"In the year 1400 had Roskilde yet its full economic and political strength, not least thanks to Bishop Peder Jensen Lodehat (1395-1416), who was Queen Margrethe’s longtime friend and adviser. Bishopric large estates incl. the main city of Copenhagen, were intact. Valdemar had admittedly in 1350 forced the bishop to hand over Copenhagen, but her daughter Margrethe delivered it back to the bishop. The decline of Roskilde started immediately after the death of Peder Jensen Lodehat.
Margrethe’s successor Erik of Pomerania took Copenhagen back to the crown in 1417, and the relationship between king and bishop were strained for several years. Episcopate, the city’s monasteries and clergy at the cathedral (canons) held a total of up to half of all land and properties on Zealand, Mon and Rügen in Germany, which was part of the Roskilde diocese. Revenues from all of these possessions in the form of taxes flowed in a steady stream to the bishop’s palace, the clergy and monasteries in Roskilde, and this wealth among a large group in town, that is not even performed physical labor, fueled a lot of artisans and merchants in the city. When it went less well for the episcopal see, it was therefore unfortunate for the city. At the same time Roskilde experienced that foreign trade gradually moved to Copenhagen and Køge, both of which had a much more favorable position in relation to foreign trade. The city’s importance decreased slowly through the 1400s, and went completely downhill after the Reformation in 1536 when the entire ecclesiastical hierarchy disappeared and the Crown confiscated all possesions owned by the episcopal see, and the majority of churches and monasteries properties. The episcopal see moved to Copenhagen.
The population of Roskilde was 6-8,000 in 1400, and it dropped below 2,000 after the Reformation. First, in the 1800s the town began to grow and in 1900 the population exceeded 8,000 again.
The model of Roskilde 1400 thus show the city in its heyday just before it started to go downhill. "
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