district east of the modern centre. On the trip Days 1–2 belong to Oslo, with both groups together — Roseslottet and the harbourside museums on Day 1, then the Day-2 e-bike tour through Akershus Fortress, up Karl Johans gate, and out to Vigeland Park. Oslo Also discussed in The Long Fall — the sudden loss of Norwegian nobility, the end of the kings, and half of Norway gone foreverA Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutions and the stave churchesThe Reformation, 1537 — one church eradicated and another imposedLutheran Norway and Pietism — a farmer named Hans Nielsen Hauge and a lay revival that could not be silencedThe Constitution That Saved a Nation — five radical weeks at Eidsvoll, 1814800,000 Norwegians Leave — the century that built a Second NorwayThe Quiet Revolution — how Norway won its independence without a warWorld War II — the King’s “No” and the Nazis in NorwayAlcohol and Vinmonopolet — when and where to buy a drinkEveryday etiquette — quiet voices, wide space, no smiling🚨 Emergencies - important numbers, hospitals, and what you can doLanding in Norway — off the plane in Oslo, where to go, step by stepMoney — currency, cards, prices, and tipping continued in their sees, but the appointments increasingly came from Copenhagen Copenhagen × Georg Braun & Frans Hogenberg, view of Copenhagen from Vesterbro (1587), Civitates Orbis Terrarum About this image ▸ Capital of Denmark, on the eastern coast of the island of Zealand across the Øresund strait from Sweden. Founded as a fishing town in the early medieval period, formal city in 1167, royal capital from the early fifteenth century. The administrative centre of the Danish kingdom and, from 1380 to 1814, of the Danish-Norwegian union — the place where the 1537 Lutheran Reformation in Norway was decided and from which the silver of the Olafskrinet was sent to the Copenhagen mint after the destruction of the shrine at Nidaros. Also discussed in The King Who Became a Saint — how the Nordmen came to ChristA Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutions and the stave churchesThe Reformation, 1537 — one church eradicated and another imposedWorld War II — the King’s “No” and the Nazis in Norway , and the men appointed increasingly arrived from Danish or German training.

In 1536, King Christian III Christian III of Denmark-Norway × Jacob Binck, Portrait of Christian III (1550s) About this image ▸ King of Denmark and Norway (1503–1559), reigned 1534–1559. Came to the throne after the Count's Feud (1534–1536), the civil war that established Lutheranism as the state religion across his realm. By the Recess of Copenhagen in October 1536 he abolished the Norwegian Council of the Realm and declared Norway a fully integrated part of the Danish kingdom rather than a separate one in personal union. The Reformation followed the next year, imposed across both Denmark and Norway by royal decree. The last Catholic archbishop of Nidaros, Olav Engelbrektsson, fled the country in April 1537. Christian III's reign closed the medieval Norwegian state as an institutionally distinct entity for the next two and a half centuries. Also discussed in The Reformation, 1537 — one church eradicated and another imposed formally abolished the Norwegian Council of the Realm and declared Norway a fully integrated part of the Danish kingdom rather than a separate one in personal union. How completely that integration was realised has been argued by modern historians: Norway kept its royal title, its own law continued to operate, and its administration retained distinct features. But the medieval institutional kingdom, as a self-acting political body, was over. The Reformation The Reformation × Ferdinand Pauwels, Luther hammers his 95 theses to the door (1872) About this image ▸ The Lutheran religious settlement imposed on Norway in 1537 by royal decree from Copenhagen. Christian III of Denmark abolished the Catholic ecclesiastical structure, dissolved the monasteries, ordered the saints' relics destroyed, and replaced the Latin liturgy with Danish-language Lutheran services. Unlike the Reformation elsewhere in northern Europe, Norway's arrived from outside — no Norwegian Luther, no Norwegian reformers, no domestic religious movement behind it. The country changed denomination because the king in Copenhagen ordered it. In this article The 1537 Reformation completed the Danish consolidation of Norway that the abolition of the Norwegian Council of the Realm had begun the year before. Norway became, for the next 277 years, a province administered from Copenhagen on the same terms as Jutland or Funen. Also discussed in The Reformation, 1537 — one church eradicated and another imposedThe King Who Became a Saint — how the Nordmen came to ChristA Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutions and the stave churchesThe Germans Who "Ruled" Bergen — the Hanseatic merchants on Bryggen WharfLutheran Norway and Pietism — a farmer named Hans Nielsen Hauge and a lay revival that could not be silencedThe Long Fall — the sudden loss of Norwegian nobility, the end of the kings, and half of Norway gone foreverStatskirken — the state church and what's left of it followed the next year, imposed by royal decree across both halves of the realm, the last Catholic archbishop of Nidaros fleeing the country with what treasures he could save.

What was lost

The Norwegian aristocracy as a class ceased to exist. The royal court ceased to exist; the king visited Norway rarely, and for long stretches not at all. Norwegian — the language of the medieval chanceries, the saga prose, the law-codes — ceased to be a written language at all and survived only as a spoken vernacular. After the Reformation, all administrative correspondence, all legal documents, all liturgical texts, all printed books, and all schoolroom instruction in Norwegian schools were in Danish. In 1604, the Landslov itself was translated into Danish under King Christian IV Christian IV of Denmark-Norway × Karel van Mander (III), Christian IV (c. 1645), Frederiksborg Slot About this image ▸ King of Denmark and Norway (1577–1648), reigned 1588–1648 — the longest reign in Scandinavian royal history. A builder- king whose stamp on the urban geography of Norway is the most visible single legacy of the long Danish period: he founded Christiania (modern Oslo) in 1624 after the medieval city burned, Kongsberg in 1624 around newly discovered silver, Kristiansand in 1641 on the southern coast, and gave charters or expanded patronage to Trondheim, Bergen, and other coastal towns. Promulgated the Norske Lov av 1604 — the Danish translation of Magnus Lagabøte's medieval Landslov — that became the working text of Norwegian courts. His reign also brought the costly Kalmar War (1611–1613) against Sweden and the catastrophic Danish entry into the Thirty Years' War (1625–1629). . The Danish translation Norske Lov av 1604 × Photo: Stine Stennes Hovdenakk, Kong Christian den fjerdes norske Lovbog af 1604, Nynorsk kultursentrum (Ivar Aasen-tunet), CC BY-SA 4.0 About this image ▸ The Norwegian Law of 1604 — the Danish-language translation and revision of Magnus Lagabøte's medieval Landslov (1274), promulgated under King Christian IV. The translation displaced the original Old Norwegian text as the operating law of Norwegian courts and marked the formal passage of Norwegian written law into Danish. Replaced in 1687 by Christian V's Norske Lov — a wholly new code drafted by four Norwegian jurists adapting the Danish Code (Danske Lov, 1683), which remained the operating Norwegian law for two centuries. became the operating text of Norwegian courts, and the medieval Old Norwegian text passed out of working use. In 1665, the Kongelov — the King’s Law Kongeloven × Photo: Thomas Hindsgaul, Kongeloven (1665), Frederiksborg Slot About this image ▸ The King's Law — the Danish absolutist constitution signed by King Frederik III on 14 November 1665 and first published in print by his grandson Frederik IV in 1709, formalising the hereditary absolute monarchy that had been established in Denmark-Norway by the 1660–61 constitutional revolution. The most thoroughgoing royal-absolutist document of seventeenth-century Europe: the king holds all legislative, executive, judicial, and ecclesiastical authority, bound only by the Christian faith, the indivisibility of the realm, and the obligation to uphold the Lutheran confession. Operated as the constitutional law of Denmark- Norway until 1814 in Norway and 1849 in Denmark, when Frederik VII signed the Danish constitution that ended absolutism. — codified in writing the absolutism established in Denmark-Norway five years earlier. The Danish monarch ruled both kingdoms from Copenhagen with no constitutional check on his authority.

The Nidaros archbishopric, which had been the metropolitan see of the entire Norse Atlantic empire under the Catholic age, became simply one of the Danish-Norwegian bishoprics under the Lutheran establishment, drawing its appointees and its theological direction from Copenhagen. The medieval shrine of Saint Olav Saint Olav × Saint Olav from Austevoll church (c. 1450), University Museum of Bergen; photo Wolfmann, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 About this image ▸ Olav Haraldsson, king of Norway 1015–1028, killed at the Battle of Stiklestad on 29 July 1030 and canonized one year and five days later by his English bishop Grimkell. Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae — the Eternal King of Norway. His shrine at Nidaros became the northernmost pilgrimage destination in medieval Christendom and the binding narrative of a converted country. The Norwegian Lion on the modern coat of arms — a golden lion bearing a golden axe on a red shield — is Saint Olav's iconography. On the trip The Gråhårsklubben (the Oldsters) visit Nidaros Cathedral on Tuesday 28 July 2026 — the day before the 996th anniversary of the Battle of Stiklestad. The Olafskrinet was broken up at the 1537 Reformation and the body buried somewhere inside the cathedral in a spot no medieval source preserved. The building is what the nine-and-a-half centuries of devotion built. The pilgrim road, the Pilegrimsleden, runs past the cathedral's south door — the same door the medieval pilgrims walked through. Nidaros Cathedral, Trondheim Also discussed in The King Who Became a Saint — how the Nordmen came to ChristThe Viking Age — longships, legends, and the first "Norway"Worshiping Odin and Thor — the lived religion of pre-Christian NorwayA Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutions and the stave churchesThe Reformation, 1537 — one church eradicated and another imposedLutheran Norway and Pietism — a farmer named Hans Nielsen Hauge and a lay revival that could not be silencedThe Crusades?!!!! — sixty ships from Bergen, bound for the Holy LandThe Quiet Revolution — how Norway won its independence without a warWorld War II — the King’s “No” and the Nazis in Norway was broken up. The cathedral that had drawn pilgrims from across northern Europe became a parish church.

Through Copenhagen

Individual Norwegians could rise to the very top of the kingdom by one route: through Copenhagen. The clearest example was Ludvig Holberg Ludvig Holberg × Jørgen Roed, copy after Johan Roselius, Portrait of Ludvig Holberg (1847), Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo About this image ▸ Norwegian-Danish playwright, historian, philosopher, and university professor (1684–1754), born in Bergen and dead in Copenhagen. The single clearest individual illustration of how a Norwegian could rise to the top of the Danish- Norwegian double monarchy — through Copenhagen. Travelled there in 1702; took the chair of metaphysics at the University of Copenhagen in 1717; created the Danish theatre with a series of satirical comedies still performed today. His 1741 Latin novel Niels Klim's Underground Travels, published in Germany to dodge Danish censorship, was translated into most major European languages within a generation. Made Baron Holberg by Frederik V in 1747. Died one of the wealthiest men in Copenhagen. Both Norway and Denmark claim him. , born in Bergen in 1684 and orphaned young. He travelled to Copenhagen in 1702 as a teenager, studied at the university there, took its chair of metaphysics in 1717, and across the next three decades created the Danish theatre with a series of satirical comedies still performed today. He wrote the standard contemporary history of Denmark. His 1741 novel Niels Klim Niels Klim's Underground Travels × Engraving after Nicolai Abildgaard (J.F. Clemens), Niels Klim among the Potuans, 1789 About this image ▸ Satirical Latin novel by Ludvig Holberg, published 1741 in Leipzig under the title Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum — written in Latin and printed in Germany to dodge Danish censorship. The narrator Niels Klim, a young Norwegian- Danish theology graduate, falls through a hole in the earth into a subterranean kingdom inhabited by sentient, philosophising trees who live in a measured rational society — the vehicle for Holberg's Enlightenment satire of contemporary European religion, politics, and learning. Translated into Danish, German, Dutch, French, English, Swedish, and Russian within a generation, and influencing later subterranean-utopian fiction including Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth. — written in Latin and published in Germany to dodge Danish censorship — sent its narrator through a hole in the earth into a subterranean kingdom inhabited by sentient, philosophising trees, and was translated into most of the major European languages within a generation. In 1747 King Frederik V Frederik V of Denmark-Norway × Carl Gustaf Pilo, Portræt af Frederik V i salvingsdragt (1750), Statens Museum for Kunst About this image ▸ King of Denmark and Norway (1723–1766), reigned 1746–1766. Son of Christian VI; succeeded his father in the second generation of the Lutheran Pietist Oldenburg line. His reign is associated with a measured Enlightenment opening — relaxed press controls, reduced ecclesiastical interference in university affairs, the founding of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (1754) in Copenhagen. In the same year, by royal resolution, he authorised the transfer of the German Hanseatic Kontor at Bergen to a Norwegian-citizen successor association, Det Norske Kontor — the formal end of the four-century German commercial enclave at Bryggen. Died at forty-two, reportedly of dropsy. Also discussed in The Germans Who "Ruled" Bergen — the Hanseatic merchants on Bryggen Wharf made him Baron Holberg of Holberg. He died in 1754 one of the wealthiest men in Copenhagen. Both Norway and Denmark have claimed him ever since.

His life is the period’s clearest single illustration: a Norwegian could reach the highest peaks of the Danish-Norwegian double monarchy — but the peaks were in Copenhagen, and the writing was in Danish.

What endured

The Norwegian peasantry was never reduced to serfdom. Among the European peasantries of the period this was unusual: in Denmark itself the stavnsbånd Stavnsbånd × Photo: Tom Jersø, Stavnsbåndet ophæves (1788), Rigsarkivet (Danish National Archives), CC BY-SA 2.0 About this image ▸ The adscription — the Danish institution that bound male peasants between the ages of fourteen (later four) and forty to the manorial estate of their birth, instituted by royal decree in 1733 by King Christian VI. The system served the twin purpose of guaranteeing the Danish manorial nobility a stable supply of labour and the Danish crown a recruitment pool for the army. Abolished in 1788 under reforms led by Crown Prince Frederik (later Frederik VI). Notably, the stavnsbånd never applied in Norway — manorial estates were impractical in Norwegian terrain, the rural population kept its own farms, and Norwegian peasantry retained a degree of personal liberty unusual in the Europe of the period. tied peasants to their birth estates from 1733 until its abolition in 1788, and in much of central and eastern Europe the unfree status of agricultural labour ran into the nineteenth century. Norway’s geography made manorial estates impractical, and the rural population stayed in possession of its own farms and its own customs. The dialects spoken in the valleys, varying from one fjord to the next, kept their pre-Danish substrate. The folk costumes — the bunader Bunad × August Schneider, Sittende kvinne i Setesdals-bunad (1870), Nasjonalmuseet About this image ▸ Norwegian regional folk costume — the rural traditional dress that survived the four-hundred-year Danish period intact, parish by parish, fjord by fjord. Each Norwegian region (and many individual valleys) has its own bunad, varying in colour, embroidery pattern, silver brooch (sølje), shawl, and apron. The modern bunad tradition was systematised in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by the textile historian Hulda Garborg and others, but the underlying garments are pre-modern. Worn on 17 May, at weddings, at confirmations, and at other formal national occasions. The persistence of the bunad is one of the most visible single signs of how the regional substrate of Norway outlasted the long Danish absorption. Also discussed in Lutheran Norway and Pietism — a farmer named Hans Nielsen Hauge and a lay revival that could not be silencedThe Constitution That Saved a Nation — five radical weeks at Eidsvoll, 1814800,000 Norwegians Leave — the century that built a Second NorwayWorld War II — the King’s “No” and the Nazis in NorwayTradisjoner — celebrations across the Norwegian year — varied parish by parish, and still do.

The coast grew rich. Timber from the inland forests went out to Dutch and English shipyards through Christiania Christiania × John William Edy, City of Christiania (1814), Boydell's Picturesque Scenery of Norway — National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design About this image ▸ Capital of Norway from 1624 to 1925 — the rebuilt town that King Christian IV laid out west of the medieval Oslo after the fire of August 1624 destroyed the old city. Christian founded the new town on a grid plan beneath Akershus fortress, named it for himself, and ordered the surviving Oslo burghers to move into it. Christiania was the capital's name through the four-hundred-year night, the brief war of 1814, the constitutional Eidsvoll moment, the ninety-one-year personal union with Sweden, and the first two decades of fully independent Norway after 1905. In 1877 the spelling was modernised to Kristiania; in 1925 the city formally returned to the medieval name Oslo. The Kvadraturen district preserves Christian IV's grid intact today. On the trip Days 1–2 in Oslo bring both groups through Christiania — Christian IV's seventeenth-century planned grid, still visible today as the Kvadraturen district just below Akershus fortress. Also discussed in Lutheran Norway and Pietism — a farmer named Hans Nielsen Hauge and a lay revival that could not be silencedThe Constitution That Saved a Nation — five radical weeks at Eidsvoll, 1814800,000 Norwegians Leave — the century that built a Second NorwayThe Quiet Revolution — how Norway won its independence without a warWorld War II — the King’s “No” and the Nazis in NorwayNorske eventyr — the folk tales almost lost foreverStedssagn — local legends, told as warningsUtburd — the unbaptized child that will not rest (founded by Christian IV in 1624 after the medieval Oslo burned), Drammen, Trondheim Trondheim × Knud Knudsen, Parti af Havnen i Trondhjem (1888-1894), National Library of Norway About this image ▸ Norway's third-largest city, founded by Olav Tryggvason in 997 as Nidaros at the mouth of the Nid River on the inner Trondheim Fjord. Capital of the Norwegian kingdom for much of the medieval period; seat of the Norwegian archbishopric from 1153 and of the Olav cult that anchored medieval Norwegian Christianity. Renamed Trondheim in 1931 — after a controversial one-year spell officially named Nidaros from 1930 — replacing the Danish-era spelling Trondhjem and reviving the medieval Old Norse district name (Þrándheimr). About two hundred thousand people in the municipality today. Home to Nidaros Cathedral, NTNU (the Norwegian University of Science and Technology), and the Trondheim Fjord harbour. On the trip Day 3 of the trip routes the Gråhårsklubben (the Oldsters) through Trondheim. The visit centres on Nidaros Cathedral — the building the Olav devotion raised, and the architectural inheritance of Bishop Grimkell's pronouncement on a summer day in 1031. Trondheim Also discussed in The King Who Became a Saint — how the Nordmen came to ChristA Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutions and the stave churchesThe Crusades?!!!! — sixty ships from Bergen, bound for the Holy LandThe Golden Age — a North Atlantic empire … reaching farther than you thinkThe Long Fall — the sudden loss of Norwegian nobility, the end of the kings, and half of Norway gone foreverThe Reformation, 1537 — one church eradicated and another imposedLutheran Norway and Pietism — a farmer named Hans Nielsen Hauge and a lay revival that could not be silencedWorld War II — the King’s “No” and the Nazis in NorwayBefore There Was Norway — petty kingdoms at the edge of the worldDriving in Norway — tolls, ferries, and a near-zero alcohol limitEveryday etiquette — quiet voices, wide space, no smiling🚨 Emergencies - important numbers, hospitals, and what you can doLanguage basics — just enough Norwegian to be polite , and the smaller coastal ports. Silver was struck at Kongsberg Kongsberg × Joachim Frich (lith. C. Müller), Parti af Kongsberg, from Norge fremstillet i Tegninger (1848) About this image ▸ Johannes Flintoe, From the King's Mine at Kongsberg (1834), Nasjonalmuseet About this image ▸ Town in Buskerud county in southeastern Norway, founded by royal decree of King Christian IV in 1624 after silver was discovered in the surrounding mountains the previous year. The royal silver mines (Kongsberg Sølvverk) ran from 1624 to 1958 — Norway's principal royal industrial enterprise through the late Danish period and beyond. The Royal Mint of Norway was located here from 1686 onward and is still in operation. Kongsberg church, completed in 1761, is the largest Baroque church in Norway, built on the fortunes of the silver. Modern Kongsberg is a centre of the Norwegian defence and aerospace industries; the silver works are preserved as a museum. , opened by royal foundation in 1624, and copper at Røros Røros × Elen Schomragh, Kjerkgata, Røros (1869) About this image ▸ Mountain mining town in southeastern Trøndelag, about thirty-five kilometres west of the Swedish border at an altitude of 628 metres. Founded in 1644 around the copper deposits discovered in the surrounding mountains; the Røros Copper Works ran for 333 years until its closure in 1977. Through the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the works were one of the largest industrial enterprises in Denmark-Norway. The historic timber town that grew around the works — black-tarred wooden houses, the 1784 Bergstaden Ziir baroque church, and the slag-heap mounds at the edges of the town — has been preserved largely intact. UNESCO inscribed Røros on its World Heritage register in 1980. from 1644. The Norwegian merchant marine grew steadily across the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — the foundation on which the post-1850 expansion that would eventually put it among the largest fleets in the world was built. The Norwegian population recovered from the plague-reduced floor of around one hundred and seventy thousand in 1500 to roughly four hundred thousand by the mid-seventeenth century and to nearly nine hundred thousand by 1800.

How the night ended

The Napoleonic Wars Napoleonic Wars × Christian August Lorentzen, The Most Terrible Night (1807-08), Statens Museum for Kunst About this image ▸ The series of European wars (1803–1815) fought between Napoleon Bonaparte's First French Empire and shifting coalitions of European powers. For Scandinavia the consequences were structural and lasting: Denmark sided with Napoleon after Lord Nelson struck the Danish fleet at Copenhagen in April 1801 and the British returned in 1807 and carried off most of what remained; Sweden joined the Sixth Coalition under the new Crown Prince Karl Johan (the former French marshal Bernadotte); and at Napoleon's defeat Sweden demanded Norway from Denmark as compensation, taking the country by the Treaty of Kiel in January 1814. Sweden also lost Finland to Russia in the parallel war of 1808–09, the loss against which the Norwegian acquisition was meant to compensate. Also discussed in The Constitution That Saved a Nation — five radical weeks at Eidsvoll, 1814 broke the long arrangement. After Nelson struck the Danish fleet at Copenhagen in 1801, and the British returned in 1807 and carried off most of what remained, Denmark — under the Crown Prince Regent who would become king as Frederik VI Frederik VI of Denmark-Norway × Andreas Flint, Frederik VI Konge til Danmark og Norge, National Library of Norway About this image ▸ King of Denmark and Norway (1768–1839), reigned 1808–1839 in Denmark; nominally co-ruler of Norway until the Treaty of Kiel ceded the country to Sweden in January 1814. As Crown Prince Regent from 1784 — his father Christian VII being mentally incapable — he had run the kingdom in practice for a quarter-century before formally inheriting the throne. Sided with Napoleon after the British attacks on Copenhagen of 1801 and 1807 stripped Denmark of its fleet, a fateful alliance that cost him Norway when Napoleon's defeat in 1814 forced the cession. Signed the Treaty of Kiel on 14 January 1814. Reigned over a much- reduced Denmark for another twenty-five years. Also discussed in The Constitution That Saved a Nation — five radical weeks at Eidsvoll, 1814 in March 1808 — sided with Napoleon. Britain responded with a naval blockade of the Norwegian coast that ran from 1807 to the war’s end. Norway had been importing grain from Denmark for centuries to make up its inland deficit; the blockade cut that import, and famine followed — worst in the winters of 1808–09 and again in 1812–13, when the death rolls ran at two and three times their normal level, heaviest in the inland districts farthest from the coast. Norwegian merchants began trading directly with Britain through the blockade, in defiance of Copenhagen. A small intellectual class in Christiania — strengthened by the new Royal Frederik University, founded in 1811 — began reading the American and French constitutional documents.

Napoleon’s defeat in 1814 forced the issue. Sweden Sweden × Prince Eugen, Skogen / The Forest (1892), Göteborgs konstmuseum (photo CC BY 4.0) About this image ▸ The largest of the three Scandinavian kingdoms, occupying the eastern two-thirds of the Scandinavian peninsula. Unified in stages through the early medieval period and Christianised from the eleventh century onward. United with Norway and Denmark in the 1397 Kalmar Union under Margaret I and her great-nephew Erik of Pomerania; broke away under Gustav Vasa in 1523, ending the union. Modern Sweden's borders were largely set by the 1658 Treaty of Roskilde, which transferred the formerly Danish provinces of Skåne, Halland, Blekinge, and Bohuslän to the Swedish crown. In this article Sweden enters this story twice: first on the way out — Gustav Vasa's 1523 secession broke the Kalmar Union and left Norway alone under the Danish crown — and then in 1814 as the victor that demanded Norway from Denmark as compensation for the loss of Finland, opening the ninety-one-year personal union that followed the four-hundred-year night. Also discussed in The Long Fall — the sudden loss of Norwegian nobility, the end of the kings, and half of Norway gone foreverThe Quiet Revolution — how Norway won its independence without a warWorld War II — the King’s “No” and the Nazis in Norway , which had backed the winning side under Crown Prince Karl Johan Karl Johan × Fredric Westin, Karl XIV Johan, king of Sweden and Norway, Nationalmuseum (NMGrh 1943) About this image ▸ King of Sweden and Norway (1763–1844), reigned 1818–1844. Born Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, the son of a French country lawyer; rose through the French Revolutionary armies to become one of Napoleon's marshals (1804) and Prince of Pontecorvo (1806). Adopted in 1810 as heir to the childless Swedish king Karl XIII, took the name Karl Johan, and ran Swedish foreign policy as Crown Prince Regent. Joined the Sixth Coalition against Napoleon and at the war's end demanded Norway from Denmark as compensation. After the brief Swedish-Norwegian war of summer 1814, accepted the mild terms of the Convention of Moss that left Norway with its own constitution, Storting, government, and church under a shared crown. The Karl Johans gate boulevard in central Oslo carries his name. On the trip Day 2's e-bike tour rides the length of Karl Johans gate — the central Oslo boulevard that carries his name — and passes the Royal Palace begun as his Norwegian residence, with both groups together in the capital. Also discussed in The Constitution That Saved a Nation — five radical weeks at Eidsvoll, 1814The Quiet Revolution — how Norway won its independence without a war (Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, the former French marshal), demanded Norway as compensation for its support, and as recovery for its 1809 loss of Finland to Russia. Frederik VI of Denmark, with his alliance to Napoleon collapsed and a Swedish army advancing through Holstein on his southern border, signed the Treaty of Kiel Kielfreden × Photo: Tom Jersø, Kielertraktaten (1814), Rigsarkivet (Danish National Archives), CC BY-SA 2.0 About this image ▸ The Peace of Kiel — the treaty signed on 14 January 1814 by which King Frederik VI of Denmark-Norway, his alliance with Napoleon collapsed and a Swedish army advancing through Holstein, ceded the Kingdom of Norway to the King of Sweden in exchange for the remnants of Swedish Pomerania. The cession excluded the old North Atlantic dependencies — Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroes — which remained Danish. The treaty closed the four-hundred- and-thirty-four-year Danish period in Norwegian history. Repudiated by the Norwegians within weeks: a constituent assembly met at Eidsvoll the following April and signed an independent constitution on 17 May 1814. Also discussed in The Constitution That Saved a Nation — five radical weeks at Eidsvoll, 1814 on the fourteenth of January 1814 and ceded the Kingdom of Norway to the King of Sweden. Greenland Greenland × Grønlands historiske Mindesmærker vol. 3 (1845), plate VIII, British Library About this image ▸ The world's largest island, lying between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans west of Iceland. Colonised by Norse settlers led by Erik the Red beginning in 985 — the name "Greenland" was Erik's marketing, chosen to attract colonists to a marginally agricultural land. The Norse Eastern and Western Settlements on the southwestern coast sustained perhaps two or three thousand people at peak across four centuries before steadily diminishing in the cooling climate of the Little Ice Age and disappearing by around 1450. Today a self- governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. Also discussed in The Viking Age — longships, legends, and the first "Norway"The King Who Became a Saint — how the Nordmen came to ChristA Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutions and the stave churchesThe Golden Age — a North Atlantic empire … reaching farther than you thinkThe Long Fall — the sudden loss of Norwegian nobility, the end of the kings, and half of Norway gone forever , Iceland Iceland × Frederick W. W. Howell, Galtalækur and Hekla (c. 1900), Fiske Icelandic Collection, Cornell University Library About this image ▸ The North Atlantic island settled from Norway in the ninth and tenth centuries by chieftains and their followings who refused to accept Harald Fairhair's authority on the Norwegian mainland and emigrated rather than submit. They built a country without a king, governed by an annual open-air assembly at Þingvellir called the Alþing — the oldest parliament in the world by date of founding. Three centuries after the migration, their descendants (notably Snorri Sturluson) composed the prose sagas that became almost the only literary memory of the Norwegian petty kingdoms. Also discussed in Before There Was Norway — petty kingdoms at the edge of the worldThe Viking Age — longships, legends, and the first "Norway"Worshiping Odin and Thor — the lived religion of pre-Christian NorwayThe King Who Became a Saint — how the Nordmen came to ChristA Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutions and the stave churchesThe Golden Age — a North Atlantic empire … reaching farther than you think , and the Faroes Faroe Islands × O. Schulz, Thorshavn, from A. Baumgartner, Nordische Fahrten: Island und die Färöer (1889), British Library About this image ▸ Archipelago of eighteen volcanic islands in the North Atlantic between Norway, Iceland, and Scotland. Settled by Norse colonists beginning in the early ninth century, the Faroes were under Norwegian sovereignty by 1035; passed with Norway to Denmark in 1380 and remained under Danish rule after Norway's independence in 1814. Today a self-governing nation within the Kingdom of Denmark, with about fifty-three thousand people speaking Faroese (a North Germanic language closely related to Icelandic and to the western Norwegian dialects of Old Norse). The devotion to Saint Olav was carried across the Faroes by the medieval Norwegian archbishopric of Nidaros, and Olsok is still observed there. Also discussed in The King Who Became a Saint — how the Nordmen came to ChristA Catholic Norway — the faith that gave the kingdom its first institutions and the stave churchesThe Golden Age — a North Atlantic empire … reaching farther than you think — the remaining dependencies of the old Atlantic empire — were excluded from the cession and remained Danish.

The Norwegians refused. Within three months a constituent assembly was meeting at Eidsvoll Eidsvoll × Unknown photographer, Eidsvollsbygningen (c. 1890), Oslo Museum, CC BY-SA 4.0 About this image ▸ Municipality in Akershus county in southeastern Norway, about seventy kilometres north of Oslo. Site of the constitutional assembly that drafted and ratified the Norwegian Constitution between 10 April and 20 May 1814. The 112 delegates met at Eidsvollsbygningen, the country house of the wealthy merchant and ironworks owner Carsten Anker, who had offered the use of his estate at his own expense. They signed the Constitution on 17 May 1814 — Syttende mai, Norway's national day ever since — and elected Prince Christian Frederik as king the same day. The house is preserved as a national museum. Modern Eidsvoll is also a stop on the main railway line north from Oslo and the site of the country's principal international airport (Oslo Gardermoen) ten kilometres south. Also discussed in Lutheran Norway and Pietism — a farmer named Hans Nielsen Hauge and a lay revival that could not be silencedThe Constitution That Saved a Nation — five radical weeks at Eidsvoll, 1814The Quiet Revolution — how Norway won its independence without a warTradisjoner — celebrations across the Norwegian yearPolitikk — the left, the right, and the Norwegian way north of Christiania, drafting a constitution that on the seventeenth of May 1814 declared the Kingdom of Norway an independent constitutional monarchy. A brief war was fought through the summer against the army Sweden sent across the border. The Convention of Moss Mossekonvensjonen × John William Edy, B. Ankers House at Moss, from Boydells Picturesque Scenery of Norway (National Museum) About this image ▸ The Convention of Moss — the armistice signed at Moss on 14 August 1814 between the Swedish forces of Crown Prince Karl Johan and the Norwegian government of King Christian Frederik, ending the brief summer war that had followed Norway's rejection of the Treaty of Kiel. The Convention's terms were strikingly mild: Norway entered a personal union with Sweden, sharing the Swedish king but retaining its Eidsvoll constitution, its Storting, its own government, its own church, and its own administrative life in Christiania. Karl Johan also accepted in principle the Norwegian Constitution as the basis of government — a concession that produced the remarkably durable constitutional framework that lasted ninety-one years until the peaceful dissolution of the union in 1905. Also discussed in The Constitution That Saved a Nation — five radical weeks at Eidsvoll, 1814The Quiet Revolution — how Norway won its independence without a war on the fourteenth of August 1814 settled the conflict on remarkably mild terms: Norway entered a personal union with Sweden, sharing the Swedish king but keeping its own constitution, its own Storting Storting × Detroit Publishing Company, Storthings Bygningen, Christiania, Norway (c. 1890-1900), Library of Congress / World Digital Library About this image ▸ The Grand Assembly — the parliament of independent Norway, established by the Eidsvoll Constitution of 17 May 1814 as the country's sovereign legislature. The name Storting (Stór-Þing, the great assembly) deliberately reaches back to the medieval Norwegian thing tradition, asserting institutional continuity with the pre-Danish Norwegian state. Under the 1814 constitution the Storting divided into two chambers — Lagting and Odelsting — for legislative purposes; the two-chamber arrangement was abolished in 2009 and the Storting has been a single chamber since. The current building, in central Oslo, opened in 1866. Also discussed in Lutheran Norway and Pietism — a farmer named Hans Nielsen Hauge and a lay revival that could not be silencedThe Constitution That Saved a Nation — five radical weeks at Eidsvoll, 1814The Quiet Revolution — how Norway won its independence without a warThe 'Lucky Country' — the discovery that changed everythingWorld War II — the King’s “No” and the Nazis in NorwayAllemannsretten — the right to roamPolitikk — the left, the right, and the Norwegian way , its own government, its own church, and its own administrative life in Christiania. The four-hundred-year night was over.

What came after

The ninety-one years that followed were not a Danish period. Norway was no longer governed from Copenhagen. The Swedish king reigned over Norway but did not rule over it in the direct way the Danish kings had ruled the four-hundred-year province. The Storting passed its own laws, the Norwegian government administered its own affairs, the bishops of the Lutheran church were appointed under Norwegian procedures, and the constitution prevented the Swedish monarch from imposing any decision the Storting refused to ratify. The arrangement was contentious in practice, particularly over foreign affairs, which the Swedish foreign ministry handled for both countries, but it was a much lighter structure than the absorption it had replaced.

The written language returned. Ivar Aasen Ivar Aasen × Carl Christian Wischmann, photograph of Ivar Aasen (1871), Ivar Aasen-tunet / Digitalt Museum, CC BY-SA 3.0 About this image ▸ Norwegian philologist, lexicographer, and poet (1813–1896), born to a smallholding farm family at Ørsta in Sunnmøre on the western coast. Self-taught — never attended university — he spent the 1840s and 1850s walking through the rural districts of southern and western Norway collecting the dialects that had survived three centuries of Danish written hegemony. From the surviving spoken Norwegian forms he reconstructed a written language he called Landsmål — country-language — later renamed Nynorsk. His major works are the Det norske Folkesprogs Grammatik (1848) and Ordbog over det norske Folkesprog (1850), with revised editions in the 1860s. The two written Norwegian standards Bokmål and Nynorsk that share the country today are the direct outcome of his recovery. Also discussed in The Reformation, 1537 — one church eradicated and another imposedLutheran Norway and Pietism — a farmer named Hans Nielsen Hauge and a lay revival that could not be silencedWorld War II — the King’s “No” and the Nazis in Norway , a self-taught philologist from Sunnmøre Sunnmøre × Knud Knudsen, Parti fra Geiranger, Sondmore (1864-1889), National Library of Norway About this image ▸ Region on the northwestern Norwegian coast, the southernmost of the three traditional districts of the modern county of Møre og Romsdal, sitting just south of the Stadt headland. In the petty-kingdom era a small maritime kingdom whose wealth came from coastal trade and fishing rather than agriculture. The principal modern town is Ålesund, rebuilt in Art Nouveau style after a devastating fire in 1904. Sunnmøre Also discussed in Before There Was Norway — petty kingdoms at the edge of the world on the western coast, spent the 1840s and 1850s travelling through the rural districts collecting the dialects the Danish centuries had failed to silence. From them he reconstructed a Norwegian written language he called Landsmål — country-language — later renamed Nynorsk Nynorsk × Ivar Aasen, Norsk Grammatik, title page (1864), Språkrådet facsimile library About this image ▸ New Norwegian — one of the two official written standards of modern Norwegian. Originally called Landsmål (country-language), constructed by the philologist Ivar Aasen across the 1840s and 1850s from his fieldwork in the rural dialects of southern and western Norway. Aasen aimed to recover a written Norwegian that descended from Old Norwegian without the three centuries of Danish overlay. Renamed Nynorsk in the 1929 language-reform settlement. Today roughly 10–15% of Norwegians use Nynorsk as their primary written language, concentrated in the western fjord districts; the remainder use Bokmål (descended from the urban Dano-Norwegian written tradition). Both standards are taught in school and have equal official status; municipalities and schools choose between them. Also discussed in Language basics — just enough Norwegian to be polite . Alongside it, the urban written language descended from Danish was reformed across the same period into what became Bokmål Bokmål × Kongeriget Norges Grundlov, opening page (17 May 1814), Stortingsarkivet About this image ▸ Book language — one of the two official written standards of modern Norwegian. Descended from the written Dano- Norwegian (Dansk-norsk) that served as the literary and administrative language of educated Norwegians through the late Danish period and through most of the nineteenth century. Across a series of language reforms between 1907 and 1959, the standard was progressively shifted toward spoken eastern Norwegian usage and away from Danish orthography, and the name Riksmål (the older form) was replaced by Bokmål in 1929. Today roughly 85–90% of Norwegians use Bokmål as their primary written language. Bokmål and Nynorsk have equal official status; municipalities and schools choose between them, and any Norwegian student is required to learn to write both. Also discussed in Norske eventyr — the folk tales almost lost foreverLanguage basics — just enough Norwegian to be polite . By the end of the nineteenth century, Norway had two living written standards where for three centuries it had had none.

The substrate

The seventeenth of May is Norway’s national day. Across the country, children parade in folk costume — the bunad of their region — and the costumes vary from valley to valley because the country was kept in its valleys for four hundred years and the regional substrate was preserved in what people wore.

The state had been lost. The country had not.

Sources & further reading

Primary sources

• Magnus Lagabøtes Landslov (the Law-code of Magnus the Law-Mender), 1274. The medieval Norwegian national law-code, operating until its 1604 Danish translation displaced the original.
• Norske Lov av 1604 (the Norwegian Law of 1604), replaced in 1687 by Christian V’s Norske Lov, a new code adapting the Danish Danske Lov (1683). The Danish-translated successor that became the working text of Norwegian courts for the rest of the period.
• Kongeloven (the King’s Law), 1665. The Danish absolutist constitution that formalised the hereditary absolute monarchy established in Denmark-Norway in 1660–61.
• Kielfreden (the Treaty of Kiel), 14 January 1814. The Danish cession of Norway to the Swedish crown.
• Mossekonvensjonen (the Convention of Moss), 14 August 1814. The settlement of the brief Swedish-Norwegian war establishing the personal union.
• Henrik Ibsen, Peer Gynt (1867), Act 4 — the Cairo madhouse scene whose satire of the romantic-nationalist language movement contains the first known appearance of the phrase firehundreårsnatten.

Modern scholarship

• Sverre Bagge, Cross and Scepter: The Rise of the Scandinavian Kingdoms from the Vikings to the Reformation (Princeton University Press, 2014). The Scandinavian political context for the formation of the union.
• Knut Helle, ed., The Cambridge History of Scandinavia, Volume 1: Prehistory to 1520 (Cambridge University Press, 2003); E. I. Kouri and Jens E. Olesen, eds., Volume 2 (Cambridge University Press, 2016). The reference treatment of the period.
• Øystein Rian, Den aristokratiske fyrstestaten 1536–1648, in Aschehougs Norgeshistorie (Aschehoug, 1997). The standard Norwegian-language treatment of the period after the 1536 abolition, foundational to the modern “twin realm” reading.
• Ståle Dyrvik, Norsk historie 1625–1814 (Samlaget, 1999). The Norwegian-language history of the long middle and the end of the period.
• T. K. Derry, A History of Modern Norway 1814–1972 (Oxford University Press, 1973). The standard English-language history of the post-1814 period including the personal union with Sweden.
• Vivian Etting, Queen Margrete I (1353–1412) and the Founding of the Nordic Union (Brill, 2004). The standard biography of the queen at whose accession the long period began.
• Eli Fure, Eidsvoll 1814: hvordan grunnloven ble til (Dreyer, 2013). The standard Norwegian-language history of the constitutional moment that closed the period.

Reference

• Store norske leksikon (snl.no). See in particular firehundreårsnatten, Danmark-Norge, Kalmarunionen, Kielfreden, Mossekonvensjonen, Norske Lov av 1604, Christian 5s Norske Lov, Kongeloven, Ludvig Holberg, Ivar Aasen.

Visit

• Akershus Fortress, Oslo. The medieval royal castle built by Haakon V in the early fourteenth century, which from the late fourteenth century onward housed the Danish-appointed administration of Norway. After 1814 it carried the constitutional monarchy’s administration. Open to visitors.
• Bryggen, Bergen. The Hanseatic wharf and its successor structures, the centre of Norwegian western commerce through the first four centuries of the Danish period. UNESCO World Heritage site.
• Ludvig Holberg statue, in front of Nationaltheatret, Oslo. The Norwegian-born playwright whose life is this period’s clearest single illustration. A companion statue stands in front of Det Kongelige Teater in Copenhagen.
• Kongsberg. Founded by royal decree of Christian IV in 1624 around the silver discovered the previous year. The royal silver works closed in 1958; the Royal Silver Mines are now a museum open to visitors.
• Røros. The mining town founded in 1644 around the copper deposits of the surrounding mountains; the historic town and its cultural landscape are a UNESCO World Heritage site, with the eighteenth-century timber buildings and the slag-heap mounds largely intact.
• Eidsvollsbygningen, Eidsvoll north of Oslo. The country house of the merchant Carsten Anker where the constitutional assembly met in April and May 1814 and signed the constitution that closed the four-hundred-year night. Preserved as a museum.