The famous royal castle of Stegeborg sits on its island like a cork in the bottleneck of the Slätbaken inlet (see map here). This waterway leads straight to Söderköping, a major Medieval town, and to the mouth of River Storån which would allow an invader to penetrate far into Östergötland Province's plains belt. The area's first big piece of public construction was 9th century fortifications intended to guard this entrypoint, in the shape of the Götavirke earthen rampart some ways inland and a wooden barrage at Stegeborg.
2nd February 2021
King Haakon V has a special role in Norwegian history. He is known as the king who finally reunited Norway after 110 years of civil war. He unified Norwegian power and created an empire that stretched over Norway, Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and parts of today’s Britain and Sweden. What is not as well known, however, is that he strengthened his power by building more fortresses than any other Norwegian monarch. Let us take a look at King Haakon V as the builder.
After ruling as Duke of Oslo, the Uplands, Faroe Islands, Ryfylke and Hjaltland Haakon became King of Norway in 1299. Early in the 1290s, King Haakon began the construction of Akershus fortress in Norway’s current capital Oslo. After several developments, Akershus became the strongest fortress in the Nordic countries. In 1308, the castle withstood a siege for the first time. It was the Swedish Duke Erik of Södermanland who besieged the castle together with a number of Norwegian nobles, but t
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By Beñat Elortza Larrea
For the eighth article in the series, Beñat Elortza Larrea discusses the ravages of famine, warfare and disease in fourteenth-century Scandinavia, culminating with the formation of the Kalmar Union in 1397.
The fourteenth century was a period of crisis and upheaval in Scandinavia and, indeed, the near-entirety of the European continent; a rapid cooling of the climate and the severe effects of the Black Death caused a demographic disaster and a sharp economic downturn, which in turn gave way to societal uproar, revolts and wars. In the Nordic arena, the backdrop created by these structural crises contributed to diplomatic, martial and dynastic issues, as large-scale warfare and conquest among the Scandinavian realms became commonplace.