Waldemar

(or Valdemar). In Denmark:

Waldemar I the Great. Born Jan. 14, 1131; died May 12, 1182. Became king in 1157. In the maternal line he was a great-grandson of the Kievan prince Vladimir Monomach. He led a series of military campaigns against the Polabianic Slavs and in 1169 subdued the island of Rügen. In 1177 he obtained the appointment of his councillor Absalon as archbishop of Lund (primate of the Danish Church). He laid the foundations of the centralized feudal monarchy in Denmark.

Waldemar II the Victorious. Born 1170; died Mar. 28, 1241. Became king in 1202. Early in the 13th century he subdued the north German cities (including Hamburg and Lübeck) and principalities. He lost these territories as a result of his defeat at the hands of the North German princes at Bornhøved in 1227. In 1219 he conquered northern Estonia. He promulgated the so-called Jutland Laws in 1241.

Waldemar IV Atterdag. Born circa 1320; died Oct. 24, 1375. Became king in 1340. In the 1340’s he gathered the separate parts of his kingdom into one political entity; earlier, these lands had fallen into the hands of feudal nobles, mainly Germans. (Skåne reverted to Denmark only in 1360.) He inflicted an unprecedented tax assessment upon his subjects. An uprising of Estonian peasants from 1343 to 1345 com- pelled him to sell northern Estonia to the Livonian Order. In the struggle for supremacy in the western Baltic, Waldemar declared war on the Hanseatic League and Sweden; in 1361 he conquered the island of Gotland. A new war (1367-70) ended in Denmark’s defeat and the Treaty of Stralsund in 1370, which was ignominious for Denmark.