The Story of Norway by Hjalmar Hjorth Boysen

It has been said that, during the union with Denmark, Norway had no history, and this is partly true. The history of the Oldenborg kings, with their wars, and court intrigues and mistresses, is in no sense the history of Norway. Nor was the social development of Norway parallel with that of Denmark, during the reign of these kings. Though oppressed and politically powerless, the remoter kingdom escaped the utter misery and degradation which overtook its oppressor. The Danish nobility, though, like hungry wolves, they consumed the people's substance, did not succeed in reducing the Norse peasantry to serfdom, as they did their own. The so-called _Vornedskab_[A] in Denmark was but another name for serfdom. The nobles, who held the land, in a hundred ways oppressed and maltreated their peasants; they could sell, though they were not at liberty to kill them.

Denmark, being an elective and not an hereditary kingdom, afforded the nobility opportunities for continually strengthening their position, by exacting an increase of their privileges of each candidate for the throne, before consenting to elect him. This contract or charter granted by the kings to the nobles (_Haandfestning_) became a terrible instrument for the oppression of those estates which were either unrepresented or without influence in the Royal Council. From having been a body, subordinate to the king, the council gradually became co-ordinate with him, and at last his superior. From this state of things it followed that the king needed some counterbalancing support against its overweening influence, and this support he sought in Norway. Here the election was a mere form, the succession being based upon hereditary right. The king could, if he was minded to redress the grievances of the people, rely upon their loyalty.