The nobility of the late Middle Ages

Abstract

The importance of the nobility depended to a great extent on its wealth, mainly in land. This chapter first talks about Scandinavian nobility during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the latter half of the fourteenth century the number of noblemen in Norway and Denmark decreased. The Norwegian low nobility was drastically weakened by the loss of income which followed the fall in population. Then, the chapter discusses the nobility in Finland and Norway. The Finnish nobility was established as a service aristocracy. From Sweden, the Finnish nobility was regarded as local, and the royal castles were held by Swedish magnates. The mainstay of the developed high and late medieval system of government in Scandinavia was the secular and ecclesiastical aristocracy. Norwegian historians have been aware of the interdependence of the nobility and royal power, but Danish and Swedish historians describe the political development as fundamentally a conflict between king and nobility.