Christian Lofthuus

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Christian Lofthuus , Christian Jensen Lofthuus, (* 1750 in Risør ; † June 13, 1797 in the Akershus Fortress prison ) was a Norwegian peasant leader.

Lofthuus was the most important peasant leader in Norway and led the peasant uprising named after him, the largest in the time of the Danish-Norwegian Union.

Life

Lofthuus was an illegitimate child. The father was probably the sailor Jens Jensen Falk from Jutland (* approx. 1732), the mother Tarjer Kittelsdatter Lofthus (1719–1766). On January 27, 1774 he married Else Sofie Nilsdatter Homborøy (1752-1812), daughter of the farmer Nils Olsen Dannevig and his wife Guri Omundsdatter.

After the birth of her son, the mother moved to her home farm Lofthus near Lillesand . There he grew up in orderly circumstances. The maternal family had made some fortunes with property speculations, a sawmill and shipping. Christian Lofthuus was a capable farmer himself. In 1773 he took over the Lofthus farm, for which he made further land arable. For this he received a silver medal from the " Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab " in Trondheim; and in 1781 he received the highest award for agriculture from this society. But he was also a foreign city citizen. He owned a sawmill, had shares in ships and had ships sail to Denmark and Great Britain.

The fact that he was nevertheless able to become a peasant leader is due to the fact that the citizens of the large trading towns and their trade monopoly often came into conflict with the foreign citizens. In the early 1780s, Lofthuus got into a legal dispute with the merchants in Arendal because he had imported grain from Denmark. He won the process because there were old privileges that allowed the Norwegian farmers in the coastal towns in Aust-Agder and the Danish beach-dwellers in Vendsyssel-Thy to trade with small ships and exchange wood and iron for grain and food. Apparently this struggle for privileges laid the foundation for his development as a peasant leader.

His success, however, lay in the fact that he brought the then modern organizational culture to the farmers . The peasants developed a program that was supposed to change the balance of power between the peasants and the other classes, the officials and the bourgeoisie. The peasants wrote many written complaints against the authorities, the mayor, the clergy, the Sorenskriver , the bailiffs and their auxiliary officials. The complaints mostly concerned excessive sports and other illegal fees for official services. The monastery administrator was accused of collecting excessive taxes and duties. Other merchants used the peasants' debt shackles to lower the price of charcoal delivered and raise the price of food. In addition, the farmers demanded the lifting of the Danish grain monopoly and free timber trade. However, the farmers often manage to change alliances with merchants in their lawsuits against manufacturers and vice versa.

The farmers were getting closer to their goals. Lofthuus had an audience with the Crown Prince in June and July 1786 and, according to his own statement, had a royal mandate to support the complaints with evidence after the trip home. The uprising gradually spread to Agder and Telemark . That an entire part of the country was behind an uprising was something new. The prelude to this was in 1784 with the lawsuits from Telemark. The local farmer guide Øystein Ingolfsland from Tinn brought about the collaboration with Lofthuus. With Lofthuus in 1787 he organized trips for peasant delegates from Telemark to Copenhagen to bring complaints against the clergy to the throne. The revolt of an entire part of the country brought the government to an accommodation: In 1786 the so-called "Lofthuus Commission" was set up, which consisted of judges, including Envold de Falsen , and the highest officials in the country. Many sub-commissions were added later.

The Commission's investigation resulted in three officials being retired or suspended. The Arendal merchants were sentenced to pay 1,000 cow values ​​in reimbursement to the farmers. In addition, new rules for sports, which determined the income of the officials, were drawn up. But in terms of the overall situation, the improvements were only marginal. The prices were changed only insignificantly. Lofthuus and others made their complaints, traveled around the country, and collected signatures. He also raised money to send delegates to Copenhagen to represent the lawsuits there. He traveled with them as far as Øresund, but no longer went to Copenhagen because an arrest warrant had already been issued against him. His companions stayed there because they were supported by one of Copenhagen's richest merchants, Peter Dahl, who came from the Eskedal farm in Fjære ( Aust-Agder ). He also had good relations with the central administration.

The subsequent execution of the arrest warrant led to widespread solidarity and the mass uprising frightened the civil servants and the citizens because it was reported by several thousand men and Arendal was invaded. But there was a ban on large-scale riots, and in the end the popular uprising was suppressed militarily. Lofthuus was arrested in March 1787 in Lillesand, where he had fled. The peasants responded by arresting the bailiff in the hope of an exchange. But the military forced his release. Those involved in the operation were sentenced to fortress work, most of them to a few weeks in Akershus Fortress, including most of Lofthuus' relatives. In 1792 he was sentenced to life in the fortress in the iron. He died there in 1797.

The severity of the sentence is also due to the presumption that he had himself proclaimed King of Norway or wanted to become a vassal of the Swedish king. He is said to have admitted this during interrogation, but denied it during the trial.

Christian Lofthuus later became a martyr of the peasant movement and a symbol of Norwegian peasant policy until the 19th century. Also Wergeland wrote on May 17, 1838 via Lofthuus in the pamphlet For Menigmand. Et patriotisk Flyveblad (For the common man. A patriotic leaflet) the article "Almuestalsmanden Kristian Jensen Lofthuus's Minde".

A granddaughter of Lofthus, Else Sofie Jensdatter, a maid of the pharmacist Reimann, had the illegitimate child Hans Jakob with Henrik Ibsen , who lived with Reimann, in 1846 when he was in Grimstad (1843 or 1844 until spring 1850) with the story Fangen paa Agershuus wrote (unfinished) about the Lofthuus uprising.

literature

Individual evidence

The article is essentially based on Norsk biografisk leksikon . Other information is shown separately.

  1. ↑ a b c Yngvar Nielsen: Lofthus, Christian Jensen . In: Carl Frederik Bricka (Ed.): Dansk biografisk Lexikon. Tillige omfattende Norge for Tidsrummet 1537-1814. 1st edition. tape 10 : Laale – Løvenørn . Gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag, Copenhagen 1896, p. 359 (Danish, runeberg.org ).
  2. ↑ Kristian Jensen Lofthus (1750–1797) . Staatsarkivet i Kristiansand Henrik Ibsen ( Memento of the original from February 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Norsk SkoleForum
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personal data
SURNAME Lofthuus, Christian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lofthuus, Christian Jensen; Lofthus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Norwegian poet
DATE OF BIRTH 1750
PLACE OF BIRTH Risør
DATE OF DEATH June 13, 1797
Place of death Akershus Fortress