page_title: Dominium maris baltici
section_title: Danish dominium maris baltici
hierarchical_section_title: Dominium maris baltici / Wars over the Baltic / Danish dominium maris baltici
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Vereinfachte Darstellung der Haupthandelsroute der Hanse im Nordeuropäischen Raum. Eigene verbesserte Darstellung mit GMT. English: Main trading routes of the Hanseatic League in northern Europe. Svenska: Förenklad översikt över Hansans viktigaste handelsvägar i norra Europa.
context_page_description: The establishment of a dominium maris baltici was one of the primary political aims of the Danish and Swedish kingdoms in the late medieval and early modern eras. Throughout the Northern Wars the Danish and Swedish navies played a secondary role, as the dominium was contested through control of key coasts by land warfare.
context_section_description: Historiography uses the term dominium maris baltici either in a narrower sense as a new Swedish concept of the Early Modern era, closely tied to the Swedish Empire, or in a wider sense including the preceding Danish hegemony in the southern Baltic Sea.
  Denmark had subdued the southern Baltic coast from Holstein to Pomerania in the 12th century, but lost control in the 13th century after her defeat by German and Hanse forces in the Battle of Bornhöved (1227), retaining just the principality of Rügen. Thereafter, the Hanseatic League became the dominant economic power in the Baltic Sea. Robert Bohn credits Valdemar IV "Atterdag" of Denmark (reigned 1340–1375) as the first Danish king to pursue a policy of establishing a Danish dominium maris baltici, aiming at adding to Denmark's naval dominance an economical hegemony at the expense of the Hanseatic League. To achieve this aim, Valdemar sold Danish Estonia to the Teutonic Order state in 1346, consolidating his finances and raising an army from the revenue. After initial territorial gains, Valdemar conquered the Hanseatic town of Visby (Gotland) in 1361, resulting in a war decided in favour of the League in the peace of Stralsund in 1370, which marked the climax of Hanseatic power.
  Atterdag's daughter and de facto successor, Lady Margaret, managed to concentrate the crowns of Denmark, Norway and Sweden in her Copenhagen-centered Kalmar Union from 1397. In 1429, Kalmar king Eric of Pomerania started to raise the Sound Dues from merchants entering or leaving the Baltic Sea, allowing the Copenhagen court to benefit from the Baltic Sea trade profits without engaging in economic adventures itself. The Sound Dues, imposed until 1857 and constituting a primary source of income for the Royal treasury, quickly became a contentious issue, which brought Denmark into conflict with the Hanseatic League and the neighboring powers.
  After the break-up of the Kalmar Union in the early 16th-century, the Kingdom of Sweden became Denmark–Norway's primary rival for hegemony in the Baltic Sea. Christian IV of Denmark's victory in the Kalmar War in 1613 marked the last instance of a successful defense of a Danish dominium maris baltici against Sweden; subsequent wars ended in Sweden's favor of the latter. The period of Danish intervention in the Thirty Years' War of 1618–1648 (Kejserkrigen of 1625–1629) is also considered part of the wars for the dominium maris baltici—in this war, however, the opponent was not the Swedish king, but the ambitious Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II, who temporarily planned to establish the Empire as a naval power in the Baltic. He assigned this task to Albrecht von Wallenstein, leading to a concerted action by Denmark and Sweden in the defense of Stralsund. The Danish defeat in the Battle of Wolgast (1628) and the subsequent Treaty of Lübeck in 1629, however, removed Denmark from the battlefield.
caption: Main trading routes of the Hanseatic League
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