Keeping the Peace

‘Good police’ and civic order in 18th‐century Copenhagen

Bibliographic Data

ID11992581
AuthorsThomas Munck (0000-0002-8856-4112, University of Glasgow, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume32
Issue1
Pages38-62
Publication date2007-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueScandinavian Journal of History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0346-8755 • E-ISSN: 1502-7716
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03468750601159980
OpenAlexW1810677972
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited30

This paper locates the emerging professional police force in Copenhagen both in a European‐wide context and in the context of Danish absolute monarchy between 1660 and 1799. The surviving source material on the activities of the new police force itself (from 1683) is reviewed, but the notion of ‘good police’ is placed in a much broader early modern framework involving not only daily security in the city, and matters of criminal and civil law arising naturally in a growing urban environment, but also the relationship between the police master and the many other existing agents of domestic policy in early modern Denmark. The role of ‘good police’ in terms of begging, vagrancy and the workhouse conform largely to contemporary European patterns, but when the police was also (from 1773) given powers to control newspapers and the press, questions of civil rights and obligations were bound to be raised – not least once public opinion became fully aware that the mental condition of Christian VII meant that absolutism could not operate in the normal way. Although the Copenhagen police provided a tool for more co‐ordinated implementation of social policy in the 18th century, there were no sudden changes in domestic agenda. Keywords: Police (18th century)enlightenmentDenmark Notes 1. A wide range of recent work on this, in relation to France, is discussed in CitationBeik, “The Absolutism of Louis XIV”, 195–224. With neither parlements nor provincial Estates at their disposal, the Danish‐Norwegian elite made the most of royal offices, personal provincial power‐networks, and other opportunities in order to ensure effective influence on the system, as argued notably by CitationLøgstrup, Jorddrot og offentlig administrator, and more briefly in “The Landowner as Public Administrator”, 283–312. 2. A comparative view of regulation and ‘good police’ was provided by CitationRaeff, The well‐ordered Police State, a generation ago. On France, see notably CitationGarrioch, “The People of Paris and their Police”, 511–35; CitationHervé, “L'ordre à Paris au xviiie siècle”, 185–214; and CitationWilliams, The Police of Paris. The apparent contrast between paid forces of this kind, and the less centralized and often volunteer constables of England before the Metropolitan Police was founded in 1829, is less than was once assumed: see CitationReynolds, Before the Bobbies, 125–66; CitationPhilips, “A new Engine of Power and Authority”, 155–89; CitationDodsworth, “Civic Police and the Condition of Liberty”, 199–216; and CitationAndrew, Philanthropy and Police, 6–7. 3. H. CitationKoch, “Politimyndighedens oprindelse”, 27–34, notes the limited source material regarding the earliest police, but focuses on their initial primary responsibility for curbing luxury consumption and for enforcing guild regulations; CitationStevnsborg, “Samfundets og statens strafferetspleje”, 1–26, focuses on their role especially in relation to prostitution; see also CitationSkall, “Københavns politi i støbeskeen”, 29–54. An outline of police involvement in the local law‐courts in Copenhagen is provided in CitationJørgensen, Thi Kendes for Ret, 111–44 and 221–41. It is worth noting that detailed regulations for the operation of the police were not included in the otherwise comprehensive Danish Law Code of 1683, which instead (in its Preface) noted that police ordinances were under development and would therefore be published separately. 4. Landsarkivet for Sjælland: Københavns Politis Arkiv, Journal over Sager og Dokumenter, 1 (1779–1790); and Politirettens Arkiv, Forhørsprotokoller (Interrogation Protocols) for each of the three chambers from 1776–1777. The police archives have suffered both accidental damage (including recurrent Copenhagen fires, particularly those of 1728 and 1795, both of which destroyed the town hall) and some deliberate weeding, which makes accurate reconstruction of the daily activity of the police force problematic. Regarding the nature and current organization of the archive itself, see Foreløbige Arkivregistraturer: Københavske Politi‐ og Domsmyndigheder, 1–2 (Landsarkivet for Sjælland, Copenhagen, 1976); and the discussion in CitationStevnsborg, “Københavnske politi‐ og domsmyndigheder”, 448–56. 5. This summary is based on a sampling from Politirettens Arkiv, Første Protokol Forhørsprotokoller, vol.1 (1776–1777) and vol. 7 (1789–1790), Anden Protokol Forhørsprotokoller, vol. 8 (1789–1790), Tredie Protokol Forhørsprotokoller, vol. 10 (1789–1790), all in Lansarkivet for Sjælland. 6. Particularly relevant in this context, after the substantial reforms of the judicial machinery in Copenhagen in 1771, was the new court for most civil and criminal cases in Copenhagen, the Hof‐ og Stadsret. Its archive is slightly more approachable and more fully preserved than that of the police court, but even so the reports of individual cases from 1771 are too summary to throw much light on the specific part played by the police staff. 7. CitationDyrlund, Tatere og Natmandsfolk i Danmark, 41–54; CitationOlsen, Christian IVs Tugthus, 257–356; Ladewig CitationPetersen, “The Wrath of God”, 147–66; CitationJørgensen, “L'assistance aux pauvres”, 9–34; and CitationHenningsen, Patrioter og fattigfolk: fattigvæsenet i København. On the wider European context of European workhouses and detention facilities, see CitationSpierenburg, The Prison Experience. Significantly, CitationHarrington, “Escape from the Great Confinement”, 308–45, argues on evidence from Nuremberg that the workhouse there was a natural development of older charitable solutions to the city's recurrent concerns about begging. 8. Rigsarkivet: Danske Kancelli D43 (Bilag til Sjællands Registre no.182 of 24 September 1708). Material relating to the 1690s is found in Danske Kancelli, Forskellige Institutioner: Kommissionen i Raadstuen, Protokol 1, fol.63r, 6 February 1691; see also the sequence of decrees from 1701, including the order of 14 January 1702 (Sjællands Tegnelser, fol.263r, no. 8) to the directors of the Børnehus, and instructions to the Copenhagen police officers to compile another report on poverty and relief in the capital. 9. The origins of this entrepreneurial disaster are summarized in a series of administrative interventions which survive in Rigsarkivet: Danske Kancelli, Sjællands Tegnelser, from 14 September 1703 to 23 January 1706. 10. One of the earliest admissions lists (entry books) for the Copenhagen workhouse (Landsarkivet for Sjælland, Fængselsarkiver: recorded as no. 389 in the provisional register in Foreløbige Arkivregistraturer: ældre fængselsarkiver fra København og Møn, Copenhagen, 1965), indicates very clearly that the inmates included both low‐level delinquents (such as prostitutes and beggars passed on by the Copenhagen police) and serious offenders (such as pardoned murderers and even branded convicts). Interestingly, some inmates had been transferred from one of the provincial workhouses, presumably because the case was deemed more severe. An unusually high‐quality admissions protocol exists for the Odense workhouse, which indicates that most of its inmates were the typical lesser offenders and troublemakers of provincial society: Landsarkivet for Fyn, Odense Tugthus. 11. Rigsarkivet: Danske Kancelli, F81 (Commission of 1787–1795), which includes a substantial protocol dated 16 Dec.1791 (unpaginated) summarising the main findings of the Commission. 12. Rigsarkivet: Danske Kancelli, F74/a–d, contains detailed reports resulting from the 1778 enquiry into poor relief in Copenhagen following the economic instability of the 1770s. The material covers weekly handouts, voluntary work provision, and other aspects, but amongst the positive indicators are reports on the basic educational provision for the children of the parish poor, which seems to have been relatively successful. For a fuller discussion, see CitationMunck, “Literacy”, 290f. 13. We might also note, in connection with the 1787–1795 Commission, some significant publications offering broader assessments of the problems of poor relief in response to a systematic parish‐focussed enquiry sent out in preparation for the Commission. The Commission secretary, J.H. Bärens, published Efterretning om Fattigvæsenets Tilstand i Dannemark (Copenhagen, 1790) to explain what the commission was trying to do, and providing full demographic and statistical summaries on the assumption that these would be of interest to the wider public. For recent European comparisons regarding provision at the less punitive end of the institutional scale in this period, see CitationGrell, Health Care and Poor Relief; and CitationPulma, “The Riksdag, the State Bureaucracy and the Administration of Hospitals”, 119–41. 14. CitationHoward, The State of the Prisons, 75–80. 15. The surviving records for the Stokhus are now in Landsarkivet for Sjælland: see Ældre fængselsarkiver fra København og Møn (Foreløbige Arkivregistraturer, Landsarkivet, Copenhagen, 1965). The admissions Register cited here is catalogued as no.33 (covering only the ‘slaves’, and therefore excluding other, more transient, Stokhus detainees such as men and women awaiting trial on lesser charges). The formal distinction between ‘honourable’ and ‘dishonourable’ would seem rather notional, given the severity of the punishment of being consigned to forced labour as a ‘slave’. However, not all of the ‘honourable slaves’ were in for life, and for those who were not, their status might be their only hope of some kind of return to normality after release. On criminal punishment in 18th‐century Denmark, and the dishonour associated with the executioner, his assistant and their families, see CitationKrogh, Oplysningstiden og det magiske, 255 and 328–51. 16. CitationHoward, The State of the Prisons, 77f. 17. The principles of censorship were defined in Danske Lov, the Danish Law Code of 1683, book 2, chapter 21, on the basis of earlier legislation going back at least to 1552. Some records reflecting normal procedures survive in Rigsarkivet: Copenhagen University Reg.21, Pk.31.06.01, which indicate that the number of volumes submitted for approval was quite small but variable (typically 10–45 per annum during the period 1738–1770, including translations from foreign languages), and that the majority of texts were scrutinized primarily for their religious and moral implications. 18. There is a substantial literature on these reforms: for the most recent contributions, see CitationLaursen, “Censorship in the Nordic Countries”, 100–16; CitationHorstbøll, “Trykkefrihedens bogtrykkere og skribenter”, 9–25; CitationHorstbøll, “Bolle Willum Luxdorphs Samling”, 371–412, on publications produced during and just after the Struensee period. For an older general account, see CitationJørgensen, Da censuren blev opgivet. 19. Thura was cross‐examined in various sessions between 21 October 1772 and 19 February 1793 (Rigsarkivet: Danske Kancelli, E38). He was found guilty of challenging religious beliefs and existing law, with particular reference to the authority of the monarchy, and was sentenced to loss of honour and property, imprisonment, and the public burning of several of his publications. In the event, some of the sentence was moderated, but he was in prison for six years. 20. For a more detailed discussion of the political context, and public opinion in this period, see CitationMunck, “Absolute Monarchy in later eighteenth‐century Denmark”, 210–24; and CitationHorstbøll, “Enevælde, opinion og opposition”, 35–53. Particular cases of prosecution in the period 1772–1784 are mentioned in CitationHolm, Danmark‐Norges Historie, 159–65. Although debate in print remained fairly muted in Copenhagen in the 1780s, there was a significant growth in complex visual satire, some of it resulting in police enquiries: CitationBlüdnikow, Sladder og satire, 28–35, and 50–62. 21. This is precisely the point made a few years later by CitationMichael Birckner, in his Om Trykkefriheden og dens Love, where the lack of precision in earlier legislation is criticised. He denounced government both for exercising ultimate (and arbitrary) judgement as to which opinions are ‘subversive’, and for failing to allow issues of libel and subversion to be tested openly in the courts. The background papers for the 1790 decree have quite recently been lost, so just what was discussed by the government is not ascertainable. 22. CitationT. Munck, “Literacy”, 291–9. 23. At least 22 separate publications appeared in Copenhagen in the period 1794–1799 concerned with freedom of the press, amongst them detailed discussions as well as short interventions. The commission papers leading to the press restrictions of 1799 are in Rigsarkivet: Danske Kancelli, F37 (Bilag til Forordningen ang. Trykkefrihedens Grænser), and F89 (Kommission ang. Trykkefriheden, 1797–1799). See also CitationBruhns, ‘Publiceringscensur”, 57–64. 24. Kiøbenhavnske lærde Efterretninger for Aar 1795, 366. 25. Recent work on public opinion in Europe during the later 18th century has highlighted the ambivalent meanings that were attributed to it by contemporaries: CitationOzouf, “Public Opinion”, S.1–21; CitationK. Baker, “Public Opinion as Political Invention”, 167–99. For the wider context, see CitationMunck, The Enlightenment, 14–17. On Denmark, see Horstbøll and CitationØstergård, “Reform and Revolution”, 170–7. 26. The secondary literature on the ‘public sphere’ (as distinct from public opinion – see previous note) is also very extensive. CitationHabermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, laid out a theoretical basis for discussion, taken up notably by CitationGoodman, “Public Sphere and Private Life”, 1–20; CitationLa Vopa, “Conceiving a public”, 79–116; and CitationVan Horn Melton, The Rise of the Public in Enlightenment Europe, 3–15. For a different focus, see CitationBarker and Burrows, Press, Politics and the Public Sphere, especially 8–17. 27. A full text is provided in Samling af danske Kongers Haandfæstninger og andre lignende Acter (Geheimearchivets Aarsberetninger, Copenhagen 1856–60, reprinted by Kildeskriftsselskabet, 1974); the texts of the Royal Law and of Danske Lov are available in various Danish editions and reprints; for a rendition of key sections in English, see CitationEkman, “The Danish Royal Law of 1665”, 102–7. 28. R. CitationMolesworth, An Account of Denmark, 258–71. 29. Tidender om lærde og curieuse Sager for Aar 1749, 317–20 – the same journal renamed later as Kiøbenhavnske lærde Efterretninger. The warm reception accorded to this book bore obvious fruit, for example in the teaching of Jens Schelderup Sneedorf at the Academy in Sorø, and in the work of a number of others in the Danish republic of letters in the 1750s and 1760s. 30. Kiøbenhavnske Efterretninger om lærde Sager for Aar 1771, 193–201 and 209–13. 31. The French debate itself was relatively limited until the summer of 1789: see CitationVan Kley, The French Idea of Freedom, 24–113 and 154–96. In Denmark, Rousseau's Social Contract does not appear to have become available in translation until 1795; even during the more liberal 1790s, the radical critique of monarchy offered by Thomas Paine in his Rights of Man (1791–1792) became known in Denmark primarily via a German version published in 1794, and via the hostile rebuttal published by C.W. de Morgenstierne, Examen des principes repandus dans l'ouvrage de Mr Payne, which appeared simultaneously in Danish. 32. CitationMøller, “P.F. Suhms regeringsregler”, 123–55. 33. There is a very extensive literature on rural reform in Denmark in the later 18th century: for an English‐language overview and more detailed references see CitationBarton, Scandinavia in the Revolutionary Era, 127–230; and CitationMunck, “The Danish Reformers”, 245–63. 34. CitationBregnsbo, Folk skriver til kongen. 35. CitationMolesworth, An Account of Denmark, 232–9. 36. A helpful overview of the key issues is found in CitationJohansen, “Retssamfundet, retsstaten og retssikkerheden”, 111–27. 37. CitationLind, “Den dansk‐norske hær”, 26–73; CitationAndersen, “Militærtjenesten som trussel?”, 3–24, deals with the rural context before and after the reforms from 1787 onwards, and notes how landowners had less scope for manipulation after 1788; CitationPetersen, “Den danske hærs hvervning af soldater”, 171–92, and his Geworbne krigskarle; CitationStruwe, “Soldater er også mennesker”, 384–403, which includes references to more recent Danish research, and also notes the need for comparison with the Swedish and Prussian conscription systems. 38. CitationFoucault, Discipline and Punish. 39. CitationSmith, “For fangens elementaire moralske opdragelse”, 345–91. CitationNielsen, “Tvang er den sande Friheds Grundstøtte”, 309–12, notes a significant element of continuity in policies within the Danish government regarding actual punishment of criminals, as indicated in the work of the reform commission of 1800. 40. See notably CitationJohansen and Stevnsborg, “Hasard ou myopie”, 601–24; and CitationKrogh, Oplysningstiden og det magiske, especially 12–23

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