Christopher III.

Christopher III. from Denmark

Christopher III. (born as Christoph von Pfalz-Neumarkt ; * February 26, 1416 in Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz ; † January 5, 1448 in Helsingborg ) was King of Denmark (Danish: Christoffer af Bayern , from 1440), Sweden (Swedish: Kristofer av Bayern , from 1441) and Norway (Norwegian: Kristoffer av Bayern , from 1442). He was the son of Duke Johann von Pfalz-Neumarkt and Katharinas , the sister of his predecessor Erik VII , and came from the Wittelsbach line Pfalz-Neumarkt .

Life

Rise to king

As the only son of Duke Johann, Christoph acted as his deputy in Neumarkt at an early age and also accompanied him to diets and prince assemblies. In 1434 he visited his uncle King Erik VII in Denmark, after which he served at the court of the German Emperor Sigismund , whose father was a member of the party. The letter in which he informed Duke Johann about the death of Emperor Sigismund in 1437 and the assumption of power by his distant relative Albrecht of Austria is of crucial importance for the reconstruction of these dramatic weeks.

The year 1438 was a turning point in Christoph's life: After successfully participating in the Hussite Wars and also visiting the Reichstag in Nuremberg , he received a letter from Denmark. In it the Danish Imperial Council offered him the Kingdom of Denmark and the entitlement to Norway and Sweden . He was supposed to be the successor to his uncle Erik, who had fallen out with the Imperial Council . Erik had spent a lot of money in the war against the Hanseatic League , autocratically entrusted Danes and Germans with fiefs in Sweden and tried to succeed in succeeding the aristocracy Bogislaw von Pommern-Stolp .

Christoph, for whom in the eyes of the Reichsrat, in addition to his kinship with the royal houses of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, spoke for his lack of domestic power, was supported by Albrecht of Austria as well as by Duke Adolf von Holstein and the Hanseatic League, while the Dutch preferred by Erik Merchants and the influential Duke Philip of Burgundy voted for Bogislaw. In April 1439, Christoph traveled to Lübeck in order to intervene personally in the conflict over Erik's successor. The deposed King Erik VII finally withdrew to Gotland .

Reign

Seal of King Christopher

Erik's nephew from Neumarkt took over in July 1439 as regent , the government in the Kingdom of Denmark and was elected in April 1440 to the king. The following year he had to put down a peasant revolt in Jutland before he could travel to Uppsala in September 1441 , where he was crowned King of Sweden . In July 1442, Christoph also obtained Norwegian royal dignity in Oslo and was crowned " Arch-King " of the Danish empires on January 1, 1443 ( archirex regni Daniae ). He ruled the entire Kalmar Union , an area that stretched from Greenland in the west to Finland in the east.

Christoph's power, however, was not unlimited. In particular, the Swedish nobility had only consented to his coronation in return for far-reaching concessions. In the future, the Imperial Council there was not only allowed to choose its members, who had to be native Swedes again, it was also to be included in the award of all important fiefs and the king had to sign all of the laws he had passed. A Reichsrat Committee was supposed to manage the affairs of state in Sweden in the absence of the king, taxes collected in Sweden should not be allowed to be spent in other parts of the realm, as they were under Erik VII. The imperial councils of Denmark and Norway had less far-reaching powers than their Swedish colleagues, but Christoph could hardly rule there against the will of the councils either.

Christoph resulted in Jutland and Funen delivery of the tenth one. In 1443, Copenhagen received a new city charter that forbade trading in foreign currency. He was the first king to make Copenhagen a capital and residence. A tax was levied for the passage of the Øresund ( Sundzoll ). The Hanseatic cities were not in the least enthusiastic and allied themselves with the deposed King Erik, who continued to rule Gotland. At a meeting in 1445, Christoph was forced to reaffirm the Hanseatic League's existing rights in Sweden and Norway . Part of this contract also provided for Christoph's marriage to Dorothea , the daughter of Margrave Johann von Brandenburg . The wedding took place on September 12, 1445 in Copenhagen Castle.

Death and succession

On January 5, 1448, Christoph died in the fortress Kärnan in Helsingborg - of blood poisoning, as is assumed today. He was buried in Roskilde Cathedral. The throne was offered to Duke Adolf VIII by the Danish Imperial Council , but the latter turned it down in favor of his nephew Christian von Oldenburg , who became the new King Christian I through his marriage to Christoph's widow. In Sweden, on the other hand, the nobility chose the imperial administrator Karl Knutsson Bonde as the new king.

The Wittelsbach territory Pfalz-Neumarkt fell to Christoph's uncle Otto I von Pfalz-Mosbach , who merged it with his territory Pfalz-Mosbach to form the Pfalz-Mosbach-Neumarkt county .

See also

• Family table of the Danish kings

literature

• Roman Deutinger : The Nordic Union King Christoph of Bavaria (1416–1448). A research report . In: Negotiations of the historical association for Upper Palatinate and Regensburg . tape 135 , 1995, pp. 25-41 .
• Gottfried Ernst Hoffmann:  Christoph III., Count Palatine near the Rhine. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 245 ( digitized version ).
• Åke Kromnow: Christoph, King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden . In: Journal for Bavarian State History . tape 44 , 1981, ISSN  0044-2364 , pp. 201-210 ( online ).
• Jens E. Olesen: Christopher of Bavaria, King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden (1440-1448). Scandinavia and Southern Germany in the 15th Century . In: Werner Paravicini (Hrsg.): North and South in the German history of the Middle Ages. Files of the colloquium organized in honor of Karl Jordan , 1907–1984, Kiel, 15. – 16. May 1987 (=  Kiel historical studies ). tape 34 . Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1990, ISBN 3-7995-5934-5 , p. 109-136 .
• Gabriel Zeilinger: When we came to our kingdom after the sending of almighty god. Lordship and court of Christoph of Bavaria in Scandinavia (1440–1448) . In: Daniel Höffker, Gabriel Zeilinger (ed.): Foreign rulers. Elite transfer and political integration in the Baltic Sea region (15th – 18th century) (=  Kiel work pieces ). Row G, volume 3 . Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2006, ISBN 3-631-54818-4 , p. 21-42 .

Web links

Commons : Christoph III.  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Article at historicum.net

predecessor	Office	successor
Erik VII./III./XIII.	King of Denmark 1440–1448	Christian I.
Erik VII./III./XIII.	King of Norway 1441–1448	Charles I./VIII.
Erik VII./III./XIII.	King of Sweden 1442–1448	Charles I./VIII.