Best chance for a longer lived united Scandinavia?

The best POD would prob be around the time the Kalmar Union broke up in OTL

I'm not sure exactly how to carry this out, But I'll sure try to find a way! Perhaps if Sweden and Denmark compromised a little more? From what I understand, conflict between them broke up the Kalmar Union.

Also, if the Union Breaks but Denmark (who was more powerful at the time) Declared war to bring Sweden under control, Assuming Denmark maintained a strong grip on Swedish land, they might be able to assimilate parts of Sweden, just like the Swedes did to Scandia. If this were to happen Denmark would become much more powerful, and would possibly be able to take control of what parts of the Baltic they didn't already own. Seeing as Denmark at one point controlled much of norther Germany, and large parts of Estonia, it's not hard to see a Danish controlled Baltic empire. If they controlled all the Dejure Scandinavian areas they might rename themselves to Scandinavia, though it would probably still be Danish controlled.

This would lead to a large Northern European power,and might put them at odds with any Russian or German states. These would call for large land armies to defend their territories, and a large navy as well, for Britan would certainly be a threat. I'll try to make a map of the area's it might encompass.

Anyway, I'm loving this idea!
 
I have been over this multiple times - it all boils down to the Danes being damned if they do, damned if they don't. If they put Danish strongmen on the important royal lands and positions in Sweden, they will treat the peasants like continental serfs and cause an uprising (and Swedish peasants largely owned their own lands and were by medieval laws required to keep and train with arms) and the nobility will support them, since they think a local King will let them have those important positions and caretaking of the royal lands.

If the Danes let Swedish nobility have those positions, they are really not in control of Sweden and gets little or no revenue from there - and the peasants will rise when the next continental adventure needs to be paid for.

You need to stop the Engelbrekt rising - once it was successful, Sweden was only a drain on Denmark's resources rather than the opposite, as every Danish King needed to enforce his election to King in Sweden by force.

Have Margareta's son survive, rein in the Danish nobility and reverse the Danish steady march towards serfdom (the Swedish peasants feared Danish nobles doing the same in Sweden worse than death itself), and weaken the Hansa (and later the Dutch and English) and perhaps have the Danes retain their Estonian possessions, so that Sweden and Denmark have a common enemy in Novgorod and later Russia, and you might have a chance at having the Kalmar Union survive.
 
Was the march towards serfdom done by the nobility, as separate from the crown?

I think I asked this before, but if we're going over the problem again, the source probably bears mentioning.
 
Yes. In 1377 the Danish crown tried to ban the nobility from refusing their tenants the right to move and taking the right to deciding who their peasants could marry, to little avail.

Land ownership by 1525:

Country-Crown-Selfowning peasants-Nobility-Church
Sweden-6-52-21-21.
Denmark-10-15-38-37.

Also, about 62% of the population in Sweden lived on self-owned land, indicating they were not relegated to the worst land, and that they probably were more productive than the others.

It seems that the nobility in Denmark was strong enough to take advantage of the interregnum period of 1241 to 1332 (when Denmark had 8 weak Kings) and 1332-1340 when Denmark had no King at all.

It seems like the plague hitted Denmark a bit harder than Sweden. Not only did the Danish nobility start to prevent their tenants from moving when people died and farms were abandoned, the collapse of the tax and weapon system (where you either paid taxes or served with arms if the King called) meant that many peasants sought the protection of a nobleman rather than try to pay the taxes or serve with arms - it was far cheaper to pay taxes to a nobleman than to the crown.

And when they started registering who owned the land after the plague, the nobility claimed they owned all the land, and that the peasants under their protection was their tenants - and the Danish peasantry seem to have been powerless to stop this.

In Sweden, tax instead of serving in the Ledung was introduced later and was more burdensome than serving with arms. Also, hunting was free, which meant that all peasants had a bow or a crossbow and knew how to use it - this combined meant that the peasants had the power to turn back any nobleman trying to make them into tenants, as can be seen in the land ownership statistics.

This socioeconomic difference is the main problem with the Kalmar Union and you need to adress it to create any realistic scenario for a lasting union.
 
Have Margareta's son survive, rein in the Danish nobility and reverse the Danish steady march towards serfdom (the Swedish peasants feared Danish nobles doing the same in Sweden worse than death itself), and weaken the Hansa (and later the Dutch and English) and perhaps have the Danes retain their Estonian possessions, so that Sweden and Denmark have a common enemy in Novgorod and later Russia, and you might have a chance at having the Kalmar Union survive.
In the simplest terms, it seems there are two parties that the Danish king needs to mollify: The Swedish peasants and the Swedish nobility.

The peasants would of course need to believe their rights aren't going to be encroached upon, after which I don't really see any reason for them to revolt.

The Swedish nobility on the other hand needs to feel they're actually gaining something from the union, otherwise you run the risk of them deciding that independence gives them a better shot at glory. Shifting the Danish focus to the Baltic would probably be the best thing here, since that way the Danes aren't standing in the way of Swedish expansion but instead supporting it.

Yes. In 1377 the Danish crown tried to ban the nobility from refusing their tenants the right to move and taking the right to deciding who their peasants could marry, to little avail

....

This socioeconomic difference is the main problem with the Kalmar Union and you need to adress it to create any realistic scenario for a lasting union.
Is there any chance of the Danish crown using the Swedes to break the power of the Danish nobility? Admittedly it's a big gamble, but if it worked it would surely show the Swedes that the Danish king was serious about respecting their rights, when he has reformed Denmark to be much more like Sweden. Paying off Swedish nobles with lands confiscated from resisting Danish nobles might be an idea. Besides being a good incentive for the Swedish nobles to help the king, it would also bind the two countries closer together, as the nobles would be opposed to splitting the union and thereby risk losing half their possessions.

Maybe that's ASB, or close to it, but it makes sense to me.
 
That's going to be tough. Not impossible, but tough.

Especially as having the 1241-1332 period dramatically altered butterflies the OTL Kalmar Union completely - not to say that the Scandinavian Kingdoms can't unite, as they intermarried a fair amount, but it wouldn't be OTL's union.

Breaking the land hold the Church has seems like it would also be useful. Not as directly relevant, but having about a third of the kingdom held by Church means a sizable amount of land is not available to the crown directly (to make crown lands or gifts) or indirectly (since when did the Church carry its share of the financial and manpower burdens?).
 
That's going to be tough. Not impossible, but tough.

Especially as having the 1241-1332 period dramatically altered butterflies the OTL Kalmar Union completely - not to say that the Scandinavian Kingdoms can't unite, as they intermarried a fair amount, but it wouldn't be OTL's union.
Considering the changes required to make the union last, it seems to me that no union would really be OTL's union. At best, maybe the principal actors are the same, but so much else would have to change around them that you wouldn't really recognize the union as the same anyway.

Breaking the land hold the Church has seems like it would also be useful. Not as directly relevant, but having about a third of the kingdom held by Church means a sizable amount of land is not available to the crown directly (to make crown lands or gifts) or indirectly (since when did the Church carry its share of the financial and manpower burdens?).
You have to weigh that with the political cost of going against the Church though. Perhaps it's better to tread lightly around it while the union is consolidating? Eventually, a Protestant Reformation* would make seizing Church lands easier, and could be the catalyst for uniting the crowns properly as royal power surges.
 
Considering the changes required to make the union last, it seems to me that no union would really be OTL's union. At best, maybe the principal actors are the same, but so much else would have to change around them that you wouldn't really recognize the union as the same anyway.

True enough, but with butterflies viciously attacking from 1241 onward, you might see the hypothetical Three Crowns Union much earlier - or much later.

You have to weigh that with the political cost of going against the Church though. Perhaps it's better to tread lightly around it while the union is consolidating? Eventually, a Protestant Reformation* would make seizing Church lands easier, and could be the catalyst for uniting the crowns properly as royal power surges.

That would probably be best. I'm just thinking that if there's a way to avoid the Church getting that much land in the first place, it would be in the crown's best interest.

It's hard to have the Danish kings making policies that don't increase tensions with their new subjects when the Danish kings are craving revenue that Denmark isn't providing, after all.
 
True enough, but with butterflies viciously attacking from 1241 onward, you might see the hypothetical Three Crowns Union much earlier - or much later.
The earlier the better I suppose, just to solidify the idea of a united Scandinavia while potential rivals are still weak. Take too long, and you have bastards all over the place wanting to make sure the union falls apart. The Hansa should be easier to deal with than the Netherlands and England.

That would probably be best. I'm just thinking that if there's a way to avoid the Church getting that much land in the first place, it would be in the crown's best interest.
Yeah, stopping the Church from ever getting the land in the first place would be good. Once it does have it, it becomes much more difficult to take it back again. At least until Church authority corrodes enough.

It's hard to have the Danish kings making policies that don't increase tensions with their new subjects when the Danish kings are craving revenue that Denmark isn't providing, after all.
True. Kings that realize that the choice is between a small amount of Swedish gold, or none, would be really useful. Just getting rid of a major rival alone should be enough really, but the historic Danish kings were never very good at that kind of math.
 
Butterflying Kalmar seems reasonable.
Perhaps a Norway-Sweden union for a generation with the Crown Prince of Norway inheriting Denmark first?
 
secretly wipe out the majority of swedish nobility and either put their own people in or elevate some of the peasants
 
What is the best pod to create a unified scandinavia that can last longer than the Kalmar Union did historically?
In 1658, or maybe 1645, if the Swedes decide not to take any territories from Denmark, and instead force the Danes into a Scandinavian Union, where both states will have complete internal independence and their own monarchs, but the military and foreign politics are governed by a new combined Danish-Swedish Senate.

(Too much Ring of fire, perhaps ... )
 
Von Adler and I often spoke to each other about this subject, and it all comes down to either weakening the Danish nobility or more compromises on the Swedish end. As he had mentioned, the peasantry in Sweden and Denmark had different set of rights and the Swedish peasantry was required to carry arms. So perhaps the Kalmar Union's survival and prosperity will rely on its peasantry seeing eye to eye with the Union king.
 
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