From protection to privileges - forsvar and herligheder : concept analysis as social history, Denmark-Scania 1450-1650

This is a study of the Danish nobility in the period 1450-1650. The aim is to show the changes in the socio-economic foundations of this group under advance during the period, and how this corresponded with changes in the methods and articulations which were used to create legitimicy för the nobility and its' resource claims. Among else we can see that the discourse supposed to ground the legitimacy of the Estate changed from a stress on the nobility as a group of protectors of their subjects to an increasing understanding of the nobility as an Estate of owners of private property. The idea of noble private property was at the same time to a large degree guaranteed by royal privileges, which complicates our understanding of the development of the idea of property