Rosenkrantz (noble family)

It has played a prominent role in Denmark and Norway, its members having been estate owners as well as high officials.

[2] The Rosenkrantz family were initially landowners in Denmark, with subsequent branches in both Norway and Sweden.

In 1618/1619 – five generations later – Holger Rosenkrantz (died 1638) sold Boller to Ellen Marsvin (1572–1649), the widow of Ludvig Munk, who in 1607 married secondly Knud Rud, and whose daughter Kirsten Munk had in 1615 married King Christian IV (1577–1648).

In 1630 the King made Ellen transfer Boller (and Rosenvold) to her sole child, her daughter Kirsten Munk.

The so-called "Legitimised Line" is an unnecessary creation, suggesting that it was illegitimate before; it was begun by the Boller-descendant Holger Rosenkrantz (1599–1634), who was a soldier in Danish and Dutch service and apparently had been abroad for so long that no one remembered him, so that his sons Ludvig (fief baron of Rosendal in 1678) and Maximilian (at Nyboellegaard) had to prove that Holger's father was Frederick Rosenkrantz (1571–1602) of the Boller line.

This line descends from Baron Werner Rosenkrantz til Villestrup (1700–1777), who in 1757 received the royal patent for this fief barony.

The Southern Jutlandic line, which emanated from line I (Hevringholm) before 1355 (death of Erik Rosenkrantz at Hevringholm) and ended with the death after 1625 of Carsten Rosenkrantz at Gribsgaard, Kambo and Kogsboel, who outlived his son Bendix (died 1622).

In 1562, Rosenkrantz decided to build a combined defense and residence tower with five floors and facade towards Bryggen.

[12][13][14] The history of Rosendal dates back to the 1650s, when Ludwig Holgersen Rosenkrantz (1628–1685) came to Bergen as commissioner of war for the Danish king.

At a ball at the fortress of Bergenhus, he met Karen Axelsdatter Mowat (1630–1675), sole heiress to the largest fortune in the country at the time.

The family's name appears to be derived from the coat of arms, in which we find a wreath of heraldic roses instead of the usual torse between the helm and the crest.