Monarchy of Norway
The Norwegian monarch is the monarchical head of state of Norway, a constitutional and hereditary monarchy with a parliamentary system. The Norwegian monarchy can trace its line back to the reign of Harald Fairhair and the previous petty kingdoms which were united to form Norway; the present monarch is King Harald V, who has reigned since 17 January 1991, succeeding his father, Olav V. The heir apparent is Crown Prince Haakon; the crown prince undertakes various public ceremonial functions, as does the king's wife, Queen Sonja. The crown prince acts as regent in the king's absence. There are several other members of the Royal Family, including the king's daughter and sister. Since the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden and the subsequent election of a Danish prince as King Haakon VII in 1905, the reigning royal house of Norway has been a branch of the Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg branch of the House of Oldenburg. Whilst the Constitution of Norway grants important executive powers to the King, these are always exercised by the Council of State in the name of the King.
Formally the King appoints the government according to his own judgement, but parliamentary practice has been in place since 1884. Constitutional practice has replaced the meaning of the word King in most articles of the constitution from the king to the elected government; the powers vested in the monarch are significant, but are treated only as reserve powers and as an important security part of the role of the monarchy. The King does, he ratifies laws and royal resolutions and sends envoys from and to foreign countries and hosts state visits. He has a more tangible influence as the symbol of national unity; the annual New Year's Eve speech is one occasion. The King is Supreme Commander of the Norwegian Armed Forces and Grand Master of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav and of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit; the King has no official role in the Church of Norway, but is required by the Constitution to be a member. The position of King of Norway has been in continuous existence since the unification of Norway in 872.
Although Norway has been a hereditary kingdom throughout that time, there have been several instances of elective succession: most in 1905 Haakon VII was elected by the people of Norway to the position of king through a plebiscite. In recent years members of the Socialist Left party have proposed the abolition of the monarchy during each new session of parliament, though without any likelihood of success; this gives the Norwegian monarchy the unique status of being a popularly elected royal family and receiving regular formal confirmations of support from the Storting. Prior to and in the early phase of the Viking Age Norway was divided into several smaller kingdoms; these are thought to have followed the same tradition as other Germanic monarchies of the time: the king was elected by the high-ranking farmers of the area and served as judge at popular assemblies, as a priest on the occasion of sacrifices and as a military leader in time of war. Harald Fairhair was the first king of Norway; the date of the first formation of a unified Norwegian kingdom is set as 872, when he defeated the last petty kings who resisted him at the Battle of Hafrsfjord.
The boundaries of Fairhair's kingdom were not identical to those of present-day Norway, upon his death the kingship was shared among his sons. Some historians emphasise the actual monarchial control over the country and assert that Olaf II, alias Saint Olaf, who reigned from 1015 to 1028, was the first king to control the entire country. Olaf is held to have been the driving force behind Norway's final conversion to Christianity. Furthermore, he was in 1031 revered as Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae, subsequently the 1163 Succession Law stated that all kings after Olaf II's son, Magnus I, were not independent monarchs, but vassals holding Norway as a fief from Saint Olaf. In the 12th and 13th centuries the Norwegian kingdom was at its cultural peak; the kingdom included Norway, the Faroe Islands, Shetland and other smaller areas in the British Isles. The king had diplomatic relations with most of the European kingdoms and formed alliances with Scotland and Castile, among others. Large castles such as Haakon's Hall and cathedrals, the foremost being Nidaros Cathedral, were built.
In the tradition of Germanic monarchy the king had to be elected by a representative assembly of noblemen. Men eligible for election had to be of royal blood. During the civil war era the unclear succession laws and the practice of power-sharing between several kings gave personal conflicts the potential to become full-blown wars. Over the centuries kings consolidated their power, a strict succession law made Norway a principally hereditary kingdom. In practice the king was elected by the Riksråd in a similar way to Denmark, he adhered to a håndfæstning and governed in the council of Norwegian noblemen according to existing laws. After the death of Haakon VI of Norway in 1380, his son Olav IV of Norway succeeded to the thrones of both Norway and Denmark and was elected King of Sweden. After his death at th
Jutland
Jutland known as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula, is a peninsula of Northern Europe that forms the continental portion of Denmark and part of northern Germany. The names are derived from the Cimbri, respectively; as the rest of Denmark, Jutland's terrain is flat, with a elevated ridge down the central parts and hilly terrains in the east. West Jutland is characterised by open lands, heaths and peat bogs, while East Jutland is more fertile with lakes and lush forests. Southwest Jutland is characterised by the Wadden Sea, a large unique international coastal region stretching through Denmark and the Netherlands. Jutland is a peninsula bounded by the North Sea to the west, the Skagerrak to the north, the Kattegat and Baltic Sea to the east and Germany to the south. Geographically and Jutland comprises the regions of South Jutland, West Jutland, East Jutland and North Jutland. Since the mid-20th century, it has become common to design an area as Central Jutland, but its definition varies a lot.
There are several historical subdivisions and regional names, some of which are still encountered today. They include Nørrejyllland, Sydjylland and others. Politically, Jutland comprises the three contemporary Danish Administrative Regions of North Jutland Region, Central Denmark Region and the Region of Southern Denmark, along with portions of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein; the Danish part of Jutland is divided into three administrative regions: North Jutland Region, Central Denmark Region and Region of Southern Denmark. The northernmost part of Jutland is separated from the mainland by the Limfjord, a narrow stretch of water bisecting the peninsula from coast to coast; the Limfjord was a long brackish water inlet, but a breaching North Sea flood in 1825 created a coast to coast connection. This area is called the North Jutlandic Island, Vendsyssel-Thy or Jutland north of the Limfjord; the islands of Læsø, Anholt and Samsø in Kattegat and Als at the rim of the Baltic Sea are administratively and tied to Jutland, although the latter two are regarded as traditional districts of their own.
Inhabitants of Als, known as Alsinger, would agree to be South Jutlanders, but not Jutlanders. The Danish Wadden Sea Islands and the German North Frisian Islands stretch along the southwest coast of Jutland in the German Bight; the largest cities in the Danish section of Jutland are as follows: Aarhus Aalborg Esbjerg Randers Kolding Horsens Vejle Herning Silkeborg FredericiaAarhus, Billund, Kolding, Vejle and Haderslev, along with a number of smaller towns, make up the suggested East Jutland metropolitan area, more densely populated than the rest of Jutland, although far from forming one consistent city. Administratively, Danish Jutland comprises three of Denmark's five regions, namely Nordjylland and the western half of Southern Denmark, which includes Funen; the five administrative regions came into effect on 1 January 2007, following a structural reform. The southern third of the peninsula is made up of the German Bundesland of Schleswig-Holstein; the German parts are not seen as Jutland proper, but described more abstract as part of the Jutlandic Peninsula, Cimbrian Peninsula or Jutland-Schleswig-Holstein.
Schleswig-Holstein has two historical parts: the former duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, both of which have passed back and forth between Danish and German rulers. The last adjustment of the Danish–German border followed the Schleswig Plebiscites in 1920 and resulted in Denmark regaining Northern Schleswig; the historical southern border of Jutland was the river Eider, which forms the border between the former duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, as well as the border between the Danish and German realms from c. 850 to 1864. Although most of Schleswig-Holstein is geographically part of the peninsula, most German residents there would not identify themselves with Jutland or as Jutlanders, but rather with Schleswig-Holstein; the medieval law Code of Jutland applied to Schleswig until 1900, when it was replaced by the Prussian Civil Code. Some used clauses of the Jutlandic Code still apply north of the Eider; the largest cities in the German part of the Jutland Peninsula are Flensburg. Geologically the Mid Jutland Region and the North Jutland Region as well as the Capital Region of Denmark are located in the north of Denmark, rising because of post-glacial rebound.
Jutland has been one of the three lands of Denmark, the other two being Scania and Zealand. Before that, according to Ptolemy, Jutland or the Cimbric Chersonese was the home of Teutons and Charudes. Many Angles and Jutes migrated from Continental Europe to Great Britain starting in c. 450 AD. The Angles themselves gave their name to the new emerging kingdoms called England. Saxons and Frisii migrated to the region in the early part of the Christian era. To protect themselves from invasion by the Christian Frankish emperors, beginning in the 5th century, the pagan Danes initiated the Danevirke, a defensi
Coronation of the Danish monarch
The coronation of the Danish monarch was a religious ceremony in which the accession of the Danish monarch was marked by a coronation ceremony. It was held in various forms from 1170 to 1840 in Lund Cathedral in Lund, St. Mary's Cathedral in Copenhagen and in the chapel of Frederiksborg Palace in Hillerød. Enthronements of the Danish monarch may be divided into three distinct types of rituals: the medieval coronation, which existed during the period of elective monarchy. An elective monarchy, the Danish kings had been elected and acclaimed at the Thing assemblies; the acclamation rite only ceased with the introduction of hereditary monarchy in 1660, the 1657 acclamation of crown prince Christian being the last occasion. The first coronation in Scandinavia took place in Bergen in Norway in 1163 or 1164; the first coronation in Denmark was that of Canute VI in St. Bendt's Church in Ringsted in 1170; the medieval monarchs used various locations for their coronations, with Lund Cathedral in Lund, the archepiscopal seat of Denmark, being the most preferred.
Other locations include Viborg, Vordingborg and Ribe. After the accession of the House of Oldenburg to the Danish throne in 1448, the coronations were held in St. Mary's Cathedral in Copenhagen, performed by the Bishop of Zealand; the coronation ritual began with a procession of the ruler and his consort into St. Mary's cathedral in Copenhagen, followed by the Danish crown jewels; the monarch was seated before the altar, where he swore to govern justly, preserve the Lutheran religion, support schools, help the poor. Following this, the king was anointed on the lower right arm and between the shoulders, but not on the head; the royal couple retired to a tented enclosure where they were robed in royal attire, returning to hear a sermon, the Kyrie and Gloria, a prayer and the Epistle reading. Following the Epistle, the king knelt before the altar. After flourishing and sheathing it, the still-kneeling monarch was crowned by the clergy and nobility, who jointly placed the diadem upon their ruler's head.
The sceptre and orb were presented returned to attendants. The queen was anointed and crowned in a similar manner, but she received only a sceptre and not an orb. A choral hymn was sung, following which the newly crowned king and queen listened to a second sermon and the reading of the Gospel, which brought the service to an end. With the introduction of absolute monarchy in 1660, the full coronation ritual was replaced with a ceremony of anointing, where the new king would arrive at the coronation site wearing the crown, where he was anointed; the anointings were held in the chapel of Frederiksborg Palace in Hillerød, with the exception of the 1767 anointing of King Christian VII, held in the chapel of Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen. This rite was in turn abolished with the introduction of the Danish constitution in 1849. Today the crown of Denmark is only displayed at the monarch's funeral, when it sits atop their coffin; the present queen, Margrethe II, did not have any formal enthronement service.
Coronations Monarchy of Denmark Hoffman, Erich. "Coronation and Coronation Ordines in Medieval Scandinavia". In Bak, János M. Coronations: Medieval and Early Modern Monarchic Ritual. Berkeley: University of California Press. Retrieved 2008-10-12. Monrad Møller, Anders. Enevældens kroninger. Syv salvinger - ceremoniellet, teksterne og musikken. Forlaget Falcon. ISBN 978-87-88802-29-0
Catherine of Pomerania, Countess Palatine of Neumarkt
Catherine of Pomerania, was a Pomeranian princess and Countess Palatine of Neumarkt. She was the wife of John, Count Palatine of Neumarkt and the mother of Christopher of Bavaria, who would rule over Denmark and Norway as king of the Kalmar Union. Catharine was the daughter of Wartislaw VII, Duke of Pomerania in Pomerania-Stolp and Maria of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Maria of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was the daughter of Henry III, Duke of Mecklenburg and Ingeborg of Denmark, eldest daughter of sonless King Valdemar IV of Denmark and older sister of Margaret I of Denmark. Henry III's mother was Euphemia of Sweden, the daughter of Erik Magnusson and the sister of Magnus Eriksson. Catherine's brother was Eric of Pomerania, future king of Denmark and Norway; the two siblings were adopted by their grandaunt Queen Margaret I of Denmark in 1388 and brought to Margaret at the same occasion. Margaret's plan was for Catherine to enter the Vadstena Abbey Catherine was a candidate for a time for marriage to Prince Henry of Wales.
This marriage was suggested in 1400-1401, it was the idea that a double wedding was to be arranged between Catherine and Henry in parallel to the wedding between her brother Eric and Henry's sister Philippa. The marriage between Catherine and Henry never occurred, but in 1406, another indirect link to the English royal house was created when the brother-in-law of Philippa suggested a marriage with John, Count Palatine of Neumarkt. John was the son of King of Germany; the negotiations were completed in one year, Margaret gave Catherine a dowry of 4000 gulden, much less than was expected by her future father-in-law. On 15 August 1407, Catherine married John in Denmark, they would have seven children, but only their youngest, would live past infancy. Christopher would succeed his uncle Eric as king of the three Scandinavian kingdoms. Catharine died on 4 March 1426. Www.warholm.nu/Kingdan.html Edward Rymar. Rodowód książąt pomorskich. Szczecin 1995. ISBN 83-902780-0-6
Christian I of Denmark
Christian I was a Scandinavian monarch under the Kalmar Union. He was King of Denmark and Sweden. From 1460 to 1481, he was Duke of Schleswig and Count of Holstein, he was the first Danish monarch of the House of Oldenburg. In the power vacuum that arose following the death of King Christopher of Bavaria without a direct heir, Sweden elected Charles VIII of Sweden king with the intent to reestablish the union under a Swedish king. Charles was elected king of Norway in the following year; however the counts of Holstein made the Danish Privy Council appoint Christian as king of Denmark. His subsequent accessions to the thrones of Norway and Sweden, restored the unity of the Kalmar Union for a short period. In 1463, Sweden broke away from the union and Christian's attempt at a reconquest resulted in his defeat to the Swedish regent Sten Sture the Elder at the Battle of Brunkeberg in 1471. In 1460, following the death of his uncle, Duke Adolphus of Schleswig, Count of Holstein, Christian became Duke of Schleswig and Count of Holstein.
Christian I was born in February 1426 in Oldenburg in Northern Germany as the eldest son of Count Dietrich of Oldenburg by his second wife, Helvig of Holstein. Christian had two younger brothers and Gerhard, one sister Adelheid. Through his father, he belonged to the House of Oldenburg, a comital family established since the 12th century in an area west of the River Weser in north-western Germany. Based on the two strongholds of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, the family had expanded its rule over the neighbouring Frisian tribes of the area. Christian's father was called the Fortunate as he expanded the family's territory. Christian's mother, was a daughter of Gerhard VI, Count of Holstein, a sister of Adolphus, Duke of Schleswig. Through his mother, Christian was a cognatic descendant of King Eric V of Denmark through his second daughter Richeza and a cognatic descendant of King Abel of Denmark through his daughter Sophie. Through his father, Christian was a cognatic descendant of King Eric IV of Denmark through his daughter Sophia.
Christian thus descended from the three surviving sons of Valdemar II and his second wife Berengaria of Portugal. At the death of their father in 1440, Christian and his brothers jointly succeeded Dietrich as Count of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst. Christian was raised by his uncle, Duke Adolphus of Schleswig, Count of Holstein as the childless duke wished for his young nephew to become his heir, succeeded in having Christian elected as his successor in the Duchy of Schleswig. In January 1448, King Christopher of Denmark and Norway died and without natural heirs, his death resulted in the break-up of the union of the three kingdoms, as Denmark and Sweden went their separate ways and Norway's affiliation was unclear. The vacant Danish throne was first offered by the Council of the Realm to Duke Adolphus of Schleswig, being the most prominent feudal lord of Danish dominions; the duke recommended his nephew, Count Christian of Oldenburg. Before being elected, Christian had to promise to obey to the Constitutio Valdemariana, a provision in the ascension promissory of King Valdemar III of Denmark, that promised that in the future, the same person could never be both ruler of the Duchy of Schleswig and Denmark simultaneously.
The council demanded that Christian should marry dowager queen Dorothea of Brandenburg, widow of his predecessor King Christopher III. On 1 September 1448, after signing his ascension promissory, count Christian was elected to the Danish throne as king Christian I at the assembly in Viborg, his coronation was held on 28 October 1449, in the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen, at which occasion his marriage with dowager queen Dorothea was celebrated. Meanwhile, Sweden had on 20 June 1448 elected Charles as king of Sweden. Norway was now faced with the choice between a union with Denmark or Sweden, or electing a separate king; the latter option was discarded, a power-struggle ensued between the supporters of Christian of Denmark and Charles of Sweden. The Norwegian Council of the Realm was divided. In February 1449, a part of the Council declared in favour of Charles as king, but on 15 June the same year, a different group of councillors paid homage to Christian. On 20 November, Charles was crowned king of Norway in Trondheim.
However, the Swedish nobility now took steps to avoid war with Denmark. In June 1450, the Swedish Council of the Realm forced Charles to renounce his claim on Norway to King Christian. In the summer of 1450, Christian sailed to Norway with a large fleet, on 2 August he was crowned king of Norway in Trondheim. On 29 August, a union treaty between Norway was signed in Bergen. Norway had of old been a hereditary monarchy, but this had become less and less a reality, as at the last royal successions, hereditary claims had been bypassed for political reasons, it was now explicitly stated. The treaty stipulated that Denmark and Norway should have the same king in perpetuity, that he would be elected among the legitimate sons of the previous king, if such existed. Charles Knutsson became unpopular as king of Sweden, was driven into exile in 1457. Christian achieved his aim of being elected as king of Sweden, thus re-establishing the Kalmar Union, he received the power from temporary Swedish regents Archbishop Jöns Bengtsson Oxenstierna and lord Erik Axelsson Tott.
However, Sweden being volatile and split by factions (benefits of union b
Germany
Germany the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central and Western Europe, lying between the Baltic and North Seas to the north, the Alps to the south. It borders Denmark to the north and the Czech Republic to the east and Switzerland to the south, France to the southwest, Luxembourg and the Netherlands to the west. Germany includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,386 square kilometres, has a temperate seasonal climate. With 83 million inhabitants, it is the second most populous state of Europe after Russia, the most populous state lying in Europe, as well as the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is a decentralized country, its capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while Frankfurt serves as its financial capital and has the country's busiest airport. Germany's largest urban area is the Ruhr, with its main centres of Essen; the country's other major cities are Hamburg, Cologne, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf, Dresden, Bremen and Nuremberg. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity.
A region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period, the Germanic tribes expanded southward. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. After the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, the German Confederation was formed in 1815; the German revolutions of 1848–49 resulted in the Frankfurt Parliament establishing major democratic rights. In 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the revolution of 1918–19, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic; the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 led to the establishment of a dictatorship, the annexation of Austria, World War II, the Holocaust. After the end of World War II in Europe and a period of Allied occupation, Austria was re-established as an independent country and two new German states were founded: West Germany, formed from the American and French occupation zones, East Germany, formed from the Soviet occupation zone.
Following the Revolutions of 1989 that ended communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe, the country was reunified on 3 October 1990. Today, the sovereign state of Germany is a federal parliamentary republic led by a chancellor, it is a great power with a strong economy. As a global leader in several industrial and technological sectors, it is both the world's third-largest exporter and importer of goods; as a developed country with a high standard of living, it upholds a social security and universal health care system, environmental protection, a tuition-free university education. The Federal Republic of Germany was a founding member of the European Economic Community in 1957 and the European Union in 1993, it is part of the Schengen Area and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999. Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G7, the G20, the OECD. Known for its rich cultural history, Germany has been continuously the home of influential and successful artists, musicians, film people, entrepreneurs, scientists and inventors.
Germany has a large number of World Heritage sites and is among the top tourism destinations in the world. The English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine; the German term Deutschland diutisciu land is derived from deutsch, descended from Old High German diutisc "popular" used to distinguish the language of the common people from Latin and its Romance descendants. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz "popular", derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- "people", from which the word Teutons originates; the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a coal mine in Schöningen between 1994 and 1998 where eight 380,000-year-old wooden javelins of 1.82 to 2.25 m length were unearthed. The Neander Valley was the location where the first non-modern human fossil was discovered.
The Neanderthal 1 fossils are known to be 40,000 years old. Evidence of modern humans dated, has been found in caves in the Swabian Jura near Ulm; the finds included 42,000-year-old bird bone and mammoth ivory flutes which are the oldest musical instruments found, the 40,000-year-old Ice Age Lion Man, the oldest uncontested figurative art discovered, the 35,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels, the oldest uncontested human figurative art discovered. The Nebra sky disk is a bronze artefact created during the European Bronze Age attributed to a site near Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt, it is part of UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme. The Germanic tribes are thought to date from the Pre-Roman Iron Age. From southern Scandinavia and north Germany, they expanded south and west from the 1st century BC, coming into contact with the Celtic tribes of Gaul as well
Funen
Funen, with an area of 3,099.7 square kilometres, is the third-largest island of Denmark, after Zealand and Vendsyssel-Thy. It is the 165th-largest island in the world, it is located in the central part of the country and has a population of 466,284. Funen's main city is Odense, connected to the sea by a seldom-used canal; the city's shipyard, Odense Steel Shipyard, has been relocated outside Odense proper. Funen belongs administratively to the Region of Southern Denmark. From 1970 to 2006 the island formed the biggest part of Funen County, which included the islands of Langeland, Ærø, Tåsinge, a number of smaller islands. Funen is linked to Zealand, Denmark's largest island, by the Great Belt Bridge, which carries both trains and cars; the bridge is in reality three bridges. Two bridges connect Funen to Jutland; the Old Little Belt Bridge was constructed in the 1930s shortly before World War II for both cars and trains. The New Little Belt Bridge, a suspension bridge, was constructed in the 1970s and is used for cars only.
Apart from the main city, all major towns are located in coastal areas. Beginning in the north-east of the island and moving clockwise, they are Kerteminde, Svendborg, Fåborg, Assens and Bogense; the populations of the major cities and towns are, as of 1 January 2018: Odense: 178,210 Svendborg: 27,324 Nyborg: 17,164 Middelfart: 15,246 Fåborg: 7,065 Assens: 6,209 Kerteminde: 5,914 Ringe: 5,912 Bogense: 3,891Funen was the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen, the composer Carl Nielsen, American Revolutionary War hero Colonel Christian Febiger, pop singer MØ and international footballer Christian Eriksen. The highest natural point on Funen is Frøbjerg Bavnehøj. Broholm Den Selvforsynende Landsby Egeskov Castle Fynske Livregiment Horne Church Hvedholm Castle Korshavn, Denmark Skrøbelev Gods The Funen Village an open-air museum. Funen brachteate in the collections of the National Museum of Denmark. Official tourist information site for Funen
