ABSTRACT
Royal absolutism prevailed uninterruptedly in the Danish state from 1660 till 1848. It was established in the Royal Law of 1665, according to which the king held all legislative, executive and judicial power. He did not have to consult or ensure the consent of anyone before taking legislative initiatives, levying taxes or declaring war. In absolutist Denmark there were, until the 1830s, no parliaments, assemblies of estates or council of noblemen that had any say in political affairs.1 In a now classical formulation by a Danish historian, the Danish system of absolute government was ‘literally […] absolute as nowhere else in Christendom’.2 One would thus expect Danish absolutism to have been a system of top-down nonparticipatory rule.3 Formally, this was the case, but how did the system work in practice? What was the political culture of Danish absolutism like? − political culture here understood as the laws, norms and practices regulating the relations and interactions between the ruler and the ruled, between the administrators and the administered. The formal laws, rules and regulations can be read in various legislative and administrative sources, but the practice, the unwritten rules and norms are difficult for a historian to understand and identify.
