The Islands under Danish Rule, 1525-1790









The North Atlantic Islands' Decline, 1340-1490



The Islands in the North Atlantic - the SHETLANDS, ORKNEYS, FAROES, ICELAND and GREENLAND, had been discovered, settled from Norway, christianization had been introduced under Norwegian pressure and finally in the 13th century the last of them had been forced to acknowledge Norwegian sovereignty.
Norway keenly guarded it's monopolistic trade relations with those islands, permitting foreign traders to sail as far as BERGEN, Norway's international trade hub, but neither further north nor west.
During the 14th century, Norway proper went through a crisis. The Danish administration regarded Norway a sideland; the island colonies in the North Atlantic were sidelands of a sideland, and not very profitable. So they were almost forgotten. The annual ship for Greenland often failed to show up, and the community of Greenlandic Viking descendants deteriorated rapidly, the WESTERN SETTLEMENT lost to the Eskimos in 1341, the MIDDLE SETTLEMENT ca. 1380, the (last) Eastern SETTLEMENT died out late in the 15th century. Both Greenland and Iceland were marginal economies, not viable on their own. The Greenlanders and Icelanders depended on the import of timber and iron (nails etc.) for shipbuilding, as their main industry was fishing.
On the occasion of the marriage of a Danish princess to KING JAMES III. OF SCOTLAND, Denmark pawned the Orkneys and Shetlands, Norwegian possessions, to Scotland.






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This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2000, last revised on November 8th 2004

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