english summary 461 a more far-reaching centralization of the naval levy under royal power in Norway than in Denmark. The study of the law material shows that the king’s authority in military matters took partly different forms and differed in scope in the Scandinavian countries. Although the military resources of the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish kings—with minor variations—can be divided into the naval levy (Sw. ledung), the coastguard, the home guard (Sw. landvärn), the royal retinue (Sw. hird), and the noble cavalry, the focus is on the naval levy since this is the military institution that the laws primarily regulate. In all three Scandinavian countries the royal command included the right to organize, lead, and mobilize the naval levy. In all three kingdoms, likewise, the control over armed forces, and the right to collect taxes for this purpose, took place within the framework of institutionalized systems. The Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish medieval laws all give the king the right to command the armed forces, a right which generally grew over time; the royal command is mainly reflected in the right to mobilize and lead the naval levy. In the law texts we see an increasing degree of royal monopoly on the possession and use of military force within agiven territory. This concentration of military resources in the person of the king encountered resistance, however, and depending on the power relations, it was achieved to differing extents. In all three Scandinavian kingdoms the naval levy consisted of both a duty to perform military service and a permanent tax, and there was everywhere a gradual shift from the former to the latter. This process, however, was least evident in Norway. In the course of the thirteenth century those who did qualified military service on horseback were exempted from royal taxation in both Denmark and Sweden, but the tax exemption was on a smaller scale in Norway. The duty to provide personal military service decreased through time, but institutionalized systems for guard duty and control of compulsory weapon ownership among the people persisted. To sum up, the royal control of military resources was strongest in Norway and weakest in Denmark. Certain inter-Scandinavian differences are particularly worth emphasizing. Both the Norwegian and the Swedish king had the right to freely appoint the captain (Sw. styrman) of the ships, but in Denmark the post of captain was hereditary. The coastguard was regulated in law in Norway and Sweden but not in Denmark. The Norwegian laws regulated the organization of the armed forces in much more detail than the Danish or Swedish counterparts. There were many more penalties, and they were harsher, for crimes against military obligations in the Norwegian laws
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