Economic and Financial Conditions

died in 1202. His son, Haakon III. died two years later, perhaps of poison, but the Birkebeiner party in 1217 succeeded in placing Haakon's son and namesake on the throne (see HAAKON IV.). In 1240 the last of the rival claimants fell, and the country began to regain prosperity. The acquisition of Iceland was at length realized. Haakon's death occurred after the battle of Largs in 1263. The war with Scotland was soon terminated by his son Magnus, who surrendered the Hebrides and the Isle of Man at the treaty of Perth in 1268. He gained his title of Law-Mender from the revision of the laws, which until 1274 had remained very much as in heathen days. The new code repealed all the old wergild laws, and provided that the major part of the fine for manslaughter should be paid to the victim's heir, the remainder to the king. Henceforward the council comes more and more to be composed of the king's court officials, in stead of a gathering of the lendermaend or barons of the district in which the king happened to be. During Magnus's reign we hear of a larger council, occasionally called pa/time/it (parliament), which is summoned at the king's wish. The old landed aristocracy had lost its power so completely that even after Magnus's death in 128o it did not recover during the minority of his son Erik.

Paralysis of the Aristocracy.

Erik was succeeded in 1299 by his brother Haakon V., who in 1308 felt himself strong enough to abolish the dignity of the lendermaend. This paralysis of the aristocracy is no doubt partly to be ascribed to the civil wars, but in part also to the gradual impoverishment of the country, which told especially upon this class. Russia had long eclipsed Norway as the centre of the fur trade, and other industries must have suffered, not only from the civil wars, but also from the supremacy of the Hanseatic towns, which dominated the North, and could dictate their own terms. In earlier times the aristo cratic families had owed their wealth to three main sources : com merce, Viking expeditions and slave labour. Trade had been a favourite means of enrichment among the aristocracy up to the middle of the 13th century, but now it was almost monopolized by Germans, and Viking enterprise was a thing of the past. The third source of wealth had also failed, for it is clear from the laws of Magnus that the class of thralls had practically disap peared. This must have greatly contributed to shatter the power of the class which had once been predominant.

Union of Norwegian, Swedish and Danish Thrones. Haakon's daughter Ingeborg had married Duke Erik of Sweden, and on Haakon's death in 1319 their three-year-old son Magnus succeeded to the Norwegian and Swedish thrones, the two coun tries entering into a union which was not definitely broken till 1371. In 1343 Magnus handed over the greater part of Norway

to his son Haakon VI., who married Margrete, daughter of King Valdemar III. of Denmark. Their young son Olaf V., already king of Denmark, succeeded to his father's throne on Haakon's death in 138o, but died in 1387, leaving the royal line extinct, and the nearest successor to the throne the hostile King Albrecht of Sweden, of the Mecklenburg family. The difficulty was met by filling the throne by election—an innovation in Norway, though it was the custom in Sweden and Denmark. The choice fell on King Haakon's widow Margrete, but a couple of years later, chiefly in order to gain German support in a coming strug gle with the Mecklenburgers, the Norwegians elected as king the young Erik of Pomerania, great-nephew of the queen, who hence forth acted as regent. Erik had claims on the Swedish and Dan ish thrones, and in 1397, at Kalmar, he was solemnly crowned king over the three countries, which entered into a union "never to be dissolved." The history of Norway from 1397 down to the union with Sweden in 1814 falls naturally into four divisions. First, 'n 145o, the triple bond gave place to a union in which Norway became more firmly joined to Denmark. Next, in 1536, as the result of the Reformation, Norway sank almost to the level of a After 166o she gained something in status from the establishment of autocracy in Denmark, and in 1814 she became a constitutional kingdom on a footing of approximate equality with Sweden. But for the convulsions to which some of these changes gave rise, Norway possesses during this period but little history of her own, and she sank from her former position as a considerable and independent nation. The kings dwelt outside her borders, her fleet and army decayed, and her language gradually gave place to Danish. Germans plundered her coasts and monopolized her commerce, and after 5450 Danes began to appropriate the higher posts in her administration. When in 1448 Karl Knutsson was chosen king by the Swedes, and Christian of Oldenburg by the Danes, it was by force that Norway fell to the latter. The Nor wegians protested, but the next year the Swedes assented to a sepa ration. Christian I. (1450-81) gave estates and offices in Norway to his Danish subjects and raised money by pawning her ancient possessions, the Orkneys and Shetland islands, to the king of Scot land. His son Hans (1482-1513) purchased the obedience of the Norwegian nobles by concessions to their power. The imposing union continued in name, but the weakness of the nation and its government was strikingly illustrated when the Germans in Bergen besieged a monastery in which a high official had taken refuge.