In the standard
historical narrative, the fifteenth century marked a time when science and
cartography were closely linked as maps were portrayed as becoming increasingly
scientific and accurate reflections of geographical reality. However, most recent historians have countered
this idea, asserting that “cartography is primarily a form of political
discourse concerned with the acquisition and maintenance of power.”[1]
However, the characterization of a ‘scientific map,’ widely accepted in Early
Modern Europe, led to widespread use of maps as political tools in state
formation, territorial disputes and boundary negotiations. A particularly famous example of the authority
that political figures gave to maps was the famed Treaty of Tordesillas in
1494, which split colonizing rights of the non-European world between Spain and
Portugal. After 1494, several different maps emerged placing the Spice Islands
on various sides of the demarcation in order for one country or another to
assert their sovereignty. However, maps were not only used in determining the
shape of the New World, but were quite more often utilized to show the scope of
an individual country. Rulers frequently commissioned national maps and
cartography “became inseparable from the affirmation of monarchic power.”[2]
In Denmark, the political function of maps arose much later in the Renaissance,
near the late sixteenth century. Prior to this, though many maps of Scandinavia
existed, they were primarily in the domain of Dutch mapmakers who created maps for
mass consumption. For the Danish monarchy, maps centralized knowledge of the
territory which soon let to a series of political shifts to regain lost
territories, improve and expand parts of the country and gave the king a tool
for absolutist authority.
In
Monarchs Ministers and Maps: The
Emergence of Cartography as a Tool of the Government in Early Modern Europe[3],
a series of historians examine the shift in authority granted to maps from the
late early fourteenth century when monarchs did not use maps for practical
purposes to the early eighteenth century, when maps were common administrative
tools. Examining several different countries, the
authors cite centralization of political power as a key reason that monarchs
became more interested in maps. Presenting surveys of Austria, the Spanish
Hapsburgs, Italy, Spain, France and Poland, they do not address any
Scandinavian nation. This does not detract from the book, which is not intended
to be an encyclopedia. As such, if does not contrast any assertion that rather
than being used because of centralized power, maps in Denmark specifically were
used to centralize power due to the unique political position it held in the
sixteenth century. Until 1523, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland
were united under the Kalmar Union. After breaking up due to internal strife,
Christian III settled on the throne of Denmark and asked Marcus Jordon, a
mathematics professor at the University of Copenhagen, to map “all the
kingdom’s provinces, islands, towns, castles, monasteries, estates, coastlines,
and anything else worth noticing.”[4]
Political boundaries were not defined and in several cartographic exchanges
with Sweden, the earliest maps of self-made government sanctioned maps of
Scandinavia were created, though they were often crude, based on Dutch maps,
and sometimes drawn freehand. These territorial disputes were not easily
settled and in the early seventeenth century Christian IV commissioned expeditions
to the North Atlantic to produce maps of Greenland, Iceland, and North America.
Before this time, all territorial claims were based on maps created by Dutch
cartographers.[5] Both
land and sea maps of disputed Danish territory suddenly proliferated in the
early years of the seventeenth century. This time of maps, originating in the
mid-sixteenth century also initiated a series of events used by the Danish
government to consolidate power.
The
first development in the Danish road to absolutism through maps seems
disconnected from cartography at first glance. After the dissolution of the
Kalmar Union and the resulting civil war, Christian III charged the powerful
Catholic bishops with high treason and placed himself at the head of the
Protestant Church. This stripped competing territoriality away from people
outside the royal family and placed lands, previously sovereign to religious
authority, into the hands of the monarchy, giving the king greater claims to
Danish land.[6]
Then, he began to use maps to create fortification plans for various towns and
castles, presumably to stronghold his power. This tradition of fortified city
maps continued well into the seventeenth century. At this point, engineers not
only used maps to create stronger cities, but also to write in future
development of the city. Additionally, in the mid seventeenth century, the
Danish government employed land surveys to improve roads, collect taxes and
extend a uniform code of law. This period of consolidation culminated in
Christian V’s Land Register of 1687 which provided a uniform registration of
all Danish territory.[7]
This resulted in the state “possessing” the authorship of the cartographic
representations and Copenhagen becoming a seat of the state to expand control
and power.
Clearly in Early
Modern Europe, the role of cartography shifted to be a political tool of the
state. According to many scholars, this was due to the overall trend of
government centralization in the Renaissance.
Though Denmark did undergo some in the late sixteenth century, the early
and mid were characterized by disunification and civil strife. With the scientific authority granted to
maps, especially as they were more frequently authored by the state, maps
enabled the throne to achieve the administrative tasks necessary in
consolidating power while extending territory in the creation of a new state.
[1] Quoted in Turnbull, David. "Cartography and
Science in Early Modern Europe: Mapping the Construction of Knowledge
Spaces." Imago Mundi 48.(1996): 5-24. JSTOR Arts & Sciences
VII. EBSCO. Web. 3 Mar. 2011 p. 6
[2] Turnbull p. 16
[3] Buisseret, David. Monarchs, ministers, and maps :
the emergence of cartography as a tool of government in early modern Europe /
edited by David Buisseret. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, c1992.,
1992. UNIV OF OKLAHOMA LIBRARIES's Catalog. EBSCO. Web. 3 Mar. 2011.
[4] Strandsbjerg, Jeppe. "The Cartographic Production
of Territorial Space: Mapping and State Formation in Early Modern
Denmark." Geopolitics 13.2 (2008): 335-358. Academic Search
Premier. EBSCO. Web. 3 Mar. 2011. P. 348
[5] Harley, J B, and David Woodward. The History of
Cartography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. Print p. 1792
[6] Strandsbjerg, 348
[7] Ibid 353
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