Northwest Europe (1396–1539 CE): North Sea Commons, Island Kingdoms, and Tudor Beginnings

Geographic & Environmental Context

The subregion of Northwest Europe includes the British–Irish archipelago, Iceland and the Faroes, and the ocean-facing rims of western Norway and western Denmark. Anchors span the North Atlantic fisheries (Iceland, Faroes, Shetland–Orkney), the North Sea littoral (Jutland, Yorkshire–East Anglia, Firths of Forth and Clyde), the Irish Sea and Channel approaches, and inland cores such as the Thames–Severn lowlands, Scottish Highlands/Islands, and Irish midlands. River corridors (Thames, Severn, Humber), firths, and sounds tied agrarian interiors to maritime trade, while the Norwegian fjords and Jutland bights faced wind-heavy seas.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

The Little Ice Age sharpened cold and storminess:

• North Atlantic fringe (Iceland, Faroes, west Norway): longer sea-ice seasons and harsher gales; erratic cod/herring runs shaped fishing booms and busts.

• Britain & Ireland: cooler winters, wet summers in some decades; harvest failures recurred locally; severe storms and surges disrupted coasts.

• Jutland & North Sea: shifting bars and storm surges altered havens; dunes advanced on exposed shores.
  Despite volatility, fisheries and mixed husbandry buffered many communities.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Lowland farms (England, eastern Ireland, Jutland): wheat, rye, barley, oats; cattle, sheep, and dairying; open-field systems persisted in much of England, while enclosed demesnes and pastures spread unevenly.

• Uplands & isles (Scotland, Wales, west Ireland, Norway): oats, barley, stock-rearing, and transhumant dairying; peat fuel; kelp and shore-gathering in island economies.

• Iceland & Faroes: subsistence grain marginal; livelihoods centered on cod, dried fish, seabirds, sheep, and trade with Bergen–Hanse merchants.

• Towns & ports: London (Thames) surged as a staple market; York, Bristol, Dublin, Cork, Edinburgh/Leith, Aberdeen, Bergen, and Aalborg tied hinterlands to sea lanes.

Technology & Material Culture

• Maritime craft: clinker-built hulks and cogs gave way to round-hulled naos and early caravels; North Sea sailing rigs adapted to shoals and tides; Icelandic and Norse open boats remained crucial.

• Arms & fortification: English longbow remained decisive into the mid-15th century; early handguns and field guns appeared; castles evolved toward gun-forts and, in Scotland/Ireland, tower houses.

• Print & craft: William Caxton introduced printing to England (1476); cloth finishing (East Anglia, Yorkshire), tin/lead (Cornwall), and shipwrighting expanded.

• Architecture & art: Perpendicular Gothic in England; late medieval parish art in Ireland; stave-church legacies and stone churches in west Norway; bardic manuscripts in Gaelic lands; saga copying continued in Icelandic scriptoria.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• North Sea/Irish Sea lanes: carried wool, cloth, salt fish (herring, cod), wine, salt, and iron; London, Hull, and east-coast ports linked to Hanseatic towns and Bergen’s fish market.

• Atlantic ventures: Bristol merchants probed western waters; John Cabot’s voyage (1497) opened English awareness of Newfoundland’s cod banks.

• Fjord & Jutland coasts: Bergen–Hanse convoy cycles and Jutland’s cattle/grain exports sustained Norway–Denmark’s Atlantic rim.

• Isles networks: Birlinn and galley traffic knit Hebrides, Islay, Kintyre, Man, and Ulster; inter-island lordships balanced sea power and kin ties.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• Monarchy & law: English common law courts stabilized after civil war; Scottish kings balanced Highland/Lowland blocs; Gaelic lordships in Ireland maintained Brehon law and bardic patronage alongside the English Pale.

• Language & letters: Middle English matured into Tudor English; Scots literature flourished (Dunbar, Henryson); Gaelic poetry remained courtly and genealogical; Icelandic annals and sagas preserved memory.

• Devotion & reform: Late medieval piety—guild altars, pilgrimages (St. Andrews, Walsingham, St. David’s)—coexisted with early humanism; by the 1530s, England’s break with Rome began to reorder ritual and property.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

• Mixed portfolios: grain–livestock rotations, dairying, and woodland management hedged climatic risk; parish granaries and seigneurial stores mitigated famine.

• Fisheries & curing: salt fish, stockfish, and barrelled herring stabilized caloric intake and trade; salt-pan and coopers’ crafts were critical.

• Field systems & enclosure: commons and open fields balanced with piecemeal enclosure to protect flocks and improve yields; drainage in fens and dike work on exposed coasts guarded arable.

• Island adaptations: peat, driftwood, and turf for fuel; drying sheds and fish lofts; seasonal transhumance to shielings.

Technology & Power Shifts (Conflict Dynamics)

• Hundred Years’ War (to 1453): English chevauchées faded after Joan of Arc’s campaigns (1429); defeat at Castillon (1453) ended English rule in France, redirecting power struggles homeward.

• Wars of the Roses (1455–1487): Yorkist–Lancastrian civil war saw set-piece battles—Towton (1461), Tewkesbury (1471)—culminating in Tudor victory at Bosworth Field (1485); Henry VII stabilized crown finances and order.

• Anglo-Scottish warpoints: Border raids persisted; Scotland’s defeat at Flodden (1513) killed James IV, reshaping regency politics.

• Ireland: Tudor authority remained thin beyond the Pale; Gaelic confederacies and earldoms contested royal initiatives; intermittent wars foreshadowed later Tudor conquest.

• Scandinavia: Denmark–Norway ruled the Atlantic rim; Bergen’s Hanse links endured; the Count’s Feud (1534–1536) in Denmark–Norway (closing years of this age) ushered in the Lutheran Reformation and tighter royal control.

• Sea conflict: Privateering and piracy flickered in the Channel and North Sea; naval gunnery began to matter in convoy defense.

Transition

By 1539 CE, Northwest Europe had shifted from external continental wars to internal consolidation and oceanic horizons. England emerged under the Tudors with an embryonic navy and a royal church; Scotland balanced Franco-Scottish ties after Flodden; Ireland’s patchwork lordships and the Pale foreshadowed Tudor campaigns; Denmark–Norway steered the North Atlantic trades toward Lutheran monarchy; Iceland and the Faroes remained fishing outposts within this orbit. Fisheries, wool–cloth trades, and mixed husbandry underwrote resilience in a stormier climate, while printing and court centralization set the stage for later religious and imperial transformations.

Catherine is banished from court in 1530 and spends the remainder of her life (until her death in 1536) alone in an isolated manor home, barred from any contact with Mary (although her ladies-in-waiting help the two maintain a secret correspondence).

Their marriage is declared invalid, making Mary an illegitimate child.

Henry marries Anne Boleyn in secret in January 1533, just as his divorce from Catherine is finalized.

After this, they have a second, public wedding.

Anne soon becomes pregnant and may have already been when they wed, but on September 7, 1533, she gives birth to a daughter, Elizabeth.

The king is devastated at his failure to obtain a son after all the effort it had taken to remarry.

Gradually, he comes to develop a disliking of his new queen for her strange behavior.

In 1536, when Anne is pregnant again, Henry is badly injured in a jousting accident.

Shaken by this, the queen gives birth prematurely to a stillborn boy.

By now, the king is convinced that his marriage is hexed, and having already found a new queen, Jane Seymour, he puts Anne in the Tower of London on charges of witchcraft.

She is afterward beheaded along with five men (her brother included) accused of adultery with her.

The marriage is now declared invalid, so that Elizabeth, just like her half sister, becomes a bastard.

Death of Louis XII and Accession of Francis I (1515)

The death of Louis XII of France on January 1, 1515, marked a significant political turning point in French history, ending the reign of a king who, despite repeated military setbacks abroad, remained widely popular domestically due to his moderate taxation policies and opportunities provided to the nobility for military distinction.

Context and Circumstances of Louis XII’s Death

By 1514, Louis XII—still without a living male heir despite two previous marriages—had entered into a politically advantageous third marriage with the eighteen-year-old English princess Mary Tudor, younger sister of King Henry VIII. The match aimed primarily to secure the succession through the birth of a son. However, Louis XII’s health rapidly deteriorated after the wedding; his death, occurring less than three months later, was attributed by contemporary rumor to exhaustion from the demands of his youthful bride.

Louis XII died without securing a male heir, leaving behind only two daughters from his second marriage to Anne of Brittany: Claude and Renée.

Succession of Francis I and Political Transition

With Louis XII’s death, the throne passed to his twenty-year-old cousin, François d’Angoulême, Count of Angoulême, who had strategically married Louis's daughter, Claude, the previous year. François assumed the throne as Francis I, marking the accession of a vibrant, youthful ruler whose reign would dramatically reshape France politically, culturally, and militarily.

Francis, recognizing the diplomatic value of Mary Tudor, immediately sought to arrange a politically advantageous second marriage for the widowed queen, though she would soon choose her own path.

Governance by Louise of Savoy

Upon the accession of her son Francis I, Louise of Savoy, daughter of Duke Philippe II of Savoy and mother of Francis and his influential sister Marguerite de Navarre, became a central figure in governance. Louise possessed notable political acumen, developed through her longstanding presence at court and extensive education in humanist principles.

Her role expanded significantly when Francis departed for Italy during the Italian Wars of 1515–1516. During his absence, Louise governed effectively as regent, demonstrating considerable diplomatic and administrative skill.

Long-Term Significance and Consequences

Louis XII’s death and the rise of Francis I heralded a new era in French history. Francis’s reign saw intensified engagement in the Italian Wars, greatly accelerating the introduction of Italian Renaissance culture to France. His patronage of the arts, architecture, and scholarship transformed the French court into a vibrant center of Renaissance humanism and innovation.

Meanwhile, Louise of Savoy’s influential regency set important precedents for female political participation in the governance of France. Her management of the kingdom during critical periods of her son’s reign contributed significantly to the stability and prestige of the French monarchy.

The succession of Francis I, facilitated by Louis XII’s lack of heirs, thus represented a critical turning point, reshaping not only France's political landscape but also its cultural trajectory toward a distinctly French Renaissance identity.

The Treaty of the More, concluded on August 30, 1525, between Henry VIII of England and the interim French government of Louise of Savoy, is celebrated by Henry and the French ambassadors at The More, Hertfordshire, a castle owned by Cardinal Wolsey, Henry's chief minister.

England, with Wolsey negotiating, agrees to give up some territorial claims on France, receiving in return a pension from the French of twenty thousand pounds a year.

France settles what is owed to Henry VIII's sister, Mary, dowager queen of France.

England also agrees to work to secure the release of King Francis of France, currently held prisoner by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain.

England has been troubled by the threat of a renewal of the "Auld Alliance" between France and Scotland, and France agrees to prevent the Scottish Duke of Albany from returning to Scotland.

Henry had been conducting an affair with Mary Boleyn, lady-in-waiting to his wife Catherine of Aragon There has been speculation that Mary's two children, Catherine and Henry Carey, were fathered by Henry, but this has never been proved and the King never acknowledged them as he did Henry FitzRoy, his six-year-old son by his former mistress, Elizabeth Blount.

As Henry in 1525 grows more impatient with Catherine's inability to produce the male heir he desires, he becomes enamored of Mary's sister, Anne, a charismatic young woman of twenty-five in the Queen's entourage.

Anne, however, resists his attempts to seduce her, and refuses to become his mistress as her sister Mary Boleyn had.

It is in this context that Henry considers his three options for finding a dynastic successor and hence resolving what will come to be described at court as the King's "great matter".

These options are legitimizing Henry FitzRoy, which would take the intervention of the pope and would be open to challenge; marrying off Mary as soon as possible and hoping for a grandson to inherit directly, but Mary is considered unlikely to conceive before Henry's death; or somehow rejecting Catherine and marrying someone else of childbearing age.

Probably seeing the possibility of marrying Anne, the third is ultimately the most attractive possibility to the thirty-four-year-old Henry, and it soon becomes the King's absorbing desire to annul his marriage to the now forty-year-old Catherine.

It is a decision that will see Henry reject papal authority and initiate the English Reformation.

Henry VIII has been happy with Catherine of Aragon for a number of years, but is concerned because Catherine, forty-two in 1527, has borne no male heir to continue the Tudor line.

She has produced six children, two of them boys, but all had been stillborn or died in infancy except Mary, born in 1516, and Catherine’s physical condition clearly will no longer allow her to bear children.

Henry concludes, through his reading of the biblical Leviticus 20:21, forbidding marriage to a dead brother’s widow, that his marriage displeases God.

He therefore orders his chief minister, Cardinal Wolsey, to approach the papacy for a decree that the marriage is invalid and that Henry is free to marry again.

Henry has by this time fallen in love with twenty-six-year-old Anne Boleyn, the niece of Thomas Howard, third duke of Norfolk.

Pope Clement VII procrastinates over the annulment, which Catherine opposes, as does her nephew Charles V, Holy Roman emperor and king of Spain.

Because Charles dominates Italy during this period, Clement is unable to grant Henry's request.

In going public, all hope of tempting Catherine to retire to a nunnery or otherwise stay quiet is lost.

Henry had sent his secretary, William Knight, to appeal directly to the Holy See by way of a deceptively worded draft papal bull.

Knight has been unsuccessful; the Pope cannot be misled so easily.

Thomas More, meanwhile, refuses to endorse Henry's plan to divorce Catherine.

The disease known as the sweating sickness recurs in 1528 for the fourth time, and with great severity.

First appearing in London at the end of May, it spreads rapidly throughout England, though not into Scotland or Ireland.

Many people in Henry VIII's court fall ill with the disease.

Henry, who develops a morbid fear of contracting the disease, changes residences every other day in an effort to avoid coming within contact with those of his court who become infected.

He also busies himself with a study of the disease and its purported cures, such as herbs laced with molasses and bleeding from certain points on the body (the arm, between the thumb and forefinger, or between the shoulders).

Du Bellai, the French Ambassador to the English court in 1528, writes,

"...One of the filles de chambre of Mlle Boleyn was attacked on Tuesday by the sweating sickness.

The King left in great haste, and went a dozen miles off...This disease is the easiest in the world to die of.

You have a slight pain in the head and at the heart; all at once you begin to sweat.

There is no need for a physician: for if you uncover yourself the least in the world, or cover yourself a little too much, you are taken off without languishing.

It is true that if you merely put your hand out of bed during the first 24 hours...you become stiff as a poker".

To make matters worse, England in 1528 experiences an epidemic of bubonic plague.

Parliament at Cromwell’s direction passes the Act in Restraint of Appeals (to Rome) in January 1533, calling for England’s break with the papacy.

Henry VIII therefore has Thomas Cranmer, newly created Archbishop of Canterbury, pronounce, without reference to the pope, the annulment of Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

Catherine is forced into retirement and, almost immediately, Henry weds the object of his infatuation, twenty-six-year-old Anne Boleyn, a niece of Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk.

The Church of England is thus informally established as an independent national church, no longer in communion with the Roman Catholic church or the pope.

Anne gives birth on September 7, but the child is not the English king’s long-sought male heir.

The child is named Elizabeth, and Henry consoles himself with the idea that Anne will soon produce a healthy son.

Elizabeth is declared heir to the throne in place of Catherine's daughter, Mary, who is now regarded as illegitimate.

Henry VIII’s 1534 Act of Supremacy separates the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church.

Parliament recognizes Henry VIII as Supreme Head of the Church of England and, with the Act in Restraint of Appeals in 1532, has abolished the right of appeal to Rome.

It is only now that Pope Clement takes the step of excommunicating Henry and Thomas Cranmer, although the excommunication will not be not made official until some time later.

Henry has thus established a state church and placed ecclesiastical structures under the authority of the crown.

In many German principalities the same Protestant principle is enshrined through the formula “cuius regio eius religio,” or "to each prince his own religion."

The dominant religion, in other words, is to conform to that of the secular ruler.

Opposition to Henry's religious policies is quickly suppressed in England.

A number of dissenting monks, including the first Carthusian Martyrs, are executed and many more pilloried.

The most prominent resisters include John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, both of whom refuse to take the oath to the King.

Fisher, who has maintained his interest in education and humanism throughout his life, has reacted strongly against the spread of Lutheranism in England, and was openly opposed to the dissolution of Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

He refuses to recognize royal supremacy and the end of papal jurisdiction over the church in England.

Neither Henry nor Cromwell seek to have the men executed; rather, they hope that the two might change their minds and save themselves.

Fisher has openly rejected Henry as supreme head of the Church, but More is careful to avoid openly breaking the Treason Act, which (unlike later acts) does not forbid mere silence.

More, while imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1534, writes A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation, a reflection on worldly power, the transience of pleasure, and the redemptive power of Jesus Christ.

It is cast in the form of a fictional dialogue, supposedly taking place in Hungary during the Ottoman conquests.

While it is a work of spiritual reflection, the treatment of themes of worldly power by a Christian humanist who had also been a leading statesman means that the book is also counted as a work of political thought.

It will see posthumous publication in 1555.

The king and queen are not pleased with married life.

The royal couple enjoy periods of calm and affection, but Anne refuses to play the submissive role expected of her.

The vivacity and opinionated intellect that had made her so attractive as an illicit lover makes her too independent for the largely ceremonial role of a royal wife and it makes her many enemies.

For his part, Henry dislikes Anne's constant irritability and violent temper.

After a false pregnancy or miscarriage in 1534, he sees her failure to give him a son as a betrayal.

Henry as early as Christmas 1534 is discussing with Cranmer and Cromwell the chances of leaving Anne without having to return to Catherine.