NORWEGIAN HISTORY FROM THE 14TH CENTURY

UPON the death of King Haakon V in 1319 the male line of the Norwegian royal family became extinct. The heirs to the throne being still in their infancy, the country was ruled for a long period by a council of regency and by incompetent princes of foreign birth.

In 1397 the three Scandinavian kingdoms entered into a union under articles signed at Kalmar. Sweden later withdrew, but Norway and Denmark remained united until 1814. Copenhagen became the seat of the royal government for both kingdoms, for the terms of the articles of union, according to which complete equality was to exist between the two countries, were soon forgotten. Norwegian affairs were neglected, shipbuilding almost ceased, and Norwegian merchant shipping and naval power fell into decay, which was hastened by another calamity , the Black Death.

This great plague, which harried Europe from 1346 to 1351 and which, it is estimated, swept away one-fourth of its population, appeared in Norway in 1349, causing an enormous loss of life. The Norwegian historian Ernst Sars states that it was a hundred and fifty years before the population of Norway was again equal to what it had been at the outbreak of the plague.

Prosperity vanished and the people's spirit of enterprise was wrecked; many of the leaders died; and in many districts there were so few people left that the fields could not be tilled and the income from even the larger estates was very small.

It was at this time also that the powerful Hanseatic League was gaining ascendency in the North and seeking to wrest northern trade from the native merchants. The strong organization and the ruthless aggressiveness of this new power could not be successfully checked by the vacillating, self -seeking, and often incompetent rulers of the united kingdoms. Weakened by misfortune and outdone by their mighty rivals, the seafaring merchants of Norway constantly lost ground, until finally the shipping of.