Gripla - 20.12.2009, Page 52

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overtook Denmark through a thorough modernisation of its military
forces and emerged as a European great power, almost conquering Den-
mark which, however, survived through the introduction of absolutism and
by imitating Sweden’s military modernisation.
Internally, the two strongest of the Scandinavian kingdoms, Denmark
and Sweden, both developed constitutional barriers against the king’s
power, whereas Norway did not. Norway has been an extremely central­
ised country from the Middle Ages until the present. The monarchy was
stronger and the aristocracy weaker than in the neighbouring countries, in
a way that makes Scandinavia resemble two of the kingdoms on the Iberian
peninsula: Castile with its strong monarchy and weak aristocracy, and
Aragon-Catalonia with its weak monarchy and strong aristocracy.6 Which
of these constitutions was the more democratic is a question that is open to
discussion. A country with a strong aristocracy was more likely to develop
institutions restricting the king’s power but these institutions tended to be
dominated by a small elite. the common people might have a greater influ­
ence in a country with a strong monarchy, like Norway. In any case, the
Icelandic free state, which had no king at all and a relatively weak and
divided aristocracy, was clearly the most democratic from this point of
view. However, it was also weak and a typical example of a loosely organ­
ised small-scale society. It would hardly have survived for as long as it did
if it had been located in a more competitive environment. Moreover,
despite its distant location, it did succumb to the Norwegian king in
1262–64. the strongest candidate for continuity from medieval to modern
democracy in Scandinavia is Sweden, where a constitutional assembly con­
sisting of four estates developed during the Later Middle Ages and sur­
vived until it was replaced by a modern parliament in 1866. By contrast,
Denmark (which included Norway) became the most absolutist country in
europe in 1660. Although it may still be possible to argue for the impor­
tance of the medieval past for the rise of democracy in europe in the 19th
and 20th centuries, there is little to suggest that Scandinavia was very dif­
ferent from the rest of europe in this respect.
6 Angus Mckay, Spain in the Middle Ages (Basingstoke: Palgrave 2002 [orig. 1977]), 95–117.