page_title: Christopher of Bavaria
section_title: Coronation, relations with Swedes
hierarchical_section_title: Christopher of Bavaria / Biography / Coronation, relations with Swedes
context_page_description: Christopher of Bavaria was King of Denmark, Sweden and Norway during the era of the Kalmar Union.
context_section_description: In May 1442 Christopher traveled to Lödöse to meet with the nobles from all three kingdoms. He was elected King of Norway there and then went to Oslo where he was crowned on 2 July 1442.  The next year he was proclaimed King of Denmark at the Urnehoved Assembly near Ribe.  When his residence at Roskilde burned down, Christopher moved to Copenhagen and made it the capital of Denmark.
  The Swedish nobles were not happy to relinquish any power and thus didn't like him, claiming he was too German for them and that he allowed his uncle (ex-King Eric) to plunder shipping from his castle on Gotland without any attempt to stop him. They blamed a series of bad harvests on him. People were so hungry they mixed ground tree bark with the little flour they could find. Christopher was contemptuously nicknamed the "Bark King" in Sweden. On the other hand, he tried to support the cities and their merchants as far as the limits of nobility and Hanseatic cities allowed. During his reign Copenhagen was made permanently the capital of Denmark (municipal charter of 1443).
  He carried on an ineffective policy of war and negotiations against Eric in Gotland which did little to help the dissatisfaction within both Sweden and the Hanseatic League. The Kalmar Union Treaty was changed so that the aristocracy had most of the policy-making powers, and the king lost many of the powers monarchs had acquired since Viking times. The results of this policy of balance were still not reached when he suddenly died as the last descendant of Valdemar IV of Denmark.
caption: King Christopher in a contemporary drawing
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