Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13.djvu/605

 SCHLESWIG

543

SCHLESWIG

Beard, who had been a viking, returned home in 985 and overthrew his father. Christians were ill-treated, the Diocese of Aarhaus was suppressed, and the two other bishops were driven away. Yet in the last years of his life Svcn with the Forked Beard turned to Christianity, and his son Canute the Great, who by the conquest of England created a great northern em- pire, established Christianity at last in his territories. In 1035 his son-in-law the German King Conrad II gave him the Mark of Schleswig as compensation for the alliance he had maintained with Germany for many years. The Mark included the territory be- tween the Eider, Schlei, and Treene. The political separation from the German Empire was soon fol- lowed by the ecclesiastical. Canute had reorganized the Danish Church and had divided it into nine di- oceses. In 1103 or 1104 a separate Danish archdiocese was erected at Lund for all these bishoprics, and, notwithstanding the protests of the Archbishop of Bremen, Schleswig was made a suffragan of Lund. Be- fore long the political union with Denmark was weak- ened again. From the time that the whole of Schles- wig belonged to Denmark it was ruled by royal governors; these governors were generally princes of the royal house who grew steadily more inde- pendent of the king. In 1115 Knut Laward was able to gain the viceregency of Schleswig in fief from the Danish King Niels, and was also made duke of this territory. Thus a basis was laid for a more independent position of the province with- in the Kingdom of Denmark. Under Knut's suc- cessors Schleswig was often united with Denmark, as Waldemar I and II, dukes of Schleswig, were also kings of Denmark. These kings, however, sought to keep Schleswig as their personal domain, separate Ircm the adininistraticm of Denmark. In 1231 Abel, the youngest son of Waldemar II, was granted the duchy; he founded an independent ducal line that ruled the duchy for over a hundred and fifty years.

Both politically and ecclesiastirally the two cen- turies following the reign of Knut Laward form the most prosperous period of the province. Of the bishops, Alberus (1096-1134), in particular, was very active in his office, and laboured among the Frisians who had been conquered by Knut. The diocese re- ceived large grants of land from Waldemar I, pos- sessions that were scattered through all parts of the duchy; in 1187 the diocese was released from all pay- ment of imposts and taxes to the king. A number of monasteries arose that did much for the intellectual and material development of the country; nearly thirty monasteries can be proved to have existed in the period before the Reformation. The most im- portant of these were the Cistercian abbeys of Lii- gumkloster, Guldhom, and Schleswig, the convent of St. John for Benedictine nuns at Schleswig, the Fran- ciscan monasteries at Hadersleben, Tondern, and Schleswig, and the Dominican monastery at Schles- wig. In the course of time many of these monas- teries had obtained large landed possessions. When in 1325 Duke Eric II died and left a minor son Walde- mar V, King Christopher II of Denmark wished to become the guardian and thus gain control of the duchy. However, the powerful Count Gerhard III of Holstein of the Schauenburg line, who was an uncle of Waldemar, and also the latter 's guardian, opposed the king. Gerhard gained control of the government, and drove Christopher out of his own kingdom. Waldemar V was elected King of Denmark and in return gave the Duchy of Schleswig to his uncle, the Count of Holstein. Thus the duchies Schles- wig and Holstein became united at the same time (1326) Waldemar made a law, called the "Constitu- tio Waldemariana", by which in future the same per- son could never be the ruler both of Denmark and Schleswig. During the troubles caused by the re-

turn of the banished King Christopher the Counts of Holstein were not able to maintain their controlof the Duchy of Schleswig. It was not until the era of Ger- hard VI, the grandson of (ierhard 111 (as.sassinated 1340), that the counts of Holstein regained possession of Schleswig; Gerhard VI was granted the duchy in fief by Queen Margaret of Denmark, and in 1403 gained possession of almost the whole of the duchy of Holstein on account of the extinction of the line of Kiel. Since this time Schleswig has always been united with Holstein which was a state of the German Empire.

On the death in 1459 of Adolf VII, son of Gerhard yi, the line of the counts of Schauenburg became ex- tinct, and the estates of Schleswig and of Holstein elected in 1460 as duke and count the Danish King Christian of the Oldenburg dynasty, who was the son of Adolf's sister. The new duke and count, though, was obliged to swear that both countries should be "forever undivided", and that they should be inde- pendent of Denmark in their internal administration and constitution. Thus both territories were united by personal union with Denmark, the Duchy of Schleswig (which had been a Danish fief), and the Countship of Holstein, which in 1474 was also raised to a duchy by the Emperor Frederick III. In spite of this union with Denmark both territories remained German in character; the langiuxge of the courts and official documents was German, the law of the cities was German, the nobility was German, the bishop and chapter of the Diocese of Schleswig were chosen from German families. The close intellectual union with Germany was still further promoted by the Reforma- tion, which in Schleswig as in the whole of Denmark was largely the work of the rulers. The Bishop of Schleswig of that period, Gottschalk of Ahlefeld (1527-41), fearlessly opposed, indeed, the intrusion of the new doctrine, but his efforts had little success. For in the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- turies, especially during the rule of the counts of Hol- stein, the bi.shops had ceased to be indeiK'udent of the dukes; from vassals of the king they had hccinno vas- sals of the dukes and had sunk into mere local bishops. In 1536 Lutheranism was declared the religion of the state by Christian III, the exercise of the Catholic faith was forbidden, and the property of the diocese was confiscated. After Gottschalk's death Tileman of Hussen was appointed in 1541 the first Lutheran Bishop of Schleswig. He was followed by four other Lutheran bishops, after which the diocese was sup- pressed in 1624. While the Catholic Church was en- tirely suppressed in Schleswig, in Holstein a few Catholic communities were permitted to remain in ex- istence. In the seventeenth century Catholic Church services were allowed to be held again in a few places. In 1667 all these Catholic communities were placed under the care of the newly-established Vicariate Apostolic of the Northern Missions, and shared its vicissitudes.

In 1544 the two duchies were divided between the three sons of the king and Duke Frederick I (d. 1533). The basis of the division was this: three equal por- tions were formed for the three brothers out of the duchies, which portions were named after the castles of Sonderburg, Gottorp, and Hadersleben, while the courts, the system of taxation, the army, and the diets that were held at Flensburg for Schleswig, and at Kiel for Holstein, remained in common. When in 1580 the Hadersleben line became extinct, another division was made, the possessions of the Haders- leben line being divided between King Frederick II and Duke Adolf of Holstein-Gottorp (1581). After this there were two lines: the royal, which was called Schleswig-Holstein-Gliickstadt after the seat of administration for the duchies, and from which in the course of time several branches sprang; second, a ducal line called the Gottorp line which,