The history of the province of Scania has, for many centuries, been marked by the struggle between the two Scandinavian kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden.
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It was previously thought that society, like in the rest of Scandinavia, was made up of farmers and thralls, the former all being free and equal having their say at the things in the affairs of the society. Archeological findings on Jutland, the Danish islands and on the Scanian plains have modified this picture. It has now become clear, that the distribution of wealth, at least from the early Migration Period, was very uneven. The plains were to a large extent divided up between large farms which were far bigger than smallholdings, and were often grouped in villages. Subsequently, only a small faction of the population can be presumed to have enjoyed full civic rights. It seems now more likely that this society ought to be perceived as a system of tribes, each led by magnates or chieftains, in Danish often called gode, whose authority depended on the size and wealth of the tribe. These tribes would have had their own lid, their own troop of warriors, under the command of the magnates, as was the case long after the Viking Age.
It now seems likely, that a period of domestic colonisation within Scania, that was earlier believed to have started before the Viking Age, in reality barely took place until after the Viking Age, when donations of land to monasteries led to influences from Continental Europe and a transition from a predominantly animal husbandry to grain cultivation, which entailed extensive land clearing, possibly also connected with the liberation of the thralls, that led to the creation of many new settlements with names ending in -torp, -rup, and -röd.
Scania was first mentioned in written texts in the 8th century, stating it was part of Denmark. The province was a part of Denmark under Danish king Harald Bluetooth. The Scanian law, the oldest of the Medieval Scandinavian laws, came into force in the beginning of the 13th century.[1] In the middle ages Scania was known throughout Nothern Europe for its herring and the market at which it was sold.
Scania's geopolitical position, situated on the Scandinavian mainland but politically part of the Danish kingdom, made it for many centuries the focal point of the struggle for hegemony in the Baltic region between Denmark and Sweden, the so called dominium maris baltici. The two Nordic countries were in conflict with each other for about five hundred years.[1] By possessing both sides of the Øresund Strait, as well as The Belts, Denmark had effective control over the entrance to the Baltic Sea and was able to monopolize trade through the sounds. From the 15th century, Denmark started to collect the Sound Dues,[2] a transitory due from all foreign ships passing through the strait, whether en route to or from Denmark or not. The Sound Dues constituted the major source of income for the Danish crown, up until the 19th century[3] and was resented by the Swedish Crown.[4]
Following the Treaty of Roskilde [5] in 1658, Scania together with all Danish lands east of Oresund became a possession of the Swedish Crown. This treaty followed a war started by Frederick III of Denmark, with the aim to recover territories lost in 1645, but with quite another result.
Soon after the signing of the Instrument of Cession [6] king Charles X Gustav of Sweden landed in Helsingborg on the 5th of March 1658 (O.S.) to take possession of the newly acquired provinces.[7] The king was received by a delegation led by the bishop of the Diocese of Lund, Peder Winstrup.[8] The Copenhagen-born bishop quickly shifted his allegiance to the new ruler and later became ennobled. He stayed in office until his death in 1679.
After the Roskilde treaty war with Denmark soon broke out again, this time started by Charles X Gustav of Sweden. This resulted in a Swedish defeat, and as a result of the Treaty of Copenhagen (1660) Bornholm was returned to Denmark and the present border between the countries was established. At that time Charles Gustav was already dead.
Scania, together with the other so-called Scanian provinces, was placed under a Governor-General taking up residence in the city of Malmö. The first Governor-General was Gustaf Otto Stenbock. This type of government was used in territories which were not fully integrated and were regarded as being more exposed to enemy attacks.[9] The Governor-General held the highest military command in his area and had four county governors answering to him. In 1669 the general governorate was dismantled, but after the outbreak of the Scanian War in 1676 it was reinstituted.
In 1666 the University of Lund or Regia Academia Carolina,[10] after a proposal from Bishop Peder Winstrup, was established as part of a programme of measures to further integrate the newly acquired provinces. However, there had long been plans to establish a university in Götaland and with the new borders Lund and Scania were chosen. The university was closed during the Scanian War, but reopened in 1682.
The 1676–1679 war between Denmark and Sweden over Scania was devastating for the people of Scania. It effectively ended in a draw, after much destruction of property and suffering for the civilian population. Scania, with the exception of Malmö, temporarily returned to Danish administration. The turning point came with the Swedish victories in the Battle of Lund in December 1676 and the Battle of Landskrona in July 1677. In the Treaty of Lund (1679) the provinces were returned to Swedish sovereignty.[9]
Section 9 of the Roskilde peace treaty had initially ensured autonomy in Scania and in an additional agreement, signed at the Malmö Recess in 1662, Sweden guaranteed that the old laws and privileges of Scania would continue to apply in the region. The Malmö Recess agreement further ensured that Scanian noblemen, priests and peasants would be allowed to send representatives to the Swedish parliament.[11]
However, in 1680 Sweden’s first era of absolute monarchy was ushered in as the Swedish king Charles XI managed to convince the Diet, (the Riksdag of the Estates, an early form of Swedish Parliament) to declare the king "a Christian ruler with absolute power to rule his kingdom at his discretion".[12] In 1682, the Diet downgraded the Council of State to a King's Council and gave the king unlimited powers to legislate without the need for confirmation from the Diet.[12] A decision not to honour the agreement of the Malmö Recess soon followed and a tougher Swedification program was implemented in Scania, aiming to create uniformity within the Swedish kingdom.[13] Scania was allowed to retain its old laws and customs until 1683, at which point the Swedish administration persuaded the Scanian aristocracy to waive the Scanian laws and privileges in favour of the new Swedish law and church ordinance, as a condition for allowing Scanians to have representation in the Swedish parliament.[9]
An entire staff of Swedish politicians, artists, poets and scholars were engaged in creating an image of the king as an instrument of God and a personification of the apocalyptic "Lion of the North", a form of symbolic imagery first introduced for Gustav II Adolf. The propaganda was not only aimed at convincing the Swedish population of the king's divinely ordained power, but was also part of a campaign to present Sweden to the world as an imperial power of considerable wealth and military glory.[14] Many works of art from the era show Charles XI as a victorious warrior in Scania and on the central panel of Jacques Foucquet’s monumental ceiling painting in the Stockholm Royal Palace, Charles XI is depicted with "the goddess of Scania" at his feet.[15]
Halland and Blekinge were successively removed from the Skåneland dominion and became fully integrated into the Swedish Kingdom, while the counties of Scania were joined into one county. By 1693, only Scania County was left a dominion, with a special, not fully integrated, status. It retained its autonomy with a parliament known as the Lantdag.
The latest battle between Denmark and Sweden concerning the control of Scania was the Battle of Helsingborg (1710) during the Great Northern War. In March that year the last Danish troops left the province, and have never since returned as belligerents.
Scania's status was changed on May 9, 1719, when it was divided into two counties, Malmöhus County and Kristianstad County, and became fully integrated, with two county governors and an administrative pattern identical to the other Swedish counties. However, the hostilities between Denmark and Sweden during the Napoleonic Wars caused Sweden to reintroduce the office of the Governor-General. Between 1801 and 1809, Johan Christopher Toll was appointed Governor-General of Scania, with the county governors of Kristianstad County and Malmöhus County answering to him.[9]
In the Second Treaty of Brömsebro (1645), Sweden's representatives stipulated toll freedom in Oresund for the country, and after this point, Sweden was exempted from paying the Danish Sound Toll.[16] However, this arrangement came to an end in 1720, when the Treaty of Frederiksborg officially ended Sweden's toll-free status. Denmark continued to collect Sound Toll until 1857.[16]
King Charles XII took up residence in the city of Lund for two years after his return to Sweden from the Ottoman Empire in 1716.[17]
A land reform, the so called "Enskifte"[18] was implemented at the turn of century 1700/1800. At that time the population of the province had just passed 250,000 inhabitants.
Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, the future king Charles XIV John, landed in Helsingborg on the 20 of October 1810 on his way from Paris to Stockholm.[19] In 1811 revolts broke out in Scania due to extra conscriptions of farmers.[20]
The first horse-drawn railway (although with wooden rails) on Swedish soil was opened in 1798 at Höganäs, connecting the coal mine with the harbour.[21] In 1856 one of the first public railways in the country opened between Malmö and Lund.
In 1863 the population of Scania had reached 500,000 inhabitants.
In the 19th century Scania became the cradle of the Swedish Social Democratic Party when August Palm held his speech "Hvad vilja socialisterna?" ("What do the Socialists want?") in Malmö in 1881,[22] where he also started the newspaper Folkviljan.
The first public flight school in Sweden was set up in 1915, at Ljungbyhed . Between 1926 and 1996 it was the flight school of the Swedish Air Force.[23] Today commercial flight training[24] is performed at Ljungbyhed airport,[25] one of the world's oldest active airports.[26] In 1924 the world's shortest international air route was opened from Malmö Bulltofta Airport to Copenhagen, Denmark, using Junkers F.13.
The first motorway in Sweden was inaugurated in 1953 connecting Malmö and Lund (today part of European route E22).[27]
In the middle of the 1970s the population of the province passed the one-million mark.
A new administrative pattern was set up 1997 when Kristianstad County and Malmöhus County were amalgamated, forming Skåne County with 33 municipalities.
In July 2000 the Øresund Bridge was inaugurated, creating a fixed rail and road link between Sweden and Denmark.
