By the XIIIth century, the rest of the population, was still largely considered free, and continued to carry conscription, but the character of the service has changed. At first, the basis for its departure was the allotment of communal land, to which every free person had the right. As a result, with ever more and more crushing of the land property of free peasants, the peasants had to pay for the armament of one soldier and more tax. This drew many peasants exclusively into the taxing force, reinforcing, on the other hand, the importance of commanders, who already in the 12th — 13th centuries began to transfer their rank to children. These were the captains of the ships, who received from the king a certain amount of grain in the form of payment for the management of the district and the ship from this district. The non-hereditary dependents of the king, who are still largely non-hereditary, could not compete with the clergy and needed his support.
Meanwhile, the clergy increasingly had to clash with kings, who demanded funds from him to wage wars. Under Eric IV (who obtained permission from the pope to charge the church tithe for military needs), mutual irritation intensified, and under Christopher I, the archbishop and the church with the king turned into a real war. The appointment and approval of the post of archbishop, bishop, etc., passed entirely into the hands of the pope, and the highest spiritual dignitaries considered themselves as completely independent of the king.
Archbishop Jacob Erlandsen first set an example of the uprising by convening a council in Veila (1256), at which it was decided that if the king arrested any member of the church, the service must be immediately terminated throughout the country. When the king, who was denied coronation, arrested the archbishop, he was poisoned (1259) by one priest. To reconcile with the church, Christopher I’s successor, Eric V, had to pay a large sum of money.
The struggle resumed under Eric VІ and Archbishop John Grande, who, like Jacob Erlandsen, belonged to the rich Danish family Skjalm-Hvide. For 70 years there was this struggle, which ended in the complete victory of the clergy at the beginning of the XIV century.
Impacts inflicted by the clergy of the royal power, benefited the nobility, who found themselves leaders in the royal family, claiming control of certain areas, mainly the duchy of southern Jutland. A series of regicides marked the beginning of the struggle of the nobility with the kings. The clergy, in alliance with Waldemar, and the nobility demanded that the king, in 1282, confirm class privileges, and when Eric V did not fulfill these promises, 12 nobles who held senior positions in the state plotted and brutally killed the king in 1286.
Then, when, under Eric VI, they had to resort to war with Sweden and Germany to call for new military forces, the nobility ( 1309 ) categorically refused to continue serving the king, left the camp and, relying on the peasants of northern Jutland, began an open struggle with the king. Although many of the nobles paid their heads for participating in a riot, the royal power won very little. Supported by the clergy, the nobility again raised the banner of rebellion. The mass of the crown lands at that time was distributed in the form of flaxons, and the kings had to resort to loans secured by land, mainly from the German nobles.
By the end of the reign of Eric VI, it came to the point that the king lost almost all of his income. Inside the country, the royal government had nothing to rely on. The numerous and powerful class of free peasants lost their former meaning. The devastation that resulted from wars, and in particular the invasions of the Vendians, forced many free peasants to turn into semi-dependent tenants, executors, ordinary farmers or workers. Only the right of peasant proprietors to participate in the tenings and cast a vote on taxes and laws was not destroyed. In theory, the principle that “no tax can be established without the consent of the country”, as well as “no judicial decision can be pronounced if it contradicts the law approved by the king and adopted by the people, and no law is repealed, unless given consent nation ”(Yutland law), still preserved; but with Valdemar the Great, in fact, many of the rights of the people were abolished.
Questions about war and peace were gradually withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the people’s assemblies and went over to the closest advisers of the king, his vassals and officials. The right to choose a king was also limited by establishing in practice the custom of offering a known person to a congregation as a candidate for a royal place and even to crown him during the life of the elected king. The inhabitants of Scania protested against these restrictions and began an uprising, suppressed by the combined forces of the nobility, the clergy and the king.
The cities that emerged in Denmark were unable to give any strong support to the royal power. True, they act as a special estate already under Abel (1250).
Earlier, they were given the right to a special court, as well as the right to have their own elected council and elected head; but these rights were already restricted in the 13th century. The kings made every effort to raise the power of their officials at the expense of the city authorities, limiting the competence of the latter to purely administrative matters; even the free choice was gradually replaced by the appointment of both the burgomasters and the members of the city council. Cities did not even try to rebel in defense of their liberties. Insignificant in population, for a long time they could not become any significant economic force (at least until the XV century).
Despite the trade privileges they enjoyed, their trade value was negligible. The Hanseatic cities, and especially Lübeck, at one time (from 1203 to 1226) the former Danish city, acquired such extensive rights and privileges that there was no chance of competing with them. There was no merchant fleet in Denmark; All products were transported on Hanseatic ships. Denmark could deliver one raw material – bread and mainly livestock, getting everything else from Germany.
Sources:
O. Klindt-Jensen. Denmark before the Vikings
History of Denmark from ancient times to the beginning of the XX century