Bremen in his History (iv. 26) apparently dates from the period immediately preceding these events. He describes the temple as one of great splendour and covered with gilding. Temple at Upsala. In it stood the statues of the three chief deities Thor, Odin and Fricco (by whom he probably means Frey). Every nine years a great festival was held there to which embassies were sent by all the peoples of Sweden. A large number of animals and even men were sacrificed on such occasions. In the neighbourhood of the temple was a grove of peculiar sanctity in which the bodies of the victims were hung up. After the introduction of Christianity the importance of Upsala began steadily to decline, and owing to its intimate associations with the old religion the kings no longer made it their residence.
Authorities for Early History.—Tacitus, Germania, cap. 44; Claudius Ptolemaeus, Geographica ii. 11 ad fin.; Jordanes, De origine actibusque Getarum, cap. 3; Procopius, De bello gothico, ii. 15; Beowulf, Rimbertus, Vita S. Ansgarii in monumenta Germaniae historica, ii. 683-725 (Hanover, 1829); King Alfred's translation of Orosius i. 1; Adam of Bremen, Gesta hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum iii. and iv.; Ynglinga Saga, with the poem Ynglingatal contained in the Heimskringla; Olafs Sagan Tryggvasonar and Olafs Saga hins Helga, both contained in Heimskringla and in Fornmanna sögur; Saxo grammaticus, gesta Danorum; a collection of later Swedish Chronicles contained in Rerum suecicarum scriptores, vol. iii. (ed. Annerstedt, Upsala, 1871 and 1876); Sveriges historia, vol. i. (Montelius & Hildebrand, Stockholm, 1875–1877); Thomsen, The Relations between Ancient Russia and Scandinavia and the Origin of the Russian State (Oxford and London, 1877). (F. G. M. B.)
Under Blotsweyn's grandson, King Sverker (1134–1155),
who permanently amalgamated the Swedes and Goths (each
of the two nations supplying the common king
alternately for the next hundred years), Sweden
began to feel the advantage of a centralized monarchical
Organization of
the Kingdom.
government. Eric IX. (1150–1160) organized the
Swedish Church on the model prevalent elsewhere, and undertook
a crusade against the heathen Finlanders, which marks the
beginning of Sweden's overseas dominion. Under Charles VII.,[1]
the archbishopric of Upsala was founded (1164). But the
greatest medieval statesman of Sweden was Earl Birger,
who practically ruled the land from 1248 to 1266. To him
is attributed the foundation of Stockholm; but he is best
known as a legislator, and his wise reforms prepared the way
for the abolition of serfdom. The increased dignity which the
royal power owed to Earl Birger was still further extended by
King Magnus Ladulås (1275–1290). Both these rulers, by
the institution of separate and almost independent duchies,
attempted to introduce into Sweden a feudal system similar
to that already established elsewhere in Europe; but the danger
of thus weakening the realm by partition was averted, though
not without violent and tragic complications. Finally, in 1319,
the severed portions of Sweden were once more reunited.
Separation of
the Estates.
Nobles and Burghers.
Meanwhile the political development of the state was
of the steadily proceeding. The formation of separate
orders, or estates, was promoted by Magnus Ladulås,
who extended the privileges of the clergy and founded an hereditary
nobility (Ordinance of Alsnö, 1280). In connexion with
this institution we now hear of a heavily armed cavalry as the
kernel of the national army. The knights too now
became distinguishable from the higher nobility.
To this period belongs the rise of a prominent
burgess class, as the towns now began to acquire charters. At
the end of the 13th century, and the beginning of the 14th too,
provincial codes of laws appear and the king and his council
execute legislative functions.
The first union between Sweden and Norway occurred in 1319,
when the three-year-old Magnus, son of the Swedish royal duke
Eric and of the Norwegian princess Ingeborg,
who had inherited the throne of Norway from his
grandfather Haakon V., was in the same year elected
First Union with Norway.
king of Sweden (Convention of Oslo). A long minority weakened
the royal influence in both countries, and Magnus lost both his
kingdoms before his death. The Swedes, irritated by his misrule,
superseded him by his nephew, Albert of Mecklenburg (1365).
In Sweden, Magnus's partialities and necessities led directly
to the rise of a powerful landed aristocracy, and, indirectly,
to the growth of popular liberties. Forced by the unruliness
of the magnates to lean upon the middle classes, the king summoned
(1359) the first Swedish Riksdag, on which occasion
representatives from the towns were invited to appear along
with the nobles and clergy. His successor, Albert, was forced
to go a step farther and, in 1371, to take the first Coronation
oath. In 1388, at the request of the Swedes themselves, Albert
Union of
Kalmar, 1397.
was driven out by Margaret, regent of Denmark
and Norway; and, at a convention of the
representatives of the three Scandinavian kingdoms held
at Kalmar (1397), Margaret's great-nephew, Eric of Pomerania,
was elected the common king, but the liberties of each
of the three realms were expressly reserved and confirmed.
The union was to be a personal, not a political union.
Neither Margaret herself nor her successors observed the
stipulation that in each of the three kingdoms only natives
should hold land and high office, and the efforts
of Denmark (at that time by far the strongest
member of the union) to impose her will on
Breach of the
Union, 1436.
weaker kingdoms soon produced a rupture, or,
rather, a series of semi-ruptures. The Swedes first broke away
from it in 1434 under the popular leader Engelbrecht, and
after his murder they elected Karl Knutsson Bonde their
king under the title of Charles VIII. (1436). In 1441
Charles VIII. had to retire in favour of Christopher of
Bavaria, who was already king of Denmark and Norway; but,
on the death of Christopher (1448), a state of confusion ensued
in the course of which Charles VIII. was twice expelled and
twice reinstated. Finally, on his death in 1470, the three
kingdoms were reunited under Christian I. of Denmark, the
prelates and higher nobility of Sweden being favourable
to the union, though the great majority of the Swedish
people always detested it as a foreign usurpation. The
national party was represented by the three great
Riksföreståndare,
or presidents of the realm, of the Sture family (see
Sture), who, with brief intervals, from 1470 to 1520 successively
defended the independence of Sweden against the Danish kings
and kept the national spirit alive. But the presidentship
Election of Gustavus Vasa, 1523.
was too casual and anomalous an institution to
rally the nations round it permanently, and when
the tyranny of Christian II. (q.v.) became intolerable
the Swedish people elected Gustavus Eriksson Vasa, who
as president had already driven out the Danes (see Denmark:
History), king of Sweden at Strengnäs (June 6, 1523).
The extraordinary difficulties of Gustavus (see Gustavus I.)
were directly responsible for the eccentric development, both
political and religious, of the new kingdom which
his genius created. So precarious was the position
of the young king, that he was glad to make allies
Gustavus I.,
1523–1560.
wherever he could find them. Hence his desire to stand well
with the Holy See. Only three months after his accession,
he addressed letters to the pope begging him to appoint new
bishops “who would defend the rights of the Church without
detriment to the Crown.” He was especially urgent for the
confirmation of his nominee Johannes Magni as primate, in
the place of the rebellious archbishop Gustavus Trolle, who as
a convicted traitor had been formally deposed by the Riksdag
and was actually an outlawed exile. If the pope would confirm
the elections of his bishops, Gustavus promised to be an obedient
son of the Church. Scarcely had these letters been dispatched
when the king received a papal bull ordering the immediate
reinstatement of Gustavus Trolle. The action of the Curia on
this occasion was due to its conviction of the imminent triumph
of Christian II. and the instability of Gustavus's position. It
was a conviction shared by the rest of Europe; but, none the
less, it was another of the many blunders of the Curia at this
difficult period. Its immediate effect was the loss of the Swedish
Church. Gustavus could not accept as primate an open and
- ↑ A legendary list of kings gives to this Charles six predecessors of the same name. Subsequent kings of Sweden have always given this Charles the title of Charles VII.
