page_title: History of Schleswig-Holstein
section_title: 16th and 17th centuries
hierarchical_section_title: History of Schleswig-Holstein / Early modern age / 16th and 17th centuries
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of Schleswig-Holstein after 1650
context_page_description: 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.
context_section_description: 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, produced no issue, so no branch emerged from his side. The Danish monarchs and the Dukes of Schleswig and Holstein at Gottorp and Haderslev ruled both duchies together as to general government, however, collected their revenues in their separate estates. In 1559 through the Final Feud they conquered and subjected the peasant republic of Dithmarschen, partitioning it into three shares.
  Similar to the above-mentioned agreement Christian III's youngest son John the Younger gained for him and his heirs a share in Holstein's and Schleswig's revenues in 1564, seated in Sønderborg, comprising a third of the royal share, thus a ninth of Holstein and Schleswig in fiscal respect. John the Younger and his heirs, the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg (
caption: Map of the duchies and neighbouring states around 1650: The separately assigned and commonly held landed estates of the various lines, displayed in different colours.
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