Kungamakt och bonderätt : om danska kungar och bönder i riket och i Göinge härad ca 1525-1640

In the early-modern period, Danish peasants living on crown estates across the country found a profitable way of interacting with the crown and its representatives. The necessary co-existence of rulers and ruled was marked by inter-dependence, solidarity of interest, and inter-subjective resolution of conflict. The system served to lessen the consequences of natural disasters that otherwise affected the peasant's ability to pay taxes and rent, or to meet other obligations; a negative development that ultimately undermined the standing of both crown and state. The material aspect to this co-existence is distinctive, as is the idea of reciprocity that belanced the peasant's duty to serve and their right to relief during crises. This form of co-existence was the norm across the whole of Denmark.

On a local level, and in special circumstances, a more sophisticated interaction developed between crown and peasantry. In the hundred of Göinge, near the Swedish border, the peasantry increased their rights and privileges in exchange for a broader range of duties, not least military duties. They served as a border defence against Swedish attack in a military system that must be classified as highly decentralised. Further, the Danish crown had a particular interest in the woodlands of northern Scania, including Göinge, and the raw materials the area produced. Thus the peasantry could on occasion profit from trade with the crown. The attempt at centralisation under Christian IV undermined the special structure of Göinge. The hundred became an integrated part of the Danish realm, absorbed into a strong, eraly-modern state, although some distinctive local features survived.

In this thesis I study how non-social and political-military conditions at a local level shaped the co-existence between crown and peasant in Denmark. Countrywide, meanwhile, the basic form of interaction continued as before. The thesis also examines the socio-political transition of a local society from a decentralised structure to one dominated by regulation adn centralisation.