Editing Frederick II of Denmark (section)

=== Hunting, drinking and feasting ===
[[File:Gamle Frederiksborg c 1585.jpg|thumb|502x502px|Hillerødsholm Castle (later [[Frederiksborg Castle]]) one of Frederick's favourite hunting-castles. Painting at [[Gripsholm Castle]].]]
Frederick's areas of interest did not consist only of [[Theology|theological]] and [[Science|scientific]] ones. Frederick is known very well for his love of [[hunting]], [[drinking]] and [[Banquet|feasting]].<ref name=":31" /> In his youth and in the start of his reign this was a way for Frederick to get away from the Danish court and its formalities.<ref name=":15" /> However, in Frederick's later reign he began using hunting and feasting as a political tool. In the peacetime years of his reign, Frederick would maintain a peripatetic court, moving from residence to residence throughout the Danish countryside, spending a fair share of his time [[hunting]]. This allowed him the opportunity to meet members of the [[Riksråd|Council]] individually and informally, in their own home regions. Most of his business with the [[Council of the Realm (Denmark)|Council of the Realm]] was therefor done on a one-to-one basis.<ref name=":15" /> This ensured a very close personal bond with each member of the council while minimizing the opportunity for the council to oppose him as a body. Frederik's personable disposition undoubtedly helped.<ref name=":32" />

==== Informal nature of court life ====
The king [[Hunting|hunted]], [[Banquet|feasted]], and drank with his [[councillor]]s and [[adviser]]s, and even with visiting European [[Dignitary|foreign dignitaries]], treating them as his peers and companions rather than as political opponents or inferiors. The eighteenth-century chronicler [[Ludvig Holberg]] claimed that when dining at the court of Frederick II, he would frequently announce that 'the king is not at home', which signalled to his guests that all court [[Formality|formalities]] were temporarily suspended, and that they could talk and joke as they pleased without restraint. The Danish court may have appeared unsophisticated to outside observers, but the openness and bawdiness of court life served Frederik's political purposes.<ref name=":15" />