Based on fiscal considerations, the absolutist state since the XVII century interfered in the relations of landowners and serfs - in favor of the latter. But conducted in the 1760-1780’s government reforms improved their position, right up to the elimination of their dependence on landlords. The intensification of the peasant economy began. Next, almost the entire XIX century was in Denmark a period of initial accumulation, which created the preconditions for capitalism. There were two of them. First, it was a monetary accumulation, originally characteristic of landowners, and later - for commercial capital. Secondly, started the process of urbanization, as a result of which the urban proletariat emerges and which has been marked in significant proportions only since the 1870’s. In the formation of agrarian capitalism in Denmark, the leading role was played by the nobility elite. Its policy was only partially explained by economic reasons. The second reason for this fundamental metamorphosis were new, liberal ideas that found a response both in the city and in the countryside. Leaders and propagandists of these ideas were educated citizens, a democratic press and, not the least, Danish liberal historians.