Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1942, Blaðsíða 259

FRONTIERS OF THE NORTHERN NATIONS 247
master of the island of Gotland, with its flourishing capital of
Visby, by force of arms. Since the Viking Age, the Swedish
Crown had exercised a somewhat vague suzerainty over Gotland,
and towards the end of the i3th century the island had become
more firmly attached to Sweden. Now, Gotland became a Danish
possession for the next 300 years, in spite of repeated Swedish
attempts to re-establish the old connection. Throughout the rest
of the middle ages, however, the island belonged under a Swe-
dish episcopal see, viz. that of Linköping.
For Sweden, the loss af Scania and Gotland inaugurated a
period of domestic unrest, which ultimately led to the Kalmar
Union (13 89) between the three Northern Kingdoms. That the
political frontiers between them should have lost a good deal of
their importance during the Union was only to be expected, and
this especially affected the position of the landed nobility on both
sides of the border. During the civil unrest which in general
characterized the Scandinavian Kingdoms in the late middle ages
it happened more than once that the peasantry on both sides of
the border met in order to negotiate a “Peasants’ Peace”. The
same thing had probably happened in earlier times too.
It seems that Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson (died 1436) enter-
tained projects of conquering Scania, and Gustavus Eriksson Vasa
had hardly begun his revolt against the Danish occupation of
Sweden before he embarked on a programme of national expan-
sion on an even larger scale. He seems, in fact, to have envisaged
the rounding-off of his Kingdom to cover the area which it com-
prises at the present day to the South and West. But this scheme
was never carried beyond an abortive attempt, and by two peace
treaties during the following years, those of 1570 and 1613, his
successors were forced, first to cede, and then to redeem, at a
vast expenditure of treasure, the fortress of Elfsborg, which gave
Sweaen her one indispensable outlet to the sea in the West.
The tables were turned when Sweden obtained a firm foot-
hold in Germany. The first breach in the bulwark of the old
frontier was made by the Peace of Brömsebro in 1645, the work
of Axel Oxenstierna. Gotland was at length reunited with Swe-
den, and the foundations were laid of the ultimate annexation
of Halland. Already the next decade saw the final achievement:
the Peace of Roskilde in 1658 and that of Copenhagen in 1660,
which added Scania and Bleking to Sweden and confirmed her
possession of Halland (already in 1645 taken as a pledge for 30