History Of Schleswig-Holstein

The history of Schleswig-Holstein consists of the corpus of facts since the pre-history times until the modern establishing of the Schleswig-Holstein state.

Early history

The Jutland Peninsula is a peninsula in Northern Europe with modern-day Schleswig-Holstein at its base. Schleswig is also called Southern Jutland (Sønderjylland). The old Scandinavian sagas, perhaps dating back to the times of the Angles and Jutes give the impression that Jutland has been divided into a northern and a southern part with the border running along the Kongeå River.

Taking into account both archeological findings and Roman sources, however, one could conclude that the Jutes inhabited both the Kongeå region and the more northern part of the peninsula, while the native Angles lived approximately where the towns Haithabu and Schleswig later would emerge (originally centered in the southeast of Schleswig in Angeln), the Saxons (earlier known apparently as the Reudingi) originally centered in Western Holstein (known historically as " Northalbingia") and Slavic Wagrians, part of the Obodrites (Abodrites) in Eastern Holstein. The Danes settled in the early Viking ages in Northern and Central Schleswig and the Northern Frisians after approximately the year 900 in Western Schleswig.

The pattern of populated and unpopulated areas was relatively constant through Bronze Age and Iron Age.

After the Dark Ages migrations

After many Angles emigrated to the British Islands in the 5th century, the land of the Angles came in closer contact with the Danish islands — plausibly by partly immigration/occupation by the Danes. Later also the contacts increased between the Danes and the people on the northern half of the Jutish peninsula.

Judging by today's placenames, then the southern linguistic border of the Danish language seems to have been (starting at the west) up the Treene river, along the Danevirke (also known as Danewerk), then cutting across from the Schlei estuary to Eckernförde, and leaving the Schwansen peninsula, while the West coast of Schleswig had been the area of the Frisian language.

After the Slavic migrations, the eastern area of modern Holstein was inhabited by Slavic Wagrians (Vagri) a subgroup of the Obotrites (Obotritae).

Nordalbingia and Wagria in 8th–9th centuries

Apart from northern Holstein and Schleswig inhabited by Danes there were Nordalbingia and Wagria in respectively, Western and Eastern Holstein.

Nordalbingia (German: Nordalbingien, i.e. land north of the Elbe river) was one of the four administrative regions of the medieval Duchy of Saxony, the others being Angria, Eastphalia, and Westphalia. Nordalbingia consisted of four districts: Dithmarschen, Holstein, Stormarn (north of the Elbe) and Hadeln (south of the Elbe).

The Wagri, Wagiri, or Wagrians were a tribe of Polabian Slavs inhabiting Wagria, or eastern Holstein in northern Germany, from the ninth to twelfth centuries. They were a constituent tribe of the Obodrite confederacy.

Conquest of Nordalbingia by Obodrites and Franks

In the Battle of Bornhöved (798) (German: Schlacht bei Bornhöved) on the field of Sventanafeld (Sventanapolje, Slavonic for "sacred field") near the village of Bornhöved near Neumünster in 798 the Obodrites, led by Drożko, allied with the Franks, defeated the Nordalbingian Saxons.

Following the Nordalbingian defeat in the Battle of Bornhöved by combined forces of the Obodrites and the Franks, where the Saxons lost 4,000 people, 10,000 Saxon families were deported to other areas of the empire. Areas north of Elbe (Wagria) were given to the Obodrites, while Hadeln was directly incorporated. However, the Obodrites soon were invaded by Danes and only the intervention of Charlemagne pushed the Danes out of Eider river.

Danes, Saxons, Franks struggle for control of Holstein

As Charlemagne extended his realm in the late 8th century, he met a united Danish army which successfully defended ''Danevirke'', a fortified defensive barrier across the south of the territory west of the Schlei. A border was established at the Eider River in 811.

This strength was enabled by three factors:
* the fishing,
* the good soil giving good pasture and harvests
* in particular the tax and customs revenues from the market in Haithabu, where all trade between the Baltic Sea and Western Europe passed.

The Danevirke was built immediately south of the road where boats or goods had to be hauled for approximately 5 kilometers between a Baltic Sea bay and the small river '' Rheider Au'' (Danish, ''Rejde Å'') connected to the North Sea. There on the narrowest part of southern Jutland was established the important transit market ''(Haithabu'', also known as ''Hedeby'', near modern Haddeby), which was protected by the ''Danevirke'' fortification. Hedeby was located on the inlet Schlei opposite to what is now the City of Schleswig.

The wealth of Schleswig, as reflected by impressive archeological finds on the site today, and the taxes from the Haithabu market, was enticing. A separate kingdom of Haithabu was established around year 900 by the Viking chieftain Olaf from Svealand. Olaf's son and successor Gnupa was however killed in battle against the Danish king, and his kingdom vanished.

The southern border was then adjusted back and forth a few times. For instance, the Holy Roman Emperor Otto II occupied the region between the river Eider and the inlet Schlei in the years 974–983, called the March of Schleswig, and stimulating German colonisation. Later Haithabu was burned by Swedes, and first under the reign of King Sweyn Forkbeard ''(Svend Tveskæg)'' (986-1014) the situation was stabilised, although raids against Haithabu would be repeated. Haithabu was once again and ultimately destroyed by fire in 1066. As Adam of Bremen reported in 1076, the Eider River was the border between Denmark and the Saxon territories.

From the time Danes came to Schleswig from today’s eastern part of Denmark and Germans colonised Schleswig migrating from Holstein, the country north of the Elbe had been the battleground of Danes and Germans, as well as certain Slavic people. Danish scholars point to the existence of Danish placenames north for Eider and Danevirke as evidence that at least the most of Schleswig was at one time Danish; German scholars claim it, on the other hand, as essentially "Germanic", due to the fact that Schleswig became an autonomous entity and a duchy (in the 13th century) since it has been populated and been dominated from the South. The Duchy of Schleswig, or Southern Jutland (''Sønderjylland''), had been a Danish fief, though having been more or less independent from the Kingdom of Denmark during the centuries, similarly to Holstein, that had been from the first a fief of the Holy Roman Empire, originating in the small area of Nordalbingia, in today western Holstein, inhabited then mostly by Saxons, but in 13th century expanded to the present Holstein, after winning local Danish overlord. Throughout the Middle Ages, Schleswig was a source of rivalry between Denmark and the nobility of the duchy of Holstein within the Holy Roman Empire. The Danish position can be exemplified with an inscription on a stone in the walls of the town of Rendsburg (Danish: ''Rendsborg'') located on the border between Schleswig and Holstein: ''Eidora Romani Terminus Imperii'' ("The River Eider is the Border of the Holy Roman Empire"). A number of Holsatian nobles sought to challenge this.

Danes, Saxons, Angles struggle for control of Schleswig

The area of Schleswig (Southern Jutland) was first inhabited by the mingled West Germanic tribes Cimbri, Angles and Jutes, later also by the North Germanic Danes and West Germanic Frisians. Holstein was inhabited mainly by the West Germanic Saxons, aside Wends (such as Obotrites) and other Slavic peoples in the East. The Saxons were the last of their nation to submit to Charlemagne (804), who put their country under Frankish counts, the limits of the Empire being pushed in 810 as far as the Schlei in Schleswig. In 811 the river Eider was declared as borderline between the Frankish Empire and Denmark. Then began the secular struggle between the Danish kings and the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, and in 934 the German king Henry I established the March of Schleswig (Limes Danarum) between the Eider and the Schlei as an outpost of the Empire against the Danes.

South of this raged the contest between the Empire and Slavs. The Slavs, conquered and Christianised, rose in revolt in 983, after the death of the emperor Otto II, and for a while reverted to paganism and independence. The Saxon dukes, however, continued to rule central Holstein, and when Lothair of Supplinburg became duke of Saxony (1106), on the extinction of the Billung line, he enfeoffed Lord Adolphus of Schauenburg with the County of Holstein, as a Saxon subfief, becoming Adolphus I, Count of Holstein with the Saxon, later Lower Saxon dukes as liege lords.

12th century

The Earl (''jarl'') Knud Lavard (known in English as Canute Lavard), son of a Danish king, became Duke of Jutland or Southern Jutland. His son ascended the Danish throne, and the main branch continued as Kings, and a cadet branch descended from Abel of Denmark received Southern Jutland ( Slesvig) as their appanage. During the rule of the dynasty Southern Jutland functioned as the Duchy which provided for the expenses of Royal Princes. Rivalry of royal succession and particularly the tendency of autonomy led to long-lasting feuds between the Dukes of Schleswig and the Kings of Denmark 1253–1325.

At that time, the Holy Roman Empire expanded northwards and had set up the Schauenburg family as counts of Holstein, under German suzerainty, first located in Nordalbingia, the Saxon part of the region, in what now is western Holstein. Knud Lavard had also gained awhile parts of Holstein, and thereby came in conflict with Count Adolphus I (Schauenburg) in the part of Holstein within the Empire, as they both were very keen on expanding their influence and pacifying the Wagrian tribe (see: Wends). Count Adolphus II, son of Adolphus I, succeeded and established the County of Holstein (1143) with about the borders it has had since then. Holstein was Christianised, many of the Wagrians were killed and the land was inhabited by settlers from Westphalia, Friesland and Holland. Soon the Holsatian towns, such as Lübeck and Hamburg, became serious trade competitors on the Baltic Sea.

13th century

Adolphus II (1128–1164), succeeded in re-conquering the Slavonic Wagri and founded the city and see of Lübeck to hold them in check. Adolphus III (d. 1225), his successor, received Dithmarschen in fee from the emperor Frederick I, but in 1203 the fortunes of war compelled him to surrender Holstein to Valdemar II of Denmark who mandated Albert of Orlamünde, the cession being confirmed in a Golden bull by the emperor Frederick II in 1214 and the pope in 1217, thus provoking the nobles in Holstein. Valdemar appointed his lieutenant in Holstein.

In 1223, King Valdemar and his eldest son were abducted by count Henry I, Count of Schwerin (also known as ''Heinrich der Schwarze''), and held captive in Castle Dannenberg for several years. Count Henry demanded that Valdemar should surrender the land conquered in Holstein 20 years ago and become a vassal of the Holy Roman Emperor who in fact tried to intervene and arrange the release of Valdemar. Danish envoys refused these terms and Denmark declared war. The war ended in defeat of the troops under the command of Albert of Orlamünde at Mölln in 1225, and Valdemar was forced to surrender his conquests as the price of his own release and take an oath not to seek revenge.

Valdemar was released from captivity in 1226 and appealed to Pope Honorius III to have his oath repealed, a request the Pope granted. In 1226, Valdemar attacked the nobles of Holstein, and initially, had success.

On July 22, 1227 the two armies clashed at Bornhöved in Holstein in the second Battle of Bornhöved. The battle ended in a decisive victory for Adolphus IV of Holstein. During the battle the troops from Dithmarschen abandoned the Danish army and joined Adolphus' army. In the following peace, Valdemar II relinquished his conquests in Holstein for good and Holstein was permanently secured to the house of Schauenburg.

King Valdemar II, who had retained the former imperial March north of the Eider, in 1232 erected Schleswig as a duchy for his second son, Abel. Holstein on the other hand, after the death of Adolphus IV in 1261, was split up into several countships by his sons and again by his grandsons (1290): the lines of Holstein-Kiel (1261–1390), Holstein-Pinneberg and Schaumburg (1290–1640) south of the Elbe, Holstein-Plön (1290–1350), Holstein-Rendsburg (1290–1459), and at times also Holstein-Itzehoe (1261–1290) and Holstein-Segeberg (1273–1315), and again 1397–1403), all named after the comital residential cities.

14th century

The connection between Schleswig and Holstein became closer during the 14th century as the ruling class and accompanying colonists intensely populated the Duchy Schleswig. Local lords of Schleswig had already early paid attention to keep Schleswig independent from the Kingdom of Denmark and to strengthen ties to Holstein within the Holy Roman Empire. This tradition of autonomy showed itself in future politics for centuries to come.

The rivalry, sometimes leading into war between the kings of Denmark and the Abelian dukes of Schleswig was expensive, and Denmark had to finance it through extensive loans. The Dukes of Schleswig were allied with the Counts of Holstein, who happened to become the main creditors of the Danish Crown, too, in the reign of the utterly incompetent king Christopher II of Denmark.

On the death of King Valdemar's descendant Eric VI of Denmark in 1319, Christopher II of Denmark attempted to seize the Duchy of Schleswig, the heir of which Duke Valdemar V (as of 1325) was a minor; but Valdemar's guardian and uncle, Gerhard III, Count of Holstein-Rendsburg (1304–1340), surnamed the Great and a notable warrior, drove back the Danes and, Christopher having been expelled, succeeded in procuring the election of Duke Valdemar to the Danish throne (as Valdemar III as of 1326), while Gerhard himself obtained the Duchy of Schleswig. King Valdemar III was regarded as a usurper by most Danish nobles as he had been forced by the Schleswig-Holstein nobility to sign the '' Constitutio Valdemaria'' (June 7, 1326) promising that ''The Duchy of Schleswig and the Kingdom of Denmark must never be united under the same ruler''. Schleswig was consequently granted to Count Gerhard, being the leader of one of the three lines of the Schauenburg dynasty. The constitution can be seen as a first precursor to the Treaty of Ribe and similarly laying down the principle of separation between the Duchy of Schleswig and the Kingdom of Denmark and indeed uniting Schleswig and Holstein for the first time, though in personal union.

In 1330, Christopher II was restored to his throne and Valdemar III of Denmark abdicated his untenable kingship and returned to his former position as Duke of Schleswig which he held as Valdemar V of Schleswig. As compensation, Gerhard was awarded the island of Funen as a fief instead. In 1331 war broke out between Gerhard and King Christopher II, ending in Danish defeat. The peace terms were extremely harsh. King Christopher was only left in effective control of the small island of Langeland and faced the impossible task of raising 100,000 silver marks to redeem his country. Denmark had effectively been dissolved and was left without a king between 1332 and 1340. Gerhard, however, was assassinated in 1340 by a Dane.

In 1340, King Valdemar IV of Denmark began his more than twenty-year-long quest to reclaim his kingdom. While succeeding in regaining control of Zealand, Funen, Jutland, and Scania he, however, failed to obtain control of Schleswig, and its ducal line managed to continue its virtual independence.

This was the time when almost all of Denmark came under the supremacy of the Counts of Holstein, who possessed different parts of Denmark as pawns for their credits. King Valdemar IV (Atterdag) started to regain the kingdom part by part, and married his rival's sister Hedvig of Schleswig, the only daughter of Eric II, Duke of Schleswig. Duke Valdemar V of Slesvig's son, Henry, was in 1364 nominally entfeoffed with the Duchy, although he never reached to regain more than the northernmost parts as he couldn't raise the necessary funds to repay the loans. With him, the Abelian line became extinct. The true holder of the lands was the count of Holstein-Rendsburg, but Henry's feudal heirs were his first cousin Margaret of Denmark, queen of several Scandinavian realms, and Albert of Mecklenburg, son of Margaret's elder sister Ingeborg of Denmark.

In 1372, Valdemar Atterdag turned his attention to Schleswig and conquered Gram in 1372 and Flensburg in 1373. Southern parts of Schleswig had been mortgaged to several German nobles by Duke Henry I, Duke of Schleswig (d. 1375, a son of the former king Valdemar III of Denmark), the last duke of that line. The childless, elderly Henry transferred his rights to his kinsman and brother-in-law King Valdemar IV in 1373. The ethnically German nobles, however, refused to allow the king to repay the mortgage and redeem the area in question.

In 1374, Valdemar bought large tracts of land in the province and was on the verge of starting a campaign to conquer the rest when he died on October 24, 1374 and shortly hereon Duke Henry I died in 1375. It was then when the male lines both in the kingdom and the duchy became extinct, that the counts of Holstein-Rendsburg seized on Schleswig, assuming at the same time the style of lords of Jutland. The nobles quickly took action and managed to regain more control of the Duchy which they emphasised to be independent of the Danish Crown.

In 1386, Queen Margaret I of Denmark, younger daughter of Valdemar IV of Denmark and Helvig of Schleswig, granted Schleswig as a hereditary fief under the Danish crown to Count Gerhard VI of Holstein-Rendsburg, grandson of Gerhard III, provided that he swore allegiance to her son King Oluf, although Schleswig actually still was held autonomously by the Count of Holstein-Rendsburg. Gerhard - after the extinction of the lines of Holstein-Plön (1350) and Holstein-Kiel (1390) – finally obtained also Holstein-Segeberg in 1403, ruling thus all of Holstein except of Holstein-Pinneberg with the small Schauenburg territories in Lower Saxony. With this merging of power begins the history of the union of Schleswig and Holstein.

15th century

Gerhard VI died in 1404, and soon afterwards war broke out between his sons and Eric of Pomerania, Margaret's successor on the throne of Denmark, who claimed South Jutland as an integral part of the Danish monarchy, a claim formally recognised by the emperor Sigismund in 1424, it was not till 1440 that the struggle ended with the investiture of Count Adolphus VIII, Gerhard VI's son, with the hereditary duchy of Schleswig by Christopher III of Denmark.

In 1409, King Eric VII of Denmark (Eric of Pomerania) forced the German nobles to surrender Flensburg to him. War broke out in 1410, and Eric conquered Als and Ærø. In 1411, the nobles retook Flensburg, but in 1412 both sides agreed to a count of Mecklenburg to settle the dispute (Danish history claims his name was Ulrich of Mecklenburg). He awarded the city to Denmark, and Margaret I of Denmark took possession of the city. In Flensburg she was struck by the plague and died shortly after. A new mediation attempt was undertaken in 1416 by the Hanseatic League. Both sides accepted, and Denmark pledged the city of Schleswig as security, and the Holsteiners the stronghold of Tönning. The mediation was unsuccessful. In 1421, the Holsteiners succeeded in regaining Haderslev and Tønder.

In 1422, Duke Henry X of Silesia-Sagan (also known as duke ''Heinrich Rumpold''), envoy of the Holy Roman Emperor, was recognised by both sides as arbitrator. He died, however, on January 18, 1423 before reaching a settlement. His master, Emperor Sigismund now wished to settle the issue, a decision strongly opposed by the nobles of Holstein. In 1424, Emperor Sigismund ruled, based on the fact that the people of Schleswig spoke Danish, followed Danish customs and considered themselves to be Danes, that the territory rightfully belonged to the King of Denmark. Henry IV, Count of Holstein-Rendsburg, protested and refused to follow the verdict.

In 1425 war broke out again. In 1431, a group of pro-German burghers opened the gates of Flensburg and an army of German nobles marched in. In 1432 peace was settled, and Eric recognised the conquests made by the German nobles.

In 1439, the new Danish king Christopher III (also known as Christopher of Bavaria) bought the loyalty of count Adolphus VIII of Holstein-Rendsburg by granting him the entire Duchy of Schleswig as a hereditary fief but under the Danish crown. On the death of Christopher eight years later, Adolphus' influence secured the election of his nephew Count Christian VII of Oldenburg to the vacant Danish throne.

In 1448 Adolphus, as Adolphus I Duke of Slesvig and as Adolphus VIII Count of Holstein-Rendsburg, who himself was one of the closest heirs to Scandinavian monarchies, was influential enough to get his nephew Count Christiern (Christian VII) of Oldenburg elected King of Denmark.

When the Adolphus had died in 1459 without issue the Schauenburg dynasty in Holstein-Rendsburg had thus became extinct. The Schauenburg counts of Holstein-Pinneberg had no claim to succession in Schleswig; their election in Holstein-Rendsburg would have separated Schleswig and Holstein-Rendsburg. The separation of Schleswig and Holstein would have meant economic ruin for many nobles of Holstein. Moreover, the Holsatian nobles, mostly of German ethnicity, failed to agree on which course to take.

Therefore, it was easy for King Christian I of Denmark (son of Hedwig, the sister of the late duke-count Adolphus) to secure his election both as duke of Schleswig and count of Holstein-Rendsburg. In 1460, King Christian called the nobility to Ribe, and on March 2, 1460, the nobles agreed to elect him as successor of Count Adolphus VIII as the new count of Holstein-Rendsburg, in order to prevent the separation of the two provinces. King Christian I, though he had been forced to swear to the Constitutio Valdemariana, succeeded in asserting his claim to Schleswig in right of his mother, Adolphus' sister. On 5 March 1460 Christian granted a coronation charter (or ''Freiheitsbrief''), issued first at Ribe ( Treaty of Ribe, da, Ribe-brevet, german: Vertrag von Ripen) and afterwards at Kiel, which also repeated that Schleswig and Holstein-Rendsburg must remain united ''"dat se bliven ewich tosamende ungedelt"'' (Middle Low German or Low Saxon, i.e. that they remain for ever together undivided). Christian's ascension in the County of Holstein-Rendsburg was the first succession in Holstein in female line.

The Treaty of Ribe was a proclamation made by King Christian I of Denmark to a number of German nobles enabling himself to become count of Holstein-Rendsburg and regain the Danish duchy of Schleswig. Another clause gave the nobility the right to revolt should the king break the agreement (a usual feature of medieval coronation charters). Regarding Holstein-Rendsburg, the arrangement was pretty straightforward, the King of Denmark became in personal union count of Holstein-Rendsburg but was not allowed to annex the county, which was part of the Holy Roman Empire, to Denmark proper in real union.

Regarding Schleswig the arrangement seems at first rather odd, since Schleswig was a fief under the Danish crown, thus making the Danish king his own vassal. However, the nobles saw this arrangement as a guarantee against too strong Danish domination and as a guarantee against a partition of Holstein between Danish nobles. The most important consequence of this agreement was the exclusion of Schleswig in subsequent Danish laws (although the medieval Danish Code of Jutland (in Danish: ''Jyske Lov'') was maintained as the legal code of the duchy of Schleswig).

Finally, in 1472 the emperor Frederick III confirmed Christian I's overlordship over Dithmarschen (by claim, conquered only in 1559). Frederick III elevated Christian as Count of Dithmarschen, Holstein-Rendsburg, and Stormarn to Duke of Holstein, thus elevating Holstein-Rendsburg, a Lower Saxon subfief to imperial immediacy. In Holstein-Pinneberg, however, the emperor remained only the indirect overlord with the Lower Saxon Duke John V being the immediate liege lord. In the following period of a hundred years, Schleswig and Holstein were many times divided between heirs. Instead of incorporating South Jutland with the Danish kingdom, however, he preferred to take advantage of the feeling of the estates in Schleswig and Holstein in favour of union to secure both provinces.

An important development was the gradual introduction of German administrators in the duchy of Schleswig leading to a gradual Germanification of southern Schleswig. The Germanification did not catch wind, however, before the end of the eighteenth century.

Schleswig-Holstein soon got a better educational system some centuries before Denmark proper and Norway. The German nobility in Schleswig and Holstein was already a numerous range of people, and education added plenty of people to administrative officials pool of the kings. In 16th and 17th centuries particularly, educated Schleswig-Holsteiners were recruited to government positions in Norway (where they supplanted indigenous lower Norwegian nobility from its public positions, being a cause of them developing more like odalbonde class than privileged) and also in Denmark, where very many government officials came from German stock (but the Danish nobility was not suppressed, they other immersed most successful of the newcomers into their ranks). This feature of Schleswig-Holstein being a utilised source of bureaucrats was a reason of Denmark's governmental half-Germanisation in the subsequent centuries before 19th-century romantics.

Early modern age

16th and 17th centuries

Gradual Germanification of southern Schleswig became more intense following the Protestant Reformation, promoted by Duke Christian III in the duchies after his ascension there in 1523 as co-ruling duke with his father King Frederick I. After Christian had succeeded to become also King of Denmark and Norway in 1534 and 1537, respectively, he enforced Lutheranism in all his realm in 1537 (see Reformation in Denmark-Norway and Holstein). The Duchy of Holstein adopted its first Lutheran Church Order in 1542 (written by Bugenhagen). The Counties of Holstein-Pinneberg and Schaumburg remained Catholic until 1559.

With Lutheranism the High German liturgy was introduced in churches in Holstein and the southern half of Schleswig (although the vernacular of more than half of this area was Danish). Whereas at the west coast North Frisian prevailed, about the other half of the South Schleswigers used Low Saxon, which had developed from Middle Low German, as their mother tongue, also prevailing in Holstein. High German started superseding the Danish, Low Saxon and Frisian vernaculars in the area.

After Christian III had consolidated his reign in Denmark and Norway against his adversaries there he concluded with his younger half-brothers, having come of age, to share with them in the rule of the duchies in 1544. Christian III, John II ''the Elder'' and Adolf partitioned the Duchies of Holstein (a fief of the Holy Roman Empire) and of Schleswig (a Danish fief) in an unusual way, following negotiations between the brothers and the Estates of the Realm of the duchies, which opposed a factual partition, referring to their indivisibility according to the Treaty of Ribe. The brothers determined their youngest brother Frederick for a career as Lutheran administrator of an ecclesiastical state within the Holy Roman Empire.

So the revenues of the duchies, deriving from the rights of overlordship in the various towns and territories of Schleswig and Holstein, were divided in three equal shares by assigning the revenues of particular areas and landed estates, themselves remaining undivided, to each of the elder brothers, while other general revenues, such as taxes from towns and customs dues, were levied together but then shared among the elder brothers. The estates, whose revenues were assigned to the parties, made Holstein and Schleswig look like patchwork rags, technically inhibiting the emergence of separate new duchies, as intended by the estates of the duchies. The secular rule in the fiscally divided duchies thus became a condominium of the parties. As dukes of Holstein and Schleswig the three rulers bore the formal title of "Duke of Schleswig, Holstein, Dithmarschen and Stormarn". With the independent peasant republic of Dithmarschen only claimed. The House of Schauenburg (Schaumburg) continued its rule in the Counties of Holstein-Pinneberg and Schaumburg.

Adolf, the third son of Frederick I and the second youngest half-brother of King Christian III, founded the dynastic branch called House of Holstein-Gottorp, which is a cadet branch of the then royal Danish House of Oldenburg. The dynastic name Holstein-Gottorp comes as convenient usage from the technically more correct Duke of Schleswig and Holstein at Gottorp, the residential palace. John II ''the Elder'', Duke of Schleswig and Holstein at Haderslev