Christoffer Huitfeldt

Christoffer Huitfeldt (* around 1501 in Denmark; † November 8, 1559 in Visborg on Gotland ) was a member of the Danish Imperial Council.

Life

Huitfeldt's parents were Otte Clausen zu Krumstrup, Skibelundgaard and Lørup († between 1517 and 1529) and his wife Barbara Eriksdatter Blaa († after 1558). Around 1542 he married Øllegaard Trolle (May 26, 1513–4 January 1578), daughter of Jacob Trolle (1475–1546) and his wife Kirsten Skave († 1534).

Christoffer Huitfeldt was the eldest son of his parents. He entered the service of Friedrich I at an early age . He was distinguished by his particular loyalty to him and his successors. In a feudal letter from 1537 about the “Vor Frue” monastery near Ribe, the name Huitfeldt appears for the first time, a folder of the royal order to the nobility from 1526 to adopt a family name.

In 1532 he was sent to Norway on a larger expedition. In the count feud he negotiated with Sweden, Duke Christian, who later became Christian III. to support. He became the captain of one of the ships that fought against Lübeck . Christian III rewarded him with a number of Danish fiefdoms, including Fyn , where Huitfeldt imprisoned the bishop in the course of carrying out the Reformation in 1536 and confiscated the bishopric.

The following year, Huitfeldt received a similar assignment in Norway. Together with Truid Gregersen Ulfstand , he was supposed to arrest Archbishop Olav Engelbrektsson, but he fled to the Netherlands in time. Huitfeldt received all of Norway from Sunnmøre to Vardøhus as a fief and resided in the castle of Archbishop Steinvikholmen .

In 1541 he was sent to Iceland with 200 soldiers on two warships to put down the uprising that the Reformation had provoked. There was that of King Christian III. on March 15, 1540 appointed superintendent Gizur Einarsson was attacked by Bishop Ögmundur Pálsson in Hólar, and there was a threat of recatholization. He was commissioned to capture the aged bishop of Skálholt Ögmundur Pálsson and bring him to Denmark. The Icelanders invoked the old treaty between Iceland and the Norwegian king from 1262, which the king no longer recognized. In 1541 he forced the Allting of the country to adopt the church ordinance of 1537. As a reward, Huitfeldt received the Bergenhus fief in 1542 , which included the area from Lista to Sunnmøre. In 1545 he also received the north to Finnmark and from 1553 to 1556 also the Faroe Islands . Within this total area there were smaller fiefs that the king had given to others. The fiefdom of Bergenhus gave him the task of overcoming the conflict between the up-and-coming citizens of Bergen and the Hansekontor , which had a strong position in northern trade and foreign trade. Like his predecessor, he actively fought against the trading post and traded northwards himself. He allied himself with the Norwegian citizenship of Bergen against the Germans. He also achieved that the German craft guilds were dissolved and the master craftsmen had to submit to Norwegian law.

In 1552 Huitfeldt became a member of the Danish Imperial Council, the organ of the high nobility within the Danish government. When he returned to Denmark in 1556, he joined the opposition to the ruling aristocratic families. The resulting shift in political power led to an enfeoffment with Gotland and shortly afterwards with Tromsø .

In 1559 he died in Gotland.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jón Gizurarson: "Ritgjörð" in: Safn til sögu Íslands og islenzkra bókmenta IS 655–701, 663. Quoted in: Vilborg p. 206.
2. ↑ Jón Egilsson: “Biskupa annálar” in: Safn til sögu Íslands og islenzkra bókmenta I, pp. 29–117, 72. cited in Vilborg, p. 206.
3. ↑ For details see Vilborg p. 208 ff.

literature

• Bjarne Fossen is different: Article “Christoffer Huitfeldt” in: Norsk biografisk leksikon , accessed on April 2, 2010.
• Vilborg Ísleifsdóttir-Bickel: The introduction of the Reformation in Iceland 1537-1565 . Peter Lang GmbH 1996.