Norwegian nobility
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Norwegian nobility.
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[edit] History
Most native Norwegian noble families disappeared in male line during the 16th century. Norway still has plenty of people who descend in female line from its indigeneous medieval nobility, and own parts of their manorial and landed properties, now generally in sizes of farms and peasant manors; and a number of male-line families, mainly having Danish and foreign surnames, that descend from the official Dano-Norwegian period nobility.
Studies in Copenhagen archives by Jens Chr. Berg found that there were 120 family manors in Norway in the 16th century (a figure later research with much more sources has shown inadequate) - many of them in Bohuslän, which is now a part of Sweden.
The Norwegian nobility was gradually weakened during the 16th century. The Danish monarch repeatedly tried to give Danish noblemen privileges in the Norwegian kingdom. When King Frederick I of Denmark was crowned in Copenhagen on August 5th, 1523, the Norwegian Letter of Accession (håndfestingen) was not issued by the Norwegian Royal Council until November 1524.
During a sitting of the Danish Parliament, herredagen, in Copenhagen in 1536, the Norwegian Royal Council (Det Norske Riges Raad) was abolished, and Norway ceased to exist as a totally separate country, its administration continuing in part in native hands and in part controlled from Copenhagen. At the same time a unitary system of government was introduced in Denmark, reducing the role of the peninsula Jutland, the Islands and Terra Scania (then "Eastern Denmark"; presently Sweden's southern coast region "Southern Gothenland"; including the old ecclesiastical metropolis Lund), all until then historical realms, formally in personal union, with a certain autonomy. The Norwegian nation, however, did not cease to exist, and for example king Christian IV of Norway was honoured by the Norwegian nobility at Akershus Castle on June 10th, 1591.
Since the Danish kings after 1534 were of agnatically German descent, a German or English style nobility rank system was introduced in Denmark-Norway. In order to strengthen royal absolutism, a new title of nobility was introduced in 1671: the Greve (count, like the German Graf - the full royal style had since long included a number of -ducal and- comital titles in the Holy Roman Empire, e.g. in 1524 Vii Frederiich met guds nade Danmarcks Wendes oc Gotes konning wdtuoldt konning tiill Norge, hertug i Slesuig Holsten Stormaren och Dutmerschen, greffue i Oldenburg oc Delmenhorst; the old title Jarl, cognate of Anglo-saxon Earl, had been of higher rank, more like a Duke). Anyone with enough land could get royal recognition as a count. He who owned less land, got the title of friherre (like the German Freiherr, a lesser title below Count - and below Burgrave/Viscount where that rank exists). Later, the title of friherre was replaced by the title baron, its equivalent in most European languages.
A few Danish nobles were given titles to Norwegian estates. Two countships were established; Laurvig i.e Gyldenløve in 1671 (royal bastards) and Jarlsberg in 1673 for Peder Schumacher, better known as Griffenfeld. After he was convicted of treason in 1678, the manor was sold to Gyldenløve, who sold it to baron Gustav Wilhelm von Wedel. A barony in Rosendal was established in 1678 for Ludvig Rosenkrantz.
After independence the creation of new noble titles was forbidden in the Constitution of Norway of 1814, and the last legal privileges were dissolved by Act of Parliament in 1821, to expire upon deaths of their then holders, which ultimately seems to have happemed in 1893.
[edit] Medieval nobility
What became Norway in 11th and subsequent centuries, had a typical tribal society common to most or all Germanic peoples. From leaders of tribal entities, as well as from landholders supplying soldiers to royal troops, emerged Norwegian noble class of last medieval centuries, when also knightly culture from Western Europe penetrated to some extent to Norway.
In 13th century, important lords (lendsmenn) were entitled to be called "barons" in Norway. Haakon V however forbade that title in 1308, which left "knights" (riddere) as the highest strata of noble class.
Norwegian nobility of that and following couple centuries can be classified into high nobility and lower nobility, in practical terms. Those families from whom, generation after generation, lords held highest offices of the country (such as being Royal Councillors) and owned a substantial property (at least several manors), usually dispersed in more than one part of the country, are called high nobility. Lower nobility, local leaders who usually were known as "vaepner" and "knape", provided one or a few soldiers to the king per family, and each family owned just one or not very many manors, and were prominent usually at local level but not nationally. All they enjoyed exemption from general taxation.
In 14th century, Norway's population -and most resources- was decimated by plague epidemics which left the country drained of approximately half of its previous population. The king generally resided in Denmark from this time onwards. Danish and Germans, sent to Norway to represent the royal administration, got increasing role in Norway. Norwegian nobility continued, in diminished conditions, to serve in country's administration and military as well as lording their own properties. Denmark-Norway was not an expanding kingdom (contrary to its eastern neighbor, the Swedish "empire"), but a stable and even stagnating entity. In the early modern age (such as 16th century), educational requirements to administrative positions became increased markedly, and native lower nobility was generally no longer willing or able to meet these demands, administrators for positions around Norway then being mostly chosen from Slesvig-Holsteiner educated cadres. As lower nobility has lost most or all of factors that held it among the leading class of the country, its families usually continued as wealthier peasants, farm- and/or manor-owners, all around Norway. Their landed properties continued to be divided between children, as is Scandinavian inheritance pattern, and within centuries, they generally became part of peasant class. In 19th century romanticism, "odalbonde" was something many local descendants and heirs of Norwegian medieval nobility actually quite well were.
In 1660, Bohus province, a region historically particularly filled by tax-exempted manors and plenty of Norway's noble families (because it had always been a borderzone and a concentration of medieval soldier families inhabited it), was lost to Sweden - and many of its inhabitants continued as Swedish subjects (Sweden, however, did not generally naturalize those noble families into its official nobility). Although other regions of Norway kept their families of noble ancestry, this one cessation was still significant in numbers.
In 14th and 15th centuries, Norway (like most other Scandinavian regions) was several times under disputes over throne and/or power, this causing sometimes high nobles of rival camp (especially of the losing camp) to emigrate from Norway. For example, the neighboring Sweden received several heirs of Norway's highest nobility, those having founded there for example such families later known as Roos (Hjelmsäter and Ervalla, example of its descendants), Posse (Example of their descendants), and Counts of Bogesund. Through such heirs of Norwegian earlier leaders, most of Sweden's nobility continues in female line those Norwegian genes. King Charles XVI Gustav of Sweden, Queen Margaret II of Denmark and King Harald V of Norway each also descend from such Norwegian high nobles settled in Sweden in late medieval centuries (each of them descend, for example, from Countess Sigrid Gustavsdotter of Bogesund).
Within the so-called dano-Norwegian union, Norway's highest medieval nobility continued generally to own its remarkable properties, and intermingled with and into other Dano-Norwegian high nobility, very often moving to Copenhagen, where heirs of medieval Norwegian noble houses were sometimes high officers of the combined state (such as Jens Bjelke, the High Chancellor, and admiral Henrik Bjelke). No Norwegian family of high nobility continued long in male line (quite similarly as Danish medieval high noble houses have almost all gone extinct in male line). In female line, they continued and still continue as families such as: branches of Kaas, branches of Ahlefeldt, Moltke, Brockenhuus, Danneskiold-Samsoe, recent Dukes of Slesvig-Holstein, (Bjelke; extinct now in male line).
To many of Norwegian-rooted families settled in Copenhagen region, their ancestral possessions in Norway became unimportant, and geographical distance was long. Such remote properties were often sold to others, or ceded to some family members, for example as dowries. In that way, Norwegian landed properties moved much to hands of peasant class and/or of businessmen who built local businesses there, such as sawmills.
Example: From one particular Norwegian family's descendants (here its five generations; a remarkably wealthy and high-born house of high nobility) we see that their vast properties (two main lines were: Giske and Austraat) were inherited within Norway up to 16th and even to 17th centuries, but that those Norwegian owner families settled sooner or later near or in Copenhagen, and that their other, side-line descendants are found in high aristocracy of Sweden, Terra Scania and Denmark.
[edit] Norwegian noble Families
[edit] I. Original nobility
The families Smør, Galte (later: Galtung), Benkestok and Kane are some of the earliest Norwegian noble families and may be considered the country's high nobility. The ancestral father was Gaut at Ænes in Hardanger, born in 1100. He was a lendmann in the service of the King, and his son Jon Gautsson was a lendmann in the household of Magnus Erlingsson. Noblemen were elevated for services to the king, and were usually knights during times of war. For their services to the Crown, knights were given land by royal charter, and the right of taxation in their area (len). These estates may be compared to baronies in the German and British systems of nobility.
From 1277 the lendman was to be called a baron. The change may have been a result of frequent contacts with England and Scotland. In 1308, King Håkon V abolished the baron title by decree.
However, in Norway titles were bestowed personally and did not follow a land estate. As long as the lendman married within his own rank, the title was inherited by the eldest son. Military power and wealth mattered more than formal noble titles, and cross-marriage and family alliances was the normal way of preserving the social position.
Two families have claimed to be the original noble families:
- Galtung (unproven, one branch later received a Danish Letters patent, see III)
- Paus (Pauss, de Paus) (unproven, one branch was later ennobled by the Pope, see VI)
[edit] II. Original Danish nobility in Norway
- Huitfeldt
- Kaas (including Munthe-Kaas)
[edit] III. Families ennobled by Letters patent
- Anker - ennobled 1778 og 1798, claims to descend from Swedish nobility.
- Falsen - ennobled 1758
- Galtung, one branch later received a Danish Letters patent, claims to be the original nobility (see I)
- Heubsch - ennobled 1691 - Freiherr rank in Tyskland
- Kloecker - ennobled 1760
- Knagenhjelm - ennobled 1721
- Løvenskiold - ennobled 1739
- von Munthe av Morgenstierne - ennobled 1755
- Roepstorff - ennobled 1701
- Sundt - ennobled 1733
- Treschow [shoe maker] - ennobled 1812
- Werenskiold -ennobled 1717
- Wibe (Vibe, de Vibe) - ennobled 1634
- Wleugel - ennobled 1782
[edit] IV. Families recognized as Dano-Norwegian nobility
- Aubert - French, ennobled 1612, naturalized
- le Normand de Bretteville (Bretteville) - French, ennobled 1612, naturalized in Denmark in 1804
- Lowzow - from Mecklenburg, naturalized 1777.
- Lützow - German (unproven)
- Staffeldt - Pomeranian, naturalized 1777
- Trampe - Pomeranian, «Count of the Realm» 1735, Danish count rank in 1743.
- Wadenstierna - Swedish, ennobled in 1702, naturalized in Danmark in 1795, Danish Baron in 1806.
- Wedel-Jarlsberg (Wedel, Wedell) - Pomeranian, Dano-Norwegian Marquis rank in 1684
[edit] V. Nobility of rank («Rangadelige slekter»)
- Motzfeldt
- Rosing
- Sibbern
[edit] VI. Foreign noble families without recognition as Dano-Norwegian nobility
- Bülow - German
- Coucheron - Dutch
- von Ditten - Mecklenburgian
- [von] Haffner - German
- Kaltenborn - German
- von Koss - German
- von Krogh
- Michelet - French
- Paus (Pauss, de Paus) - Norwegian family, one branch later ennobled by the Pope, rank of Count. Claims to be one of the original noble families (see I)
- Rokling (Roclenge) - French
- Rughaaz - German, made Norwegian as Rugaas
- Scheel (Skeel) - German (unproven)
- Schlanbusch - German
- de Seue - French
- Stibolt - Danish
- Tillisch
- Weltzin (unproven)
- Zernichow
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Trætteberg, Hallvard (1933): Norske By- og Adelsvåben
