Introduction
In Skivebogen for 1918, author Jeppe Aakjær contributed an article about a nobleman who in the latter part of the 16th century made a very unfortunate name for himself in Skive, so Aakjær called him “a noble bandit” in his headline. Jeppe Aakjær had dug into several sources to get the whole story, and here is yours truly’s personal version of Aakjær’s account of the “bandit’s” escapades.
Lodging with the mayor
Towards Christmas in the year 1591, when darkness had already fallen in the late afternoon, the nobleman Jørgen Høg came to Skive accompanied by a man and two young people to find a place to spend the night. As a nobleman, Jørgen Høg felt that no less a person than the mayor of the town should stay, so in the evening he knocked on Mayor Svend Christensen’s door and asked to stay. The mayor’s wife, Anna, was not at all happy with the uninvited guests, as she didn’t think the house had enough room, but also because she thought the two young men in particular were drunk. In this context, it should be mentioned that being a mayor in the 16th century was not a gold mine, and in many cases the position did not come with official housing. Several of Skive’s mayors have written letters to the king over the years complaining that they could not make ends meet. Despite the lack of space and the dubious condition of the entourage, the entourage was invited inside, and when Høg wanted to go to bed later that night, he joined the mayor in the living room to say goodnight and reassure the mayor that he would pay what he owed for the stay the next morning.
The mayor shot
The mayor had now sat down at the end of the table in the living room, where he had been visited by his neighbor Jep Kock, and to him the mayor complained about the uninvited guests and said that it was too bad that you could not get peace in your own house for such an “expired” nobleman. In the meantime, Høg had made an inspection of his assigned night’s lodging, and he was so enraged by the humble conditions that he attributed to the mayor’s wife that he stormed out into the hallway and shouted outside the living room door that the mayor should come out to him with the threat of “hunting a thousand hells” at him, which was basically a threat on his life. On top of this rant, Peder Christensen stood up, but he only just made it to the door before a shot rang out and a bullet went through the door and hit the mayor in the stomach, killing him. The neighbors, who had heard the shot, could later find out at the coroner’s inquest that Peder Christensen had been hit by 18 bullets – most likely from a shotgun – in the stomach, but also a maid who had been in the living room during the shooting had been hit and received a “hole in the arm”. Naturally, there was great “wailing” and commotion in the house, and attempts were made to get information about the perpetrator’s place of residence, but in vain, as he replied that he had no place of residence. In the confusion, the hawk quickly disappeared from the crime scene on horseback into the darkness.
From death sentence to deportation
Thirteen weeks after the sad event, Jørgen Høg was arrested and imprisoned, and a year later he was sentenced to death by beheading by Christian the Fourth himself. According to a royal letter, the sentence was passed on June 5, 1592, but in the meantime, some of the nobility – especially the “Ladies and Maidens of the Nobility” – had written a letter begging the king to pardon Jørgen Høg on the grounds that the deceased mayor’s family and relatives would receive adequate compensation and that Jørgen Høg would leave the country. The letter had its effect, because the day after the sentence was passed, the king issued a new sentence in which Jørgen Høg escaped with his life in exchange for Peder Christensen’s family receiving adequate compensation and that he himself had left Denmark within six weeks to go to war against the Turks for a period of four years and then never appear in Denmark again. If he violated the ban, he would be executed. On June 7, 1592, Jørgen Høg signed the sentence document himself.
Høg spotted in Northern Jutland
Now you might be led to believe that Jørgen Høg had complied with the sentence and gone into exile as a precaution, but according to letters from the Royal Chancellery dated 6 March 1594, almost two years after the sentence, he was spotted in Northern Jutland, so the king authorized a certain citizen of Kolding named Anders Brun to go to Thy, Hardsyssel and Mors, among other places, to apprehend Høg with the help of other officials and bring him to the king. However, Brun had to leave with unfinished business, as Høg was nowhere to be found.
Høg in Sweden
The next time the banished Høg appeared in the cancelli letters was on March 6, 1594, which stated that Jørgen Høg was in Sweden in a town called Nyløse, where he had “beguiled” a woman and married her. (Nyløse was at that time a town in West Götaland, but today more or less a district of the city of Gothenburg.) When the king received this letter, he was so angry that he immediately issued an arrest warrant for Høg, this time authorizing a merchant named Peder Frandsen to apprehend Høg with the help of other officials and ordering the Swedish sheriff of Elsborg and the mayor of Nyløse to assist with the arrest. The Danish King Chr. 4 expected that the Swedish King Sigismund (1592-1599) or a certain Duke Carl would ultimately be responsible for the execution of Høg. The Swedes tried to help with the arrest of Høg by sending a couple of Swedish noblemen to Nyløse to apprehend Jørgen Høg, but as some Swedish letters in the National Archives show, they were somewhat reluctant to comply with the order and failed to arrest Høg. In a letter, the two noblemen explained to the Danish king that although Høg lived in Nyløse, he was “poor and impoverished” and had not dared to go to war against the Turks. However, he had offered to serve the Swedes against the Russians, so the two noblemen saw no reason to arrest Høg as he would now serve the Swedes. Jørgen Høg thus remained a free man in Sweden and did not go to war for the Swedes against the Russians. In addition to being exiled, he was not punished for his mortal sin against the poor mayor of Skive and thus escaped and avoided two death sentences. As Jeppe Aakjær put it. “The devil hides his…”
The noble Høg family and the Skive region
Aakjær has dug up a lot of information about the nobleman and ‘bandit’ Jørgen Høg in connection with the murder of Skive’s mayor. Jørgen Høg’s father was the nobleman Albert Høg of the Nørgaard estate near Randers. However, he had died during the Seven Years’ War (1563-1570) in 1566, when most of the Danish fleet was lost near Gotland in a storm in which 4000 Danish sailors were lost. His mother was Anne Madsdatter, who came from Estvadgaard south of Skive, but she was not just anyone, as she was “an early fruit” of the Holstebro priest, Magister Mads Hvid, and the “noble spinster” Lene Olufdatter Gyldenstjerne. Jørgen Høg’s parents were married in 1545, but it didn’t go quietly as the bride’s noble family believed that Anne had married below her station (the priest). The biggest opposition to the wedding came from the owner of the Primdal estate in Rønbjerg parish, which Aakjær described as a “manageable estate”. In any case, Jørgen Høg had a connection to the Skive region by virtue of his mother’s origins at Estvadgaard and the Gyldenstjerne family at Primdal, and this was perhaps why he had sought Skive that winter day in 1591. The area did not have good experiences with the Høg family, as the following information about Jørgen Høg’s younger brother shows.
Jørgen Høg had a younger brother, junker Erik Høg, who made a violent name for himself early in his career when in 1578 he helped the lord of Primdal (also a Gyldenstjerne) to beat up the local priest Peder Lauritsen, so the priest was very badly injured. However, the young junker escaped punishment due to his young age. His older brother couldn’t use that excuse when he killed Peder Christensen thirteen years later.
Aakjær’s sources
Jeppe Aakjær had initially read the actual account of the murder of Mayor Peder Christensen in Skive Dagblad from October 22, 1907 about hotel life in old Skive, but when he read the same article again the following year in one of the Skive newspapers, he became curious to find the original source. In the 1908 edition of the article, a certain P. Martinussen was listed as the author of the article, so in 1913 Aakjær wrote a postcard to this P. Martinussen, who lived in Horsens. A week later, he received a reply from P. Martinussen, who told him that during a visit to Skive in 1882-83, he found an old, worn-out and more or less destroyed book with the title “Optegnelser om nogle synderlige Begivenheder i Skiffue i en gammel Tid. Compiled by J-Chri-n”. Martinussen was allowed to borrow the book for a closer look and found the account of the murder of Skive’s mayor between lists of priests, grain prices, deaths, etc. Martinussen was convinced that the author of the original account was a scribe in Skive who had also been a scribe in Spøttrup. Whether this scribe had been at the same time or around the same time as the event in 1591 is not known, but Martinussen returned the book to the merchant, who was thus the last owner of the book. Merchant Boserup was long dead by then, and Aakjær’s attempts to get information from the family about the book were in vain. However, a former customer of the merchant told him that more than ten sacks of paper had been taken to the landfill after Boserup’s death, which made Aakjær think of the owner of Stubbergaard in the years 1836-70, also named Boserup. He had just had the entire old monastery archive dumped in the lake. Aakjær could not hope to get hold of the original source for the account of Jørgen Høg’s misdeeds in Skive. Aakjær also had the background material about Jørgen Høg’s family and lineage from P. Martinussen in Horsens.
Spectacular drama
It’s easy to understand why Jeppe Aakjær was interested in this spectacular and dramatic story. First of all, the murder itself and the way it happens is very dramatic and has several elements of the crime genre, such as the arrival of the uninvited guests in the dark, the guests’ questionable behavior, the mayor’s wife’s refusal to give them shelter, etc. The situation escalates when Høg throws a tantrum and shouts and threatens the mayor’s life outside the door, culminating when the mayor stands up, the shot rings out, the bullet shatters the door and the mayor falls down. Jørgen Høg also seems like an interesting character that could have been taken from the world of fiction. He belongs to the nobility and as such is surrounded by a romantic notion, but the image is shattered and he emerges as an impoverished and raw simple figure with a temperament that makes him a killer. Subsequently, there is also a hint of a robber and adventurous character a la Jens Langkniv, who despite several death sentences defies and cheats the authorities with his life at stake. You can’t help but feel a certain amount of sympathy for him when the Swedes refrain from arresting and executing him at the Danish king’s request on the grounds that he was, among other things, poor and that it would be “just as well” if he went to war against the Turks or Russians. That the Swedes were somewhat reluctant to help the Danes is understandable, as it was not many years ago that the Swedes and Danes had fought a long war (The Great Northern War 1563-70) against each other, resulting in heavy losses for both sides. It would be interesting to know what happened to this failed nobleman later in life. Did he stay and die in Sweden….???