Kalmarunionen i europeiskt perspektiv: Politiska kombinationer och successionskriser i en föränderlig statsvärld

Abstract

The Kalmar Union in a European perspective: Political combinations and succession crises in an evolving state system

It has been said that the Kalmar Union, the union of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden between the late fourteenth and early sixteenth century, was typical of Europe at that time, but this has never been tested. A comparison is made here between the Kalmar Union, Poland–Lithuania, Castile–Aragon (Spain), and the Burgundian state, and particularly how they came into being. I consider four possible reasons for their formation: external threats; a desire on the part of a princely dynasty to subjugate new territories; a succession crisis; or a desire on the part of the elite in one polity to join forces with other polities. It turns out that succession crises have the greatest explanatory value. It was when the line of succession to the throne was uncertain that the union alternative came into play. But this also required acceptance from the elite who considered themselves able to speak for the community of the realm.

While crises arose frequently in medieval and early modern Europe, it is not correct that the Late Middle Ages were particularly rich in unions. The political combinations of the Late Middle Ages were loosely composed personal unions with weak centralisation and considerable powers vested in the domestic elites, but this changed. The early modern fiscal–military states had to develop a more centralised government in order to survive in the evolving competitive state system. They became conglomerate states, where the constituent territories were still governed under different conditions, but more uniformly from a political centre.

The Kalmar Union, Poland–Lithuania, and Spain in the Late Middle Ages all fit into the picture of relatively loosely composed state combinations. The Burgundian state, on the other hand, showed tendencies toward centralisation that may allow it to be classified as Europe’s first conglomerate state. After its fall in 1477, its legacy was carried on in the northern parts of the Burgundian lands, the Netherlands. Both Poland–Lithuania and the Kalmar Union were shaken by recurring crises and attempted to deal with them through more formalised agreements, but while Poland–Lithuania ultimately entered into something more far-reaching with the Union of Lublin in 1569, the Kalmar Union collapsed due to its kings’ failure to retain Sweden. The degree of formalisation had little impact on the vitality of the unions. The least formalised, Spain, has survived to the present day.