Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question? Mk. XXV

[Tobtor]

We are getting very deep into the weeds here, and I can tell that this touches a nationalistic nerve with you.

wow. Low shot! I take offense to that. I acknowledge all the defeats Denmark had against the Hanseatic, I acknowledge that Sweden was the stornge rpower from the 17th century onwards, and that there also was danish defeats before this (but that Demark had the upper hand during the medieval is not contested by Swedish or Danish scholars, not perticular nationalistic).

I believe we have a clear disagreement on some points of this history, but some of it is a matter of interpretation of history which is far slipperier and can vary widely for the same events between countries. Most of my sources on the Skania market, disputes between Hanse towns and Denmark and the herring fishery derive ultimately from Hanseatic records in the (Low) German language, though some from Polish (Jan Dlugosz) also some from Stockholm and Visby or the Teutonic Knights. Others are Swedish. I admit I have not used any Danish sources, mainly because they haven't been as accessible.

Well the Swedish sources is in agreement with "my" interpretation, and that of my history professor...

Late 14th / early 15th - my understanding is that it was actually a series of bad fish catch "harvests" which started in the 1390s and finally collapsed around 1405. There are various theories as to why, some say the herring migrated into the North Sea, others say that overfishing caused a population crash. Cod and Herring fisheries also became much more developed around Holland and in the North Sea.

A collapse? Really. Taxes kept comming in so its not a collapse. It is way too dramatic a term!

The Skanian herring trade was on a far larger scale. The fish were caught on the shores of the southern Sound from July to September....[] The yield was unpredictable, as the shoals, although usually enormous, varied considerably in size from year to year. The fisheries were already very prosperous in the thirteenth century and [B]seem to have reached their peak towards the end of the fourteenth century, after which they declined

Decline is very different from collapse, I would say. Do you agree? Again the source:

Dollinger estimates a peak of 300,000 barrels of herring in the 14th Century. Hanseatic records indicate that 65,000 barrels went to Lubeck alone in 1400 (officially, there were probably more than that off-books).

So Dollinger uses 1400 as the peak year, just as my sources. Why do he do this if there was a "collapse" in the late 14th century?

Declined doesn't mean nobody caught any herring there, it just means it became far less economically important.

Right, true. If you have a development some point in time will always be "peak". Yes the importance wore off, especially perhaps for the German towns(?). But no Collapse, it was still an importent revinue (though graduelly the Oresund due got more importent, it wa sintroduced in 1460'ies or so).

Dollinger is French by the way, so it's not some kind of English, or Swedish bias. It sounds like is a Danish language tradition on a lot of these stories which is at variance with my sources.

Uhmm, no. Dollinger have the same peak at 1400 that my history books. Compare:

reached their peak towards the end of the fourteenth century

, to your

herring market actually crashed for the first time in the end of the 14th Century

So perhaps it is

it is a matter of interpretation of history

And I might add an interpretation of what Dollinger say, where I get something different than you...

Yes, I think Dollinger put greater stress on the decline during the 15th century(!), than my sources. Anyway Dollinger also states that the catch

varied considerably in size from year to year

This is indeed true from 13th century onwards: the catch varied! It is not the same as a crash or collapse. The herring declined through the 15th century, yes, not as much as some sources might suggest, but decline from the peak (by 1450 it was as large as perhaps 1300 etc). The real herring "collapse" is in the 16th century. That is why I said you where conflating things. You make an up and down thing during the 13th-15th century (high point in 1400ish) with a collapse in the 16th century into a collapse in the 14th century. Perhaps it lost importance for the Hanse as they lost control of the market in 1385? And that is where you get the collapse thing?

I will try to explain. The herring did not care where the castles or fishing villages were. The herring 'ran' (from what I gather, were breeding) at a different spot in the channel every year. This in turn had to do with where saltier North Sea water was mixing with 'sweeter' (less salty) Baltic Sea water. That spot, or as close to it as possible, was where the market would be, in the form of hundreds of booths, tents and temporary sheds. The reason being was as this was done basically in the Summer (July to September) you wanted the shortest possible route between where the fish were caught and where they could be processed (beheaded, gutted, and packed in salt in barrels). Because they did not have refrigeration etc., spoilage was a major issue. Once they were processed they could be stored for up to two years apparently.

Once they were salted and in barrels, the herring were moved by small boats and coastal vessels to the markets at Skanor or later Falsterbo, then to larger Hanseatic ships typically docked at Malmo or even down in Dragor (near Copenhagen). From there they sailed back to Lubeck, Hamburg, Danzig etc., and ultimately up the Rhine, Elbe or Vistula to various ports inland.

uhhmm. Again flat out no. Since you keep claiming it I looked deeper into the sources and why they make their respective claims. THIS is how the herring trade whent on:

The different traders, merchant etc, had to buy the rights for a booth/land area (sort of rent), these where located are specific areas (Skanör, Falsterbo, AND dragør, and a few more places!). It was at these places the processing of the fish (salting) went on! Everything was highly regulated (size of fishing nets etc), and theDanish king would never allow large scale salting process happening at random places. Any way your original claim was that the "market" moved about yearly, which is even more wrong, as the market is where the trade was (and that was at the castles). There was tight control of the fishing AND the packing of herring. There was a death penalty on packing the herring wrongly! Thus the king needed to be able to control this.

Also you asked earlier (with some disbelief i might add) about English and Dutch traders at the markets, and guess who ALSO bought "booth"-space. Right Dutch towns and English traders... Not as many as the German towns (especially Lübeck was big, but also Danzig and Rostock and others). The process is well described from both Skanör and Dragør, and there is no doubt that the processing and salting happened at the sites! Also it is clear that it was a very complex system, with different people doing different parts (some women gutted the fish, others packed them, some men boiled the leftovers for "oil" etc). We also know that around 1420 some of booths (the buildings) became more permanent structures standing from year to year (again a change but not pointing to a collapse...).

No, I'm not making a generalization here but an analogy - there is an important difference.

Yes it is an important difference. You wrote

in the Middle Ages it's a bit fraught to declare a given piece of land as "Swedish" or "Danish" or "German" or "Russian" since whatever government ostensibly laid claim to it often had a tenuous level of actual control.

. That is a statement that include the mentioned areas. And for Scania it is wrong. Analogy, statement, claim whatever, it is wrong. Would you argue that Kent was English during the medieval period? East Anglia?

Few Kingdoms in the late medieval period were anything close to a modern State. Certainly Denmark was not.

I did not claim that Denmark was a modern state. I claimed that Scania was NOT a contested area and was part of the "heartland" of the Danmark (as opposed to the german possesions etc). It is as Danish as Zealland, Funen, Jutland etc. And that Denmark was a relatively fixed entity, and not a more floating one like Germany.

The closest thing in the Baltic would have been the Monastic State of the Teutonic Order. There were no passports or visas, and typically no border guards between nations except in times of strife. Typically marked by a natural barrier like a river, a mountain range, a marsh or the sea - the borders between nations more accurately represented areas of the diminishing control of one polity and the increasing control of another.

You tell me this as if I do not know this, which I find a bit annoying, comparing what sort of discussions we have had in the past. You make (correct) statements in order to support wrong assertions (that there existed no passports does not influence whether or not Scania was contested or not...).

In border areas however, such as in the area were are referring to Schleswig / Holstein, Pomerania, Prussia and Southern Sweden, local entities often had feudal, military political and economic links to both (or many or all) nearby kingdoms or proto-States.

I am aware, and I mentioned Slesvig and Holstein for that very reason. The poitn is Scania was not such a border zone. Smaaland might have been (but frankly the area was very thinly populated and the strife about that area really first took of in the 16th century, with only minor incidents in the medieval period)

Knights living near the border with Denmark for example may have sworn or inherited allegiance to the King of Denmark, to Lubeck or Hamburg, to a prominent Swedish noble family, and to the Holy Roman Emperor all simultaneously.

Yes, to some degree. But a noble in Scania COULD NOT sit in the Swedish Rigsdag, nor could a Swedish one be part of the Danehofftet. And this sort of thing was not really that much of an issue between Denmark and Sweden (as have so very recently been discussed Sweden wasn't really that Feudal...). I came with some examples such as the Selsvig/Holstein case.

Furthermore, control in a given area such as Scania, Visby, or Stockholm (all contested between the various entities in the Baltic) was only 'real' to the extent that the polity or proto-State in question could actually enforce its wishes. I.e. make people pay taxes and follow their rules.

That is also true today, a state is only really functioning if it can enforce its rule (see various conflict zones of today). The point I am making is that Scania was not such a conflict zone! There was sometimes disagreement (and even low scale wars) between the archbishop and the King, but they never was about whether or not Scania was danish or not, but on how Denmark should be rules.

The comparison between the Nordic Union aka Kalmar Union with the United Kingdom, while interesting, is also disingenuous in this context. Since the time of Queen Margaret I (one of the more underestimated and underrated monarchs in European history), Danish Kings considered Norway and Sweden to be part of Denmark. Margaret herself was literally and figuratively in her own lifetime Queen on Sweden and Norway as well as being Queen of Denmark.

Uhhmm yes, and I am pretty sure Elizabeth II considers herself queen of BOTH Scotland and England (and Wales and Northern Ireland?). Note that Margaret was not Queen of Denmark, but of Denmark, Noway and Sweden... They where separate titles ruled by separate laws and with separate assemblies of estates etc. The the analogy to the united Kingdom is a good one (especially the early part of the united kingdom). Post the Swedish exit Norway gradually became ruled more directly by Denmark, especially after the introduction of absolutism in the 17th century.

But I agree that Margaret I is one of the coolest rulers Denmark have had, she is every bit as interesting as Elizabeth I of England, but is much less known (outside Scandinavia at least).

Yes - I'm very familiar with the story and rather resent the implication that I would even have to rely on the wikipedia article - I linked it for your (and the other readers) convenience as I have yet to figure out a convenient or easy way to link my books online.

Right, but as mentioned I had already mentioned the underlying reasons for the rebellion in my previous post, so I find it recenting that you then send me a wiki-link on the same conflict and say "ohh but what about this rebellion", when I already mention

Locally appointed nobles - given land and dominion over was typically how one Kingdom controlled territory within another in those times

.

Yes, it was.

Though of course, not all of them were actually local in origin or even native language speakers.

Quite so, but there was no large influx of Danish nobles in Sewden. The Swedish nobles was still rulers of their areas. Also it was still Swedish nobles who where appointed to offcies (as Albrekt had also been).

So yes that is how rebellions were conducted - many of these Danish affiliated nobles were given extra support from foreign mercenaries hired by Denmark. These mercenaries were mostly German but also specifically included Italians, Scots and Poles.

It is not "danish affiliated nobles" but Swedish nobles loyal to the Swedish ELECTED king, who also happened to be king of Denmark and Norway.

Lol - what about the Dithmarschen? Didn't Denmark try to invade them among many other regional princes? So far as I know they won those wars all by themselves, pretty much. And they remained autonomous until the 16th Century.

True I didnt mention all areas with rebellions. My sources indicates there was as many nobles in Ditthmarchen as in Sweden. That is a class of "low" nobility, who where close to the major non-noble peasant families (and how it had been in Denmark until at least the 13th century).

Sweden was unusual (though far from unique) by medieval standards in the considerable rights and autonomy conferred to the "Peasants". Rights which were, by the way, also extended to Finland after the Swedes annexed it, apparently more or less by accident. Swedish farmers were really not even truly peasants in the Feudal sense but more accurately just clansmen, members of their various extended families linked together by various alliances, sometimes going back many generations.

True, though this seem actually also to ably to danish peasant far up in time, and it is by German influence in the 13th and 14th century that it changes. Though there where still areas of mainly "yeoman" farmers (mostly in the royal fiefs, while the church and the noble fiefs had more tennants). As I mentioned the Danish peasant had a strong influence through the "things" (assembleges) prior to the 14th century, and later got admitted into the estates assemblages in the 15th century.