Ecclesiastical and Educational Affairs

By tradition, cases concerning ecclesiastical and educational affairs are administered jointly. After the institution of the absolute monarchy in Denmark in 1660 and the consequent reorganisation of the central administration, the Danish Chancellery was by far the largest and most important institution in the ecclesiastical and educational systems. The Chancellery’s main areas of authority were supervision of the administration of justice, counties, and towns, as well as ecclesiastical and educational affairs in Denmark, Norway, and the colonies. Around 1670, St. Thomas was added to the Chancellery’s specific responsibilities. The Danish Chancellery also acted as secretariat to the Privy Council established in 1670.

In 1848 and 1849, the Danish political system and the central administration were completely reorganised. In the administration, the old collegial system was replaced by the ministerial system, in which a minister is responsible for each branch, or ministry, of the administration. In the political arena, the first parliamentary constitution of 5 June 1849 marked the abolition of the absolute monarchy, which was replaced by a finely balanced division of powers between the king and the political system. From that date, the Danish king was a constitutional monarch sharing legislative power with the Parliament, while executive power lay with the king’s ministers.

The Danish Chancellery existed until 1848, when its affairs were taken over by some of the newly established ministries. The bulk of all West Indian affairs fell to the Central Directorate for the Colonies, but the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs and Public Instruction carried on ecclesiastical and educational administration. The Ministry of Justice took over legal and police matters, and auditing went to the Ministry of Finance, while affairs concerning the local administration in Denmark went to the Ministry of Domestic Affairs. In 1916, separate ministries of education and of ecclesiastical affairs were established.

Supervision of the Moravian mission in the Danish West Indies originally belonged under the Danish Chancellery. When the Danish Crown took over the islands in 1755, a Danish Lutheran mission was established on the islands, and the following year its supervision was transferred to the Board of Supervisors for Education and Missions. On the abolition of this Board in 1791, West Indian mission affairs were transferred to the Mission Board. From this institution, its supervision of the missions went to the Chamber of Customs and the Danish Chancellery – informally in 1793 and formalised in 1798.

There are no separate West Indian series in the archives of either the Board of Supervisors for Education and Missions or the Mission Board, so information should be sought in the general series of minute-books, journals, copybooks, incoming cases, etc. of these archives.

The Danish Chancellery

Danske Kancelli

The archives consist of a general section (letter A) and twelve, mainly chronological sections (letters B-N). The general section deals with the Chancellery’s organisation, procedures, perquisites, and accounting systems, etc. Until 1799, there was one section for each period (e.g. letter D for 1699-1771) with topographically designated subsections, but after a radical administrative reform of the Chancellery it was, from 1800 on, divided into various geographically or thematically designated departments (e.g. letter H – First Department of ecclesiastical and educational affairs).

The West Indies

A good deal of material is to be found in special West Indian series, while other material is to be found in the general archival records series.

Among the most important West Indian series are the Chancellery’s copy books with copies of outgoing letters to the West Indies – including what are called open letters of general interest, such as legislative acts and executive orders, as well as closed letters to officials and other individuals, e.g. appointments. In both cases, boxes of drafts and other documents are associated with the copybooks. Thus for the period 1671-1699, there are one copybook (designated C.24) and a box of fair copies and enclosures (C.25). For the period 1699-1771, there are 2 volumes of copybooks (D.36) and 7 boxes of documents (D.37). For the years 1771-1773, there are one volume and one box (E.15 and E.16) of both West Indian and East Indian files. For the period 1773-1799, there are 2 volumes and 11 boxes (F.26 and F.27). From 1800 to 1804, West Indian cases were handled by the Danish Chancellery’s Second Department, (letter I); from 1804 to 1814 by the Third Department (letter L; please note that the entire L-group has been moved to the Norwegian National Archives in Norway, but are also available on film at the Danish National Archives in Denmark); and from 1814 to 1848 in the new Third Department (letter K). Copies of royal transactions concerning the Danish West Indies 1800-1848 are to be found in the Danish Chancellery’s general registers of royal transactions, while the Chancellery’s other outgoing letters are to be found in the general copybooks. The content of these copybooks is highly varied; there are, for example, cases concerning supervision of the state of law, local administration, and ecclesiastical affairs, including, for the Danish West Indies, the school system available to the free inhabitants of the islands.

Another important file type found in these copybooks and appurtenant drafts and enclosures is wills submitted to the Chancellery for royal confirmation. From 1812, however, wills were entered into the Danish Chancellery’s register of wills (G.51, 35 vols.). For marriages without issue, however, wills were copied into 70 other registers (G.54). Evidence that further wills were confirmed by the Danish Chancellery is to be found in the so-called accounts of permissions issued by the chief administrative officers 1800-1847 (G.53, 164 boxes). Two special volumes contain copies of wills that were confirmed through the West Indian government 1802-1807 (G.55). After 1848, wills are to be found in the register of the Ministry of Justice’s First Department.

The legal affairs handled by the Danish Chancellery included civil law matters of marriage, divorce, as well as probate proceedings and Upper Guardian cases, etc.

Some of these matters, including wills, were increasingly adjudicated in the West Indies through so-called permissions issued, on behalf of the Chancellery, by the chief administrative officers of the West Indian Government on St. Croix or the Council on St. Thomas.

Other examples of what may be found in the archives of the Danish Chancellery are listed below. The general section includes registers of ecclesiastical and temporal officials, e.g. in the West Indies 1730-1830 (A.15, 1 box), and particularly of clergymen 1660-1790 and 1699-1819 (A.16, 1 vol., and A.19-20, 2 vols.). The oldest section includes a register of copies of all Latin sea passes issued 1691-1693, including those for ships bound for the West Indies under Danish flag (C.45, 1 vol.). From a later period, there is a box of reports from Denmark and the West Indies to the Chancellery concerning conciliation administration 1800 (F.60). To appreciate the topical range of the files in the archives, please see an entire box of appendixes in the case against the clergymen Adam and Chaderton at St. Croix 1818-1822 (H.19), a box of appendixes in the case against four black slaves for arson 1834 (K.9), and three boxes of dismissed cases concerning the perquisites system in the West Indies 1804-1841 (K.31).

The Superintendant of Government Administration

A special, partly independent, post was that of Superintendant of Government Administration. The Superintendant was responsible for the general supervision of government officials and was also legal advisor to the Danish state. In this capacity, the Superintendant submitted various opinions on both fundamental and specific issues, especially concerning the interpretation of law. Until 1848, this post did not create any archives, so its documents are scattered among those of the central administration and cases in which the Superintendant had given his opinion. Here follows a typical example: When the Danish state took over the administration of the Danish West Indies in 1755, the local administration was to be reorganised. For that purpose, the Board of Commerce and the Danish Chancellery asked for the Superintendant’s opinion on the organisation of the legal system, and the documents in the case are to be found in the Danish Chancellery’s West Indian cases for 1755 (no. D.36). The Chancellery archives also include about ten separate boxes and volumes from the Superintendant’s activities in the period 1719-1752 (Supplement D.1-5).

The post as Superintendant of Government Administration was established in 1660 and was maintained after 1848 as a separate post under the Ministry of Justice. From 1848 and until the abolition of the post in 1872, it created and maintained its own archives.

Finding Aids

The essential finding aid published is the detailed catalogue of the Chancellery archives: Bjørn Kornerup, Danske Kancelli og de dermed beslægtede Institutioner, Vejledende Arkivregistraturer, vol. 1, Copenhagen 1943. A catalogue of all records on school history is to be found in Ebba Waaben, Skolehistoriske arkivalier i Rigsarkivet, Foreløbige Arkivregistraturer, New Series, vol. 19, Copenhagen 1978. See also the survey in Wilhelm von Rosen, ed., Rigsarkivet og hjælpemidlerne til dets benyttelse, vol. I:1, Copenhagen 1983, pp. 169-230, which includes references to the many unpublished finding aids to be found in the reading room of the Danish National Archives.

Literature

The introduction in the above-mentioned catalogue by Bjørn Kornerup treats the Chancellery in general. See also V. A. Secher, Danske Kancelli og de dermed beslægtede Institutioner 1513-1848, Vejledende Arkivregistraturer, vol. 1, first edition, Copenhagen 1886. The procedures of the Chancellery are described in detail in P. A. Heiberg, Udkast til en Skildring af Forretningsgangen og Bogføringen ved Danske Kancelli 1670-1848, Copenhagen 1977. The most up-to-date description is Erik Stig Jørgensen, Danske Kancelli 1815-1848, in Leon Jespersen et al., eds., Dansk forvaltningshistorie, vol. 1, Copenhagen 2000, pp. 361-404, and Per Ingesman, Kirken 1814-1848, ibidem, pp. 443-454.

Mention should be made of the old, but important source edition, L. Rottbøll, ed., Erklæringer, Breve og Forestillinger General-Prokurør-Embedet vedkommende, vols. 1-6, Copenhagen 1793-1807, which illuminates the concept of justice and the administrative practice 1753-1782. The entire legal system rested on the law of 1683 published in V. A. Secher, ed., Kong Christian den Femtis Danske Lov, Copenhagen 1891, the preparatory studies for which are presented in V. A. Secher & Chr. Støchel, eds., Forarbejderne til Kong Kristian V’s Danske Lov, vols. 1-2, Copenhagen 1891-1894.

The Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs and Public Instruction 1848-1916

Ministeriet for Kirke- og Undervisningsvæsenet 1848-1916

The West Indies

From 1848 on, all cases concerning the Danish West Indies were, in principle, transferred to the newly established Central Directorate for the Colonies in the Ministry of Finance. This authority was consolidated by the Colonial Act of 28 March 1852. Until 1852, West Indian ecclesiastical and educational matters were submitted to the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs and Public Instruction for comment. After that time, the Ministry was only consulted in certain types of cases, such as appointments of incumbents. The bishop of Zealand remained, however, the spiritual leader of the clergy during the entire Danish epoch.

In 1907, the Ministry of Ecclesiastical and Educational Affairs nevertheless took over the affairs of the established Lutheran Evangelical church in the Danish West Indies and thus administered the State Treasury’s expenditure for these small parishes. The archives of the Ministry’s First Department therefore include three boxes of West Indian church accounts 1907-1916 (boxes nos. 4109-4111). Of this department’s general journal files concerning the West Indies, those from 1907-1910 are scattered in the journal index under the letter V, but from 1911 they are indexed under a separate heading, viz. The West Indies. Issues concerning the other churches in the islands remained under the Central Directorate for the Colonies, which regularly sought the expert advice of the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs and Public Instruction in such matters.

Finding Aids

There is a detailed description of the organisation, procedures, and archives of this Ministry in Niels Petersen, Kultusministeriet. Organisation og arkiv, Administrationshistoriske Studier, vol. 10, Copenhagen 1984. School cases are detailed in the guide by Ebba Waaben mentioned above. See also the general survey in Wilhelm von Rosen, ed., Rigsarkivet og hjælpemidlerne til dets benyttelse, vol. I:1, Copenhagen 1983, pp. 135-150.

Literature

See Niels Petersen’s book mentioned above, as well as Per Ingesman, Kultusministeriet. Kirken 1848-1901, in Leon Jespersen et al., eds., Dansk forvaltningshistorie, vol. 1, Copenhagen 2000, pp. 721-754.