5

I had said that the beginning of the story may just turn out to  be in the middle.

The earliest members of the Gram family line we have been able to  find  has been Simon Gram, sogneprest in Gram, Denmark.^[1]

Simon’s  son Nihls (or Niels) Simonsen Gram  also became a priest in the town of Gram.  Simonsen became an apostle, not in the biblical sense, but in the geopolitical sense of being a sent one (which is the meaning of the word apostle),  sent, that is,  to Norway as a  protestant priest and magistrate on behalf of the crown.

But first, let us ask, what is Gram anyway?   More than just a family name it also was a farm.   But more than just a farm, it was a royal farm. But more than just a royal farm, it turns out to also be a parish.   And thus it is a church.   And the church itself is the church of  a medeival  town.   And in the town is also is a  royal castle.   Gram is all of these and more.  It is symbolic of the protestant reformation. This  amazing array of aspects  seems to have emerged   by accident during very turbulent times  in the development of Denmark.

How did  all this come to pass?  To understand, let us start at the beginning of  Gram Farm and recount the history leading to the Family who took the name Gram.

Remember,   all of these  entities named Gram are known for being  owned or controlled by a series of  kings of Denmark. The town originally was established as a royal farm and belonged to the crown. The farm dates from about 1230 AD when viking King Valdemar  II used it as a country estate and  personal farm.   Valdemar II ruled Denmark from 1202 to 1241.  In the last 11 years of his life, while increasingly reposed at his farm at Gram, he  wrote the Code of Jutland and instituted the feudal system that governed Scandinavia for about 400 years.

^[2]

Let us  back up  just a bit and start with Valdemar’s father, Valdemar I,  aka  Valdemar the Great.   From my perspective  Valdemar  I is more important to the Heggelund family (one of Diane’s other important lines)   because of his wife Sophia, who is a link to the Rus  and the  Swedish crown.   But because it is their second son Valdemar II who gives us the link to Gram and also an understanding of  later contention’s over Holstein, I will give only brief mention of Valdemar I  (Valdemar the Great) and move on to describe the intrigues during the lifetime of Valdemar II.

Valdemar I  had married Sophia of Minsk.  Sophia  herself was the daughter of Richeza of Poland, queen Dowager of Sweden, who was married to Volodar Glebovich, prince of Minsk.  Sophia herself descended from Vladimir I of the Rus, founder of the Russian empire which patterned itself after the eastern roman empire at Constantinople.   Vladimir I  was a swede,  and the Rus themselves were actually Swedish vikings.

Valdemar I  and Sophia’s  first son Canute became King Canute VI of Denmark. ^[3][4]

Following his father’s death in 1182, Canute became sole ruler and King of Denmark. Elected  at the Urnehoved Assembly (Danish: landsting) and subsequently at the other assemblies throughout Denmark.

Canute’s  younger brother Valdemar, just 12 years old in 1182, was named Duke of Southern Jutland  ^[5] and beginning in 1184 was represented by the  regent Bishop Valdemar Knudsen, the illegitimate son of King Canute V of Denmark.

At his election as king Canute  immediately faced a peasant uprising in Skåne. The peasants refused to pay Bishop Absalon’s tithe. They met at the Skåne Assembly and chose Harald Skreng, one of Canute friends to represent them to the king to plead their case. The king refused to hear Skreng out and began to gather an army to teach the peasants their place. Before the king could muster his army, the nobles of Halland and Skåne cobbled together their own army and defeated the peasants in a bloody battle at Dösjebro (Dysjebro) in Skåne. Canute arrived with his army and proceeded to teach the peasants a lesson with fire and sword. Canute was so relentless that Bishop Absalon begged the king to desist.

Emperor Frederick Barbarossa had compelled Canute’s father to acknowledge him as overlord, and in 1184 Barbarossa sent a messenger to Canute requiring him to acknowledge the emperor as his liege. Canute failed to respond, so the emperor sent a second messenger threatening the emperor’s wrath if Canute failed to acknowledge his liege lord. Bishop Absalon replied to the messenger on behalf of Canute. “Canute is as free a king as the emperor. He has as much right to Denmark as the emperor has to the Holy Roman Empire, and so the emperor should expect no allegiance from this place.”

The emperor flew into a rage when he received Canute’s reply, but because of troubles farther south, ordered his vassal, Bogislaw I of Pomerania to invade Denmark. Duke Bogislaw, recognizing a great opportunity quickly gathered 500 ships. The first notice of the pending invasion came from Jaromar I, Prince of Rügen of who sailed to Zealand to give warning. The king was in Jutland, and so it was left to Bishop Absalon to order every available ship from Zealand, Funen and Skåne to meet him in six days. Absalon sailed for Rügen with his fleet and waited for Bugislaw to show up. When the enemy failed to appear, Absalon sent out scouts to bring word when the Pomeranian fleet arrived. He ordered his men to go ashore so he could celebrate mass on Second Easter Day. In the middle of services, one of the scouts ran into the church shouting that the enemy had been sighted through the fog. “Now will I let my sword sing the mass to the praise of God!” exclaimed Absalon as he set aside the altar implements.^[6]

The Danish fleet weighed anchor and sailed through the fog toward the Pomeranians. Bugislaw’s fleet saw nothing of the Danes until they were close enough to hear their war cries. Fear swept through the Pomeranians, and they tried to row away, but they were in such close quarters that the ships couldn’t turn. The men panicked and began jumping from ship to ship which caused eight of them to founder. The Danes threw themselves onto the ships to plunder them when Absalon shouted that they should leave the goods and go after the ships. Few complied and with just seven ships, Absalon routed the entire Pomeranian fleet, capturing 35 enemy ships. Absalon sent Bugislaw’s own great tent to Canute, who was still in Jutland. With Bugislaw’s defeat the emperor gave up, for a time, his attempt to rule Denmark.^[7]

Canute ordered two invasions of Pomerania and in 1185 forced Bogislaw to acknowledge Canute as his overlord. From that time until 1972 the kings of Denmark used the title “King of the Wends” (De Venders Koning) as part of a lengthy list of duchies, counties, and regions ruled by Danish monarchs through the centuries. Canute personally led a crusade against the pagan Estonians in 1197.^[8]

Canute’s younger brother Valdemar, Duke of Southern Jutland, was just twelve years old when his father had died in 1182 and Bishop Valdemar  Knutsen of Schleswig (1158-1236) was appointed regent until Valdemar came of age to rule.

Bishop Valdemar was ambitious and began gathering support of German nobles to support him against the king. Over the next 10 years he disguised  his own interests as those of  young Valdemar’s. Bishop Valdemar plotted with Count Adolf III of Holstein ^[9] to overthrow King Canute and set himself up as king. When Bishop Valdemar was selected as Archbishop of Lund, he spoke openly of his plans. Young Duke Valdemar asked to meet with Bishop Valdemar at Åbenrå in 1192. When the powerful bishop arrived, young Valdemar ordered his men to arrest the bishop and sent him in chains to Søborg Tower in North Zealand for the next 13 years until 1205.

Seven years later in 1199 Count Adolf tried to raise opposition to Valdemar in southern Denmark, so the young Duke attacked Adolf’s new fortress at Rendsburg.  Duke Valdemar defeated Adolf’s army in the Battle of Stellau in 1201 and captured the count.   Count Adolf  spent the next three years in Søborg Tower with the archbishop. In order to buy his freedom, the count had to turn over all his lands north of the Elbe to Duke Valdemar in 1203^[10][11][12]

Canute’s friend and chief advisor, Bishop Absalon died on 21 March 1201. He had been one of the most important figures in all of Danish history. Under King Canute VI, Absalon was the chief policymaker in Danish politics. Absalon was buried beside his father in Sorø church. His epitaph reads “a good and brave man”.   Just a year later on 12 November 1202, Canute died suddenly at age 40.

In 1177, Canute had married Gertrude (ca. 1154 – 1197)^[13][14] , daughter of Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony. She was first married to Frederick IV, Duke of Swabia in 1166 and had become a widow in 1167. During their marriage, Canute and Gertrude had no children. King Canute therefore was succeeded in 1202  by his younger brother Valdemar II of Denmark (1170–1241) who ruled from 1202 to 1241.

According to wikipedia:   Valdemar II  was the second son of the Valdemar and Sophia.  When Valdemar II was twelve years old  his father had died.  He

Gram also turns out to have been  key to military control of the surrounding area of southern Denmark.  Apparently this is because of geography.

Lybeck and Holstein turns out to be important later in the 1500’s at the time of the reformation because it was central to the count’s war  in the time of Simon Gram.

In researching the oldest Gram ancestor we could find it turns out that the period of 1460 to  1536  in Gram Denmark when Simon Gram  and his son Nihls  Simonsen lived is really the middle of the story.   But it is the  beginning  of a larger story in that it was entangled with the beginning of the Lutheran church and the protestant takeover of  Scandinavia.

A town grew up around the farm.  There is a manor house, and while it is not a turreted castle it looks quite defensible.^[15]

The farm and town are located in Gram Parish, and there is a church, Gram Kirke,  that dates from the 1400’s, perhaps earlier. The church is located  a ways down the road at what today is the west end of town.

The following is taken from a historical blog about Danish towns, castles, and churches.  It  most likely is translated from Danish to English because some of the wording seems a bit awkward.^[16]

The history of the Gram family may have been associated with the Treaty of Ribe.

The Duchy of Holstein[edit]

In 1474 Lauenburg’s liege lord, the German Emperor Frederick III, elevated Christian I as Count of Holstein-Rendsburg to Duke of Holstein, thus becoming an immediate imperial (reichsunmittelbar) vassal (see imperial immediacy). The Duchy of Holstein retained that status until the dissolution of the Empire in 1806.