with an army and attacked the Schauenburgers in Holstein. He used the utmost diligence in collecting an army, with which he entered Holstein, and, in the terms of the treaty concluded with his nephew Otto I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, he was joined by Otto and the troops of Brunswick. Their united forces formed a very respectable array, and they took and destroyed a number of towns, and had recovered a great part of the County of Holstein, when they were opposed by Schauenburg Count Adolf IV of Holstein, who had been joined by his liege lord Albert I, Duke of Saxony and Prince-Archbishop Gerhard II of Bremen. The two armies were nearly of equal strength, and as both parties were anxious to try the issue of a general battle, they were not long in coming to an engagement. The field chosen for this action, was in the neighborhood of the town of Bornhöved in Holstein. On 22 July 1227, the two armies clashed in the Battle of Bornhöved. The battle was a decisive victory for Count Adolf IV of Holstein, in part owed to a number of troops from Dithmarschen who abandoned the Danish army during the battle. In the following peace settlement, Valdemar definitively gave up the hope of ever regaining his former possessions in the northern Holy Roman Empire (Northern Germany). Denmark is dissolved The next major turn of events took place in the early fourteenth century, as a result of the bankruptcy of the Danish state. This century saw Schleswig being dominated by a more Holstein-born or Low Saxon-speaking nobility. These local lords sought to keep Schleswig independent of the king and to forge close ties to Holstein within the Holy Roman Empire. This pursuit of autonomy would have effects for centuries to come. The bankruptcy of Denmark resulted in a rising influence of the King's creditors (mostly Holsatian nobles) in all parts of the country. In 1326, King Valdemar III of Denmark - by many Danish regarded as a usurper - was forced by the nobility of Schleswig and Holstein to sign the Constitutio Valdemaria promising that the Duchy of Schleswig and the Kingdom of Denmark may never be united under the same ruler, a first precursor to the Treaty of Ribe. Schleswig was consequently granted as a fief to Count Gerhard III of Holstein-Rendsburg, the leader of one of the then four Holstein lines of