Lund

Who holds it

Name

Absalon

Title

Archbishop of Lund, primate of Denmark and of Sweden

Since

1177-78 (bishop of Roskilde from 1158)

Confidence

high

Born about 1128 near Sorø, of the Hvide clan of Zealand, so about 72 on 1 January 1200. Foster brother of Valdemar I and chief maker of Danish policy under Knud VI; his last fleet command was off Stralsund in 1184. Bishop of Roskilde from 1158, he kept Roskilde by papal dispensation after becoming archbishop and handed it to his kinsman Peder Sunesen in 1191-92. His nephew Anders Sunesen is royal chancellor on 1 January 1200 and will succeed him as archbishop in 1201.

Absalon dies at Sorø Abbey on 21 March 1201; his will leaves his private estates to Sorø, apart from Fjenneslev.

What it holds

• Lund: the cathedral of St Lawrence, the archbishop's residence (Lundagård) and a large share of the town's plots; the town itself is royal
• Åhus: the castle Aosehus at the mouth of the Helge å and the port growing up beside it
• Estates and church dues across Skåne, Halland and Blekinge (not drawn)
• Three of Bornholm's four herreder (separate record Bornholm)
• Not pinned: any share of the royal mint at Lund in 1200

How it was acquired

The cathedral was endowed with land and town plots by St Knud's deed of 1085. Åhus came from the crown in the 12th century: Rosborn puts it at the middle of the century, when the archbishop needed a protected east-coast harbour for the crossing to Sweden, while the county board's account leaves it at sometime in the 12th or 13th century. Bornholm's herreder came in 1149.

How things stand that morning

Held without challenge. Absalon is old and has handed much business to his nephews; the chancellor Anders Sunesen is his obvious successor.

Wealth

Land rents and tithes of Denmark's richest province; Lund is the kingdom's leading town and mint place; Åhus gives the archbishop a harbour, river tolls and the trade of eastern Skåne. The great herring market at Skanör and Falsterbo is the king's, not the archbishop's.

Threats

• Absalon's age: about 72, he dies on 21 March 1201
• The Ingeborg case ties the see to Denmark's quarrel with Philip Augustus
• Sweden's resentment of Lund's primacy

Advocates and rivals

No lay advocate. The crown is partner and rival: the king's officers and mint are in Lund, and crown and archbishop fought bitterly under Eskil and will again from the 1250s. Under Absalon the see and the court are run by one kin network, the Hvide, so there is no open quarrel. Uppsala resents Lund's primacy; on Absalon's complaint Innocent III ordered Archbishop Olov to remove two bishops who were sons of priests (campaign notes).

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 21 March 1201Absalon dies at Sorø; Anders Sunesen is chosen archbishop later in 1201.Depends on: Absalon's natural death. Stopped by: Nothing likely; an earlier death would bring the election into 1200.

Places of note

• Lund cathedral and Lundagård: Cathedral of St Lawrence and the archbishop's residence
• Aosehus: The archbishop's castle at the mouth of the Helge å

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Absalon is well documented. The see's temporal rights in 1200 are less so: the date Åhus came to the archbishop is not pinned (mid-12th century in Rosborn; 12th or 13th century in the county board's account), and no source read here settles whether the archbishop shared the Lund mint in 1200.

On the map: Discs only: Lund municipality is far larger than the archbishop's quarter, and the see's scattered Skåne estates are not drawn. Bornholm is a separate record.

Primary sources for Denmark

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Danish annals of Lund, Ryd and other houses (12th and 13th centuries; Lund continued to 1307, Ryd to 1288). Short dated entries from Lund, the archbishop's seat, and from Ryd in Schleswig. Read online
• Annals of Stade, by Albert of Stade, Albert of Stade (about 1240 to 1256). A world chronicle written at Stade in the 1240s from older Stade and Bremen annals. Read online
• Chronicle of the Slavs, by Arnold of Lübeck, Arnold of Lübeck (about 1209 to 1210). Arnold continues Helmold and writes from Lübeck, close to Danish, Welf and Baltic affairs. Read online
• Chronicle of the Slavs, by Helmold of Bosau, Helmold of Bosau (about 1167 to 1172). Background only. Read online
• The Icelandic annals to 1578 (compiled from the late 13th century onward from older notes). Year-by-year notices that fix Icelandic chronology. Read online
• The Livonian Chronicle of Henry, Henry of Livonia (1225 to 1227). The chief source for the Baltic mission. Read online
• Deeds of the Danes, Saxo Grammaticus (about 1185 to 1208). Saxo was writing at Lund in 1200 under Absalon, who died in March 1201, and his last books are an insider's history of Valdemar I and Knud VI to 1185: the Wendish wars, the taking of Rügen, the submission of Pomerania in 1185, the Danish fleet, Absalon's power and the Danish quarrel with the Empire. Read online
• Short history of the kings of Denmark; The Law of the Retainers, Sven Aggesen (about 1185 to 1188). A short Latin history of the Danish kings to Knud VI's Pomeranian victory of 1185, with the Lex castrensis, Sven's version of the law of the royal household. Read online

11 more in the sources library for Scandinavia.