Over the 300 years covered by this survey, the Danish realm went from being a major power in the northern Europe to a new status as one of the smallest countries in Europe. In the late sixteenth century the Danish king ruled present-day Denmark, Norway, southern and western Sweden, Germany north of Hamburg and Lübeck, and the islands in the northern Atlantic - Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroes. A series of political disasters led to the loss of the Swedish provinces in the mid-seventeenth century, Norway in 1814, and the German provinces in 1864.

These changes had a deep impact on Danish maritime history and in some cases make it difficult to analyze long-run tendencies, especially when dealing with the navy, which always has had its main base in Copenhagen despite having to protect the whole realm; its tasks in the early period obviously differed decisively from those of the nineteenth century. Moreover, the maritime traditions of the various provinces have been very different: some have a coastal population, while others have almost no connection to the sea.

To get as homogeneous an area as possible for the entire period, we will deal only with Denmark proper, i.e., the area north of the Kongeâ, which was Danish after 1864. This gives a natural delimitation as far as the merchant marine and the fishing fleet are concerned, whereas there is a break regarding the navy in 1813, because the loss of Norway meant that it was reduced to a much smaller size.

Danish Maritime History: A Research Review

The only comprehensive Danish maritime history which also covers deep-sea fishing and whaling was published in 1919. It was rather heterogeneous with regard to topics treated: while some chapters were based on new research, others were more popular and impressionistic. The main emphasis was on maritime trades, but some chapters dealt with ship construction, navigation, lights and buoys services, and marine insurance. The labour market for sailors, their lives at sea, and their careers were on the other hand only treated cursorily.

Later books dealing with longer periods of Danish maritime history are mainly short surveys and do not add much to our understanding of shipping, trades, or recruitment of crews.