History, Expansion and Prosperity

In the late 12th and early 13th centuries, the Danes expanded to the east. They conquered the greater part of the southern coastal areas of the Baltic Sea, establishing a powerful and prosperous realm twice the size of modern Denmark. In this era of expansion, feudalism in Denmark attained its zenith. The kingdom became wealthier and more powerful than it had ever been. Most of the country’s once-free peasantry saw their rights reduced. Marked economic progress was made in this era, principally in the development of the herring-fishing industry and livestock raising. This progress was the basis for the rise of merchants and craftsmen and of a number of guilds.

Growing discord between the Danish crown and the nobility led to a struggle in which the nobility, in 1282, compelled King Eric V to sign a charter, sometimes referred to as the Danish Magna Carta. By the terms of this charter, the Danish crown was made subordinate to law, and the assembly of lords, called the Danehof, was made an integral part of the administrative institutions.

A temporary decline in Danish power after the death of Christopher II in 1332 was followed, in the reign of Waldemar IV, by the reestablishment of Denmark as the leading political power on the Baltic Sea. However, the Hanseatic League, a commercial federation of European cities, controlled trade.