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Janusz Małłek
In this article Janusz Małłek discusses the development of regular meetings of the Estates in Norway between 1536 and 1661, when the establishment of the royal absolutism in the kingdom put an end to the assemblies. The article reviews the main sources for their activities and then analyses the institutional development of the assemblies. The Norwegian nobility was one of the few early modern nobilities whose position in society was undermined by a steady decline in the numbers of noble families. These fell by two-thirds over the period, and left a rump nobility, whose land holdings were of marginal significance in society. This hundered them from asserting their hegemony in the meetings of the Estates. The clergy, on the other hand, survived the Lutheran Reformation, and, while accepting royal supremacy over the Church, reorganized their representation, and remained active participants in the assemblies. The burghers were a very marginal group in society at the beginning of the period, though there was some expansion towards the end. They were slow to take up their invitations to participate, but from the 1560s had grasped the advantages of being able to negotiate over royal tax proposals and to present petitions. Their representation grew both in quality and numbers. The most distinctive feature of these Norwegian assemblies was the active presence of an Estate of peasants. It was true that because of the distances imposed by geography on the country, peasant representation was usually numerous only at the accession meetings to confirm a new monarch. Negotiation between the royal government officer and the peasants tended to take place at separate provincial and local meetings. There is an ongoing debate among historians about how far the estates assemblies of this period can be considered as constituting a national riksdag. So much of the practical participation of the Estates representatives in government, negotiating taxation, levying conscripts and, usually by official invitation, discussing proposed changes in the laws, took place at local level. The article concludes that the combination of geographical conditions, the lack of a strong and assertive nobility or urban bourgeoisie, and most importantly the weakness of the Norweigian state structure, within the framwork of union with Denmark, together with the acceptance of the absolutist system after 1661, delayed the development of a mature, national representative assembly in Norway until after 1814.
