Portal:Denmark/Selected article/Week 25, 2006



The Count's Feud (Danish Grevens Fejde), also called the Count's War, was a civil war that raged in Denmark in 1534–1536 and brought about the Reformation in Denmark.

The Count's Feud takes its name from the Protestant Count Christopher of Oldenburg, who supported the Catholic King Christian II, deposed in 1523 and at that time being held in prison.

After Frederick I's death in 1533, the Jutland nobility proclaimed his son, then Duke Christian of Gottorp, as King under the name Christian III. Meanwhile, Count Christoffer organized an uprising against the new king, demanding that Christian II be set free. Supported by Lübeck and troops from Oldenburg and Mecklenburg, parts of the Zealand and Scania nobilities rose up, together with cities such as Copenhagen and Malmö. The violence itself began in 1534, when a privateer captain who had earlier been in Christian II's service, Klemen Andersen, called Skipper Clement, at Count Christoffer's request instigated the peasants of Vendsyssel and North Jutland to rise up against the nobles. The headquarters for the revolt came to be in Aalborg. A large number of plantations were burned down in northern and western Jutland.

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