Akademisk avhandling--Göteborgs högskola. / Extra t.p., with thesis note, laid in. "Källor och litteratur": p. [376]-387.

As the Kalmar Union came to an end in 1523 the balance of control and power shifted in Scandinavia. Due to the tyranny of Christian II, Sweden rebelled and broke away under the leadership of Gustav Vasa while Norway remained in union with Denmark. Although Danes and Norwegians shared common traits and identifiers; including religion, language and cultural aspects, they had a stronger sense of identity to their own country rather to the union. Because of their political and economic influence in Norway prior to 1523, Danish nobles had increased Norwegian's sense of being Norwegians rather then Danish. Frederik I, who ruled from 1523 to 1533, did all in his power to increase his own and Denmark's control of Norway in this period. In clear violation of his Norwegian Coronation Charter of 1524, Frederik placed prominent Danish nobles in central political and military positions in Norway. Frederik also by-passed the Norwegian National Council in many matters that rightfully should have been handled by the council rather then the King. After Frederik I's death in 1533 the Danish-Norwegian throne remained vacant until 1536. Within this interregnum a civil war broke out in Denmark, followed by the Count's War, instigated by the Hanseatic town of Lübeck, which sought to place Christian II back on the throne. This war, which ended in 1536, brought an end to Lübeck’s Baltic dominion and placed Christian III, son of Frederik I, as king of Denmark-Norway. Once in power, Christian III obliterated the Norwegian Council, thus removing Norway's political influence in the union permanently. Although Sweden officially broke away, it maintained a diplomatic relations with Denmark-Norway. In fact, Gustav Vasa made efforts to strengthen their diplomatic during Frederik I's reign. The outbreak of the Count's War in 1534 rallied the former members of the Kalmar Union to cooperate militarily. Together they defeated Lübeck and secured a peaceful relationship between Sweden and Denmark-Norway which lasted until 1563.

This thesis is a study of the norms and values of political culture during the 15th century.  The political culture gives the struggle for power in the Kalmar Union in the 15th century its characteristics.  The aim of this study is to identify the political culture and how it contributed to the political polarisation and disagreement within the Kalmar Union during the reign of King Karl Knutsson (Bonde) 1448-1470 and Regent Sten Sture 1470-1503. The theoretic approach is based partly on Eva Österberg’s definition of political culture, but mainly the theory is based on Harald Gustafsson’s thoughts and identified eight arguments for legitimising power used in political correspondence during the 16th century. These arguments are examples of how someone could express themselves to legitimise their power. The method used in this study identifies what non-vocal structures and values that are expressed in the official material of legal documents including treaties and open letters to or from the common people. Firstly, the context of the document is identified and information like who wrote it, when and why, secondly the study analyses how the operators’ addresses and use titles to one another. Thirdly the study identifies words and phrases that express positive values for legitimation. The values that has been found have been analysed in comparison to the law in order to identify if the values could be found in the laws as well. To conclude the study found that there are differences in how the operators expresses themselves and the emotional connection to the situation, although non-vocal structures like norms enforce the operators to apply a certain amount of respect. The political culture and the diplomatic mission creates the standards used in addressing their opponent. Therefore the choices of words are important and the study identifies five larger values that comes to light, they are law and justice, unity, assurances, commitments and duties and good characteristics. All of these can be identified during the entire research period and supported by the values expressed in the law.