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Abstract

Before the ‘European Miracles’. Four Essays on Swedish Preconditions for Conquest, Growth, and
Voice.

(Publications of the Department of Economic History, School of Economics and

Commercial Law, Göteborg university no 93)

ISSN 1403-2864. ISBN 91-85196-61-4 Göteborg 2005

Author: Erik Örjan Emilsson
Doctoral Dissertation at the Department of Economic History, Göteborg University. (Written in
English).

Distribution: the Department of Economic History, Göteborg University, Box 720, SE-405 30
Göteborg, Sweden.

This thesis consists of four studies that further develop the perspectives introduced in the
author’s licential dissertation,

Sweden and the European Miracles: Conquest, Growth and Voice

(1996). The dynamic properties of the European system of independent but interacting societies
are traced back to the institutional polystruc-turality of European feudalism and the peculiarities
of Sweden’s historical experience are asserted to be part of this intersocietal heritage. Sweden’s
contributions to the developments resulting in (World) Conquest, (sustained economic) Growth
and (extensive political) Voice are discussed, and the Medieval roots of the social configurations
that make possible military expansionism, growing peasant affluence, and institutionalized
political negotiations are explored.

The almost permanent power struggles between oligarchic and monarchic regimes that
characterize medieval Sweden are viewed as a crucial factor behind the survival of communal
self-rule and the resultant compromise is interpreted as a form of parallel, competitive state-
building, predicated upon the institutional separation of the land and the peasantry into two
‘separate economic bases’: a public and a private (noble) sector. The so called Engelbrekt
rebellion is seen as a crucial watershed in these developments, and the role of the regional
judges – the lawspeakers (

lagmän

) are emphasized.

In the second study, the Swedish peasantry is discussed: its subdivision according to nature of
land tenure and manner of political representation, and its economic stratification; also trends in
peasant wealth and in the degree of inequality. Evidence from property taxations is used in
order to resolve these questions for sample parishes and the results of earlier research are
scrutinized and criticized. Different kinds of economic dynamics are discussed and a change
from ‘feudal’ to modern economic dynamics is inferred. The ‘shortcut’ explanation where the
free Swedish peasantry is interpreted as a survival from the Viking Age is also rejected. Peasant
self-representation and affluence were in the main independent of tenure, and the strong
position of peasant proprietors in 19

century Sweden is a late development connected to the

rise of market production and to the extraneous interest in freehold property rights, leading tax
peasants to political standpoints and alliances that eventually would fracture the peasantry.

The role of

lagmän

(‘lawspeakers’) in medieval Swedish society is explored in the final chapter,

arguing their central role in state-building and in the formation of oligarchic factions opposing
absolutist tendencies. The ‘lawspeaker myth’ of independent regional spokesmen risen from the
local peasantries is shown to have no foundation in known facts – on the contrary all of the
early lawspeaker whose families we know anything about were closely related to the royal and
ducal dynasties.

KEYWORDS: aristocracy, agrarian history, comparative history, Early Modern Sweden, economic
dynamics, evolutionary social science theories, institutional theories, jurisdictional system,
lawspeakers (

lagmän

), Medieval Sweden, parliamentary politics, peasant categories, peasant

rebellions, political contestation, political representation, property taxations, Sweden’s Great
Power Age, theories of feudalism, transition to capitalism

Discussions with Jan Hultin, Johan Fornäs, Anders Frenander and

many others were also important in the early stages. My old friend
Sten Dahlstedt introduced me into the modern debate on nationalism.
Ola Fransson, Jan-Olof Jörnryd and Margareta Widmark have
followed and discussed the different stages of my formulations all the
way.

Encouraging comments from people outside the spheres of

department  colleagues  and  friends  have  been  very  important:  Mats
Andrén’s and  Martin  Peterson’s  discussion  of my licential dissertation
during a seminar at the European studies program, Charles Tilly’s few
but  appreciative  remarks  about  my  book,  Lars  G  Sandberg’s  positive
review  in  JecH,  a  reference  in  a  book  by  Jan  Glete  and  interested
comments  by  John  Ward.  Janken  Myrdal,  Johan  Söderberg  and
Thomas  Lindkvist  have  all  shown  an  encouraging  interest  in  earlier
papers that have entered into this remix.

My three children Måns, Ylva and Elsa are important reasons for

the  drawn-out  character  of  this  project  –  an  earlier  publication  date
would  have  been  bought  at  too  high  a  price.  It  is  a  privilege  to  be
involved  with  their  lives,  and  I  hope  that  if  they  do  not  read  this
book,  it  will  be  because  of  their  high  standards  of  exciting  literature
rather  than  from  feelings  of  resentment  against  the  work  that  has
occupied me so often.

My parents Eric Bertil and Majvor have also been kept waiting for a

long time. Their support has been invaluable, and without it the strain
on the rest of my family would have been impossible to bear.

The material necessity of labouring for my sustenance has been

another  delaying  factor.  The  Swedish  Post  Office,  Mark’s
Gymnasieskola, and the History Course within the Teacher’s Training
Programme  at  Göteborg  University  have  provided  this  after  I  had
used up my four years as a doctoral student, but I have also enjoyed
the support of a grant from the Gustavus Adolphus Academy and the
Per  Nyström  award  for  ‘younger  historical  researchers  with  the
courage to walk their own paths’. This award was very encouraging –
especially being called a ‘younger historian’ at the mature age of 49. I
hope this means that the better part of my life still lies before me!

As I am writing these words I realize that I should also express my

thanks to my old friend Siri Reuterstrand, who is busy doing pre-press
treatment of the rest of the script. Let us hope that we will make the
deadline.

Erik Örjan Emilsson

Contents

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I. FEUDAL DYNAMICS AND THE ROOTS OF EARLY-MODERN
SWEDISH SOCIETY

Don’t hide from hindsight – feudalism read backwards

Swedish ‘feudalism’ and the full scope of definitional debate: Ward’s ten foci of
feudal definitions reappraised

Swedish feudalism – for and against

‘Swedish feudalism’ – why does it matter?

Perry Anderson: Feudalism as dynamic polystructurality

Evolutionary approaches in social science

Nelson-Winter’s evolutionary economics

The problem of selection

Evolutionary political science: Hendrik Spruyt

Individual and collective selection

The ‘feudal realization problem’

Swedish expansionism as path dependence

The internal basis of expansionist success

Individualized incentives

Tax and rent as categories

Modern economic or feudal dynamics?

‘Careerists’ and the front of Commoners

The programme of the Commoners

The Protestation of the Commoner Estates – content and preliminary analysis 64
The peasant Estate as an ally – but of whom?

On the threshold of the Triple Miracle

CHAPTER II. SOCIAL STRUCTURE IN IMPERIAL SWEDEN –
THE PEASANTRY

Peasants and progress Swedish and European Miracles

Peasants in the social structure of Imperial Sweden

The problem of measurement

Wealth and poverty among the peasants

Did the taxation system breed inequality?

Homogenization or polarization?

Rich and poor peasants

Who were the rich peasants – a second look

Development of peasant wealth over time

101

What happened to the rich peasants of Grava?

101

The further development in Gladhammar

108

The further development in Danmark

115

Comparison and conclusions

118

appendix: Livestock-based indices

121

CHAPTER III. SWEDISH STATE-BUILDING AS A PROCESS OF
PARALLELL CENTRALIZATION. THE MEDIEVAL BACKGROUND

124

Points of departure

124

A question of terminology

124

An ambiguous term for an ambiguous concept

125

The European state-system

126

State-system dynamics: different approaches

126

Feudalism as dynamic polystructurality

128

Swedish revolutions?

129

The ‘Engelbrekt rebellion’

129

Two separate economic bases

130

No homogeneity

133

Swedish state formation: a two-sided centralization

135

Remaining ambiguities

137

The question of Royal ownership

138

Oligarchic centralism

139

An integrative feudalism

141

The Swedish trajectory: where to begin?

142

Nations before nationalism?

142

National fetishism and the role of chance in history

145

Informal constraints and the multi-generational build-up of royal power

146

The Swedish case: contestation as the norm

147

The nation-state as a problem - Tilly’s model

150

Nations and languages as historical constructs

152

Scandinavian evidence: redefinable dialects

153

Sweden: the prehistory of modern statebuilding

154

The rebellion against king Eric and the delimitation of Sweden

155

The geographical convergence of power struggles

155

Peasant rebellions, private warfare or class alliances?

157

The Engelbrekt debates

158

The evidence from the Puke feud

162

The murder of Engelbrekt

166

The revolution against King Eric as a composite conflict

170

Stockholm and the Hanse system

171

Aristocratic discontent. A background

172

Who were ‘the Council’?

172

Constitutionalists or oligarchs? The

testamentarii

of Bo Jonsson (Grip)

174

The ‘unification letter lobby’

178

Trust or council?

180

Magnate politics

181

Nils Gustavsson (Rossvik) – an upstart magnate

185

Nils Erengisleson (Hammersta) – a link to the past

190

The course of the revolution

192

The outbreak of the rebellion

192

The peasants

195

The bishops

197

The role of the Lawspeakers

199

The second Darlecarlian rising

200

The ‘Revolutionary Council’

204

Engelbrekt’s followers – peasants or gentry?

207

The Revolution against king Eric: causes and effects

210

What is the legacy of the revolution?

211

CHAPTER IV. LAWSPEAKERS AND ARISTOCRACY IN MEDIEVAL
SWEDEN

214

The formation of a nobility

215

The role of the lawspeakers

217

Statebuilding processes and sources of social power

231

Erik Lönnroth – between idealism and materialism

233

The peculiarities of Swedish feudalism – Lagerroth’s view

235

The Changing roles of the lawspeakers –period by period

243

I. Formation and formalization (1219-1319)

243

II. Consolidation and tension (1319-1356)

247

III. Oligarchic contestation (1356-1397)

254

Excursus: Lawspeakers and the testamentarial trust:

258

IV. Royal recentralization (1396-1434)

265

Nils Gustavsson’s dilemma – the double role of the upstart

272

The recruitment of lawspeakers, period I-V

273

Appendix on genealogical argumentation

272

BIBLIOGRAPHY

279

TABLES AND CHARTS

Table 1. Feudalism: ten foci

Table 2: subdivision of Swedish peasantry ca 1720-1865

Table 3: Deputies of the peasant Estate identified in taxation rolls

Charts 1-4. The parishes of Danmark and Gladhammar 1571-1599.

Table 4. Property tax of 1599: 5 Värmland parishes (Österberg 1977).

Chart 5: The parish of Grava in 1600: total tax

Chart 6: The parish of Grava in 1600: livestock index

Chart 7: Grava 1600: harvest size.

Chart 8: Top decile from Grava 1600: further development

102

Chart 9. “Under-assessed” homesteads 1600 and their further development.

104

Chart 10: Homesteads in Grava 1600-1714. Taxed property

105

Chart 11: Property in Grava: aggregate and average value 1600-1714

106

Chart 12-13: Lorenz curves Grava 1600-1714 (livestock index)

107

Chart 14: Property of households in Gladhammar 1571-1714

109

Table 5: Persons of standing owning land in Gladhammar 1714

112

Chart 15: Livestock in Gladhammar: aggregate and average value 1571-1714

114

Chart 16: Livestock and wealth in Danmark: aggr. & average value 1600-1714

115

Chart 17: Households in Danmark 1571-1714. Assessed property.

116

Chart 18: Average property for different tenures. Danmark 1640-1713.

117

Chart 19: Aggregate wealth in the three parishes 1571-1713/4

118

Chart 20: Average wealth in Danmark, Gladhammar , and Grava 1571-1713/4

119

Table 6: The executorial college created by Bo Jonsson’s testament.

177

Table 7: The ‘Engelbrekt rebellion’ first campaign.

194

Table 8: Engelbrekt rebellion, second campaign.

195

Table 9: The revolutionary council of 1435.

206

Table 10: The 26 first lawspeakers

222

Chart 21: Lawspeakers 1296-1318

246

Chart 22: Lawspeakers 1319-1337

251

Chart 23: Lawspeakers 1338-56

253

Chart 24: Lawspeakers 1356-71

255

Chart 25: Lawspeakers 1371-89.

258

Chart 26: lawspeakers: levels of aristocratic background

274

INTRODUCTION

The four essays that comprise this book are a continuation of the

project I began with my licential dissertation,

Sweden and the

European Miracles: Conquest, Growth and Voice

– to situate the

historical  development  of  Sweden  within  the  debates  concerning  the
transition  to  modern  society.  From  one  aspect  the  purpose  is  to  test
European  explanations  and  theoretical  models  on  the  Swedish
development.  From  another  it  is  an  attempt  to  bring  the  Swedish
experience  into  the  general  debate  on  European  development  and
thus to provide material for a broader-based analysis of Europe.

The only real point of consensus I have found in the debate

concerning  the  ‘European  advantage’  –  to  just  choose  the  least
provocative  label  –  is  the  crucial  role  given  to  the  simultaneous
independence  and  interpendence  of  the  constituent  sub-societies,
providing institutional variety, multiple ‘testing’ of development paths,
and  imitation  of  successful  practices.  This  means  that  the
contributions of all the countries participating in this interaction need
to be brought into the picture

. I have already made this argument in

Sweden and the European Miracles

, but here I endeavour to make

further substantiations of the claim, and to specify the Swedish
historical experience in closer detail.

The first essay,

Feudal Dynamics and the Roots of Early-Modern

Swedish Society

was written quite a long time after chapters two and

three, and when the research for chapter four was nearly completed.
The original intention was to sum up the argumentation and to point
out  the  implications  contained  in  the  other  articles,  but  it  soon
became  necessary  to  also  incorporate  previews  of  ongoing  research
and  modifications  of  earlier  positions  in  the  light  of  current  debates
and  new  publications.  My  interpretation  of  feudalism,  in  particular,
had  to  be  more  clearly  specified,  its  role  in  the  evolutionary
perspective underlined, and my objections to the widespread view of
Sweden’s  non-feudal  past  had  to  be  more  forcefully  argued.  These
are the subjects of the first section of chapter one, which proceeds to

In the Swedish case at least including an efficient administrative organization,

military innovations, an exceptionally broad basis of popular representation and
the earliest experiments with parliamentary rule.

discuss  evolutionary  theories  within  social  science,  and  the  Swedish
version  of  what  I  have  called  the  European  ‘Triple  Miracle’:  (World)
Conquest,  (sustained)  Growth,  and  (extended  political)  Voice
(Emilsson 1996).

The following articles are printed in the order in which they were

written, and therefore to some extent mirror a gradual modification of
positions.

The second study,

Social Structure in Imperial Sweden – the

Peasantry

, discusses the Swedish peasantry, its subdivision according

to  nature  of  land  tenure  and  manner  of  political  representation,  and
its  economic  stratification;  also  trends  in  peasant  wealth  and  in  the
degree  of  inequality.  Evidence  from  property  taxations  is  used  in
order to resolve these questions for sample parishes and the results of
earlier  research  are  scrutinized  and  criticized.  Different  kinds  of
economic  dynamics  are  discussed  and  a  change  from  ‘feudal’  to
modern  economic  dynamics  is  inferred.  The  consequences  for  the
traditional  conception  of  the  Swedish  peasantry  are  spelled  out:  The
strong position of peasant proprietors in 19

century Sweden is a late

development  connected  to  the  rise  of  market  production  and  in  no
way  represents  a  survival  of  pre-feudal  peasant  ownership  rooted  in
Viking  Age  communities  of  free  and  equal  peasants.  The  long  and
strong  tradition  of  peasant  freedom  in  Sweden  is  in  the  main
independent of the nature of land tenure; freeholders and tenants on
noble  or  ecclesiastical  land  as  well  as  on  Crown  domain,  had  equal
community rights including jury service and eventually, representation
in the Diet. The particular economic strength of peasant property, and
the  political  importance  of  the  Swedish  peasantry  are  therefore  two
phenomena  that  have  to  be  investigated  separately,  and  neither  can
be  reduced  to  a  symptom  of  the  other;  the  interrelations  are  more
complex  and  involve  the  fracturing  and  political  redefinition  of  the
peasantry.

The third article is called

Swedish State-building as a Process of

Parallel Centralization. The Medieval Background

. The first part of it

advances the dynamic view of feudalism which has now been further
developed  in  essay  number  one,  and  discusses  the  peculiarites  of
Swedish  state-building.  The most important aspect, in  my opinion, is
that  state  formation  was  strengthened,  not  weakened,  by  the
‘pendulum  swings’  between  monarchic  self-assertion  and  aristocratic
dominance  emphasized  by  Michael  Roberts  and  Perry  Anderson.
Furthermore,  this  ‘double’  or  competitive  version  of  state-building
was  predicated  upon  the  institutional  separation  of  the  land  and  the

peasantry  into  two  ‘separate  economic  bases’,  which  is  seen  as  an
important  factor  behind  the  survival  of  a  large  sector  of  freeholders.
The  second  part  of  the  article  consists  of  a  reconsideration  of  the
revolution against Eric  of  Pomerania  (1434-1441) and of the  first and
formative phase of the revolution: the Engelbrekt rebellion (1434-36),
together  with  analyses  of  earlier  aristocratic  network  building  which
provide  part  of  the  background.  Despite  the  difference  between  the
two sections of the essay, it has proved difficult to separate them: the
general discussion in part one is needed for the analysis in part two,
but also builds on the evidence presented in that section.

My general argument is that the particular Swedish road to a

broadly  inclusive  political  representation  is  contingent  on  the
trajectory  of  the  state-building  process  whose  distinctive  traits  I
formulate  here,  and  that  this  ties  into  the  arguments  I  have  been
making in the second essay.

The final study,

Lawspeakers and Aristocracy in Medieval Sweden

is  an  inquiry  into  the  role  of  lawspeakers  in  the  medieval  Swedish
state-building process. The analyses in the third essay required further
underpinning  as  well  as  a  reconsideration  of  the  earlier  periods  of
recurrent  power  struggles,  rebellions,  and  civil  wars.  The  analysis  of
the  Swedish  version  of  feudalism  required  a  further  specification  of
the  disjunction  between  judiciary  and  military-administrative  power.
The  reconsideration  of  Swedish  ‘peasant  freedom’  required  a
deconstruction of the myth of local community ‘peasant chieftains’ as
the basis of the lawspeaker institution. This article is thus a ‘prehistory
of the prehistory’ of the miracles, but is also an important part of my
project  to  undermine  the  ‘shortcut’  explanation  of  Swedish  peasant
property  –  as  a  survival  from  the  Viking  Age,  whether  this  period  is
interpreted  as  a  communitarian  Garden  of  Eden  or  as  an  age  of
unrestrained entrepreneurs.

Together, the four essays make a case for the civic independence

of  Swedish  peasants  (an  important  factor  in  the  development  of
political  Voice  in  Sweden)  as  completely  separate  from  the  wide-
spread  property  rights  (an  important  factor  in  early  economic
Growth).  None  of  these  two  factors  can  be  reduced  to  the  other,
although their interconnection is obvious.

It would be premature to offer an answer as to the complex

interconnection  with  the  Miracle  of  Conquest,  but  the  constant
negotiation  for  men  and  means  was  obviously  important  for  peasant
representation  in  the  Diet.  Furthermore:  if  my  suggestion  of  a  shift

Don’t hide from hindsight – feudalism read
backwards

The more evidence that has been assembled indicating that the

terms  feudal,  feudalism  and  feudal  society  are  in  essence  post-
medieval: products of hindsight and of attempts to explain the type of
society  that  European  modernity  emerged  from  and  superseded,  the
more reasonable it seems to me to accept that these terms are overtly
teleological.  There  is  a  trade-off  between  (1)  the  gains  in  our
historical understanding to be made through respecting the specificity
of  a  historical  period,  and  (2)  the  explanatory  gains  to  be  made
through searching for the sources of modern phenomena. Most of the
criticism  against  the  word  ‘feudalism’  has  been  formulated  from
standpoint  (1),  which appears to  restrict its usefulness to the  domain
of (2).

Ellen Meiksins Wood (1999) has suggested a broad reinterpretation

of the nowadays largely discredited

notion of ‘bourgeois revolution’

along the lines of Marx' comment on the French revolution: that it
cleared away the ‘medieval rubbish’ still obstructing the emergence of
modern society. It is to this context

, I will argue, that the concept of

Feudal society is still relevant and, in fact, indispensable

- as a

designation for those aspects of the medieval legacy constraining the
full emergence of modern society, while at the same time constituting
the foundation for this development.

Primarily, the concept of a ‘rising bourgeoisie’ overthrowing an obsolescent social

order has been undermined by the less than heroic record of identifiably
bourgeois groups in the concrete historical analysis of revolutions (Cobban 1962,
Skocpol 1979, Comninel 1987)

Not only to the neo-Marxist context of Wood and her discussion partners, but as

much to the neo-institutionalist context of Douglass North and his followers,
where

the removal of constraints

is a central explanatory category.

‘Ancien Régime’, ‘Alteuropa’ (Brunner), or ‘old order’ (Blum), have been

employed as alternative labels, but the advantage with ‘feudal society’ is that the
usage of the word in this sense is familiar and well-established, however irritating
it may be for those who prefer unambiguous terms. What we need here, though,
is a  term  for an inescapably  ambiguous  concept,  and  to  create  a  new, and  more
‘precise’ term, would be to pretend to an accuracy we have not yet achieved, or,
worse,  a  conformity  which  never  existed.  As  a  heuristic  concept,  we  are  quite
simply stuck with ‘feudalism’ until we have found a better  explanation of what it
really  was  that  happened  to  exactly  what  kind  of  group  of  European  societies
sharing which characteristics at exactly which points of the whole process.

As the modern usage of the terms ultimately derives from

•

descriptions of obsolescent customs

•

the defense and systematic exploitation of such customs

and

•

struggle against and declarations of the abolishment of such
customs

I see no reason to abandon the term in these specific contexts –

that  would  only  force  us  to  coin  a  new  unsatisfactorily  ambiguous
term with the added disadvantage of being unfamiliar and unlikely to
be  accepted  by  anyone  proposing  a  different  analysis  of  the  basic
nature  of  pre-modern

European society. When we discuss feudal

society  we  at  least  have  compatible  views  as  to  what  we  are
disagreeing  about.  That  the  term  is  contested  and  ambiguous  seems
to  me  a  good  reason  to  stick  to  it  -  as  a  heuristic  label  and  as  a
shorthand for a specific but very wide area of historical debate.

Swedish ‘feudalism’ and the full scope of definitional
debate: Ward’s ten foci of feudal definitions
reappraised

There have been many attempts to survey and classify the

competing usages of the f-words but John O. Ward’s 1985 article

stands out for two important reasons. He classifies a number of
different standpoints

One of Reynolds’ central arguments is that the notion of a specific, consistent

feudal law is derived from a body of learned 12

century comments on an

ordinance  issued  by  Conrad  II  in  order  to  settle  a  conflict  between  the
archbishop of Milan and knightly  tenants of the Church (Reynolds 1994:199-207,
215-230).  These  tracts, labeled  the

Libri Feudorum

, were often attached to the

books  of  Roman  Law  studied  by  university-trained  lawyers,  and  became  –
Reynolds argues  –  the  foundation for  the conception of  feudalism as a coherent
system,  formulated  at  a  time  when  early  modern  lawyers  and  historians  tried  to
make sense of the many obsolescent customs they encountered.

the specialist corps of French attorneys dedicated to the exploitation of such

customs, generally referred to as ‘feudists’.

The abolishment of ‘feudal tenure’ during the English revolution and the

declaration of the abolishment of all

droits féodaux

in France 1789 (

Markoff

1996)

: also the abolition of ’feudal tenure’ in England (Halsbury’s Laws of

England).

Read pre-statist, pre-rationalistic, pre-capitalist or whatever, as these discussions

intersect and are almost impossible to keep separate.

The anthology in which it appears (Leach-Mukherjee-Ward 1985) proved to be

inaccessible in Sweden, why I am greatly indebted to Dr Ward for kindly sending
me a copy.

Table 1. Feudalism: ten foci (Ward 1985. Edited by present author.)

designation

focused characteristic

references to authors

focus I

vassalage (ties of personal dependence)

Dopsch, Bloch, Le Goff

focus II

the conditionality of fief-holding

- Stenton, Strayer 1956 ('feudalism stage 2')

focus III

union between benefice and vassalage

- Ganshof, H Brunner, White

focus IV

military service in exchange for land

- H A Cronne, H Brunner, White

focus V a

parcellation of authority

- Dopsch, Mitteis, Boutruche, Anderson, Bisson, Elias

focus V b

obligations as tools for centralization

- Barraclough, Strayer 1966, Bisson

focus VI [a]

combination of vassalage, fief and rights of justice

- Hoyt, Boutruche

focus VI [b]

ditto

+ the castle as a site for this combination

- J Evans, Bisson

focus VII

dominance of the knightly class

- Duby 1973

focus VIII

an entire society or type of civilization

- Bloch, R A Evans

focus IX [a]

manorialism (seigneurial property)

- Weber, Duby 1978 [D North]

focus IX [b]

bonded dependence of peasant class

- Marx, Anderson, Dobb, Kula

focus X

a "compromise with anarchy"

- Erickson, Ward

Reynolds 1994:2,n5: ‘Many recent formulations correspond more or less with J O

Ward’s ‘focus VI’, though some slide into other foci.’

Swedish feudalism – for and against

My purpose with this discussion is to show that according to most

of the different formulations of what is taken to be crucial citeria of
feudalism, Sweden

would

qualify and thus has a share in the

European  polystructurality  which,  I  will  argue,  is  the  foundation  of
European dynamics. This particular view of feudalism I present as an
eleventh  focus,  although  it  might  also  be  seen  as  a  more  positive
reinterpretation  of

focus X

. The most holistic focus,

number VIII

will of course also be compatible, but in a way

all

of the foci can be

seen as aspects of polystructurality. If it is the coexistence of different
institutional patterns that contains the potential for development, then
the differently focused definitions is a symptom of the diversity
characteristic of feudal society.

I discuss the foci in a somewhat erratic order, as I want to analyze

the debate on feudalism in Sweden with the help of Ward’s
categories; not to use the Swedish examples to illustrate his list.

‘Absence of regional separatism’ – a narrow version of
focus Va

If we look at the discussions of whether something that might be

called  feudalism  has  ever  existed  in  Sweden  through  the  various
lenses provided by Ward’s typology, we might start with Heckscher’s
classic  denial  (1952:36f),  based  on  the  fact  that  some  of  the  richest
Swedish  landowners  of  the  Middle  Ages  did  not  strive  to  make  their
estates  autonomous.  This  objection  would  reasonably  fall  into  the
domain  of

focus V a

(parcellation of authority

)

, but is in fact even

more narrow, as it is based on the

absence of

regional separatism

. His

example is Bo Jonsson (Grip),

officialis generalis

and High Steward

(

drots

) during Albrecht of Mecklenburg’s Swedish reign (1365-88)

and  the  collector  of  the  vastest  domain  ever  controlled  by  a  private
Swedish  citizen.  That  Bo  Jonsson  did  not  attempt  to  concentrate  his
holdings  in  order  to  set  himself  up  as  a  semi-independent  regional
overlord, but instead seems to have maximized their dispersion across
the  country,  and  that  similar  strategies  were  followed  (Abraham
Brodersen,  Arvid  Trolle)  or  anticipated  (Nils  Turesson)  by  many  of
the  Swedish  magnates,  was  to  Heckscher  an  obvious  symptom  of
non-feudal conditions.

In 1365, Bo Jonsson and other exiled Swedish magnates returned together with

the Mecklenburger invasion forces to depose King Magnus Eriksson. Bo became
Albrecht’s ‘general official’ in 1369 and High Steward in 1371.

However, enfeoffment could certainly fragment authority also in

Sweden, and I would suggest that it was the very parcellation of
authority under the Mecklenburg regime

that made feasible Bo

Jonsson’s struggle for a goal much more ambitious than feudal
separatism: to wrest not just a region, but the entire country from the
grasp of the King, and to put it under the collective control of a
narrow oligarchic magnate faction led by himself.

My argument is that the oligarchic strategy coming into the open

least

by the time of the compromise settlement after the 1371 rising,

has led to a particular Swedish version of state-building conflicts:

not

the familiar feudal/absolutist struggle between a centralizing monarch
and de-centralizing aristocrats with local power bases, but a struggle
over the control of a power centre constructed and coveted by
monarchic pretenders and oligarchic conspiracies alike

Ties that bind – focus Vb

What, then, about the opposite perspective of

focus Vb

, where the

web  of  feudal  obligations  is  instead  viewed  as  a  mechanism  for
creating a centripetal state? My discussion above would obviously fall
under  this  heading,  but  so  would  also  the  mainstream  picture  of  the
Realm  of  Sweden  as  originating  in  a  loose  federation  of

landskap

–

regional  communities  with  separate  law  codes  –  centralized  into  a
single  state  by  royal  power  in  close  cooperation  with  the  church,
employing  oaths  of  allegiance,  castle  fiefs  and  the  enforcement  of
sworn Peace laws. This picture, however, usually focuses on the non-
or  pre-feudal  regional  variation,  rather  than  on  the  feudal  aspects  of
the  centralization.  As  the  imported  institutions  of  ecclesiastical
organization, royal power, and written laws, are the means by which

Both a result of the financial distress caused by ‘feudal’ conquest and of the

conflict-ridden  collusion  with  the  magnate  faction  which  had  deliberately
fragmented Magnus Eriksson’s attempt to reconstruct royal control after a period
(1304-18)    of    something  which  can  only  be  called  classic  feudal  disintegration:
civil  war,  division  of  the  realm  into  first  two,  then  three  principalities,  finally
culminating  in  fratricide,  royal  exile,  and  the  election  of  a  three-year-old  king.
(See Chapter 4 for fuller analyses)

Its foundation, though, was laid already in 1319, when the council constituted

itself as a ruling body during Magnus Eriksson’s minority (Beckman 1953),
redefining itself as a Council of the Realm and delimiting royal power through a
‘letter of freedom’ specifying the conditions for elective monarchy.

This, I also argue, is the foundation for the ‘oscillation’ between royal authority

and collective aristocratic power described by Roberts and Anderson, which in
my opinion is an important part of the explanation of the strength of the
Swedish state: it was, so to speak, ‘built from two directions’. See page 56, 139.

the various regions in this new state are being integrated, I insist on
the

feudal

character of this integration.

Non-inheritable fiefs – an ‘anti-focus’

Another common argument against ‘Swedish feudalism’ is to point

out that Swedish fiefs

did not become inheritable

, in contrast to what

is taken to be the typical feudal pattern. The focus on

fief-holding,

however,

number II

, only emphasizes its

conditionality

–

inheritability

is not put into focus by

any

of the variants charted by

Ward.  The  point  of  reference  for  the  inheritance  argument  seems  to
be the traditional explanation of how inheritable fiefs are supposed to
have  originated  from  land  granted  by  early  medieval  war-leaders  to
their  followers.  Reynolds  describes  this  as  a  ‘myth  of  origin’
(1994:229)  based  upon  a  ‘small  piece  of  conjectural  history  put
forward  in  the  early  twelfth  century  by  one  of  the  Lombard  lawyers
whose  little  treatises  were  soon  after  combined  into  the

Libri

Feudorum’

(1994:475). Reynolds’ denunciation of the historical

relevance of this story is unequivocal.

This is not to deny that the inheritability of fiefs seems to have

been  widespread  in  medieval  Europe,  as  it  is  even  within  Reynolds’
survey;  just  that  it  does  not  appear  to  have  been  made  a  central
defining  characteristic

by scholars participating in the international

feudalism debates, and that the extent to which inheritable noble
property really

had

originated in royal grants may have been grossly

exaggerated

The sources do not suggest that nobles and free men thought of

their property as having originated in a grant from a king or other
lord, except, of course, when one of them had just received a grant of
land in addition to what he had inherited from his ancestors
(Reynolds1994:61)

According to the discussion in Rosén 1949:75-9 it seems that Earl

Birger in mid-13

century had donated parts of the inalienable Royal

domain (

Uppsala öd

) to his younger sons, which they – especially the

Duke-Bishop  Bengt  –  later  appear  to  have  sold  or  donated.  This
suggests  a  certain  confusion  between  enfeoffment  and  allodial
donation,  or  more  probably:  an  absence  of  the  kind  of  precise
distinctions that terms like these presuppose. Reasonably, this is more

Also cf Bloch’s quote about

fiefs de réprise

below, page 237 – in cases where the

land ‘granted’ by the Lord was originally the fiefholders’ own land which had put
under the Lord’s protection, inheritability was a self-evident condition of the
arrangement.

or less the same kind of process that takes  place in the ‘feudal core-
lands’:  royal  land  slipping  from  conditional  tenure  into  private
property  through  the  very

lack

of unambiguous terms and rules

Examples of grants given with inheritable rights to

famuli

and

fideles

can be found among the abalienations listed by Rosén

There is of course no reason to postulate that Ward’s list is

exhaustive  –  I  will  suggest  other  possible  additions  later  –  but  the
quite  frequent  Swedish  equation  of  feudalism  with  inheritable  fiefs
does not seem to be derived from analyses of feudal societies. Instead
it  gives  the  impression  of  an  ‘anti-focus’  designed  to  prove  the
‘otheness’  or  non-feudal  character  of  Sweden.  I  can  see  no  really
useful purpose of such a definition.

Conditionality – focus II – and subinfeudation

How about the real

focus II

, then? Within this focus the

impermanence and

conditionality

of Swedish castellanies would no

longer constitute an argument against feudal relations; on the contrary
– that would be what made them feudal!

Another common argument for incomplete feudalization in

Sweden, is a supposed relative lack of

subinfeudation.

I have found

only one example in Rosén 1949

, but that is certainly because what

he  is  listing  is  abalienations  of  Crown  land,  and  this  example  of  an
abalienation  passed  on  as  a  sub-fief  just  happened  to  be  obvious
enough  to  remark  on.  However,  I  have  also  found  it  almost
impossible to hunt down any likely references when searching for the
words

förläna

förläning

(grant or enfeoff; grant, fief or enfeoffment)

in the electronic register of Swedish medieval charters (SMB).

Apart from grants made by the King, by a regent or by groups of

councillors  seemingly  acting  as  collective  regents,  almost  all  of  the
entries  refer  to  the  relations  between  bishops  and  lower  clergy,  and
appear  to  concern  the  control  of  churches  rather  than  land.  This  is
hardly  subinfeudation  in  the  usual  sense  of  the  word.  Some  entries
seem  to  use  the  words  more  figuratively,  and  some  concern  the

Reynolds 1994:82 about the ‘kind of slow embezzlement’ that transformed

royal land ‘attached to offices’ and then ‘ending up as ... hereditary property’ ;
also pp12-14, 119-23 on the ambiguity of ‘feudal’ terms.

1949:131-174.

E g

#32: Karl Elofsson, who immediately proceeded to donate is as

morgongåva

to his wife (DS 588);

#59: Werner Brunkow (DS687); #80 archdean

Andreas Andrae, and his brother, the lawspeaker Israel Andersson (DS 914).

op cit

p148, #60 Bengt Magnusson, grandnephew of Earl Birger, grandson of

Bishop Bengt Magnusson, lawspeaker of Östergötland and probable castellan of
Kalmar,

enfeoffed

a ‘predium’ Rinxhult in Småland to Nils Sigridsson, later

lawspeaker of Tiohärad. (DS 700).

granting  of  single  homesteads  to  people  who  would  might  at  best
have  been  fairly  humble  reeves  if  not  ordinary  peasant  tenants.
Remains  a  handful  of  examples  all  of  which  might  just  as  well  have
been benefices granted to clients out of private (allodial) land.

This seems to confirm the low degree of subinfeudation – but only

as long as we do not consider

pantlän

(mortgage fiefs) to be ‘real’

fiefs

. See the discussion below.

Then of course there is the question of how ubiquitous and

essential to feudal societies the practice of subinfeudation really was.
A  sceptic  viewpoint  is  encouraged  by  Reynolds  1994:100  and  222.  A
focus  on  subinfeudation  might  be  something  of  an  ‘anti-focus’,  like
the  emphasis  on  inheritability.  It  is,  however,  closely  related  to
Anderson’s  concept  of  ‘scalar  property’  or  Bloch’s  ‘hierarchical
complex  of  bonds  between  the  man  and  the  soil’  (Bloch  1965:116),
both of  which  have been seriously  forwarded as constitutive traits  of
feudal  society.  Bloch’s  notion  has  been  developed  for  the  Swedish
case by Winberg 1985

, although he tends to use the word ‘feudal’ to

characterize a certain ideological program during the property rights
struggles of the 17

and 18

century, when the very concept of

ownership was being redefined (1985:80f: the ‘feudal doctrine’). In
my focus, the earlier ‘hierarchical complex’ would be more feudal.

Serfdom and manors – focus IX

The

lack of serfdom

is another standard reason for designating

Sweden a non-feudal society, but among the Marxist definitions
predominating within

focus IX [b]

there are several formulations

quite compatible with the Swedish case. If we follow  Rodney  Hilton,
the  facts  that  Swedish  peasants  disposed  over  their  means  of
production, but were deprived of their surplus product through extra-
economic  coercion  would  put

skattebönder

(freeholders on taxable

land) as well as

frälsebönder

(tenants on tax-exempt, noble-owned

land)

firmly within the continuum of different shades of peasant

dependence varying in its degree of oppressiveness

Fritz 1972:121 gives examples of secondary mortgage enfeoffment, 122:

concerning  the  source  material:  ‘to  a  quite  large  extent  second-  and  third-hand
impignation’.  1973:93  describes  the  subimpignation  of  Kalmar,  which  Vicke  von
Vitzen  evidently came to hold as a sub-fief under several successive fiefholders,
who  ‘all  in  turn  became  indebted  to  him’,  so  that  Kalmar  became  his  own
collateral. (My translations.)

The quote from Bloch on page one even supplies the name for the book

(‘ramifications’).

As has generally been argued by Swedish historians with a Marxist inclination.

The subcategory which I refer to as

IX [a]

, where the

manor is in

focus

rather than the serf, corresponds to a long-ranging Swedish

debate,  partly  intersecting  with  the  regional  separatism  issue.  The
later policy of ‘scattered estates’ may have been preceded by a period
of consolidated manors as suggested by Andrae 1960. Recent attempts
at estate reconstitution (Rahmqvist 1996, Berg 2003) suggest a pattern
of early landowning supporting his interpretation, and if the proposed
change  in  aristocratic  landownership  strategies  occurs  at  some  point
further  into  the  14

century, it should fit nicely into my oligarchic

centralism hypothesis

However, also manors of a more dispersed character could be

functional economic enterprises, where the landlord often strived to
utilize his access to different regional specializations (Munktell 1982,
Ferm 1990), and a quite serious case might even be made for the later
institution of

bruk

(the standard format of ironworks, sawmills

etc

far

into the 19

century – at least)

as a kind of quasi-industrialized semi-

feudal manor, partly dependent on labour dues and/or wages in kind,
and held under the command of an entrepreneur carrying the
blatantly feudal title of

patron

The Marxist analysis is, however, not exhausted by identifying the

form  of  surplus  exaction.  At  least  in  Hilton’s  version  the  struggle  for
rent becomes the dynamic element of the feudal mode of production.
The  fact  that  peasants  are  not  separated  from  the  means  of
production (land, animals and tools) is what requires ‘extra-economic
coercion’ in order to extract the surplus from the peasant into whose
hands  it  is  collected.  Thus  the  ‘tug-of-war’  over  the  agrarian  surplus
becomes the internal dynamic of feudalism

Fighting for land – focus IV

Focus IV

(

military service

in exchange for land)

may also seem

questionable from the Swedish standpoint, as horseman’s service was
in  general  rewarded  not  by  land,  but  by  tax  exemption  for  land
already  possessed,  according  to  King  Magnus  Barnlock’s  statute  of
1280  (known  as

Alsnö stadga

from the place of issue). However,

See chapter 3. In that case it would be efforts towards collective control over the

nascent  state  that  made  aristocrats  scatter  their  holdings.  This  must  have  led  to
greater  collective  control as  well as  to  a  higher  degree  of  interdependence  –  a
‘cartelization’ of  seigneurial resources in order  to maximize  their collective  stake
in  central  power,  instead  of  a  cut-throat  competition  for  the  most  attractive
regions.

Hilton offers this conclusion – based on his own research but also on Duby’s –

within the context of the Dobb-Sweezy debate (Hilton(ed) 1978). Anderson has
further developed this analysis, to which I also subscribe (see below).

military service as a precondition of noble privilege might seem like a
fairly equivalent basis.

Birgitta Fritz’ discussion of a unique

example of a letter of fidelity from the early 14

century:

It is, however, hard to determine to what extent the military service

is connected to the enfeoff-ment itself, as a fiefholder owed his lord
the king armed service in general. He owed it for the tax exemption
he probably enjoyed and for the homage relationship
[mansförhållande], which was the basis of the very enfeoffment.
(1972:105. My translation)

Also, when horseman service for noble property became quantified

towards the end of the Middle Ages the quota seem to have been
applied to enfeoffed land (

län

) as well as to allodial noble land

(Nilsson 1947:18-21). However, as Reynolds concludes that

Outside England the obligation to military service, so often seen as

a key feature of ‘feudal tenure’, was generally nominal. (1994:69),

we might not have to worry too much about the military aspect of

feudalism  being  underplayed  in  the  Swedish  case,  where  loss  of
noble  privilege  due  to  neglected  horseman  service  was  enforced
throughout  the  16

century (Forssell 1869-75, Jägerskiöld 1945,

Nilsson 1947, Samuelsson 1993)

Remaining foci – I: ties of personal dependence

The remaining foci have seldom entered the Swedish delimitational

debate,  and  may  be  delt  with  in  a  more  cursory  way.  To  the  extent
that  they  seem  compatible  with  the  Swedish  evidence,  this  can
however  be  said  to  support  a  more  encompassing  definition  of
Sweden as a feudal society.

As to

number I

, the word ‘vassal’ has seldom been used in

Sweden, except in connection with enfeoffment to (or by) non-
Scandinavians, but ties of

personal dependence

have certainly been

salient, and other terms with a ‘feudal’ flavour have been in much
more frequent use, like ‘

fidelis

’ or ‘man’ in the sense connected to the

relationship of homage. I do

not

claim that these words ‘mean’ vassal

in any supposedly strict sense,

pace

Reynolds 1994:X, where she

points out occasions where editors have supplanted the ’technical
terms’ of feudalism for presumed synonyms found in the original

Also

Reynolds’ comment on ‘[r]estraint in making demands on the powerful’ as

applying to military service (referring to France in the period 900-1100): ‘there is
no evidence that French nobles in general held their lands on the formal
conditions that they should serve in their lords’ armies, let alone that they should
provide any specified amount of service’ (Reynolds 1994:131).

texts, and thus created the illusion of a ubiquitous and consistent
nomenclature.

I only point out that they are signs of the importance of personal

dependence

relations.

‘Fully developed feudalism’ – focus III

The so-called

‘union between benefice and vassalage’

(

focus III

)

often taken to mark the full development of feudal relations, was
discussed by Löfquist in his pathbreaking study of Swedish
knighthood. He pointed out some evidence for the early 14

century

(1935:85ff) but concluded that it seemed to ‘belong to the
characteristics of the Nordic

länsväsende

, that these components

never became fully locked or chained to each other’

. He did not,

however, suggest that this made the knights and esquires of medieval
Sweden non-feudal.

It is a feudal terminology that rules, and usual feudal habits and

notions, that determine the bond between king and man, that finds
expression in letters of fidelity and revocation, and that dictate the
men’s demands on their lord. (

loc cit;

my translation)

Still he saw the feudal influence as limited: ‘It determined form

more than content’, but this was primarily due to the ‘watered down’
version  of  homage.  Towards  the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages  to  be
someone’s  ‘man’  was  becoming  more  or  less  indistinguishable  from
other kinds of service. Löfqvist’s reservations about Swedish (Nordic)
feudalism  thus  relate  to  the  late-medieval  period,  and  are  based  on
the attenuation of focus I (vassalage)

To Reynolds this criterion is one of the most serious sources of

confusion within the feudalism discourse:

where the concept of vassalage has been particularly misleading has

been in the suggestion that there was a period – whenever historians
put it for their respective areas – at which the ‘union of fief and

Reynolds 1994:33: ‘at best little more than a neat but meaningless phrase’.

1935:215 (my translation; ‘fully locked’ stands for

fastlåst. Länsväsende

is, like the

German

Lehnswesen

, from which it is borrowed,

both

a more general term than

‘feudalism’ or

féodalité

, more abstractly descriptive than theoretical,

and

restrictive,

pace

Reynolds 1994 who only notes the second distinction: ‘that is,

feudalism in its supposedly more precise sense’(396) or ‘feudo-vassalic
relations’(473).

NB in a

very

restrictive interpretation: when other kinds of personal dependence

converge with

stricte sensu

vassalage, the feudal character of society dissolves, in

his view.

vassalage’ altered the general pattern of relations so that ‘personal’
relations were ‘territorialized’. (1994:46)

‘Three dimensions of seigneurial power – focus III

If the combination of

vassalage

and

fief

is dubious enough, the

further addition of

justice rights

to form

focus VI [a]

would seem to

be even more unlikely, but in a triple focus it is reduced to one single
side of the triangle, and will therefore carry much less weight

. The

three-dimensional

seigneurie

emphasized by Duby (in

The Three

Orders

) may be seen as another way of formulating the same

phenomenon:

seigneurie banale

becomes the final complement to

domestic lordship and landlordship. However, the Swedish judiciary
system was based upon

ting

, local moots (usually hundred moots –

häradsting –

or regional moots –

landsting

), presided over by

magnate or gentry judges,  but also involving a jury, which at least at
the  hundred  level  consisted  of  peasants.  The  question  at  issue  here,
though,  would  be: who is the judge, and  what other authority  might
he possess (see below)?

Castles and feuds – focus VIb

The Castle

as an integrating factor for the three-dimensional

lordship –

VI [b]

– may appear relevant in the few cases where castle

fief, allodial estates and judicial office coincide

, but in general the

top-down structure of castle fiefs did not coincide with the bottom-
up

structure of hundred moots and lawspeakerships. During the

rebellion (1434-1440) against Eric of Pomerania

we can see how

potentially explosive this tension is. The gentleman miner and
peasant-levy commander Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson successfully

I e

the most important aspect is no longer the

specific form

of the personal

dependence and the land grant, but their

combination

with localized and

personalized justice rights.

Among the regional subcaptains of the rebellion appointed by the revolutionary

council of 1435, Knut Jonsson (Tre Rosor), was also the lawspeaker of the same
region, which might appear as a step towards an integrated lordship. Further
examples in Chapter 4.

I will argue that the top level – the lawspeakers – were, at least in the beginning,

aristocratic magnates closely related to the Crown. See chapter 4. Still, the judicial
structure of  villages, parishes, hundreds and provinces (lawspeakerships) is built
on conflict-resolution in communities solved on the appropriate level and moved
upwards  only  when  unresolved.  In  contrast  to  this,  castle  fiefs  and  bailiwicks
were  structures  for  economic  exaction  and  the  physical  (when  necessary)
enforcement of central state or local power requirements.

See below, Chapter 3.

negotiates  the  surrender  of  a  large  number  of  castles,  including  the
castle  of  Örebro,  which  he  ransoms  with  his  own  money    and  take
over.  Then  he  is  murdered  by  the  son  of  Bengt  Stensson  (Natt  och
Dag),  the  regional  lawspeaker,  in  what  is  usually  (but  with
surprisingly vague specification) described as a ‘private feud’.

Immediately afterwards the murderer, Magnus Bengtsson, tries to

capture  the  castle  and  thus  to  merge  both  of  these  dimensions  of
regional  feudal  power  within  his  father’s  ‘constituency’.  He  fails,
however, and the next time we hear about the castle (about one year
later) Engelbrekt’s brother-in-arms Erik Puke has also failed to capture
it;  this  time  from  a  deputy  of  the  Marshal  Karl  Knutsson  (Bonde),
Engelbrekt’s  rival  for  the  captaincy  of  the  rebellion

. The

lawspeakership appears to remain with Bengt Stensson, though,
perhaps even during the period when the Stensson brothers

appear

as leaders of a royalist counterrevolution, and while most of the other
lawspeakers still seem to be preserving a united front against

both

the contenders for the Crown

The case of mortgage fiefs

As Birgitta Fritz has argued (1972:121), the Mecklenburg period

(1365-89)  witnessed  a  transformation  in  the  function  of  mortgage
fiefs.  They  were  no  longer  just  a  financial  emergency  measure,  but
had become a standard method of compensation for assistance in the
conquest and occupation of Sweden. The financial investment at first
appearing  in  the  guise  of  a  loan  made  against  the  security  of  a  fief,
would  in  such  a  case  silently  have  been  transformed  into  a  kind  of
retroactive  purchase  sum  for  a  share  in  the  venture,  endowing  the
fiefholder  with  a  stake  in  the  juridico-political-fiscal  power  of  the
state.  To  me  this  appears  simply  as  just  another  variant  of  ‘feudal
disintegration’. Idiosyncratic – yes, aberrant – maybe, but if we do not
even  describe  such  a  blatant  conflation  of  economic,  political  and
judicial  authority  as  feudal,  the  term  would  be  of  very  limited  use
indeed.

The further complications resulting from Bo Jonsson’s strategy,

where such fiefs are bought up with money largely borrowed from

How this actually occurred has not been commented upon by any of the

historians I have read, not even those discussing Karl Knutsson’s possible
complicity to the murder.

Nils Stensson (Natt och Dag), a former co-commander of Engelbrekt’s, becomes

King Eric’s Marshal in 1439 backed by his brothers Bengt and Bo.

Eric of Pomerania and Karl Knutsson (Bonde) – provided that the latter has

already set his mind on the Crown by this time, which seems likely.

the  church  are  impossible  to  analyze  until  we  have  an  up-to-date
analysis  of  the  period.  As  the  rationale  for  such  purchases  seems  to
be  largely  political,  a  device  to  put  land  outside  the  reach  of  the
monarch,  this  may  compound  the  analytical  difficulties  beyond
possible  disentanglement.  Such  actions  became  possible  through  the
‘feudal’  lack  of  a  clear  separation  between  economic  and  political
control, which might, however, deserve a focus of its own

The world of the knights – focus VII and VIII

Focus VII

–

dominance of the knightly class

, appears to be quite

incontrovertible,  notwithstanding  the  importance  and  high  degree  of
independence of the freeholding peasantry. As  far as I can recall,  no
modern  Swedish  historian  has  claimed  otherwise

, though some of

the  National  Romanticist  historians  tended  to  interpret  the  members
of  the  aristocratic  ruling  class  as  something  more  resembling
prominent  spokesmen  for  the  yeomanry  (

bondehövdingar

– ‘peasant

chieftains’).

What about

VIII

–

‘feudal society’

as an entire

civilization

as it was

envisioned by Bloch

? That is probably what most of the Swedish

historians  finding  the  term  useful  have  in  mind,  but  of  course  a  lot
depends  on  how  widely  the  concept  is  interpreted,  and  as  I  will
argue  for  a  very  broad  version,  it  may  at  this  point  be  sufficient  to
notice  that  although  Thomas  Lindkvist  and  Dick  Harrison  –  the

Aaron Gurevich (1970; Gurevitj 1979) and Ellen Meiksins Wood (1981) have

stressed this aspect most emphatically.

There is a wide spectrum of variety, though, as to the degree of chivalric

dominance

vis-á-vis

the

counterbalance

independent

freeholders.

Reinholdsson 1997 and Småberg 2004 tend toward the emphasis of knightly
dominance, while Myrdal (1995, 1999) underlines the independent activities of
the peasants.

Which , I take it, does not necessary mean that Bloch’s definition has to be

followed  –  later  research  has  added  new  aspects,  nuances,  and  emphases.  E  A
Brown’s  list  of  factors  in  medieval  society  that  should  be  studied  to  achieve  a
broader  understanding  may  very  well  be  read  as  a  checklist  for  attemptr  to
improve on Bloch’s picture.

authors of the two current textbooks of medieval Swedish history

–

take opposite viewpoints as to the relevance of the feudal label: their
descriptions of Swedish medieval society are quite similar. Myrdal, in
his agrarian history of the period, formulates a very broad version
which I will have reason to return to.

Compromising with Chaos – contestability and ambiguity.
Ward’s focus X and my focus XI

At the end of Ward’s list is the alternative which he himself tends to

advocate – ‘

a compromise with chaos’

(

focus X

). I would prefer to

interpret  this  as:  ‘a  compromise  between  order  and  chaos’,  a  sort  of
makeshift  attempt  to  structure  a  world  in  flux  –  or  perhaps  many
overlapping  attempts  to  create  different  kinds  of  order?  And,  in  that
case, isn’t chaos just the other attempts seen from outside? I think that
there might be other foci worth considering besides those highlighted
by Ward

, but here I will limit myself to the focus which I find most

fruitful, and which is arguably just a more positive angle on focus X.

Perry Anderson and Aaron Gurevich have both in their quite

different ways ended up emphasizing the

polystructurality

of feudal

society, and, as I will argue, the dynamic potential of the times and
regions where the description ‘feudal’ seems most appropriate, is best
captured by focusing on this aspect. However, another aspect closely
related to this trait, is the ensuing

ambiguity

of just about any aspect

of society. The ownership of land is a classic point of contention not
only in the

ex post

historical analysis of feudal societies, but

within

the ongoing development of these societies in their own time as well,
and this has the further consequence of a general

contestability

, not

only of landownership, but of several – maybe even all – institutions
of these societies. My own

[focus XI]

(or should it be

X[b]

?) I

therefore formulate as: “

ambiguous and contestable polystructurality”

Lindkvist describes Sweden as ‘feudal’ in the broad sense, while Harrison discards

the  term.  Harrison  2002c,  Lindkvist-Sjöberg  2003.  Lindkvist’s  co-author  Maria
Sjöberg  covers  the  early  modern  period, and might  therefore  be  thought  to  fall
outside  the  comparison.  This  is  not  quite  adequate,  as  analyses  of  Swedish
feudalism  often  stretch  into  the  17

or even 18

century. The third volume of

the five-part Swedish agrarian history (

Det svenska jordbrukets historia

), written

by Janken Myrdal, is subtitled ‘Agriculture under feudalism 1000-1700’. However,
Sjöberg’s analysis has a detachedly impartial attitude to the different and
conflicting theories she accounts for, and therefore tends to fall outside in
another way.

For instance, ’scalar property’ (Anderson) or ’lack of separation between economy

and politics’ (Wood), or why not the original meaning of the concept, which still
seems to be the one closest to the intuitive use of the term: ‘obsolete privileges
for landowners’?

The tug-of-war over the agricultural surplus product, which Hilton

and Anderson put at the centre of the economic dynamic of Medieval
Europe of course fits into this focus – it is formulated in order to
accommodate such dynamics

and

to emphasize their context. The

tension between the different elements uneasily ‘compromised’
together in the feudal synthesis

allow peasants to consider their

rights to the fruits of intensified labour self-evident, while at the same
time their landlords are equally confident about

their

property rights

in any surplus yielded (

Herlitz 1974 ch. IV). Thus it is the very

ambiguities of feudal society that make property rights so contestable,
and make possible a dynamic struggle over the control and
expansion of the agricultural surplus.

The ‘emulation effects’ possible when many different systems

coexist,  overlap  and  compete,  make  a  similar  type  of  evolutionary
dynamics  possible  within  a  (moderate  level  of)  ‘feudal  chaos’  as  has
been  argued  for  the  European  state-system

; attempts to increase

power  over  others  lead  to  the  attempts  to  create  higher  degrees  of
self-determination,  and  the  tug-of-war  between  local  communities
and  central  states  may  lead  in  the  long  run  to  higher  levels  of

collective power

(the communities’ degree of control over external

conditions) locally

and

centrally, as a resultant of the struggle for

distributive power

(power over others within the community).

A ‘family-type’ definition

‘Feudalism’ in this sense becomes a comprehensive ‘family-type’

term (Wittgenstein), defined through the similarities that can be found
between  any  two  of  the  societies  included,  even  if  the  same
characteristics will not be evident in every comparison. Against this, it
can  be  argued  that  only  strict  definitions  can  be  made  operational
and thus truly scientific. This depends on how you use your theory. If
deductive  models  that  allow  the  formulation  of  unambiguous
predictions  which  can  be  conclusively  tested  against  objectively

Or, if we reserve the term synthesis for a true fusion of separate elements into a

new entity, the competitive eclecticism which feudal societies tended to
comprise.

By Anderson and Jones, as well as Tilly, Mann and others.

Mann 1993; the terms are borrowed from Talcott Parsons. Bendix 1978:12

discusses  the ‘demonstration  effect’  from an  example by Pirenne: ‘The merchant
and  craft  guilds  of  a  few  cities  used  force  (in  the  eleventh  century)  to  win
recognition of  their independent  jurisdiction from feudal overlords. Agood many
rulers  took  the  hint  and  negotiated  a  settlement  with  their  own  towns  before
armed conflict occurred’.

Marc Bloch’s classic definition

has been criticized as ’over-

comprehensive’ – for containing far too many factors

– which is why

I think it can still be useful, although it would really need further
amplification rather than reduction. E A Brown’s

(1974:1087) wide

check-list  of  what  medieval  historians  should  focus  on  instead  of  on
the  barren question of ‘feudal institutions’ can actually be taken as a
blue-print  for  a  maximum-norm  definition  of  feudal  society  in  the
wide sense. The same thought seems to have occurred to Ward, who
observes  that  she  would  fit  nicely  into  focus  VIII  (feudalism  as  an
entire society or type of civilization).

Of course, it may be said that my discussion, and those whose

arguments  I  am  building  on,  are  reductionist  in  an  inverted  sense:
that  the  European  diversity  arguments  are  culturally  solipsistic,  and
require  as  a  backdrop  a  caricature  of  ‘non-European  stagnation’  as
simple-minded  as  a  generalized  Wittfogel  thesis.  If  diversity  is  the
key,  Europe  may  offer  too  limited  a  range,  it  could  be  argued.
Perhaps,  but  we  still  need  to  explain  why  Europe  in  some  vital
respects  –  including  sustained  economic  growth,  viability  under
military competition, and the hard-won privilege of holding our rulers
accountable

–

did

, for a period, become dynamic enough to

‘transform the world into its likeness’ (Hobsbawm in Hilton(ed)1978).
This  is  still  an  important  question,  and  although  I  would  expect  that
similar  dynamics  appear  in  many  places  and  times,  we  need  a  lot
more  knowledge  and  a  lot  more  comparison

before we can even

begin  to  formulate  a  theory  that  applies  to  the  whole  of  human
history.  Yet  we  already  have  to  deal  with  the  question:  how  can  we
preserve  enough  diversity  in  a  world  under  strong  homogenizing
pressure?

And as his definition I would consider not only the almost universally quoted six

semi-coloned clauses enumerated on page 1961:446, but at least the whole
section 443-447, if not the whole of

Feudal Society

Too many, that is, to function as a strict delimitational model according to the

deductive-theory ideal.

I e

the ’Triple Miracle’ I discuss in Emilsson 1996.

Minimally, we should be able to discuss the differences between development in

the Yangtze Delta and Greater Yunnan in as much detail as we do with England
and France. (as Brad DeLong’s commented on what will be needed to stay in the
business of teaching economic history for more than five years, made after
hearing a lecture by Kenneth Pomeranz. Three of those years have already
passed)

‘Swedish feudalism’ – why does it matter?

The reason I have kept insisting that almost all of the ingredients of

the  feudal  mix  have  been  present  also  in  Sweden,  is  that  I  consider
the  feudal  polystructurality  to  be  the  precondition  and  point  of
departure  for  the  institutional  evolution  leading  up  to  the  ‘Triple
Miracle’, and the constant ambiguity of ownership and authority to be
the  basis  of  the  recurring  contestation  of  relationships  of  power  and
subjugation. This is why feudal societies have a dynamic  potential, I
will  argue,  following  Hilton  and  Anderson,  and  the  relevance  of  the
Swedish example to this discussion requires a definition wide enough
to include the Swedish experience.

I will therefore go on to the discussion of these more general

‘feudal’ dynamics, and return to the question of Sweden further on.

Perry Anderson: Feudalism as dynamic
polystructurality

Anderson’s elastic definitions of feudalism are alternately generous

and restrictive, culturally specific or universal, dogmatic

innovative.  However,  as  I  point  out  in  Emilsson  1996:72,  his  central
argument  about  the  European  advantage  is  constructed  around  a
consistently  dynamic  conception  of  feudalism  connecting  the
Hiltonian  theoreme  of  rent-struggle  as  the  prime  mover  of  feudalism
to  his  own  explanation  of  the  dynamic  advantage  of  European  state
system. The feudal synthesis is envisioned as a fusion of the complex
institutional  heritage  of  the  ancient  world  (transmitted  in  different
variants  by the cities, the Church and the Empire), with the forms of
community  and  collective  jurisdiction  of  Germanic  tribal  society,
thereby  creating  a  ‘polystructural’  society  endowing  Europe  with  a
uniquely  wide  repertory of alternative organizational models,  making
institutional innovation possible in several different ways.

Eric Jones’ (1981) description of the European states system as

‘a portfolio of competing and colluding polities whose spirit of

competition was adapted to diffusing best practices’ (115)

At one point he argues as if a close enough reading of Marx’ polemical writings

could carry evidential significance for a stricter definition of feudalism, though he
at other places emphasizes the deficiencies in the historiography available to
Marx. (Emilsson 1996:XX)

is quite compatible with Anderson’s and his persuasive exposition

of these dynamics in chapter 6 of

The European Miracle

can be used

to reinforce Anderson’s argument.

The problematic concept of ‘fusion’

One of the weaker aspects of Anderson’s feudalism is the

traditional  conception  of  feudalism  as  a  ‘fusion’  between  Germanic
and  Ancient  society.  Bloch  emphasized  (1961:443)  that  the  crucial
aspect  was  the  ‘forcibl[e]  uniting  [of]  two  societies  originally  at  very
different  stages  of  development’  rather  than  the  specific  components
of the two cultures, and Gurevich, who also emphasizes polystructure
as  a  distinctive  characteristic  of  feudal  society,  adding  an  important
stress on the interaction between horizontal and vertical organization,
usually  speaks  of  ‘barbarian  society’  as  the  non-Roman  component,
including  Slavic  and  Celtic  peoples  as  well  as  Germanic,  and  –  in
general – resisting the tempation to generalize it into a model.

The term ‘Germanic’ is infelicitous because of its connotations in

the directions of ethnicity, lingustic cohesion, forestland freedom, and
mobile  warbands.  In  Sweden,  it  is  almost  impossible  to  use,  as  we
still  have  to  struggle  with  the  heritage  of  generations  of  historians
making  liberal  use  of  Tacitus  to  supplement  the  meagre  historic
source material.

The European Miracle

Eric Jones discusses the combination of

what  he  describes  as  discussion  of  the  ‘two  strands’  of  European
heritage:  The  city  life  that  developed  around  the  Aegean,  and  the
iron-age agricultural society ‘which found the rule of Rome a passing
intrusion  (1981:12f).  This  distinction  might  serve  the  same  basic
function  as  the  Roman/Germanic  dichotomy:  to  provide  a  starting-
point for the history of polystructurality.

Chris Wickham: ‘peasant-based society’ and the role of
‘Big men’

A somewhat more sophisticated alternative along similar lines is

Wickham´s tentative category ‘peasant-based society’, which is
interpreted through social-anthropological categories

, but is

envisioned  as  an  important  element  of  hybrid  medieval  societies  in
general,  interacting  with  elements  of  an  aristocratic  society  (“which  I
am still content to call by the much-abused word ‘feudal’” /217/) and
a  system  based  on  state  tax-raising.  In  the  contrasting  examples

Wickham 1994:220, with reference to

Stone Age Economics

(London 1964) and

other work by Marshall Sahlins.

provided, ninth-century Brittany is described as a case of the first two
systems  coexisting  on  more  or  less  separate  levels,  while  Iceland  is
used  to  illustrate  a  ‘purer’  form  of  ‘peasant-based  society’.  Such
societies  are  not  envisioned  as  egalitarian  but  the  only  way  for  the
dominant  members  of  the  society  to  get  their  poorer  neighbours  to
do  as  they  said,  would  be  to  negotiate  with  them,  like  the

goðar

Iceland, the

machtierns

of Brittany or the ‘big men’ of New Guinea:

leaders who must personally construct their power over others, and

whose ability to accumulate wealth is constrained by the necessity to
provide what their followers expect from them, to prevent them from
transferring their allegiance to someone else. (Wickham 1994:220)

This discussion is obviously relevant to the history of Sweden,

especially  if  we  are  careful  not  to  fall  into  the  trap  of  identifying
Swedish  peasant  society  with  that  of  Iceland,  a  tradition  as  deeply
rooted  and  as  deformative  as  the  Germanic  one.  Brittany  might  be  a
more adequate point of reference, as Sweden was also a ‘mixed case’
–  that  is:  polystructural.  Within  the  judicial  system  we  can  discern
components of:

‘feudal’ dominance in the aristocratic sense,

of ‘a system based on state tax-raising’,

as well as

‘peasant-based’ institutions and the need to ‘personally
construct power’.

The Swedish hundred court was staffed by a jury of twelve

peasants and led by a

häradshövding

(‘hundred sheriff’

), who in

general  belonged  to  the  local  gentry  or  semi-gentry  rather  than  the
real  aristocracy  –  perhaps  more  so  during  the  earliest  period  –  but
whose  office  seems  to  have  been  slowly  subsumed  into  the  general
aristocratic  patronage  networks,  until  it  turned  into  something  more
and  more  resembling  a  benefice.  This  process  may  well  have  some
resemblance  to  Wickham’s  examples  from  Brittany

, but from my

perspective, the most important aspect would be the ‘polystructural’
survival of the hundred jury

, and thus of regular and habitual

Roberts translates

häradshövding

as ‘sheriff’, but as the area under their

responsibilty was a hundred instead of a shire, I add this as a qualification:
‘hundred sheriff’. On

häradshövdingar, cf

Almqvist 1954 (LDS), Claësson 1987,

and Småberg 2004.

Wickham 1994: 220-1, with references to Wendy Davies:

Small Worlds

, (London,

1987) and JHM Smith:

Province and Empire

(Cambridge, 1992).

And, as a precondition for this, lower instances of self-regulation and conflict

resolution such as the village moot (

bystämma

), the vestry or parish jury

(

sockennämnd

), and – occasionally – thriding or farthing moots

negotiation between noblemen and peasant representatives. Within
this particular mixture even the aristocrats might have to construct his
power personally.

Balanced synthesis or scope of variation?

Also, Anderson’s use of expressions like a ‘classical feudalism’

embodying a ‘balanced synthesis’, are leftovers from traditional
conceptions of feudal society (

Wickham 1994), while he should –

to be true to the logic of his exposition – rather have emphasized the
importance of the

scope of variation

between different institutional

mixes.

As I have argued earlier (Emilsson 1996:71), Anderson’s denotation

of  ‘feudalism’  is  less  to  be  understood  as  a  set  of  societal  structures
than  as  a  set  of  development  paths,  ‘trajectories’,  tying  the  feudal
dynamic  to  the  further  development  of  state-system  interaction
through  his  conception  of  a  ‘displacement’  of  feudal  power  (and
thereby also feudal competition) towards ‘the top  of the  pyramid’, as
a  result  of  struggles  ultimately  founded  on  the  tug-of-war  over  the
agricultural  surplus.  Thus  the  early  medieval  coercive  competition
between  rival  knights  and  warlords  moves  step  by  step  up  to  the
level  of  full-scale  war  between  states,  tied  into  the  dynamic
interdependence of the wider European system like the knights were
tied into the elastic inter-dependencies of feudal society.

Dynamic possibilities of feudal society interpreted in
this way:

Where different institutional structures could co-exist within the

same  political  unit,  further  societal  development  could  follow
different possible tracks: royal or imperial proto-state structures could
compete  with  ‘feudal’  chains  of  devolved  authority,  royal  and/or
seigneurial  retinues,  guilds  and  leagues  of  different  kinds,  lordships
based  on  ‘allodial’  possessions,  manorial  systems  (whether  of  the

Gutswirtschaft

Grundherrschaft

variety), village communities, city

networks, monastic or knightly orders, bishoprics, parishes

and

other ecclesiastical institutions

etc.

Which institutions that would win

out and shape the further development of state and civil society,
depended on local conditions as well as on Europe-wide tendencies
and interactions. However, the differential outcomes ensured an even
wider polystructural gamut.

In Sweden, the community of the parish was often more important than that of

the village.

A political unit with a more efficient institutional structure could

conquer others, and thus spread or be imitated by them

, or attract

mobile elements such as merchants and money-changers, errant
knights or mercenaries, clerics or other intellectuals, as well as groups
of non-conforming refugees like Spanish Jews and French huguenots,
adding further variety of experience and ideas to their new societal
contexts

If necessary, new institutional arrangements could also be created

through analogy

as when secular institutions have been modelled on

ecclesiastical ones, or through the ‘resurrection’ of defunct models (In
general: the Renaissance! More precisely: sophisticated institutional
achievements such as ancient military-strategic theory or the property
rights formulations within Roman jurisprudence.)

The engine fuelling these developments is the struggle for the

agricultural surplus between lords and peasants. A rising rent pressure
forces  the  peasants  to  intensify  agriculture,  develop  or  adopt
productivity-raising  practices  and  to  raise  the  output,  in  order  to
maintain  their  standard  of  life,  while  the  demands  of  the  seigneurial
class,  and,  increasingly,  also  the  state,  are  rising  in  order  to  finance
the growing complexity of early-modern society

Such a reinterpretation of feudal society would not really be

vulnerable  to  Susan  Reynolds’  criticism,  but  might  rather  be
strengthened by it: if feudalism ‘in the strict sense’ is a mirage created
by the  efforts of late medieval professional lawyers to make sense of
earlier  customs,  and  to  turn  them  into  a  coherent  system  compatible
with  the  institutional  structure  of  their  own  time,  then  a  relevant
analysis  of  the  dynamics  of  the  ‘actually  existing’  medieval  society,
would  have  to  make  itself  completely  independent  of  all  ‘feudist’
traditions.

If we view the state-system dynamic as an extension or later phase

of Anderson’s ‘feudal dynamic’

the whole medieval-to-modern

period might be fitted into a loose evolutionary framework with a

As Sweden’s organizational innovations in efficient fiscal and military statebuilding

was emulated by Brandenburg/Prussia and Russia (Anderson 1974b, Attman,
Kan).

In this manner Sweden also attracted an influx of tradesmen, military specialists

etc

, which were often “nationalized” through ennoblement (Nilsson 1990 ,

Roberts 1967).

In Sweden the “see-saw” of parallel rises in rents and taxes adds further

components to this mechanism.

Explicitly argued by Brenner 1987 under the somewhat infelicitous label of

‘political accumulation’.

strong affinity to Nelson-Winter’s theory of evolutionary economics
(as developed for modern economics).

EVOLUTIONARY APPROACHES IN SOCIAL SCIENCE

Nelson-Winter’s evolutionary economics

Nelson and Winter (1982) succeeded to transfer the logic of neo-

Darwinian  evolutionary  theory  into  the  study  of  human  society
bypassing  the  pitfalls  of  simplistic  sociobiology  through  a  very
important  reformulation: instead  of using individuals

as the units of

competition analysis, they focus on behaviour, on competing

practices

. The mode of transmission is thus entirely different from that

in  biological  evolution,  where  the  unit  of  analysis  –  the  gene  –  is
transmitted  through  biological  reproduction,  and  is  selected  or
deselected  through

survival

(and mating success). In the Nelson-

Winter model the practices of firms are transmitted through

imitation

and selected or deselected within the

decision process

on the basis of

success or failure

. The relevance of this model to the kind of

dynamics argued here for feudal society and for the European states-
system should be obvious.

The problem of selection

However, there is a crucial difference between the contexts of

Nelson-Winter and of Anderson  or  Jones.  Within  modern  economics,
best  practices are selected  by capitalist  functionaries whose common
and  consistent  measure  of  success  is  profitability,  and  who  can  only
survive  as  professional  decision-makers  if  their  performance  in
selecting is satisfactory at least in the medium run.  When it comes to
the  development  of  entire  societies,  the  questions  of  which  kinds  of
practices  are  selected,  and  where  and  how  this  is  done,  are  much
more complex and inconsistent

Or firms, as in other attempts.

‘Selection in two dimensions’

We might envision feudal Europe as organized through overlapping

and

partly

competing

institutional

arrangements

–

‘under

construction’,  as  it  were  –  subject  to  ‘survival  of  the  fittest’-type
selection  in  (at  least)  two  simultaneous  dimensions:  economic
efficiency  and  viability  under  military  competition.  A  case  could  be
made  also  for  the  selection  of  institutions  along  the  dimension  of
persuasive  power;  a  diversity  of  competing  political  institutions  is  of
course  an  almost  trivial  component  in  the  historical  development  of
democracy

, but a similar case has also been argued for juridical

institutions

On the other hand, there was an instrument which we might call

‘institutional competition’. The authority of princes and kings did not
deny either the existence or the legitimacy of pre-existing or in any
case non-state statutes, customs, and jurisdictions, but placed its own
laws, officials , and jurisdiction alongside them in an attempt to gain
ground at their expense. (Padoa-Schioppa 1997:357)

Military selection

Within the military dimension, the selection process appears quite

straightforward

After all, military competition was the profession and ideology of

the knightly class (

Duby 1985), and the ‘displacement’ of coercive

power and inter-feudal rivalry ‘towards the top of the feudal pyramid’
which Anderson describes, is a process where states and rulers will
have an ever stronger incentive to intervene into the procedure of
selection.

The attempt to reconstitute the Third Estate as a General Assembly during the

French revolution would hardly have succeeded if the invitation to members
from the other Estates had been flatly refused. Reform Bills and other competing
proposals for the extension of franchise are even more obvious examples.

With explicit reference to the Swedish coexistence of provincial codes and Land

Law (Lindkvist 1997:215), as well as to the competition between royal and
seigneurial or manorial justice in France and England.

This dimension is stressed by Brenner: “The feudal state can itself be seen to

have evolved over time through a ‘field of natural selection’ constituted by intra-
lordly,  politico-military  competition and  by  lord-peasant  struggle,  with  a long-run
tendency, within the European feudal economy as a whole, for ever larger, more
complex,  and  more  coercively  effective  states  to  win  out,  or  be  selected”
(Brenner  1996:.249).  He  seems  to discern no

economic

dimension of selection,

though.

Economic selection

The economic dimension is more difficult to overview. To a

certain extent, the need to accumulate means of coercion will have as
a corollary the necessity of accumulating the financial resources

required  to  achieve  this.  However,  political  measures  to  increase
military capacity (alliances, the exchange of privileges for obligations,
subinfeudation,  conscription,  press  gangs,  piracy,  encouraging
technical  innovations  etc)  could  hardly  be  brought  into  purely
economic calculations at a time  when stable and continuous  markets
hardly  existed  except  in  the  most  basic  necessities  (grain,  salt  etc),
when  the  art  of  efficient  accounting  was  something  of  a  well-kept
trade  secret,  state  budgets  were  rudimentary,  and  the  concept  of
alternative  costs  unimaginable

. Furthermore, the yardstick for

success in this respect – military efficiency – was not convertible into
monetary

units

anyway

(except

for

free-wheeling

military

entrepreneurs).

Indirect pressures for efficiency

Still, alternative ways of financing the same measure could be

weighed against each other, and the increasingly frequent use of
credit entailed an economic pressure as an

ex post

incentive for cost-

cutting and rationalization. In these ways, an

indirect pressure

select economically efficient routines would appear as a by-product.

Of course there also existed a purely economic interest in obtaining

the means to  finance a state at all, and with state  expenditures rising
in step with increasing ambitions, including but not limited to strictly
military  goals,  there  was  soon  a  constant  pressure  for  more  money.
The  demonstration  effect  of  how  increasing  trade  could  make  a
country  rich and powerful, made the  Netherlands, and later England,
into  ‘reference  societies’  (Bendix  1978:292)  which  other  countries
strove to  emulate, and though the colonial  booty  of Spain  may  have
lured  some  rival  states  into  wasting  resources  on  unsuccessful

I avoid the term ‘capital accumulation’ in this context, as it would blur the

distinction between: indirect consequences of  extra-economic pressure (which is
what  is  argued  here)  and  the  purely  economic  incentives  and  compulsions
resulting  from  capitalist  market  competition  (as  in  the  Marxist  analysis  of  fully
developed capitalist dynamics).

NB:

As I argue the salience of the feudal dynamic quite far into the modern era I

have  to  add  that  these  strictures  refer  to  the  earlier  stages  of  the  process.  As
they  cease  to  apply, military  competition  ties  more  and more  self-evidently  into
the  logic  of  economic  competition,  and  the  two  selection  processes  tend  to
merge.

colonizing ventures, the emulation effect still served to turn the focus
of  attention  onto  profit.  Even  if  states  appear  as  selectors  in  this
argumentation,  the  units  of  evolution  are  –  as  in  Nelson-Winter’s
theory  –  behavioural  routines  and  not  organizations:  the

economic

policies

of the competing states.

States have traditionally been the subjects in evolutionary theories,

which makes for uncomfortable circularities in the argumentation: the
states appear to select themselves. Even in many of the more
sophisticated variants – as for instance, within the analysis of Hendrik
Spruyt – this circularity tends to remain.

Evolutionary political science: Hendrik Spruyt

Hendrik Spruyt’s evolutionary conception of institutional change

(1994), adresses the question of how ‘the (sovereign) state’ won over
its ‘competitors’: other types of political organizations. He does not
consider other forms of political organizations to qualify as states,

neither

the original competing ‘institutional orders’ of empire, church

and feudal lordships, out of which the competing forms of sovereign
monarchy, city-state and city league grew;

nor

the city-states and city-

leagues  within  the  posited  second  phase  of  insitutional  competition
which  is  his  real  field  of  inquiry.  Although  he  acknowledges  in
footnotes that the word ‘state’ could be  given a wider denotation,  he
chooses  not  to  do  so,  but  reserves  the  term  for  the  type  of  state
which emerged out of the sovereign monarchy.

As far as I can understand, this is because his focus is set on states

as the fundamental units of the state-system. This, however, embeds
the term in a teleology quite analogous to that resulting from taking
nation-states as units of analysis

Spruyt makes the important point that the types of units change

over  time:  the  state  (in  his  sense)  did  not  exist  in  the  early  Middle
Ages,  and  may  be  on  he  way  out  in  the  future.  His  analysis  is  an
interesting  attempt  to  evade  unilinearity  (

1994:20), but in order to

render his inquiry easier to grasp, he postulates a two-stage model of
institutional competition which imposes its own logic on the analysis.
Surely empires, churches and ‘feudal’ forms of lordship were still
taking part in the same ‘organizational competition’ as were sovereign
states, city-states and city-leagues during his ‘second stage’ (

Tilly

1990)? The two-phase model thus eliminates a series of possible
comparisons from the discussion, as well as the important aspect of

And also to the teleological aspects he criticizes in Wallerstein and Anderson

(Spruyt 1994:19).

interaction between more primitive and further developed institutions,
which Bloch considered to be the fundamental aspect of feudalism
(Bloch 1961:443).

When he criticizes the general discussion on war as a selection

mechanism, he makes things too easy for himself by attacking a
straw-man hypothesis:

The prevalent view that war is the all-decisive selective mechanism

needs to be amended. Warfare did not obliterate the alternatives to
the state. There were no decisive battles to end the Hanse league or
the Italian city-states. (Spruyt 1994:178)

Well, did there have to be? To drop out of the military competition

when you realize that no longer have the edge in naval warfare is a
way of accepting defeat that would not require losing one decisive
battle but certainly at least a few small ones66.

Basically, this is what Spruyt himself admits:

War did not work as an evolutionary process that selected among

types of units, but it did indicate to political elites and social groups
which type of organization was the more efficient, and they
subsequently adopted the most competitive institutional form.

That is: the consciousness of the necessity of having to be able to

survive warfare acted as a competitive pressure. This, I take it, is what
most  people  who  discuss  this  mechanism  really  mean.  I  doubt  that
anyone  has  seriously  forwarded  so  simplistic  an  idea  of  military
competition,  as  that  which  Spruyt  objects  to.  But  even  in  Spruyt’s
formulation, war is the selection mechanism. The selection, though, is
– as Spruyt points  out –  made  by people inside the state,  not  by the
state itself as a collective actor.

Furthermore: in an evolutionary perspective, I think it is more

fruitful to say that they selected routines – in this case

policies

– than

that they selected institutions. Only when routines become repeatedly
and habitually selected do they deserve to be called institutions (see
the argument below).

Individual and collective selection

If we return to Nelson-Winter’s focus it should be clear that states

were by no means the only actors who could select efficient routines

Napoleon certainly lost through one big final battle, but how typical was

Waterloo? We can in retrospect see that Poltava marked the death-knell of the
Swedish imperial state, but it certainly was not sufficient to make Charles XII
pack up and start tending his garden.

for imitation

. Although merchants typically preferred to pursue

privileges rather than engage in competition, this left space for new
categories emerging ‘within the cracks of the system’.

Merchants disfavoured by the privilege-granting regimes, tried to

find ways to circumvent the regulation, for instance through
approaching the rulers of other polities

. ‘Interlopers’

were attracted

to potentially lucrative markets, thus eroding monopolies, sharpening
competition, and creating a pressure for price convergence

Although  money-lenders  found  many  ways  to  by-pass  the  interest
ban,  the  difficulty  of  charging  enough  to  offset  the  risk,  would  have
tended  to  make  them  more  risk-averse.  While  this  can  hardly  have
promoted  the  emergence  of  capitalism,  it  could  have  served  as  a
purge  of  the  most  inefficient  enterprises,  and  thus  as  a  factor
deselecting uneconomic routines.

Imitation of best practices

Imitation of best practices should, on the whole, have been a self-

reinforcing tendency, as princes, warriors, merchants, artisans and
cultivators who took this into account should have had a higher
survival rate than those who didn’t bother or understand.

I do not mean to say that capitalism emerged naturally from efforts

to do a good job; just that growth, and to some extent economic
rationality, are possible also in a pre-capitalist context

. This cannot

explain the transition to capitalism, but in the process some of the
preconditions will have been produced

Collective selection of informal institutions

Another approach to the problem of selecting the most viable

institutions

– which is really what is at stake here – we can find via

It is only fair to mention that Spruyt also puts great emphasis on imitation

(‘mimicry’).

Thus competitors of the VOC chartered their East India Companies in Denmark or

Sweden.

The important role of interlopers is emphasized both within Ekelund-Tollison

1981, and Brenner 1993, notwithstanding the contrasting political biases of their
respective analyses.

Which took a long time to emerge to a measurable extent. O´Rourke-Williamson

find only slight evidence for price convergence before the 1820’s.

Persson 1988 for a general discussion of this problematic.

Also

Jones 1988, where he argues that extensive growth is a wide-spread

historical phenomenon, and a precondition for

intensive growth

i e

increasing

productivity.

North’s  discussion  of  ‘informal  institutions’,  which  are  really  patterns
of  behaviour,  habitual  actions,  or  ‘unwritten  rules’  (the  fullest
discussion  can  be  found  in  North  1990,

passim

). When a pattern of

behaviour tends to be repeated in a predictable way, it has become
“institutionalized”, has developed into an institution, and

in this

manner institutions can be collectively selected.

If peasants in

precarious  situations  tend  to  turn  to  a  strong  local  nobleman  for
support,  strengthening  vertical  networks,  or  if  they  tend  to  turn  to
their  peers  within  the  village,  parish  or  hundred,  strengthening
horizontal

networks,

different

patterns

emerge

and

are

institutionalized through what is in effect a collective selection
process

The ‘feudal’ polystructurality, however, comprised much more than

just  a  shifting  balance  between  the  principles  of  allegiance  and  peer
support.  It  contained  a  whole  gamut  of  different,  competing  and/or
complementary  networks,  basing  themselves  on  protection  and/or
plunder, on cooperation or competition in the fields of production or
consumption,  on  mutual  defense  or  social  exclusion,  on  religion
and/or warfare, on legitimacy or on naked power

The ‘feudal realization problem’

Surplus realization under capitalism and feudalism

Under capitalism, ‘realization’ means converting commodities into

money, so that the surplus value or profit

– the difference between

value invested and value produced – can be

realized

, made real (in

contrast to the merely potential profit attained when the commodities
have been produced, but not yet sold). Under feudalism

, a

somewhat analogous realization problem exists: the lord can extract

The contrast between the resultant class conditions is Brenner’s fundamental

argument for the different dynamics in Western and Eastern Europe. The contrast
between Northern and Southern Italy is in Putnam 1993 ascribed to factors which
are also related to the difference between vertical and horizontal networks.

Bisson’s discussion of

violentia

in the ‘feudal revolution’ debate.

To make the contrast between capitalist and pre-capitalist conditions more easily

visible, I deliberately conflate terms pertaining to different levels of abstraction in
the analysis of capitalism. I will also try not to indulge in too much Marxese, as I
believe that these questions should be important to discuss, whatever evaluation
(and interpretation) of Marxian theory one happens to hold.

I purposely avoid discussing how general this problem is. Obviously, analogous

problematics have existed within a wide variety of societies, but my present
discussion is limited to the feudal version.

the surplus product from his tenants, but unless he can convert it into
the necessities of life

on the lordly level,

he cannot reproduce himself

as a lord. Without this conversion he would be able to eat and live
like a very wealthy peasant, but he cannot live like a lord

. Meat,

wine,  expensive  spices,  fine  garments,  well-bred  horses,  skilfully
crafted  weapons  and  armour  have  to  be  procured  by  means  of  the
grain,  butter,  wool,  salted  pork,  dried  fish  or  whatever  goods  are
produced by his peasants.

This is what I call the

‘feudal

realization problem’

There are

several  ways  of  dealing  with  it.    Basically,  the  lord  can  take  it  upon
himself  to  solve  it,  and  accept  the  ensuing  transaction  costs;  he  can
shift the burden onto his peasants, or he can use a middleman. Each
of  these  routes  will  lead  to  a  marketplace,  close  by  or  at  a  distance,
and  thus  the  very  exaction  of  feudal  rent

requires

trade, even long-

distance trade, thereby promoting the growth of cities as a
requirement of the feudal reproduction cycle (Hibbert 1978, Hilton
1978, Merrington 1978).

The coexistence of different ways of solving this problem adds to

the  flexibility and  polystructurality of feudal society.  Commutation  of
produce  or  labour  rent  into  money  rent  means  shifting  the  problem
onto the tenants, and thus promoting the growth of peasant markets,
but  commutation  was  often  reversible:  lords  who  retained  the
possibility  to  revert  could  insulate  themselves  against  the  corrosive
effects  of  inflation

. The various systems of realization interact with

the  form of  rent and the  organization  of the manor, and the  vices or
virtues  of  each  such  combination  for  the  parties  involved,  will  result
in  a  conflict  or  compromise  whose  outcome  amounts  to  a  ‘natural’
selection of the fittest alternative, given the balance of class forces

Swedish expansionism as path dependence

A seldom acknowledged motive for Swedish expansionism and for

the  ‘historical  compromise’  (Englund)  between  crown  and  nobility
which  was  formed  around  the  expansionist  policy,  is  the  fiscal
opportunity for expansive  militarism  presented by the  medieval Land

‘Minimally, his castle had to be a center of lavish display’ (Brenner 1987).

Note that in the feudal case it is the

use value

of the surplus that has to be

transformed. Under capitalism it is an increase in

exchange value

that has to

materialize.

Hilton 1978, Aston-Philpin 1985. Dovring 1951 and Herlitz 1974 for the Swedish

case.

the variety of examples brought up in the Brenner debate (Aston-Philpin

1985,

passim

Law. The only open discussion I have found, is, of course, by
Lindegren

, who has – since at least 1980 – constantly argued the

externalization  of  class  struggle  as  the  fundamental  impetus  behind
Swedish  expansionism.  He  considers  it  to  be  no  more  than  a  local
Swedish  version  of  a  general  feudal  development,  and  argues  that  it
is  part  of  the  mechanism  driving  the  military  competition  between
early  modern  states.  In  his  analysis  it  becomes  an  important  link
between  feudal  competition  and  the  military  state  formation.  Here  I
will  not  discuss  how  general  such  dynamics  are  –  Lindegren  makes
an interesting case for France, but what about Spain and Holland?

–

but  will  explore  Swedish  expansionism  as  a  possible  case  of  path
dependence,  which  of  course  implies  that  other  paths  should  have
been viable alternatives.

I do not think that Eric XIV (1560-8) was

forced

to venture into

protection-selling in the Baltic area (

Glete 2002:185), but there

were  certainly  also  later  junctures  at  which  a  return  to  non-
expansionist strategies would have been feasible. The very last phase
of  the  Thirty-years  War  –  the  struggle  for  economic  ‘satisfaction’  –
was,  as  Sven  A  Nilsson  has  shown  (1971,  1990),  a  clear  case  of
economic  lock-in,  where  projected  gains  already  consumed  in
advance  had  to  be  cashed  in  before  peace  could  be  affordable.
Somewhere in between these dates the point of no return must have
been passed.

Let’s return to the Land Law: according to this law – and, as I will

argue, the breadth of the alliance againt Eric of Pomerania

, and the

principal lawspeakers’ support for the insurgent peasants, had already
tied the aristocratic leadership to the principle of taxation by consent
–extraordinary taxes were only permissible in a few carefully
specified cases: coronations, royal marriages, defensive warfare and
castle-building. Thus the ‘extra surplus’ possible to exact during wars
was

not transferable to other state expenses

, unless Sweden entered

Most consistently in Lindegren 2000

His argument is interesting and important,

but the article is marred by an unclear exposition of war loss calculations,
resulting in a heavily exaggerated percentage of Swedish war losses during the
Imperial Age.

Glete 2002, Ch.3 (Spain) and Ch. 4 (the Netherlands). The experiences of

France  during  the  Hundred  Years’  War,  referred  to  in  Lindegren  p  174  have
certain  obvious  similarities  to  those  of  Sweden  during  the  more  than  160  years
of  intermittent  warfare  starting  with  Valdemar  Atterdag’s  recapture  of  Scania  in
1360.  To  generalize  from  two  similar  cases  may  lead  to  results  of  limited
applicability.

Especially during the part of the rising dominated by Engelbrekt 1434-35 (se e

chapter 3).

into a permanent state of war, which would also permit the exaction
of peasant conscripts

, who might in this context be viewed as a

very specialized form of labour rent or

corvée

. These additional fiscal

resources  would  not  have  been  available  to  the  state  in  peacetime,
and  must  thus  –  after  the  possibility  of  exploiting  them  had  become
habitual  –  have  formed  a  strong  incitement  for  continuing  warfare

The  constant  negotiation  of  war  resources  slowly  became
institutionalized,  especially  after  the  summoning  of  hundred
representatives  for  such  purposes  had  become  routine  during  the
Civil  War,  and  when  the  Diet  was  finally  regulated  into  its  definitive
four-Estate  pattern,  the  Peasant  Estate  had  become  a  permanent
component of the political representation.

This is a classically pure example of path dependence logic:

even if

increasing returns from continued warfare dried up, decreasing
returns from reverting to an economy of peace combined with
prohibitive readjustment costs locked Sweden into perpetual militarism

– at least until the Great Reduction transformed the whole
institutional structure

The use of peasant conscripts is also a Swedish peculiarity closely tied to its late

medieval history (see below).

Lindegren 1980 and later. Lindegren has

repeatedly emphasized that taxation and conscription were different but parallel
and partly substitutable ways of exacting resources from local society.

Roberts’ remark on Sweden as a permanent war economy. In Lindegren’s

analysis, the opportunity of raising taxes even appears to cause the wars: ‘War
was a vehicle by which the state could introduce new kinds of taxes.’ (2000:176)

If the reduction really did succeed in breaking up the lock-in, the later, Caroline

phase  of  Swedish  militarism  becomes  facultative: a  personal whim  (one  of  those
inevitable by-products of absolutism, like Louis XIV’s  vanity or Ivan the  terrible’s
paranoia)  or  maybe  rather  a  reactive  phase,  a  backlash  caused  by  indirect
consequences  of  earlier  actions:  the  very  success  in  war  against  neighbours
meant that many prospective enemies were waiting for a chance to retribute.

A comparison with traditional explanations

What about the traditional

explanations?

Defense of the protestant religion

Geopolitical defense.

Control over baltic trade.

Defense of dynastic legitimacy

Externalization of class struggle.

Are any of those compatible with a path dependence interpretation?
None of them is totally incompatible, as the ‘lock-in’ mechanism

could take effect irrespective of what had sparked off the state of
war. However, the third argument could easily be combined with it in
a mutually reinforcing way, and that would be even more so in case
number five – as in the analysis of Lindegren which we have already
discussed.

If the state had become dependent upon the war taxation, also in

the  respect  that  it  thus  financed  a  growing  state  apparatus  and  the
new  social  strata  whose  growth  was  intimately  connected  to  its
increasing  volume  and  requirements,  then  a  war  ‘feeding  itself’  as
contemporaneous  strategy  prescribed,  would  release  the  war-tax
resources  for  general  state-building  purposes.  This,  however,  would
make  peace  an  even  less  viable  option  –  unless  defeat  did  force  it
upon the state.

The ‘new school’ (explanation #3) referred to in Michael Roberts’ discussions has

been mainstream orthodoxy for generations, and the 5

argument at least dates

back to Axel Strindberg (a nephew of August Strindberg, whose historical plays
seem to hint at similar explanations). Thus I count all of these arguments as
pertaining to well-established traditions.

Emphatically

not

defense of religious freedom, even though it might appear so

on  German  soil,  where  eradicating  Catholicism  would  have  been  an  unrealistic
objective. Within Sweden, though, propagating religious freedom would remain a
seditious  crime  until  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  complete
religious freedom was actually  the last of  the civil liberties to be fully attained in
Sweden, only in 1951(!) according to the Swedish National Encyclopedia (NE).

An old argument updated by Ringmar 1996 into a version of ‘identity formation’,

but also – in a more substantial way – considered as an important side aspect by
Glete.

The internal basis of expansionist success

In Jan Glete’s discussion of Swedish expansionism – in his

comparative study of fiscal-military statebuilding (2002) – he turns the
attention to a different question:

It is striking that the explanations of Sweden’s expansionist policy

focus on

driving forces

, not on the

causes of success

. (2002:176)

If we formulate the fiscal opportunity argument as a general

mechanism – which Lindegren does – it becomes difficult to explain
success, but if we see it as a case of path-dependence we may argue
that it was the success that created the opportunity. So, what was the
reason for success?

Glete’s list runs like this (2002:210):

resource mobilization

[efficient administration]

political interest aggregation

[participation legitimizes

burdens]

army units with long-term coherence

professional and bureaucratic skills

officers and civilian bureaucrats loyal to the state

[career

opportunities]

an aristocratic elite that identified its interests with those of
the state

Many of these factors are connected to or compatible with the

arguments I am making about late medieval Swedish state-building.
Point 6 is a consequence of what I call

parallel centralization

– the

aristocracy  had  a  strong  interest  in  an  efficient  state  and  were
periodically  responsible  for  running  it;  they  wanted  to  control  it,  not
to weaken it.  This I  view as a legacy of the late  medieval tug-of-war
over state control – the shifting success of oligarchic aristocratic juntas
and  individual  pretenders  led  to  state-building  ‘from  two  directions’
and  thus  to  a  stronger  and  more  efficient  state,  which  also
strengthened at least points 1 and 4.

The King as a military entrepreneur – a medieval
background

The other – individual – side of the power struggle was also

special, in that there were contenders on (at least) two levels of
geographic aggregation: not only patrimonial princes but also

chapter 3.

entrepreneurs  constructing  their  personal  political  power  in
innovative  ways.  Glete  considers  the  Vasa  kings  to  have  been  their
own  military  entrepreneurs,  (Glete  2000:329,  also

2002:177. 187,

208)  and  I  would  connect  this  to  the  innovation  represented  by  the
popular agitators Engelbrekt, Erik Puke and Peder Ulfsson during the
revolution  against  Eric  of  Pomerania.  They  showed  –  most
convincingly  in  Engelbrekt’s  case,  as  he  was  the  one  who  made  the
most spectacular career  – that it was possible to construct a personal
political  power  through  the  levying  of  peasant  militias.  He  was
murdered – and so was Puke and evidently also Peder Ulfsson

– but

a  whole  generation  of  Swedish  power-players  had  watched  and
learned.  Karl  Knutsson  may  have  played  as  important  a  part  in  this
learning process as  he  showed the limitations  of a too  old-fashioned
aristocratic political style (Kumlien 1933:95f, Harrison 2002b:102ff)

Nils Sture and Sten Sture learned from the examples of Engelbrekt,

Erik Puke and Peder Ulfsson, and from the mistakes of Karl
Knutsson

, and developed a Swedish version of plebeian

condottiere

power in a close mutual race, and in constant competition

with other state-building strategies:

As Karl Knutsson had to raise a 12-man jury of oath-helpers to defend himself

against an accusation of complicity in Peder’s death (Kumlien 1937:196f). Peder
was an aristocrat of even more exalted descent than Erik Puke. He belonged to
a baronial sideline (illegitimate) of the old Norwegian dynasty, and was a brother-
in-law of the hated bailiff Jens Eriksen, the initial target of the Dalecarlian peasant
rising sparking off the general rebellion against king Eric in 1434.

Neither should we underestimate the lessons to be learned from the ruthless

type  of  castellans  favoured  by  Queen  Margaret  –  among  them  Nils  Jonsson
Svarte  Skåning,  Abraham  Brodersen,  and  Nils  Sture’s  maternal  grandfather  Sven
Sture –  who were often trained in the hard school of piracy (

Linton 1971).

This refers to the expansivity of their recruitment tactics, and is not intended as a

slur  on  the  impeccable  aristocratic  pedigrees  of  these  gentlemen.  In  contrast  to
Engelbrekt  they all started  from  the basis of an independent aristocratic retinue,
but  their competitive advantage in  the Swedish race  for individual power rested
with  their  ability  to  “play  the  peasant  card”.  The  exact  nature  of  Engelbrekt’s
original  power  base  is  unknown  to  us,  but  the  strong  collective  economic
interests  of  the  mining-law  districts  must  have  had  their  own  organizational
structure,  and at  the  very  moment  Engelbrekt  first  appears  in  the  sources  from
the  rebellion  he  is  already  well  established  as  the  spokesman  of  the  local
community  in  a  long-running  dispute  with  the  regional  representative  of  the
King. His mixed miner-gentry-burgher family background must have  given him a
wide and variegated social network.

•

princely proto-absolutism (Eric of Pomerania),

•

theocratic conciliarism (Johannes Benedicti),

•

aristocratic oligarchy (Bo Jonsson’s testamentarians, and a
series of juntas developing out of or emulating them) and

•

the  city-league  organizational  form  represented  by  the
diplomacy  of  compromise,  and  deeply  entangled  in  the
Swedish cities (the Hanse94, Hans Kröpelin).

•

the  inter-Scandinavian  landlord-trader  interests  represented
most  obviously  by  the  Axelsson  brothers  (Lönnroth  1934,
1959;  Enemark  2001),  had  the  severe  limitation  of  being  a
collective  strategy  dependent  on  a  geographic  integration
on  a  level  which  could  only  be  united  through  individual
power – thus they were dependent upon finding an alliance
partner  strong  enough  to  unite  the  whole    of  Scandinavia,
and  therefore  they  never  succeeded  to  become  an
independent alternative.

When Gustavus Vasa, as the last and most successful of these

peasant-levy commanders wins power over the Swedish-Finnish part
of the contested area, he goes on to eliminate all the competing state-
building projects one by one

through crushing the independence of

their power centres:

•

local aristocratic power (the rebellion of the

västgötaherrar

(‘Lords of Västergötland’) led by Ture Jönsson, the last of
the independent lawspeakers)

;

•

the bishops (through reformation and confiscation of all
landed Church property);

•

the regional communities of the peasant levies (the peasant
rebellions  in  Dalecarlia,  which  had  backed  his  rise  to
power,  were  stamped  out  with  exemplary  brutality;  the
initially  much  more  successful  Dacke  rebellion  in  the
southern  border  province  of  Småland  led  to  an  important
military  innovation:  as  the  rebellion  proved  –  once  again  –
that  under  suitable  circumstances  Swedish  peasants  were
able  to  fight  almost  as  efficiently  as  expensive  foreign
mercenaries,  Gustavus  negotiated  a  conscription  deal  with
the province of Dalecarlia (Larsson 1967 and later);

To which Stockholm, Visby, and maybe Kalmar had been affiliated.

In this respect, the strategy of Karl Knutsson was certainly a useful precedent.

Central-level aristocratic power had not yet recovered from the massacre of its

leadership in the ‘Bloodbath of Stockholm’, and it was never given the chance to
do so during Gustavus’ reign.

•

the semi-independent status of Stockholm was also curbed
when Gustavus’ had become strong enough to attack the
dominance of his earlier backers from Lübeck.

Still – his rise to power had been based on forging an alliance

combining allies from all of these projects

, but as they together had

eliminated the absolutist threat on the Union level, the road was now
open for him to construct a local Swedish absolute state.

Individualized incentives

Dynamics under pressure

The state economic interest in maximizing taxable output tended to

create – as a sort of mirror-image – incentives for economic
maximization on part of the tax-peasants (

skattebönder

). Gustavus

Vasa  separated  the  individual  economies  of  households  earlier  taxed
as a collective unit, in  order to  bring the extra surplus of  more  well-
to-do peasants within the  Crown’s  reach, and to create a pressure to
improve  or  perish  onto  the  less  successful  peasants,  who  under  the
new  individualized  cadastral  tax  assessments  were  deprived  of  the
protective  buffer  provided  by  their  wealthier  neighbours.  Originally,
the

gärder

(units for collective tax-paying) had been put together

from equal numbers of richer and poorer peasants in order to ensure
stability, but now maximization of each individual tax became a more
important objective (Dovring 1951).

In response to this, the poorer peasants reasonably had no choice

but to increase labour input  wherever possible.  The  more  well-to-do
husbandmen  would  at  first  have  experienced  a  relief.  Not  having  to
compensate  for  their  insolvent  neighbours,  they  would  have  been
able  to  retain  part  of  their  surplus,  while  the  hardening  climate  of
state surplus exaction should have given them an incentive to reinvest
this in order keep a safer margin in case of crop failure.

Three years of unpaid taxes led to

skattevrak

(‘tax eviction’),

i e

permanent loss of freehold status, according to the more severe
practice that was now introduced. Many peasants were later prepared
to buy freehold rights at rather high prices during the periods when

Archbishop Gustav Trolle’s feud with Sten Sture the younger made him support

the  absolutist  ambitions  of  Christian  II.  As  this  alliance  became  responsible  for
the  Bloodbath  (we  do  not  have  to  concern  ourselves  here  with  the  delicate
question  of  where  to  pin  the  ultimate  blame)  including  the  murder  of  two
bishops,  the  remaining  bishops  led  by  Hans  Brask  became  an important  part  of
the revolutionary alliance (Larsson provides the most up to date account).

this  became  possible,  although  the  level  of  tax  exaction  on  the
purchased  freehold  was  no  lower  than  the  rents  they  had  already
been  paying.  This  shows  that  freehold

per se

must have been so

attractive that there would also have been an incentive for spending
effort on prevention of its loss.

According to the logic of the Hilton-Anderson dynamic, increasing

rent pressure would tend to stimulate productivity as long as a
peasant can rationally expect to retain secure tenure and to escape
confiscatory

exactions. For peasants hovering on the brink of

subsistence  failure,  mere  self-preservation  would  seem  to  ensure
maximum  input,  at  least  in  the  absence  of  viable  alternative
maintenance,  but  for  more  substantial  husbandmen  too  severe
exactions might yield a counterproductive effect, and lead to “surplus
evasion”

; to ‘eat better and work less’ (Wickham 1994) might under

such circumstances be an attractive alternative to maximizing output.
If

any

increase in surplus production would lead to raised exactions,

this would be a disincentive for productive investment in agriculture.
However, all incentives are by definition subjective, and if rising taxes
are

perceived

to be independent of rising production (

e g

motivated

by war or other external factors), their productivity-raising potential
should remain intact.

These were the dynamics relevant to the

frälsebönder

, the exempt

tenants of the Nobility? This questions brings us into the discussion of
taxes

versus

rents.

Tax and rent as categories

There has been a long and intricate Marxist discussion (see for

instance Hindess-Hirst 1975:193-200, 223-59) concerning the
categories of tax and rent: are they ‘modally’ different –

i e

capable of

defining  different  modes  of  production,  or  are  they  just  variants  on
the  same  theme:  exploitation  through  ‘extra-economic  coercion’?
Chris  Wickham,  who  tried  to  make  a  case  for  a  modal  difference  in
‘The  Uniqueness  of  the  East’  (1985),  backs  off  in  a  postscript  to  his
reprint  of  the  article  (Wickham  1994).  While  still  considering  the
contrast between tax-based and rent-based societies to be salient, his
studies of early medieval peasantry has made him more aware of the
fluid  and  ambiguous  demarcation  between  rent  and  tax.  From  the
viewpoint of studying early-modern Swedish peasant categories, I can

I e

additional rent or tax exactions eliminating the fruits of productivity gains, and

thus nullifying the incentive for improvement.

Chayanov, Brenner, Fridén.

only concur: the very words may be quite interchangeable at times

100

Still: the difference between rent as an

individually

, and tax as a

collectively extracted surplus

101

, carried formative significance within

the Swedish class/estate configuration.

The ‘two-sector’ model whereby peasants

either

paid tax

102

to a

state dominated by the aristocracy,

rent to the individual

noblemen, ensured a balance between the individual reproduction of
the  separate  aristocratic  families,  and  the  collective  reproduction  of
the  state  that  guaranteed  their  noble  status  and  supplied  them  with
office and salary.  I will argue that this particular institutional solution
is  the  result  of  and  precondition  for  the  ‘pendulum  swing’  or
‘oscillation’ between absolutism and oligarchy emphasized by Roberts
and  Anderson,  and  that  the  roots  of  what  Englund  has  termed  a
‘historic compromise’ between  royal power and aristocracy are to  be
found  in  the  path  of  ‘parallel  centralization’  whereby  alternating
monarchic

and

aristocratic regimes built a strong state structure ‘from

two  directions’.  As  I  will  argue,  in  Sweden  the  power  struggle
between  aristocracy  and  the  ‘new  monarchy’  (late  medieval  proto-
absolutism)  did  not  take  the  form  of  a  struggle  between  royal
centralization  and  aristocratic  decentralization.

Both sides helped to

build a strong centralized state, and their struggle concerned: on
whose terms was the strong state to be built?

The two-sector model required a balance between the sectors, and

therefore  also  a  rough  balance  between  the  demands  made  on
different  peasants.  As  there  was  no  restriction  on  mobility  between
tenures,  burdens  had  to  be  callibrated  to  avoid  a  labour  shortage  in
either  sector,  and  thus  the  conditions  of  the

frälsebönder

had to –

roughly – mirror those in the state sector

103

Modern economic or feudal dynamics?

What we might call the Herlitz-Gadd-Winberg model

104

of the

transformation of Swedish peasants into proprietors is ultimately
based upon Herlitz’ (1974) discovery of rising prices on tax-land

100

As in the formulation that ‘a peasant may not tax a peasant’ in the prohibition of

subtenancy. Furthermore, in the cadastral land registers the heading ‘annual rent’
includes freeholders’ tax as well as the rents accruing to the Crown.

101

The contrast between tax and rent is discussed in these terms in Brenner 1986.

102

Or, on Crown domain, rent.

103

For instance, Revera 1984 considers the stabilization of tax and Crown rent

pressure around 1650 to have been parallelled within the exempt sector.

104

As Winberg 1990 is the most explicit statement of the ‘peasants into proprietors’

thesis, synthesizing the findings described below, I put his name last.

relative to noble land during the Age of Liberty

105

. In his analysis, a

stagnating nominal rent, inflation, and the institutional safeguarding of
property  rights,  combined  to  create  incentives  for  productive
investment. That the tax-land peasants  had acted  on these incentives
was  indicated  by  the  rising  land  prices,  by  rising  production  (Gadd
1983),  and  by  the  growing  inequality  between  tax-land  and  exempt
land  tenants  (Winberg  1975),  ultimately  leading  to  the  disintegration
of  the  peasantry,  who  were  polarized

106

into a class of proprietors

(

hemmansägare

– ‘homestead owners’) and a growing landless

proletariat.

To evaluate this development, and compare it to other dynamic

transformations in Europe (and elsewhere), obviously requires a focus
on class (differential access to productive factors) as well as on Estate
(differential institutional constraints), on property relations as well as
on property rights.

If Hilton and Anderson are right about feudal dynamics, a rising

rent  pressure  will  tend  to  stimulate  productivity  as  long  as  it  is  not
destructively  high,  while  North  (postulating  universal  economic
dynamics  rather  than  system-specific)  would  expect  a  rising
productivity to  be the  more or less automatic consequence  of secure
property  rights.  As  a

slackening

tax/rent pressure is an important

component of the Herlitz dynamic,

it conforms to North’s model rather

than to Hilton’s

. This is

either

an argument for universal-ist or liberal

or formalist viewpoints as against particularist or Marxist or
substantivist ones,

a symptom that modern dynamics were already

in effect within the economic life of 18

century Sweden. As I will

argue in the next section, there is evidence for both of these kinds of
dynamics within the economy of 16

-17

century Sweden.

A shift of dynamics

In Myrdal/Söderberg’s study of Swedish agrarian development

during the ‘long 16

century’, they paint a picture of rising peasant

living standards at least before Swedish entry into the thirty-years war,
but  contradictory  tendencies  with  respect  to  peasant  inequality.  As
this  takes  place  during  a  period  of  growing  state  demands,  it  would
seem  to  indicate  ‘feudal’  dynamics.  My  own  investigation  of  this
period  corroborates  the  rise  in  living  standards  but  suggests  a  more

105

During forty years of inflation, tax-land prices in the investigated area rose more

than twice as fast as those on exempt land.

106

Polarized in the aspect of property rights, but therefore not necessarily in the

aspect of wealth. The survival of small-scale ownership remained an important
feature of Sweden’s social configuration.

general tendency towards homogenization among the peasantry

107

(though varying in strength).

For the subsequent period, I found indications that another rise

must  have  occurred  somewhere  between  the  eve  of  the  permanent
war period and its final years. Maybe most surprisingly, it shows that
the  category  of  peasants  who  could  best  reap  the  benefits  of  this
growth varied between different parts of Sweden. In one of my cases,
freeholding  tax  peasants,  in  another  tenants  on  Crown  land,  and  in
the  third:  tenants  on  tax-exempt  (noble-owned)  land.  Thus  we  may
suspect  that  the  feudal  dynamics  effect  may  have  been  more  or  less
independent  of  the

nature

tenure (although it presupposed a

reasonable

security

of tenure).

It was not yet the case that tax peasants had an advantage in

achieving  economic  growth,  and  neither  –  despite  a  widespread
opinion  among  historians,  based  on  deficient  calculations  (see
chapter  2)  –  had  they  yet  become  a  wealthier  stratum  of  the
peasantry.

Somewhere along the road from the second growth period, (which

occurred  somewhere  between  1640  and  1713),  and  the  rise  of
freehold value 1730-1770, conditions have changed, and another kind
of  dynamic  takes  over.  If  this  is  a  correct  interpretation  of  the  data,
the  earlier  discussion  of  Herlitz  can  already  be  reformulated.  It  is  no
longer  a  question  of  choosing  between  Hilton’s  dynamics  and
North’s.

The new question must be:

when and how do the dynamics of

modern economic growth replace the feudal dynamics of rent-struggle?

With respect to the later disintegration of the peasantry, I would

connect  this  change  to  the  recomposition  of  the  Peasant  Estate.
Originally,  also  the  tenants  on  tax-exempt  (noble-owned)  land  had
been represented in the Diet’s Peasant Estate (see below, page 79ff) –
despite  the  persistent  dissemination  of  the  misconception  that  the
Estate  only  represented  the  tax  and  Crown  peasants  –  but  their
number seems to have been decreasing over time, and in the earliest
Statutes  of  the  Peasant  Estate  (1723),  the  constituency  was  delimited
to tax and Crown peasants. The Nobility’s long campaign for the right
to represent ‘their own peasants’ had finally won out.

Given the lack of internal documents from the earlier period, it is

probably impossible to find conclusive evidence, but there had been
an increasing degree of cooperation between the non-noble Estates,

107

Thus conforming to Isacsson’s analysis rather than Österberg’s (see chapter 2).

at least since the ‘strife  of the  Estates’ in  1650,  where the Clergy, the
Burghers  and  the  Peasantry  united  around  a  formal  programme
emphasizing  equal  career  opportunities  and  peasant  property  rights,
opposing  the  alienation  of  Crown  and  tax  land,  and  the  formal
closure of the Noble Estate. To me, this suggests an alliance between
external  political  interest  and  the  separate  group  interests  of  the  tax
peasants (or some of them).

‘Careerists’ and the front of Commoners

North and his different co-writers postulate the existence of

individuals free to act on the ‘improved’ incentives of better specified
property rights

etc

. To do this – in the English case, at least – is to

presuppose  a  somewhat  undifferentiated  middle  class  as  the  norm.
The  necessary  foundation  for  even  being  able  to  envision  such  a
category  in  an  early-modern  European  society,  is  the  existence  of  a
broad common ground of commercial involvement, uniting burghers,
improving  landowners  as  well  as  absentee  rentier  ones,  substantial
husbandmen,  commercial  farmers  and  emerging  middle  classes  in  a
shared

appreciation of gainful pursuits. This specific feature of the

English situation: that something resembling a capitalist mentality can
be found among at least a fraction of every social stratum but the
lowest, seems to make the utility-maximizing

homo oeconomicus

admissible  and  not  too  unrealistic  a  postulate.  Persons  not  acting  in
the  presupposed  manner  can  then  be  explained  away  as
conservative,  narrow-minded  or  duped.  A  non-simplistic  analysis,
however,  must  take  conflicting  rationalities  into  account.  Ekelund-
Tollison’s

Mercantilism as a Rent-seeking Society

, offers a more

complex picture, where it should be possible to also integrate the
factors emphasized by Robert Brenner.

108

In early-modern Sweden, the fast growth of the state apparatus, the

military  personnel,  and  the  new  diplomatic  and  commercial
entanglements  appearing  along  the  road  to  great  power  status  is
constantly  producing  mobile  strata  of  persons  of  changing  or
uncertain  Estate.  A  growing  residual  of  this  category  is  to  find  no
place  in  the  Estate  system,  and  will  later  be  subsumed  under  the
awkward  heading  ‘non-noble  persons  of  standing’.    From  early  on,
however,  ‘careerists’,  people  seeking  to  better,  retain  or  regain  their

108

Property rights as property relations, the constant reproduction and resilience of

the feudal social system. Differential strength of conflicting class interests and
their collective expressions

etc

. That North despite his routine adherence to

methodic individualism sometimes falls back on class explanations I have shown
in 1996:107.

native station in life, are in evidence. Not only when they succeed

109

attain a learned degree, enter a profession, receive employment in the
service of the state or of a private magnate, move up through the
ranks of a growing military hierarchy in constant need of
replacements

etc

. However, the actions of careerists

before

they

succeeded, or even: whether they ever succeeded or not, is a hidden
and therefore neglected aspect of the social forces in play during this
period.

Common causes – careerists and their allies

In the Swedish case, I think that the really important aspect is that

large  parts  of  the  various  careerist  strata  had  important  points  of
common  interest  with  groups  represented  within  the  Estate  system,
which allowed  members  of these  strata to  form a  pressure  group for
such  interests,  pushing  for  reforms  in  the  fields  of  secure  property
rights  and  equal  opportunity.  Possible  alliance  partners  could  be
found in each of the Estates:

•

the

clergy

were in their ordinary lines of duty largely a part

of the state machinery, registering the population, taking a
prominent part in the processes of tax assessment

110

as well

as conscription, disseminating state propaganda as a regular
item in church services

etc.

In their capacity as farmers of

the vicarage, the parsons usually ranked among the very
richest husbandmen of the parish. As they usually had very
large families, and – on an average – at the most

111

one of

the sons could be expected to find employment as a parish
priest, they would have a strong and obvious interest both
in open career possibilities within the state apparatus, and
in unrestricted possibilities of land acquisition. Thus, almost

109

Such permanent changes of status have been charted by the pioneering studies

of Sten Carlsson (1962) and Tom Söderberg, followed by an impressive number
of recent monographs on different new categories:

krigsbefäl

– non-noble

officers (Artéus 1986 and Nilsson 1989), secretaries (Svalenius), law students
(Gaunt 1975), administrators (Norrhem 1994), and bailiffs (Hallenberg 2001). The
category of courtiers (Persson 1999) may appear to fall outside this picture, but it
certainly belongs to the context of status change.

110

The unrivalled insight into actual property conditions which they acquired in the

process of exacting the tithe (2/3 of which went directly into state revenue)
made them invaluable to the state especially in the assessments for property
taxes (see chapter 2).

111

The constant inflow of new entrants from a burgher or peasant background

meant a steadily hardening competition.

every clergyman would have to be something of a hidden
‘careerist on behalf of his children’, whether or not he may
have nursed any career ambitions for his own sake;

•

the

burghers

, besides having an obvious interest in secure

property  rights,  and  in  the  possibility  of  land  investment,
also  contained  a  small  but  influential  faction  of  ‘city
bureaucracies’  –  the  nearest  equivalent  within  the  Estate
system of the careerist stratum, possibly excepting...

•

arrivist noblemen

, who might hold on to their former values

and solidarities in the face of exclusionary policies and
open disdain from the established aristocracy (

Lövgren

1915:72f);

•

among the

peasantry

, the property rights interest of tax-

peasants  would  be  one  of  the  few  obviously  legitimate
group  interests  possible  to  express  within  the  Estates
structure.

Therefore an alliance based upon the defence of tax-land property

rights  became  the  natural  foundation  of  a  sort  of  ‘Commoner  Front’,
defining  noble  privilege  as  their  target,  and  using  the  controversy
over enfeoffed rents and taxes to merge the issues.

The present consensus on the

skattefrälse

issue – the question of to

what  extent  the  grants  of  royal  tax  incomes  from  specified
homesteads  to  noblemen  that  the  Crown  wanted  to  reward  did
constitute  a  threat  to  peasant  freedom,  as  argued  by  an  earlier
generation  of  historians  –  appears  to  be  that  the  institutions  of  the
Swedish  judicial  system  seems  to  have  been  able  and  willing  to
protect  peasant  property  rights

112

. That this protection

only extended

to tax peasants

113

, must surely be one of the most important factors

behind  the  eventual  disintegration  of  the  peasantry  as  a  cohesive
class,  but  the  influence  of  allies  with  a  strong  interest  in  the
possibility of investing in tax land property would have worked in the
same direction. The obvious place to begin an analysis of converging
and  conflicting  Estate  interests  should  be  the  hitherto  almost

112

Ernby 1975, Revera 1984, and, making some reservations, Winberg 1990.

113

Also to Crown peasants in so far as they had functions in the maintenance

system for military resources (the so-called ‘

tidiga indelningsverket’

Kronobönder

whose land was donated or sold to noblemen became ordinary

frälsebönder

with no special privileges, though. After the Great Reduction (see

Ågren 1973) most of the Crown peasants became involved with the Allotment
system (

indelningsverket

in the strict sense) guaranteeing the upkeep of

officers, officials, and soldiers.

neglected document uniting the three Commoner Estates around a
series of specific demands.

The programme of the Commoners

This ‘protestation’, as it came to be known, is actually the first

attempt by the parliamentary representatives to take the political
initiative. Roberts considers it a ‘flash in the pan’, a ‘missed
opportunity’

(

Roberts 1962), but he saw it too much in the light of

British constitutional  history, where the aristocracy should have been
the  heroes.  That  aristocratic  constitutionalism  was  the  dynamic  force
in the  development of   political representation  was an axiom also to
Fredrik  Lagerroth  and  Erik  Lönnroth,  and  the  counterpoint  to  their
influential  perspective  was  always  the  traditional  Dalin-Geijer  notion
of  an  alliance  between  King  and  Commonalty  (

Hessler 1943). My

alternative is to emphasize the ‘pendulum swings’ and the two-sided
development of Swedish political ‘Voice’:

The singular

breadth of representation

in Sweden

owes much to the royal need for counterweights to
the aristocratic opposition,

but this aspect was balanced, with sufficient frequency, by

constitutional  checks  against  royal  autocracy,
explicitly  including  the  very  early  formation  of  a
state  apparatus  approximating  a  bureaucracy  in  the
Weberian sense (Therborn 1989, Nilsson 1990).

This  specific  combination  of  contrasting  developments  is  in  my
view  the  explanation  for  the  peculiarities  of  the  Swedish  road  to
political  representation:  neither  an  autocratic  populism  nor  an
oligarchic  constitutionalism  but  an  uneven  combination  with
dynamic  possibilities  for  the  future.  To  what  extent  these
possibilities were realized, and how much that today remains of the
imprints  left  by  this  particular  trajectory,  are  questions  that  should
be raised in another context.
However,  in  the  case  of  1650  constitutional  arguments  came  from
unexpected  directions,  and  the  support  the  Commoner  Estates
believed that the Queen was prepared to give them, encouraged an
unprecedented attack on the very society of privileges.

Parliamentary models – Sweden and England compared

If we compare the English Parliament and the Swedish Diet, the

House  of  Commons  corresponds  to  the  Estates  of  Burghers  and
Peasants.  Like  the  English  lower  chamber  they  derived  out  of
communal  representation.  The

House of Comunes

(Roskell 1992)

originally signified an assembly of

communities

, not of ‘common’

people:  the  counties  elected  their  ‘Knights  of  the  Shire’,  while  the
boroughs  elected  representatives  through  a  wide  spectrum  of  local
constitutions,  varying  from  patriarchal  designation  to  relatively  broad
franchises.  In  a  similar  way  summonses  for  representatives  from  the
towns  and  the  hundreds  eventually  led  to  institutionalized  chambers
for burghers and peasants in Sweden

114

The Nobility in the House of Knights (

Riddarhuset

) were no

elected  representatives,  though.  The  head  of  every  noble  family  was
expected  to  attend,  and  in  this  way  it  of  course  corresponds  to  the
House  of  Lords,  or  the  old  assemblies  of  ‘Men  of  the  Realm’
(

herredagar

or ‘Meetings of the Lords’); they were the persons who

had an individual voice in the realm, who were not expected to
speak for others.

The Swedish Estate of the Clergy was a strangely mixed case, with

two  contrasting  factions:  the  Bishops  were  of  course  comparable  to
the Lords spiritual in the English upper chamber, even if they had lost
much of their medieval status; still they had individual membership as
a  matter  of  course  and  may  be  taken  to  represent  their  office  rather
than  any  ‘constituency’.  The  parochial  clergymen,  though,  were
elected  by  parsons  and  vicars,  and  were  at  least  partly  a  sort  of
community  representatives.  When  the  discussions  leading  up  to  the
formulation  of  the  protestation  first  got  under  way,  the  parish  clergy
had kept the bishops outside, and convened secretly with the burgher
and  peasant  representatives  (Lövgren  1915),  but  by  the  time  it  had
come  to  formal  negotiations,  many  of  the  bishops  were  active  and
prominent spokesmen for the common cause.

114

The Swedish peasants however, elected representatives among themselves, and

–  in  the  beginning!  -  had  no  franchise  delimitation  that  we  know  of  apart  from
being  landholding  heads  of  households,  while  the  English  peasant  had  to  be  a
freeholder,  and  to  have  land  yielding  at  least  40  shillings  per  year,  in  order  to
take  part  in  the  election  of  a

Knight

, supposed to represent the whole county.

This would seem to be a contrast sharp enough to invalidate the similarities,
except in the aspect where we contrast the representatives of communities to
the magnates representing only themselves.

The Protestation of the Commoner Estates – content
and preliminary analysis

Surprisingly, the only printed version of this document can be

found in a rare 17

century collection of sources relevant to the

political discussion of the time (Loenbom). In England, a text of such
crucial importance in the development of political contestation would
have  elicited  a  long  series  of  comments  and  analyses  through  the
ages,  but  in  Sweden  only  a  few  historians  (Lövgren  1915,  Wittrock
1953,  Englund  1993)

115

have discussed it at all – apart from the

demand  for  a  reduction  of  Crown  estate  –  and  no  one  in  detail.
Originally  I  had  planned  to  reprint  the  protestation  as  a  supplement
with  an  English  translation,  but  I  have  decided  to  postpone  that
project  in  order  to  make  a  careful  enough  translation  with  a
sufficiently detailed commentary.

For the moment, I will only list my interpretations of the twelve

demands.

Demands in the protestation: interpretation and discussion

Only revocable grants should be made, and allotted to the
maintenance of specified offices, (like in the future

Indelningsverk

of Charles XI.).

Royal inquiry courts should be held regularly, to ensure
constant supervision of the administration, and the
permanent possibility to appeal from lower courts.

The closure of the Noble Estate is opposed through the
demand for a return to the early medieval system of tying
tax exemption directly to horseman service, and for a
resuscitation of the Land Law’s principle of open access to
this privilege.

The  state  should  mortgage  its  land  to  raise  money,  not
sell  or  donate  it,  and  on  tax  land  the  peasant  shall  have
priority to do so.

The principle of office and promotion by merit, not by
privilege of birth, is clearly stated.

Tax-land property rights, including pre-emptive rights for
relatives, are to be upheld.

Restoration of the public function and local connection of
the offices of hundred sheriff (

häradshövding)

and

lawspeaker.

115

Internationally, we would have to add Roberts 1962.

Demand for equality before the law and against
noblemen protecting their servants.

Abolition of private courts and punishments.

10.

Resumption of Crown property.

11.

Protection against encroachments on the property rights
of absent owners and under-age heirs.

12.

(a) That the cost of peasant representation should be
shared by the

frälsebönder

(b) Rights of free speech in the Diet without threats or
intimidation.

In the discussions of this protestation, the only points generally

emphasized have been those demanding a reduction:

and

These are general demands for solving the fiscal crisis at the expense
of the higher nobility, and reflect the interests of a vast majority of the
population, as can be seen when it is actually carried through 30
years later

116

Point

is a proposal for an economic alternative to the dead end

of selling and donating Crown land and taxation rights. I will discuss
the implications of it, and possible underlying interests below.

Better protection of property rights is demanded under points

and

The restoration of law and order

and

, more radically, equal rights

before the law are emphasized in points

. Point

may be said

to fall into the same category, but it goes a step further in that it
attacks a prerogative of the very highest aristocracy, and is formulated
as a direct accusation (torture is explicitly mentioned).

Point

is maybe the most unexpected one, but it has received

hardly any attention at all. Though it may sound totally anachronistic,
the Land Law’s provision was still formally valid, and half a century
earlier, Charles IX had been contemplating a formal renewal of it

117

In the clause about tax land purchase, nr

, the rights of the tax-

peasants are

not

emphasized, as in nr

, but instead equal

116

A beginning was made under Charles X Gustavus, only five years after this Diet.

Christina’s  skilful  manipulation  of  the  Diet,  where  she  appeared  to  actively
encourage the Commoner’s protests, was designed to  enforce  the acceptance of
her cousin Charles as heir to the throne. This does not have to be interpreted as
hypocrisy,  though, as she could hardly  take back the  extensive donations which
she  herself  had  had  to  make  in  order  to  solve  the  costs  of  war  and  of
demobilization after the Westphalian peace. (S A Nilsson 1990:286ff). A new King
would  have  the  right  to  resume  earlier  donations,  though,  which  should  have
been  an  important  factor  behind  her  abdication  (

Munthe 1971 and Nyström

1994 about the economic motives for abdication).

117

HSH 2:1.

Lagförslag i kung Carl den niondes tid

opportunity  to  buy  tax  land,  only  preserving  the  priority  of  close-of-
kin  purchase.  This  defense  of  tax-land  property  rights  is  not  only  in
the  interest  of  tax-peasants,  but  also  very  much  of  the  coalition
partners  in  the  Burgher  and  Clergy  Estates.  Is  it  a  step  towards  the
marginalization  of  the

frälsebönder

? Not yet, I think, as the

opportunity to acquire tax land should be very important to them as
well.

According to Lövgren (1915:146) number

(a) was the only

demand that was met by the Queen, and the only positive results for
the commoners apart from this, were

that the speaker in the Hose of Knights had to sign a
formal obligation on the behalf of his Estate, not to
mistreat the peasants,

II.

a declaration was given concerning the word

vanbördig

(baseborn), which had been interpreted

as showing contempt for commoners.

III.

improved privileges for the clergy were granted.

can be interpreted as protection against the encroachment on

tax-land  property  rights,  but  despite  the  formulation  giving  the  tax-
peasant  priority  in  raising  mortgage  money  on  his  land,  other
interests  are  certainly  involved.  First,  we  must  define  what  this  kind
of  mortgage  would  entail,  and  what  ‘lien’  (

panträtt

– explicitly

mentioned in the demand) the mortgagee would enjoy after
advancing money to the Crown on his own farm. We

could

interpret

this  as  just  a  sign  that  tax-peasants  would  be  prepared  to  ‘lend’
money  to  the  state  to  ‘insure’  their  land  against  the  risk  of  falling
under  farmed-out  taxation  rights.  In  that  case,  the  ‘lien’  becomes  no
more than a guarantee against further encroachment, which

might

attractive enough under the conditions at the moment. However,
another explanation seems much more likely if the word ‘lien’
(

panträtt

) is to carry any material sense, capable of attracting other

presumptive moneylenders. If we interpret the clause within the
doctrine of two-level ownership which is already implicit in the
institute of

skattevrak

118

, and forms the basis for the entire

skattefrälse

construction, it would be

the right to tax the peasant

which the Crown

could  mortgage,  instead  of  donating  it  to  noblemen.  The  doctrine  in
question  had  in  general  been  opposed  by  the  peasantry  and  the
intellectual  defenders  of  their  property  rights  (

Ehrensteen), but it

makes the suggestion in clause

perfectly logical: if the tax-peasant

118

That a

skattebonde

defaulting on his taxes for three years lost his freehold, and

instead became a tenant of the Crown (Dovring 1951).

advances money against the Crown’s right of taxation, this would give
him tax exemption until the mortgage is redeemed and he is paid
back, and he could thus enjoy the equivalent of noble tax-exemption
through a purely financial investment.

Would this proposal really be in the interest of the tax-peasant?

Firstly

, it would be to give up the traditional peasant position on

property  rights  as  indivisible  and  tied  to  public  rights  and  duties,
while  the  projected  gains  from  this  exemption  would  probably  be
totally illusory. The next time the Crown needed money, what would
prevent it from simply inventing new forms of taxation?

Secondly

, we do not know how many peasants that would be able

to afford this investment, and who might be willing to spend their
money on such an immaterial right

119

Thirdly

, what would happen to someone who did not advance the

required  money  himself?  In  that  case  someone  else  might  be
prepared  to  do  it,  on  the  speculation  that  he  might  default  on  the
taxes  and  become

skattevrak

. A nobleman, just as in the

skattefrälse

case, or a burgher, or a clergyman. Or a ‘commoner of standing’
(

ofrälse ståndsperson

), one of the members of the nebulous new

middle strata finding no place in the Estate system.

If these investors did not speculate in his possible loss of property

rights, they would have made some other rational calculus and found
a way to make it pay. Either way, the peasant would have to pay his
tax to someone who had a very strong motivation for showing no
leniency, while he would have lost the comfort and security of
belonging to a community of tax-payers.

The concerns of

frälsebönder

are not in obvious evidence here. The

chance of acquiring

skatte

land is, as I pointed out above, in their

interest, but a situation where more people, possessing more ready
money, would be competing for the few available homesteads, would
certainly not be in

their

interest.

119

That many Crown peasants did invest in birth rights and tax rights, may be an

argument for the opposite contention, but in those cases it was the very
concrete lack of safe possession which motivated the buyers.

The importance of external interest

All in all, I consider this list to show a strong external interest in

tax-right conditions, partly under the guise of protecting the tax-
peasant. Clause

does not sound like a peasant interest, but a

peasant horseman getting a partial reduction of tax on his homestead
for  his  cavalry  service,  might  well  balk  at  the  injustice  of  a
neighbouring  nobleman  enjoying  an  inheritable  privilege  of  tax-
exemption on all of his land in return for a similar service. This might
reflect  a  common  concern  of

ryttarbönder

and careerists, but the

attack on the closure of the noble Estate perhaps carried a more
symbolic significance as well. It was

a protest against the Estate system

as such

: only the Nobility stood to gain when walls were built on top

of the social demarcations and were made ever more difficult to
climb over.

The peasant Estate as an ally – but of whom?

Johan Holm’s two articles (so far; Holm 2002, 2003) about the early

history  of  the  Peasant  Estate  mark  an  important  advance  on  earlier
research  in  this  field.  Not  only  does  he  analyze  the  options  open  to
he  peasant  representatives  but  he  consistently  treats  them  as  active
subjects. This is very important, and while I will argue that interaction
with  the  other  commoner  Estates  has  to  be  brought  back  into  the
discussion, I in no way wish to return to the tradition of writing about
the peasants as puppets manipulated by other interests.

Holm does not address the question of the

frälsebönder

(tenants on

exempt land) as he is not aware of their presence in the Estate

120

, and

as his discussion of possible alliances in the Diet only considers three
actors: the  King, the  Nobility, and the  Peasantry,  his  otherwise sharp
and  detailed  discussion  remains  blinkered  to  a  large  part  of  the
political landscape. An imagined alliance with the Nobility against the
burden  of  state  taxation  is  discussed  by  Holm  as  the  possible
alternative  to  the  ‘alliance’  with  the  Crown  depicted  in  his  article.
However, the realism of such an imagined alliance is highly doubtful,
especially  if  we  consider  the  fact  that  the  peasant  representatives  at

120

Even more disconserting is his oblivion to their existence at all. Even if the

frälsebönder

had not been represented, the relation between them and their

neighbours and partners in local self-administration should have been as
important to discuss.

this time still included

frälsebönder.

The ‘hard supplication

121

’ in the

name of the Commonalty, which was found outside the Chamber of
the Treasury, as mentioned in the article (p 44), did not only contain
a demand for resumption of Crown and Tax land (a

reduktion

), but a

whole  series  of  demands  partly  foreshadowing  those  formulated  by
the  three  Commoner  Estates  at  the  Diet  of  1650  –  the  year  of  the
famous ‘Strife of the Estates’.

In contrast to the protestation, the ‘hard supplication’ does not

contain any demands that are not directly related to the peasants’
situation, but several of these primarily economic demands are
explicitly mentioned as being in the common interest of peasants and
burghers:

•

tax farmers ‘ruin all of the commonalty and the cities of the
Realm’ (item 1)

•

city tolls are unbearable (

odrägeligh)

to the ‘cities, burghers

and peasants’ and dangerous (

wådeligit

) to the country

(item 5)

•

item  11 does  not list any specific  grievance, but is an open
attack  on  the  Nobility,  which  ‘seeks  to  make  the  peasant
into  a  servile  (

lijfegen

) thrall ... and the burghers into

peasants’.

Through refusing to consider other possible partners Holm neglects

the prehistory of the only indubitable

alliance

entered into before the

Age  of  Liberty.  However,  his  description  of  the  active  role  taken  by
the  peasant  representatives  in  discussions  and  negotiations  is  an
important  step  forward  compared  to  the  traditional  depiction  of  the
Peasant Estate as constantly manipulated by other interests

122

Even if ‘alliance’ may be too strong a word for the relation between

the King and the peasantry

123

, Holm has made it even more clear that

it was not just a case of passive submission to an idealized father-
figure

à la

‘the good Czar’;

the bargaining process was for real

, but so

was also the bargaining process taking place between the Commoner
Estates. The pattern of political negotiation had become a general

121

This is the description under which it is registered in the

Riksdagsacta

series at

Riksarkivet.

122

In this respect Bäck’s (###) study of peasant politics during the Age of

Freedom is the nost important precedent.

123

Protection-selling seems to me as a better description of the relationship

between king and peasants (

Glete 2002). The ‘Commoner Front’, on the other

hand, was indubitably a case of

alliance

in the true sense of the word. The

Clergy and the Burghers were neither offering nor seeking protection; they
wanted support for mutual causes, and were prepared to bargain about the
separate ones.

The stagnating rent level does not in itself lead to capitalist growth,

but it would seem to be a precondition at least for the establishment
of “Herlitzian” growth

124

. Another precondition is secure property

rights, which are demanded by the protestation in 1650 and – in the
main –

de facto

recognized by courts in the following period. This is

a mutual interest of tax peasants, other peasants saving up to buy tax
land, and the ‘external interest’ of burghers, clergymen and

ofrälse

ståndspersoner

(‘Commoner gentlemen’ outside the Estate system),

seeking  an  outlet  for  capital  investment  in  land.  Another  crucial
threshold  is  crossed  during  the  ‘contributions’  of  1713-16,  when  the
tax-assessment  commissions  reduced  tax-land  and  exempt-land
ownership  to  a  common  denominator  through  assessing  them  in
monetary  evaluations  possible  to  add  up  and  subdivide  as  a  lump
sum according to the contribution quotient

125

If we evaluate this as possible evidence for the relationship

between  the  three  ‘European  Miracles’  of  Conquest,  Growth  and
Voice  (Emilsson  1996),  it  would  seem  that  the  mechanisms  of
Conquest predated the processes of Voice and Growth which appear
more or less  simultaneously. However, the interaction is  entwined in
a  tighter  way  all  along:  constant  negotiations  with  the  peasantry  for
the means of warfare (men and money) is a precondition for Swedish
Conquest  and  leads  to  parliamentary  representation  and  a
complementary  ‘horizontal’  negotiation  with  the  other  Commoner
Estates.  The  ‘historic  compromise’  (Englund)  between  Crown  and
Nobility  – another  precondition  for  military   expansionism  – leads to
a sharpening conflict between the Estates over the unfair  distribution
of  the  costs  and  benefits  of  Great  Power  politics,  and  together  all
these developments coalesce into the Strife of the Estates. At the same
time  the  hardening  tax  pressure  –  resulting  from  the  warfare  –  may
have  stimulated  productivity  (according  to  the  Hilton  model)  which
could  then  be  transformed  into  a  higher  production  when  the  tax
burden  lightened,  and  when  peace  and  social  strife  put  an  end  to
rising  surplus  exaction,  an  economic  growth  very  difficult  to  analyze
seems to have begun.

124

In my interpretation: growth made possible through an inflationary redistribution

to the advantage of the tax-peasants, and the institutional safeguarding of their
property rights, combining to make a higher rate of agricultural reinvestment
possible, profitable, and reasonably safe (Herlitz 1976, see page 56 ff).

125

In the cases of individuals owning both kinds of land, as the foundry owner, the

Mayor and the Captain in the assessment of Gladhammar 1714 (see below, page
112).

CHAPTER II

SOCIAL STRUCTURE IN IMPERIAL SWEDEN – THE

PEASANTRY

Some of the findings in this article were presented to the Gustavus

Adolphus Academy in 1999, and an earlier version of the full article
was presented to the Swedish Economic History Meeting in
Gothenburg, 19-21 October 2001

128

The questions addressed in this paper are:

•

The economic and political factors subdividing the Swedish
peasantry during the Imperial Age

•

If the contrasts between rich and poor peasants increased or
decreased.

•

How important the differences between peasants holding
land of diverse nature were in these aspects, and in what
ways they differed.

•

Trends of general growth or decline as reflected in peasant
wealth.

•

How these trends might diverge according to region and
land nature.

These  problematics  are  explored  through  the  reconsideration  of
earlier  research  and  through  a  more  differentiated  analysis  of  the
fiscal source  material. An attempt  is  also  made to  connect  analyses
of the early Imperial Age to the late Caroline period through linking
different kinds of property taxations.

PEASANTS AND PROGRESS SWEDISH AND
EUROPEAN MIRACLES

As I have argued elsewhere (Emilsson 1996) the historical

phenomenon  referred  to  as  ‘the  Rise  of  the  West’  or  ‘the  European
Miracle’  –  a  central  historical  inquiry  described  as  an  ‘old  question’
already  by  Weber  –  should  be  decomposed  into  three  separate  but

128

That is the version cited in Söderberg-Myrdal 2002. I am obliged to Johan

Söderberg for giving me access to his excerpts for the parishes of Danmark and
Gladhammar, giving me the opportunity to search for the causes of certain
discrepancies in our respective results.

interconnected  problematics:  world  conquest,  economic  growth,  and
a  widening  public  participation  in  the  political  system  (‘voice’).  The
vigorous  reopening  of  the  ‘European  advantage’  debate  from  the
early seventies onward has reached a partial consensus on one single
point: the importance of the internal dynamics of the European states
system.

Sweden’s role as a founding member in the formalization of this

system, and in bringing about that ‘failure of Empire’ which made the
unique  European  combination  of  interdependence  and  autonomy
possible,  would  qualify  her  for  treatment  in  state-centered  studies
giving  priority  to  the  Miracle  of  Conquest

129

, but a key role could be

argued  for  the  other  two  as  well.  Democracy  is  usually  attributed
either to the tortuously slow extension of the constituency underlying
the  Anglo-Saxon  development  of  rule  by  law,  or  to  a  French-style
revolution  of  the  excluded.  Starting  out  with  a  constitutionalism
almost  as  ancient  as  and  arguably  broader  based  than  the  British

130

and  having  carried  out  the  earliest  experiments  with  parliamentary
party  politics,  Sweden  should  be  indispensable  to  any  comparative
discussion  of  the  Miracle  of  Voice.  If  the  earlier  picture  of  Sweden’s
late  but  phenomenally  fast  transition  to  modern  economic  growth  is
due for revision, as it would appear (Schön 1982 and later), the effect
will  be  to  push  the  starting  point  backwards  in  time,  thus
emphasizing internal causes more than external and the parallellity to
the  English  development  more  than  the  contrast.  In  either  case
Sweden remains a crucial example within the Miracle of Growth

131

What has all this got to do with peasants? That is just the question –

a central role  for a country with such  weak cities, and so  narrow an
aristocracy,  will  force  us  to  reconsider  the  role  of  peasants.  The
traditional  depiction  of  peasantries  as  inert  ‘grey  masses’  should  –
hopefully – have gone out of fashion in every respectable context (

Jonsson

et al

), but just to acknowledge agency from the same grey

129

Ironically, this important role in developing the military superiority required to

subjugate  those  parts  of  the  world  which  did  not  lack  horses,  wheels  and
firearms  (Roberts  1955,  Parker  1988,  Glete  2002),  hardly  lead  to  any  active
participation  in  this  subjugation.  On  the  contrary,  Sweden,  which  appeared  to
have  been  one  of  the  most  thoroughly  militarized  early-modern  states,
reorganized  the  maintenance  of  its  army  in  such  a  fashion  that  peace  would
ultimately become a more profitable option even for officers (Artéus 1982).

130

Certainly with a much wider constituency before the 19

century parliamentary

reforms. Implicit notions of constitutional principles might also be inferred from
standard expressions used in

allmogens besvär

(‘Grievances of the Commonalty’),

‘We ask to remain by the Land Law and the Cadaster’

etc

131

The details of all these arguments are set forth in Emilsson 1996,

passim

including full references.

mass  will  not  get  us  very  far.  We  have  to  learn  to  distinguish  many
different  shades  of  grey,  or  rather,  to  discern  different  colours  even
outside  the  spotlight  illuminating  the  activities  of  privileged
minorities.  The  peasantry  appears  differently  subdivided  in  the  light
of  each  of  the  key  processes  connecting  them  to  the  Swedish
submiracles:

The  central  role  played  by  Swedish  peasants  in  providing
soldiers  for  the  ‘military  revolution’  of  Gustavus  Adolphus
undermined  the  chivalric  definition  of  nobility

132

and

opened  career  paths  -  quite  narrow,  for  sure,  but  factual
nonetheless - that prevented the still barely delimited Estate
order  from  fully  congealing  into  something  approaching  a
caste system.

The  political  emancipation  of  the  peasantry  is  closely
connected  to  their  role  in  the  institutionalized  bargaining
processes  for  men  and  money,  in  which  the  Crown  had  to
continuously engage

133

The development of peasant property rights, which would
eventually turn the nature of

skatterätt

(‘tax land right’) into

the standard format of land owning in Sweden

134

, paved the

way for the fast growth of population and agricultural
production beginning (at least) from the middle 18

century

(Winberg 1990 and the studies cited there).

Long before the Great Reduction and the Allotment system

(

indelningsverket

) reorganized the maintenance of the military and

administrative systems, various forms of tax reduction for military
service had been experimented with, thus creating new forms of

132

The memory of the original

raison d’être

of the nobility – the obligation to

provide  armed  horsemen  instead  of  paying  taxes  –  was  kept  alive  by  its
inclusion  in  the  Land  Law  formally  valid  until  1734  and  by  the  periodical
mustering  of  noble-led  troups,  where  a  demonstrated  inability  to  produce  the
required number of horsemen and  equipment could lead  to  loss of noble  status
(Forssell 1869-75, Jägersköld 1945, Nilsson 1947, Samuelson 1993).

133

North’s argument, making the survival of late medieval political bargaining the

crucial  precondition  for  an  institutional  development  favourable  for  the
emergence of modern  economic growth (see  references in Emilsson  1996:45ff).
In  Sweden  two  parallel  bargaining  processes  were  more  or  less  continuously
being  carried  out  with  the  nobility  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  peasantry  on  the
other.

134

In much the same way as the nature of free and common socage in fee simple

has become the only form of land ownership according to English law (

Campbell 1960: 112). Grand serjeanty, which is the only other form of tenure
beside leasehold which has not been abolished, can hardly be considered as

ownership

division among the peasantry

135

at the same time as the lower levels

of the old gentry – based on tax exemption for cavalry service – were
excluded  during  the  constitution  of  the  Nobility  as  a  closed
corporation.  These  divisions  were  independent  from  –  or  rather
intersecting with  – the  divisions  classifying  peasants according to the
nature  of  their  tenures:  whether  they  held  in  freehold,  on  Crown
land,  on  noble  land,  or  in  any  of  the  various  ecclesiastical  tenures.

After the reformation the latter were gradually assimilated into

krono

–

Crown tenure – together with other special categories, and

eventually a three-tenure system emerged:

skattebönder

kronobönder

and

frälsebönder

; on freehold, Crown and exempt (noble) land

respectively. The seductive simplicity of this tripartite system is quite
misleading for the 16

and 17

centuries, when there was still a wide

range  of  local  variety  –  especially  concerning  forms  of  customary
tenure.  Neither does the  difference in social and  economic dynamics
between  land  owing  rent  to  institutions  (universities,  hospitals  or
monasteries),  to  private  persons,  or  to  individuals  as  office-holders
(prebendal  tenures,  early  forms  of  allotments  or  assignments

etc

coincide with the categories of the cameral three-title system.

The different varieties of customary tenants were in some cases

denoted by the manner of fixing their dues:

sämjebönder

(‘agreement

peasants’) or

stadgebönder

(‘statute peasants’), and in others by the

type of colonization:

stubbebönder

(‘stub peasants’),

röjselbönder

(‘clearance peasants’), or

skäriebönder

(‘skerry peasants’) on islets.

The categories of

torp

(‘croft’) and

nybygge

(settlement) slide into

each other and were not always held separate, although crofts in
principle were founded on land ‘belonging’ to someone, while
settlements were founded on new clearances. The

allmänningsbonde

(Bergfalk  1832,  Bjarne  Larsson  1994)  of  the  Land  Law,  living  on  the
village or hundred common and paying his rent to the community, is
presumably  the  predecessor  of  the  different  customary  tenants.  Most
of  these  categories  seem  to  have  been  more  or  less  automatically
absorbed  under  the  title  of

krono

when the tenure system was

standardized around the turn of the 18

century, with the partial

exception of the

sämjebönder

136

135

A system of tax deduction for peasants providing cavalry service evolved

during the early modern period (also for musketeers and boatswains) and was
later formalized on a wider scale within the

indelningsverk

(‘allotment system’)

where an elite of wealthy peasants –

rusthållare,

who might also belong to other

estates

– were given the option of investing in tax exemption through the

equipment and maintenance of horsemen. (Ågren 1989, Backlund 1993).

136

And, as I have found during my revision of the Gladhammar rolls, the

skäriebönder.

These were a

contested category, sometimes counted as

skatte

, and

at other times as

krono

. Hafström (1970:118) believes that they

originate in settlements on the commons, while Almquist (1964:207)
considers them to be

skatte

homesteads that through special

agreements were to pay fixed monetary taxes, and believes that the
similarity to the taxes paid by settlements led to a conflation between
the categories, and thereby eventually into assimilation with

krono

More than a century earlier, Bergfalk (1832:17-20) had claimed that
they were a separate type of tax land, and cited examples of peasants
transferred from

sämja

skatte

when the first title disappeared. This

appears to confirm their customary character, as their destiny seems
to have varied according to local custom.

The wide spectrum of ecclesiastical tenures also included local

varieties, like the quite important category of

St Eriks bönder

(Dahlbäck 1977, DMS) within the arch-diocese, paying their rent to
the

fabrica

of the cathedral of Uppsala. To replace the tripartite

system with four titles, treating all ecclesiastical holdings under the
same heading –

kyrko

– may be unavoidable for statistical purposes

(Forssell 1872-83, Larsson 1985), but is in some ways even more
misleading and anachronistic then the three-title one

137

, as the church

was not an independent and collective recipient of surplus

138

The title of

kyrko

should more correctly be reserved for tenures on

parochial  church  land,  owing  rent  to  the  parsonage.  Other
ecclesiastical  land  titles  included  different  prebendal  tenures,  paying
their  dues  to  the  holder  of  a  prebend  or  an  office  (

prebendebönder,

biskopsbönder,

kanikbönder,

dekanatsbönder

tenures

under

monasteries (

klosterbönder

), and tenure under hospitals and other

charitable institutions (

spetalsbönder

). The

akademibönder

of Uppsala

University might appear to be a similar phenomenon, but their tenure
originated from a 17th century grant made out of the King’s
patrimonial domain (

arv och eget

), which parallelled the grants of

crown land to noblemen, and was therefore originally considered a
form of

frälse

tenure. As the title of

arv och eget

was subsumed under

krono

tenure during the reign of Gustavus Adolphus (

the account

137

Even before standardization, the tripartite division at least corresponds to a

rough classification according to the title and destination of peasant dues: tax or
rent to the crown or to noble landlords.

138

The same thing goes for the

frälse

-owning gentry/nobility of course, but they at

least formed a homologous category of individual recipients, while ecclesiastical
rents accrued to office-holders, institutions, and even – in mixed cases – in part
to aristocratic families (see below).

given by J A Almquist in CLS), the title became disputed and was
eventually redefined into

krono

(

Gadd 2004).

The

lagmansbönder

(‘lawspeaker’s peasants’) in the province of

Närke  and  in  parts  of  Östergötland,  appear  to  have  been  a  sort  of  a
secular  parallel  to  prebendal  peasants,  alternatively  they  might  have
developed  out  of  a  more  centralized  level  version  of  the  common-
peasant, paying their rent to the judiciary of the province.

Another complex in-between category was – before Reformation –

tenure  under  altar  foundations  found  primarily  at  cathedrals  or
monastery  churches.  These  were  prebendal  tenures  originating  from
private donations, and the terms under which they were run allowed
land  to  be  donated  with  partial  property  rights.  The  donor  family
could  reserve  some of the dues,

e g

fines and hospitality obligations,

and only allot the regular rent to the holder of the prebend, who was
usually  designated  by  the  donors.  In  this  way  noble  families  could
put some of their land outside the reach of Kings and creditors, while
still  retaining  it  as  a  part  of  their  power  base.  Are  these  prebends  to
be classified as church tenures, or as a form of noble tenure? Norborg
(1958:99-108)  concludes  that  they  ‘were  treated  as  private  property;
they  could  be  given  away,  inherited,  and  enfeoffed’  (p100;  my
translation).

The boundaries separating landed peasants from the landless rural

population  are  of  vital  importance  from  both  an  economic  and  a
political  point  of  view.  However,  there  are  also  boundaries
subdividing  the

bönder

– landed peasant heads of households

139

–

according to both of these perspectives.

Economically

the line of division will eventually come to run

between  the  tax-paying  freeholders,  on  the  one  hand,  who  are
considered  owners  of  their  land,  and  the  rent-paying  tenants  on  the
other, whether they are holding Crown or noble land.

Politically

, the boundaries are differently drawn: tax and Crown

peasants  are  eventually  represented  in  the  Honourable  Estate  of
Peasants,  while  peasants  on  noble  land  are  supposedly  represented
by their landlords in the House of Knights. From the dawn of the Age
of  Liberty  until  the  demise  of  the  Four-Estate  Diet  (

1720-1865),

these interrelations can be captured by the following table.

139

‘Husbandmen’ would be the closest translation - also etymologically (a

husbonde

is the master of a household) - if we bear in mind that the Swedish term is wider
and also includes peasants who would have been considered yeomen in England.

Table 2: subdivision of Swedish peasantry ca 1720-1865

self-representation through the Estate of

Peasants

patriarchal representation by

landlord

skattebönder

kronobönder

frälsebönder

landowning

freeholders

rentpaying tenants

As if this was not complex enough, we should also observe that

these boundaries do not appear as given at the starting point, but are
drawn as the outcome of political struggles during the early modern
period. The question whether

skatterätt

(‘tax-land right’) is to be

considered a form of ownership, or just a form of hereditary Crown
tenure, is hotly debated, especially around the mid-17

century, and

the  issue  is  not  definitely  closed  until  1789  (Almqvist  1929,
Bäärnhielm  1970).  The  electorate  for  peasant  representation  had  not
been  formally  delimited  before  the  Diet  Ordinance  of  1723,  when
tenants  on  noble  land  were  explicitly  excluded,  but  the  presence  of

frälsebönder

among the deputies to the Estate all through the

Imperial  age,  and  the  intermittent  success  for  the  perennial  peasant
demand  for  deputy  subsidies  from  exempt  land  tenants  as  well  as
from  other  peasants,  show  this  to  be  a  recent  development.  Ågren
(1964:8f)  identified  two  tenants  on  tax-exempt  (noble)  land  among
the deputies of Uppland in the Diet of 1652. Ahnlund had already in
1933  suspected  that

frälsebönder

might at times have been returned

as deputies, although that would in his opinion have been ‘contrary
to the spirit of Estate’.

When I started out trying to identify the peasants who had signed

the Diet’s decision to collect an extraordinary property tax for the first
Ransom of Älvsborg in 1571, I had originally expected to find an elite
of  substantial  peasants  –  perhaps  corresponding  to  those  former
gentrymen who had lost their tax-exempt status during the process of
Estate formation. The results  were surprising:  not  only  were many  of
those  deputies  I  managed  to  identify  less  affluent  than  the  average
peasant  (40%  in  1571)  but  there  was  also  a  modest  but
incontrovertible presence of

frälsebönder

among the deputies

140

Among the peasant deputies I have identified so far, the percentage of tenants

on exempt land seems to have varied around 10-25%. (see table 3 below),
dropping to 5% during the last period before exclusion.

Table 3: Deputies of the peasant Estate identified in taxation rolls. Assessed wealth
(movable property only) measured by partly linkable indexes

141

and tenure

1571

1624

1640

1713

number of deputies identified in taxation rolls

107

Index (ÄL1571)

Index(JHM1713

)

Average

151,8

206,7

147,2

403,4

Median

124,4

189,5

132,6

274,8

Coefficient
of variation

67,9

48,0

47,3

114,5

averages for different tenures (number of cases in parenthesis)

skatte

177,8 (18)

477,5 (29)

krono

116,3 (7)

211,8 (42)

149,6 (80)

203,3 (10)

frälse

131,0 (6)

180,6 (14)

163,9 (9)

329,7 (2)

percentage of

frälsebönder

(tenants of the nobility or exempt-land

tenants)

among those whose tenure has been identified

9,8%

24,6%

10,1%

4,9%

percentage of peasants below index 100:

40,9%

9,4%

23,4%

9,8%

Sources: FBL for the names of the representatives; tax assessments and land nature taken or
inferred from ÄL1571, BL 1623, 1624, 1639, 1640 Ksl 1713, 1714 (for some of the
representatives, their tax assessments for earlier or subsequent years are cited, when the rolls
for the year of the respective Diet have not been preserved for their parishes). In 1713-14 all
of the three sectors are easily distinguishable in the rolls, as

skatte

and

frälse

were taxed as

real estate, but assessed in different ways. In 1624 and 1640,

frälse

farms can often be

identified through the lower tax rate. In 1624 only 7 out of the 14 counted in the

frälse

column

have been identified as

frälse

peasants by other means than the tax rate.

The peasant representatives in the early Riksdag were thus hardly

an economic elite, which has often been assumed. In the later 18

century  there  were  certain  peasant  representatives  who  built  a  large
personal  fortune,  including  the  well-known  Speakers  of  the  Estate,
Joseph  Hansson  and  Anders  Håkansson,  and  these  examples  have
affected  the  received  image  of  the  Peasant  Estate  in  general.
Alexandersson also concludes from his detailed survey of the Peasant
Estate 1760-1772, that the ‘representatives in the Diet rose above their
voters  in  the  economic  aspect’  (Alexandersson  1975:40;  my
translation). Linde (2000), however, notes that in the beginning of the

141

Index(ÄL1571) refers to an average livestock assessment from the property

taxation  of  1571,  while  Index(JHM1713)  refers  to  the  full  property  assessment
of  the  1713  property  taxation  for  an  average  farm  in  three  parishes  whose
average  livestock  is  equivalent  to  Index(ÄL1571).  See  Appendix  for  details  and
discussion.

same century, the Diet representatives from his area of investigation
were of less than average wealth, although he makes reservations
about the small number of instances.

Peasants in the social structure of Imperial Sweden

How are we to evaluate the coherence as well as the divisions

within this vast majority

142

of the population? In order to have any

chance  of  understanding  the  dynamics  of  the  criss-crossing  lines  of
division  separating  landed  from  landless,  proprietors  from  tenants,
politically  enfranchised  from  disenfranchised,  we  have  to  make
ourselves  a  picture  of  the  internal  social  and  economic  composition
of the  peasant population, and  of how this structure  developed over
time.  In  the  Swedish  archives,  we  are  fortunate  enough  to  possess  a
huge collection  of  fiscal  source material, and the  records  of property
taxes  spanning  almost  the  entire  Imperial  Age  should  afford  us  an
excellent point of departure.

The earliest large-scale registration of peasant property in Sweden

can be found in the assessment rolls for the (first) Ransom for
Älvsborg (

Älvsborgs lösen)

from 1571 (henceforth

ÄL

). A thorough

statistical treatment of the entire material – more than 50 000
households registered within Sweden proper

143

– was published in

1872  and  1883  by  the  Swedish  historian  Hans  Forssell,  including
detailed  summations  for  each  parish  of  all  kinds  of  property  listed  –
money,  metals  and  livestock.  Later  studies  have  usually  taken
Forssell’s summaries as their point of departure, apart from a number
of local studies publishing more detailed figures for single provinces,
hundreds or parishes.

The most ambitious present-day attempt to use the original source

material in a general Swedish context is Myrdal-Söderberg’s

Kontinuitetens dynamik

, where the general overview of regional

variation is based on Forssell’s summaries, but is also complemented
by a detailed comparison between ÄL and a similar property taxation
from 1599/1600 for a sample of Mid-Swedish parishes. Material from
these

hjälpskattelängder

(aids rolls, here abbreviated Hsl) has also

been used in Eva Österberg’s study of peasant differentiation (see
below) and by Söderberg in 1987.

142

95%, according to a wide-spread estimate (Carlsson).

143

I e

excluding Finland, which was at the time an integral part of the kingdom of

Sweden. Also excluded are, of course, those present-day provinces which at that
time belonged to Denmark or Norway.

I e:

Scania, Blekinge, Halland, Bohuslän,

Jämtland and Härjedalen.

The problem of measurement

To compare the nominal monetary values of different property

taxations would require a reliable price index, something  notoriously
difficult  to  achieve  for  earlier  periods  of  history.  However,  the  tax
assessments  contain  within  themselves  a  considerable  real-value
component,  which  should  be  possible  to  use  as  a  foundation  for
diachronic  comparison:  livestock.  If  we  use  the  livestock  part  of  the
taxes  to  correlate  assessment  values,  the  ‘livestock  and  seed  grain
rolls’  (

boskaps- och utsädeslängder

, hereafter BL) of 1620-40 can be

used to fill out the first half of the long time gap between 1571 and
1713.

How shall we make these figures commensurable? Transformation

into ‘cattle equivalents’ (

nötkreatursenheter,

Ne) in conformity with

the conventional usage among Swedish cultural geographers

145

, is the

most common solution, but whether conversion coefficients based on
relative evaluations from the 19

century are relevant for the period

1571-1715 seems highly questionable. An alternative scale based on
17

century tax assessment rates was suggested by Hannerberg (1948;

Lindegren1980, Larsson1983). However, the relative assessments for

various animals are by no means consistent over the period under
consideration

146

and we may reasonably assume that the tax

assessment committees

147

were influenced by the relative tax rates

when recording the animals under different headings.

Elementary principles of fairness should ensure that a higher

difference between the rates for, say, bulls and steers, would result in
more restrictive criteria for when a steer is considered a bull. A high
rate for heifers while calves were exempt, would also reasonable

145

A large number of the local historical studies of Swedish agriculture have been

carried  out  by  cultural  geographers, and  the  prevalence  of  the  Ne  scale  has  led
even  authors  sceptical  of  its  analytical  value,  to  employ  it  in  order  to  facilitate
comparisons.

E g

Hannerberg 1948 who argued that a 19

century scale would

hardly be relevant for relative prices of the 17

century. His suggestion of an

alternative unit based on the relative evaluation implicit in 17

century livestock

tax assessments, has been taken up by Lindegren 1980 and Larsson 1983:30n5,
and is usually designated Ke (

kreatursenheter

or ‘livestock units’).

146

1599 the rate between goats and bulls is 1:2 in 1620 it is 3:16, in 1624 1:4, in

1627 3:37 and in 1634 it is 1:6 (which was probably the rate also in 1571, if bulls
were taxed as 4-year steers, as Forssell surmises (1872:35). Hannerberg based
the proposed Ke units on the 1624 rates.

147

Usually consisting of the parson and the six-man parish vestry, at times

augmented by local representatives of the Crown (bailiffs, constables, scriveners)
or of the military (Forssell 1872:7).

entail  a  more  benevolent  registration  practice  for  miserable  heifers,
and  so  on.  The  complex  treatment  of  horses  in  ÄL  1571  –  to  be
assessed  ‘at  their  value’  according  to  the  instruction  –  shows  that
many  taxation  committees  were  prepared  to  go  into  detailed
consideration  of  differential  value.  Accepting  the  relative  evaluations
inherent  in  these  rolls  would  reasonably  tell  us  more  about  actual
differences  of  wealth,  than  if  we  try  to  ‘correct’  relative  values  by
superimposing a standard tied to another situation and another time.

Therefore I prefer to use the original assessment sums for

synchronic comparisons. In all the instances where it is possible, I
have checked the sums exacted against the items in the assessment
inventories. The figures are usually surprisingly accurate

148

, but where

they diverge, I have had to choose the alternative that seems most
plausible –

i e

to make assumptions that downplays contrasts rather

than exaggerating them. Whether I use the full property tax
assessment or just the livestock component will depend on the
circumstances.

The diachronic development I try to gauge through an index

relating  all  of  the  taxations  before  1713  to  a  ‘reference  farm’  derived
from  the  national  average  in  1571.  To  relate  this  index  to  the  value
sums in Ksl 1713, I  make a comparison between the ‘reference farm’
of  1571,  and  an  average  farm  in  the  only  three  parishes  where
livestock  was  separately  specified  in  1713.  These  are  used  for
constructing  another  index,  relating  the  assessed  wealth  of  different
homesteads to the wealth of the 1713 reference farm. Through linking
the  indexes  I  can  make  comparisons  between  1571-1640  and
1713/1714 (see Appendix for details).

WEALTH AND POVERTY AMONG THE PEASANTS

Did the taxation system breed inequality?

Eva Österberg (1977) examined the distribution of wealth among

peasants  around  1600  in  a  study  of  expansion  and  regression  in  the
province  of  Värmland.  She  noticed  surprisingly  large  contrasts
between the peasant households, and put forward the hypothesis that
peasant inequality was at least in part an effect of the rigid system of
taxation,  where  registered  farms  were  classified  into  ‘whole’  or  ‘half‘

148

Considering the absence of a numerical basis common to currency and to weight

or area measures.

homesteads

(hemman)

– paying full tax or a reduced amount

149

–

with the eventual addition of even smaller units corresponding to a
quarter of a homestead (

torp

)

or even an eighth (

halvt torp)

. This

system  was  of  course  designed  to  equalize  the  tax  burden,  but  the
difficulty  of  keeping  this  rough  evaluation  up  to  date  would  leave
many  households  overburdened  and  others  under-taxed  –  it  is  quite
easy to find half- or quarter-homesteads larger than many fiscally fully
burdened farms

150

The problem of overtaxation was usually mitigated through

temporary  tax-reductions  and  remissions,  but  the  under-taxed  farms
must  have  been  left  with  relatively  higher  reserves  of  untapped
surplus and thus a potential for trade and investment. In this way, the
households  favoured  by  the  cadastral  assessments  would  find
themselves  in  a  position  to  increase  their  relative  advantage,  and
inequality among peasants will tend to increase over time as an effect
of the taxation system. This is the logic of Österberg’s argument, as I
read  it  (Österberg  1977:227ff,  252f,  259f,  266f,  English  summary:282)
where the lack of fit between the actual disparity of resources and the
state’s  inadequate  attempt  to  catch  this  disparity  in  a  rigid  matrix  of
binary  tax  rates,  becomes  an  independent  dynamic  factor  interacting
with the more commonly discussed demographic and property rights-
related tendencies

151

For the 18

and 19

centuries, and in particular

for the period of fast demographic growth around 1750-1850, an
increasing inequality among the peasantry has been demonstrated in
a number of local studies (

the compilation in Söderberg 1987).

149

The distinction between ‘whole-’ and ‘half-peasants’ appears already in the Land

Law, but as a consequence of Gustav Vasa’s tax reforms, it was universally
applied to the registered holdings (Dovring 1951.

150

Even more glaring examples can be found,

the

torp

(quarter-homestead)

Botorp  in  Grava  was  in  1600  assessed  for  a  harvest  twice  the  size  of  (Norra)
Hershög, which was a ‘full farm’ in the  fiscal sense, but  kept less  than a quarter
(21%)  of  the  livestock  found  on  the  ‘quarter-farm’  Botorp.  (

the property

taxation  in  VrmH  1600:10:3  fol  68-77  and  the  cadaster  in  VrmH  1601:10:3  fol
25v-29). Accordingly, this ‘croft’ (under  ecclesiastical tenure) not only paid a rent
lower  than  the  tax  levied  on  Hershög,  but  was  also  more  lightly  burdened  by
extraordinary taxations - except property taxes.

151

A discussion of tax-related dynamics in terms of Schumpeter’s

Crisis of the Tax-

state

, was initiated by Birgitta Odén (1967), who also argued that rising taxes

should lead to a sharper social differentiation - without, however, specifying the
mechanisms through which this effect would have been produced. Folke
Dovring’s earlier analysis of Gustav Vasa’s tax reforms (

the English summary in

Dovring 1951:422-6), emphasized the individualization of taxes, which is an
indispensable precondition for the different dynamics discussed by Odén,
Österberg and Herlitz (below).

The most influential of these studies are Herlitz 1974 and Winberg

1975

152

, both of which demonstrate developments widening the gap

between  freeholders  and  tenants  on  exempt  land,  in  addition  to  the
long-term  trend  transforming  the  peasantry  into  ‘a  class  of  farmer
proprietors  (

hemmansägare)

’ on the one hand, and a landless

proletariate on the other. In Herlitz’ study rising tax-land value was
interpreted as reflecting improvements made possible by a stagnating
tax burden allowing the retention and reinvestment of an agricultural
surplus, and the improving quality of peasant property rights making
this a rational option

153

. In Winberg’s case a more restrictive birth rate

among freeholders ensured that the growing agrarian proletariate was
primarily recruited from the tenantry on noble land. This tendency
was reinforced by the reorganization of manorial agriculture towards
consolidated farms employing wage workers, usually

154

in the form of

a semi-dependent truck-system wage-labour force (

statare

). Winberg

1990  provides  the  best  concise  synthesis  of  these  findings,  also
incorporating  corroborative  evidence  from  Gadd  1983  (peasant
productivity) and Bäck 1984 (peasant demands for enclosure).

A weak point in this ‘peasants into proprietors’ theory is its heavy

reliance on evidence from one single province – that of Skaraborg

155

Endeavouring  to  summarize  a  number  of  different  local  studies,
Söderberg  1987  discerns  two  periods:  1720-1800,  and  1810-1850.
Excepting a study of development in Stockholm – reasonably subject
to  different  dynamics  than  the  countryside  –  all  of  them  indicate  an
increasing  divergence  for  the  latter  period.  For  the  earlier  one,  the
evidence  is  contradictory:  Herlitz’  increasing  inequality  in  Skaraborg
links  up  to  Winberg’s  and  Martinius’  findings  for  phase  2,  while
Isacson  1979

156

suggests contrasting tendencies for the two periods,

152

Here cited from the 1977 edition..

153

To the extent that Revera 1984 is right in suspecting a parallel stagnation of

noble rent pressure – very difficult to square with her own description of
growing status expenses – this would shift the explanatory burden more heavily
onto the institutional component in Herlitz’ model.

154

Particularly in Eastern and Southern Sweden. The relative importance of the

‘peasant road’ and the commercial manor system within the development of
modern Sweden is still awaiting a full assessment.

155

The standard evidence on early peasant inequality, on the other hand, relies

heavily on Värmland (Österberg  1977) while that on farm sizes is primarily based
on  data  pertaining  to  Uppland  (Ågren  1964,  Dahlbäck  1977), and  the  effects  of
conscription on sources from Västerbotten (Lindegren 1980).

156

Martinius 1977 also studied an area in Skaraborg. Isacson discusses the

development in By parish in Bergslagen (the ‘mining law’ region in central
Sweden).

proposing an introductory phase of homogenization, followed by a
reversal in phase 2.

Homogenization or polarization?

In order to test Odén’s and Österberg’s hypothesis, Janken Myrdal

and  Johan  Söderberg  compared  the  property  taxations  of  1571  and
1599  for  a  sample  of  twelve  parishes  in  the  provinces  of  Uppland,
Sörmland, Östergötland and Småland (1991:175-202). The results were
interpreted  as  showing  no  marked  tendency  in  either  direction.  In
most of the parishes (7  or  8) the keeping  of livestock  expanded, but
this  was  compatible  with  growing  inequality  (3  parishes)  as  well  as
with diminishing (2).

As I felt dissatisfied with a conclusion neglecting to discriminate

between landowning freeholders and tenants, I decided to select two
of their contrasting examples for closer scrutiny. As I also wanted to
be able to carry the comparison further up to 1713-5, the best choices
appeared to be the Upland parish of Danmark, and the Småland
parish of Gladhammar

157

. In order to make a more differentiated study

of the contrasting  development, I had to  begin  with a  reconstruction
of  the  original  comparison.  Myrdal/Söderberg  (henceforth  M/S)
measured  the  amount  of  livestock  kept  by  each

nominatus

converting

the

various

animals

into

‘cattle

equivalents’

(

nötkreatursenheter,

Ne) in conformity with the conventional usage

among Swedish cultural geographers

158

, but as the accounting for

young  cattle  appeared  to  be  insufficiently  uniform  in  their  sources,
they  decided  to  discount  heifers,  steers  and  calves,  as  well  as  those
animals  which  did  not  figure  in  both  of  the  taxations  -  young  pigs,
lambs  and  kids

159

(1991:176). They also attempted to limit the

investigation to the agricultural population

strictu sensu

, by excluding

nominati

who possessed no draught animals.

157

Danmark is one of the wealthiest parishes in the central parts of Uppland

(Myrdal-Söderberg  1991:182-4),  a  part  of  Sweden  which  has  been  seen  as  the
heartland of peasant-magnate opposition to royal centralization during the middle
ages  (Lönnroth  1959),  and  whose  peasantry  later  customarily  played  a  leading
role  in  the  Peasant  Estate  (Olsson  1926).  Gladhammar  was  the  home  parish  of
Per  Olsson,  a  renowned  Speaker  of  the  Peasant  Estate  during  the  Caroline
period.  Accordingly,  these  two  parishes  should  also  be  important  from  the
viewpoint of peasant political representation, another aspect I am studying.

158

note 148 above.

159

Who were not included in 1571.

Some standardized procedure for delimiting the investigated group

does appear necessary, though

160

, but for my own investigation I

prefer to use Lars-Olof Larsson’s criterion (Larsson1983:44): a

nominatus

assessed as holding any amount of seed grain and/or

livestock corresponding to 3 Ke

161

or more, is presumed to be an at

least

de facto

landed peasant.

When reconstructing the original comparison, I discovered that a

considerable number of stock-owning

nominati

which I could not

identify as non-peasants

162

would be excluded from the list by the

draught-animal  criterion.  At  the  same  time,  cavalrymen  assessed  for
no  other  property  than  their  horse  would  have  to  be  included,  as  a
horse  was  by  definition  considered  a  draught  animal  and  thus  an
indicator of husbandry. When I revised the figures including all of the

nominati

, or just those possessing stock corresponding to at least 3

Ke, the contrasting development disappeared altogether. I also
examined the consequences of varying the unit of measurement:

160

Different tax rolls specify the landless parishioners to a widely varying extent.

Accordingly this source material cannot tell us much concerning the rural
proletariate.

161

Lennart Andersson Palm 1993 reports this criterion to be effective for eliminating

landless

nominati

. (Although he cites the limit as 3

units, which is a

somewhat more restrictive norm)

162

On some of the homesteads not a single draught-animal possessor was

registered, although  the  assessment  of  cattle  and  seed  grain  makes  it  clear  that
the farm was engaged in agricultural activity. The M/S criterion thus excludes not
only  a  person  owning  five  cows  but  no  other  animals,  like  Matz  Ionß  i  Lundha
(Danmark  1571),  but  also  someone  like  Peter  i  Hendelöp  (Gladhammar  1571),
richer than five sixths of the peasants in that parish.

not. As the supposedly lower degree of inequality for Gladhammar in
1571 was measured over a much more narrow selection of the
assessed households than in 1599

167

, the apparent rise in the

coefficient of variation would seem to indicate changes in the pattern
of horse- and ox-keeping

168

, but not in any way a rising inequality -

rather the opposite, although the tendency is much weaker than for
the parish of Danmark.

If the homogenizing tendency is the general pattern, Österberg’s

argument appears even more decisively refuted – for

this

period, that

169

This is probably because my period of investigation is so late

that  the  figures  already  reflect  the  success  of  counteracting  policies
invented  to  secure  the  tax  base.  These  are  exemplified  within
Österberg’s  description  of  how  the  state  attempts  to  capture  the
hidden surplus through property taxes, poll taxes

etc

around the turn

of the 17

century

170

. Her extensive lists of extraordinary taxes

exacted during the last four decades of the 16

century (Österberg

1977:237-247) reflect the earlier stages of a long struggle to mitigate
the counterproductive effect of the rigid land tax system:

too little tax

from those who were able to afford it, and too much trouble and
expenses wasted on attempting to collect it from those who were not

(266n7)

In this respect the contrast between Danmark and Gladhammar is

hardly crucial enough to focus my investigation on. To find out how

general  the  homogenizing  tendency  is,  further  examples  have  to  be
brought  into  the  picture.  Also:  if  Österberg’s  hypothesis  is  no  longer
central  to  the  argument,  other  aspects  of  stratification  -  than  its
compression or amplification - deserve equal attention. A good place
to start an investigation of the stratification

per se

, should be where it

first caught attention – let us have a look at the taxation cited in
Österberg’s study.

167

64% as against 89% for the later year.

168

The average number of horses and fully grown oxen per

nominatus

are almost

constant between  the  two assessments (2,1-2,4  and  1,5-1,6) while the average
household  in  1599  in  addition  possesses  2  young  oxen  and  1  bull,  which  are
totally  absent  in  1571.  This  suggests  a  higher  involvement  with  ox-trade,  in
1599, while farmers in 1571 must have borrowed or rented draught animals – or
had entered into companionship with draught animal owners (as

bolagsmän

169

Further below I will show indications that it does apply to the period without

property taxes between 1641and 1713.

170

See Österberg 1977:266n7, where she also cites Larsson 1972 to the same

effect.

Rich and poor peasants

Among the five parishes examined by Österberg, Grava presented

the most extreme case of inequality, and will therefore be selected for
closer scrutiny:

Table 4. Property tax of 1599: dispersion of assessed property in 5 Värmland
parishes (Österberg 1977).

Segerstad Grums

Grava

Tingvalla

Hammarö

SUM

penningar

(pennies)

number of

households

number of

households

number of

households

number of

households

number of

households

number of

households

1-200

201-400

401-600

601-800

801-1000

1001-1200

1201-1400

1401-1600

1601-1800

1801-2000

2001-

Source: Österberg 1977:table 66.

Österberg also compared different categories of peasants:

Grouping the material according to land nature distinguishing tax

and crown land from exempt land (

krono

homesteads are too few to

constitute a separate category except in Hammarö, where on the other
hand there is no

skatte

) yields certain interesting results. The average

is in every parish higher for the

skatte

and

krono

units, than for the

frälse

households, and the difference is in many cases considerable. In

addition, the dispersion among the values is often greater within the

skatte

group. What can be said, in particular for a couple of these

parishes, is that the

frälse

units have clustered more closely around a

lower accounted wealth than other units. (Österberg1977:256; my
translation)

Alongside Kurt Ågren’s demonstration that

hemman

(cadastral

homesteads) on tax land were on an average larger than those on

land of different natures (1964:49,53f)

171

, Österberg’s results have

helped to confirm the picture of tax peasants as an upper stratum of
the peasantry, not only during the late 18

and 19

centuries, but

from the very beginning of the modern era

172

. However, this

viewpoint rests on questionable foundations. Ågren’s calculations
compare only the formal cadastral units of different nature, while the
relevant unit of comparison should be the peasant household. Many

hemman

units comprised more than one household, and the

homonymity between

hemman

in the literal sense of an actual

homestead, and in the sense of a cadastral unit of account is one of
the perennial sources of confusion within Swedish agrarian history (

Herlitz 1974 ch.V, Larsson 1983:14ff, Gadd

forthcoming

As tax land was in freehold and thus inheritable, it seems quite

likely that a higher rate of subdivision could offset or more than offset
the difference in cadastral unit size. Myrdal (1987:83-89, 93) discusses
the  extent  of  hidden subdivision indicated by the  property taxations,
and calculates an average rate of subdivision of 19% in 1571 and 32%
in  1599/1601.  Regrettably  he  does  not  discuss  differences  between
land  of  different  nature.  Larsson  1983:50f  demonstrates  that  in  1627
the  subdivision  was  much  more  frequent  among  the  freeholders  of
Kinnevald hundred, than among the tenants

Herlitz 1974:190f shows

that the average rate of subdivision was, in the early 18

century,

slightly higher on tax and crown land than on

frälsebonde

holdings,

and  that  this  divergence  increased.  On  the  other  hand,  he  also
demonstrates  (220ff)  that  during  the  period  1750-1769,  the  actual
units  of  cultivation  were  larger  on  tax-

cum

-crown land than on

exempt land holdings. This might be said to strengthen Ågren’s case,
but as a stronger position of tax peasants would be the

effect

of the

dynamics analyzed by Herlitz it is in no way certain that it is also a
starting point. The convergence of tax and crown peasants is likewise

a product of the development rather than a precondition.

171

Ågren’s results, referring to parts of mid-17

century Uppland, have been

confirmed for the 16

by Dahlbäck 1977:268f, using similar methods and

covering roughly the same region. Ferm 1987:210f extends the comparison to
other parts of central Sweden finding divergences on the same scale or even
larger.

172

Behre

et al

1985:126ff, Larsson 1985:70.

that Larsson’s own survey, which he

cites in addition to Österberg’s, does

not

support her conclusion.[1983:82]. Yet

he claims that tax peasants usually were more well off than other peasants.
Samuelsson 1993:177. Also

Dahlgren in Roberts (ed)1973:106 and Nilsson

1990:23f, 50f

The property tax rolls allow us the best approximation to

independent households available

173

, and thus a comparison between

the assessed households should afford us a more reliable measure of
relative affluence. This is what Österberg endeavoured to do, but
unfortunately she neglected to make corrections for the lower tax rate
on

frälse

land. This means that the wealth of

frälse

households has

been  underestimated  by  50  percent,  and  likewise  the  span  of
variation. In order to  get a more adequate  picture of the  distribution
of  wealth  I  have  made  charts  dividing  the

nominati

into five

categories:

skatte, kyrko

(tenants of the parish church),

kloster

(tenants

on former monastic land),

arv och eget

174

, and

frälse

. I also

discriminate between households of different cadastral magnitude:
‘full’ or ‘half’ homesteads, and crofts or settlements assessed as 1/3 or
1/4

hemman

(fiscal homestead units). Farms accommodating more

than one household I have subdivided into fractions of the cadastral
assessment for the entire farm

175

Chart 5: The parish of Grava in 1600: total tax

Sources: Compiled from VrmH 1600:10:3 fol 68-77 and 1601:10:3 fol 25v-29.

173

the discussion in Larsson 1972.

174

Royal – or, as in this case, ducal – patrimonial domain land. In Grava only one

single homestead belonged to this category (eventually to be subsumed under
the title of

krono

175

Two households sharing a farm assessed as a ‘half-size’ homestead are thus

treated as two quarter-size homesteads

etc.

Who were the rich peasants – a second look

These charts present a picture quite different from Österberg’s

181

Not only do the

frälsebönder

(peasants on tax-exempt or ‘noble’ land)

appear to be as rich or richer than the

skattebönder

(freeholders on

tax land) but the disaggregation of the combined

skatte

and

krono

category also reveals a hidden elite - the tenants on former monastic
land

182

. If this pattern is not altogether exceptional

183

, it suggests that

the  history  of  peasant  stratification  in  Sweden  may  be  more
discontinuous  than  we  have  thought,  featuring  different  and  maybe
competing  elites.  The  rich  tenants  on  monastic  and  noble  land  may
have  been  post-medieval  residues,  some  kind  of  reeves  or  sub-
vassals,  perhaps  stemming  from  lapsed  gentry

184

a service category,

while the richer among the

skattebönder

might already have been

those most successful at navigating the perennial tidal movements of

morcellement

and

reassemblement

– a category based on inheritance

181

These findings I first presented at a conference at the Gustavus Adolphus

Academy in Stockholm 1999. Only considerably later did it come to my attention
that  Klingnéus  1997  already  had  pointed  out  Österberg’s  tax  rate  mistake.  He
did not, however, observe the other misleading factor in her wealth analysis: that
also  the  Crown  peasants  whose  property  assessments  she  merges  with  that  of
the  tax  peasants,  are  more  wealthy  than  the  freeholding

skattebönder

. The

peasant  category  which  she  declares  to  be  the  richest  on  the  strength  of  her
survey  is  thus  –  at  least  within  the  wealthiest  and  most  unequal  of  her  sample
parishes – the poorest!

182

The standardization of the different ecclesiastical, royal and regnal categories

under the amalgamated title of

krono

, proceeded at a very slow pace, and the

distinction between prebendal, parochial and monastic tenants was upheld in land
registers for a long time.

183

In the ÄL1571 roll for Norra Lundby in the province of Skaraborg, 11 out of the

nominati

were tenants of the local monastery. As some of the poorest

peasants  also  belonged  to  this  group,  their average  property  was  quite  modest,
but  among  the  five  wealthiest  households  in  the  parish,  four  held  on  cloister
land.  Number  one  was  a

frälsebonde

, but if we count only livestock, two

monastic tenants top the list. In the jointly assessed parishes of Hånger and
Mårby in the same province, there was only a single monastic tenant, but he was
the wealthiest one.

184

Dahlerup’s (1969) discussion of the Danish case in terms of a ‘fall of the

gentry’

Samuelsson 1993:193f recounts an example of decline from gentleman

frälsebonde

– presumably as a tenant of relatives rich enough to uphold

privileged status. Also

Almquist (SoH 1967:182) and Munktell 1982:72,129.

and thus a form of ownership whatever the juridical definitions
attached

185

As the prebendary tenures were secularized into a wage system for

purposes of state, other holdings converging under the title of

krono

tended to go the same way, partly as an alternative

186

to service

tenures, partly as a parallel. Forssell 1869:174ff recounts the beginning
of this process, where earlier canonical prebends are assigned for
scriveners, bailiffs etc. In an appendix (

op cit,

app 3:VI) he has

registered all the prebends he could identify, their number of tenants
and  the  rents  due  as  well  as  their  destinies  after  the  reformation:
confiscation,  revocation  to  the  family  of  the  original  donor,  or  being
granted  in  fee  (Tables  J.I-J.7).  The  last-mentioned  cases  were
apparently  of  the  same  wage-assignment  character  as  mentioned
above, as the grantees do not seem to be aristocratic feudatories, but
rather

administrators,

tradesmen,

specialized

craftsmen

pearlstitcher, a bookbinder), and school-masters.

Did the privileged position of the former monastic tenants survive

in some way, or were they submerged into the lower peasantry, as
other categories rose? The varying fortunes of individuals and families
would be difficult to trace, at least before the 18

century, but

comparing  the  development  for  identified  homesteads  between  the
different  taxations  may  be  a  feasible  alternative  which  should  yield
some clues as to the relative fortunes of the different categories.

The special position occupied by monastic tenants in Grava may be

a  local  peculiarity,  but  the  important  point  is  that  it  goes  totally
against  the  traditional  presuppositions.  Crown  peasants  –  among
whom  monastic  tenants  were  eventually  to  be  included  –  are

185

The system of subdivision and reconstruction of homesteads from generation to

generation studied in Dalecarlian villages by Sporrong and Wennersten (1995)
has certain features which would appear to be peculiar to this region.

Mutatis

mutandis

it should be possible to identify other local patterns of strategic

planning necessary to maintain peasant property over generations. Winberg
1977:53 pointed out that different customs of inheritance were still practically
unknown, and excepting Dalecarlia, this observation would still appear valid.

186

Odén 1955 on

förläning, beställning,

and

anvisning

. The development of a

specific Swedish system of assigning revenues from indidual homesteads as
wages is stressed by Nilsson 1989:147ff. The post-reduction

indelningsverk

‘allotment system’ was the final outcome, eventually affecting the majority of

krono

tenures.

100

generally treated as an adjunct to the freeholding tax peasants

187

, but

this example seems to point in the opposite direction: instead of
enjoying the benefit of Crown protection to a similar but lower extent
than the

skattebönder

, these peasants might rather be enjoying the

benefits of stewardship to a similar but higher extent than the

frälsebönder

– or might have been in a better position to combine

different kinds of advantages. The existence of wealthy peasants also
among the

frälsebönder

has occasionally been noted

188

, but has hardly

led to any debate. Lindkvist’s discussion (1979) of inequality among
tenants of the nobility during the 14

century advances the

hypothesis that the difference between rich and poor tenants may be
a remnant of an earlier manorial organization, where certain more
substantial holdings were occupied by a

bryte

villicus

189

(steward).

It is also conceivable that the monastic tenants were the heirs of

peasants who during the Middle Ages had sold or donated their own
land to religious institutions in order to protect themselves, in which
case favourable tenure conditions might have been part of the
bargain. If the

klosterbönder

of Grava came from such a background,

their personal wealth would testify to the efficiency of the strategy.
However, as Rosén points out (1950) Queen Margaret’s inquiry or

räfst

was much more interested in retrieving land given to parish

churches,  usually  by  peasants,  than  in  the  donations  to  monasteries,
where  the  donors  were  primarily  gentry  and  aristocracy,  whose  land
was already ‘lost to the crown’ anyway.

So maybe the wealthy monastic peasants came from a gentry

background,  and  had  sought  protection  both  for  the  land  they  lived
from  and  from  the  wars  they  did  not  want  to  fight  any  longer  (or
could  not  afford  to  take  part  in)?  Examples  of  Dahlerup’s  ‘fall  of  the
gentry’,  perhaps  –  his  study  in  the  hardening  conditions  for  lower
gentry  at  the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages  pointed  out  that  many
impoverished gentrymen had found a living as reeves for churches or

187

Especially for later periods;

Herlitz’ (1974) and Winberg’s (1977:42,158)

assumptions that their results for tax peasants also apply, albeit in a weaker form,
for Crown peasants. Winberg’s argument  explicitly refers to  the near universality
of  freehold  purchase  during  his  period  (and  in  his  area  of  investigation).  In
Herlitz’ case his property rights-based argument is tentatively extended to crown
peasants  enjoying

stadgad åborätt

(hereditary tenure); neither of these

arguments would apply during the Imperial age, though.

188

Forssell 1872-83. Larsson 1983:82 reports that in 1627, the majority of the very

wealthy (>21Ke) peasants in the hundred of Kinnevald (Småland) were tenants,
and that the richest by far (52 Ke), was a

frälsebonde

189

Also

the example discussed in Dovring 1951:398f. The discussion of

bosgårdar

in Helmfrid 1962 gives further references.

101

monasteries,  but  that  the  opportunities  for  this  type  of  employment
were  becoming  scarce  (Dahlerup  1969).  For  a  gentryman  who  had
some  land  to  donate,  however,  the  conversion  to  farming  under
church protection might have been rather advantageous after all.

DEVELOPMENT OF PEASANT WEALTH OVER TIME

What happened to the rich peasants of Grava?

If we compare the wealthiest households from 1600 with those in

1622  and  later,  we  may  get  some  clues  as  to  how  permanent  the
stratification  was.  Moving  on  from  the  property  taxation  of  1600  to
the  livestock  tax  rolls  for  1622,  we  find  that  out  of  the  seven  richest
households  from  the  earlier  occasion  (the  top  decile  -  none  of  them
on  tax  land),  most  of  them  had  split  into  two  or  more

190

. Out of the

resulting 10 households only one still belonged to the top decile in
1622

191

two homesteads out of 94 shared position nr 9, one or two in

1640.

Among the 17 households within the top decile of the peasant

192

households  of  1714, only two  derived  from the original seven. If we
trace  the  origin  of  the  other  15  in  the  top  decile,  we  find  that  the
richest farm derived from a parochial homestead – (Western) Tolerud
-  which  had  split  into  three  already  by  1600.  The  other  two  sub-
homesteads also appeared in the top decile of 1714 (rank 5-16), while
they in 1600 had occupied the places of 27, 33 and 48. If we look at
chart 9, we can see that the original top layer of wealthy households,
mainly composed of ‘full’ cadastral homesteads, has been fragmented
by 1622 and 1640.

In this parish, at least, that homeostatic self-adjustment seems to

have been in effect, whereby more economically successful farms
tend to accommodate a larger number of people and eventually split

190

Nr 6 Almar had been turned into a vicarage.

191

Just barely, as two homesteads shared position nr 9 out of 94. One of these

was  derived  from  the  homestead  of  Rud,  divided  between  two  homesteads.  In
1600,  the  undivided  farm had  been  by  far  the  richest  one  in  the  parish,  but  iin
1640  the two resulting farms - which had by then been bought into freehold by
the  tenants  from  1622  -  were  down  to  the  3

and 4

deciles. In 1714 the

original homestead accomodated 11 households, among which the 3 wealthiest
belonged to the third decile or the bottom layer of the second one.

192

Nr 5 (according to livestock tax) from 1600 had by then been turned into a

manor, and nr 6 had - as mentioned above - become a vicarage.

102

up into smaller – and relatively poorer – units

193

. The new stratum of

rich  peasants in  1714 consisted  primarily of tax  peasants,  13  of them
compared to the 3 crown peasant households comprising W. Tolerud
and  the  single  exempt  farm:  S.  Grava,  which  was  the  only  ‘full’
homestead among the top decile.

Chart 8: Top decile from Grava 1600: further development

Further development of top

decile from 1600

separate households

100

150

200

250

300

350

1600 1622 1640 1714

livestoc

k index

Further development of top

decile from 1600

merged fortune of cadastral

homesteads

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1600 1622 1640 1714

livestock

index

Almar

Boon

S Grava

Ilanda

Rud

Solberg

N Våla

Sources: VrmH 1600:10:3 fol 68-77 and 1601:10:3 fol 25v-29. BL 1622, 1640. Ksl 1714.
Households identified with the help of OVL, Rosenberg and cadasters for relevant years.

What about Österberg’s hypothesis that ‘underassessed’ homesteads

might  have  been  able  to  retain  a  larger  portion  of  its  agricultural
surplus  and  would  thus  have  been  better  equipped  to  invest  and
improve?  If  we  measure  wealth  relative  to  the  cadastral  homestead

193

Winberg 1975 and Martinius 1977 argue the relevance of these mechanisms in

the Swedish context. They are a commonplace in discussions of the French
peasantry (many examples in Aston-Philpin 1985).

103

size,

hemmanstal,

or as it is later designated,

mantal,

we find that

two ‘quarter-size’ homesteads or

torp

194

(crofts) stand out as

proportionally much more affluent than the number 1

195

homestead of

Rudh:  Botorp  (on  cloister  land)  and  Klingerud  (on  ducal  domain
land).  Botorp  is  assessed  for  a  harvest  which  only  the  wealthier  half
of  the  ‘full  farms’  can  surpass,  and  its  livestock  is  worth  43%  more
than  the  median  full  farm.  Klingerud’s  harvest  is  equal  to  Botorp’s
and  its  livestock  value  is  6%  above  the  median  full  farm.  Both  of
these  farms  are  thus  obvious  cases  of  ‘underassessment’.  Still,  in  a
period  of more  or less constant  property taxes  - designed to tap that
real-value  surplus  whose  existence  the  crude  system  of  cadastral
assessment  couldn’t  capture  –  we  might  suspect  that  Österberg’s
dynamics could have lost their effect

196

If we also include apparently subdivided homesteads

197

in the

comparison, three out of four households on the tax-land homestead
of (Southern) Skived, two out of four on the parochial farm of
(Western) Tolerud, and one out of the three on Kätterud (

skatte

), also

surpass the top decile in wealth per cadastral unit.

The further development of these farms (see Chart 9) is not easy to

pinpoint,  as  it  is  not  quite  evident  which  one  of  the  subfarms
correspond to which at each later date, but the five households at or
below index 100 should be disregarded, as they do not appear to be
under-assessed. They probably appear also in the following taxations,
though,  and  are  therefore  included  for  the  sake  of  consistency.  The
chart  suggests  a  general  downward  trend  during  the  years  of  annual
livestock  taxations,  while  the  period  1640-1714  has  witnessed  a
considerable  expansion  for  several  of  these

198

, most remarkably for

the only remaining

199

crown homestead (originally parochial), W.

194

A term usually translated ‘croft’, but in early cadasters a common label for any

farm ‘smaller’ (in economic substance) than the ‘whole’ or ‘half’ homesteads of
peasants counted as full members of the community.

195

Ranked according to wealth.

196

The very fact of such disproportionate wealth having been accumulated in ‘small’

homesteads seems to indicate that they

had

been in effect during the 16

century, when most taxes were exacted in proportion to cadastral size.

197

De facto

separate farms which are not listed as independent homesteads in the

cadastral  registers.  The  same  mechanisms  should  apply  to  these,  as  they
reasonably  must  have  divided  the  tax  burden  between  themselves,  and  thus
might  be  ‘under-assessed’  in  exactly  the  same  way  as  independent  cadastral
units.

198

The argument that the downturn could be due to decreasing efficiency in the

registration of livestock is discussed in the Appendix.

199

Kätterud and S. Skived were originally tax land homesteads, while Botorp and

Klingerud were bought into freehold between 1622 and 1640 (OVL).

105

Thus it seems as though the period

without

property taxation

1641-

1713,  might  give  some  support  to  the  Österberg  hypothesis.  The
expansive  effect,  though,  seems  to  have  propelled  the  tax  land
homesteads  into  that  dominant  position  which  her  survey  had
assumed  to  be  the  point  of  departure.  It  is  quite  possible  that  the
political  struggle  for  secure  property  rights  around  the  mid-17

century in alliance with burghers and clergy marked the beginning of
the rise of the market-oriented tax land peasant

200

, and that an

important step in this direction was the abolition of the unpopular
livestock tax.

Chart 10: Homesteads in Grava 1600-1714. Taxed property

(linked livestock-based indexes, see Appendix)

Grava 1600-1714

100

200

300

400

500

600

Index(ÄL1571)

1/1

1/2

1/3

1/4

1/6

1/5

1/9-1/8

1/10

sk- ky- kl- ae-fr | sk - kr - fr | sk - kr - fr | sk --- kr --- fr

1600 1622 1640 1714

Index(JHM1713)

Sources: VrmH 1600:10:3 fol 68-77 and 1601:10:3 fol 25v-29. BL 1622, 1640. Ksl 1714.
Households identified with the help of OVL, Rosenberg and cadasters for relevant years.

200

As studied by Herlitz (1974), Gadd (1983) and Winberg (1975, 1990) during the

-19

century.

106

If we look at the whole series of 1600-1622-1640-1714 for Grava,

(above,  chart  11)  we  can  see  that  despite  an  increasing  rate  of
subdivision, ‘small’ farms become surprisingly prosperous towards the
end  of  the  period,  especially  the  homesteads  on  tax  land.  This  kind
of  property  structure  may  have  offered  especially  favourable
conditions for an early example of the ‘rise of the freeholder’.

If we look at the development over time of aggregate and

individual (average) property in livestock in Grava, (below, chart 12)
we can see that the total value is almost constant for the first forty
years, while the average declines.

I e

, during this first period the

number  of  households  declines,  while  total  wealth  appears  to  be
more  or  less  constant.  During  the  second  period,  the  aggregate
wealth  of  the  parish  more  than  doubles,  although  average  wealth
rises to a level equal to or even higher than in 1600.

Chart 11: Property in Grava: aggregate and average value 1600-1714

(linked

livestock-based indexes, see Appendix)

Grava 1600 - 1714

100

120

140

1600 1622 1640

1714

average value

5 000

10 000

15 000

20 000

25 000

total value

average

total value

Sources: VrmH 1600:10:3 fol 68-77 and 1601:10:3 fol 25v-29. BL 1622, 1640. Ksl 1714.
Households identified with the help of OVL, Rosenberg and cadasters for relevant years.

As to the question of ‘homogenization or differentiation’, chart 12

above  suggests  a  decreasing  economic  inequality  during  the  first
period,  (1600-1640)  mainly  due  to  the  fragmentation  of  larger  farms,
followed  by  a  widening  gap  between  rich  and  poor  peasants  during
the period of economic expansion, where, as we have already noted,
tax  land  households  have  been  the  most  dynamic  (apart  from  the
Crown  farms  at  W.  Tolerud).  A  Lorenz  curve  chart  confirms  this
impression,  also  suggesting  a  return  to  the  level  of  inequality
prevalent  in  1600.  However,  as  these  diagrams  are  constructed  from

108

minimum level for everyone that isn’t explicitly defined as destitute.
Hired hands and maids are thus routinely assessed at 1

kast

, which

makes it impossible to discriminate between landless lodgers and

facto

peasants farming a parcel of the cadastral homestead.

The further development in Gladhammar

The tenures in Gladhammar exhibit a bewildering multiplicity.

Apart from the usual tenures of

skatte, frälse

and

krono

, there are

customary relicts and in-between categories.

Skäriebönder

on islets

are a parallel to other customary tenures in forest-land areas which
usually have had favourable conditions to encourage settlement. Like
other customary tenures they have been subsumed under

krono

Sämjebönder

is a

contested category which sometimes has been

counted as

skatte

, and at other times

krono

. (see above page 76).

Out of the 57

frälse

units in 1571 only one has changed its nature

in its entirety

202

: Åldersbäck, which had been the homestead of Nils i

Allersback, the 3

richest

frälsebonde

203

has become a subdivided

krono

homestead together comprising 3/4

mantal

. None of the two

tenants are assessed for much property (30 and 40 dsm), but one of
them is assigned (presumably as a salary) to Mayor Hans de Rees, the

202

Disregarding those where a part of the homestead has been detached and

turned into

krono

203

The 6

richest peasant in the whole parish – the richest tax peasant was number

110

The six

arv och eget

homesteads (or ‘His Royal Majesty’s peasants’,

as they are called in this roll) have dispersed into different natures.
Gellerzkulla, which had been the 3

richest farm in the parish in

1571, is now a

krono

homestead housing an Alderman, who may be

living there himself

204

, while Långauik, number 5, and Yxnauik appear

to have become the two most substantial

frälse

homesteads, as the

tenants on each farm have a combined assessed property worth 140
dsm, though they also manage to pay a high rent: 30 dsm. On
another

frälse

homestead, Giärdzöö, the only tenant is worth 150 dsm

by himself, but he only has to pay a rent of 15 dsm

205

. In the earliest

property taxation 143 years earlier, Laße in Jersiöö (also a

frälsebonde

)

had at an index of 25 been one of the poorest peasants

in the parish: one cow and two young cattle only two years of age

206

four sheep and copperware with a total weight of two pounds. This
excludes him from being counted among the landed peasantry
according to both of the rival delimination criteria discussed earlier.

Among the customary tenants of 1640, the 5

sämjebönder

had

earlier been counted as

skatte

, except Johan i Torsfall (1599), who

was

krono

. One of the others, Pär i Wigelsbo, had lost his tax right by

1624, presumably due to unpaid taxes. These two are still in the
Crown sector by 1714, while the other three are skatte. Obviously

sämjebönder

were considered a form of

skatte

in Gladhammar during

this period.

The

skäriebönder

, on the other hand, are all counted as

skatte

1714, but as

krono

in 1571-1624, except the homestead of Horn,

which is

frälse

for some time from 1599

207

. In this case the nature of

204

No tenant is listed, just a farm-hand and a maid. The alderman is assessed at 70

dsm, which seems rather modest, especially as it might include 20 for the
servants. Probably he has property in the town as well.

205

The only higher amount of rent specified in the roll, is paid by the

oskattlagda

torpare

(crofters who have not been assessed as taxable – for regular taxes, that

is  –  in  the  cadaster)  under  the  manor  belonging  to  Captain  Beniamin  Magnus
Cronobourg (see below). They are  estimated to  yield a rent of  60 dsm  together.
As  they are not specified, we do not know how many of them  there are. There
are  34  crofters  in  the  roll  discounting  horsemen,  craftsmen,  parish  ringer  and
destitute, but many of these would belong to other manors.

206

The 1571 taxation rolls specify young cattle from one to four years of age at

different assessment rates; only at five are they counted as cows or oxen.

207

Probably in 1624 where noble domain estate is usually excepted. Perhaps also in

1640 where it is listed as noble domain estate, although it pays full tax rates like

skatte

krono

111

their tenure has been reinterpreted in a way favourable to the tenants,
which appears to be quite unusual

208

The four homesteads under the deanery (

dekanatsbönder

) in 1599

and 1640, are counted as

frälse

in 1571, but as

krono

in 1624. In 1714

three of these have become

skatte

and one

frälse

209

Chart 19: Peasant households in Gladhammar 1714. Assessed property.

Gladhammar 1714

kast

bruk & förpantning

frälse

spetal

krono

skatte (freeholders)

skatte (tenants)

torp

Index(JHM1713)

190

275

100

average

from 1640

410

Source: Ksl Kalmar län 1714:36.

In Gladhammar by 1714, an upper echelon of peasants assessed for

a personal property worth at least 100 dsm (roughly corresponding to
an index of 275) have clearly detached themselves from the majority
clustering around an average of Index(JHM1713)=100 closely

208

the discussions of customary tenures in Almquist 1964 and Hafström 1970.

The

sämjebönder

example lends support to the analysis of Bergfalk 1832:17-20

as against those of Almquist and Hafström.

209

This is probably just a delayed effect of the church reduction, where the

occasional preservation of a prebendal-style tenure has made the land
expendable for state purposes and thus possible to sell.

112

corresponding to that of 1571

210

. Within the area 100 + 45 (or 20-50

dsm), more than 80% of the farms can be found. There is also a more
thinly scattered intermediate group in the area 60-80, loosely grouped
around  Index(JHM1713)=190.  In  this  parish,  the  wealthiest  peasant
stratum is clearly dominated by peasants on exempt land, 9 out of 16,
including  the  richest  one.  Three  are  crown  peasants,  and  among  the
five  on  tax  land,  at  least  three  are  tenants  and  not
freeholders/owners.  In  general,  the  concentration  of  ownership  in
Gladhammar has become very pronounced by 1714.

Table 5: Persons of standing owning land in Gladhammar 1714

Persons of standing owning land

homesteads

value

in Gladhammar 1714

frälse skatte

capitalized
rent

assess
ment

sum

Bruukz Patron Hans Andersson

629

715

Borgmäßter Hr Hans De Rees

432 100

532

Wälb: H: Capitain B Ma Cronobourg

311

317

Öfw högw Hr grefwe C J Lewenhaupt

Baron och Landzhöfd: H: Claes Bonde

Häradzhöfdingen H: Abraham Bauman

Brp Christopher Bauman

Leutnanten Hr Herman De Rees

Häradzhöfdingen Jonas Lindbohm

Source: Ksl Kalmar län 1714:36.

Out of the 86 cadastral homesteads (not counting the crofts) the

three  largest  landowners  –  a  foundry  owner,  a  mayor  and  an  army
captain  –  together  control  at  least  40.  Out  of  the  37  tax  homesteads
they own  11,  or  46%  of the assessed  values  of tax rights, and  out of
the  39  exempt  homesteads,  they  own  34,  or  86%  of  the  capitalized
rent  value.  In  fact,  only  three  other  owners  of  noble  land  appear  in
the  rolls  –  another  foundry  owner,  the  provincial  governor  and  a
colonel.

The latter two – a baron and a count belonging to ancient lineages

– would have been the only legitimate owners of exempt land in the
parish (with the possible exception of the captain). Among the tax
homesteads, three more were owned by titled gentlemen: a lieutenant
and two hundred-court judges, leaving the 24 remaining tax peasants

210

Index (ÄL1571)=100; the livestock held by the two reference-farm averages are

almost equivalent if we assess them according to the BL 1640 tax rates. (See
Appendix).

113

in possession of 37% of the freehold value. One consequence of this,
is that out of the more than 40 peasants on

skatte

land, around 40%

were subtenants, not freeholders.

This shows that already at this date

frälse

land – just like

skatte –

has  become  a  commodity  which  is  bought  and  sold  on  the  market,
and  that  the  ‘Estate’  definition  is  becoming  more  and  more
meaningless; you can’t tell from the nature of the land who the owner
or  the  occupier  is,  and  not  from  the  owner  what  kind  of  land  he
would  possess.  The  only  remaining  constraint  from  the  Estate  order,
is  the  prohibition  against  peasants  buying

frälse

land. Yet even

peasants begin to acquire exempt land during the later part of this
century, even if they have to do it by proxy or acquire it as collateral
(Carlsson), and in the very appropriate year of 1789 the last
restrictions fall

211

Another interesting aspect of the assessment – or rather of this

contribution

in general – is the way the future development is

anticipated in the property sum: the two totally different kinds of
landowning (

Herlitz 1974, chaper IV) generate very different kinds

of  revenue,  which  are  reduced  to  a  common  denominator  and
summed  up  in  a  monetary  evaluation  abstracting  from  all  class  and
Estate  aspects

212

. The market is becoming the implicit point of

reference for price-setting even for absolutist taxation commissions.

Measuring the development of peasant wealth over time in

Gladhammar is  made  difficult by the many  homesteads unnacounted
for  in  some  of  the  taxations  –  especially  in  1624.  Therefore  I  have
complemented  the  curves  showing  all  the  farms  with  three  different
samples designed to be more internally consistent:

homesteads included all of the years

homesteads included each year except in 1624

those included at least in 1599, 1640 and 1714

The figures for sample A indicate that the dip in aggregate wealth
in 1624 is due to the large number of farms which are not listed for
this year. These are in the main demesne farms on noble land

211

To be more precise: almost the last;

ypperligt frälse

– manor demesne – which is

completely tax-exempt, will remain out of bounds for another 20 years..

212

An even more explicit example is Madame Christina Springers(?) at Nåntuna in

the parish of Danmark, who is assessed at 37 dsm for real estate: 17 for the tax-
land right (

skatterätten

)

and 20 for the exempt-land rent (

frälseräntan

). Ksl

1713: Danmark. This homestead was 5/8

skatte

and 3/8

frälse

, and in this case

exempt-land share was thus assessed at almost the double the value of the tax-
land portion.

114

(

ladugårdsgods

). As a consequence they are also excluded from

sample  A,  which  accounts  for  the  contrasting  behaviour  of  the
average  (sample  A)  curve  in  1599;  the  farms  on  fully  privileged
noble  land  account  for  the  bulk  of  the  rise  in  1599  (the  sample  A
aggregate is also practically constant from 1571 to 1599).

Chart 15: Livestock in Gladhammar: aggregate and average value 1571-1714

(both

measured by linked livestock-based indexes, see Appendix)

Gladhammar 1571 - 1714

property value

(linked

livestock-based indexes)

5 000

10 000

15 000

20 000

25 000

30 000

35 000

40 000

1571

1599

1624

1640

1714

aggregate sum

100

120

140

160

180

200

average

sample A: sum

sample B: sum

sample C: sum

all farms: sum

sample A: average

sample B: average

sample C: average

all farms: average

sums total

averages

Sample A:

homesteads

included all
of the years

Sample B:

included

each year

except in

1624

Sample C:

included at

least in

1599, 1640

and 1714

Sources: ÄL 1571, SmH 1599:12, BL Småland 16:1 (1624), BL Kalmar län 1640, Ksl Kalmar
län 1714:36. Farms identified from entries in the rolls and in cadasters for relevant years.

As can be seen from chart 15, there was on the whole probably a

fairly steady increase in average as well as aggregate wealth even if
the growth during 1599-1640 may have been very modest

213

. In the

parish of Danmark, on the other hand, (below, chart 16) there was a
sharp  rise  from  1571  to  1599,  and  an  equally  sharp  decline  between
1599 and  1624. The last  period witnesses an obvious  growth in  both
of the parishes, as was also the case in Grava.

213

A rise up to 1624 and a decline from 1624 to 1640 is also quite possible, but

the apparent decline of sample A in 1624 is contradicted by the evidence from
samples B and C.

117

214

military personnel as a system of remuneration. The important

role  for  crown  sector  peasants  in  the  military  system  is  probably  the
main  reason  behind their  depression during the  war period,  but also
behind  their  preservation  as  viable  peasant  homesteads.  Their
recovery after the  Westphalian peace  may  be a sign that the tax and
rent  pressure  had  forced  them  to  improve  their  husbandry  which
would  have  led  to  a  fast  growth  as  soon  as  the  constant  tapping  of
their surplus abated.

Chart 18: Average property for different tenures. Danmark 1640-1713. linked
livestock-based indexes (see Appendix)

Danmark 1640-1713

100,00

150,00

200,00

250,00

1640

1713

Index(ÄL1571)

100,00

150,00

200,00

250,00

Index(JHM1713)

skatte

krono

frälse

Sources: BL Uppsala län 1640, Ksl Uppland 1713. Land nature identified from headings,
comments and tax-rates in the rolls and from cadasters for relevant years.

214

Meaning that their tax or rent was reserved for the upkeep of the soldier

etc.

the military

nominati

are in many cases themselves registered as occupants,

these  seem  to  have  been  given  the  homesteads  in  custody  or as  donations.  In
other  cases,  occupants  have  been  given  reduced  dues  in  exchange  for  military
service,  but in  this  particular roll, all  the  military  nominati  pay  the  full  tax.  There
are  also  some  who  are  registered  on  homesteads  which  already  appear  to  be
fully occupied by farmers. In such cases they are probably paid by receiving rent
from  the occupants, as in  the allotment  system proper introduced by  Charles  XI
from 1682 onwards (

Ågren 1973, 1989).

118

Comparison and conclusions

Thus there is

no general pattern

among the three parishes studied

here,

except

for the

rising aggregate wealth as well as average wealth

during the period 1640-1714

215

. That the patterns of differential

development for the various tenures diverge even during this rise,
suggests that this was a period of

general economic growth

, the fruits

of  which  could  be  plucked  by  different  groups  depending  on  the
property  rights  structure  of  the  area:  freeholding  tax  peasants  as  in
Grava,  crown  peasants  as  in  Danmark  or

frälsebönder

as in

Gladhammar.

Chart 19: Aggregate wealth in the parishes of Danmark, Gladhammar, and Grava
1571-1713/4

(linked livestock-based indexes,(Appendix)

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

30000

1571

1599/1600

1622/24

1640

1713/14

Index(ÄL1571)

Danmark

Gladhammar

Grava

Index (JHM1713)

215

The rise between 1571 and 1599/1600 observed in both Danmark and Grava

may very possibly have had a parallel also in Grava, but unfortunately no records
from the Ransom for Älvsborg (1571) are extant for this part of the country.

121

APPENDIX:

Livestock-based indices

In order to gauge the diachronic development reflected in the

various property tax assessment I have constructed two indices:

Index(ÄL1571)

The first index relates all of the taxations to a ‘reference farm’

derived  from  the  national  average  in  1571.  Hans  Forssell’s  statistical
summary  of  this  taxation  (1872  and  1883)  remains  the  only
nationwide  treatment  of  Swedish  Imperial  Age  data,  and  after  some
vacillation  I  have  decided  that  the  lack  of  precision  imposed  by  his
condensation of the categories is a smaller problem than the regional
bias  inevitably  inherent  in  any  other  available  solution.  I  have
therefore based my index on the average amount of livestock owned
by  the  53  342  households  for  which  the  rolls  are  preserved  (I  have
taken  the  figures  from  Myrdal-Söderberg  1991:80  as  they  have
complemented  Forssell’s  figures  with  a  number  of  parish  rolls
rediscovered after his survey).

oxen

cows

young cattle

goats sheep swine

horses

fully

grown young

4years 3years 2years

1year

stallions mares

0,4

3,9

0,5

0,9

1,4

5,1

2,5

0,8

The assessed value for this livestock – 80,37 marks – I equate to

Index(ÄL1571)=100.  To  relate  this  index  to  the  taxations  of
1599/1600,  1622/24  and  1640,  I  calculate  the  taxation  value  of  the
same  amount  of  livestock  according  to  the  tax-rates  of  these
respective years, and put each of these evaluations equal to 100.

II:

Index(JHM1713)

To relate this index to the value sums in Ksl 1713/1714 is more

complicated,  as  it  is  in  general  not  possible  to  separate  the  value  of
the livestock from the rest of the taxable property assessed. As I have
only  found  three  parishes  with  separately  recorded  livestock  within
the  Ksl  rolls,  I  use  the  inventories  from  these  106  assessed
households  as  the  basis  for  a  second  reference  index.  As  the  closest

122

earlier year, 1640, should be the most important date of comparison
for the Ksl figures, I will use the tax rates of that year to correlate the
indices.

horses

oxen cows young cattle

goats

sheep

swine

TAX

stall.

mares

foals

steers

heif. old

young

old

young

old

young

öre

1713

0,5

1,2

0,3

0,8

3,8

0,5

3,3 0,8 0,54 3,5

1,8

46,29

1571

0,8

0,4

3,9

1,4

1,4 1,4

5,1

2,5

46,27

As can be seen in this table, the two reference stocks are virtually

equivalent according to the rates of the roughly midway taxation year
of 1640. I therefore link the two indexes, which yields a conversion
factor of Index 27,46 per assessment unit (

‘kast’,

corresponding to

dsm

217

) within the contribution of 1713. Of course constructing an

index  from  such  a  narrow  base  entails  a  high  degree  of  uncertainty,
but  as  the  reference  parishes  are  relatively  poor  and  exhibit  no  sign
of  growth  compared  to  1571,  the  compound  index  relating  the  two
almost equivalent reference farms of 1571 and 1713 will hardly inflate
the 1713/14 figures.

It is, however, important to remember that the linking of the

indices  represents  a  two-step  comparison.  In  chart  17  the  average
Danmark  farm  of  1713  is  rated  217,  while  the  average  for  1640  only
reached 156. This would mean a 39% increase in taxable wealth if the
figures  had  been  fully  commensurable;  in  this  case,  however,  they
represent the facts that

the 1640 average farm in Danmark owns livestock worth
156% of the

livestock

of the 1713 reference farm in Jäla-

Hånger-Mårby (or of the national-average farm of 1571),

and
2.

that the average 1713 Danmark farm owns taxable movable
property worth 217% of the same reference farm’s

total

taxable property

Although this is not equivalent to a 39% increase in wealth,

comparing  the  figures  will  still  reasonably  tell  us  a  lot  about  relative
wealth.  As  to  the  question  of  total  property,  it  is  quite  unlikely  that
the  relatively  poorer  average  farm  of  1640  would  have  possessed  a

217

dsm=

daler silvermynt

, the contemporaneous Swedish monetary unit; the

possible  complications  arising  from  the  mutable  relation  between  this  silver-
standard    currency    –  which  was  at  this  point  primarily  a  unit  of  account  –  and
the  everyday  copper-standard  currency  of

daler kopparmynt

, should not affect

the present calculations as all taxable property was assessed in dsm.

124

CHAPTER III

SWEDISH STATE-BUILDING AS A PROCESS OF

PARALLELL CENTRALIZATION. THE MEDIEVAL

BACKGROUND

POINTS OF DEPARTURE

A question of terminology

How shall we describe the kind of society that was transformed by

the  modernization  process,  whether  incremental  or  revolutionary?
‘Feudalism’ was one of the first labels to be affixed to the ‘system’ of
pre-revolutionary  Europe,  and  in  the  Marxist  tradition  codified  as
‘historical  materialism’,  the  ‘Feudal  Mode  of  Production’(FMP)  is
understood  to  be  the  stage  preceding  capitalism

218

. Many historians

are  opposed  to  the  use  of  ‘feudalism’  to  describe  a  whole  family  of
societies,  and  argue  that  either  (1)  it  should  be  confined  to  certain
European societies during a certain period, (2) that it should only  be
used to describe certain social relationships, characterized by fief and
vassalage,  or  even (3) that it  has created so  much confusion that we
are  better  off  without  it.  E  A  R  Brown’s  argument  for  the  third
alternative  has  received  formidable  backing  from  Susan  Reynolds’

Fiefs and Vassals

(1994), which, however, concentrates its

deconstructive fire on ‘feudalism’ in the sense of alternative 2
(scorching some of the arguments for alternative 1 in the process).

Reynolds is careful, though, to make reservations for ‘feudalism in

its Marxist sense, which involves not only relations between nobles

218

The details of how this is supposed to have occurred - and to what extent the

actual development has conformed to the axiomatic model of societal
development sketched in the famous introduction to

‘A Contribution to the

Critique of Political Economy’

- have kept generations of Marxist, anti-Marxist,

neo-Marxist,  and  post-Marxist  historians  busy  over  the  years.  I  will  try  to  avoid
this  kind  of  debate  as  far  as  possible  as  I  do  not  think  that  the  analysis  of
capitalism  should  serve  as  a model  for  how  to  analyze  earlier  forms  of  society  -
the  danger  of  teleological  bias  when  discussing  the  emergence  of  the  modern
world is great enough as it is.

125

and  peasants  but  consideration  of  the  whole  economic  structure  of
society’,  a  ‘broader  subject’  which  she  seems  to  consider  more
important,  although  ‘impeded  by  its  inheritance  from  the  narrower
one  of  the  idea  that  fiefs  and  vassalage  were  central  and  defining
institutions  of  medieval  European  society.’  (p  3,  also

15). Marc

Bloch’s  concept  of  ‘feudal  society’  was  also  broader  and  more
synthetic than that of the legal-historic formalism Reynolds sets out to
dismantle,  and  although  his  ideas  are  criticized  in  a  few  places  it
would  seem  that  his  holistic  anthropological  approach  -  and  by
extension  that  of  Georges  Duby,  who  also  appears  to  escape  really
fatal  injuries  –  should  deserve  a  more  respectful  treatment.  Bloch’s
wider  concept  of

liens de dependence

would even seem to gain the

more  in  value  as  a  characterizing  feature  the  more  we  devaluate  the
importance  of  ‘vassalage’  and  ‘fiefs’  in  the  supposedly  ‘strict  sense’  –
an  especially  important  aspect  in  the  analysis  of  ‘atypical’  cases  like
Sweden

219

An ambiguous term for an ambiguous concept

There is still a need for a general term encompassing the types of

societies that dominated Europe before the transformations of
modernity, the type of societies the miracles ‘happened to’. ‘

Ancien

Régime

’, ‘

Alteuropa

’

(Brunner), or ‘old order’ (Blum), have been

What we need here, though, is a term for an inescapably

ambiguous

concept, and to create a new, and more ‘precise’ term,

would be to pretend to an accuracy we have not yet achieved, or,
worse, a conformity which never existed. As a

heuristic

concept, we

are  quite  simply  stuck  with  ‘feudalism’  until  we  have  found  a  better
explanation of what it really was that happened to exactly what kind
of  group  of  European  societies  at  exactly  which  points  of  the  whole
process. There is a  practical  need of some  kind  of generalizing label

219

Aaron Gurevich has carried the anthropological aspect of Bloch’s work further,

and incorporated  it  into  his  very  original reconceptualization of  ‘feudalism in  the
Marxist  sense’,  which is  not  mentioned  anywhere  by  Reynolds.  This is  probably
because his fundamental 1970 work on the origin of European feudalism has not
been  translated  into  any  major  Western  European  language  except  the  Italian
(Gurevic:

Le origini del feudalesimo

. Bari 1983. A Swedish translation was

published in 1979.) Gurevich has paid special attention to the Scandinavian
countries, especially Norway and Iceland (Gurevitj ###).

126

broad and flexible enough. ‘Feudalism’ in the

widest

usage of the

term would be even far too broad, though, as when it is used in the
vague general sense of landlordism and oppression of peasants.

The European state-system

As my present purpose is to formulate a general framework for the

discussion of the Triple Miracle, and of Sweden’s role within it, loose
enough to accommodate all the different perspectives I discerned in

Sweden and the European Miracles

, I will start out from the only

point of virtual consensus in the entire debate:

Europe never consolidated into an empire, but developed into a

system of interacting but independent and competing societies, which
accounts for the higher dynamic potential, compared to other regions

This argument, which can be traced to Otto Hintze, is envisioned as

a  fundamental  European  advantage  not  only  by  Anderson  (1974),
Wallerstein  (1974)  and  Tilly  (1975)  -  as  Skocpol  observed  in  1977  -
but  has  received  an  even  heavier  emphasis  in  Jones  1981,  Holton
1985, Hall 1985, Mann 1986, and Tilly 1991.

State-system dynamics: different approaches

The state-system argument has been advanced from quite different

directions of approach, each version carrying its own implications
and anchored in different analytical perspectives

Immanuel Wallerstein

’s (1974) emphasis on the ‘Failure of

Empire’, and on the dynamic consequences ensuing when the scale
of economic reproduction moved up to a level beyond the spatial
grasp of political power.

Perry Anderson

’s descriptive

220

(1974) definition of European

feudalism, stressing its composite, polystructural, and variable
character, and rooting its dynamics not only in the struggle over the

220

He also offers an interpretation of Marx’ own implicit definition of feudalism,

distilled  from  comparative  discussions  of  Russia  in  Marx’  correspondence.  I  find
this  part  of  Anderson’s  analysis  very  much  beside  the  point  -  why  assume  that
Marx  possessed  a  valid  implicit  definition,  when  the  current  state  of  research
could  not  have  furnished  him  with  an  adequate  empirical  basis  for  it?  -  and
probably only designed to disconcert dogmatic Marxists.

127

agricultural surplus

221

, but also in the struggles for control over land

and  people,  between  lords  and  between  countries.  His  emphasis  on
the  build-up  of  coercive  power  as  a  double  imperative:  to  extract
economic  surplus  from  the  peasantry  and  to  defend  the  lord’s
position  against  other  lords,  gives  his  model  an  internal  cohesion
despite  the  diversity  and  grounds  the  state-system  dynamics  in
‘feudal’  microfoundations  (the  nexus  between  surplus  exaction  and
military duties).

The argument of

Charles Tilly

and his associates (1975) that the

‘formation  process’  of  modern  European  states  was  driven  by  the
growing  demand  of  fiscal  and  administrative  power  in  order  to
survive  the  state  of  endemic  competitive  warfare  in  early  modern
Europe

Reinhard Bendix

’ (1978) concept of ‘reference societies’ (12f, 292)

expressing  the  concern  of  state  elites  observing  the  superior
performance of a rival  state and  seeking  ways to  emulate the  factors
perceived  to  have  caused  this  superiority,  provides  a  more
generalized  parallel  to  Gerschenkron’s  concept  of  the  (economic)
dynamics of ‘catching up’.

Eric Jones

’ (1981) description of the European states system as ‘a

portfolio  of  competing  and  colluding  polities  whose  spirit  of
competition  was  adapted  to  diffusing  best  practices’  (115)  and  his
claim  that  although  ‘the  self-propulsion  of  market  forces  explains
much’,  the  rise  of  the  nation-state  was  required  to  establish  ‘stable
conditions’  for  the  diffusion  of  progress

222

(149), provides a capsule

synthesis of much of the earlier state-system debate.

John Hall

’s (1985) notion that the common ideological system of

christianity provided the crucial link holding the state-system together
is hardly novel, but his consistent formulaton of that argument offers
a perspective for integrating ideology and identity formation into

221

As argued by the British Marxist historians (from Dobb to Hilton) against the

exogenous viewpoints of Pirenne and Sweezy (Hilton(ed)###, Kaye###). One of
Wallerstein’s  points  of  departure  is  his  attempt  to  endogenize  the  role  of  long-
distance  commerce  through  moving  up  to  a  wider  object  of  analysis:  the  entire
system  instead  of  a  single  polity.  In  this  way  he  can argue  a  ‘purely  economic’
dynamic  without  having  to  recourse  to  exogenous  explanations.  Anderson
instead  endeavours  to  endogenize  political  struggles  and  institutions  into  the
economy  through  arguing  that  ‘extra-economic coercion’  was  the  most  essential
means of economic competition in pre-capitalist societies.

222

Although he formulates it within a context emphasizing another argument:

favourable natural conditions, crucially including a wide span of ecological
variation over an area compact and traversable enough to permit constant
interaction.

128

general social development without overrating the power of mind
over matter (‘organizational materialism’).

Michael Mann

’s (1986) generalization of the state-system

explanation  into  a  model  of  ‘multi-power  actor  civilizations’,  arguing
an  analogous  dynamic  for  the  Sumerian  and  Hellenic  city-state
systems,  develops  the  concept  into  a  general  principle  for  historical
dynamics. He uses a neo-Weberian model of four separate ‘sources of
social  power’  for  the  important  purpose  of  minimizing  reductionist
explanations,  but  when  he  postulates  from  the  beginning  that  the
‘four

sources’

are

independently

constructed,

but

interact

‘promiscuously’, he is left without tools to analyze the ‘separation of
the economic from the political’ (

Wood) characteristic of modern

society.

Charles Tilly’s revised theory

(1991) focusing on the interaction

between  ‘accumulation  of  coercion’  driving  the  process  of  state-
building, and ‘accumulation of capital’ resulting in the growth of cities
and city networks. The crucial dynamic element in his revised theory
is the growth of the ‘nation-state’, or, as he now prefers to call it: the
‘consolidated  state’,  combining  the  military  advantage  of  the  first
process with the economic advantage of the second, thus following a
trajectory of ‘capitalized coercion’.

Feudalism as dynamic polystructurality

As I have argued earlier (Emilsson 1996), Anderson’s denotation of

‘feudalism’ is less to be understood as a set of societal structures than
as a set of development paths, ‘trajectories’.

As Anderson’s explanation of European uniqueness is:

closely tied to his analysis of feudalism and its dynamics,

wide enough to accommodate all of my three miracles,

congruent with the neo-Hintzean argument about the
European advantage which appears to be the only point of
near consensus in the entire debate

223

possible to rephrase in broadly institutional terms,

broad enough to accommodate insights from most of the
other approaches listed,

I will take it as my point of departure. As implied by point 4, I will

adopt  an  un-dogmatic  institutionalist  viewpoint,  somewhere  in  the
border  country  between  the  old  and  new  institutionalisms,  availing
myself  of  Douglass  North’s  concepts  while  trying  to  stay  clear  of  his
anachronistic neo-classicism.

223

As Skocpol noted in (1977).

129

Anderson’s explanation of the dynamic advantage of European

feudalism  may  be  loosely  interpreted  thus:  The  feudal  synthesis  is
envisioned  as  a  fusion  of  the  complex  institutional  heritage  of  the
ancient  world,  transmitted  in  different  variants  by  the  cities,  the
Church  and  the  Empire,  with  the  forms  of  community  and  collective
jurisdiction

of Teutonic tribal society, thereby creating a

‘polystructural’ society endowing Europe with a uniquely wide
repertory of alternative institutional models (

the quote from Jones

above). This made institutional innovation possible in several ways:
• Where  different institutional structures were able to co-exist  within
the  same  political  unit,  further  societal  development  could  follow
different  possible  tracks:  royal  or  imperial  proto-state,  ‘feudal’  chains
of  devolved  authority,  the  manorial  system,  village  communities,  city
networks,  monastic  orders,  parishes

224

and other ecclesiastical

institutions

etc

•  A  political  unit  with  a  more  adequate  institutional  structure  could
conquer  others,  or  be  imitated  by  them,  or  attract  mobile  elements
such  as  merchants  and  money-changers,  knights  or  mercenaries,
clerics or other intellectuals.
•  If  necessary,  new  institutional  arrangements  could  also  be  created
through  analogy

225

, or through ‘resurrection’ of defunct models (the

Renaissance!)

SWEDISH REVOLUTIONS?

The ‘Engelbrekt rebellion’

Trying to fit the discussion of revolutionary or incremental change

into the context of European transformation as described above

226

, I

was  led  to  search  for  revolutionary  situations  in  Sweden.  In  such  a
discussion,  we  can  hardly  avoid  going  all  the  way  back  to  the
Engelbrekt  rebellion  in  the  1430s,  as  this  has  been  variously
interpreted  as  a  national  revolution,  as  a  struggle  giving  birth  to
Sweden’s  parliamentary  institutions  (

the quingentenary celebration

224

In Sweden, the community of the parish was often more important than that of

the village.

225

As when secular institutions may have been modelled on ecclesiastical ones.

Marongiu (1968) makes this point about curias, and Lindkvist (1997:228) and
Padoa-Schioppa 1997:359 about juridical institutions.

226

An aspect of the ‘European miracles’ on which I am not yet prepared to offer a

general analysis. The discussion in my paper on ‘institutional revolutions’ contains
a preliminary survey of the discourse.

130

in 1935, manifested through an eighteen-volume history of the
Swedish

Riksdag

) or as an ‘early-bourgeois revolution’ along the

lines of Engels’ view of the German Peasant War (Nyström). None of
these  analyses  finds  much  support  today,  though,  as  the  still
dominant  paradigm  in  Swedish  historiography  was  founded  on  a
severe  deconstruction  of  national  mythology,  a  spectre  which  later
importers  of  alternative  paradigms  have  been  understandably
reluctant to revive.

I will argue that this rebellion is only the first phase of a longer and

more  complex  revolution,  ending  with  the  final  deposition  of  king
Eric  of  Pomerania.  If  we  evaluate  this  revolution  and  its  effects
without revolutionist or nationalist preconceptions, it appears to have
effected  an  important  reduction  of  taxes

227

, and although it did not

repeal  the  Union  of  Kalmar,  its  immediate  result  was  to  put
sovereignty  in  the  hand  of  the  magnate  council  for  several  years,
during  which  time  these  aristocrats  had  to  assume  responsibility  for
state finances

228

Two separate economic bases

I suggest that we should interpret this as a ‘formative moment’

229

constraining future development through the particular institutional
solution chosen: in effect

a double economic base

separating the tax

base of the ‘crown’ (proto-state) from the economic base of the
‘ruling class’ –

i e

that social and economic class from which the

dominant political leadership  drew its support and membership. This
institutional  transformation  –  a  ‘revolution  from  above’  insofar  as  it
was  imposed  by  the  ruling  Council,  but  dependent  upon  bottom-up
support  to  the  extent  that  legitimacy  for  the  taxation  system  was

227

The heaviest tax was, eventually, reduced by a third (Dovring 1951:147-8,

Schück 1987b).

228

Gabriella Bjarne Larsson 1994. Also

Lönnroth 1940:191 about the ‘double

interests’ of fiefholders during the period of ‘council rule’: As landowners, it must
have  been  in  their  interest  to  limit  the  demands  on  the  peasantry;  as  tax-
collectors,  to  support  these  demands.  He  does  not  draw  any  conclusions  about
the  consequences  for  their  politics,  but  the  compromise  between  class  interest
and reason of state  typical of the later Swedish nobility (Englund speaks about a
‘historic compromise’ between Crown and nobility) has a solid material foundation
in this dilemma.

229

Rothstein###; the ‘tracklaying moments’ discussed by Mann are another way

to  express  basically    the  same  idea.  I  prefer  Rothstein’s  less  heavy-handed
expression,  and  interpret  it  in  terms  of  path  dependence:  when  a  choice
between  possible  alternatives  in  retrospect  proves  to  have  constrained  the
options  available  further  on,  this  is  a  case  of  path  dependence,  and  the  initial
choice is revealed to have been a formative moment.

131

based upon wartime requirements – establishes the conditions for the
specific Swedish  version  of social  division among  the peasantry, and
thus carries far-reaching sociostructural implications as well, affecting
the  peculiar  set  of  class-specific  property  rights  as  well  as  the
conditions  of  political  representation,  including,  specifically,  the
choice-set of political alliances.

The ‘freezing’ of the land nature distribution is not a consequence

of the rebellion as such; it had been achieved already through the

räfst

(inquiry into alienated Crown estates) of Queen Margaret (

Rosén 1950), the result of a com-promise between the Queen and the
group of magnates who had offered her the Crown. Through
accepting her authority to resume Crown goods they got the chance
to influence the realization and conditions of this

reduction

230

in their

capacity of experienced judges

231

The

formative

moment I discern in the aftermath of the rebellion, is

thus

not the first emergence

of this ‘frozen distribution’ – it is that the

aristocracy controlling the state at this moment

accepted

the two-

sector model

and took measures to preserve

the balance

This

compromise between short-term individual and long-term collective
interests provided the foundation for the kind of ‘collective kingship’
exercised by oligarchic assemblies at recurring moments in the further
development.

From this point onwards, the roughly fixed-proportion division

between:

•

a ‘public sector’ providing the material basis for the proto-
state through fixed land taxes and

•

a ‘private’ seigneurial sector providing the material basis for
the ruling class through more or less contractual rents

232

seems to have led to something like a ‘two-sided

Bauernschutz

policy’ or a ‘competition in protection’. Instead of engaging in a

230

As such resumptions are called in Sweden. This was neither the first – King

Magnus Eriksson had also attempted to do something similar (Ranehök 1975:127)
–  nor  the  most  extensive,  as  Gustavus  Vasa’s  reduction  of  Church  lands  and
Charles XI’s ‘Great Reduction’ of the  1680’s both  transformed the  entire society
on  a  scale  thitherto  unheard  of;  still,  it  was  thorough,  uncompromising  and
efficient.,  and  it  permanently  changed  the  prospective  conditions  under  which
land was held. It was formative.

231

And evidently they were able to influence it much less than what they had

expected, having to pass judgment on each others’ shady land purchases
together with gentry co-judges and bishops, with the Queen present to back up
her henchmen at strategic moments (Rosén 1950:211f, 242-6).

232

The importance of this ‘freezing of the distribution of rights over land and

peasants between the Crown, the Church, and the nobility’ is pointed out in
Herlitz: 1982:265f.

133

No homogeneity

The situation was further complicated by the heterogeneity of both

sectors. At this point the ‘sectors’ are even hard to discern, but the

consequences

of the aristocratic strategy: to assume responsibilty for

long-term state-building instead of just using the king-less situation as
an opportunity for quick profits, had already laid the foundation of
this ’double base’.

This may seem like a very idealized picture, but we must not forget

that the aristocracy were under severe pressure both from above and
below.  The  upheavals  of  the  past  three  or  four  years  were
tremendous.  First  they  had  lost  the  prospect  of  castle-fiefs  to  foreign
vassals  and  upstarts;  then  their  remaining  foothold  in  the  juridical
system was challenged through the King’s refutation of their authority

and

through the actions of peasants and miners seeking redress on

their own. In order to maintain a privileged position ideologically
justified by their supposed role as protectors of the commonalty, they
had to enter into active competition on the ‘protection market’.

The ‘state sector’ comprised freeholders on their own

234

land but

also tenants on the royal domain (

Uppsala öd

), which originally

consisted of a network of royal manors (

husabyar

) designed to

support  the  itinerant  king  during  his  circuit  of  the  courts  and  moots.
Another category, which grew in step with land reclamation, was the
customary  peasants,  whose  status  seems  to  have  varied  a  lot.  In  the
tax-exempt sector we find not only the tenants of the lords, but also a
diffuse semi-gentry of personally exempt horsemen below the rank of
properly  armigerous  gentlemen

235

, and a bewildering multiplicity of

ecclesiastical  holdings.  The  competition  for  cultivators  was  not
restricted  to  tenants,  as  many  peasants  farmed  mixed  holdings  –
combining  freeholds  with  crown  or  exempt  land  -  and  subtenancy
seems to have been widespread.

236

234

To what extent we can talk of individual ownership, and to what the land

should rather be seen as accruing to the family (or even, in some respects, to
the community), is unclear, and may be impossible to determine. An earlier
general belief in a ‘lineage society’ (

ättesamhälle

) as the point of origin, has been

strongly attacked, and went out of fashion (Winberg, Gaunt, Sjöholm).

235

Some of them put a simple identification sign, a

bomärke

, resembling a merchant-

mark, such as those used by peasants to sign themselves, on their escutcheon,
like Herman Berman, an army officer of obviously German extraction who served
as one of the sub-commanders in Engelbrekt’s army (SBL).

236

Dovring 1951:393-4, Bjarne Larsson 1994:134-138, 154-55, 186.

134

As in other countries, the legislative system was struggling to

clarify and simplify this mess, but the particular balance of forces in
Sweden led towards a clarification and solidification of this two-sector
model. That is: a division according to

surplus exactor

, rather than a

homogenization or a division along other fault lines, such as
freeholders

tenants or customary

contractual. This meant that

those two dimensions

remained unresolved

, while the division

between

land owing rent (or tax) to the Crown, and that owing rent

to a landlord (noble, spiritual, or institutional), and between the
cultivators of each sector, was sharply regulated, and their distribution
fixed.

The internal proportion between secular and spiritual

frälsejord

237

was  also  at  issue  in  the  regulations  and  re-regulations  of  land
distribution, and the clashes betwen different interests were obviously
more complex here than in other areas of conflict resolution. Though
a  general  Land  Law  and  a  general  Town  Law  became  the  enduring
legacies  of  the  period  under  Magnus  Eriksson  where  the  balance  of
power

238

between the King and the college of lawspeakers still hadn’t

shattered, a compromise between the regional Church laws proved
impossible to achieve.

Conditions for pious donations were at times contested, but I

considert it misleading to view this as a struggle between parties on
the one hand ‘friendly’ towards the Church and positive to free
testamentary rights, and on the other hand ‘hostile’ to the Church and
vindicating the birthright of relatives

239

. As access to Church resources

from  different  family  networks  competing  for  offices  and  benefices
would  vary  over  time,  so,  it  seems,  could  their  attitudes  and
solidarities, and their tendency to condone or to contest.

It is deeply unsatisfactory to have to accept the oversimplication of

treating all

frälse

land as one single category, as in the two-sector

237

I e

land tax-exempt through ‘noble’ privilege (horseman’s service) or through

ecclesiastical privilege.

238

A balance between – on the one hand – his ambition to reform and strengthen

royal  power  and  –  on  the  other  –  the  entrenched  positions  of  the  magnate
collective  from his regency, who had seemingly overcome  the internal divisions
from  the civil war. The balance  was  to  topple in a few  years’  time, when a new
civil war broke out in 1356.

239

Rosén considers this an important line of division, and counts not only the

Marshal  Tyrgils  Knutsson,  but  also  St  Bridget’s  father,  the  lawspeaker  Birger
Petersson,  among  those  ‘hostile’  to  the  Church.  As  he  was  the  nephew  of  an
archbishop and a cousin of an influential archdean, with whom he collaborated in
his legislative work, I suspect that the label is misleading, and that he was merely
opposing  the rival aristocratic faction at  that  time controlling  important  economic
resources in the name of the Uppsala chapter.

135

argument – the variation and complexity of ecclesiastical tenures
makes it a gross enough simplication to lump them together into the
composite title of

krono

, let alone to conflate them with noble-owned

land. Still, a sort of convergence did result from the increasing
importance of the fiscal sector: during Queen Margaret’s

räfst

(see

page  131 and note 230) the transition of tax-land into parish church
land was seeked out and reverted to a much higher extent than were
monastic  and  cathedral  holdings  (Rosén  1950:195)  –  those  were
generally noble donations and presented no material incentives to the
state  as  they  would  have  remained  tax-free  in  either  case.  From  the
state’s point of view the sector division

was

crucial.

Swedish state formation: a two-sided centralization

The origin of this dual structure can thus be found in the

balance

of forces

between crown/proto-state and aristocracy, and in the

specific trajectory of

double

parallel centralization

characteristic of

the Swedish state-formation process. The tug-of-war between two
competing versions of political centralization: one monarchic

240

, proto-

absolutist,  and  one  oligarchic,  aristocratic,  have  shaped  the  Swedish
state  in  a  quite  different  mould  than  would  have  the  allegedly  more
‘typical’  conflicts  between  absolutist  centralization  and  ‘feudal’
decentralization

241

In modern Swedish historiography, a constant

tension between

absolutism and constitutionalism

has for a long time been viewed as

the  underlying  formative  long-term  conflict  running  through  almost
the  entire  history  of  Sweden.  This  interpretation  has  replaced  an
earlier conception of a formative conflict between:

(1) a nationalism based upon an alliance between king and people,

and

(2) a self-serving, always potentially traitorous aristocracy

(especially during the Scandinavian Union).

In my view, the ‘modern’ interpretation is just as fundamentally

idealist in its conception, as was the older tradition. Political principle
may appear to be a more ‘realistic’ factor than nationalist sentiment,

240

At times there was even a tripartite struggle between

two

monarchic alternatives

and one oligarchic, as in the struggles between Karl Knutsson, Christian I and the
council faction led by archbishop Johannes Benedicti, allying themselves to one
or the other of the royal pretenders, or attempting to stand on their own under
Johannes’ regency.

241

In this respect, compare Anderson’s concept of parallel centralization (England as

compared to standard pattern of Western European absolutism), but also Bendix’
comparison between English and Japanese state formation (see below page 140).

136

but although a ‘constitutional state’ would be the best long-term
safeguard for aristocratic privilege and political impact there is no
reason to postulate that

political ideology

must have been the motive

force. There were always at least potentially three contending political
positions within the Swedish power struggles during the Age of
Union:

An oligarchic magnate faction arguing their case along the
lines of

regimen politicum

242

whether

they take this stand

from  an  ideological  conviction  or  out  of  pure  self-interest.
Such  a  coalition  might  be  expected  to  prove  unstable,
because  of  constant  inter-magnate  rivalry  and  fluctuating
personal  alliances.  Yet  it  would  hardly  lead  to  subdivision,
as  the  conflict  with  the  other  two  configurations  would
leave  no  room  for  overt  infighting.  Oppositional  groups
within  this  faction  would  therefore  have  to  enter  into
tactical alliances with one of the other categories.

Personal adherents of the Union monarch. There is no need
to presuppose that such a standpoint had to be based upon
a  principled  advocacy  of  the  Union  as  such,  but  to  the
extent  that  it  was,  we  may  have  to  subdivide  this  faction.
What  would  hold  this  group  together  was  reasonably  the
‘feudal’  bonds  tying  their  careers  to  the  suzerain.  Open
conflict  within the  group is therefore  unlikely, as  dissidents
would move into one of the other positions.

Contenders  for  a  local  Swedish  principate,  and  their
followers.  There  might  be  more  than  one  at  a  time,
although  in  that  case  tactical  alliances  would  tend  to  blur
the picture,

whether

the desired objective was some kind of

absolutism,

something

resembling

military

dictatorship, or maybe a theocracy.

material

interest in a stable union was represented by aristocratic

families  owning  land  in  more  than  one  country.  The  Axelsson
brothers  (Thott)  are  the  classic  example,  which  also  shows  the
difficulties involved in sticking to long-term interests – in their actual
politics they had to enter into various shorter-term alliances which in
the  long  run  hardly  furthered  the  security  of  their  scattered  estates.
Whatever  the  material  or  principled  foundations  of  pro-union
sentiments, it was only through bonds of allegiance that it could hold
together,  and  only  a  monarch  capable  of  inspiring  loyalty

and

constructing stabilizing institutions on the union level, would have
stood a chance to succeed. As we can see from the marriage

242

Medieval constitutional theories such as those emphasized in Lönnroth 1934, also

references to analogous discourses in Runeby 1964 and Koenigsberger 1974.

137

networks charted by Enemark (2001) – Krummedige, Gyllenstierne
and others – Scandinavian intermarriage in the long run proved more
disruptive

243

than integrative. An aristocratic union with a purely

nominal  royal  apex  might  have  worked,  but  as  the  Swedish  case
shows, there  was usually enmity  enough  even in the King’s absence.
Position  1  was  in  reality  only  held  together  by  the  threats  from  the
outside,  and  once  the  threat  from  below  had  started  to  interact  with
position 3, the personal bonds of feudal loyalty proved too weak and
interchangeable,  and  the  class  solidarity  of  position  1  too  easily
shattered by the individual career prospects offered by the other two.

The forces of cohesion and disintegration within the narrow

magnate  stratum  did  not  operate  in  a  vacuum.  The  economic  forces
of  Baltic  trade  intersected  with  the  internal  aristocratic  power
competition  in  ways  we  can  only  glimpse,  while  the  advantage  of
number within military competition was being re-invented. The future
would  belong  to  those  who  could  take  advantage  of  these
developments.

Remaining ambiguities

The solidification of the ‘two-sector model’ left some important

definitional questions unresolved. Where non-congruent dichotomies
intersected, ambiguous areas were left open for contestation:

The  difference  between  tax  and  rent  within  the  state
sector  became  conceptually  blurred.  If  tax  was  a  civic
duty,  the  status  of  the  tenantry  on  noble  land  became
highly  uncertain.  If  it  was  a  burden  on  the  land,  then
freehold  could  only  be  interpreted  as  an  inheritable
tenure

244

The  difference  between  customary  and  contractual
holdings never became a crucial aspect  of land tenure in
the  (contractual)  exempt  sector,  but  within  the  state
sector this was an important issue, though subordinate to
the distinction between tax and crown land.

Not until another balance of class forces emerges in the mid-17

century does this line of division become dominant, and the Estate of
Peasants begins to become transformed into an instrument for the
defence of private property (through the alliance with burghers and
clergy). Charles XI, through reorganizing the state by structurally tying

243

Alliances with families in other countries repeatedly lead to divided interests

alienating different branches of these noble families from each other.

244

Which was also claimed by some aristocratic jurists of the 17

-18

centuries (

Almqvist 1929, Wirsell 1968).

138

up  state  sector  land  to  state  office,  saves  the  crown  peasants  from
virtual  extinction,  but  as  their  role  in  the  system  becomes  all  but
indistinguishable from that of the freeholders, these categories tend to
be assimilated to each other.

Whether this will ultimately mean that freehold will become no

more than a form of hereditary possession, or that both types of land
will become commodified – and that thus the customary crown land
will eventually be sold away – is not finally resolved until in the late
18

century (in 1789, as a matter of fact). As I will argue in closer

detail elsewhere, the preserved political representation of crown
tenants together with extraneous

245

interest in freehold property rights

led to the latter solution.

The question of Royal ownership

One of the possible solutions to the ambiguities concerning

freeholds, would have been a full adoption of the feudal ideology of

nulle terre sans seigneur

, defining tax land as held from the king. No

king before Gustavus Vasa had achieved a position strong enough to
carry through such a proposal. However, not even Gustavus dared to
make a full-scale attack on peasant property rights. The institution of

skattevrak

(‘tax eviction’), whereby three years of default on taxes led

to  loss  of  freehold  through  conversion  to  crown  tenure,  and  the
principle that withholding taxes due was defined as larceny from the
crown, served to undermine the allodial status of tax land, though. At
least  three  possible  reasons  that  this  process  was  not  carried  further
during Gustavus’ reign may be discerned:

Wariness of peasant rebellions. Several risings, citing taxes, bad
coinage  and  confiscation  of  church  property  among  their
grievances,  occurred  during  Gustavus’  reign,  and  especially
after  the  dangerous  Dacke  rebellion,  breaking  out  a  couple  of
years after the devaluation of tax land property rights, the King
seems to have become more cautious.

The

ambiguities

arising from the presence of

several types of

royal domain

. In addition to the traditional regnal domain of

Uppsala öd

, Gustavus had collected a huge ‘patrimonial domain’

as his private property (

arv och eget

). As land belonging to the

church became ‘nationalized’, the bulk of it was kept apart as
land available for purposes of state, without (yet) being

245

Burghers, clergymen, and

ofrälse ståndspersoner

(‘non-noble persons of standing’

or ‘Commoner gentlemen’).

139

integrated with the old crown domain

246

. If the tax land sector

had been fully converted into yet another variant of state
domain, freehold pretensions might have spilled over into other
tenures as well. It may also be, that the safeguarding of his

personal

domain became a more important concern – he may

not have felt fully secure about retaining the crown for his
dynasty.

The individualization of taxes and the piecemeal revision of tax
titles – resurrecting any forgotten dues, always taking the
highest levels as a model – was carried out under the legalistic
guise of a

restoration

of the Crowns rightful property (Dovring

1951:175-187).

The  Land  Law’s  prohibition  against  diminishing  the  property  of  the
crown  was  interpreted  as  an  irremissable  responsibility  to  exact  all
established  duties  and  impositions  in  full  measure.  This  was  also
interpreted as a necessary act of justice: any claims which  had fallen
into desuetude left an unfair burden on those subject to demands still
in effect. This exploitation of the possibilities of legal formalism in the
name  of  immemorial  custom  was  quite  successful  and  might  have
been  undermined if a  foreign  novelty such as the  concept of  higher-
level state ownership had been pressed harder.

Oligarchic centralism

Perry Anderson has described Sweden as an ‘underdetermined’

absolutism, where the absolute state was ‘facultative’ for the nobility,
which could ‘convert backwards and forwards to it without undue
emotion or discomfort’. This interpretation of the ‘pendulum swing

247

’

between  absolutism  and  oligarchy  misses  a  most  crucial  point:  That
this  ‘oscillation’  in  no  way  signifies  a  swing  between  centralization
and decentralization, but on the contrary constitutes a parallel to what
Anderson  describes  as  a  fundamental  trait  in  the

English

development:  a  ‘concurrent  centralization  of  royal  power  and
aristocratic  representation’  (Anderson  1974b:114).  The  fact  that  in
Sweden  aristocratic  regencies  repeatedly  have  had  to  shoulder
responsibility  for  state  survival,  has  forced  them  to  ‘rise  above’  their

246

Forssell 1869-75, Dovring 1951 and Larsson 1985. The integration of church

holdings into crown land seems to have proceeded gradually; not until the turn
of the 18

century do the cadasters cease to distinguish between ecclesiastical

tenures and crown tenure.

247

The notion is borrowed from Roberts, who is Anderson’s principal source for

Swedish history (with Claude Nordmann and Eli F. Heckscher).

140

immediate class interests

248

and search for workable compromises

between short term self-interest and long term viability

249

Reinhard Bendix’ description of English development is in many

ways similar, and also offers parallells to the Swedish case.

The period from Magna Carta (1215) to the end of the fifteenth

century may be described as an uneven seesaw between baronial
interests as represented in parliament and the authority and power of
the English kings. This ”balanced” development in England contrasts
with the repeated rise of local authority in Japan and its lasting
suppression in Russia.

His further discussion of the contrasts between English and

Japanese development emphasizes two aspects. One is

an early appearance of a quasi-parliamentary institution, a collective

forum in which notables of the realm assembled to counsel the king
and eventually to oppose him. [which] provided the English
aristocracy with a national forum

and the other results from the dynastic and feudal entanglements with
the French monarchy, creating

political ties with the Continent [that]

involved the whole country

the national defense, especially since France made periodic attempts
to get a foothold in Scotland. (Bendix 1978:195)

These arguments strengthen the parallell with Sweden, where (I)

corresponds to the role of the Council, and later of the whole gamut
of proto-parliamentary meetings described in Schück 1987a, finally
resulting in the four-Estate

Riksdag,

and (II) to an even broader

alliance of aristocracy

and commonalty

creating a foundation for

Swedish nation-building through their joint opposition to the German
princes wearing the Danish crown

250

Heckscher’s opinion that Sweden had never been feudal (1952:36f)

was based on the apparent absence of regional aristocratic

248

Against this, it might be argued that incomes from state office form as immediate

an interest. However, the nobility

as a class

is defined by the common privilege

of tax exempt landholding, while office incomes are contingent and define an
economic interest common to

those

nobles

and

commoners who are holding

remunerated offices.

249

The absolutist coups in 1680 (Charles XI) and 1772/1789 (Gustavus III) were

the results - direct or indirect - of aristocratic

failure

to work out tenable

compromises.

250

A parallel might even be drawn between the in-between positions of the

marginal neighbours Scotland and Norway.

141

separatism,  on  the  fact  that  leading  Swedish  magnates  from  at  least
the  time  of  Bo  Jonsson  (Grip)  strove  for  dominance  on  the  national
level rather than for regional supremacy. This may be an exaggeration
–  we  have  far  too  sparse  evidence  to  evaluate  the  ambitions  of
medieval lords in general, but although it seems fairly obvious that a
‘feudalized’  regional  power  should  have  been  the  most  realistic  goal
for

some

of the magnates, the really important thing is that a large

enough  fraction  of  them  converged  on  striving  for  oligarchic  power
on a sub-monarchic regional level - the level of Sweden – and that in
centralizing  power  onto  this  level  in  order  to  resist  Mecklenburger,
Pomeranian  and  Oldenburger  proto-absolutism,  they  paved  the  way
for  a  local  Swedish  absolutism.  Although  some  of  the  magnate
families  survived  into  the  modern  era  and  continued  to  hold  a
dominant position in the council, the Vasa dynasty

251

restructured the

elements of Swedish society into a modern monarchy ‘feudalizing’ the
knights and squires of an old-fashioned tax-exempt warrior class into
better conformity with the pattern of other European aristocracies. To
a  certain  extent  we  might  call  this  a  delayed  ‘feudalization’,  but  it  is
important  to  realize  that  it  did  not  signify  an  anachronous
introduction of a hitherto unknown system. Western European feudal
society  had  served  as  a  model  for  institutional  arrangements  and
social  ambitions  all  through  the  Swedish  Middle  Ages,  in  particular
imported

via

the Catholic church.

An integrative feudalism

A very important genetic contrast between the Swedish version of

feudalism and the ‘classic’ Western European one, is that while the
original post-Carolingian

societé féodale

developed out of the

disintegration

of a dissolving monarchic state power, in Sweden the

import of feudal customs and relationships served as a tool for

integration

, for

constructing

a royal power centre in a country where

regional autonomy had been the original point of departure for the
state-building project, not the result of an early state’s failure and

251

Itself emerging from among these magnate families, counting a High Steward of

the Realm and, somewhat later, a Regent bishop, among their ancestry.

142

disintegration

252

. Thus the 16

century ‘feudalization’ of Swedish

society  (Nilsson  1947,  1990)  might  be  viewed  as  a  ‘final  touch’  or
complementation  of  feudal  society,  filling  out  lacunae  in  that
‘polystructural’ repertoire of institutional variety which is the essential
characteristic  of  feudal  society  in  Perry  Anderson’s  sense:  that
particular  dynamic  form  of  society  constituting  the  ‘European
Advantage’.

In what way might these borrowings be said to represent a

dynamic  element?  The  delayed  introduction  of  inheritable  fiefs  –  the
duchies  (re)introduced  by  Gustavus  Vasa,  counties  by  Eric  XIV,  and
baronies  by  John  III  –  may  have  helped  to  reorient  Swedish
noblemen  from  the  short-term  exploitation  of  temporary  office
(service  fiefs) to  more long-range  concerns with utilization of  private
property  rights;  a  central  economic  argument  of  Axel  Oxenstierna’s
was  that  land  under  private  (read  noble)  ownership  would  be  taken
better  care  of.  In  general  the  formation  of  a  European-style  nobility
also  served  to  introduce  a  competitive  element:  an  embarrassed
consciousness of cultural and economic backwardness which spurred
the aristocracy as well as the Crown into efforts to ‘catch up’ (Revera
1988). The closure of the nobility (which was always more of a threat
than  a  fact  –  except  at  the  very  moment  of  its  reconstitution  as  a
noble Estate) also sharpened the consciousness of conflicting interests
among the non-noble Estates.

THE SWEDISH TRAJECTORY: WHERE TO BEGIN?

Nations before nationalism?

My discussion of Swedish history has so far taken its object of

analysis  for  granted,  but  at  what  point  in  history  does  the  specific
state-building  trajectory  I  try  to  analyze  begin?  When  does  Sweden
become Sweden? Most of the lively present-day discussion of nations
and  nationalism  is  concerned  with  the  constructed  character  of
‘modern’  (post-Enlightenment)  nationalism.  Almost  all  of  the  current
definitions  and  generalizations  concerning  these  concepts  are

252

England before the Norman conquest may have been a parallel case. Anderson

1974a:164 discusses the ‘delayed’ German feudalism which was ‘constructed

against

monarchical integration of the country, by contrast with England where

the  feudal    social  hierarchy  was  itself  installed  by  the  Norman  monarchy,  or
France,  where  it  preceded  the  emergence  of  the  monarchy  and  was  thereafter
slowly  reoriented  round it  in  the  process  of  concentric  centralization.’  In  such  a
comparative  context,  Sweden  would  appear  most  strongly  contrasted  to
Germany, its closest source of import for feudal customs.

143

concerned with nationalism in the 19

century sense

253

. The

early

modern  or  even  late  medieval  ‘nations  before  nationalism’  have
received  much  less  theoretical  attention.  One  of  the  few  students  of
nationalism, who have attempted to account for this phenomenon, is
Anthony  D  Smith.  He  defines  two  main  routes  along  which  nations
‘are created

254

’:

•

the ‘lateral route’ in which an ‘aristocratic

ethnie

’ forms the

‘dominant ethnic core’ around which ‘these states were built
up’  -  England,  France  and  Spain  are    the  classic  cases  and
‘inevitably  became  models  of  the  nation,  the  apparently
successful  format  of  population  unit,  for  everyone  else.’.
Only  a  ‘relatively  homogenous  ethnic  core’  possessing    a
‘

sense

of ancestry and identity’ can expand this feeling of

community through ‘bureaucratic incorporation’ of the
subjects.

•

the route taken by ‘vertical’ or ‘demotic

ethnies

’ is ‘only

indirectly affected by the state and its administration’. These
communities are united through a common religious
organization, which in many respects could be considered a
nation:

Arabs and Jews, for example, had common names, myths of

descent, memories and religious cultures, as well as attachments to an
original homeland, and a persisting, if subdivided, sense of ethnic
solidarity. Did not this suffice for nationhood? All that seemed to be
necessary was to attain independence and a state for the community.

In other cases the

attempts by older political formations to take over some of the

features of the Western ‘‘rational state’’ … upset the old
accomodations of these empires to their constituent

ethnies’

These definitions try to reconcile uncomfortably contradictory

arguments.  Although  Smith  recognizes  the  constructed  character  of
English,  French,  and  Spanish  nationalities,  and  their  role  as  ‘model
nations’,  sparking  off  even  more  obvious  constructions  within  rival
political units, he persists in

postulating

a nationalist identity – if only

for the ‘core’ elite – as a precondition for the pioneering modern
states and not as an instrument or a consequence of the state-building
process.

253

Benedict Anderson 1983, Hobsbawm ##, Gellner##.

254

Anthony D. Smith: ‘The Origins of Nations’,

Ethnic and Racial Studies, 12/3(1989),

349-56.

Extract 22 (p147-154) in Hutchinson-Smith (eds):

Nationalism.

(Oxford:OUP) 1994

144

The concept of

ethnie

allows him to camouflage this essentialist

proposition  through  phrasing  it  in  more  relative  terms,  but  it  is  a
concept  which  does  not  in  any  way  resolve  the  fundamental
ambiguity  of  the  word  ‘nation’.

Ethnie

as well as ‘nation’ is

allegedly objective term covering a subjective notion.

We are not here talking about actual descent, much less about

‘race’, but about the

sense

of ancestry and identity that people

possess.

might

be useful for making a clearer distinction between the

subjective identification  span  established  by the  modern model  state,
and  the  identification  span  of  the  collective  actors  establishing  these
states  –  but  only  if  this  presumed  collective  actor  corresponds  to  an
objective  reality.  If  the  formation  of  a  state-building  elite  is  prior  to
the  development  of  a  subjective  group  identity  involving  the  notion
of common  descent, then Smith’s concept  only serves to muddle the
case,  and  to  bestow  an  aura  of  authenticity  upon  politically
constituted descent myths.

Even in a case where the common myth of descent has been

formulated before the state-building elite had emerged, the important
question is whether the shared identity

constituted

the group which

then went on to build a modern state, or if an elite constituted by
state-building activities

assumed

a ready-made identity only when

they felt the need for it. Myths of descent may be formulated for
other purposes than political group formation,

e g

for literary

purposes (Geoffrey of Monmouth?) or as an exercise in learned
pedantry, or it might originally have served the more limited purpose
of establishing an exalted extraction for a private individual or a
dynasty.

The arguments concerning the second route intensify the density of

contradictions: Although the ‘demotic

ethnie

’ is more similar to the

modern notion of a nation than is the ‘lateral

ethnie

’, in that it already

possesses that sense of community which has to be artificially
extended to state-level in the latter case, it can only become a nation
through imitating the type of state created by the lateral

ethnies

. A

nation-state teleology is thus implicit in the entire model.

146

This kind of ‘national fetishism’

256

can only be evaded through an

acceptance of historical accident, which goes against the grain of our
scientific ambitions. Even if  we realize that  other  historical  outcomes
must  have  been  possible,  we  almost  instinctively  try  to  explain  why
those  things  that  really  happened  actually  had  to  happen.  The  more
successful  we are  – and  hindsight always makes explanatory success
an  attainable  goal  –  the  more  inexorably  pre-destined  the  past
appears.  The  outcomes  of  wars  can  always  be  made  to  seem
consequent,  but,  given  the  important  role  of  sovereigns  in  history,
dynastic accident (see below) remains an irreducible element of pure
chance,  ensuring  that  perfect  teleologies  in  history  have  to  be
spurious, however logically consistent they are made to appear. More
generally,  the  combination  of  different  populations  with  different
natural  resources  also  remains  an  example  of  original  hazard,
weighting the possible futures of a region in respects where it would
be  ridiculous  to  attempt  logical  explanations

257

. Still, only by

attempting explanation can we try to gauge the extent of historical
cause-and-effect.

Informal constraints and the multi-generational
build-up of royal power

In addition to formal rules, ”informal constraints” are also

considered to be institutions by North and other institutionalists. In
the widest sense, any human habitual behaviour can be considered
an institution. This is a clearly unsatisfactory practice, making way for

ad-hoc

ery and slippery definitions. A reasonable demarcation would

be  to  require  that  a  behavioural  pattern  should  be  common  and
ingrained  enough  to  enter  into  rational  calculations  of  whatever
responses  will  be  provoked  by  different  lines  of  action,  before  we
count it as an institution. Such a usage would conform to the general
notion of what an “institutionalized” behaviour pattern signifies, or of
what we mean when we talk about “unwritten rules”.

The informal aspects of a system of political rule will therefore

include those patterns of political decisions and actions requiring
political power, that a rational subject

258

will take into consideration in

256

By analogy with Marx’ concept of ‘commodity fetishism’, I use the word

‘fetishism’  to  describe  the  human  tendency  to  endow  a  man-made  concept  -  in
this case  the nation - with a ‘supernatural’ reality, reasoning as if it were capable
of  independent action.

257

For instance, the frequent coincidence of petrol and Islam.

258

In both of the relevant senses.

147

calculating the impact of alternative courses of action. For instance, if
both  the  acting  subject  and  the  role-models  in  the  preceding
generation, whose experience have been transmitted to him/her, have
had  to  reckon  with  a  strong,  virtually  unrestrained  royal  executive
power  as  a  fact  of  life  necessary  to  take  into  account  as  a  perennial
constant  of  insecurity,  then  the  effectual  power  of  the  sovereign  will
be much closer to the asymptote of full royal absolutism, than if such
power  has  been  claimed  hesitatingly,  intermittently  and  with  varying
success.

This means that a multi-generational continuous build-up of royal

power will create a much stronger

de facto

power, than what may be

inferred  from  formal  institutional  rules,  which  might  or  might  not  be
taken  at  face  value  by  the  parties  involved.  Of  course  this  argument
should be almost embarrassingly self-evident, but formulating it in he
terms  of  institutionalized  predictability  of  behaviour  might  make  it
easier to avoid losing sight of the obvious while discussing systems of
political rule within an institutional framework.

This is corroborated by Koenigsberger’s observation that the

chances  of  an  adult,  male,  undisputed  succession  was  always  less
than 50% within Europe during the early modern period, and that the
suite of four successive generations of rulers being able to carry on a
continuous  policy  of  central-power  building  in  Brandenburg-Prussia
goes a long way towards explaining the competitive advantage in the
forging  and  wielding  of  state  power  that  the  Hohenzollern  rulers
enjoyed over rival German princes.

The Swedish case: contestation as the norm

After the period of rival dynasties before Earl Birger’s regentship

(1250-66), and before the stabilisation of modern constitutional
monarchy during Oscar I (1844-59) only a handful of Swedish kings
have

completed

their

reigns

without

experiencing

serious

contestation.

I discount the transitional reigns of

Ulrika  Eleonora  (1719-20),  who  accepted  a  massive
devaluation of royal power in order to access the throne in
competition  with  her  elder  sister,  and  who  one  year  later
accepted  even  more  severe  limitations  in  order  to  transfer
the crown to her husband Frederick of Hesse (1720-51)

and

Charles XIII (1809-18), who succeeded his deposed nephew
Gustavus IV Adolphus, thereby accepting the legitimacy of
a constitutionalist coup, and, eventually, also accepting the

148

choice of a French revolutionary general

259

for his own

successor, and confirming it through adopting him.

The relevant (uncontested) cases will then be:

•

Margaret (1389-1412); once she had accessed the throne
through vanquishing Albrecht of Mecklenburg.

•

Christopher of Bavaria (1441-1448); once he had accessed
the throne as a replacement for his deposed uncle Eric of
Pomerania.

•

John III (1568-92); once he had accessed through deposing
his brother Eric XIV.

and possibly also the three Caroline kings of the Palatine dynasty:

•

Charles  X  Gustavus  (1654-60);  who,  however,  accessed  the
throne  only  through  Queen  Christina’s  skilful  manipulation
of  the  opposition,  and  whose  testamentarial  dispositions
were  immediately  contested  and  changed  after  his  death.
(Wittrock 1908).

•

Charles  XI  (1660-97);  although  he  had  to  restore  strong
monarchic  rule  after  the  oligarchic  reaction  that  had  taken
place  during  his  regency,  and  complete  this  change  of
regime through an absolutist coup.

•

Charles XII (1697-1718); unless his apparent death in battle
was actually regicide by the opposition, as has often been
suspected.

The only examples – still withinthe same period – of a sovereign

being able to leave the throne to an undisputed, adult, male heir ,
were:

•

Margaret (to Eric of Pomerania in 1412)

260

•

Gustavus Vasa (to Eric XIV in 1560)

•

Charles XI (to Charles XII in 1697)

•

Adolphus Frederick (to Gustavus III in 1771)

•

Gustavus III (to Gustavus IV Adolphus in 1792)

Four among these rulers died in full command of their powers, thus

leaving a foundation of accumulated royal power for the new King to
keep building on. The exception is Adolphus Frederick, who had no

259

Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, later king under the name Charles XIV John.

260

I include Eric, despite some hesitation, as he was elected and crowned already

during Margaretas reign. However, it would seem surprising if no objections had
been  voiced before his  election. According  to one interpretation of the complex
problem of reconciling two contradictory documents from the Union negations in
1388,  the  inadequate  number  of  seals  on  one  of  the  documents  is  a  sign  that
these  negations  were  never  fully  concluded  due  to  inability  to  reach  an
agreement.  At  least  the

conditions

of his succession thus seem to have been

disputed, and even if we count him among the undisputed accessions, his reign
was finally contested and overthrown by an extremely wide coalition of
disenchanted subjects (

the entire second part of this chapter.

149

power to bestow. After an aborted royalist coup he lost what vestiges
of royal power he had ever possessed, and was replaced – by a name
stamp  –  even in his sole  remaining  function as a  signature  writer  on
governmental  decrees.  Eric  of  Pomerania,  Eric  XIV  and  Gustavus  IV
Adolphus all failed to hold on to their heritage, maybe partly through
exhibiting  a  hubris  unpalatable  to  Swedish  political  culture.  This
leaves  the  succession  from  Charles  XI  to  Charles  XII  in  1697  as  the
only Swedish parallell to the four-generation accumulation of princely
power  which  Koenigsberger  cites  as  a  crucial  factor  in  the
comparative success of Hohenzollern statebuilding.

Of course, Charles XII’s death in battle cut short his possibility of

fulfilling  his  singularly  autocratic  reorganization,  ‘flattening’  the
inequality span of Swedish society through the subjection of even the
highest  social  strata  to  the  will  of  the  sovereign  (Karlsson  1994,
Lindegren  1992),  and  instead  the  ‘pendulum  swung  back’  to  the
aristocratic  side  of  the  parallell  state-building  process.  The  Caroline
strangulation  of  the  aristocratic  council  had  removed  the  self-evident
collective  oligarchic  leadership  that  had  been  ready  to  take  over  in
each of the earlier swings:

•

Bo Jonsson’s junta of castle-fief speculators and monastery
investors during the 1370’s and 80’s

•

the four-regent college of Christopher’s reign (1441-48)

•

the ‘Aristocratic Republic’ (Schück 1984) of the later 15

century,

•

the neo-constitutionalist council of Sparre and Bielke

261

•

Axel  Oxenstierna’s  reorganized  Central  Committee  of  the
new  Europeanized  nobility  (making  a  critically  weaker
second  appearance  during  Charles  XI’s  minority,  bereft  of
its leader)

In the absence of a clear focus of pre-defined power, and in a

situation where the balance between the nobility’s interests as
landholders (

seigneurie fonciére

) and as holders of delegated public

261

The least successful example, as they were out-manipulated by Duke Charles,

the later Charles IX.

150

authority (what corresponded to the medieval

seigneurie banale

262

)

had to be drawn up

anew

263

, the Diet could become the arena for a

new form of power struggle, centering on persuasion and
negotiation. The first experiments with parliamentary rule were ready
to begin.

The nation-state as a problem - Tilly’s model

The self-evidentness of the ‘triumph of the nation-state format’

alluded to above, has been most thoroughly called in question by
Charles Tilly:

Empires, city-states, federations of cities, networks of landlords,

churches, religious orders, leagues of pirates, warrior bands, and
many other forms of governance prevailed in some parts of Europe at
various times over the last thousand years. Most of them qualified as
states of one kind or another: they were organizations that controlled
the principal concentrated means of coercion within delimited
territories, and exercised priority in some respects over all other
organizations acting within the territories. But only late and slowly did
the national state become the predominant form. Hence the critical
double question:

What accounts for the great variation over time and

space in the kinds of states that have prevailed in Europe since AD 990,
and why did European states eventually converge on different variants
of the national state?

Why were the directions of change so similar

and the paths so different?
(Tilly 1992:5)

262

Which, I will argue, was in Sweden split into two further dimensions: the fiscal-

military and the adjudicatory. The third dimension of feudal power,

seigneurie

domestique

, or patriarchal power, had in Sweden also become subdivided, but in

a  very  different  manner.  Not  into  separate  vertical  power  chains,  but  into
separate horizontal levels: on the one hand centralized into the hand of the King
as  the  super-patriarch,  the  Master  of  the  national  household,  and  on  the  other
hand  devoluted  down  into  the  individual  household  cells  of  the  system,  where
the

husbonde

, the master of the family household, wielded a patriarchal authority

over  his  wife,  children  and  domestic  servants.  Through  this  stake  in  patriarchal
power,  the  four-chamber  Diet  could  integrate  the  peasantry  into  the  political
system.  The  position  of  peasants  of  noble-owned  land  remained  contested,
though,  and  not  until  the  Estate  got  the  prospect  of  a  share  in  national  power
before  their  eyes  in  the  early  stages  of  the  Age  of  Freedom  did its  leadership,
by  now  clearly  dominated  by  tax-peasants,  drop  the  ambition  to  represent  also
the

frälsebönder

and leave them to be ‘represented by their masters’ (which the

Nobility had claimed to do all along, endorsed by generations of historians).

263

It was, as I have argued, the aristocratic failure in balancing these interests, and

thus to solve the contradiction between their short-term individual and long-term
collective interests, that left them powerless to solve the fiscal crisis of the state,
and which made a return to absolutism – and this time in a sense more absolute
than ever – inevitable.

152

Another model grouping together the same examples can be found

in  Perry  Anderson’s  taxonomy  of  European  absolutist  trajectories,
within  which  England,  France  and  Spain  appear  as  the  prime
instances  of  the  Western  European  version,  where  city  growth  and
peasant  liberation  necessitate  a  centralization  of  lordly  power  up  to
state  level.  Here  Sweden  is  put  into  an  intermediate  position,  as  the
weakness  of  the  cities  conforms  better  to  the  Eastern  pattern,  where
stagnating  cities  and  subject  peasantries  provide  no  internal
compulsion  for  a  stronger  centralism,  but  where  the  level  of
international  military  competition  eventually  forces  the  states  to
centralize  or  perish  (Poland!).  Sweden  is  given  the  key  role  of
transmitting the ‘Western’ military pressure onto the Eastern states.

Nations and languages as historical constructs

There is no way back from the realization that nationalities are

historically  constructed  (as  argued  in  different  ways  by  Hobsbawm,
Benedict  Anderson,  Gellner,  Reynolds  and  many  others),  although  it
is very difficult to draw the full implications of this. Once constructed,
through  a  slow  piecemeal  process,  nationalities  are  no  longer
optional,  and  reconstructing  them  in  different  shapes  has  proved  to
be  no  less  complex  a  process  (

Eastern Europe after 1918 and

1989!).

Even if a common ‘ethnic identity’ cannot be fashioned out of

any

material  –  mutually  unintelligible  idioms  and/or  sharply  contrasting
physiognomical  traits  (complexion,  hair,  eyes,  tallness)  may  at  least
act  as  brakes  to  the  development  of  a  mythical  consanguinity

265

–

nationalities are constructed to fit politically constituted communities,
not (primordially) the other way around. It was the political ambitions
toward  a  united  German  nation  (of  course  inspired  by  historical
precedents as well as by the desire to emulate successful geopolitical
adversaries)  that  made  the  German  language  a  criterion  for  the
desirable  scale  of  political  delimitation,  not  the  co-linguality

per se

that  created  a  national  bond  inevitably  leading  to  such  political
ambitions  –  why,  otherwise,  was  this  nationalism  not  in  stronger
evidence  earlier?  Even  the  pioneering  English  nation-state  was
originally  constructed  through  exogenous  military  conquest,  and  the
creation  of  a

common language

through the fusion of Anglo-Saxon

and Norman French idioms was obviously the

product

rather than a

265

Still the power of self-delusion in questions of ‘racial’ similarity should not be

underestimated.

the famous cartoon describing the Nazi racial ideal: ‘An Aryan

is tall [illustrated with Goebbels], slim [Goering], and blond [Hitler!].’

153

premiss

of political unity. The later denotation span expansion into

British

nationhood required yet a further level of ‘suspension of

disbelief’ in order to be envisioned as a primordial fact.

Scandinavian evidence: redefinable dialects

In few other cases the political construction of linguistic identity is

as obvious as in Scandinavia. A continuum of closely related
dialects

266

came to be disjoined according to political boundaries and

the dialects were eventually reconceptualized as vulgar versions of
the three separate languages of different political administrations

267

even  the  more  so  after  the  codification  of  written  vernaculars.  The
most  conclusive  example  within  this  development  is  the  reaffiliation
of  the  dialects  spoken  in  those  provinces  conquered  by  Sweden  in
1658-60.  The  originally  Danish  dialects  now  known  as

skånska,

halländska,

and

blekingska

became reoriented towards the Swedish

written language, and eventually turned into Swedish dialects, as did
the Norwegian dialects

jämtska

and

bohuslänska.

I certainly would

not claim that these examples prove that linguistic identification
always follows national affiliation, but they should serve as sufficient

counterproof

to any naïve assertion that the reverse can be taken for

granted: that ‘linguistic identity’ leads to the formation of nationalist
sentiment.

Another argument against the primacy of linguistic identification is,

that  within  Finland,  which  was  just  one  of  several  provinces  making
up  the  larger  political  unit  of  Sweden,  Finnish-speaking  peasants
seem not to have been considered less Swedish than others. When, in
the  sovereign

Riksdag

of the 18

century Age of Liberty, the Finnish

peasant deputies demanded an interpreter, this motion was turned
town by the thrifty Peasant Estate, which argued that their bi-lingual
colleagues could serve as interpreters. This was mainly

268

discussed as

a purely economic question, though, and there seems to have been

266

The Scandinavian dialects of the Viking period are usually treated as a single

language,

fornnordiska

(‘Old Norse’)

and the present-day tongues are still so

mutually intelligible that comparative linguists sometimes refuse to recognize
them as separate languages.

267

This is a very schematic simplification ignoring the further complications

eventually leading to the formation of two competing Norwegian languages. The
formation and shifting delimitation of the Swedish language is complex enough to
carry my point.

268

The question of security was also important – an outsider brought in as an

interpreter might jeopardize the confidential atmosphere of open internal
discussion.

154

no hint that a member of the Swedish Diet ought to have been able
to speak Swedish

269

Against this background I also insist that the particular case of

Swedish history has to be reconceptualized from a fully constructivist
standpoint: ‘Sweden’ should not be reified into an actor in northern
European medieval history, but neither should it be conceived to be a

given

arena. It is rather the product of a number of subplots

converging on the same part of the stage, thereby constituting it as a
separate scene for a separate play.

Sweden: the prehistory of modern statebuilding

I do not mean to deny the obvious fact that the words

Sverige

(Sweden) and

svensk/a/

(Swede, Swedish) had existed long before

the  dissociation  of Sweden from the Scandinavian Union  of  Kalmar -
my argument is that they did not acquire the connotation of a special
bond  overriding  other  loyalties  until  quite  late  in  the  course  of  that
process.  The  loose  federation  of  largely  autonomous  provinces  with
separate  law  codes,  held  together  by  an  electoral  monarchy  which
seems  to  have  alternated  between  the  dominant  magnate  families
from  the  leading  provinces,  began  to  be  more  firmly  united  under  a
dynasty  combining  the  semi-hereditary  claims  of  two  earlier  royal
families. The  kings  of the Bjälbo dynasty  (1250-1363/80)

270

attempted

to  pre-empt  the  still  electoral  monarchy  through  devices  such  as
homage of designated heirs, or several instances of fealty required in
charters  for  castle  fiefs.  Under  king  Magnus  Eriksson  the  provincial
law  codes  were  replaced  by  a  ‘Land  Law’  valid  for  the  entire
kingdom. Obviously consolidation of a territorial state was already in
process by this time, although it’s by no means evident that the scale
of aggregation had reached its limits.

Magnus Eriksson also inherited the Norwegian crown, and acquired

the province of Scania from Denmark, which might eventually have
led to integration on a still wider territorial scale. However, a phase of

269

In the other end of the social spectrum we can find, within the House of

Knights, noblemen with a poor knowledge of Swedish addressing the chamber in
German or French.

270

Often called the

Folkung

dynasty through an early historiographical misunder-

standing. As the true Folkungs were a party opposed and vanquished by this
dynasty (

Lönnroth 1949), the name is now seldom in use except in popular

accounts,  and  -  for  reasons  of  easier  reference  -  within  the  genealogical
literature. The matter is  further complicated by  evidence  that  the leaders of  the
‘true Folkungs’ belonged  to a wider ‘clan’ of related families, which also included
the Bjälbo dynasty (Carlsson 1953).

155

dynastic fragmentation and infighting returned

271

, when Norway was

assigned  to  his  younger  son,  Håkan,  while  the  elder,  Eric,  was  to
inherit  Sweden.  This  left  space  for  partisan  politics  among  an
aristocracy  divided  between  oligarchic  ambitions  and  support  for
monarchic centralization. Not content to wait, Eric rebelled against his
father,  backed  by  one  of  the  magnate  factions,  and  a  protracted
struggle  ensued,  where  after  Eric’s  death,  his  brother  Håkan  for  a
while  took  over  the  role  as  alternative  pretender,  until  an  invasion
from  Mecklenburg  under  his  brother-in-law  Albrecht  reunited  him
with  his  father.  Elements  from  the  magnate  faction  supporting
Albrecht eventually, after his victory,  started to co-operate with some
of their former opponents in a scheme of regnal reconstruction.

The Mecklenburger invasion had led to an even greater financial

disaster than king Magnus’ regime, and large parts of the realm were
now held as securities by the creditors of the crown – most of them
German noblemen

272

. Bo Jonsson’s extraordinary accumulation of

reclaimed mortgage fiefs (

pantlän

) was largely financed through

raising  new  loans  from  ecclesiastical  institutions  using  the  already
reclaimed  fiefs  as  securities  (Engström  1935,  Sällström  1951,  Fritz
1972,  1973).  I  will  return  to  the  question  of  this  fund  of  land  and
castles,  and  to  the  trust  created  by  Bo  Jonsson’s  testamentarial
dispositions in order to administrate it.

THE REBELLION AGAINST KING ERIC 1434-1440 AND
THE DELIMITATION OF SWEDEN

The geographical convergence of power struggles

Without advocating a return to hero-worship and chauvinist

romanticism

273

I will argue that the nation-building significance given

to  the  so-called  Engelbrekt  rebellion  (1434-35)  in  older  Swedish
historiography  has to  be taken  more seriously  – though  rather in the
sense  of  geographical  delimitaton  and  innovative

construction

271

As it had during each of the two preceding generations of this dynasty.

272

The most extensive mortgage fiefs were held by king Albrecht’s father, duke

Albrecht of Mecklenburg.

273

The most important difference between my perspective and that of traditional

Swedish  historiography,  is  the  diametrical  opposition  between  our  causalities:
where  Geijer  and  his  followers  believed  that  the  common  national  identity
brought  the  different  classes  together  in  creating  a  common  state,  I  see  the
‘common  national  identity’  and  its  geographic  delimitation  as  the

resultant

converging struggles.

156

nationality, than in the traditional Romanticist concept of an
‘awakening of a national spirit’ that is supposed to have laid dormant
within some Platonic World of Ideas.

Popular resistance in the Swedish part of the Union monarchy had

tended to be regional

274

. Magnate power struggle, on the contrary,

seems to have wavered between a panscandinavian

275

and an all-

Sweden  scale,  but  during  the  multiple  rebellion  against  king  Eric,
popular insurgency and magnate resistance converged onto that level
of  geographic  aggregation  which  would  from  now  on  become  a
potential  nation-building  project,  where  the  possibility  of  popular
mobilization  had  become  of  central  importance  for  the  strategies  of
every  contestant  for  power.  Already  during  the  Bjälbo

dynasty (see

above,  page  154  and  note  270)  a  proto-national  consolidation
appearing  to  be  the  first  phase  of  this  project  had  taken  place.  We
should, however, be wary of too easily identifying the collection of a
patrimonial  power  base  with  a  national  project  just  because  the  one
sometimes developed into the other (

Reynolds

1984:253). Capetian

power  accumulation  was  hardly  predestined  to  crystallize  into  a
French  nation,  and  if  Håkon  Magnusson  of  Norway  had  lived  long
enough, the union between his own Norwegian kingdom, his father’s
Swedish kingdom, and the Danish kingdom of his father-in-law might
have  occurred  under  his  own  kingship  and  eventually  consolidated
into  a  distinctly  Nordic  variety  of  a  patrimonial  union,  instead  of  a
sub-imperial  Germanizing  federation.  If  his  son  Olof  had  survived,  a
similar  scenario  may  have  been  possible,  although  his  mother’s
regency would have stamped it with a stronger Danish emphasis - as
happened  in  the  actual  case.  Although  this  inevitably  implies
continental  entanglements,  a  surviving  Scandinavian  dynasty

might

have handled communal self-administration less ineptly than the
succession of Imperial vassals following the rule of Queen Margaret.

This assertion should

not

be taken to imply that this rebellion

determined the final outcome of the contest between different
competing state-building projects. It only means that the practical

conditions

for pursuing the kind of strategy which would eventually

274

As – after the Swedish secession from the Union – peasant rebellions would

continue to be, up until the last disturbances of the early 19

century.

275

Also including those cross-boundary regional interests emphasized by Lönnroth

(1934,  1940,  1959).  It  is  furthermore  quite  possible  that  some  of  the  Swedish
magnates  at  times  may  have  had ambitions  on a  wider  Baltic  scale, and  that  the
intermarriage between certain Swedish and German aristocratic families may have
reflected such ambitions.

157

prove victorious in the 16

century, were constructed during the

revolution against King Eric

276

Peasant rebellions, private warfare or class
alliances?

The two most recent studies of Swedish ‘peasant rebellions’

(Harrison 1997, Reinholdsson 1998) make sharply contrasting
interpretations of these events. Both of them point out that in general,
these uprisings also included other social groups than peasants, and
that they were usually led by

frälsemän

(gentry), in many cases even

by aristocratic magnates. Reinholdsson therefore considers them to be
feuds, rather than rebellions,

i e

examples of ‘private warfare’ or

formal  revocations  of  political  allegiance,  where  the  peasants  took
part  as  followers  in  keeping  with  their  reciprocal  relationship  with
their  immediate  overlords

277

. Harrison, on the other hand, sees them

as in some cases genuine peasant rebellions and in others as class
alliances

278

(primarily the later rebellions).

In the second half of the 15

century, the peasant following of

Johannes  Benedicti,  the  archbishop  and  leader  of  the  party  striving
for  oligarchic  rule  in  Sweden  under  a  nominal  and  suitably  distant
union  monarch,  might  have  been  largely  composed  of  peasants  on
ecclesiastical  holdings  –  the

fabrica

of the cathedral of Uppsala was

one of the most important landowners in the province of Uppland

279

–

as well as peasants on the manors belonging to his family
(Oxenstierna). It is quite possible that these categories in some way

276

I will try to avoid the standard expression

Engelbrektsupproret

(the Engelbrekt

rebellion) as I understand this to be no more than a component (albeit a key
one) of a longer revolution.

277

This would entail a view of Swedish peasants as subject to

seigneurie banale

, as

he appears to consider tax-peasants as owing fealty to their

häradshövding

(‘hundred sheriff’) or to other holders of office-fiefs. In any case he makes no
distinction between tenants and freeholders, and seems to consider them all to
owe some sort of allegiance to a lord. His only argument for this appears to be a
conviction that general European patterns must have prevailed also in Sweden.

278

‘Class alliances’ also imply a totally different view of lord/peasant cooperation.

Where Reinholdsson considers a peasant to have interests normally congruent
with those of his lord, Harrison’s view is that common interest is the exception
and must be due to external factors.

279

DMS, Dahlbäck 1977; its tenants were known as ‘S:t Erik’s peasants’ after the

Swedish saint-king, whose short reign in the 12

century had acquired the

legendary status of a Golden Age without  taxes and oppression, and whose cult
had been  encouraged by St Bridget and by Swedish insurgents during the Union
struggles  (

Engelbrekt’s letter to bishop Thomas in HSH VIII:3, where he

invoked ‘the help of God and Saint Erik’).

158

‘owed allegiance’ to Johannes, and were thus committed to support
him in a feud,

that is how this struggle should be interpreted. In the

uprising of 1463, when a peasant army was massacred when trying to
liberate him from prison, the peasants might just as well have wanted
to support him, becaused he had waived a contested tax while acting
as  king  Christiern’s  sub-commander  in  1457  (the  reason  for  his
imprisonment).  It  is  also  quite  likely  that  protest  against  the  tax  was
their primary objective also in 1463.

The leaders of this rising are said to have been peasants, and the

most prominent one, Johan Lindorm, came from Västergötland, which
appears to speak against the ‘feudal’ interpretation. His name does
not sound like a peasant’s name, though, and Lönnroth identifies him
with a merchant who appears as a purchaser of rent butter in the
vicinity of present-day Gothenburg (1959:212n63)

280

In the case of an aristocrat seeking individual supremacy, like Sten

Sture (the older), it would

prima facie

appear even more likely that

his  peasant armies could  have  been personally committed to himself
or  to  his  confederates,  and  no  doubt  several  examples  of  such
followers  should  be  possible  to  identify.  The  chief  objection  to  such
an  interpretation  is  that  it  would  make  his  distinctive  style  of
propaganda  seem  totally  misdirected.  If  the  peasants  just  followed
their  ‘overlords’,  then  his  populist  agitation  on  marketplaces  (Staf
1935, Lönnroth 1959, Schück 1987a) all over the country  would  have
been a wasted effort and a quite unnecessary innovation.

The Engelbrekt debates

The most decisive argument against Reinholdsson’s thesis, is that he

completely fails to account for the greatest and most widely disputed
of  these  rebellions:  the  ‘Engelbrekt  rebellion’  of  1432-36.  The
immediate object of the original risings in 1432-33 was to get rid of a
particularly  detested  bailiff  -  Jens  (Jösse)  Eriksen  in  Västerås  -  but
from  1434

281

onwards it escalated into a full-scale rebellion involving

all  social  classes.  Disentangling  all  the  overlapping  grievances  and
struggles,  the  competing  leaderships  and  shifting  alliances  of  this
rebellion  is  so  difficult  and  rests  upon  so  fragile  sources,  that  it  has
remained  one  of  the  classic  perennial  points  of  contention  within

280

His activities as a merchant and the system of regular contacts between bailiffs

and merchants necessary to convert taxes in kind into liquid assets are described
in

1940:229.

281

Carlsson 1932 for the initial phase.

159

Swedish historiography. It fairly obvious, though, that Reinholdsson’s
feud model solves none of the problems of this rising.

The crucial question of the earlier debate was, in Jerker Rosén’s

concise summary:

‘if it was Engelbrekt who determined the development in Sweden

during the years 1434-36 and, supported by the peasants, united the
nation for his own purposes, or if it was the Council aristocracy who
used the peasant rebellion to put an end to the absolutist tendencies
of Eric of Pomerania.’ (Rosén 1966:88; my translation)

In the renewed discussion arising since the 550

anniversary of the

rebellion  –  this  would  at  least  include  Larsson  1984ab,  1997,  Schück
1985,  1987b,  1994,  Bøgh  1985,  Myrdal  1995,  Harrison  1997  and
Reinholdsson  1998  –  yet  another  aspect  has  become  even  more
central:  to  what  extent  did  the  peasants  fight  for  their  own  interests,
and to what extent were they just mobilized to fight for those of their
lords? This is a question of wider and more general significance as the
entire  late  medieval  to  early  modern  period  of  continuous  power
struggle leading up to the construction of a separate Swedish ‘nation-
state’,  was  permeated  with  peasant  unrest,  and  of  course  the  whole
question  of  peasant  participation  in  the  political  system  of  early
modern  Sweden  hinges  on  how  peasant  struggle  is  interpreted.  To
Reinholdsson,  the  later  formation  of  a  peasant  Estate  in  the  Swedish
Diet  is  an  effect  of  the

decline

of reciprocal relations between

peasants and lords: When the state was no longer organized through
chains of patriarchal protection, it had to find another model for
integrating the peasantry.

Thus his salutary wariness of romanticizing

peasant rebellions makes him slide periculously close to a romantic
view of feudal paternalism.

In his surprisingly scant references to what must surely be the

touchstone  of  his  interpretation,  Reinholdsson  simply  states  that
although  it  has  always  been  known  that  Engelbrekt  belonged  to  the
gentry,  and  that  the  leaders  of  rebellions  very  seldom  have  been
peasants,  the  full  consequences  of  this  have  not  been  drawn:  to  see
these  events  as  involving  different  classes.  Then  he  goes  on  to
investigate  the  forms,  ethics,  metaphoric  language  and  practice  of
feuds  and  other  conflicts  involving  individuals  from  different  classes.
Large parts of his arguments seem reasonable, although at times a bit
trite,  and  he  identifies  mechanisms  and  conventions  which  certainly
must  have  played  important  parts  in  the  late  medieval  power

160

struggles

282

but no analysis is offered for the peasant rebellion

which seems to have triggered the whole process

. However

illuminating his discussion of feuds may be, its inadequacy is revealed
as soon as its applied to Engelbrekt’s followers. Does Reinholdsson
think that just because Engelbrekt bore a coat of arms and owed
horseman’s service

283

in return for the privilege of tax-exemption, his

relation  to  his  followers  must  have  been  that  of  a  lord  demanding
fealty  from  his  vassals,  and  not  that  of  an  elected  spokesman  or
campaign leader?

Although several other factors have been brought into the

discussion, we have no information contradicting the unanimous
assertion made by all narrative sources that the rebellion

started

with

peasant complaints against an unusually oppressive bailiff

284

. In this

particular  part  of  Sweden,  almost  all  peasants  were  freeholders,  and
many of them were miners as well. Reinholdsson (1998:198-208) may
very  possibly  be  right  about  nobleman/tenant  relations  involving
something resembling vassalage, but if there has existed some kind of
rudimentary  Swedish

seigneurie banale

– which has so far evaded

discovery – binding also freeholders in fealty to the

häradshövding

(‘hundred sheriff’)

285

or to the holder of an office-fief, then Dalecarlia

– together with Norrland – must have been the least likely place to
find it.

282

The really illuminating part of his study is the analysis of how a change of

allegiance under compulsion would be viewed as lagitimate (not dishonourable).

283

‘Knight’s service’ would be a misleading term in the Swedish context, as

riddare

(knight) remained a title of high distinction as no higher noble titles were
introduced before Erik XIV. The ancient Nordic title of

Jarl

(Earl) was used as

denoting an Office of the Realm rather than a noble rank, and the only example
of a

hertig

(Duke) outside the royal family - Bengt Algotsson - was either an the

sole example abortive attempt to introduce higher feudal ranks, or just simply a
German translation of the office of Earl (in latin almost always rendered as

Dux

The only other medieval examples of higher noble titles in Sweden were of
foreign origin: Greve (Count) Hans von Eberstein and Jarl Erengisle Sunesson,
who, though himself a Swede, inherited his title from his Norwegian father-in-law,
the Earl of Orkney.

284

As I will argue, what triggered the conflict was probably rather the combination

of a more than average oppressive bailiff with a local population singularly
unaccustomed to endure oppression.

285

This seems highly unlikely, as the hundred would in most cases contain several

forms  of  tenure,  and  thus  tenants  on  noble  land  -  being  also  eligible  to  the
hundred  court  jury  -  would  be  subject  to  divided  loyalties.  Such  conflicts  of
interest  should  have  left  some  kind  of  traces,  at  the  very  least.  That  a

häradshövding

might use his personal prestige and connections to canvass

support for his side is self-evident.

161

The lack of manors in these regions would have made the

emergence of a paternal seigneurial protection highly unlikely. In
addition, the system of regular hundred moots chaired by the

häradshövding

assisted by a twelve-man jury did not apply to these

provinces. In Dalecarlia, which was defined as a single hundred, the
basic unit of jurisdiction (and self-administration) was the parish, and
the hundred sheriff

286

held itinerant courts. In the provinces of

Norrland, the situation was similar, with several

underlagmän

holding itinerant courts on behalf of the

lagman

of Uppland

(Almquist 1954:12f,160f).

That the author of the

Engelbrektskrönika

hardly mentions the

Dalecarlians after the original attack on the castle of Borganäs

287

is no

proof  that  the  whole  rebellion  was  just  a  concern  for  the  nobility
from then onwards. In that case a leader of such a (relatively) humble
origin  as  Engelbrekt  could  not  have  become  a  succesful  rival  of  the
highest  aristocracy.

Only

if he really was a successful commander of

peasant levies strong enough to match royal armies is his career at all
conceivable: going directly from the role of spokesman for local
grievances to the post of Captain of the Realm (

rikshövitsman

)

288

This conclusion is confirmed if we move on to the next large

conflict:  the  Puke  feud,  which  can  also  throw  doubt  on  the
conclusion  Reinholdsson  makes  from  military  tactics.  The  military
argument  that  highly  mobile  campaigns  must  have  relied  on
horsemen  and  thus  on  gentry,  rather  than  on  peasant  foot-soldiers,
certainly  deserves  careful  consideration.  However,  the  obvious
advantage  of  superior  mobility  which  allowed  Karl  Knutsson  to
rapidly  quench  Puke’s  support  in  those  central  Swedish  provinces
where  he could  have counted  on  ‘feudal’ support –

i e

, in just those

areas where the estates of Erik Puke’s family were concentrated –
shows that the rebel armies must have been decidedly less mobile

286

Or, normally, his deputy, as the sheriffalty of Dalecarlia was customarily a

honorary benefice bestowed on non-resident magnates. (LOS)

287

1998:84s. That Reinholdsson – quoting Herman Schück – considers the author to

be ‘a mouthpiece for those among the

frälse

who had made the rising against

king Eric their business’ (

loc cit;

Schück 1994:55; my translation), should of

course disqualify this chronicle as a source for assessing the peasants’
contribution to the struggle.

288

A title for which there seems to have been no precedent since Mathias

Kettilmundsson in 1319 (Gillingstam in SBL 25:246). Mathias, however, was a
prominent aristocrat, as were all the known holders of the more standardized
High Offices of the Realm. (

E g

the office of High Steward, to which Mathias was

shortly  promoted.  Although  Bjarne  Beckman’s  1953  study  at  times  tends  to
depict  him  as  an  almost  rustic  upstart,  his  mother’s  family  is  at  the  same  time
identified as an illegitimate sideline of the royal dynasty(7-10)).

162

and thus based on a peasant foot to a greater extent than on mounted
troops. That Puke’s Dalecarlian and Norrlander supporters, when they
finally arrived, seem to have overturned the threatening defeat, shows
that even large armies could move over considerable distances when
necessary.  In  the  cases  of  Dalecarlia  and  Norrland  (and  parts  of
Uppland) many of the peasants may also have been mounted, as the
horse  supplants  the  ox  as  a  draught  animal  in  these  provinces
(Myrdal-Söderberg 1991).

The evidence from the Puke feud

Although this conflict started out as a formal feud between two (or

three

289

) leading aristocrats, Puke’s eventual success (until he was

killed,  reputedly  through  breach  of  safe-conduct)  was  above  all  due
to  the  support  of  the  non-feudal  provinces  of  Dalecarlia  and
Norrland,  which  is  a  strong  counterargument  against  Reinholdsson’s
thesis  –  in  fact  I  would  argue  that  this  support  shows  that  the  ‘Puke
feud’  in  actual  fact  was  just  a  second  phase  of  the  general  rebellion
(see below).

Harrison 1997:53 claims that ‘a majority of the tax-peasants in

Rekarne, Närke and Västmanland’ immediately joined up with Puke,
but does not identify a separate source for this statement

290

. Probably

it  is  based  on  Larsson  1984:222,  claiming  that  the  majority  of  the
peasants  in  Rekarne,  Närke,  Västmanland,  Dalecarlia,  Southern
Norrland,  and  many  parts  of  Uppland,  ‘without  much  doubt’  joined
up with him.

These areas Larsson identifies as dominated by ‘free-holding, tax-

paying  peasants’.  In  four  of  these  provinces,  however  –  all  except
Dalecarlia  and  Norrland  –  there  was  also  a  considerable  element  of
exempt land, owned by gentry, magnates and religious institutions. In
those  areas  the  estates  of  Erik  Puke’s  family  were  mainly  situated

291

and to the extent that his support was built on seigneurial authority,

289

Judging from Puke’s letter as quoted by Karl Knutsson and Christiern Nilsson

(Vasa), he simultaneously broke an agreement with Bengt Stensson (Natt och
Dag). Whether the agreement he revoked was a settlement of their earlier feud,
during which Puke had burnt (but apparently not destroyed) a castle belonging
to Bengt Stensson, or a settlement of the murder case, is impossible to conclude.

290

As he only supplies an exhaustive consolidated bibliography of sources and

literature for each rebellion, it is difficult to trace the origin of separate
statements.

291

Particularly in Rekarne, where the percentage of tax-peasants in 1560 - the

earliest year from which we have any figures - was less than 30% according to
Forssell 1869:26f

163

we  should  expect  to  find  his  following  there.  However,  Karl
Knutsson’s  rapid  campaign  through  this  region  succeeded  to  stamp
out rebellion efficiently, burning peasant leaders at the stake to strike
terror into their comrades. The non-feudal provinces of Dalecarlia and
Norrland  seem  to  have  provided  a  following  capable  of  succesfully
resisting the Marshal’s troops, though

292

The peasants from these areas can hardly have supported him out

of a sense of obligation, unless it was the moral obligation to support
a leader who had supported

their

demands. Although the feud was

probably motivated by Erik Puke’s personal ambitions

293

and thus

reasonably  a  calculated  wager  on  his  popularity  as  Engelbrekt’s
brother-in-arms, the very fact that a leading nobleman got his decisive
support  from  provinces  where  he  held  no  land,  makes  a  simpler
explanation  seem  more  likely:  That  the  settlement  putting  an  end  to
the  first  rebellion  in  1436  (after  Engelbrekt  had  been  murdered)
satisfied  the  aristocratic  opposition

294

, and (for the moment) the

personal  ambitions  of  Karl  Knutsson,  but  neither  the  peasant
opposition,  nor  the  personal  ambitions  of  Erik  Puke.  Such
convergences  will  from  this  point  onwards  become  commonplace  in
the history of medieval Sweden.

The problem with foreign bailiffs, which was a grievance common

to the magnates and the peasantry, appears to have been solved, but
the  other  principal  demand  of  the  peasants:  abolishment  of
extraordinary taxes,  had not been met. It is also quite evident that a
satisfactory  solution  of  the  first  problem

for the peasants

must have

meant something more than just paying the same taxes to a Swedish
bailiff. Xenophobia would rather have been the

result

of the negative

experience  of  foreign  bailiffs  than  a  cause  of  the  resentment  they
roused.  It  has  often  been  assumed  that  these  bailiffs  would  have
brought  with  them  another  political  culture  including  a  harsher  and
more  contemptuous  treatment  of  peasants  as  a  matter  of  course,  but
the very

lack

of a

shared political culture

may have been enough.

The traditional political culture of negotiated rule mediated through

regional assemblies and hundred moots, must have been impossible

292

Harrison’s comparative analysis of the contrasting accounts in Ericus Olai and

the

Karlskrönika

. (Harrison, 1997:31-40, 52-55, 98), concluding that Puke’s army

was never really vanquished by Karl Knutsson

293

Dissatisfaction with his share of the spoils in terms of fiefs and castles is cited

as his primary motivation in the

Karlskrönika.

294

Likewise the clerical opposition and probably also the burghers, as the treaty

had been closed with the cooperation of Hanseatic diplomats, and thus should be
able to guarantee the return of peaceful conditions for trade.

164

to handle or even understand, for castellans and bailiffs who knew
nothing of local custom, and sometimes not even the language! (As in
the case of Giovanni Franco, a Venetian

295

mercenary driven out of

the Castle of Borganäs by the first Dalecarlian levy). If Swedish bailiffs
took over the castles and collected the (reduced) taxes, this might
have been seen as legitimate,

as long as

the aids tax was necessary

for the defence against king Eric

, but when, after the peace treaty,

these bailiffs started to collected the full aids tax for king Eric, whose
Baltic warfare was decidedly unpopular (especially with the miners, it
has been argued), then the gains from the rebellion must have
seemed to evaporate.

That Puke in this situation, with thwarted ambitions, isolated

among his equals and reasonably in grave danger himself after the
murder of Engelbrekt and the execution of Broder Svensson

296

decided  to  raise  the  peasantry  against  the  council,  is  hardly
surprising, but, as Larsson  observes, this  gave the  new rising a more
threatening  social  profile

: Peasants against lords

, not a broad class

coalition against the oppressive rule of strangers and the danger of
royal autocracy (Larsson 1997:235.

Harrison 1997:53). That Puke

was  not  defeated  in  combat  but  through  deceit  (breach  of  safe-
conduct)  shows  that  his  support  was  far  wider  than  what  could  in
any  way  be  explained  through  some  kind  of  ‘fealty’  from  his
subordinates  – in that case the  rest  of the Council should  have  been

295

Or rather Croatian, according to a recent article by Ibler and Fritz (2004). These

interesting new findings in no way detracts from his usefulness as an extreme
example, rather the opposite.

296

Broder Svensson (bull’s head), a former privateer and a subcommander of

Engelbrekt’s  during  the  campaign  in  Halland,  had  –  like  Erik  Puke  –  become
dissatisfied  with  the  distribution  of  castle-fiefs  and  raged  against  Karl  Knutsson,
making violent accusations. He was immediately beheaded. The chronicle reports
that  Puke  barely  escaped  his  fate.  KK,  Kumlien  1933:81;  Larsson  1984b  argues
that  there  are  no  grounds  for  interpreting  Broder’s  execution  as  a  purge  of
Engelbrekt’s  associates.  However,  it  fits  quite  neatly  into  Karl  Knutsson’s
strategy of  eliminating rivals one by one and even if Broder Svensson may have
been more of a soldier of fortune  than a champion of the people, he was one of
the new councillors who had come  to the fore  through  the rebellion. As no-one
else  among  the  newer  councillors  had  been  knighted,  he  may  have  been
considered a particularly dangerous rival whether or not he  enjoyed any popular
support.  Another  possible  rival  whose  death  Karl  Knutsson  was  accused  of
having caused (Kumlien 1937:196f with n32) was Peder Ulfsson (Roos), the rebel
leader in Värmland, who, like Puke,  seems  to have  been an independent   levy-
raiser and rebel army commander. He belonged  to an illegitimate  sideline of  the
old  royal  Norwegian  dynasty,  and  was  the  father-in-law  of  Amund  Sigurdsson
Bolt,  the  aristocratic  leader  of  a  Norwegian  peasant  rising  in  1436  (Kumlien
1937:93 n92).

165

able to raise a devastatingly superior force by the same means, and
thus the ‘feud’ aspect of this rising cannot explain its military success.

Although we do not know the reasons for the peasants’ support

297

the  very  fact  that  peasant  unrest  and  local  risings  continued,  should
be proof enough that they had reasons of their own to rebel, and that
these  had  not  disappeared.  The  peasants  who  dragged  Jens  Eriksen
out  of  his  sanctuary  in  the  Abbey  of  Vadstena

298

, formally sentenced

him  to  death,  and  executed  him,  could  not  have  had  personal
grievances  to  avenge,  as  Jens  had  been  a  bailiff  in  Jämtland  and  in
Västmanland-Dalecarlia,  not  in  Östergötland.  They  must  have  seized
upon  him  as  a  representative  or  symbol  of  what  they  had  been
fighting against, which also indicates that they did not feel vindicated
or  bound  by the treaty. For the peasantry it was not enough to have
the  strangers  replaced  by  Swedish  bailiffs,  as  is  clearly  demonstrated
by  the  risings  in  Dalecarlia  and  Värmland  in  1437,  where  in  both
cases  a  new,  Swedish,  vice-bailiff  holding  the  castle  on  Karl
Knutsson’s behalf, was killed by the peasants.

The example of the Puke feud makes it all but impossible to

maintain  that  the  peasants  only  lent  a  transient  support  to  the  noble
opposition  against  king  Eric,  but  played  no  active  part  of  their  own.
From  the  point  of  view  of  the  peasantry,  the  entire  rebellion  must
have been one more or less continuous struggle. In fact, it is difficult
to  see  any  reason  whatsoever  for  treating  the  ‘Puke  feud’  as  a  new
and  separate  conflict.  As  the  truces  and  treaties  between  king  Eric
and  the  different  councils  or  makeshift  alliances  negotiating  in  the
name  of  his  Swedish  subjects  never  had  much  permanence,  I  prefer
to  view  it  as  ‘one’  revolution,  in  the  same  way  as  we  speak  of  ‘the

297

The extremely partial

Karlskrönika

claims that Erik Puke had frightened them

with  tales of  Karl Knutsson’s  terrifying  treatment of peasants who dare  to make
complaints:  He ‘lets  their mouths  to  the  ears cut up’  and finally ‘break  them on
wheels, and burn and hang’ or ‘scourge  them and  tie  them without a cause, and
let them freeze to death’ (my translation).

298

The account in the diary of Vadstena Abbey, confirms the depiction of this

event in King Karl’s chronicle. That no

häradshövding

is reported to have taken

part in the trial, hardly justifies Reinholdsson’s interpretation of this act as only an
‘imitation’ of the forms of legal procedure. A hundred jury was capable of making
judgment  under  the  direction  of  a  sheriff’s  substitute,  and  the  tradition  of
awarding  the  senior  member  of  the  jury  the  title  of  ‘hundred  judge’  may  very
well have a medieval origin. In the only monography on medieval hundred courts
Claesson  (1987:116)  does  not  consider  this  incident  to  have  been  a  legally
correct  verdict, but perhaps a sort of ‘court-martial’. His argument does not  even
discuss  the  absence  of  a

häradshövding

, though, and is based upon the

provision that crimes should be prosecuted in the hundred where they have
been committed, and upon the probable absence of witnesses.

166

French revolution’ in one term, although it contained widely varying
phases.

The murder of Engelbrekt

Underlying all this turmoil is reasonably also the murder of

Engelbrekt. Some historians tell us sternly, that Ericus Olai’s assertion
that Karl Knutsson had protected the murderer is of too late a date to
deserve any credence, and that it probably is a misunderstanding
because the murder was a purely private affair

299

. According to

established source-critical practice, one single (independent) source is
not  enough  to  establish  a  historical  fact,  and  in  this  case  the  three
decades  elapsed  between  the  deed  and  the  allegation  must  surely
further  weaken  the  argument  for  complicity.  Still,  I  have  only  seen
conjectures  offered  as  proof  of  the  conventional  assertion,  and  as
these conjectures are made by historians who are more than ten times
further removed from the occasion, compared to Ericus Olai, I am not
quite certain  why they  feel  entitled to  make  such  strong assertions. I
cannot see how the  weakness of a source can prove the truth of the
opposite  viewpoint,  and  there  are  also  other  indications  that  people
at the time might have suspected Karl Knutsson’s guilt, certainly even
more so after the deceitful capture and execution of Erik Puke

300

The ‘private conflict’ interpretation seems to be derived from

Karlskrönikan

, where a stereotype fable of the ‘faithless servant’

mould  is  recounted,  depicting  the  murderer  as  a  former  retainer  of
Engelbrekt’s.  Magnus  Bengtsson,  however,  belonged  to  the  very
highest  aristocracy.  His  father,  one  or  two  of  his  uncles,  and  his
granduncle sat in the council  -  which  he also  entered  himself  during
the  rebellion  -  and  his  grandfather  Sten  Bosson  (Natt  och  Dag)  had
not  only  been  a  member  of  the  ten-man  board  of  executors  of  the
will of  Bo Jonsson (Grip), the  High Steward  of Sweden and the lord

299

Larsson 1984:203, 211 and more explicitly in 1997:230ff. Christensen 1980:232,

Harrison 1997:52. Rosén 1966a (

Engelbrekt och unionen

DSH 3:83) considers

the  murder  to  be  ‘the  final  act  of  a  lengthy  personal  quarrel  …  No  political
motives  can  be  traced.’(my  translation).  He  cites  Karl  Knutsson’s  protection  of
the  murderer  as  a  fact,  though,  which  also  Lönnroth  does  (1934:130),  although
the  latter  considers  the  ‘political  difference’  between  Karl  Knutsson  and
Engelbrekt to be grounded in ‘pure competition for power’.

300

The survival - albeit in a garbled Danish version - of a political ballad recounting

a  fairy  tale-like  story  of  treachery  and  murder,  where  the  villain  is  called  Karl
Knutsson, and his  victim Erik Stygeson or Pukeson who ‘listens  to  the peasants’
complaints’, and ’will against  the power fight’, suggests  that a suspicious attitude
against  Karl  Knutsson  was  not  limited  to  clerics  like  Ericus  Olai  (Grundtvig,
Hildeman).

167

of the most extensive estate ever controlled by a Swede beneath the
throne (Schück 1976:199ff; the testament is printed in Rosman
1923:

356ff.), but after the dissolution of the group he became the

sole executor of the estate (SRP2483,2583.

Schück 1976:195,210).

That the young aristocrat Magnus would have entered into the service
of a humble esquire such as Engelbrekt – and had done so in the
very beginning of the rebellion,

before

Engelbrekt had attained the

position of Captain of the Realm, or even member of the Council –
would have been very remarkable. Whether we accept the
reconstruction of a separate

Engelbrektskrönika

as a precursor and/or

starting-point for the

Karlskrönika

(Schück 1994 is the latest and most

elaborate version of this interpretation), or consider the portion of the

Karlskrönika

dealing with Engelbrekt to be an integral part of Karl

Knutsson’s propagandist chronicle

301

, it is clear that even if Karl

Knutsson  had  had  a  reason  to  protect  the  murderer,  this  motive
would  have  disappeared  long  before  the  chronicle  came  into
circulation, as Magnus Bengtsson’s uncle Nils Stensson was appointed
Marshal of the Realm by king Eric in 1439, replacing the deposed Karl
Knutsson (SSFS 13:2 s205f). After this date the family of Natt och Dag
were  –  for  a  period  –  leaders  of  the  royal  counter-revolution,  and
thus the murder could be turned into a propagandist asset instead of
a liability. The chronicle now depicted Karl Knutsson as the successor
of  Engelbrekt and its  savage  denigration of  Erik  Puke  served to  bury
the  memory  of  another  political  configuration  of  which  we  know
nothing  except  that  it  served  Karl  Knutsson’s  interests  to  depict  it  as
grossly  demagogical,  with  an  ingratiating  attitude  towards  the
peasantry.

Of course Erik Puke must have been a most formidable rival as he

was not only

(1)

Engelbrekt’s brother in arms (

Reinholdsson’s

evidence for

a formally declared brotherhood-in-arms between Erik and
Engelbrekt) and

(2)

the  successful  commander  of  a  separate  rebel  army  (in
contrast to Karl Knutsson, who had only played a minor role
in the least successful subdivision  of Engelbrekt’s  army)  but
also

(3)

the son of Nils Gustavsson (Rossvik), the foremost
lawspeaker and thus the highest-ranking secular official of

301

Lönnroth 1934; reformulated in response to Schück in Lönnroth 1996, making

some concessions as to the political role of Engelbrekt, but using Schück’s own
evidence to restate the conviction that Karl Knutsson’s propaganda is the
context within which the entire

Engelbrektskrönika

has to be understood.

168

Sweden, who had played a key role in the insurrection (see
below), and

(4)

the son-in-law of Nils Erengisleson (Hammersta), whom I
consider to be the central personality within what may have
remained of Bo Jonsson’s followers among the old Swedish
aristocracy (see below).

In any case the murder, given the circumstances, could in no way

be  described  as  a  private  affair.  Under  a  state  of  civil  war  with
constantly  shifting  alliances,  a  member  of  one  of  the  leading  power
groups  cannot  kill  the  leader  of  another  constellation  out  of  purely
personal reasons - all personal relations between  people in that kind
of  a  position

are

political, as the forming and breaking of alliances

constitute

politics in an age of politics based on personal ties. Of

course it is also quite possible that Karl Knutsson at that moment
would have preferred a living Engelbrekt - there is no need to see the
powerful clan of Natt och Dag as puppets for anyone else

302

The most common explanation for the quarrel between Engelbrekt

and  Bengt  Stensson  (Natt  och  Dag),  refers  to  Erik  Puke’s  attack  on
and capture of the castle of Täljehus (at that moment held by Bengt’s
wife),  reputedly  in  response  to  Bengt  Stensson’s  plundering  of  a
Lübeck ship, thus violating the promise of free and unimpeded trade
for  Hanseatic  vessels  issued  by  the  rebel  council.  If  this  really  is  the
source  also  of

Engelbrekt

’s conflict with Bengt Stensson

303

, seems

doubtful  -  the  chronicle  mentions  the  conflict  before  describing  the
piracy  issue.  A  conflict  concerning  authority  over  the  province  of
Närke would seem rather  more likely  -  Herr Bengt had for a  quarter
of  a  century  been  its  lawspeaker,  when  Engelbrekt  took  over  the
coterminous  (Fritz  1973:40)  castellany  of  Örebro  through  buying  off
King Eric’s bailiff.

Though Bengt Stensson had been prominently, if ambiguously,

involved  with  the  magnate  opposition  from  the  very  beginning,  he
had  neither  been  entrusted  with  a  castellany,  as  were  his  two
colleagues  Nils  Gustavsson (Rossvik),  Nils Erengisleson (Hammersta),
and  his  own  uncle  bishop  Knut;  nor  with  a  regional  captaincy,  as
were  Nils  Erengisleson  and  another  lawspeaker,  Knut  Jonsson  (Tre
Rosor)

304

. At the same time, fiscal and military authority in his home

302

they were, King Eric might be a more likely suspect, as subsequent events

would indicate.

303

If Puke’s attack had been the cause of the conflict, it seems very strange that it

is always explicitly mentioned as a conflict between Bengt Stensson (with his
son) and

Engelbrekt

304

Bengt Stensson’s own younger brother Nils became captain of Småland, though..

169

province  was  assumed  by  the  upstart  Engelbrekt  Engelbrektsson,  or
by  his  less  distinguished  deputy  and  brother,  Nils  Engelbrektsson.
This  must  have  appeared  as  a  mortal  insult  to  Sir  Bengt,  and
according to the chronicle, Magnus Bengtsson attempted to seize the
castle of Örebro after the murder, but failed, provoking in response a
spontaneous  peasant  attack  on  his  father’s  castle,  Göksholm,  which,
however, also failed.

During the rebellion, the council was expanded into 36 members

305

including  the  rebel  leaders  Engelbrekt  and  Erik  Puke.  Only  five
magnate  families  were  represented  by  more  than  one  member.  The
later  so  dominant  family  of  Oxenstierna  was  represented  by  two
brothers:  Bengt and  Nils  Jönsson,  future  regents and leaders-to-be of
the  ‘constitutionalist’  faction.  In  three  cases  an  already  well-
established  senior  councillor  had  been  joined  by  his  son:  Erik  Puke
had  joined  his  father  Nils  Gustavsson  (Rossvik)  -

lagman

(‘lawspeaker’)  of  Uppland,  which  made  him  the  judicial  head  of  the
most  prestigious  province,  and,  in  a  situation  where  the  offices  of
High Steward and Marshal of the Realm were left vacant, the foremost
secular  member  of  the  Council;  Nils  Erengisleson  (Hammersta),
lawspeaker of Södermanland and Engelbrekt’s subcommander for the
neighbouring  province  of  Östergötland,  had  been  joined  by  his  son
Erengisle  Nilsson,  and  Gottskalk  Bengtsson  -  of  an  ancient  and
prestigious  sideline  of  the  family  whose  senior  branch  had  become
the recently defunct royal dynasty - by his son Bengt Gottskalksson.

The fifth family counted no less than five members: ‘the oldest

noble family of purely Swedish origin’ (SBL), which much later came
to  be  known  as  Natt  och  Dag  (‘Night  and  Day’).  It  included  the
venerable bishop Knut of Linköping, three of his nephews: Bengt, Bo
and  Nils  Stensson,  and  Bengt’s  young  son  Magnus.  This  numeral
preponderance  has,  as  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  ascertain,  never
been  given  any  attention,  perhaps  because  the  bias  of  the  narrative
sources  is  weighted  towards  two  rival  protagonists:

Engelbrekt

, the

gentleman miner who appears as a leader from the very beginning of
the rebellion, and who is transmuted into a sanctified nation-hero a
few years after his death;

Karl Knutsson

, the ruthlessly ambitious

marshal, who brings the struggle against king Eric to an end, crushing
peasant  rebellions  and  killing  his  rivals  on  the  way,  but  still  fails  to
secure  the  crown  and  loses  out  to  Christopher  of  Bavaria,  only  to
return  as  a  king  several  years  later,  losing  and  regaining  the  crown
twice more.

305

Carlsson 1936.

170

Against both of them, the arch-antagonist

Eric of Pomerania

, a

rex

iniustus

of the clearest water. This triple focus has turned all other

actors into

a priori

minor characters whose actions are determined by

the triangular power constellation, and above all: it threatens to turn a
story of large-scale collective resistance into a chamber play about
clashing personalities

306

. Other actors and configurations must have

been  of  comparable  importance  without  getting  as  much  attention
from the chroniclers, as is  borne  out  by the simple  fact that  none of
these  three  or  four  (counting  Erik  Puke)  protagonists  emerged
victorious from the struggle.

The revolution against King Eric as a composite
conflict

The struggle between king Eric and his Swedish subjects consisted

of three or four interlocking conflicts:

(1)

encouraged  by  their  involvement  with  the  conciliar
movement,  the  Swedish  church  demanded  the  freedom  to
appoint  their  own  leaders

307

, and got into a head-on clash

with Eric’s conviction that appointing bishops - and
particularly archbishops - should be a royal prerogative.

(2)

The  peasants  were  reacting  against  the  heavy  extraordinary
taxation,  and  against  those  mostly  foreign  bailiffs  and
castellans, through whom Eric imposed those taxes.

(3)

The magnates also turned against his system of rule, as Eric’s
enfeoffment policy had deprived them of important sources
of income and influence.

(4)

It  is  also  possible  that  Eric’s  war  against  Lübeck  and  the
resulting  blockades  and  privateering  made  the  mercantile
classes  -  Stockholm  burghers,  Dalecarlian  mineowners  and
possibly  also  borderland  producers  of  surplus  food  -  turn

306

This tendency is only reinforced if we complement the mini-cast through

adducing the tempestuous temper of Erik Puke, the Hotspur of Swedish
medieval history. The resemblance to a Shakespearean chronicle-play is of course
already present in the rhymed chronicle of King Karl, which remains our only
source for large parts of the story.

307

Control over the enfeoffment of church land also became an important issue, no

doubt  strongly  intertwined  with  the  interests  of  the  nobility,  as  Bo  Jonsson’s
strategy had been to pawn land to ecclesiastical  institutions, not only in order to
raise  money  for  further  land  purchases,  but  also  to  put  the  land  out  of  royal
grasp (Sällström). It is noteworthy that two bishops were included in the ten-man
‘aristocratic

junta

’ appointed trustees of his estate. Maybe more remarkably, they

lacked the aristocratic background and large private estates common among
Swedish medieval bishops, but were - by Swedish standards - exceptionally
highly educated and versed in jurisprudence.

171

against him. This argument, first broached by Henrik
Schück, was given a decisive role in the analyses of
Lönnroth

308

, and received an even heavier emphasis by

Nyström,  while  Larsson  argues  that  the  truce  of  1432
between king Eric and the Hanse, should have removed this
factor.  Boëthius  states  in  his  study  of  the  copper  mining
district,  that  he  can  find  no  clear  evidence  of  crisis  in  the
mining  districts,  but  he  still  concludes  that  disturbances  to
the  trade  must  have  been  serious  enough  to  contribute  to
the general discontent.

Stockholm and the Hanse system

Stockholm should not only be identified as a part of Sweden. At the

same time it was, as a city, involved in the city alliance system of
interlocking networks, whereof what we usually refer to as the
Hanse

309

is only the most visible subsystem. Although not explicitly

affiliated  to  any  of  the  Hanses,  Stockholm  had  a  kind  of  partial
exterritoriality for its German citizens, who had a separate mayor and
were entitled to nominate half of the town council (Ahnlund 1929). In
Swedish history, ‘the Hanse’ is usually talked about as if it was a state,
thus conflating the city of Lübeck as a political power with the much
more  wide-ranging  but  also  more  diffuse  economic  power  of  the
Wendish Hanse as such, or even of the Hanse system as a whole. In
this  way  the  struggle  between  Scandinavian  sovereigns  (whether
Union monarchs or ‘national’) and ‘the Hanse’ is viewed as a struggle
of power in a political sense, and thus a kind of ‘national’ struggle.

However, it is more to the point to view it as a question of rival

forms of state-building. To the extent that their struggle represents a

308

In Carlsson 1941 the importance of the endangered trade argument is also

strongly argued - he puts a heavy emphasis on Engelbrekt’s entrepreneurial

‘vitae genus’

- but the overall context of his interpretation is still determined by

the  ‘nationalist’  motive.    The  strong  reaction  against  Lönnroth’s  ‘materialist’
explanation  seems  a  bit  surprising, as  the  trade  argument  was in  no  way  novel.
Evidently  the complete absence of nationalist  sentiment and hero-worship made
the commonplace pocketbook argument appear so stark as to give an impression
of sacrilege.

309

The Hanses started out as enclaves of German merchants in cities like Bruges

and  London,  but  developed  into  a  form  of  guild-like  alliance  between  largely
independent cities, who were granted their liberties as privileges from a princely
power  in  the  vicinity;  the  most  well-known  example  is  the  Wendish  Hanse
dominated  by  Lübeck,  although  there  was  also  for  instance  a  Prussian  Hanse
centering  on  Danzig.  Visby  and  Bergen  were  Hanse  cities  although  they  also
were  considered  parts  of  the  countries  in  which  they  were  situated.  A  larger
pan-Hanseatic  confederation  was  formed  in  Cologne,  and  Hanse  Diets  were
occasionally attended even by such cities as Stockholm.

172

territorial  ‘nation-state’  model  trying  to  assert  itself  against  the  ‘guild-
like’,  federative,  city  league  model  (which  is  capable  of  coexistence
with  other,  looser,  state  forms,  such  as  empires  or  polystructural
‘composite  states’),  it  is  in  some  sense  really  a  national  struggle,  but
not  in  the  sense  of  ‘national  defense’  so  much  as  of  a  nation  being
constructed  through  the  exclusion  of  elements  defined  as  ‘foreign’  –
not  a  struggle  between  nations,  but  a  struggle  between  nation-state
building projects and other forms of political aggregation.

We might consider the entire Scandinavian Union project – or at

least Eric’s version of it – as an attempt to build a consolidated state
through the path of ‘capitalized coercion’ in Tilly’s sense:

a combination of

•

coercive tax-raising:

the imposition of new extraordinary

taxes through a system of castellans and bailiffs separated
from an aristocracy which had combined landowning
power

over

multilocal

conglomerate

estates

with

administrative and judicial power as regional magistrates on
the hundred or province levels

310

and

•

capital accumulation

through intercepting the monetary

flows of trade networks. The Sound tolls – which were in
fact introduced by Eric of Pomerania – are of course the
most important source of such revenue.

ARISTOCRATIC DISCONTENT. A BACKGROUND

Who were ‘the Council’?

It is important not to overestimate Karl Knutsson’s role in the

rebellion, especially not in the initial stages. Even apart from the bias
of the principal narrative source, written in order to glorify his career,
there  is  the  teleological  danger  of  bias  from  hindsight:  both  of  these
biases  serve  to  identify  him  as  the  leader  of  the  aristocracy.  Yet  we
know  that  he  did  not  belong  to  the  original  rebels  and  did  not  play
an important role until the

King

appointed him Marshal of the Realm,

obviously counting on receiving his support in exchange. Even at the
end of the rebellion, when his authority should have been at its peak
after having ensured the military victory and eliminated all his serious
rivals, the Council avoided accepting him as king, turning instead to
Christopher of Bavaria. If the Council took control over the

310

Though, as I show in Chapter 4, their different forms of power were normally

not exercised over the same territories.

173

insurrection  from  1435,  from  1434  or  (surreptitiously)  from  an  even
earlier  date,  they  acted  as  a  ‘confederation’  (Lagerroth,  Lönnroth)  to
further  their  own  collective  interests,  not  on  behalf  of  a  rival
pretender.  But:

who

were these councillors - what factions and

coalitions can be discerned?

It is by no means certain that we can count on the existence of a

permanent  Council  during  the  reigns  of  Margaret  and  Eric
(Christensen  1980,  Schück  1985),  and  if  the  Councils  convoked  by
these rulers when they  were  needed  for  one  purpose  or another did
not  have  any  independent  existence  –  or  even  any  consistent
membership  –

between

these occasions, then the very act of

assembling as a Council without a royal summons was seditious. The
famous letter of revocation from a meeting in Vadstena 1434 - where
the  signatories  withdrew  their  obedience  from  king  Eric  specifying
the  complaints  which  should  justify  such  a  step,  while  at  the  same
time  pleading  that  they  were  acting  under  duress

311

– has been

rejected as a Council meeting by Lars Olof Larsson, who considers it
to be a ‘meeting for those provinces that still were left untouched by
the rebellion’ (1984; 1997:194ff).

Schück 1985 argued, against this interpretation, that Council

meetings  usually  did  not  muster  all  regular  members,  and  that  they
were frequently expanded through the presence of additional ‘Men of
the  Realm’,  outside  the  ranks  of  councillors  proper.  His  own
admonition  against  the  belief  in  permanent  Councils  weakens  the
contrast  between  the  two  positions,  though.  If  the  revocation  was
issued by a makeshift council, then the really important question is if
the signatories constituted some kind of leadership of the rising, or if
they just were late-comers hastening to jump onto a rebellion already
in  full  swing.  In

neither

case they would have constituted a Council

legitimate in the eyes of the King – at most a self-proclaimed Council
like the one convened in Arboga in January 1435, although the

311

The signatories explicitly state that they revoke their obedience because they

have been forced to do so by Engelbrekt. On the other hand they

at the same

time

assert that the king’s behaviour justifies the rebellion. Most historians

consider this no more than a device to protect their own backs (

e g

Larsson

1997:196).  Reinholdsson’s  discussion  of  how  a  change  of  sides  due  to  coercion
was  considered  legitimate  (1998::247-53),  seems  to  make  this  episode  less
confusing. Whether we believe  that they were actually physically intimidated (as
Schück and Reinholdsson do) or  that  the  threat was a fictional pretext  (Lönnroth
and many historians after him), the argument will become much simpler, if we do
not  have  to  explain  how  the  conversion  could  outlast  the  threat.  If  a  forced
conversion  is  not  dishonourable,  then  the  most  honourable  way  to  go  on  is  to
stick  to  the new loyalties; if a  fictional threat is used as a pretext, on  the  other
hand, then to remain converted won’t give the game away.

174

signatories of the meeting in Vadstena 1434 did not style themselves a
Council.

In both versions, this becomes a partly planned, partly improvised

meeting with councillors and  other ‘men  of the realm’; to that  extent
representative,  yet  with  no  formal  authority;  taking  sides  in  the
conflict  with  the  king  and  listing  grievances  against  him,  but  still
shrinking from taking full responsibility for their stand. On the whole
this  sounds  like  a  tentative  attempt  to  find  a  way  to  make  a  formal
withdrawal without having any evident pattern to follow, and thus as
a step in the ongoing construction of formal politics.

To identify the exponents of the many different sub-struggles

involved  in  the  rebellion  against  king  Eric  is  hardly  possible,  given
the nature of our sources. Still, it should be possible to advance some
tentative assumptions through  observing which names that appear in
which contexts, and through relating these to earlier and later events.
If  the  political  standpoints  of  the  rebellious  council  were  ‘the  same
constitutional  program’  that  was  overrun  by  Queen  Margaret  in  1397
(as  claimed  by  Lönnroth  1934:103)  we  could  begin  by  looking  for
points  of  continuity  with  the  constitutionalist  lobby  of  the  Union
negotiation.

Constitutionalists or oligarchs?
The

testamentarii

of Bo Jonsson (Grip)

Lönnroth finds such a continuity in the political ideology

formulated within the ecclesiastical opposition against Eric, containing
more and more explicit invocations of elective kingship and rule
according to the Land Law

312

. This struggle for

libertas ecclesiae

owed

a  lot  ideologically  to  the  conciliar  movement  in  which  some  of  the
protagonists  had  been  deeply  involved,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that
this  ideological  example  helped  to  reinforce  the  constitutionalist
position  within  secular  politics  as  well.  Still  we  should  be  wary  of
identifying every anti-absolutist stance as a symptom of constitutional
ideology  –  a  self-serving  preference  for  oligarchic  rule

without

any

strong ideological conviction would hardly be possible to distinguish
from a principled stand.

The specific constitutional program formulated in the ‘unification

document’ of Kalmar 1397 – now by most historians considered a

312

‘The heirs of the 14

century constitutionalists took the lead in the

rebellion’(1934:111)

175

defeated proposal which was overrun by Queen Margaret

313

– may

have  been  forgotten  on  the  Swedish  side,  as  argued  by  Christensen,
but  the  politics  of  oligarchic  opposition  to  a  centralizing  monarchy
cannot  have  been.  The  narrow  group  of  signatories  was  basically  a
residual  of  the  10-  or  18  (Counting  also  the  deputy  members.)  -
member ‘aristocratic

junta

’ formed in order to administrate the estate

of Bo Jonsson (Grip), which had made the Union possible through
offering the crown to Queen Margaret in 1388

314

. This group was

formed around a tightly knit nucleus of intermarrying aristocrats

315

buying, selling, exchanging, donating and enfeoffing land among
themselves, to ecclesiastical institutions (prebends, monasteries

etc -

especially  at  Vadstena  Abbey),  or  to  their  clients.  In  addition  to  the
eight  (regular)  secular  members,  who  counted  three  sometime
Marshals  of  the  Realm,  and  six  lawspeakers  (though  not  more  than
four  holding  office  at  the  same  time  time),  two  bishops  were
included:  Nicolaus  Hermanni  of  Linköping  and  Tord  Gunnari  of
Strängnäs.  In  addition  to  their  impeccable  spiritual  credentials  –
Nicolaus  was  well  on  his  way  to  become  a  saint,  and  Tord  Gunnari

313

The complex debate concerning the validity and apparent incompatibility of the

two  documents  dating  from  the  Kalmar  meeting:  the  ‘document  of  unification’
and  ‘letter  of  coronation’,  has  been  running  since  Paludan-Müller  critical analysis
of  the  source  material  in  1840.  Christensen  provides  a  lucid  overview  of  the
debate  (1980:131-171)  and  settles  for  a  reasonable  compromise:  the  unification
document was saved by Queen Margaret as a document of how far the magnates
were  prepared  to  go  in  the  direction  of  a  permanent  union,  and  on  what
conditions.  As  she  was  not  prepared  to  accept  these,  she  postponed  the  long-
term negotiations, and was for the moment satisfied with having gotten king Eric
acknowledged  with  much  wider  powers  granted  for  the  duration  of  his  reign.
(Although  she  formally  surrendered  the  throne  to  him  at  his  coronation  she
appears to have remained in full

de facto

control for the rest of her life.)

314

Most of the Swedish castles were held as securities by Bo Jonsson’s estate, and

by pledging to hold them to Margaret, the college of executors could endow her
with the formal suzerainty over most of the country. If she – and her new
adherents – had not been able to muster the requisite military power to make
good her claims, this formal manoeuvre would have been of no avail, of course.

315

They may have been motivated by an ideology formulated by St Bridget – a

‘Birgittine party’ according  to Engstöm’s  expression,  though  for my purposes it’s
enough  to  describe  them  as  an  oligarchic  faction,  with  or  without  a  theory  to
justify  their  position.  The  saint’s  family  and  estates  were  deeply  implicated,
though,  as  her  son,  her  brother’s  son-in-law  and  three  grandnephews  were
members of the board, as were two of her most faithful clerical supporters.

176

has been described as ‘no doubt the most erudite Swede of his time’
– they were also experts in canon law

316

This board of executors was formally dissolved in 1390, when one

among  them,  Sten  Bosson  (Natt  och  Dag),  took  over  the
responsibility  for  the  residual  estate,  although  Rosman  considers  the
former  members  of  the  college  to  have  been  regarded  as  a  ‘higher
instance’  in  doubtful  cases  (1923:292).  That  the  group  still  held
together as at least an informal lobby is shown by the fact that all of
the  seven  Swedish  signatories  to  the  ‘unification  letter’,  except  the
archbishop Henricus Caroli

317

were regular or deputy members of the

original college.

Already in the letter of allegiance to Queen Margaret from 1388,

two new substitutes had been included in the group explicitly
defining themselves as Bo Jonsson’s

testamentarii

. This shows clearly

that  the  instructions  in  the  will  had  been  followed,  stipulating  that
members  who  ‘decease,  go  abroad  on  pilgrimage  or  in  other
business, or become enemies of the realm, or do not want to take on
this  commission  fully  and  faithfully’  (Rosman  1923:358,  my
translation)  were to  be replaced through choosing worthy  substitutes
‘among  native  men’.  At  that  point  the  group  was  still  an  officially
functioning  body,  though.  The  liquidation  of  the  trust  when  Sten
Bosson (Natt och Dag) took over full responsibility for the remainder
of the  estate

318

in 1390, may have reflected a breach in the group, as

argued by Sällström 1951:60.

319

316

Nicolaus had studied at the University of Paris, where Karl Ulfsson, one of the

leading  secular  executors, had also spent  some  years. Tord Gunnari had studied
canon law  for  five  years  at  the  University  of  Prague,  where  he  had also  taught
for  four  years,  and  become  a  canon  at  the  All  Saints’  Chapel  at  the  Castle  of
Prague (Collmar 1977:51-8).

317

He might, however, be considered as a reasonable substitute for the two original

bishops. He was also deeply involved in the further landholding machinations of
the executors as a purchaser of

pantlän

(mortgage fiefs) and a major beneficiary

of land donations, parallelling the earlier roles of Nicolaus Hermanni and Tord
Gunnari in helping to put land outside the reach of royal resumption.

318

Most of the

pantlän

, which constituted the most important part of the estate,

had by then already been returned to the crown. Carlsson 1941:40f considers
that the Queen accomplished the liquidation of the trust taking care not to
alienate the individual executors.

319

He considered Sten Bosson and Ulf Jonsson to have become the ‘henchmen’ of

Queen Margaret.

177

Table 6: The executorial college created by Bo Jonsson’s testament.

relation to

signatory of

name

dead family office

Bridget

BJG

alleg

letter

unif.

letter

Nicolaus
Hermanni

1391

bishop

of Linkpg fr

1375

children’s
teacher

( † )

Thordo
Gunnari

1401

bishop

of Strgns fr

1378

Karl Ulvs-
son of Tofta

1407 Tofta

cas Sth 1364

, lsp Upl

1359-07

Msl

1364-71

nephew-

in-law

dep

his son Knut
Karlsson

1389 Tofta

lsp Sdm

1380-6(9?)

grand-

nephew

( † )

Birger
Ulvsson

1391 Ulvåsa

lsp Thd

1381-2,

Nrk

82-4

son

( † )

dep

Algot
Magnusson

1426 Sture

(II)

cas in Vgl 1388, Norrl
1405-26

(sep)

Erik Kettils-
son Puke

1396 Puke

Msl

, cas in Värml

1363-96

(sep)

( † )

dep

his nep. Kettil
Jonsson

last m

1386

Malsta hh1380-5

md 2

cousin

( †?)

Sten
Bengtsson

1408 Bielke

Msl

1376

Q's Cpt

1390

lsp Öl

1406-8

grand-

nephew

dep

his brother
Ture
Bengtsson

1414 Bielke

v lsp 1378 Vsm, cas
in Nrl 1406-14,

lsp

Upl

1409-14

grand-

nephew

Erengisle
Nilsson

1406 Ham-

mersta

cas in Finl 1380-1402

lsp Sdm

1390-1406

dep

his br-in-law
Tord Bonde

1417 Bonde cas in Finl 1378-1417

lsp Vsm

1394-1417

8 Ulv Jonsson

last m

1393

Aspe-
näs

cas in Dal 1370-78,

lsp Ögl

1389-91

cousin's

son

mother´s

cousin

( †?)

dep

Magnus Kase

1407 Kase

cas in Finl. 1385-90

son of

cousin

9 Sten Bosson

1410

/11

Natt &
Dag

cas in Finl 1368-9, in
Srm 1388-93, Cpt Nrl
1395, Kdh1385-1409

cousin's

grandson cousin

dep

his brother
Knut Bosson

1436 Natt &

Dag

precentor at Lkpg,

bishop

fr1391

cousin's

grandson

cousin

Karl
Magnusson

1421 Örnfot

2nd

cousin

10b
dep

his br-in-law
Arvid Bengtss

1401

/02

Oxen-
stierna

hh 1390-1401Tjurbo

(11)

Sten
Stensson

1431 Bielke

lsp Vsm

1374-86

grandson

-in-law

(12)

Gregers
Bengtsson

Aspe-
näs

2nd

cousin

(13)

co?

Henricus
Caroli (?)

archbishop

Uppsala

178

cas= castellan, co= co-opted member, cpt= captain, dep= deputy member, hh=

härads-

hövding

(hundred sheriff), kdh=

konungsdomhavande

(judge on behalf of the King), lsp=

lawspeaker, msl= marshal, Q’s cpt= Queen’s captain, sep= separate letter

On the other hand the entire college had cooperated to put her on

the throne, as many of them had once helped to put Albrecht there
before her

320

, and several of them had accepted responsible posts in

the service of either monarch. Loyalty to one master or another was
not the most typical trait of these people

321

, rather an ability to use

their allegiance as a  negotiable asset, and  what united them was  not
any  of  the  specific  adherences  they  had  entered  into,  but  the
common  effort to safeguard their space  for  political manoeuvre. This
may  of  course  be  regarded  as  a  struggle  for  freedom,  but  in  such  a
context liberty itself is a very exclusive privilege. Thus I have to insist
that ‘oligarchic’ is a less misleading label than ‘constitutionalist’.

The ‘unification letter lobby’

Although the material foundation for the college had disappeared,

the members had after all been united by the common task of using
its resources to serve a political goal. As a lobby or party, they – or a
faction of them – would continue, openly or clandestinely. When the
‘unification letter’ was brought into the negotiations with King Eric in
Kalmar 1436, and the Swedish delegation argued:

‘Item have our forefathers and parents in the three realms bound

themselves together thus – and we in the same way – that each shall
help the others to enjoy law and justice and in no way to diminish or
violate them’,

322

then the reference to ‘forefathers and parents’ was not just a figure

of  speech.  Only  one  of  the  Swedish  delegates  –  Nils  Erengisleson
(Hammersta)  –  was  literally  the  son  of  a  signatory  to  the  unification
letter,  but  then  only  one  more  son  of  a  signatory  of

that

letter was

320

Or, earlier, conspired to pitch Erik Magnusson against his father Magnus and

brother Håkan, and then Håkan against Magnus (Engström, Sällström, Andersson).

321

With the possible exception of Erik Kettilsson Puke. His loyalty to the old

dynasty may of course have had something to do with his seemingly semi-
independent stewardship over Värmland, and with his probable marital
connection to the royal house (see Chapter 4).

322

ST 75, p167. My translation.

179

alive at that point

323

. Nils Jönsson was not a descendant of Karl

Ulfsson, only his cousin’s son, but when his father died, Karl Ulfsson
had  been  appointed  his  guardian,  and  two  of  his  uncles  had  signed
the  original  declaration  of  allegiance  to  Queen  Margaret,  together
with  the  husbands  of  his  two  aunts.  Knut  Karlsson’s  father  had  also
signed  the  letter  of  allegiance  and  belonged  to  the  executorial
college, as had the father of one of the witnesses, Karl Bonde

324

. The

High  Steward  Christiern  Nilsson  (Vasa)  was  a  grandnephew  of  Erik
Kettilsson  Puke,  which  leaves  Magnus  Gren  as  the  only  delegate
without  closer  family  ties  to  the

testamentarii

325

The last survivor of

the  executorial  college  and  the  unification  letter  lobby,  Bishop  Knut
of  Linköping,  had  died  just  a  few  months  before  these  negotiations,
but up to that point he had been an important participant during the
entire  course  of  the  Swedish  insurrection

326

. A closer examination of

the continuity between Bo Jonsson’s trust and the magnate element in
the revolt against king Eric seems to be called for.

323

He was Gustav Algotsson (Sture), who took part in the midsummer council in

Stockholm, which Kumlien 1933:73 presumes to be convened in order to appoint
delegates  for  the  Kalmar  negotiations.  That  he  was  not  among  those  appointed
may  have  to  do  with  the  fact  that  Karl  Knutsson,  who  also  took  part  in  this
meeting, wasn’t  either - Gustav was the marshal’s brother-in-law. Kumlien’s claim
that  this meeting was dominated by  the ‘union-friendly  elements’  seems weakly
underpinned.  Nils  Gustavsson  and  Erik  Puke  took  part,  in  addition  to  Karl,
Gustav,  and  archbishop  Olaus  –  certainly  no  friend  of  king  Eric’s.  Christiern
Nilsson  (Vasa)  and  bishop  Magnus  of  Åbo  were  the  only  other  representatives
mentioned  (73n23;

BSH 2:110), and even if Hans Kröpelin and the Mayor of

Wismar  (one  of  the  mediators  in  the  conflict)  had  accompanied  them  to
Stockholm,  as  Kumlien  suggests,  the  notion  that  the  last-mentioned  four,
together  with  ‘other  Finnish  lords’,  had  succeeded  to  ‘momentarily  put  Karl
Knutsson’s  party  out  of  play’  seems  contrived.  The  tension  between  Erik  Puke
and Karl Knutsson, however, may have weakened the insurgent side.

324

Among the other witnesses, one was the son-in-law of the executor Magnus

Kase (and the nephew-in-law of another), another one was next-of-kind to Kase
(apart from his daughters) and belonged to the legatees of Bo Jonsson’s will, and
yet another one was a nephew-in-law of Gregers Bengtsson who had signed the
letter of allegiance as a co-opted member of the

testamentarii

325

His uncle Ivar Nilsson (by saltire) was one of the 21 noblemen endorsing Birger

Ulfsson’s and Sten Bengtsson’s agreement with Margareta in May 1388 (6 of
them belonged to the executorial college. Ivar’s close connection to the

testamentarii

is evidenced by his appearance as an executor in the testament of

Karl Ulfsson together with three other members of the college; it is quite
possible that he may have been a co-opted member of the board. His father was
a cousin of Karl Ulfsson, and his wife a daughter of Tord Bonde. He also became
Ulf Jonsson’s successor as the lawspeaker of Östergötland.

326

Christensen’s attempt to make him into a co-leader – with Engelbrekt – of a

supposed  hard-liner  faction  among  the  insurgents,  is  unconvincing,  though.  As
Schück points out in his review (1982), documentary  evidence for depicting him
as ‘the implacable leader of the prelates’  simply does not exist.

180

Trust or council?

Although the crucial role of the

testamentarii

has been generally

acknowledged, Swedish historians have tended to subsume this body
under the Council

327

, and treat its operations as actions by the Council

as  such,  or  by  a  ‘party’  (‘constitutional’,  ‘Birgittine’,  ‘national’  or
whatever)  within  the  Council.  However,  a  Council  as  a  permanent
corporation  with  an  existence  independent  of  the  King  calling  his
advisors, is by this period probably just a teleological mirage. In 1435
a  large  group  dominated  by  councillors  and  their  relatives  constitute
themselves  as  a  council.  This  is  a  revolutionary  act:  another  form  of
politics.

Bo Jonsson through his land transactions and his testament had

created  a  totally  different  kind  of  an  institution:  a  privatization  of
political power through setting up a ‘trust’ controlling a large portion
of  what  should  have  been  ‘the  state’.  This  was  only  an  ephemeral
phenomenon,  a  transient  tool  for  political  change  and  not  an
alternative  form  of  state-building.  (Would  it  even  be  possible  to
envision  a  private  state?)  The  estate  trust  was  created  in  order  to
enforce  a  political  solution,  but  it  was  not  in  its  power  to  dictate  its
content.  Law  and  order  had  to  be  re-established,  but  for  all  their
juridical  competence,  the  college  could  not  do  it  on  their  own.  The
‘pyramid-shape’  of  a  hierarchical  society  demanded  an  apex  tying
everything  together  (

Anderson 1974a), and what the trust could

achieve was to bargain for the best conditions attainable.

It is

probably  at this point that the path of ‘parallel centralization’ begins.
The  aristocratic-oligarchic-constitutionalist  faction  has  centralized
power  privately  and  offers  it  back  to  the  state  in  return  for  a
guaranteed participation

328

327

A ‘Council committee’ according to Schück 1976:200n13. On p 212 he states

(in  my  translation):  ‘The  executorial  college  had  formed  an  inner  circle  of  the
Council,  and  had  probably  continued  to  act  as  such  since  their  commission  had
been  concluded.’

that there is nothing ‘constitutional’ about the way this

committe had originated!

328

[

Later comment

: Today I am inclined to trace its pedigree further back in time,

reasonably to the council during King Magnus Eriksson’s minority – a compromise
between the rival sets of councillors from the preceding Civil War.]

181

Magnate politics

Within the group of actors usually lumped together as ‘the Council’,

we may search for political factions:

•

A ‘Birgittine party’ is Engström’s label for the nucleus of the
oligarchic  party  setting  up  Håkan  Magnusson  against  his
father,  banished  after  the  reconciliation  of  the  monarchs,
and  after  this  involved  in  the  Mecklenburger  invasion.  His
analysis  is  quite  strained,  though,  arguing  that  the  defence
of the integrity of the realm (that is: the retention of Scania)
had become the defining characteristic of Birgittine politics.

•

Patrons  of  the  Vadstena  Abbey  would  reasonably  be
susceptible  to  Birgittine-style  denunciations  of  tyrants,  and
the overlap with Engström’s ‘party’ is considerable. Some of
the  magnates  investing  in  prebendary  stalls  in  the  Abbey
church  might  have  had  a  purely  business  or  patronly

329

interest  in  the  foundation,  though.  This  type  of  self-interest
would reasonably tend to converge with the Abbey’s, in any
case.  Many  of the leading figures from the insurrection  had
close  connections  to  the  Abbey,  but  it  might  be  rash  to
conclude  that  it  was  a  centre  of  resistance:  after  all,  Jens
Eriksen  was  also  a  patron  and  obtained  sanctuary  there
during  the  rebellion,  even  if  his  protection  ultimately
proved insufficient.

•

Defenders of

libertas ecclesiae

we would in principle be

more  likely  to  find  within  the  cathedral  chapters  than
among the bishops, most of whom owed their sees to royal
patronage.  Archbishop  Olaus  Laurentii,  however,  had  a
strong  personal  interest  in  this  aspect,  and  his  successor
Nicolaus  Ragvaldi,  although  originally  considered  King
Eric’s  man,  seems  to  have  adopted  the  conciliar  viewpoint
during  his  extended  embassy  to  the  Church  Council  of
Basle.  Some  of  the  magnates  within  he  archdiocese  had
sided  openly  with  the  chapter  through  testifying  to  the
traditional  freedom  of  archiepiscopal  elections  (Lönnroth
1934).

•

The  internecine  struggles  between  different  pretenders  of
the  Bjälbo  dynasty had  each time subdivided the  oligarchic
elite  in  somewhat  different  ways,  partly  –  but  not

329

As the founder family usually reserved patronage rights for themselves, land

donated  to a prebendary  foundation could be put under  ecclesiastical protection
while  still  remaining  an  asset  in  building  feudal  authority.  Certain  economic
revenues  and  services,

e g

fines or (hospitality) could also be reserved by the

founder, leaving only the customary rent to the beneficiary (Norborg 1958:97ff).

182

exclusively – because new men coming to the fore as royal
aides  tended  to  be  assimilated  into  the  higher  aristocracy.
Still,  there  was  a  continuous  tradition  of  opposition  dating
back  to  the

Folkung

risings of the 13

Century, but as the

opposition to Royal power started to take the form of
collective

oligarchic

state-building, this tradition becomes

redefined in contrasting ways

330

The several occasions on which different magnates found

themselves  on  opposite  sides  may  have  caused  a  lasting  resentment
or suspiciousness in some of them,  but to  describe them in terms  of
earlier  partisanship  is  questionable,  although  loyalties  forged  during
one  period  of  strife  might  well  survive  longer  among  partisans  on  a
more  humble  level

331

, where it might not be necessary to take a

personal stand in each spectacular changes of alignment.

The final coalition dedicated to limit Albrecht’s power crystallized

into the college of

testamentarii

comprising leading members from

both sides of the earlier struggles

332

. What they had in common was

above all the necessity to safeguard a scope for independent politics
on a magnate level. To this extent they can be viewed as exponents
of a

regimen politicum

, although we might conceive of two or three

potential variants of magnate opposition, depending on where the
focus of oppositional power was located:

•

A more highly centralized version based on the functional
subdivision of executive power through the High Offices of

330

Knut Jonsson, the son of the executed

Folkung

rebel leader Johan Filipsson, first

sides with King Birger against his brothers the Dukes: Erik and Valdemar, but
later joins the former Dukes’ men in forging a new aristocratic state power
during Magnus Eriksson’s minority, and becomes (as High Steward) the leader of
this configuration. The name

folkungar

has later been mistakenly applied to that

royal dynasty which the true

Folkungs

opposed (see next note and Lönnroth

1959).

331

The designation

folkungapartiet

, is often used to cover adherents of the

misnamed “

Folkung”

(Bjälbo) dynasty

versus

Albrecht of Mecklenburg, but as the

period  of  civil  warfare  had  commenced  with  an interdynastic  strife  compounded
with  anti-absolutist  insurrection  we  should  be  wary  of  using  a  term  that  imply
adherence  to  the  disrupted  dynasty  as  such.  Their  may  be  some  substance  in
Bengt  Hildebrand’s  discernment  of  a  pro-“

Folkung”

tradition among the gentry

network  in  the  hundred  of  Rekarne,  which  he  identified  in  his  study  of  a
medieval  inheritance  process  and  its  consequences  (1934),  but  in  that  case  we
would  need  some  indications  as  to  what  political  standpoints  the  term  should
cover. Maybe a wider-based  gentry oligarchism with a stronger  sympathy  for an
executive  royal  power  to  balance  the  aristocracy,  but  as  fully  committed  to
legalism as the aristocrats?

332

E g

did the group include the highest military commander from each side, king

Albrecht’s marshal as well as king Magnus’.

183

the Realm

333

. Through the occasional office of Regent(s) it

may shade imperceptibly over into a dictatorship and a
more or less open rivalry for the Crown.

•

An only slightly wider but more federal, legalistic version
based on the office of

lagman

(‘Lawspeaker’

334

). In effect,

this office was usually more or less hereditary, or alternating
between a few magnate families

335

. Although the Land Law

only stipulated that the Lawspeaker had to be the son of a

bonde

(peasant), the word here appears to be used in the

original sense of ‘resident’ or ‘settled’, reasonably signifying
that he had to be a native of the province

336

and domiciled

there.  If  this  is  the  right  interpretation  of  the  provision,  it
was quickly attenuated though. In no way, however, should
we  imagine  that  it  signifies  a  representation  of  the
underprivileged:  the  early  lawspeakers  constituted  the  very
cream  of  the  old  magnate  stratum,  frequently  related  to  or
intermarrying with the royal or ducal houses of Scandinavia.
The

lagmän

were of equal rank although Uppland was the

most prestigious

lagsaga

337

, and its lawspeaker was

primus

inter pares

•

We might also consider the possibility of a third version,
based on the castles and the territories,

län

(‘fiefs’),

subordinate to them. The

län

system is usually considered

to have been non-feudal, as they were generally not
inheritable, but

tjänstelän

– ‘service-fiefs’ – where the

castellans (

slottsherrar

) or bailiffs (

fogdar

) held the castles at

333

Primarily the High Steward (

drots

) and the Marshal (

marsk

). Other titles appear

more occasionally, like Chancellor,

Major Domus

, Treasurer or

Camerarius

Justitiarius

and

Captain of the Realm (

rikshövitsman

334

Literally ‘law-man’, but in Latin rendered as

legifer

– ‘law-bearer’. From the

beginning each of the nine

lagmän

more or less embodied the law of his

jurisdictional district,

lagsaga,

which up to 1350-1389 each had its own respective

law code. The word

lagsaga

indicated the territory within which ‘law was spoken’

by the

lagman

;

i e

his office was to know and pronounce the meaning of the law

within his province.

335

Engström 1935:109. See chapter 4 for a more nuanced assessment of hereditary

lawspeakerships.

336

The

lagsagor

more or less corresponded with the old

landskap

(provinces).

Almquist (1954:8f) assumes that

bonde

in this case signified that the lawspeaker

could not be a

lösker karl

(vagrant) or the son of a thrall or a freedman. A

safeguard against such occurrences would seem a bit unwarranted, though.

337

Not only were the archiepiscopal see of Uppsala and the 8reputedly) traditional

scene for the election of and homage to the King of Sweden - the meadow of
Mora - located in Uppland; it was also an amalgamation of three earlier

lagsagor

Tiundaland, Attundaland, and Fjärdrundaland, and became even further expanded
when the four northernmost provinces were subsumed under Uppland (Almquist
1954:12f).

184

the will of the king or regent(s). As the

län

besides being

instruments of administration, of tax-collection and of
military control, were also used as a wage-system, yet
another variant soon arose:

pantlän

(mortgage fiefs), which

were  entrusted  to  creditors  as  securities  for  the  money
owed.  These  were  inheritable,  in  contrast  to  other  ‘fiefs’,
and  thus  constituted  a  form  of  privatized  political  power.
Bo  Jonsson’s  accumulation  of  land  largely  consisted  of

pantlän.

Queen Margaret and king Eric used the castellanies as service-fiefs,

attempting  to  channel  the  administration  of  the  entire  Union  into  a
single  hierarchical  system.  While  Queen  Margaret  appears  to  have
preferred  to  move  the  fief-holders  around,  Erik  appointed  long-term
castellans,  and  seems  to  have  appointed  bailiffs  without  local  ties  as
an  alternative  safeguard  against  ‘feudal  fragmentation’.  The  whole
point  of  either  system  was  to  prevent  feudal  fragmentation

and

the

formation of a sense of collective power, a possible opposition taking
shape among the highest level of the top-down military
administration.

Thus the councillors – all of them private landowners and providers

of armed contingents – were given no real role in the administration,
no share in the

resources

of the Crown, and were thus relegated to

the role of supplying counsel and consent only – ‘yes-men’ to turn
King Eric’s phrase the opposite way

338

. If their demand to be

enfeoffed  with  castellanies  had  been  met,  a  still  broader,
decentralized  but  strictly  hierarchical  top-down  version  of  an
oligarchy  may  have  developed  yet  another  variant  of  constitutional
opposition,  which  would  have  led  to  something  much  more  alike
what we usually think of as feudal conflicts.

Without a basis in the top-down local administration hierarchy, and

without the material  foundation  of ‘privatized state power’  which the
former  testamentarian  trust  had  to  give  up  to  Queen  Margaret  in
order  to  get  rid  of  the  Mecklenburgers;  without  any  share  in  the
centralized executive power, only two sources of political power and
possible collective opposition remained: the jurisdictional system and
the  church.  The  jurisdictional  system  was  constructed  bottom-up,  in
contrast  to  the  fiscal-military  administration.  Below  the  level  of  the
nine  lawspeakers  there  were  more  than  120

häradshövdingar

(‘hundred sheriffs’) of gentry or magnate extraction, each supported
by the twelve-man permanant jury of the hundred, staffed by peasant

338

According to the

Karlskrönika

he declared that he refused to be made the ‘yes-

lord’ of the Council.

185

notables.  An  opposition  basing  itself  upon  the  jurisdictional
administration  would  be  collegial  and  capable  of  mustering  broadly
based popular support – just like the ecclesiastic organization. In both
cases,  designation  by  royal  favour  might  lead  to  divided  loyalties.
However,  one  of  Erik’s  chief  weaknesses  appears  to  have  been  an
inadequate ability to inspire and retain loyalty among his followers.

The bishops, writing to the council in Basle, referred to the Council

as ‘

electores et proceres

…,’ evidently referring to the lawspeakers’ role

as an electoral college, like the electors of the Empire or the
cardinals. Sällström 1951:18 argues that the

testamentarii

in their

capacity as lawspeakers possessed a legitimate authority to depose
and replace a King breaking his oath, according to the

kungabalk

(King’s Code) in the Land Law

339

. However, although most of the

members of the executorial college were lawspeakers or other high
judges, only three or four were actually lawspeakers at the moment
they pledged their allegiance to Queen Margaret

340

Nils Gustavsson (Rossvik) – an upstart magnate

How come Nils Gustavsson supported the rebellion? Although he

was the lawspeaker of Uppland, and thus formally the highest secular
member  of  the  Council,  his  family  by  no  means  appears  to  have
belonged  to  the  higher  echelons  of  the  magnate  class.  All  of  the
earlier  lawspeakers  of  Uppland  had  come  from  highly  aristocratic
families. Nils Gustavsson’s closest connection to the higher aristocracy
was  through  his  maternal  grandmother,  through  whom  he  was  a
cousin of Erik Kettilsson Puke – the Marshal of king Magnus, his son
Håkan and then of Queen Margaret – who was also a member of the

testamentarii

. It is quite possible that this rather tenuous connection

had provided enough backing; that his son Erik Puke, who was to
win fame as Engelbrekt’s brother-at-arms, was named in honor of his

339

Engström 1935:82.

340

At most five, if we count Sten Stensson (Bielke) as a co-opted member, which

would  have  given  them  a  narrow  majority.  Of  course  this  would  not  make  the
change  of  allegiance  ‘constitutional’  –  a  formally  legitimate  election  would  have
required  a  congregation  of  delegates  from

all

of the nine

lagsagor

, each

delegation headed by a lawspeaker. Actually only seven of them

commanded an

independent vote, as Öland and Värmland were on such occasions included in
the delegations of their mother

lagsagor

; only those coterminous with dioceses

possessed the authority of kingmaking.

186

illustrious relative may suggest a closer personal relationship

341

(maybe as a godfather?), but it may just as well reflect the eagerness
to overstate claims to distinction typical of a

parvenu

The Statute of Alsnö had created a new gentry class which must

have  been  far  wider  than  the  old  magnate  stratum,  and  many  ‘new
men’ seem to  have  been  given a chance  for advancement during the
civil  wars  of  the  preceding  period.  Nils  Gustavsson  appears  as  a
knight  already  in  1400,  several  years  before  his  first  known  judiciary
assignment. Therefore it seems likely that he first rose to prominence
through  military  achievements,  although  he  primarily  seems  to  have
been  an  administrator  –  he  was  one  of  the  very  few  native  Swedes
endowed with fiefs by king Eric, including most of Northern Sweden,
while  his  duties  at  assizes  were  often  performed  by  deputy  judges.
Even  if  the  older  Erik  Puke  may  have  acted  as  a  sponsor  for  his
cousin,  Nils’  career  took  off  a  bit  too  late  –  Erik  Kettilsson  died  in
1396 – to have been due to nepotism alone.

Nils’ two closest predecessors as lawspeakers of Uppland had both

been members of the college of executors of Bo Jonsson’s estate: Karl
Ulfsson av Tofta – considered to have been the most illustrious
representative of the Swedish aristocracy during the 14

century –

and  Ture  Bengtsson  (Bielke),  who  at  his  death  in  1414  had  been
described as the foremost member of the Council in the obituary note
recorded  in  the  Diary  of  Vadstena  Abbey.  The  three  known
lawspeakers  before  these  had  been  closely  related  to  the  ancient

341

This kind of ‘double namesakeship’ where a young man is named after a

prominent relative - usually,  though, a maternal grandfather - and given both his
first  name  and  his  surname,  would  certainly  have  occurred  even  more  often  if
surnames had been in general use. As it is we can still point  to  the cases of  Bo
Djure,  Hans  Kröpelin,  Fjellar  Pik,  Sven  Sture,  Ragvald  Puke  and  Nils  Guse.  (Nils
[Nilsson] Guse, the younger, is better known under the alternative designation of
Guse Nilsson). Sten Sture the younger might be seen as a somewhat parallel case
although he – like Erik Puke! - was not closely related to the older regent of the
same name, and besides he already had a claim to the same surname through his
grandfather. The political motivation for the namesakeship is obvious in his case,
though.

187

lineage of the Earls of Sweden

342

traditionally but erroneously

designated the

Folkung

dynasty. St Bridget’s father Birger, whose wife

belonged to the ‘lawspeaker branch’ of this dynasty, Bridget’s brother
Israel  and  Magnus  Gregersson,  illegitimate  great  great  grandson  of
Earl  Birger,  the  founder  of  the  royal  branch.  Karl  Ulfsson  was  also
descended from a sideline  of the Folkungs through his  grandmother,
and  his  marriage  to  a  daughter  of  Israel  Birgersson  tied  him  even
closer  into  the  highest  aristocracy.  Ture  Bengtsson’s  maternal
grandmother  was  St  Bridget’s  sister,  and  thus  all  of  the  earlier
lawspeakers  were  in  some  way  related  to  the  first  lawspeaker  of
Uppland, as well as to the Earls and the Kings.

In this company Nils Gustavsson’s ancestry seems decidedly minor

league,  and  with  the  following  lawspeakers  we  return  to  the  highest
aristocracy:  Ture  Stensson  (Bielke)  who  is  the  grandson  of  Karl
Ulfsson  as  well  as  of  Ture  Bengtsson;  then  Bengt  Jönsson
(Oxenstierna)  whose  family  is  just  rising  to  real  prominence

343

, but

whose grandmothers were both daughters of lawspeakers belonging
to the ancient lineages (Aspenäs and Sparre av Tofta; the latter – Karl

342

Earl or

Jarl

was in early Medieval Sweden an Office of the Realm rather than a

noble  rank.  Though  not  directly  inheritable  it  seems  to  have  been  in  practice
confined  to  one  single  family  or  clan,  intermarrying  with  the  two  alternating
Swedish  royal  houses  as  well  as  with  Danish  and  Norwegian  royalty.  The  Earls
tended  to  take  over

de facto

rule, much like the holders of the office of

major

domus

in the Frankish realm, and, like these, they eventually assumed royal title

for their dynasty. The last of the Earls of Sweden (the only later

Jarl

known in

Sweden,  Erengisle  Suneson,  got  his  title  through  marrying  the  daughter  of  the
last  Norwegian  Earl  of  Orkney),  Birger  Jarl,  ruled  Sweden  as  a  regent  for  his
under-age  son,  king  Valdemar.  The  non-royal  sidelines  of  the  Bjälbo  dynasty
(traditionally  called  the

Folkung

dynasty, although this seems to have been a

party name used by the oppositon against royal centralization

Lönnroth 1959)

came  to form some of  the most prestigious  early aristocratic lineages of Sweden.
One  branch  descended  from  Earl  Birger’s  elder  brother  Bengt,  bishop  Bengt  of
Linköping, became lawspeakers of Östergötland, and another from his illegitimate
son  Gregers  Birgersson.  Other  branches  descend  from  Earl  Knut’s  daughter
Cecilia  (the  so-called  Aspenäs  lineage),  from  Earl  Karl  the  Deaf’s  grandson  Ulf
(the  family  known  as  ‘Ulv’  –¨  Wolf  –  from  their  coat  of  arms,  showing  a  wolf
regardant),  or  his  granddaughter  Ingeborg  (ancestress  of  the  family  Sparre  av
Tofta).

343

The emphasis Hans Gillingstam puts on Bengt’s title of

Upplandslagman

marking  a  new  level  of  prominence  for  his  family,  puts  Nils  Gustafsson’s  career
into  its  proper  perspective.  Bengt  Jönsson’s  father,  uncle  and  paternal
grandfather  had  been  knights,  his  uncle,  uncle-in-law  and  both  of  his
grandfathers  councillors.  His  uncle  had  been  a  member  of  Bo  Jonsson’s

testamentarii

, together with his two uncle-in-laws, his half-uncle had been co-

opted into the trust and taken part in their offering the Swedish crown to
Margareta, and the most illustrious member of that circle – Karl Ulfsson of Tofta –
had become the guardian of Bengt and his brother Nils when their father died.
Even from such a position the lawspeakership marked a very significant advance.

188

Ulfsson’s uncle – was a High Steward as well). If we instead compare
Nils Gustavsson to his contemporaneous colleagues from the other

lagsagor

, we find that

Nils Erengisleson (Hammersta)

Södermanland and Karl (Tordsson) Bonde of Västmanland are both
second generation

344

lawspeakers with illustrious pedigrees; on a

similar level we find Bengt Stensson (Natt och Dag) of Närke, whose
great grandfather was a second generation lawspeaker, and who
belonged to a most exalted lineage. All of these three were also sons
of Bo Jonsson’s

testamentarii

Arvid Svan of Tiohärad, Björn Nilsson (Vinge) of Värmland, Olof

Ragvaldsson (Lindö lineage) of Östergötland, and possibly also Knut
Jonsson (Tre Rosor) of Västergötland, may at a first glance seem more
comparable to Nils Gustavsson - relatively ‘new’ men rising from local
gentry families to magnate status

345

. Although Arvid Svan’s career may

have  started  more  or  less  from  scratch,  that  of  Nils  Gustafsson  must
be  reckoned  yet  more  spectacular:  it  endowed  him  with  the  highest
secular  rank  available  at  a  time  when  the  High  Offices  of  the  Realm
had  fallen  into  desuetude.  During  the  conflict  over  the

344

Linton’s contention that Nils’ father Erengisle Nilsson was a third generation

lawspeaker, is erroneous (his grandson, Erengisle Nilsson the younger, was). He
also misrepresents Erengisle’s family as belonging to the house of ‘Natt och Dag’
(

n345 below) instead of ‘Hammersta lineage’, which is the correct modern

usage. This confusion is probably due to the clumsy expression ‘Natt och Dag på
längden’  (‘Night  and  Day  by  pale’)  used  by  early-modern  genealogists  to
describe their blazon, resembling a vertical transposition of  that of Natt och Dag,
but of different tints.

345

Maybe this reflects an attempt by King Eric to undermine the positions of the

traditional aristocracy, or maybe it’s just a sign of increasing  social mobility. Knut
Jonsson’s  background  is  probably  underrated  here.  According  to  the  old  and
often unreliable rolls of lawspeakers in Stiernman (SGH), his grandfather had also
been  a  lawspeaker  of  Västergötland,  but  in  the  modern  standard  handbooks,
Almquist1954  and  1955,  the  older  Knut  Jonsson  is  not  mentioned.  Almquist,
however,  does  not  list  any  other  lawspeaker  for  the  years  reported  by
Stiernman, and as Knut Jonsson  the older had married  the daughter of an  earlier

lagman

(SK 103f) – a common background for new entrants – Stiernman might

have  been  right  after  all.  Even  if  he  wasn’t,  the  younger  Knut  Jonsson’s  third
generation  descent  from  the  distinguished  aristocrat  Bengt  Hafridsson  puts  his
social  backround  on  a  distinctly  higher  level  than  Nils  Gustafsson’s.  Arvid  Svan
appears to have been of a much more humble origin. From the entry in SK 298 it
does  not  even  appear  obvious  that  his  father  had  been  a  gentleman;  in
Härenstam 1946:316 his father-in-law is identified as a local gentryman appearing
as a co-judge with lawspeaker and bishop in a Royal inquiry court /

räfsteting

/ in

1414). Olof Ragvaldsson had succeeded his father Ragvald Filipsson as

häradshövding

in Siende before he became

lagman

in Östergötland, and his

grandfather  had  been  a  knight  (ÄSF64).  Through  his  mother  he  was  related  to
the  aristocratic  lineage  of  Aspenäs,  which  would  put  him  on  the  same  level  as
Knut Jonsson.

189

archiepiscopate of  Uppsala, it is doubtful  whether any Swede can be
said to have outranked him, although all bishops were routinely listed
first  in  Council  documents.  In  the  absence  of  a  functioning
archbishop,  his  only  serious  rival  would  have  been  Bishop  Knut
Bosson of Linköping, whose seniority, aristocratic birth

346

and position

as visitator of Vadstena Abbey augmented the traditional distinction of
his see.

That Engelbrekt so soon obtained the support of Nils Gustavsson

and his son Erik Puke has been interpreted as a sign that he from the
beginning must have had contacts ‘among the highest aristocracy’ (EL
in Sc1995;

BH 1935, GC in SBL). In the light of the comparison

above,  we  may  view  such  assertions  from  a  different  angle:
Engelbrekt’s  spectacular  career  from  a  mixed  miner-burgher-
gentryman background to the Captaincy of the Realm, is rivalled and
foreshadowed by that of Nils Gustavsson.

Felicitous marital connections may have helped him on his way,

but may also be symptoms of his rise rather than causes. His first
marriage

347

had strengthened his connections with the testamentarial

league  through  marrying  a  niece  of  its  least  distinguished  member
(Magnus  Kase).  His  sister’s  marriage,  which  may  have  occurred
earlier,  provided  him  with  a  link  to  the  lawspeaker  dynasties:  She
married  a  cousin  of  Magnus  Gregersson,  belonging  to  the  same
(illegitimate) sideline of the royal house (ÄSF45).

Nils’ son Erik Puke

348

, ambitiously christened after the Marshal of

King Magnus, King Håkan and Queen Margaret, took a further step
into the inner circles of aristocratic power through marrying the

346

Brilioth 1925:193 observes that his admission fee to the University of Prague

equalled  that  of  a  Count  of  Mansfeld  registered  the  same  year.  His  family, later
known  as  Natt  och  Dag  (‘Night  and  Day’  –  from  their  blazon:  per  fess  or  and
azure), is considered ‘the oldest noble house of purely Swedish extraction’ (SBL).

347

His second, (Gillingstam 1952:64f, n349) or maybe third (Hildebrand 1935:76)

marriage was to a niece of the lawspeaker Bengt Stensson (Natt och Dag) from
Närke. She was thus a cousin of Engelbrekt’s murderer-to-be Magnus Bengtsson.

348

The protracted controversy regarding Erik Puke’s identity – whether the rebel

leader was really Nils Gustafsson’s son, or identical with another aristocrat, Erik
Pedersson Puke – seems to have been closed by the thorough investigation in
Hildebrand 1934:53-9 (but

Olofsson 1962 who appears unconvinced).

190

daughter of Nils Erengisleson (Hammersta), lawspeaker of
Södermanland – the home province of Nils Gustavsson

349

Nils Erengisleson (Hammersta) – a link to the past

Nils Erengisleson of Hammersta was one of the central members of

the council and the son of Herr Erengisle Nilsson the older, who had
been a member of Bo Jonsson’s

testamentarii

, one of the magnates

who pledged the Swedish crown to Queen Margaret in 1388, and one
of the signatories  of the unification letter at Kalmar in  1397.  Nils  had
himself attended the Union negotiations, and when his father died in
1406,  Nils  soon  succeeded  him  as  lawspeaker  of  Södermanland  and
as a judge in the Royal Inquiry Court  for the same  province,  passing
verdicts  on  ‘illegal’  enfeoffments  and  donations  from  king  Albrecht’s
reign,  together  with  his  uncle  Sten  Bengtsson  (also  a  member  of  the
executorial college and a signatory of the unification letter). Through
his mother Margareta Bengtsdotter – a sister of two of the signatories
– he was also related to St Bridget, who was her grandaunt, and after
the  death  of  his  first  wife

350

he married the granddaughter of Bo

Jonsson.

As I have mentioned above, the Swedish delegates to the

negotiations  with  king  Eric  had  appealed  to  the  contents  of  the
unification letter, and among those who could  rightly refer to this as
the  work  of their ‘forefathers and  parents’,  Nils Erengisleson  was the
foremost. His father and his two uncles had all signed the letter

351

Despite this massive aristocratic background, Nils Erengisleson

seemed to have belonged (Fritz 1973:56f) – with Algot Magnusson

349

That he became lawspeaker in Uppland while his manor was located in

Södermanland reinforces the impression that he was put there for administrative
purposes, perhaps primarily because the whole of Norrland (the northern parts of
Sweden) sorted under the

lagsaga

of Uppland. This appointment would thus have

been  an  early  example  of  the  late  medieval  appointment  of  out-of-province
magnates  as  lawspeakers,  described  in  LDS  p9  as  a  practice  through  which  the
Crown  attempted  to  circumvent  the  local  nomination  procedure.  Maybe  king
Eric’s behaviour at the appointment of High Steward and Marshal according to the

Karlskrönika

gives us a clue to how this was achieved. When the Council

presented three nominees to the Stewardship, he rejected  the candidates and in
his turn presented three nominees of more mature age for the council to choose
among.  Using  similar  turntable  tactics  against  the  lawspeaker  nomination  boards
may have yielded the desired effect.

350

The mother of Erik Puke’s wife Birgitta. Her descent was equally distinguished:

she was a sixth generation descendant of Earl Birger.

351

His first father-in-law Magnus Håkansson was one of the 21 signatories to the

letter endorsing the offer of the Crown to Margareta, sealing the document as
number four, in advance of four of the executors.

191

(Sture II

352

– water lily leaves), Nils Gustavsson (Rossvik) and Bengt

Stensson  (Natt  och  Dag)  –  to  the  group  of  trade-oriented
administrators  essential  to  Erik’s  economic  and  administrative  policy
(Lönnroth  1934,  1940;  Fritz  1972,  1973). According to  recent  findings
cited by Rahmquist (1996), he may have been the first man to exploit
the  later  so  famous  mining  district  around  Dannemora  (the  original
source of ‘Oreground iron’). This of course strengthens the economic
interpretation  of  the  ‘Engelbrekt  rebellion’,  as  one  of  the  key
aristocratic  allies  of  the  rebel  leader  may  have  shared  his  trading
interests.  On  the  other  hand  the  economic  motive  might  no  longer
depend  upon  widespread  trade  disturbances  in  the  Dalecarlian
mining districts; it could have been a private, factional motive uniting
the rebel leaders rather than a general motive underlying the popular
insurrection

353

Another councillor who seems to have been closely connected to

Nils  Erengisleson’s  circle,  was  Gotskalk  Bengtsson,  belonging  to  an
ancient  sideline  of  the  Earls  of  Sweden,  known  from  their  blazon  as
Ulv or ‘tillbakaseende ulv’ (wolf regardant). His father Bengt Filipsson
had  died  in  1383  (LHS),  and  had  therefore  not  been  involved  in  the
testamentarial dispositions of Bo Jonsson, although he seems to have
been  one  of  the  High  Steward’s  closest  associates;  according  to
Engström, ‘one of the most decided and influential spokesmen of the
Birgittine  party  ...  appearing  time  and  again  in  close  co-operation
with  Bo  Jonsson’

354

. His third wife was Cecilia Ulfsdotter, a daughter

of  St  Bridget,  and  although  Gotskalk  had  been  born  in  the  second
marriage,  he  must  have  become  fatherless  so  early  as  to  have  been
brought  up by his step-mother, and thus also as a nephew  of Birger
Ulfsson, one of the leaders of  Bo  Jonsson’s

testamentarii

355

. Gotskalk

appears together with Nils Erengisleson as a signatory of the
coronation letter in 1397, and as one of the witnesses testifying to the
traditional freedom of archiepiscopal elections in 1432. He also signs

352

SMV 451 – carrying three water-lily leaves in their escutcheon, in contrast to the

lineage Sture I (SMV 340 - a ram’s head).

353

In this case, it might weaken Larsson’s argument (1984:131f and later) against

the trade-motive interpretation, as private interests could have been threatened
by Eric’s trade policies even in the absence of a general slump.

354

Engström 1935:60 (my translation).

also 1935:32, 52-55, 60, 63f, 117, and

219.

355

Gotskalk’s mother-in-law Katarina Glysingsdotter was the sister of Birger’s wife

and  also  the  widow  of  his  brother  Karl  Ulfsson  av  Ulvåsa.  Another  connection
between the families went through Gottskalk’s grandmother Gödelin von Kyren,
whose  cousin  had  married  St  Bridget’s  daughter  Katarina,  who  was  also
considered a saint.

192

the second withdrawal of allegiance letter from Arboga jan 11, 1436

356

and appears in the ‘Engelbrekt Chronicle’ as one of the negotiators
with the castellan of Stockholm.

THE COURSE OF THE REVOLUTION

The outbreak of the rebellion

How are we to interpret the origin of the rebellion? Even if there

are signs that Engelbrekt at least would have been acquainted

357

with

Nils  Gustavsson’s  family  through  his  own  (or  his  brother’s)
landholding  in  the  hundred  of  Västerrekarne,  it  is  by  no  means
necessary  to  assume  a  premeditated  insurrection  plan  to  explain  the
course  of  events.  That  Engelbrekt  acted  as  spokesman  for  the
Dalecarlians  in  their  complaints  against  Jens  Eriksen;  that  the  lack  of
redress made the plaintiffs march on the castle; that the King referred
the  matter  to  the  Council;  that  they  judged  in  favour  of  the  litigants
and  replaced  Jens Eriksen with Count  Hans  von Eberstein

358

; that the

King  refused  to  countenance  the  shift  of  castellans,  and  that  this
rekindled the rebellion, is by no means such an implausible chain of
events  that  we  have  to  introduce  supplementary  hypotheses.  The
chronicle  refers  to  a  rumour  that  king  Eric  planned  to  send  them  an
even worse bailiff in place of Jens Eriksen, as sparking off the second
rising.

This certainly sounds contrived, but we do not have to speculate as

to what kinds of rumours might have been circulating, and why - the
king’s  refusal  to  accept  the  verdict  would  appear  to  be  a  good
enough  motive  to  resume  the  struggle,  and  also  as  so  humiliating  a
treatment  of  his  Councillors,  especially  the  lawspeakers,  that  their
support  of  the  rising  seems  quite  consistent.  That  Melchior  Görtz
surrenders  the  castellany  and  that  Nils  Gustavsson  (Rossvik)  takes

356

Carlsson 1934:22; also

Kumlien 1933:51, although the list of names there is

incomplete; moreover he assumes without motivation that ‘maybe also
Engelbrekt and Erik Puke’ took part.

357

Sealing the same documents of land transactions, however, only confirms a

business connection which may be completely ephemeral. That Engelbrekt’s seal
appears on the same document as Erik Puke’s brother’s is no evidence that their
brotherhood-in-arms antedated the insurrection - Engelbrekt had once sealed a
document together with Jens Eriksen as well.

358

Who appointed Melchior Görtz to hold the castle as his subcaptain. That the

Council chose a non-Swedish, loyal follower of King Eric as Jens Eriksen’s
replacement, shows that they took pains to evade any impression of oppositional
behaviour, and tried to minimize the political implications of the verdict.

193

over  seems  perfectly  logical.  Görtz  commands  the  castle  only  on
behalf of Count Hans, who has  been appointed through a  verdict by
a  court  led  by  the  foremost  lawspeaker,  Nils  Gustavsson.  According
to the chronicle,  Görtz makes no  resistance,  but defers his surrender
until  the  evening,  when  Nils  Gustavsson  and  other  ‘good  men’
appear,  rallied  there  by  Engelbrekt.  Engelbrekt’s  leading  role  in  the
seizure  of  the  castle  thus  seems  a  bit  undermotivated.  Maybe  he
personally  forced  the  course  of  events,  as  the  chronicle  depicts  the
situation, or maybe the offended judge just chose  to uphold his own
verdict, thus legitimizing the insurrectious levy by his appearance.

That Nils took over outside the bounds of his own

lagsaga

, rather

than  the  regional  lawspeaker,  Karl  (Tordsson)  Bonde,  may  be  an
argument  in  favour  of  Engelbrekt’s  leading  role  at  this  moment.
Conversely,  it  might  indicate  that  the  authoritative  leadership  rested
with  Sir  Nils.  Other  alternatives  are  that  Karl  Bonde  did  not  want  or
dare to take this stand in defiance of the King, or that he was absent.

Karl appears as captain of Raseborg in Finland on at least one

occasion in 1412 (SD 1567;

Fritz 1973:139f

), a post which he seems

to  have  inherited  from  his  father  Tord  Bonde,  as  well  as  his
lawspeakership,  and  which  he  later  resumed  if  he  had  not  upheld  it
all along (FMU 336 for 1439; Gillingstam 1952:221). It is thus possible
that  he  had  had  further  undertakings  colliding  with  his  post  as

lagman

in Västmanland and Dalecarlia. His relation to the King may

also  have  been  better  than  that  of  most  of  the  councillors.  In  this
aspect  he  would  have  resembled  his  uncle  Christiern  Nilsson  (Vasa),
to whom he was closely allied. Both of them were also sons-in-law of
powerful Danish councillors. An indication that king Eric counted him
as a loyal follower, is that the King in 1435 send him to Kastelholm to
replace  Erik  Puke,  who  refused  to  accept  his  dismissal  and  threw
Bonde in the tower (Gillingstam 1952:212; FMU 2180).

It is of course impossible to guess, whether Karl Bonde was

bypassed  as  castellan  of  Västerås  because  he  was  considered
untrustworthy, or if he sided with the King because he felt offended.
Yet  another  possible  interpretation  is  that  the  case  may  have  been
conceived  to  lie  under  the  collective  jurisdiction  of  the  lawspeakers
and/or the councillors, as

konungsdomhavande

(judging on behalf of

the King), and that upholding the verdict thus became a matter for
the ‘national’ (regnal) level rather than the regional. It is also possible
that all of these explanations apply, or some of them.

Most important, however, must be the convergence of interests

between Engelbrekt and Nils at this point of the rebellion; we should

196

That  an  attack  burning  down  a  castle  deserted  by  its  commander
should  be  described  as  mortally  dangerous  seems  exaggerated.  A
more  reasonable  interpretation  of  this  phrase,  is  that  through  taking
command  of  the  attack,  Engelbrekt  stakes  his  life  on  the  success  of
the rebellion. This is the point of no return, and that it is done for the
sake  of  ‘the  realm’  implies  a  wider  perspective  than  just  demanding
redress  of  the  original  grievances

359

. Through extending the attack to

other  castellans,  the  peasants  had  defied  royal  authority  altogether.
Did  they  enter  upon  this  attack  spontaneously,  or  was  Engelbrekt
(with  or  without  predeterminate  backing)  the  driving  force  in  the
extension,  as  historians  have  habitually  assumed  (Carlsson
1941:259f.)?

The first burned castle

Nothing in the chronicle intimates that Engelbrekt took part in the

burning  of  the  first  castle,  Borganäs.  The  Venetian  commander
Giovanni  Franco’s  retreat  to  his  main  stronghold  of  Stegeborg  is
explicitly  credited  to  the  peasants’  marching  into  Västmanland,
threatening  his  fortress  at  Köping.  Engelbrekt  is

after this

mentioned

as a

potential

threat:

‘he [Franco] meant to build [fortify] it [Stegeborg] so
that, Engelbrekt would it never get’.

This may be formulated in hindsight, or it may indicate that

Engelbrekt’s  involvement  followed  immediately  upon  the  arrival  of
the  peasants. A third alternative is that  Engelbrekt’s participation was
implied  by  mentioning  the  peasants,  as  they  had  chosen  him  to  be
their  captain  during  the  earlier  march  to  Västerås.    It  is  of  course
possible  to  assume  this,  but  throughout  the  remainder  of  the
chronicle, Engelbrekt is mentioned as the acting subject whenever he
is  present.  As  the  norm  seems  to  be  to  imply  the  peasants  when
mentioning their leader, and as the  peasants are  mentioned so rarely
that  this  appears  to  be  confined  to  cases  when  they  are  acting
without  an  ‘official’  leader,  I  can  only  conclude  that  Engelbrekt  did
not  take  part  in  the  burning  of  Borganäs,  and  joined  up  with  the
peasants  at  the  siege  of  Köping  or  probably  on  the  road  there  –  his
presumed  domicile  in  Engelsberg  (Larsson  1984:122)  lay  more  than
halfway  on  the  road  towards  Köping.  There  is  no  reason  to  assume

359

If this is Engelbrekt’s original perspective, or if it is ascribed to him in retrospect

by the chronicle, is one of the insoluble controversies surrounding the rebellion.

197

that the chronicle understates Engelbrekt’s role, at least not until Karl
Knutsson starts to appear as his rival.

When Nils Gustavsson (Rossvik) takes charge of the castle of

Västerås in the subsequent episode this appears as an effort to restore
legitimate authority, and Engelbrekt’s taking command  of the levy as
an  effort  to  provide  a  spontaneous  rising  with  leadership  and
direction.  Both  of  these  men  had  high  ambitions,  and  Nils’  son  Erik
Puke  maybe  even  higher

360

. The next section of the chronicle shows

him  organizing risings in Norrland and  Finland, according to the text
following  a  summons  from  Engelbrekt,  who  offered  him  the
command  over  all  of  Norrland.  However,  as  acting  castellan  of
Korsholm  (on  his  father’s  behalf)  he  already  commanded  the
northernmost  parts  of  Norrland.  His  subordinate  role  in  relation  to
Engelbrekt has no real foundation outside the chronicle, and as he is
to  become  Karl  Knutsson’s  most  dangerous  rival  after  Engelbrekt’s
death, his independent position as a rebel leader

beside

Engelbrekt

361

is consistently underplayed in the text.

The bishops

The conflict over the archbishopric of Uppsala had left the Swedish

bishops  humiliated  whether  or  not  they  sympathized  with  Olaus
Laurentii’s  hard  line  in  the  struggle  for  canonical  election  rights.  A
few  aristocratic  sympathizers  had  openly  supported  the  chapter,  but
though  the  King’s  autocratic  handling  of  the  matter  had  caused
resentment, open challenge had been silenced. The case against Jens
Eriksen,  though,  had  escalated  into  a  full-scale  denunciation  of  the
Swedish  jurisdictional  system  from  the  king.  Already  deprived  of  a
share in executive power through the vacancy of the High Offices of
the  Realm,  and  largely  disconnected  from  the  fiscal/military
administration,  the  Swedish  council  aristocracy  were  faced  with  the
threat of being pushed back to merely local or regional prominence –
a  sort  of  ‘feudal  fragmentation’  not  of  royal  power,  but  of  the
collective  oligarchic  power  accumulated  by  the  Swedish  aristocracy
during more than a century of struggles between rival contenders for

360

The later section of

Karlskrönikan

usually referred to as the ‘marshal chronicle’

(

Marskkrönikan

) accuses him of royal ambitions. As the main objective of that

section is to justify Karl Knutsson’s gradual elimination of his rivals it is of course
not to be trusted; that Puke had no intention to stand back to Karl Knutsson
seems obvious though.

361

Eric of Pomerania tends to single them out and lump them together as

‘Engelbrekt and Erik Puke’ which shows that Engelbrekt is the most important
enemy, but also that Puke is an enemy on a comparable level.

198

the crown. The only higher-level positions of public power still under
magnate  control  were  the  lawspeakerships,  in  general  only
possessing  a  regional  authority,  but  collectively  upholding  the
important function of electing the King.

Eric’s arguments in the archiepiscopal struggle showed that he

considered  himself  to  be  hereditary  king  of  Sweden,  and  his
appointment  policy  for  castellans/bailiffs  showed  that  he  was
determined  to  circumvent  electional  procedure  through  binding  the
castellans in fealty to himself

and

to his designated successor. As long

as this ‘overlord in expectancy’ was the apparently quite popular
queen Philippa

362

, this may not have seemed too dangerous, but

already long before her death in 1430 Eric started to insert his cousin
Duke Bogislaus of Pomerania, who had no Scandinavian ancestry
whatsoever, into this oath of ‘second or third instance fealty’ (

Christensen 1980:181-7). As control over the castle-fiefs had been the
device through which Bo Jonsson and his

testamentarii

undercut the

sovereignty of king Albrekt and transferred it to Queen Margaret, the
danger must have been quite apparent at least to men like bishop
Knut, the only surviving member of the

testamentarii

, and Nils

Erengisleson (Hammersta), Bengt Stensson (Natt och Dag), Laurens
Ulvson (Aspenäs), Sture Algotsson (Sture II)

363

, Karl (Tordsson)

Bonde, and Knut Karlsson (Örnfot), the oldest and most high-ranking
among  the  sons  of  the  others.  Of  course  this  group  cannot  be
expected  to  have  inherited  their  fathers’  alliance,  as  its  material
foundation  -  the  collection  of  castle  securities  -  had  disappeared.  It’s
quite  reasonable  to  expect,  though,  that  something  of  the  traditions
and  experience  of  strategic  political  manoeuvring  and  of  the  tactical
methods  developed  through  a  century  of  political  strife  had  been
transmitted to this generation.

362

The sister of King Henry V of England, Philippa’s extensive dower was located

entirely  in  Sweden,  which  brought  her  into  closer  contact  with  the  Swedish
council,  especially on  the numerous occasions  when  she acted as Regent in  the
absence  of  her  husband.  Her  chancellor  was  the  future  bishop  Thomas  of
Strängnäs (Schück in RBR).

363

Also known as Anund Sture. He died before the rising, but his brother Gustav

Algotsson  took  part  in  the  revolutionary  council  of  1435,  and  played  a  more
prominent  role  in  the  following  conflicts.  Gustavs  son  Sten  Sture  (the  older)
eventually became a regent, ruling Sweden for the unprecedented duration of 27
consecutive  years.  (Magnus  Eriksson’s  reign  of  over  40  years  appears  to  be
much longer, but the  time from his majority  to his son’s first rebellion is at most
25 years).

199

The role of the Lawspeakers

When the councillors, and the most prominent lawspeakers among

them, found themselves in the position of a court of appeal when the
King referred the case of Jens  Eriksen to them, they acted  with  great
circumspection;  still  the  King  refused  to  sanction  their  verdict.  To
accept this affront would have been to  yield  from the  only positions
of  independent  power  remaining  to  them  –  as  interpreters  of  the
Swedish Land Law, which was binding also to the King. If we believe
their own statement in the negotiations with king Eric in Kalmar 1436,
they  had  done  their  utmost  to  make  him  resume  the  responsibility
and judge the case  himself

364

. The only alternative left open to them,

short  of rebellion,  would have  been to  revoke their own  verdict and
abandon  any  pretense  to  mediate  between  the  king  and  his
oppositional  subjects.  During  this  crisis  of  authority,  the  peasants
burn down the castle of Borganäs.

Did the councillors opt for rebellion already at this point, only after

Engelbrekt  had  assumed  leadership  of  a  full-scale  rebellion  against
the  foreign  bailiffs, or only after  Nils  Gustavsson (Rossvik) had made
his  choice  between  his  two  incompatible  roles:  as  the  most  high-
ranking  among  king  Eric’s  Swedish  fiefholders,  and  as  the  foremost
representative  of  the  Swedish  jurisdictional  system?  In  any  case  Nils
Gustavsson’s  open  defiance  of  his  liege  lord  marked  a  decisive  step
in  the  rising,  as  it  provided  the  rebellion  with  legitimacy.  Were  the
other  lawspeakers  behind  him  in  taking  this  step,  or  did  they  only
join  later?  At  least  one  lawspeaker  can  with  high  probability  be
assumed to have taken part in this decision.

Nils Erengisleson’s role

He was Nils Erengisleson (Hammersta), the lawspeaker of

Södermanland,  where  the  peasants  from  Rekarne  had  already
attacked  Gripsholm (which  was  burned  down by its fleeing captain),
and who was entrusted the captaincy of the first castle surrendered to
Engelbrekt  after  Västerås

365

. Nils Erengisleson was, as I have argued,

together with bishop Knut Bosson (Natt och Dag) the most important
link to the  group  of magnates  who had  offered the throne to Queen
Margaret,  and  who  had  attempted,  without  (full)  success  to  wrest
binding  declarations  from  her  concerning  the  union.  He  was  also

364

See the quote below, page 201.

365

Which, as I argue, would have been surrendered to Nils Gustavsson rather than

to Engelbrekt.

200

connected  to  Nils  Gustavsson  (Rossvik)  through  the  marriage  of  his
daughter  Birgitta  to  Erik  Puke,  and  through  their  common  residence
in the province of Södermanland.

He was also one of the guests at Nils Gustavsson’s third(?)

wedding

366

. Herman Schück (1994) has argued that the conspicuous

attention  paid to  Nils  Gustavsson, Erik Puke and  Nils  Erengisleson in
the  Engelbrekt  Chronicle,  and  also  to  the  Stockholm  castellan  Hans
Kröpelin,  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  presumed  author,  the  Council’s
scrivener Johan Fredebern, owned an estate in Södermanland as well
as  a  house  in  Stockholm,  where  he  and  Hans  Kröpelin  were  both
members of the Guild of Saint Gertrude. A simpler explanation might
be  that  the  three  Södermanland  residents  really  did  play  such
important roles in the rebellion, that the attention is justified.

Erik Puke’s prominence in the rising is unquestionable, and so is

Nils  Gustavsson’s  –  at  least  as  the  first  magnate  to  openly  side  with
the  rebels.  If  my  interpretation  of  the  surrender  of  Västerås  Castle  is
correct, he should have  deserved  even  more attention, and the  same
thing  goes  for  Nils  Erengisleson  (Hammersta),  who  has  put  his  seal
under  a  greater  number  of  important  documents  from  this
insurrection,  than  has  any  other  participant,  except  perhaps  bishop
Thomas.  That  Kröpelin,  although  an  adversary,  is  treated  with  such
an evident sympathy may owe more to Fredebern’s personal contacts.
Kröpelin’s

importance

, as a constant mediator in the conflict, is borne

out by the documents as well.

I would find it harder to motivate why the unsuccessful attempt to

storm  the  castle  of  Stegeborg  is  described  in  such  detail,  paying
meticulous attention to every gentleman involved in the attempt. Here
the  ‘public  relations’  aspect  of  the  chronicle  seems  much  more  in
evidence  –  everone  is  entitled  to  his  own  fifteen  minutes  of  fame.
Alternatively, Karl Knutsson (Bonde) – who appears for the first time
in  this  episode  –  played  such  a  modest  role  in  the  attack,  that
everyone who was higher in command had to be fitted in as well.

The second Darlecarlian rising

The cause of the rekindled rebellion remains obscure. Jens (Jösse)

Eriksen had already been replaced by Count Hans von Eberstein – or
rather by the  Count’s  vice-bailiff  Melchior  Görtz  –  although a  referral
from  Hanseatic  witnesses  present  at  the  treaty  of  Kalmar  in  1436
quotes  the  Swedish  councillors  as  reminding  king  Eric  of  his  refusal

366

Hildebrand 1935:76; according to Gillingstam 1952:64f, n349 it was probably his

second wedding.

201

to heed their plea to come to Sweden and judge between Jens
Eriksen and the Dalecarlians

367

. It appears as though King Eric had

refused to confirm the replacement. The Engelbrekt Chronicle reports
that the peasants had been prepared to burn down the castle in
1433(?) and that only when

the Council

had removed Jens were they

appeased. (EK 54)

A possible interpretation: According to the chronicle, the peasants’

complaints to the King were left unheeded (EK 49 claims that Eric just
sent  the  letters  of  grievances  to  the  bailiffs,  and  that  they  responded
by punishing the peasants for their complaints), and when they chose
Engelbrekt as their spokesman and sent him to complain in person to
the  King,  the  case  was  referred  to  the  Council  (50-2).  Their  verdict
went  against  Jens  Eriksen,  but  the  king  refused  to  confirm  it  (52-3),
and  then  the  peasants  rose.  In  the  Hanseatic  referral  the  councillors
said  that  they  had  written  to  the  King  and  implored  him  to  remove
Jens  ‘lest  that  things  would  come  to  worse’,  which  the  King  had
refused,  and  ‘when  the  commonalty  and  Engelbrekt’,  who  had  won
the  suit,  concluded  that  justice  could  not  take  its  course  because  of
the  King’s  veto,  they  stormed  and  won  the  castle  of  Borganäs  and
went on towards Västerås.

Then councillors of Sweden came to Copenhagen where also Jens

Eriksen was present, and they fell down on their knees and asked the
King, that he for the sake of the death, that God has suffered, should
come into the country and hear, who was to blame, and avert the ruin
of the realm and himself; what he said to that, he should himself
remember.

368

Unfortunately, we never get to hear the King’s answer, but it must

have been negative. In general, only the Danish historians seem have
devoted any serious attention to this problem. Erslev draws the fairly
obvious conclusion that the Council must have replaced Jens Eriksen
before seeking authorization by the King

369

. If that is so, the King

must certainly have been offended by this slight to his authority, and
would have connected it with the clerical refusal to accept his right to

367

HR I 606 §5 (in Low German); the passage in question is translated into Danish

in Erslev 477fn6, and into Swedish by Carlsson 1932:245.

368

Loc cit

; my translation, based on the three versions cited above.

369

Erslev 1901:478 n6; that Christensen 1980:206f does not take this into account,

leaves his hypothesis open to the criticism posed by Bøgh 1985:137 n15.
Neither Carlsson, Kumlien, or Lönnroth seems to have bothered about clarifying
this point (

, however, Wichman 1937 and Gillingstam 1952. Larsson 1984:129ff

deeper into the problem, but slides over into a general discussion of underlying
causes without focusing the conflict of authority).

202

appoint  bishops.  In  the  latter  case  he  did  not  hesitate  to  force  his
way,  and  it  is  hardly  likely  that  he  would  have  been  more  tolerant
about  giving  way  to  peasant  rebels.  Thus  the  rapid  endorsement  of
Engelbrekt’s  rebellion  from  leading  councillors  seems  to  have  been
prepared  by  the  King’s  refusal  to  let  them  handle  matters  he  himself
had referred to them in the way they themselves found best, and the
renewed  rising  supposedly  caused  by  a  rumour  that  Eric  meant  to
send  the  Dalecarlians  an  even  worse  bailiff  sounds  less  contrived.
According to the chronicle, the peasants  expected Jens  Eriksen to  be
punished,  and  when  this  did  not  happen,  a  rumour  that  Eric  was
going  to  send  them  an  even  worse  bailiff  made  the  peasants  rise
anew

370

. (EK p54)

As Lars-Olof Larsson points out (1984:131), this does not have the

ring of a convincing explanation, unless the rumour had been planted
by  determined  propagandists.  However,  it  was  clear  that  the  first
rising  had  been  made  ineffectual,  if  the  King  did  not  sanction  the
removal  of  Jens  Eriksen.  From  the  King’s  point  of  view,  he  would
have  to  make  a  new  replacement;  Count  Hans  was  a  fellow
Pomeranian,  and  probably  as  loyal

371

a representative as he could

wish  for,  but  to  let  him  remain  in  command  would  be  to  accept  the
verdict  of  the  council,  which  he  apparently  had  denounced.
Reinstating Jens Eriksen would have been the obvious way to rebuff a
council  which  to  him  must  have  appeared  as  too  spineless  when
facing open sedition.

However, Jens had evidently not been successful enough in

keeping control over this unruly region. If king Eric planned to
appoint a new bailiff he would have to find someone

capable

putting an end to insurrections and resuming effective collection of
taxes. From the peasant point of view, such a bailiff would indeed be
even worse than Jens Eriksen. If the peasants had been informed of

370

Roughly translated (I have tried to retain as much as possible of the wording

and the simplicity of the rhyme):

The peasants in Dala waited tidings to know
that justice would over Juss Eriksson go
When they did learn for true
that the King this did not do
they feared, as was them said
that the king in his full mind had
them a worse bailiff to get
thus they would again out set

371

Efficiency may be another matter: the second march on Västerås was caused by

Jens Eriksen’s renewed attempts  to collect  the  tax. That  the  same reason is not
cited  for  the  third  rising,  shows  that  Hans  -  or  his  subcaptain  Melchior  Görtz,
who,  through his Swedish mother, may have had relatives among  the rebels (

Hildebrand in SBL) - had avoided confrontation on this point.

203

the King’s reaction to the Council’s verdict, it should have been clear
to them that the rising had failed, and that the King  was prepared to
enforce  his  will.  If  they  were  not  prepared  to  recant  and  acquiesce,
the  normal  fate  of  rebellious  medieval  peasants  would  probably  be
theirs, and  rumours  of king Eric’s  massacre of  the inhabitants  of the
Holsatian island of Femern had certainly reached them

372

. Engelbrekt,

who  had  identified  himself  with  their  cause,  would  also  have  had
reasons  to  worry,  and  the  lawspeakers  would  lose  authority  in  the
eyes  of  their  communities  as  well  as  in  the  King’s.  In  this  case  it
might  be  more  prudent  to  attack  than  to  await,  as  the  apparently
effortless capture of Västerås Castle confirms.

As to the atrocities attributed to Jens Eriksen, they are usually taken

to  be  conventional  stereotypes  –  smoking  peasants  in  chimneys,
harnessing pregnant women before haycarts – and a general opinion
is  that  he  was  probably  no  worse  (or  not  much  worse)  than  most
other  bailiffs  (Lönnroth  1934:83,  Rosén  1964:285,  Larsson  1984:116f).
Judging  from  the  more  general  grievances  of  the  rebels  as  well  as
from  the  chronicle’s  depiction  of  early  stages  of  the  rebellion,  the
collection of taxes was the most sensitive point. As that was a primary
function of the bailiffs, this is hardly surprising.

The difference between tolerable, bad, and atrocious bailiffs in this

respect  can  hardly  be  due  to  the  level  of  taxation  –  new  and  heavy
duties  necessitated  by  Eric’s  war  efforts  were  imposed  everywhere  –
but  rather  to  the  methods  of  exaction,  in  particular  the  handling  of
arrears,  distraint  practices,  and  the  treatment  of  defaulters.  If
resistance  to  the  new  impositions  was  stronger  in  Dalecarlia,  which
would  seem  quite  likely

373

, the methods used to quench resistance

might also be harsher. Neither should we imagine that reported
atrocities always have to be rhetorical exaggerations. As later sections
of the

Karlskrönika

make clear, even its glorified protagonist Karl

Knutsson had no qualms about burning rebellious peasants at the
stake when they were no longer fighting on the same side.

372

The Diary of Vadstena Abbey reports that he had killed ‘all males, around 6000,

but abducted the women and children’. The

Engelbrektskrönika

(Jansson (ed)

1994:34f)  also  paints  a  vivid  portrait  of  the  atrocities  committed  in  Femern  as  a
preliminary  to  the  mounting  tension  between  Erik and  his Swedish  subjects.  As
the  Femern attack  seems  to have been provoked by insolence against  the  King
(Erslev 1901:57ff), the Swedes should have had good reasons to worry.

373

Given (1) the higher degree of social homogeneity among the peasantry, (2) the

fact  that  the  local  elite,  the  mining  works  owners,  were  –  in  contrast  to  the
gentry  –  not  insulated  against  the  effects  of  taxation,  and  (3)  a  jurisdictional
structure  based  on  the  primary  community  of  the  parish,  instead  of  on  the
secondary hundred level, as in the central and southern regions.

204

The widespread support for the rebellion implies a more general

dissatisfaction than can be explained by the actions of an oppressive
bailiff; obviously the new taxes were taken to be oppressive

per se

The King’s freedom to tax was strictly circumscribed by the Land Law,
and when popular rebellion against the taxes

was endorsed by

councillors,  lawspeakers,  clerics  and  hundred  sheriffs  through
identifying  all  their  grievances  as  having  the  same  cause:  the  King’s
refusal  to  rule  by  the  law,  then  the  principle  of  taxation  by  consent
was

de facto

recognized also by the aristocratic leadership. When the

settlement  with  King  Eric  was  concluded  in  1436,  and  new,  Swedish
bailiffs  resumed  full  collection  of  the  impopular  taxes,  bailiffs  and
other officials were killed by the peasants in Dalecarlia, Värmland and
other  places.  Whatever  connection  these  events  had  with  the  Puke
feud, the upshot was that after crushing peasant resistance, the statute
of  1437  issued  by  the  Council  had  to  confirm  the  33%  tax  reduction
made  by  Engelbrekt

374

. The multiplicity of political factions, and the

shifting alliances and ruptures during the following period, ensured
that at most times, someone would find a reason to play the ‘peasant
card’, thus keeping the memory of tax rebellion and the notion of a
sharp distinction between justified and unjust taxes alive

375

The ‘Revolutionary Council’

The ‘Revolutionary Council’ of 1435 was convened at the end of

the  first  revolutionary  campaign,  and  comprised  33  secular  members
–  almost  three  times  the  number  specified  in  the  Land  Law  –  in
addition to the three insurgent bishops. Although it appears as though
there  had  been  a  certain  influx  of  gentrymen  of  more  modest
extraction,  who  presumably  had  qualified  themselves  through  taking
part  in  the  rising

376

– besides Engelbrekt himself Johan Karlsson

(Färla), Bengt Uddsson (Vinstorpa) and perhaps Birger Trolle – most

374

We do not know, whether Engelbrekt’s reduction had been universally applied,

or indeed how extensively

any

tax collection had been in operation during the

rebellion. That the greater part of the new tax seems to have been accepted (at
least in Uppland, from where we have the information about the reduction), is
certainly because it was used to finance the rebellion.

375

The Land Law made a difference between

laga skatt

(literally: ‘lawful tax’) which

was customary and immutable, and extraordinary taxation, which was only
permitted at carefully specified occasions: war, coronations, royal marriages

etc

376

Otte Ulfsson and Arvid Svan were also of quite modest extraction, but had been

made  councillors  by  king  Eric,  presumably  as  part  of  a  strategy  to  devalue  the
aristocratic  status  of  the  council.  Broder  Svensson  and  Gustav  Laurensson,  two
relatives of Queen Margaret’s  favourite Abraham Brodersen –  executed by king
Eric for rape during a military campaign – might count as  in-between cases.

205

of the new members belonged to the established conciliar aristocracy.
In addition to electing Engelbrekt Captain of the Realm, six regional
captains were appointed

377

. Among these captains, only one – Knut

Jonsson (Tre Rosor) - seems to have lacked any apparent relation to
the legacy of Bo Jonsson.

Nils Erengisleson (Hammersta) was made captain of Östergötland –

where  he  already  held  the  surrendered  castle  of  Ringstadaholm.
Bishop  Sigge  Uddsson  of  Skara  shared  the  responsibility  for
Västergötland  –  belonging  to  his  own  diocese  –  with  Knut  Jonsson,
the  lawspeaker  of  the  same  province.  Nils  Stensson  (Natt  och  Dag)
was to take care of Småland, excepting the sub-province Tjust which
was  entrusted  to  Bo  Knutsson  (Grip),  and  Knut  Karlsson  (Örnfot)
became  captain  of  Södermanland,  which  was  Nils  Erengisleson’s
lawspeakership. Three of these men  were sons  of Bo  Jonsson  Grip’s
executors, one was his grandson

378

, and bishop Sigge was a legatee of

the testament, a cousin of one of the executors, and the  grandson of
Bo  Jonsson’s  cousin.  He  had  also  been  active  in  the  efforts  to  get
bishop  Nicolaus  Hermanni  – the predecessor of  bishop Knut  Bosson
(Natt  och  Dag),  and  one  of  the  leaders  of  the

testamentarii

–

canonized.

This council has earlier been celebrated as the first Swedish

Riksdag

, and considerable ingenuity has been spent on attempts to

salvage this reputation, but at the time of the quingentenary
celebration in 1935, marked by a monumental history of the Swedish
Diet

379

, this notion was refuted not only by Erik Lönnroth, one of the

leading exponents of the Weibull school, noted for their severely
source-critical deconstructions of patriotic mythology, but also by

377

Apparently by the Council – into which Engelbrekt had now been admitted –

and  not  by  Engelbrekt  alone,  as  is  often  taken  for  granted.  (Kumlien  1933:32f
says  only  that  they  ‘were  chosen’,  without  trying  to  specify  how.  A  few
sentences  later,  however,  he  embarks  on  a  discussion  why

Engelbrekt

had

passed  over  Karl  Knutsson,  and  speculates  over  whether  this  might  imply
political differences of opinion already at this point.)  The chronicle explicitly says
that  ‘in  each  shire  they  a  captain  make’  (EK  85),  right  after  the  passage  where
‘they’  have  chosen  Engelbrekt  because  he  ‘was  manly  and  wise’  (my
translations).

378

The earlier tension between the executors and Bo Jonsson’s descendants seems

to  have  abated  by  this  time;  Bo  Jonsson’s  widow  Margareta  Dume  had  married
Bengt Niclisson (lion’s face), whose heir Guse Nilsson was supported by several
descendants  of  the  executors  -  as  well  as  by  Bo  Knutsson  -  in  his  efforts  to
regain the castle of Stäkeholm, of which he had been deprived by King Eric.

379

The eighteen volumes written by prominent historians were published in 1931-

1938 under the editorship of Nils Edén, history professor and former prime
minister.

206

Gottfrid Carlsson, the most meticulous representative of nationalist
historiography.

Though no one today would stick to the proto-Diet interpretation,

the 36-member council is a very interesting convocation in its own
right – a redefinition of political representation in sharp contradiction
to

regimen regale

, and a manifestation of a quite broad alliance. It

should be worthwhile taking a closer look at its membership.

Table 9: The revolutionary council of 1435.

councillors

/ new

councillors

lineage

official
titles

Revoluti-

onary titles

relations to executors*

and to

Bo Jonsson

Bp Knut Bosson

Natt & Dag

bishop
Linkpg

103

cast (Stege-

borg)

executor

(9b)

, brother

cousin

Bp Sigge Uddsson

Vinstorpa

bishop
Skara

co-subcpt

(Vgl)

csn's grson, legatee

Bp Tomas Simonsson

bish. Strg

H Nils Gustavsson

Rossvik

knight,
lsp(Upl)

cast

(Västerås)

csn-son

nep-inl

H Gottskalk Bengtsson

wolf regdt knight

159

step-nep

H Nils Erengislesson

Hammersta knight,

lsp(Sd)

138

cast (Rsth),
subcpt(Ögl)

son

grson-in-law

H Bengt Stensson

Natt & Dag knight,

lsp(Nrk)

100

son

cousin's son

H Bo Stensson

Natt & Dag knight

100

son

cousin's son

H Laurens Ulvson

Aspenäs knight

156

son

, son-inl

csn

H Gustav Algotsson

Sture II

knight

128

son

,son-inl

10b

H Broder Svensson

bull's head knight

Nils Jönsson

Oxenstierna

108

ward

,nep

10b

,nep-

inl

10,

son of 2

csn

Karl Ormsson

ram's head

38 3

son-inl

12,

grnep-inl

grson-inl

Knut Jonsson

Tre Rosor lsp(Vgl)

50 22

co-subcpt

(Vgl)

Bengt Uddson

Vinstorpa

csn's grson, legatee

Henrik Snakenborg

Snakenborg

63 19

csn-son

Karl Knutsson

Bonde

119

grson

3, 7b

stepgrson

Bo Knutsson

Grip

34 28

subc (Tjust)

grson-inl

12,

grson

Magnus Gren

Gren

44 13

Nils Stensson

Natt & Dag

100

subcpt

(Smål*)

son

csn's son

Arvid Svan

Svan

lsp(Thd)

Gregers Magnusson

Eka

66 22

son-inl

, nep-inl

10b

Matts Ödgislesson

fleur-de-lys

38 18

son-inl

12,

grnep-inl

grson-inl

Bengt Gottskalksson

wolf regdt

138

207

Bengt Jönsson

Oxenstierna

108

ward

,nep

10b

,nep-

inl

10,

son of 2

csn

Knut Karlsson

eagle's foot

63 13

subcpt (Sd) son

Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson

cpt of the realm

Erik Puke

Rossvik

53 25

cpt (Norrl),

cast (Korsh)

grnep

8b,

grson-inl

Johan Karlsson

Färla

Måns Bengtsson

Natt & Dag

141

grson

csn's grson

Erengisle Nilsson

Hammersta

138

grson

Karl Gädda

Gädda

38 0

cson

Birger Trolle d y!*

Trolle

13 0

Olof Ragvaldsson

Lindö

lsp(Ögl)

56 9

nep

Otte Ulvsson

bear paws

grson-inl

Gustav Laurensson

Änga

25 0

AVERAGE:

57 16

* excepting

Tjust

* executors numbered
according to table 6

As can be seen from the list, the majority of this council belonged to well-established aristocratic families.
Index IN is an attempt to quantify 'noble rank' , so that someone whose (male) ancestor for the preceding
four generations have been knights or councillors will get an index of 100. As many of them may have been
both, these can compensate for untitled ancestors, and it is also possible to reach an index of more than
100. If this is to be interpreted as 'nobility' in the full sense 39 % of the revolutionary councillors qualified,
though I am fairly certain this is too restrictive, and by no means the only relevant criterion. Index IO is far
more exclusive. For symmetry, it is constructed in the same way, although no one could be expected to
have ancestors all holding offices of lawspeakers or higher (High Steward, Marshal, camerarius, bishop)

Engelbrekt’s followers – peasants or gentry?

Schück 1994:101f claims that the peasants only play an important

role in the Dalecarlian section, and that in the later levies, those
summoned by Engelbrekt are primarily the gentry:

But these warlike Dalecarlian peasants appear to have done their

part when Borganäs has been burned, and Köping taken ... In their
place ‘Westmen all’ step in. But here it’s in the first place a matter for
‘freeborn men’,

i e

gentrymen headed by Sir Nils Gustavsson from

Rekarne. When they in Västerås answer Engelbrekt’s appeal to rally to
the service of the realm, they talk about themselves as ‘we’, [but]
about the ‘peasants’ in the third person: they know how these have
been mistreated. (

my translation

)

However, the Västerås episode clearly outlines

two

consecutive

summons. First (p55) Engelbrekt summons ‘Westmen all’, asks if they
want to help to drive out the ‘unmild foreign bailiffs’, and

promises to

help to rid them of their suffering

(thus he cannot be addressing just

208

the gentry); after this ‘all of them’ joined up with him.

Then

he sends

letters to ‘freeborn’ men, presenting an ultimatum threatening the ‘life
and  estates’  of  whomever  that  would  not  meet  up  at  Västerås.  It’s
thus  quite  obvious  that  raising  the  peasantry  was  still  a  primary
concern. That the peasants are not further emphasized in this passage
is self-evident: they were not needed (except maybe as a background
threat)  in  the  taking  of

this

castle, as the bailiff turned it over

voluntarily  to  Nils  Gustavsson  (Rossvik)  by  whose  authority  he  had
held  it!  As  the  peasants  must  have  been  needed  for  something,  it  is
reasonable to  presume that the levy  followed Engelbrekt to  Uppsala,
where – as Schück himself has to concede – the ‘concerns of the tax-
peasants’ are emphasized.

When Schück goes on to argue that ‘This pattern can be followed

throughout  the  chronicle’,  he  cannot  yet  be  said  to  have  established
any  pattern  at  all.  Even  if  we  disregard  the  first,  peasant  levy  at
Västerås,  his  own  account  has  presented  three  levies:  The  ‘poor
peasants [who] in  Dalecarlia live’, ‘freeborn men’  at Västerås, and ‘all
Uplanders’,  who  ‘are  given  a  more  popular  image’.  Only  the  second
case  conforms  –  and  this  only  partly,  as  we  have  seen  –  to  his
‘pattern’. Is it instead confirmed by his further account?

‘Eastgothians all’ are called to Söderköping, but the three

‘skaror’

(‘bands’) who set out from there appear to be gentry retinues. ‘All
Westgothians’ summoned to Axvall, turn up ‘with armour and strong
weapons’, thus not the ‘folk-weapons’ of the law.

Among the three subdivisions of the army raised at Söderköping,

the  first  one  was  obviously  dominated  by  higher  gentry.  The  leader,
Guse  Nilsson,  was  the  heir  of  Bengt  Niclisson  (lion’s  face),  who  had
married  Bo  Jonsson’s  widow,  and  who  had  held  the  castle  of
Stegeholm  as  a

pantlän

. King Eric had removed him from the castle

and  given  him  the  town  of  Söderköping  as  compensation,  but  both
Bengt  and  Guse  had  been  in  constant  conflict  with  king  Eric’s
castellan,  trying  to  retrieve  the  castle  (Fritz1973:99,  SBL).  The
completely  unsuccessful  attack  on  Stegeholm  is  one  of  the  most
detailed  passages  in  the  chronicle,  probably  in  order  to  fit  in  the
names  of the  five

380

prominent young noblemen subcommanding the

enterprise. Obviously this was the right place to be for career-minded

380

Six subcommanders are mentioned, but one of them - (Claus) Gramsow - is

otherwise more or less unknown (but

Gillingstam 1949:23). He was to take

the Western bridge, while Guse took the Eastern and the young noblemen
stumbled over each other to attack by floats from the other directions. Karl
Knutsson is mentioned in the second place among these.

209

gentlemen, as four of them entered the council after the campaign

381

two became regional captains and the other two (eventually)
regents

382

There is no reason to assume that Herman Berman, a lower-

gentry

383

officer commanding the second army, attracted such an

illustrious  following  for  his  efficient  campaign  burning  down  three
castles in a row; only peasants are mentioned here, and in two of the
cases  they  set  fire  to  the  castle  while  its  captain  is  still  negotiating.
Why  Schück  takes  for  granted  that  Berman’s  troop  would  look  like
Guse’s  I  cannot  make  out  –  obviously  the  objectives  of  these  two
subcampaigns  were  quite  different  and  involved  divergent  military
methods.

The third ‘band’, led by Engelbrekt himself, was only used to

provide  a  backing  in  his  negotiations  with  the  captain  of  Örebro
castle  –  who  gave  it  up  for  a  ransom  of  1000  marks  –  before  it  was
reinforced by the levy at Axvall. The ‘armour and strong weapons’ of
that  levy  is  no  evidence  against  peasant  participation.  The  statute  of
Strängnäs  a  couple  of  years  later  expressly  forbids  peasants  to  bring
crossbows,  armour  or  swords  to  moots,  boroughs  or  feasts  (Bjarne
Larsson 1994). Obviously peasants had not always been content with
sticking to the ‘folk-weapons’ Schück refers to.

The original ‘band’ following Engelbrekt from Söderköping to

Örebro might have been a reinforced version of his personal
entourage; a ‘gentry retinue’ (

frälsefölje

) would still hardly appear to

be a proper designation for it, unless we accept Reinholdsson’s
postulate that as Engelbrekt was a gentryman, his followers must
have been those who owed him fealty.

Schück’s observation that the account of the second campaign

leaves no place

384

at all for peasants seems more to the point, though,

381

Bo Stensson, the oldest among them, and already knighted, had been a

councillor for four years.

382

One of the two regents even became a king (Karl Knutsson); Magnus Gren

became one of the four regents who were to rule Sweden while king
Christopher of Bavaria was abroad.

383

His escutcheon carried a

bomärke

- a simple symbol resembling a merchant’s

mark, used by peasants to sign themselves where a nobleman would use a
signet. The compromise version of a seal bearing a

bomärke

is typical of the

very lowest gentry, according to Löfquist 1935 (SBL:

Berman

, KLMN:

Bomärke

384

Yet it appears to me that some factual difference must be intended when the

chronicle describes a summons of ‘all Southmen’ to Nyköping, but one of
‘knights, squires and burghers’ to Söderköping (116, 118);

pace

Schück 1994:102,

the second case is

not

also described as a summons of ‘Eastgothians all’ - this

phrase he must have transferred from the summons in the

first

campaign (p68),

right before the partition of the army.

210

except that the contrast becomes even stronger when we have to
revise his picture of the first campaign. When Engelbrekt’s followers
at Ronneby are called

hovmän

, however, this word is hardly used in

its present-day sense of ‘courtiers’, but rather in the same sense as
during the 16

century: ‘horsemen’, who at least at that time could be

peasants as well as gentlemen

385

. Obviously his followers in this

passage  is  a  quite  small,  mounted  group  probably  dominated  by
gentrymen  and  their  retainers,  as  almost  all  of  those  who  are
mentioned  seem  to  belong  to  these  categories.  However,  Engelbrekt
would  reasonably  also  have  had  a  personal  entourage  at  least
matching those of his subcommanders.

We have no way of telling whether this was composed of mining

district associates (

S J Boethius 1916, B Boethius 1965, Lönnroth

1934), burgher troops, his relatives among the gentry or semi-gentry
of Västmanland, Rekarne and Uppland, or peasant soldiers risen in
his service (

the patents of gentility issued by a group of councillors

including  Engelbrekt  in  SMR  278-282).  Johan  Andersson  and  Kädel
are  mentioned  as  Engelbrekt’s  retainers  in  EK  130,  but  we  know
nothing  about  them,  except  that  bishop  Thomas  complains  about  a
confiscation of pork made by the former on Engelbrekt’s behalf. That
Kädel is mentioned without a patronymic suggests that he was not a
gentleman. (The use of patronymics did not become common among
the peasantry until later.)

Engelbrekt’s earlier levies during this campaign have been left to

hold the sieges, and the attempt to raise the  burghers  of Kalmar  had
failed (EK 118f). When he summons a new levy of Westgothians and
Smallanders to  fight against the Scanians, though,  I see no  reason to
presuppose  that  peasants  were  not  intended  to  take  part.  Raising
peasants  was  obviously  one  of  Engelbrekt’s  key  advantages  (besides
his  efficiency  as  a  negotiator),  and  the  unusually  long  notice  for  this
levy

386

suggests that he wanted to allow time for bringing a foot down

to the border.

The Revolution against king Eric: causes and effects

My interpretation of the revolution against king Eric offers a simple

solution to the linking of peasant protest and magnate opposition. We
do not have to ask ourselves whether it was the leader of the

385

Hovman

may be interpreted as ‘court-man’, but also as ‘hoof-man’.

386

He had sent messages already from Söderköping, according to EK 123. As this

is in sharp contrast to the otherwise hectic tempo of the second campaign, it
should carry some kind of significance.

211

peasants  –  Engelbrekt  –  who  forced  the  aristocracy  to  support  the
rebellion,  or  whether  it  was  the  dissatisfied  councillors  who  took
advantage  of  the  opportunity  offered  by  the  peasant  rising  (or  who
provoked it themselves). If a heavy and legally objectionable taxation
was  the  principal  underlying  grievance,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the
strongest  opposition  arose  just  at  the  place  where  the  contrast
between  a  bailiff  determined  to  apply  whatever  amount  of  pressure
required  to  extract  the  taxes,  and  a  peasantry  unaccustomed  to
endure  oppression,  was  at  its  sharpest.  When  the  lawspeakers  did
their duty and  resolved that conflict, they  were rebuffed  by the king.
At  this  point  both  peasants  and  lawspeakers  had  closely  connected
reasons to protest, and as soon as the peasants arose, the spokesmen
for each group took fast and concerted action.

The alliance between Engelbrekt, Nils Gustavsson (Rossvik), and

Nils Erengisleson (Hammersta) also represents a convergence of trade
interests quite compatible with Lönnroth’s analysis even if
disturbances to the trade may be unlikely to have

triggered

the

outbreak of rebellion. The outbreak should have come earlier in that
case as Larsson argues from the timing of the rising in a way that
mirrors Lönnroth’s own dismissal of the

taxation

as the ignition spark

(Larsson 1984:131f).

What is the legacy of the revolution?

•

The alliance between the Dalecarlian peasants, led by Engelbrekt,
and the Swedish judiciary leadership, led by Nils Gustavsson
(Rossvik), served to

legitimize the insurrection

, and as a

consequence:

•

the aristocratic leadership had to recognize – at least implicitly –
that the

principle of taxation by consent

also applied to the

peasantry, which left them no alternative to a policy of negotiated
rule.

•

The ‘two-sector model’ where tax land and rent land have

separate and complementary

functions

, became institutionalized

as a compromise between the conflicting self-interests  of the  fief-
holding  aristocrats  (ensuring  collective  reproduction  through
exaction  of  taxes  as  well  as  individual  reproduction  through
exaction of rents).

•

To stabilize this solution the ‘

frozen proportion’

between tax land

and  rent  land  (Herlitz  1982)  resulting  from  Queen  Margaret’s
inquiry,  is  accepted  as  a  permanent  condition  and  coordinated
with  the  corresponding  division  of  the  peasantry  into  two
separate sectors (Bjarne Larsson 1994:141-7, 153-5), resulting from
an earlier compromise between Queen and council.

212

•

A revised regulation of land sales and taxation serves to fulfil this
separation, eliminate mixed categories and limit social mobility, in
order to

preserve the tax base as well as the rent base

•

The construction and consolidation of a state apparatus on the
level of Sweden (rather than on the level of the Union) becomes
a

mutual concern

of oligarchic factions

and

contenders for a local

Swedish principate. This is a continuation of the process of
‘

parallel centralization

’, which from the one side strives to

construct a strong state as a bulwark against royal arbitrariness,
while from another side a stronger state is required as a
foundation of power for a new monarchy capable of keeping the
nobility under control.

•

The legalistic foundation of the compromise uniting the coalition
of insurgents makes a

geographical delimitation

corresponding to

the Land Law of 1347-52 the most feasible political project. A new
edition of the Land Law is produced in order to consolidate this,
as a condition for Christopher’s accession, and to update the
compromise between Crown and aristocracy

387

•

proto-nationalist propaganda

formalizing and legitimizing this

delimitation through constructing a notion of ‘Swedishness’ (rather
than regional or Scandinavian identities) develops (bishop
Thomas, Nicolaus Ragvaldi, the Chronicle of Karl Knutsson).

There is no reason to take for granted that all this predetermined

the  victory  of  the  future  Swedish  ‘nation-state’  which  under  Gustav
Vasa’s  reign  successfully  defeats  other  state-building  formats  (the
‘sub-Empire’  model  of  the  Kalmar  Union,  the  regionalism  of  the  old

landskap

communities, the city-league model which at least

Stockholm and Visby had been affiliated to, the parallel ecumenical
community of Catholic Christendom

388

etc

This would be a return to the teleological fallacy of essentialist

nationalism.  However,  the  factors  that  were  to  make  this  particular
project  a  viable  contender  in  the  struggle  between  different  state-
building strategies have their point of origin in this revolution, and to
this  limited  but  very  important  extent,  it  was  a  crucial  step  in  the

387

‘[T]he changes might be interpreted as favouring the aristocracy’ (Lindkvist

1997:214f).

388

‘For European states the Church was not only an institutional model which lent

itself  to  imitation,  but  also a  formidable  rival  power  with  which  to  reckon in  the
long  journey  towards  sovereignty  over  territory,  supremacy  over  subjects,  and
control  of  the  law.’  (Padoa-Schioppa  1997:361)  Even  if  a  church-state  has  not
been an obvious political alternative in Sweden, independent Bishoprics similar to
Mainz  or  Salzburg  would  not  have  been  unthinkable,  and  Archbishops  like
Johannes  Benedicti  and  Gustav  Trolle  were  obvious  contenders  for  ultimate
temporal authority as well.

215

The formation of a nobility

In Swedish

frälsa

means to ‘save’, ‘liberate’ or ‘deliver’. Old

Swedish

frälse

signified ‘liberation’, exemption from taxation, and was

used in two senses:

•

the

privilege

of tax-exemption, which appertained to the

land (at least in the later Middle Ages) as well as to the
holder and

•

those

groups

classes

enjoying this privilege.

During the Middle Ages, there were two kinds of

frälse

(in both

senses):

•

andligt frälse

– ‘spiritual tax exemption’, also signifying the

clergy enjoying it

•

världsligt frälse

– ‘temporal tax exemption’ in exchange for

horseman’s service. Also signifying the totality of the social
groups enjoying it.

As the spiritual

frälse

was abolished during the reformation,

frälse

land (land under tax-exempt tenure) came to signify ‘noble’ land, and
we therefore usually reserve the term

frälse

for the secular category,

even when we speak about medieval conditions. This is also because
we have no other term covering the entire medieval gentry-cum-
aristocracy. The word

adel

, nobility, is a German loan-word entering

the Swedish language in the 16

century, and it did not acquire a

precise definition until the Swedish nobility was constituted as a
closed corporation – an Estate (

stånd

) – through the formation of

Riddarhuset

(the ‘House of Knights’ - also one of the chambers of the

Swedish Diet) in 1626.

The tax-exemption privilege is usually believed to have been

introduced  through  the  Statute  of  Alsnö,  enacted  by  King  Magnus
Barnlock around 1280, but there may already have existed some kind
of  a  consuetudinal  tax  exemption,  in  which  case  the  statute  just
served  to  regulate  this  privilege  and  to  establish  the  Crown’s
prerogative  to  rule  on  such  issues.  The  purpose  may  have  been  to
extend it to the  new mounted  warrior caste, but  quite as  possibly to
restrict  and  control  a  privilege  which  had  earlier  been  self-assumed.
There  has  been  an  extensive  discussion  of  this  statute  (

Bjurling

1952,  Andrae  1960,  Sjöholm  1988,  Bjarne  Larsson  1994,  Lindkvist-
Sjöberg  2003:47f) but  whichever interpretation  we choose to  believe,
a  broad

frälse

category appears to have been firmly established well

before the Land Law of 1350-52.

216

To speak about the medieval (temporal)

frälse

as an Estate

391

misleading.  A  focus  on  their  common  privilege  of  tax-exemption
obscures the wide contrasts within this group, ranging from magnates
on  a  level  competing  with  royalty,  to  well-off  peasants  acquiring
exemption  from  taxes  through  putting  up  a  horseman.  Neither  is
there any form of collective representation which might have ensured
cohesion between the different levels:

•

The

riksråd

(council of the realm) develops from a royal

entourage into a quasi-governmental body representing the realm

vis-à-vis

the King, but not the social category of

frälsemän

such

392

•

During

hovdagar

and other occasions when the council is

expanded with additional members of

kungens män

rikets

män

(“the King’s men

393

”, or “men of the realm”) they assemble as

vassals

, not as gentrymen/aristocrats;

i e

in virtue of their personal

bonds to the King, and not on strength of the privilege they have
in common.

•

When the nobility in the strict sense (the

adel

) was formally

constituted as an Estate of the Realm in the earlier part of the 17

century, up to 2/3 of the families belonging to the medieval

frälse

may have lost their privileged status

394

. 15-!6

century proto-

parliamentary gatherings appear to have been transitional

ad hoc

assemblies,  but  under  Gustavus  Vasa  a  noble  representation
functionally  separated  from  the  Council  was  taking  shape.  Until
this  process  had  developed  far  enough,  cohesion  among  the
entire

frälse

category would have been more vertical than

horizontal – the upward-looking loyalty of

liens de dependence

rather than the solidarity of acknowledged common interests –
except at the very highest level: the narrow elite that sometimes
defined themselves as Men of the Realm rather than of the King.

391

Usually, it is taken for granted that the

frälse

privilege automatically constituted

an Estate.

392

In practice they of course normally acted in the interest of their own social

group –

i e

the aristocratic magnate stratum, rather than the broad gentry.

393

”Men” in this context is a technical term, as in

hommage

Mannschaft

(

Löfquist 1935,1936, Jägerstad 1948, Schück 1985).

394

As Roberts estimates (1958:57), but this is a compromise between quite

divergent sources. Samuelson 1993 evades the issue of quantifying the cut, as
his study breaks off in 1600.

217

The role of the lawspeakers

The conventional view was for a long time that before the import

of centralized kingship in the general European sense, a sort of
peasant republic akin to the romantic image of Teutonic

Urgemeinschaft

had held sway in the

länder

(‘lands’ or ‘shires’;

usually translated ‘provinces’) that were to be united into Sweden.

The interpretation of the role of the

lawspeakers

395

has been central

to the development of such viewpoints. In the Land Law of ca 1350,
they on the one hand appear as electors (

Sällström 1951, Losman

1970) of the King, and as representatives and spokesmen of their
Provinces, but on the other hand it is prescribed that the Lawspeaker
be the son of a

bonde

– to us a word signifying “peasant”

396

. Thus,

this provision has helped to shape the conception of early Swedish
society as a sort of primitive tribal democracy

397

, where the peasants

elected spokesmen among themselves, who interpreted the law of the
region  and  in  turn  elected  the  king.  However,  what  we  know  about
the  lawspeaker  institution  before  the  Land  Law  is  limited  to  quasi-
mythical  accounts  found  in  Snorri  Sturluson’s

Heimskringla

, and in

one or two of the provincial lawcodes – prehistories tracing the
institution back to heathen times.

If we discount all legendary evidence and stick to the strictly

contemporaneous

documentary

evidence

398

then

Eskil

Västergötland is – apart from the completely unknown lawspeaker

395

In Swedish

lagman

, literally: lawman, and in latin

legifer

, ‘law-carrier’. The

district of a

lagman

was designated

lagsaga

, the area where he fulfilled his office

of ‘speaking the law’. In Icelandic or Old Norse the corresponding title was

logsagumann

´the man who speaks the law’. I prefer the translation

lawspeaker

following Schück’s usage in the English version of the official history of the
Swedish Parliament:

The Swedish Riksdag

(Schück 1984a)

396

This provision is already present within the oldest regional lawcode,

Västgötalagen

, (VGL) where it appears only one paragraph below a similar

provision concerning the election of bishops.

397

During the Swedish ‘Age of Freedom’ in the 18

century, the foundations of

noble privilege were questioned by ‘enlightened’ commoners, and the idea that
noble and tax-peasant landownership had a common source in the

odal

–

envisioned as the peasant-citizens inalienable right to the land of one’s
forefathers – was promulgated by historians and by political ideologists
(Nordencrantz, Kepplerus) who argued that the nobility had unjustifiably divorced
themselves from the commonalty (Hallberg 2003:191-198).

398

As Almquist also does in his standard treatise on the judicial subdivision of

Sweden (LDS).

218

Nicolaus

– the first person explicitly mentioned as a lawspeaker

399

He is usually identified as the probable author of

Västgötalagen,

the

oldest  one  among  the  provincial  law  codes,  and  because  of  his
acquaintance  with Snorri Sturluson  he has been cited as the  possible
source  for  the  account  in

Heimskringla

(Lönnroth 1959). Eskil has

often  been  made  out  to  typify  the  traditional  picture  of  the
lawspeaker  as  a  powerful  spokesman  for  the  regional  community,
like  Snorri’s  apocryphal  Torgny,  who  allegedly  dared  to  threaten  the
King with summary  execution if  he went to  war against the people’s
will.

Eskil, however, was a person very far from the kind of regional

peasant  magnate  that  would  have  been  required  in  order  to  confirm
the  traditional  lawspeaker  image.  He  was  not  even  a  native  of  the
region  whose  law  he  was  said  to  have  formulated  but  of  the  rival
province  of  Östergötland.  Far  from  being  ‘the  son  of  a  peasant’,  he
was the nephew of Earl Birger Brosa, a grandson-in-law of the saint-
king  Eric, the stepfather of a  pretender to the  Norwegian throne and
an  elder  brother  of  two  bishops

400

as well as of Earl Birger

Magnusson,  the  chief  architect  of  the  unified  Swedish  monarchy  and
the  founder  of  its  royal  dynasty.  If  we  would  want  to  formulate  an
alternative  picture  of  the  lawspeakers  as  agents  of  monarchic  state-
building  and  centralization  in  close  cooperation  with  the  church,  we
could have found no more ideal a candidate

401

So, where can we find better evidence for the traditional view?

From where does it originate? Two of the lawcodes claim to be based
on traditions dating back to a lawspeaker from heathen times:

Västgötalagen

, the reputed work of Eskil,

and

Upplandslagen

, written

399

In Söderwall’s dictionary of Medieval Swedish

(OSM), the word

Laghman

is not

cited from any text written before 1285 (VGL), although the compound word

Lagmanskyld

is found in a Latin text from 1270.

400

It has also been suggested (Gallén) that his unknown mother (he seems to

have been too old to have been a full brother of Earl Birger) may have been a
granddaughter of the famous archbishop Eskil of Lund – the

primas

of the whole

Scandinavian church province, and one of the main combattants during the period
when archbishops were the kings’ rivals for the ultimate power (Skyum-Nielsen).
This obviously refers to a time before the enforcement of clerical celibacy; he
was also the father-in-law of two powerful Danish

Jarlar

, one of whom may

have been the grandfather of Eskil

lagman

401

Of course his distinguished background has often been pointed out, but in

general it is cited as an

exception

to what is presumed to be the normal pattern.

My  argument  is  that  the  ‘normal  pattern’  did  not  exist,  as  far  as  we  know.  Not
many  of  the  later  lawspeakers  can  match  the  precedent  of  Eskil,  but  the  most
outstanding aristocratic magnates of their times tended to be lawspeakers: Birger
Petersson  (Finsta),  Svantepolk  Knutsson,  Ulf  Abjörnsson  (Tofta),  Knut  Jonsson
(Aspenäs), Nils Turesson (Bielke), Bo Jonsson (Grip), Karl Ulfsson (Tofta)

etc

219

for  the  newly  amalgamated  province  of  Uppland  by  a  commission
under the leadership  of Birger Petersson, the lawspeaker of the most
prestigious  among  the  three  earlier  provinces  (Tiundaland)  and  one
of the richest landowners in Sweden, belonging to a family intimately
connected  to  the  archiepiscopal  see  of  Uppsala

402

and married to a

great granddaughter of bishop Bengt of Linköping, who was a
brother of Eskil

lagman

and Earl Birger. (Birger Petersson was also

the father of the future Saint Bridget.)

Two lists of lawspeakers are extant, connecting the heathen

lawspeakers Lumber (Västergötland) and Wiger Spá (Uppland) to the
time they laws were actually written, but what is pure myth and what
might  be  history?  The  list  from  Uppland  is  of  very  obscure
provenance,  and  incorporates  Torgny  and  his  descendants.  It  might
very  well  be  based  on  an  extended  version  of  Snorri’s  account,
modelled  to  match  the  earlier  Västergötland  list,  and  to  give  the
politically  ambitious  new  central  province  a  glorious  enough
background.  It  is  thus  quite  possible  that  Eskil  could  have  been  the
ultimate  inspiration  for  all  information  about  the  earlier  role  of
lawspeakers,  which  in  any  case  seems  to  belong  to  the  category  of
normative  fable  rather  than  that  of  factual  history.  The  exalted  role
attributed  to  Swedish  lawspeakers  may  also  have  been  a  projection
from  Snorri’s  own  experience  as  a  lawspeaker  of  Iceland,  in  which
case  the  creation  and  promulgation  of  the  lawspeaker  myth  might
have  been  a  joint  venture  in  aristocratic  political  propaganda.  That
Eskil had a keen sense of the value of myths is evidenced by his title
in a charter from 1224:

legifer visigothorum

– explicitly identifying his

own constituency (the

västgötar

) with the illustrious Visigoths, the

conquerors of Rome. As far as I can ascertain, he is the first Swede

403

known to have consciously exploited this mythical identification –
more than two centuries before Nicolaus Ragvaldi’s famous speech in

402

He was a nephew of the archbishop, and the cousin of the archdean, who also

took  part  in  the  lawcode  commission.  His  first  wife  had  been  the  daughter  of  a
crusading  knight  (member  of  the  Teutonic  knights)  and  the  niece  of  a  nunnery
founder  of  saintly  reputation,  St  Ingrid  of  Skänninge,  whose  career  Birger’s
daughter  was  to  repeat  and  eclipse  -  she  eventually  became  famous  as  St
Bridget.  Not  only  was  she  the  daughter  of  one  lawspeaker  and  the  wife  of
another, as is  usually  pointed  out.  She  was  also  the  mother  of  two  lawspeakers
and  the  grandmother  of  one,  the  sister  of  another,  the  daughter-in-law  of  yet
another,  and  granddaughter  (daughter’s  daughter),  niece,  aunt-in-law  or
grandmother-in-law to four more, and a grandaunt of at least three.

403

That the identification of Sweden as the home of the Visigoths occurs much

earlier in a papal letter was pointed out to me by Thomas Lindkvist. That no one
seems to have exploited this notion for his own aggrandizement before Eskil still
suggests an unusual talent for propaganda.

220

Basel,  and  three  centuries  before  Johannes  Magnus’  Swedish  history,
whose  list  of  apocryphal  early  Gothic  kings  has  furnished  Swedish
Kings from Eric XIV onwards with absurdly high ordinal numbers.

Of course there is no reason to take for granted that Eskil invented

what I will call the ‘lawspeaker myth’. The Torgny

logmaðr

story is a

moral  fable  which  Snorri  uses  for  his  own  purposes  and  which  he
may have invented himself or borrowed from somewhere else. To the
extent  that  Eskil  may  have  supplied  him  with  background
information, there is no reason to suppose anything but propaganda,
though,  and  the  traditional  lawspeaker  image

a myth, as I will

show below. First, however, we have to consider the only putative
evidence for a lawspeaker before Eskil – the elusive Nicolaus.

Nicolaus legifer of Finnethia, Werãdia and Niwdhwngia

Nicolaus received a royal letter (SD I:71) protecting the fishing

privilege of the monastery of Nydala against encroachments

404

Nicolaus  was  addressed  together  with  “all  the  inhabitants  of
Finnveden,  Värend  and  Njudung”,  and  should  therefore  have  been
the lawspeaker of an area exactly corresponding to the later province
of  Tiohärad,  although  this  amalgamated  region  is  not  in  evidence
until  some  70  years  later  (Larsson  1964:22).  That  the  first  known
example of a lawspeaker should  belong to one of the most marginal
provinces instead of one of the politically dominant regions appears a
bit  surprising,  especially  as  there  is  no  evidence  that  magnates  from
this  area  have  taken  part  in  realm-level  politics  before  1280  (Larsson
1964:26).    There  seems  to  have  been  no  doubts  voiced  about  the
authenticity  of  this  particular  charter,  though,  even  if  the  monks  of
Nydala  have  been  suspected  of  forging  other  documents

405

. In the

comments  to  his  edition  of  the  Nydala  charters,  Gejrot  attempts  to
play  down  the  forgery  allegations,  but  in  so  doing  he  also
demonstrates  the  wide  range  of  both  suspicious  scholars  and
questioned documents.

404

Fishing rights seem to have been very important in early medieval Sweden – at

least  a  sizeable  proportion  of  the  earliest  diplomas  concern  conflicts  over
fisheries  –  valuable  real  estate  that  was  often  bequeathed,  enfeoffed,  or  sold.
The explanation is certainly that the monasteries had great need of fish for their
fasting  periods  (including  every  Friday),  and  that  when  they  were  donated
fishing  rights  this  tended  to  collide  with  established  custom  in  the
neighbourhood.

405

A royal letter concerning barley dues purported to derive from 1248 is generally

acknowledged to be a forgery (DS 364),

Härenstam 1946:246ff. Likewise DS

389 (

ibid

:234).

221

It has often been maintained that many of the Nydala documents

are to be regarded as whole or partial forgeries. As a general rule, it is
important to remember that the medieval views on the authenticity of
documents were probably not as strict as our modern demands; for
instance, the facts that parts of a document can be ‘forged’ or taken
from another act does not necessarily prove that the contents of the
charter should be rejected. (Gejrot 1994:37)

As Nyd. 2 (the letter to Nicolaus) only survives in the form of an

entry in the monastery’s copybook

406

, it seems fair to suspect that the

intitulation is the part of the document which has the weakest
documentary relevance, and that both the ‘correct’ specification of the
province and the formal addressing of a lawspeaker might have been
modelled upon later charters.

Of course it is in no way inconceivable that the early lawspeakers

might have been spokesmen for local communities

407

rather than

representatives  of  regnal  centralization,  and  that  the  ‘later’
lawspeakers  described  below  belong  to  a  phase  of  royal
reconfiguration  of  the  lawspeaker  institution.  My  point  is  that  the
documentary  evidence  gives  us  no  reason  to  make  this  kind  of
assumptions.  We  have  no  reason  to  believe  that  there  existed  any
lawspeaker of an ‘earlier’ type. If Nicolaus existed, the king obviously
expected  him  to  back  up  the  King’s  own  judgment  on  the  fishery
conflict, so, even if we accepted the intitulation as a faithful copy of a
genuine  12

century document, that would not oblige us to believe

the traditional lawspeaker image.

Onwards to the

documented

cases of early lawspeakers.

The first known lawspeakers

If we consider the list of documented lawspeakers from Eskil to

Birger  Petersson,  almost  all  of  those  whose  ancestry  or  family-in-law
we  know  anything  about  (some  20-21  out  of  26)  are  in  some  way
related  to  the  royal  and  ducal  dynasties.  Twelve  to  fourteen  are
related  to  Earl  Birger  himself:  one  brother,  one  grandson,  one
nephew and three grandnephews, three or four nephews-in-law, one
or  two  grandnephews-in-law  and  two  great  grandnephews-in-law.
Five  more  bear  similar  relationships  to  earlier  Earls,  and  one  may
have been the natural son of a Norwegian Earl. Among the remaining

406

Written between 1506 and 1508 according to Gejrot.

407

Though, as Lindkvist points out (1997), the size of their districts were a bit too

large to be conceived as functional communities.

222

six, one (Folke of Västergötland), carries a lion in his coat of arms,
suggesting a close relationship to the royal house

408

Table 10: The 26 first lawspeakers

Name

Blazon

Province

Relations to royal dynasty

etc

1217-1227
Eskil
Magnusson

lion

Väster-
götland

Elder brother of Earl Birger, married to Kristina
Nilsdotter, granddaughter of King St. Eric of
Sweden and widow of Håkon Galen, Earl of
Norway

1224
Näskonung

(unknown)

unknown.

409

1230
Gustaf

man with sword
and cloak

410

Väster-
götland

married to Hafrid Sigtryggsdotter Boberg, niece
of Earl Birger and of

1231
Germund

Attunda-
land*

family unknown

1231
Laurents

Tiunda-
land*

Married to a daughter of Earl Philip of Norway,
who was a son of the Swedish Earl Birger Brosa

1240
Folke

lion and fleur-de-
lys

Väster-
götland

Family unknown. The lion suggests a close
relationship to the royal dynasty.

1244
Laurents
Petersson

bend and greek
cross

Öster-
götland

Son of Katarina Eriksdotter, the daughter of king
Erik Eriksson, the last king of St. Erik's lineage

411

1247-63
Magnus
Bengtsson

lion

Öster-
götland

Son of Earl Birger's brother Bengt, Bishop of
Linköping.

1251-53
Peter Näf

lion

Väster-
götland

May have been married to the widow of his
predecessor

The lion in his blazon suggests

a close relationship to royal dyn.

1266-8
Karl
Ingeborgason

per pale, lion and
bendy

Värend

Married to Ulfhild Sigtryggsdotter Boberg, niece
of Earl Birger. Metronymic suggests relationship
with a more illustrious family.

408

Liljeholm. By the same token, Peter Näf and through him his son-in-law Algot

Brynolfsson  have  been  presumed  to  be  related  to  the  royal  dynasty,  even  if
Peter’s marriage  to Earl Birger’s niece would turn out to be a false conjecture, as
Gillingstam  suspects (ÄSF). The  fleur-de-lys, also featured in  Folke’s blazon, was
the  emblem  of  Earl  Birger  Brosa,  whose  son  Earl  Folke  was  the  eponymous
leader of the aristocratic

folkung

party.

409

A possible connection with the family of

is suggested by the exceedingly

rare name.

410

Almqvist only describes the damaged seal as ‘man with cloak’, but I think the

drawing  in SSM  clearly  shows  the  point  of  a  sword  resting  vertically  against  the
ground  before  the  cloaked  man.  It  does  not  resemble  a  heraldic  blazon,  but
might perhaps be interpreted as a kind of ‘office seal’, analogous  to the bishop’s
and  dean’s  seals  found  in  SSM  series  2.  These  picture  saints,  angels,  or  men  in
sacred  attire.  In  a  similar  vein  Gustaf’s  seal  might  be  intended  to  represent  a
judge wielding the ‘sword of justice’.

411

Laurents Petersson abducted and married Benedicta, the daughter of Sune Folke-

son (son of Earl Folke) and Helena Sverkersdotter, last surviving member of King
Sverker's lineage. This meant that he – like Earl Birger – combined hereditary
connections to both of the royal dynasties and the ducal dynasty. His exile in
Norway indicates that he failed to make good his potential claim to the throne.

223

1268
Höldo

winged pheon

Värmland

Possibly an illegitimate son of the Norvegian
Earl Håkon Folkvidsson

412

1269-94
Bengt
Magnusson

lion

Öster-
götland

Son of

and a grand-nephew of Earl Birger

1270-88
Algot
Brynolfsson

griffin's head

Väster-
götland

Son-in-law of

Possibly a descendant of the

pre-1217 lawspeaker dynasty in Vgl, unless
they are purely mythical

413

1272-79
Filip
Törnesson

antlers

Närke

Possibly the son of an earlier lawspeaker of
uncertain proven-ance (Thyrner). Married to a
granddaughter of Earl Folke.

1273-85
Folke Karlsson

per pale, lion and
bendy

Värend

Son of

10.

Grandnephew of Earl Birger.

1279-88
Knut
Matsson

lion and fess

Närke

Son-in-law of Ulf Karlsson (wolf regardant), who
was a prominent councillor and a grandson of
Earl Charles the Deaf.

1285
Israel
Andersson

duck

Tiunda-
land*

Son-in-law of

3 .

1285
Karl
Haraldsson

Värmland

Married to a granddaughter of Earl Folke.

1285-6
Björn Näf

ferules

Söder-
manland

Son-in-law of

s daughter, who was also Earl

Birger's grandniece and a step-daughter of

17.

1286-96 Håkan

Attunda-
land*

Family unknown.

1286-99
Nils Sigridsson

per pale azure
and or ( “Night
and Day” )

Värend

Parents and wife unknown, but metronymic
suggests relationship with a more illustrious
family. Unspecified relative ('cognatus') of

15.

(1288)-91
Anund
Haraldsson

winged fleur-de-
lys

Söder-
manland

Son-in-law of Elof: a brother of

, and a half-

brother of Earl Birger.

(1288)-1305
Magnus
Gregersson

bendy

Väst-
manland

Grandson (illegitimate) of Earl Birger.

412

In that case a half-brother of the Norwegian pretender Knut Kristineson, a step-

son of

. Höldo's blazon, on the other hand, is identical with that of Earl Charles

the Deaf.

413

They are also said to be related to the royal dynasty – see below.

224

(1288?) 1294-
1305
Bengt
Hafridsson

lion

Väster-
götland

Son of

or (less likely)

Grandnephew of Earl

Birger.

1291-5
Tyrner Jonsson

cock’s foot?

Värmland

Family unknown

414

1293-1316,
1319-27
Birger
Petersson

two wings

Tiunda-
land*,
Uppland

Son-in-law of

12,

cousin of

17.

* Attundaland and Tiundaland – together with Fjärdhundraland – were in 1296
amalgamated into a composite province: Uppland, which, as the seat of the archsee as
well as of the capital, was obviously intended to become the leading province

The frequent examples of lawspeakers marrying into the

ducal/royal dynasties (more than half the cases) suggest a method of
tying up local notables. A few cases (

2-21, 14-25, 13

) hint –

inconclusively  –  at  the  possible  existence  of  local  continuity
independent of the central  power. Some  may  be  a sort  of  emissaries
from  the  royal  house  (

1, 8, 12, 23

and maybe some of the in-laws),

unless their lawspeakerships are rather to be viewed as some kind of
fiefs for junior branches. Those who are tied to the non-royal
branches of the old ducal dynasty

415

(

7, 14, 16, 18

) may also be

interpreted as holding power bases alternative to the central state, but
it  might  just  as  well  reflect  attempts  to  give  them  a  share  in  the
central  power.  The  presence  of  several  members  from  these  families
within  the  earliest  royal  councils  –  sometimes  before  they  appear  as
lawspeakers  (

18, 21, 22

) – gives a distinct impression of successful

integration.

Upstarts and

Uradel

Hans Gillingstam has argued (1952:23,52, ÄSF 2:51) that indigenous

names  like  Abjörn  and  Sighsten  are  evidence  of  a  lower  social
background, as the aristocracy had quickly adopted names of foreign
provenance.  Beckman  1953:346  objected  that  accepting  this  criterion
would lead to an  unreasonably large  number  of  upstarts in the  early
14

century. Gillingstam retorted that this is exactly what we should

expect, following the establishment of tax-exemption for horseman’s
service around 1280. This is no doubt on the mark, but Beckman’s

225

second

objection might be worthy of more serious consideration,

notwithstanding:

He argued that an old and distinguished family might stick to a

more archaic name pattern without letting themselves be affected by
recent fashions. Even if almost all of Beckman’s counterexamples are
from families who are

not

in evidence before 1280

416

, we only have to

consider  the  names  prevalent  within  the  few  really  aristocratic
families  we  know  from  the  earlier  period  –  those  who  freely
intermarried  with  royal  and  ducal  families  –  to  realize  that  he  has  a
point.  Ancient  Nordic  names  like  Finvid,  Sigtrygg  and  Holmger  not
only  appear  among  the  witnesses  in  the  first  few  royal  charters,  but
also  recur  within the  very highest aristocracy, such as the  families of
Ama and Boberg and the lineages named after the manors of Aspenäs
and Rumby.

Sigurd Rahmquist has made the observation that the arms of the

earliest  aristocracy  carry  fanciful  arrangements  with  fabled  beasts,
angels  and  flowers,  while  the  upstarts  carry  simple  shields  with
cardinal  charges

417

. This makes sense, if it represents an influx of

mounted warriors, to whom the necessity of being able to distinguish
blazons in the battlefield would be a stark reality: shields divided into
contrasting tints like Natt och Dag (per pale) or Hammersta (per fess)
as well as those carrying a chevron (Sparre), fess (Bielke) or bend
make sense within this context. If Rahmqvist is right, all of Beckman’s

examples

would be off the mark. Better support for Beckman’s

argument can be found in this list, containing examples of ancient
Scandinavian names within a number of the most exalted among the
early armigerous lineages:

414

Raneke suggests (SMV362u) that his seal may have been misinterpreted, and

that he carries antlers like

14.

His unusual name supports this notion.

415

‘Folkungar’ has become the conventional designation of the royal dynasty,

although the name originally signified groups

opposing

the new royal dynasty.

To make matters  even more complicated, most of  the leaders of  this opposition
belonged  to other branches of  the  same house or clan, which appeared  to have
more or less monopolized  the office of

Jarl

(‘Earl’, but rendered in latin as

dux

. I

use the Anglo-Saxon equivalent as a translation, but write ‘ducal’ when I need a
corresponding adjective. This does sound contradictory, but any alternative I can
think of would be even more misleading.

416

Sparre av Tofta (the names mentioned above), Arvid Gustavsson (Sparre av Vik)

and Ture Kättilsson (Bielke) and Rörik Birgersson: the exception; a grandson of
Earl Folke (ÄSF 185).

417

This analysis, presented in a public lecture, has not yet been published, but is

cited by Dick Harrison 2002a. (Personal communication from Rahmqvist)

226

Lineage

blazon

first
ap-
pear-
ance

Nordic names

percentage,
first 6 armi-
gerous gene-
rations

(<1381)

Relation

to ducal /
royal
dynasty

offices &

titles

Marital

relations

(and sons of
female
members

)

Algotsson
lineage

ÄSF 1ff
SMV407

griffin’s
head

1260

Algot,
Bryniolf, Karl,
Folke, Rörik

50% (

male

64%)

consangui
-nity (un-
specified)

2lawsp
bishop
(saint),
3canons
chancellor

lawsp,
2lawsp-drs
marshal’s dr,
Earl Folke´s
granddr

Ama

ÄSF107ff

SMV157

per bend
embattled
grady

1248 Folke, Ulf,

Holmger,

55% (

male

86%)

sideline of
elder
ducal
branch

lawsp,
camerarius,
2 canons

E. Birger’s
granddr,
lawsp-sister,
3lawsp-sons

Aspenäs

ÄSF

8ff

SMV414

lion-eagle

1272 Birger, Knut,

Ulf, Ingegärd

52%

female
sideline of
elder
ducal
branch

H Steward
3lawsp,
2leaders of
aristocratic
rebellion

3 lawsp & an
ex-prince

Bengt
Hafridson
lineage

ÄSF115ff

SMV283

lion

1286

(1230

Algot,
Bryniolf,
Knut,
Ramfrid,
Folke

63%

through

lawsp, duke,
marshal,
abbess

2 lawsp:s
2H Stewards
/one Norw/ ,
St Bridget´s
daughter

Boberg

ÄSF 22-5

SMV650

fleur-de-
lys betw.
antlers

1219 Sigtrygg,

Hafrid, Ulfhild

55%

female
sideline of
royal
branch

bishop

4 lawsp

Fånö

ÄSF50ff

SMV416

lion-eagle

1274

Tjelve, Karl,
Folke,
Torsten

63%

through

canon,
leader of
aristocratic
rebellion

Earl Knut’s
granddr, Earl
Folke’s
granddr,
Teutonic
Knight

Vingad lilja

SMV670

winged
fleur-de-
lys

1240 Anund,

Harald, Helga

78%

through

#14

lawsp

Earl Birger’s
niece, lawsp,
High Steward

Lejonbalk

ÄSF163ff
SMV855

per pale,
lion and
bendy

1263 Karl,

Ingeborg,
Folke,
Holmger, Ulf,
Ragvald

69%

through

2 lawsp,
canon

Earl Birger’s
niece,
Marshal’s gr-
dr, Norv.
baron’s dr

Stallare

ÄSF2:78ff

(SMV759)

7-point
mullet per
bend

1274

Ragne,
Anund,
Finvid,
Näskonung

85%

Stabularius,
marshal,
dep.lawsp

227

Rumby

ÄSF183ff
SMV231

bend
checky

1276

Finvid,
Jedvard,
Ingegärd

50%

Possible
relation to
older royal
dyn (Erics)

archbp,
canon,
member of
law comm.
rebel leader

2 lawsp, 2
lawsp-
children

Rörik
Birgersson
lineage

ÄSF185ff
SMV46

bend

1250 Rörik, Birger,

Holmger,
Anund

74%

female
sideline of
elder
ducal
branch

canon

Earl’s dr,
Ex-King’s
grdson,
2lawsp-drs

Ulv

ÄSF296ff
SMV329

wolf regar-
dant

1252

Ulf, Holmger

40%

German/Baltic:
15%

sideline of
younger
ducal
branch

lawsp,
steward,
justiciar

3 lawsp,
marshal, St.
Bridget’s
daughter

Tyrgils
Knutsson
lineage

ÄSF88ff
SMV746

lion

1283 Tyrgils, Knut,

Gustav,
Ragvald

60%

through

marshal,
lawsp

Sw. princess
(?),
Germ.count’s
daughter, Sw.
duke, Norv .
baron

Vingad pil

SMV696

winged
arrow

1253

Elof,
Sigmund,
Sune, Helga

39%

sideline of
royal
branch

5 lawsp,
High Steward

Örnsparre

ÄSF2
SMV859

per pale
half-eagle
&
chevronny

1269

Ingevald,
Thorsten,
Guttorm,
Olof, (Sune)

50%

2 lawsp,
Sthlm
castellan(?)

Earl Birger’s
illeg.grand-dr,
archbp’s
sister

dean-

chancellor

To look at the other side: which families would appear

not

to have

been  upstarts  according  to  Gillingstam’s  criterion?  The  examples  he
would  probably  have  had  in  mind,  are  the  magnate  families  most
intimately  connected  to  the  archsee:  And,  Ängel  and  the  Finsta
lineage,  where  general  Christian  European  names  such  as  Andreas,
Petrus,  Bengt  (Benedictus),  Magnus,  Johan,  Jakob  and  Israel  are
prevalent

418

. However, even among their family members we find

418

Finsta 65% general Christian names. Laurents Petersson’s family 88%.

228

ancient Scandinavian names like Birger

419

and Erland. Another very

early  aristocratic  family  that  would  fit  Gillingstam’s  pattern  is  the
family  of  the  lawspeaker  Laurents  Petersson,  grandson  of  king  Erik
Eriksson  and  abductor  and  first  husband  of  Benedicta  Sunesdotter,
granddaughter  of  King  Sverker  and  Earl  Folke.  Laurents’  father  and
great  grandfather were both named  Petrus/Peter,  and  his  grandfather
Laurents.  Still,  these  examples  are  by  no  means  more  frequent  or
more exalted

420

than those of the earlier list, and the shift in namestyle

is more obviously explained by the heavy ecclesiastical influence,
which would favour saintly names

421

A lawspeaker dynasty? – the

Algotssöner

in Västergötland

The only example that might give some credence to the traditional

image of regional lawspeaker dynasties

422

is the

Algotssöner

dynasty in

Västergötland.  Although  we  have  no  contemporary  documents
verifying  the  existence  of  the  alleged  early  lawspeakers  of  this
lineage,  the  story  acquires  some  credibility  from  the  fact  that  two
historical  lawspeakers  appear  to  belong  to  their  family.  The  legend
recounts four successive generations of lawspeakers belonging to this
dynasty,  as  predecessors  of  Eskil

lagman

. If this is true, Eskil (who,

along with the

Algotssöner’s

reputed ancestor Karle of Edzvära, is the

hero  of  the  legend)  becomes  an  interpolated  exception  before  the
descendants  of  these  presumed  peasant  leaders  resume  power.
However, there are at least 53  years  of such interruptions, and when
Algot  Bryniolfsson  attains  the  lawspeakership  around  1270,  he
probably  does  so  by  virtue  of  being  the  son-in-law  of  his  closest

419

Birger Petersson, the lawspeaker, was named after (and also adopted the blazon

of)  his  maternal  grandfather  Birger  Skänkare,  (SBL:  Birger  Petersson)  who
according  to  his  sobriquet  would  have  been  holding  one  of  the  highest  offices
within  the

hird

or royal entourage (corresponding to the office of butler in the

royal  English  household),  and  would  in  his  turn  presumably  have  been  named
after  Earl  Birger  (or  his  uncle  Earl  Birger  Brosa)  –  maybe  as  a  godson,  if  not
through  kinship  (among  the  early  examples  of  the  name  in the  archives,  all but
one are closely related to the ducal/royal dynasty. (SMP: ‘Birger’). Also

Conradi

Matsson 1998:109f.

420

With the possible exception of Laurents Petersson.

421

The royal branches of the dynasty continued to favour the prestigious ducal

name of Birger together with the ancient Swedish royal name Erik and the
Danish and Norwegian royal names of Valdemar and Håkan. The quasi-Christian
name of Magnus is derived from

Carolus Magnus

(Charlemagne).

422

Other examples of quasi-inheritable lawspeakerhood are either compatible with

the royal centralization thesis (the ‘lawspeaker branch’ of the royal dynasty and
their later in-laws in Östergötland) or late-medieval developments (the Vinge
dynasty in Värmland).

229

known  predecessor,  Peter  Näf,  rather  than  as  a  scion  of  an  ancient
dynasty.  He  is  succeeded  by  Peter’s  possible  son  or  stepson  Bengt
Hafridsson,  a  grandnephew  of  Earl  Birger’s,  and  when  Algot’s
grandson  56  years  later  becomes  a  lawspeaker,  after  three  or  four
additional relatives of the royal house, he surely owes this position to
his  relation  to  Bengt,  Peter  and  –  through  Bengt’s  mother  Hafrid

423

–

to Earl Birger, rather than to his alleged descent from a legendary line
of proto-lawspeakers

424

. Of course such a pedigree might have been

an advantage in gaining entrance into the higher aristocracy, and
acquiring the possibility of forming such advantageous liaisons, but is
this an argument for believing the story or for suspecting one of the

Algotssöner

of having fabricated it? Documents from the canonization

process for Brynolf Algotsson contain allusions to his noble descent
and relation to the royal house

425

, but do not confirm any particulars

of the lawspeaker legend.

The lawspeaker – native son or royal servant?

My survey has confirmed that those early lawspeakers which are

known to us were descended from the very highest aristocracy. How
are we then to interpret the provision ‘

bondes son’

, occurring not

only in the mid-14

century Land Law, but already in the oldest

preserved provincial code, that of Västergötland

426

? Almquist presumes

that as the word

bonde

originally signifies ‘settled’ or maybe ‘landed’,

the paragraph only means that the lawspeaker may not be the son of
a

‘lösker karl’

(vagrant), and he suggests that servants of the king

might also have been excluded.

I find it hard to understand how the later conjecture might be

deduced from the wording of the passage, and anyway my survey
points into quite the opposite direction. The necessity of ruling
against vagrants occupying the highest office of the Shire seems a bit
unwarranted – especially in the light of what we now know about the

423

Metronymics generally signify that the mother’s descent is more illustrious then

the father’s.

424

Of central importance is also his own marriage to a granddaughter of

Svantepolk Knutsson, signalling the end of a feud starting with his uncle’s
abduction of Svantepolk’s daughter, which plunged the whole family into
disgrace, and cost Algot his office.

425

We do not know in what way, but if it is true, the

Algotssöner

would become an

even less convincing counter-argument against a top-down interpretation of
lawspeakerhood.

426

In the Västergötland code, the paragraph on lawspeakers is preceded by a

section about the election of bishop. Also the bishop is supposed to be ‘

bondes

son’.

230

early lawspeakers’ normal social background – so we have to take a
closer look at the very word

bonde

. As the Västergötland law code is

the earliest text in medieval Swedish which we possess, we are
forced into etymological conjecture.

Literally,

bonde

is the present participle of

– ‘to live’ in the

localized  sense,  as  in  ‘living  in  Västergötland’.  A  possible
interpretation  might  then  be  ‘inhabitant’  or  ‘native’,  which  would
make  sense  as  a  provision,  although  it  had  been  broken  already
through  the  example  of  Eskil,  and  would  therefore  reasonably  have
been  introduced  later  on.  It  would  also  conform  to  the  pattern  of
provisions  for  the  subordinate  office  of

häradshövding

(‘hundred

sheriff’).

Häradshövdingar

were required to be domiciled within the

hundred

427

, while lawspeakers may even have had to be born within

their constituencies, if my interpretation is correct. We might also
consider the possibility that the word

bonde

originally may have had

higher social connotations than within later Swedish usage. Sawyer
and Sawyer (1993) point out the fact that one of the oldest Swedish
noble families is called Bonde, which at least would appear to show
that the word should not have had any demeaning connotations

428

. If

the traditional picture of a more or less egalitarian society of freeman
farmer-citizens could be shown to hold water, there would of course
be nothing to explain, but there are too many reasons to doubt it (

Dovring 1953, Sjöholm 1988, Rahmqvist 1996, Berg 2003).

Let us move forward in time! The first few subsequent lawspeakers

in each province seem to conform pretty well to the pattern observed
above, and as long as their pedigrees are in general insufficiently
known, it is not possible to move on to a more detailed analysis of
their social background and to scrutinize their ancestors with respect
to different status markers. First, however, a theoretical context.

427

A provision which seems to have been broken with increasing frequency

towards the end of the Middle Ages (Almquist in LDS).

428

On the other hand, there are several examples of not very flattering nick-names

transformed into family names, like

Krumme

(crooked),

Galen

(mad),

Krognos

(hook-nose)

, Gylta

(sow), and

Puke

(goblin).

231

STATEBUILDING PROCESSES AND SOURCES OF
SOCIAL POWER

The context within which the lawspeaker institution develops

429

, is

a state-building process, driven by an emergent royal power in close
cooperation with the church.

I will discuss this process utilizing Michael Mann’s concept of

political power as constructed from three different sources of power,
which he, modifying Weber, identifies as economic, military

430

, and

ideological power. The notion of ‘ideological power’ seems to me far
too diffuse, and, indeed

ideological

in itself, why I choose to

substitute the concept of ‘normative power’

431

. In order to centralize

(political)  power,  the  king  needs  to  achieve  control  over  physical
force  and  find  ways  to  mobilize  economic  resources.  Both  of  these
objectives require a normative underpinning – partly provided by the
church – but there is also an independent necessity for norm-building
in order to form societal units. Normative power generally has to  fall
back on sanctions – economic (fines) or physical (violence) – but the
strongest sanction during this time was

social exclusion

: to outlaw the

offender.

Adjudication

, the process of solving internal conflicts, is

one of the most fundamental building techniques used in constructing
human societies, and here there is space for a purely normative

429

I refrain from speculation as to what extent it might be built upon a previously

existing regional power structure, based on a spokesman function and/or lineage
status. There is no reason to postulate that political power must have been
constructed on a uniform pattern covering all the different regions.

430

The standard Weberian trichotomy is economy, politics and ideology, but as

Weber interpreted political power as ultimately based on military resources, Mann
argues that political power is not one of the fundamental sources, but a
composite form of power constructed from all of the three basic ones (Mann
1986, 1988).

431

Borrowed from a differently modified version of neo-Weberian sociology – Poggi

1978.

232

technique:

persuasion

432

. There is a case to made for persuasive

power as one of the fundamental sources, but for the moment I will
only use it as a subdivision or subaspect of normative power.

The role of the lawspeakers within the statebuilding project must

have been to tie the processes of adjudication into the state structure,
as a source of

state

power which will make normation possible on

the realm-level. A very important step here is the creation of a
widened form of social exclusion,

biltoghet

, which outlawed the

offender not only within his home region, but over the whole realm.
The provincial law codes known to us are all part of this process, as
Nyström  1974b and Sjöholm  1988  have argued in  different  ways,  but
also  reflect  the  underlying  power  struggles  at  stake  in  the  social
compromises  involved  in  constructing  the  state.  Violent  revolts  and
intermittent civil war were characteristic of this period, and indeed of
most  parts  of  the  medieval  history  of  Sweden,  but  it  is  not  easy  to
define  the  ‘parties’  involved.  The

Folkung

risings during the state-

formation period have been interpreted as a magnate reaction against
centralization  of  power,  possibly  in  alliance  with  independent
peasants reacting against the introduction of taxation (Lönnroth 1959).
Some  of  the  leaders  of  these  rebellions  belonged  to  families  later
providing  lawspeakers  to  the  Swedish  state.  Is  this  a  symptom  of
resistance  to  centralization  or  a  sign  that  the  Crown  eventually
succeeded to integrate its opponents?

Even after Earl Birger’s dynasty had succeeded to unite the claims

of the earlier competing dynasties and to vanquish the successive
rebellions, power struggles between different royal pretenders –

432

Basically, this is the ability to convince. It is based on the communicative ability

of humans. A chief or ‘big man’ (Sahlins) may reach dominance  through an ability
to persuade including  elements  of  the other power  sources  (his inexpendability
as  a  generous  provider  of  goods  and/or  his  ability  to  physically  intimidate). The
Swedish  rebel  leader  Engelbrekt,  whom  I  have  discussed  above  (Chapter  3),
obviously  was  a  very  efficient  persuader:  not  only  was  he  good  at  mobilizing
peasant  levies  –  most  of  his  successful  captures  of  royal  castles  during  the
rebellion were  the results of negotiations with the commanders. He successfully
negotiated  6-9  surrenders,  using  a  skilful  combination  of  threats  and  offers
(including, in  two cases, large amounts of cash), while  there  is only one case of
taking a castle by attack and one burnt-down among  the castles attacked under
his  own  command.  Where  he  didn’t  succeed,  he  negotiated  truces  (8  cases  –
none  of  the  other  commanders  did)  or  organised  sieges,  which  he  left  for
subcommanders  to  maintain  (7  cases).  His  original  function  as  a  spokesman  for
the disgruntled commonalty within the fief of Västerås, also shows that he was a
man  of  words  to  at  least  as  high  an  extent  as  a  man  of  action.  Evidently  he
combined  both  of  these  characteristics  efficiently,  and  the  element  of  physical
persuasion attributed to him at the so-called council meeting at Arboga 1434 (se e
Chapter 3) may thus be more than a pretext.

233

brothers  against  brothers,  sons  against  fathers,  cousins  against
cousins, became the new mode of internal strife. Can we always find
a  rationale  for  the  different  standpoints  in  these  struggles?  For  or
against  a  strong  state,  for  or  against  a  strong  church,  for  an  alliance
with  Norway  or  one  with  Denmark,  for  union  or  nation,  for  royal
authority or constitutional principle?

Or is power struggle just endemic in a redistributive society based

on the extraction of peasant surplus by a class of professional
warriors? And ideological motivation just a part of the propaganda
legitimizing the breaks of oaths and truces

433

There are obviously a lot of underlying conflicts of interest during

these  stormy  centuries,  and  as  long  as  we  remember  that  they  are
largely  filtered  through  the  taking  of  sides  in  acute  conflicts  by
professional  powerstrugglers  who  may  find  it  in  their  interest  to
change  sides  at  any  moment,  I  still  think  that  it  is  possible  to  find
rational explanations for these conflicts.

Erik Lönnroth – between idealism and materialism

Erik Lönnroth has put forward two widely divergent perspectives

on the lines of division during the medieval Swedish power struggles.
One is fundamentally idealist: the conflict between royal proto-
absolutism

(

regimen

regale

)

and

constitutionalism

(

regimen

politicum

). The other one is thoroughly materialist

434

: the tension

between  economic  power  based  on  the  exploitation  of  peasant
production  and  economic  power  based  on  participation  in  the
circulation process.

I consider both of these lines of division very important (and their

intersections!), but I disagree with the idealist interpretation of the
first one. As I have argued elsewhere, I consider it a specific Swedish
(and to some extent probably also an English

435

) trait, that the

alternatives  in  the  power  struggle  between  monarch  and  nobility
were  not  royal  centralization  versus  noble  (‘feudal’)  decentralization,
but  monarchic

oligarchic control over a power centre, a

state

which both sides helped to construct and which neither was prepared
to dismantle.

433

A rain-coat to put on when you need it, as the young Queen Christina said

about religion in a discussion with the Marshal Jakob de la Gardie.

434

And, maybe for that very reason, not as explicitly articulated. The clearest

formulation can be found in Lönnroth 1940, in the chapter about the Sture
administration.

435

The analyses in Anderson 1974b and Bendix 1978, suggest this. See page 139.

234

Lönnroth’s second line of division I would connect to Tilly’s

discussion  of  coercion-intensive  and  capital-intensive  state-building.
His  argument  is  that  where  there  are  sufficient  monetary  flows
possible  to  tap,  a  ‘cheap,  slim  state’  can  be  constructed,  without  the
need of a too oppressive state apparatus, but where this option is not
at hand, the only alternative is to squeeze the necessary resources out
of  the  peasant  masses.  Then  oppression  will  be  the  fundamental
characteristic  of  the  resulting  state.  The  twin  processes  of

military

competition,

necessitating an ‘accumulation of means of coercion’,

and of

economic competition

driving the accumulation of capital,

make the successful states converge on a mixed strategy (where it is
feasible) setting the standard for successful state-building and the
requirements for state survival. Thus the ‘

consolidated state

’

436

is born

and the wide spectrum of state-forms found in late medieval Europe
is reduced to variations on the same theme.

Tilly considers early modern Sweden to be an example of coercion-

intensive  statebuilding, although its  role in the development  of inter-
state  rivalry  would  fit  better  along  with  the  mixed-strategy  pioneers
(England, France and Spain). The lack of expansive cities is the main
stumbling-stone,  but  if  we  consider  Lönnroth’s  scheme,  it  might  be
possible  to  make  a  broader  definition.  The  socio-political  alliance
behind  the  ‘Sture  faction’  dominating  Sweden’s  medieval  power
struggles after 1471 was, according to Lönnroth, based on the mutual
trade-centered interests of city burghers, mining peasants (and mining
gentry),  and  cattle-trade  oriented  landowners  in  the  border  regions,
while  their  adversaries’  alliance  was  based  on  the  common  interests
of  grain-producing  peasants  and  landlords  in  the  central  Swedish
provinces. Lönnroth’s categoric interpretations of the medieval power
struggles  has  been  largely  abandoned,  but  if  we  see  his  purpose  as
making  analytical  distinctions,  and  constructing  ideal-type  models
rather  than  as  reconstructing  the  implicit  political  programmes  for
defined  and  cohesive  interest  groups

437

, I think that they still merit

serious consideration. His analysis of the economic failure of the
Mecklenburger invasion argues that the undeveloped Swedish
economy simply was not productive enough to support a continental-
style knightly army, and that the solution of the Sture administration

438

was to compensate for the low level of economic exchange through a

436

Earlier he talked of nation-states, but he now considers that term to create more

confusion than it solves.

437

Which is a view implicit in much of the criticism, but even if Lönnroth’s elegant

rhetoric sometimes gives such an impression, his analysis is far from simplistic.

438

Later to be further developed by Gustavus Vasa.

235

version  of  ‘administrated  trade’,  where  local  specialization  was
encouraged  through  complementary  forms  of  in-kind  tax  exaction,
and  where  the  surplus  product  was  realized  through  carrying  the
different  goods  to  locations  where  they  were  in  higher  demand.  In
this  way  the  level  of  division  of  labour  and  specialized  production
was  boosted  through  the  regime’s  intervention,  and,  reasonably,  this
should  have  raised  productivity  according  to  normal  Smithian
expectations.

In my modified Weber-Poggi-Mann model, power based upon

control over economic resources may in this way be subdivided into
control over production and control over circulation

439

. That might

serve as a common foundation for Lönnroth’s and Tilly’s distinctions,
which could both exemplify the possible

scope

of material interests,

and the possibility of alliances – however fleeting and transitory the

allegiance

of different actors to such potential convergences of

interests.

The peculiarities of Swedish feudalism –
Lagerroth’s view

Lagerroth 1947:150-3 discusses Swedish

länsväsende

in relation to

European feudalism (explicitly referring to Bloch). Lagerroth points
out, that the Swedish

mansförhållande

as reflected in

e g

the Statute

of Alsnö, corresponds to the general European vassalage, but that the
expression  'Men  of  the  Realm'  which  with  increasing frequency
replaces  'the  King's  Men',  leads  to  a  change  of  emphasis:  the  notion
of  serving  the  country becomes  more  important  than  the  personal
service relation to the King. Neither does the union between benefice
and  vassalage  apply  to  Sweden,  Lagerroth  argues,  and  besides,  the
Swedish  benefices,  like the  Norwegian,  are  just  to  be  seen  as  grants
of  incomes,  not  of  offices,  as  the  Swedish  fiefholder   exercised  his
authority in the King's name, and the immediate relationship between
King  and  subject did  not  disappear.  Moreover,  one  public  function,
judgement, was always reserved from the fiefholder.

Another ‘exceptional’ characteristic, he argues, is the absence of a

peculiar feudal institution:

It should hardly be necessary to mention, that it would never have

occurred to anyone, that

the Swedish medieval nobility should give up

439

Circulation here encompasses the whole phenomenon of ‘feudal realization’ as

well as precocious versions of capitalist realization.

236

their allodial land to receive it back as fiefs from the

King. (Lagerroth

1947:152; my translation)

Here we can stop to ask: how often did this ‘occur’ to anyone,

anywhere? Reynolds (1994) points out that the English don't even
have a word for this phenomenon – the

fief de reprise

(393) – and the

only example she cites in the part about England in

Fiefs and Vassals

concerns King John’s surrender of his kingdom to Pope Innocent III.

This suggests that Innocent may have thought of England as what

Italian historians call a

feudo oblato

... In the letter in which he

condemned Magna Charta the pope said that the king had received
England and Ireland back in feudum and referred to the rebels as
vassali conspiring against their lord and milites conspiring against their
king. (Reynolds 1994a:390)

An almost identical idea had entered the mind of at least one

Swedish king some 60 years later:

At the end of the same year Valdemar has invoked protection from

the Holy See against insurgents and pretenders. This appears from the
Pope’s order of January 9th, 1275, to the Archbishop and the Bishop
of Linköping to give the King the requested protection. Valdemar had
even gone so far as to formally acknowledge the Pope as his liege
lord. (Yrwing 1952:32; my translation)

Analogous strategies also seem to have been invented by Swedish

peasants in the mid-14th century, or at least by the King and his men,
to  whom  it  ‘occurred’  that  peasants  might  commend  their  allodial
land  to  aristocrats  through  feigned  land  sales,  and  thus  evade
taxation.  Swedish  historians  usually  interpret  this  as  a  simple  tax-
dodge  collusion,  and  seem  to  expect  that  peasants  and  gentlemen
divided  the  profit  more  or  less  equally. This  betrays  a  certain
blindness  to  the  realities  of  uneven  power  –  to  put  oneself  under
someone  else's  protection  is  to  put  oneself  at  the  mercy  of  the
protector,  even  if  the  danger  one  seeks  protection  against  is
something  as  commonplace  as  high  taxes;  at  that  time,  however,
there were also other and maybe even more threatening dangers than
taxes,  despite  the  impending  onset  of  agrarian  crisis  –  the  only
peaceful  period  in  medieval  Sweden  exceeding  20  years  was  also
drawing  to  an  end,  and  the  recurrent  civil  wars  were  soon  to  return
for  the  best  part  of  the  remaining  century.  In  such  a  situation,
protection  by  the  Church  might  seem  less  dangerous  than  by  the
competing  lords  –  no  wonder  that  Queen  Margaret's  inquiry  into
alienated  tax-land  struck  much    harder  against  the  parish  churches
than against cathedrals and monasteries (Rosén 1950).

237

The figure of thought behind the

fief de reprise

was not so abstruse

as it came to seem when it was inferred in hindsight by historians –
or sought after in vain as an indicator of ‘true’ feudal development:

It would be a misconception to suppose that all fiefs were in fact

created by a grant made by a lord to the vassal. Paradoxical as it may
seem, many actually originated in a gift by the vassal to the lord; for
the man who sought protection had frequently to pay for the
privilege. The powerful individual who forced his weaker neighbour
to submit to him was apt to require the surrender of his property as
well as his person. (Bloch 1961:171)

That it seldom occurred to Swedish aristocrats

440

to give away their

own  land  to  receive  it  back,  might  have  been  because  they  usually
had  other  options.  We  do  not  know,  however,  whether  the  ‘men’
serving  under  the  King’s  men,  who  became  exempt  from  taxes
through the Statute of Alsnö

441

had to commend their land (if they had

any) to their lords. The advantage to the lord of putting this on paper
would have been questionable.

The executors of Bo Jonsson's will gave away the castle-fiefs they

were holding to Queen Margaret, and received them back as fiefs
held from her, and even if these castles and territories were not their
allodial property

442

, the mortgage fief system had by then evolved into

a device for investment and speculation in property

443

where

allodium

was not necessarily the most advantageous title to property in every
case.

So: most of the institutional alternatives of the feudal mix were

available at least in 13

century Sweden, and the choices between

them depended on the conjunctures in the feudal power game – like
everywhere  else  in  medieval  Europe  –  and  led  to  a  different
social/political/economic/institutional  settlement  than  the  norm,
which  is  also  true  of  every  situation  except  the  one  that  you  have
defined as the norm.

440

The conventional interpretation of the Statute is questioned by Bjurling 1952,

Sjöholm 1988, and Bjarne Larsson 1994; in any case, the similar arrangement
found in the Land Law of

1350 (MELL) is not presented as entirely novel, and

should at least have been introduced at some point between 1280 and 1350.

441

Or at some other date – the question of how to interpret this statute

per se

not necessary for the argument.

442

Some of the castles and fiefs in the testament may have been, but as Queen

Margaret’s subsequent inquiry redefined the terms of landholding retroactively, it
hardly mattered.

443

And at the same time in political control – the objectives of fortune-hunting and

political ambition were

fused

in this process in a way that would be very difficult

to convey, were we to deprive ourselves of the term

feudal

. (

Gurevich)

238

Three-dimensional seigneurialism

Duby (1980) describes a seigneur’s power as deriving from three

sources:

seigneurie fonciére

is based on his ownership of land. This

aspect of lordly power could be termed the

proprietary

dimension

seigneurie domestique

is the power that derives from his

household. He is the master of everyone working for him,
including, very importantly, those armed retainers without
whom his power might prove impossible to maintain. This I
consider to be the

patriarchal dimension

of lordly power.

seigneurie banale

, finally, is the power derived from his

public

functions, as an administrator, judge or upholder of

public monopolies (mills and other

banalités

When a seigneur combines in his own person the triple force of

these different forms of lordship, his authority would seem positively
overwhelming. We should by no means imagine, though, that the
three dimensions were always combined. An important aspect of
Swedish feudalism is the

subdivision of the public dimension

into two

complementary and competing aspects:

3a.

the

castellan

(

slottsherre

captain

(

hövitsman

bailiff

(

fogde

)

444

was responsible for the economic and military

aspects  of  state  power  –  levying  taxes,  fines,  and  other
dues, protecting the region both against external attack and
internal  rebellion,  organizing  the  material  support  of  the
castle,  which  included  the  stocking  of  necessary  provisions
and the conversion of the  different articles  of taxes in  kind
into  those  necessary  for  maintenance  and  military
capability

445

3b.

the

lawspeakers

and

hundred sheriffs

were responsible for

holding public courts of different instance

This is what Lagerroth emphasizes in his comparison between

Swedish fief system and general European feudalism:

444

The categories slide into each other, but appear to denote somewhat different

delegations of authority (Fritz 1972:156ff).

445

I e

: solving what I term the ‘feudal realization problem’, in the final instance

usually effected through trade (passive or active).

page 46.

239

The Swedish fiefholder exercised his authority in the King’s name,

and the immediate relationship between the King and his other
subjects did not cease. One public function, the judiciary, was always
excepted in Sweden (1947:151f; my translation)

That may be true, but only to the extent that the King’s authority

was also effectively exercised

446

; however, conditions of power were

for  a  very  large  part  of  Swedish  medieval  history  contested  and
therefore  we  may  question  the  relevance  of  such  statements:  the
‘immediate  relationship  to  the  king’  is  not  a  constant  given  but
something contestable. If it tends to disappear

447

, though, this can

also

be contested. This is why I argue that ambiguity, leading to
contestation, is a dynamic element.

Castellans and lawspeakers – any overlaps?

In general, though, the top-down system of castle fiefs was held

separate  from  the  bottom-up  system  of  villages,  parishes,  hundreds
and  provinces.  When  a  lawspeaker  also  functioned  as  a  castellan,
which  was  not  uncommon,  he  normally  did  so  in  another  province.
There  are  quite  a  few  exceptions,  though,  primarily  in  marginal
provinces:

•

Finland

first Nils Turesson (Bielke) and then Bo Jonsson

(Grip)  combined  the  functions  of  lawspeaker  and  castellan.  In
general,  Finland  often  seems  to  have  functioned  as  a  province
on  conditions  separate  from  the  rest  of  Sweden,  and  became
the  closest  Swedish  equivalent  of  ‘feudal  separatism’  at  several
points in its history.

•

Norrland

, the vast Northern part of Sweden, belonged to the

lawspeakership of Uppland, and at least the two lawspeakers
Ture Bengtsson (Bielke) and Nils Gustavsson (Rossvik)

448

were

also castellans in Norrland (Faxeholm, in Ture’s case; Korsholm,
in  Nils’).  In  the  core-land  of  the  lawspeakership,  the  only
example  seems  to  be  Karl  Ulfsson  of  Tofta  doubling  as  a
castellan  of  Stockholm  in  1364-65.  This  happens  at  the  very
moment  when  King  Magnus  is  deposed  by  Albrecht  of
Mecklenburg,  though,  and  when  the  exiled  Karl  Ulfsson  is

446

Reynolds 1984 (

passim

)

for examples of public authority persisting

throughout the Middle Ages.

447

As when the king refuses to listen to peasant grievances, like Eric of Pomerania

in 1432-34.

448

Lawspeakers in 1407/09-1417 and 1417/21-32/37, respectively.

240

returning as a military leader of the invasion army. It is also a
quite transitory arrangement. A more ambiguous case is Birger
Petersson’s role as a tax-collector in Uppland under the Dukes’
regime (Rosén 1939)

449

•

Värmland,

Erik Kettilsson Puke and Agmund Hatt seem to

have combined the two functions – explicitly in Agmund’s case,
as he was officially both castellan and lawspeaker, and at least

de facto

in Erik’s (Nilsson 1997:55f, 70f).

•

Småland,

divided between the lawspeakerships of

Tiohärad

450

and Östergötland, (which still controlled the

hundreds adjacing it to the south, as well as the coastal region)
the  important  city  of  Kalmar  grew  up  around  a  stronghold
whose  first  known  castellan  is  Magnus  Bengtsson,  lawspeaker
of Östergötland and a nephew of Earl Birger. In a letter quoted
by  Yrwing  (1952:69)  he  refers  to  himself  as  ‘

legifer Osgotorum,

prefectusque Kalmarniensis’

451

, so at least on the margins of his

lawspeakership, he combined the functions.

Larsson 1964:110f points out that during the middle 1330’s, parts of

Värend

452

belong to the mortgage fief of Kalmar, where Ulf

Abjörnsson  –  son-in-law  of  the  earlier  castellan  and  present
lawspeaker  of  Tiohärad,  Sune  Jonsson  –  is  the  castellan  while  the
administration  and  taxation  of  Värend  is  ‘entrusted  to  their  mutual
relative Nils Dannes

453

’, whose cousin Gustav Nilsson at the same time

has the castellany of Varberg, comprising northern Halland and
Finnveden

454

. To Larsson’s picture can be added:

While Sune Jonsson (Båt) was castellan of Kalmar, Erik
Turesson (Bielke) – the elder brother of Nils Dannes – had
been the lawspeaker of Tiohärad

449

Knut Jonsson of Östergötland also ’seems to have had administrative tasks in the

province in excess of those motivated by his position as lawspeaker, High
Steward and councillor.’ (Fritz1973:83; my translation)

450

The old mini-provinces of Värend, Finnveden and Njudung in the central parts,

bordering on Danish provinces to the south and southwest, and on
Västergötland to the north and north-west.

451

He may have been trying to emulate his eldest uncle, Eskil

lagman

, who labeled

himself

legifer visigotorum

in 1219. See page 219.

452

The dominant part of Tiohärad.

453

Belonging to the Bielke family and married to Sune’s niece. The word “mutual”

seems a bit exaggerated: Ulf’s and Nils’ wives were cousins – I cannot find any
independent connection between them.

454

Another part of Tiohärad.

241

When Ulf Abjörnsson (Tofta) appears in Kalmar his brother
Nils has just become

drots

(High Steward), giving him ‘full

authority over the castles, crown incomes and justice’ (

op cit

). If this group did function as a cohesive power group at the
time  –  which  is  not  at  all  certain  as  many  of  them  had
connections  to  other  networks  that  might  override  their
loyalties  to  this  particular  configuration  –  they  would  have
controlled  a  belt  reaching  across  the  whole  of  Sweden  and
(potentially)  cutting  off  the  recently  acquired  province  of
Scania from the rest of Sweden.

At least by 1339, Sune’s other son-in-law, Nils Turesson,
(Bielke)

455

becomes lawspeaker of the island of Öland (west

of  Kalmar),  which  might  complete  the  imagined  cut-off.  The
only  lawspeaker  that  we  know  of  there  before  him,  is  Sune
Jonsson  around  1319-22,  so  if  someone  else  has  held  the
office  in  between,  it  would  very  probably  have  been
someone related to them.

Gustav Nilsson and Ulf Abjörnsson would each in turn
succeed Sune Jonsson as lawspeakers of Tiohärad, followed
by Nils Turesson (who was also Gustav’s cousin)

As Kalmar was a mortgage fief for some time after 1332 a lot
of money must have been needed to acquire it. The family of
Henrik  Glysing,  who  had  acted  as  the  ‘banker’  of  Magnus
Ladulås  (Gillingstam  in  ÄSF53f),  had  close  connections  with
many  in  this  network.  One  of  his  daughters  married  Sune
Jonsson  and  the  other  Gustav  Nilsson.  His  son  married  Erik
Turesson’s daughter

456

This example shows that the separation between the powers of

military  force  and  rent  exaction  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  regional
justice  on the other,  might  be combined in clandestine ways difficult
for  us  to  discern.  Still,  the  kind  of  ‘collective  banal  lordship’  that
might  be  constructed  with  such  methods  would  be  contingent  and
lacking  institutional  stability  –  it  would  hardly  be  more  stable  than
other fleeting alliances pooling different kinds of power.

Still, the particular network described here was so densely

interconnected, and possessed such a strategic geographic position
within the ‘crisis of the Swedish-Scanian commonwealth’ described by
Sjöstedt 1954, that we might suspect them of having played a more

455

The brother of Erik Turesson and Nils Dannes.

456

Also, Erik’s wife and Sune’s second wife were sisters.

242

central  role  than  they  do  in  his  account.  Within  the  group  of
magnates  inciting  prince  Eric  to  his  rebellion,  Nils  Turesson  (Bielke)
was  one  of  the  obvious  leaders,  together  with  Karl  Ulfsson  of  Tofta,
the  son  of  Ulf  Abjörnsson,  and  Earl  Erengisle  Suneson,  the  son  of
Sune  Jonsson.  These  three

457

were tied together through the

intermarriages  and  interlocking  interests  in  the  key  geographic  area,
and  the  three  interconnected  families  they  represented  can  together
with in-laws  account for six or seven out of the fifteen known rebels
(

Sjöstedt 1954:171-177.). Sjöstedt argues that the diocese of

Linköping was the ‘cradle of the rising’, (211) but a stronger case
might be made for Småland.

Divided lordships – freer peasants

A divided lordship will of course leave more space for peasant

freedom  and  communal  self-regulation.  A  lord  who  has  to  rely  on
only  one  source  of  lordly  power  must  with  necessity  have  less
coercive  capacity  than  Duby’s  triple  seigneur,  but  there  is  also
another  aspect:  if  other  lords  with  other  pretensions  to  authority
exercise  their  power  in  the  vicinity,  this  may  lead  to  competition
between  the  lords:  actively,  if  they  try  to  encroach  on  each  other’s
power  bases,  or  passively,  in  that  peasants  can  try  to  balance  one
authority against another.

As Robisheaux describes the conditions of lordship

458

in Western

Germany:

Peasants might have one lord with rights over the land and its

resources, another for personal bondage (serfdom), and a third for
justice. Lordship could be exercised not only by the nobility, but also
by princes, ecclesiastical institutions, towns and other corporations.
(Robisheaux 1998:133)

Where the roles of castellan and lawspeaker were held apart,

which was usually the case, Swedish peasants should have had access
to forms of legal protest already before the revolution against king
Eric; in any case the outcome of this revolution confirmed the
existence of such rights (see chapter 3).

457

Together with Bishop Nils Markusson of Linköping, they were the foremost

members of the rebel party according to Sjöstedt 1954:212.

458

Where he also discusses the reciprocal aspects of the right to protection and the

peasants’ share in ‘the formal and informal processes of domination’. Here I am
only discussing the aspect of multiple lordship.

243

THE CHANGING ROLES OF THE LAWSPEAKERS –
PERIOD BY PERIOD

In order to analyze the recruitment and distribution of lawspeakers,

we should subdivide the survey according to the general conditions
of the statebuilding process. The following periods may be discerned:

A formative period when a state apparatus capable of
functioning also in the absence of a king (or a king-substitute)
is slowly constructed (1219-1319).

A  period  of  state  consolidation  under  competitive  tension  but
also  cooperation  between  monarchy  and  oligarchy    (1319-
1356).

conflict-ridden

period

where

oligarchic

oppositions

repeatedly contest royal power leading to more or less constant
civil war (1356-1389).

A period of conscious attempts to remold the state into a royal
instrument (1389-1434).

A tumultuous period of revolution and ensuing power struggle
where competing alternatives coalesce into a compromise
between oligarchy and monarchy (1434-48).

A new period of recurrent civil war where at least three

459

state-

building alternatives compete for power on different geographic
aggregation levels (1448-1521).

Here I will only discuss the first four periods, as a closer analysis of

the two last periods would have to consider the question of who did
appoint each lawspeaker, and to situate them into the contexts of the
mutable factions connected to the different state-building alternatives.
I am not yet prepared to offer a detailed survey of those periods.

I. Formation and formalization (1219-1319)

The first period is characterized by the slow construction of a state

apparatus based on castellanies, interrupted by a series of aristocratic
rebellions, one of which ousts King Valdemar in favour of his brother,
Duke Magnus. Also by the extension of the lawspeaker office to all

459

One oligarchic and two monarchic alternatives: the Union monarchy and a local

Swedish principate.

244

the regions

460

, the diffusion of provincial law-codes

461

and by the

gradual integration of lawspeakers into the King’s Council

462

. Before

any of these processes is completed, the nascent state apparatus starts
to subdivide, being sundered by the conflict between King Birger and
his  brothers,  the  Dukes  Erik  and  Valdemar.  During  this,  the
lawspeaker  office  is  politicized,  and  different  demarcations  between
areas  under  the  control  of  each  side  lead  to  changes  of  lawspeakers
(Rosén 1939:239f,  262f,  307f). Jägerstad argues against Rosén that the
council aristocracy largely tries to avoid choosing sides, as they prefer
a  splintered  royal  power  to  a  strong  and  united  one.  Finally,  the
conflict culminates  with the imprisonment and  murder  of the  Dukes,
and a general rebellion exiles the King.

The provincial law-codes might be seen as a form of aristocratic

counter-consolidation  on  the  regional  level,  as  Elsa  Sjöholm  has
argued (1988). At least it makes sense to view the Uppland law code
in  this  perspective.  The  consolidation  of  three  earlier  mini-regions
into one, coterminous with the archsee and in some way co-ordinated
with  it,  as  the  inclusion  of  the  archdean  Andreas  And  in  the  law
commission  seems  to  suggest,  and  strong  enough  to  function  as  a
balancing secular power centre upheld by the lawspeaker – as Birger
Petersson’s  position  in  the  struggle  over  tithe  alms  shows  (Rosén
1939).  The  question  of  whether  the  lawspeaker  institution  originated
in attempts at royal centralization or in aristocratic attempts to balance
the centralization might not be possible to resolve, but at least at this
point

463

he would be capable of fulfilling either function – or both.

460

This process is not fully completed until later – incontrovertible evidence for

Öland does  not  appear before  1339,  although  there  is  a  good  case  to  be  made
for  1319.  Lawspeakers  or  deputy  lawspeakers  for  Finland  or  part  of  Finland
appear from 1324 onwards (Anthoni 1970), but not until 1362 does it become a
fully  independent  lawspeakership,  with  a  separate  vote  in  the  royal  election
ceremony  (which  Öland    never  attains  during  the  Middle  Ages,  and  neither,  it
would  seem,  Värmland).  Even  discounting  these  two  provinces,  it  is  not  until
1305  that we can identify  the lawspeakers for  each of these seven provinces at
the same time.

461

Neither is this process completed during the period – indeed it never happens,

as the Land Law is introduced before every province has acquired its own law
code.

462

This does not mean that all of the lawspeakers become regular council-members

(as Birgitta Fritz points out), but that they are

available

for council duty, and may

be called upon to augment it when necessary.

463

But this might have been true already of Eskil. That I consider Sjöholm’s analysis

believable in this aspect does not mean that I subscribe to her absurd dictum of
two mutually exclusive theories: an ‘oral tradition’ theory and a ‘reception theory’
either one of which you have to embrace fully or not at all (Sjöholm 1988).

246

Chart 21: Lawspeakers 1296-1318

As I’ve mentioned above, 1305 is also the first year for which we

can identify lawspeakers in all of the provinces

467

at the same time.

Among these eight men,

Magnus Gregersson

is a grandson of Earl

Birger,

Bengt Hafridsson

(lion) and

Magnus Karlsson

(Lejonbalk) of

his sister, and

Knut Magnusson

(lion) of his niece.

Lidinvard Ödesson

(Örnfot) and

Filip Ingevaldsson

(Örnsparre) are married to his

granddaughters,

and

Birger

Petersson

(Finsta)

great

granddaughter of his elder brother, Bishop Bengt. Furthermore,
Magnus Karlsson is married to the daughter of another brother, Elof.

Svantepolk

Knutsson

is a grandson of a Danish King and of an Earl of

Östergötland. All of the other lawspeakers either carried a royal lion
in their blazons, or were married (Birger, Lidinvard and Filip) to
wives that did

468

C. 1306-19: King Birger and the Dukes

Two new entrants –

Algot Jonsson

(antlers) and

Gudmar

Magnusson

(Ulvåsa) – have married into a sideline of the dynasty,

while

Knut Jonsson

(Aspenäs), the son of an executed

Folkung

-rising

leader, inherits the office of his father-in-law and of his maternal
grandfather (Svantepolk). Politically motivated shifts (Rosén 1939:109)
occur in six or seven cases (at least – there are gaps in the sources).
Their replacements conform to the general pattern: Filip

467

Except Öland and Finland, which are added later.

468

Svantepolk carried a royal

Danish

lion (leopard) on his shield.

Upl

Birger Petersson (Finsta)

Vml

Magnus Gregersson (illeg. royal line)

Sdm

Johan

Ingevaldss.(örnsparre)

Filip Ingevaldsson (örnsparre)

Stefan Rörikss. (staffanss.)

Vgl

Bengt Hafridsson

Knut Magn.

Vrm

Knut Magnusson

Nrk

S u n e

Lidinvard Ödesson (Örnfot)

Ögl

Knut Jonsson (Aspenäs)

Thd

Nils Sigr.(N&D)

LAWSPEAKERS - PERIOD I b,c: 1296-1318

1 3 1 0

1 3 1 5

1 3 0 0

Knut J?

Filip Ing.

Algot Jonsson (antlers)

Magnus Karlsson (Lejonbalk)

1 3 0 5

Svante

Svantepolk Knutsson

Ture Kettilsson (Bielke)

Gudmar Magnusson

Magn.B. d y

T u k e
Jons.

Realm divided

Birger / Dukes

Divided in 3:

Birger / Erik /

Valdemar

King in

exile

King in
prison

K. Birger Magnusson

Tyrgils Knutsson rules

Dukes
exiled

coronation

TK exe-

cuted

N B

L U

247

Ingevaldsson, who remained on the side of the Dukes, was at the
settlement of 1310 replaced by

Stefan Röriksson

(Staffanssönerna)

married to Magnus Gregersson’s niece;

Ture Kettilsson

(Bielke), who

replaced Magnus Karlsson for the same reason, was the son-in-law of
an earlier Tiohärad lawspeaker (

op cit

240). Ture was also the King’s

treasurer. When he is later removed from this office, he is also
replaced as a lawspeaker, by

Tuke Jonsson

(Läma)

469

. Knut Jonsson is

also  dismissed  from  the  office  of  High  Steward,  but  remains  a
lawspeaker  until  the  opposition  takes  over.  Then  he  is  (temporarily)
replaced  by  his  son-in-law,

Bo Nilsson

(Natt och Dag) who had

belonged to the Dukes’ men all along.

It is possible that Bengt Hafridsson’s son-in-law Knut ?Jonsson

470

(Tre  Rosor)  also  functions  as  a  lawspeaker  during  the  gap  between
Gudmar  Magnusson’s  death  and  Knut  Magnusson’s.  He  appears  in
Stiernman’s list (SGH), but this claim does not seem to be backed by
any supporting  evidence.  As  his  son-in-law Magnus Håkansson,  who
does  not  have  any  other  obvious  connection  to  lawspeaker  families,
later  holds  the  office  in  Södermanland,  and  his  grandson  Knut
Jonsson  (see  page  271)  also  becomes  a  Västergötland  lawspeaker,  it
is by no means self-evident that he belongs to Stiernman’s mistakes.

II. Consolidation and tension (1319-1356)

The second period starts with the election of the three-year old

Magnus Eriksson as a King in accordance with a ceremony probably
never used before

471

, and at the same time the assembly proclaims

what  has  been  called  the  Swedish  ‘Charter  of  Liberty’,  a  conjuration
where  the  magnates  promise  to  preserve  all  the  ‘rights,  freedoms,
privileges,  and  ancient  customs’  that  duly  belong  to  the  Men  and
Churches  of  the  Realm  of  Sweden,  and  declare  that  no  new  taxes
may be collected in the future without first being announced and put
forward  to  ‘all  of  us’.  Then  this  is  to  be  announced  (‘by  us’)  to  the
community in the different parts of the realm, and only after a ‘careful
deliberation and examination’ may new taxes be collected.

Jägerstad 1948:250 points out that

•

the tumultuous period 1306-19 has brought the Church and the
aristocracy together in that the earlier struggle between the
privileged classes has been replaced by a common interest in

469

The brother of a Marshal and possibly a great grandson(sds) of Earl Birger.

470

His patronymic is uncertain (ÄSF2), but if we believe Stiernman, it should be

Jonsson.

471

Sjöholm 1988.

248

resisting the royal power concentration and the rising taxation
pressure.

•

the  twentyfive  signatories  do  not  style  themselves  a  council  –
despite  the  general  tendency  of  historians  to  describe  them
thus;  neither  do  those  who  have  been  councillors  use  the  title
in the document, although they  do so in  other letters  from the
same time.

•

They  do  not  in  any  way  describe  themselves  as  a  regency,  in
which  case they  would  reasonably  be the ones responsible  for
announcing  the  need  of  new  taxes.  The  signatories  on  the
contrary  expect  to  become  the  objects  of  future  taxation
demands.

He therefore concludes that the promise to aid and advice the High

Steward Mats Kettilmundsson and his successors show the purpose of
the letter: the signatories formulate their

conditions

for supporting the

regency

His argument is quite convincing, but one thing he does not

discuss is the role of the lawspeakers, who

use their titles in the

list of signatories, in contrast to the councillors. Obviously they
consider the subject of justifiable taxation to fall under their sphere of
competence

472

. Also the general purpose of the assembly, to elect a

king,  had  recently  been  declared  to  be  the  responsibility  of  the
lawspeakers,  which  must  have  augmented  the  distinction  of  the
office, and served to  bind them together as a collective. As  Jägerstad
argues,  there  wouldn’t  really  have  existed  any  council  at  the  time,
since the council is chosen by the king, and royal authority had been
fragmented  for  more  than  a  decade.  However,  the  lawspeakers,
together  with  the  bishops,  provided  continuity,  and  the  two  groups
together ensure the cohesion and regional balance of a country that is
still  far  from  integrated;  maybe  the  lawspeakers  can  even  be  said  to
develop into some sort of quasi-representation

473

by this time.

The two decades of the regency

474

are usually seen as a period of

more or less collective rule, and of consolidation for the council.
Jägerstad, on the other hand, considers the High Steward Knut
Jonsson to have ruled the country in person, as the sole regent, while

472

Which may give a clue to their role in the rebellion against Eric of Pomerania.

473

the councils and meetings of lords listed in Beckman subdivided according to

provincial affiliation, (Beckman 1954:542-547) and the example of an earlier
lawspeaker filling in for his absent successor in a case put before the council
(270).

474

Leaving the first year under Mats Kettilmundsson’s aegis aside, as also the two

years when the Duchess Ingeborg took command of the regency.

249

the council had little share in the business of government. Still he
describes the evolution of the council into an

ever more independent institution with a manifest character of

estate representation and with fixed demands for influence on the
governing of the country. The Swedish Realm during this time gives
the impression of an aristocratic republic with the High Steward Knut
Jonsson as its leader and the council as its senate(295; my translation),

so the contrasting viewpoint seems to be no more than a change of

emphasis.

As four to six replacements are made before Magnus’

majority, the council must have become self-perpetuating
through co-optation, as can be seen within the lawspeaker
college, where there are two tendencies

more or less hereditary offices,

but also

a tendency that lawspeakers can move between provinces.

These two tendencies almost seem like polar opposites, but both of

them serve to integrate the group, and a combined form also appears:
a lawspeaker’s son is appointed to office, but in another province (Ulf
Gudmarsson).

During this period, the new chivalric class defined by the statute of

Alsnö

475

is amalgamated with the old magnate stratum, and hierarchic

relations introduced on the model of Central European feudalism
serve to integrate the

frälse

category. Of course this process has

started already in the preceding period, and the promulgation of
chivalric ideology through the

Erikskrönika

, written early in this

period, marks the maturation of chivalry as an integrative aristocratic
ideology for the

frälse

class. The promulgation of the Lawspeaker

myth in law-codes and supplements, and the fabrication  of the royal
election  legend,  which  elevates  the  lawspeakers  into  a  position  of
electors,  may  be  seen  as  a  competing  ideological  context,  stressing
tradition (since heathen times!), wisdom, and responsibility. St Bridget
provides yet another mode of discourse, with the added advantage of
combining  religious  and  secular  propaganda,  which  is  closely
connected  to  dominant  lawspeaker  families,  and  to  the  rebellious
factions

476

of period III.

475

Or – if the objections to the traditional interpretation of the Alsnö meeting

should be heeded – defined by the practice of tax-exemption which is soon to
be codified in the Land Law.

476

Engström’s ‘Birgittine party’ (1935).

250

Further law-codes are prepared and promulgated and on Magnus’

majority; there exists a rudimentary state which is no longer only a
function of the King’s ability to rule

477

. During the rest of this period

the  tension  between  personal  royal  rule  and  institutionalized  state
power  with  a  collective  component  does  not  preclude  the  further
development of  normative  power and state machinery

478

, culminating

in the proclamation of the unitary

479

Land Law (MELL) around 1350.

The financial crisis caused by the purchase of Scania and the ensuing
warfare, and the King’s more and more desperate attempts to achieve
greater freedom of action through replacements and reorganizations
of the High Offices of the Realm, finally lead up to Bengt Algotsson’s
rise to power through the new office of Duke, sparking a rebellion
fronted by Magnus’ son Eric (Sjöstedt 1954,

passim

Lawspeakers during the second period:

A. 1319-1338: The ‘Charter of Liberty’ oligarchy

The lawspeakers that solemnly elect the three-year old Magnus
are  basically  the  victorious  faction  from  the  Civil  War:  the
Dukes’  Men,  and  although  there  has  been  a  reconciliation
between  the  two  sides  after  the  murder  of  the  Dukes  –  for
instance,  also  three  of  the  lawspeakers  who  have  now  been
replaced  did  sign  the  ‘Charter’  –  the  lawspeakers  of  1319  all
belong  to  the  victorious  side  (Rosén  1939:299ff,  307f).  The
tension  between  the  two  sides  seems  to  have  abated,  though,
and  two  of  the  ‘royal’  lawspeakers  return.  One  of  these,

Knut

Jonsson

(Aspenäs) becomes a High Steward (

drots)

and the

leader of the  regency, after an initial period  dominated by the
military  leader  of  the  rebellion,  Mats  Kettilmundsson,  and  the
King’s  mother,  the  Norwegian  princess  Ingeborg  (Beckman
1954).  During  the  Regency,  the  Council  has  become  a  self-
perpetuating  group,  styling  themselves  ‘Council  of  the  Realm’,
and  co-opting  new  lawspeakers,  usually  among  their  own

477

Earl Birger and Tyrgils Knutsson in their respective regencies both seem to have

acted more like kings themselves, and despite Jägerstad’s arguments against a
collective regency, he is in effect saying something very similar.

478

The council opposition against royal taxation in the 1340’s leads to a compromise

regulating the conditions for taxation in the Land Law

etc

479

Not quite – towns were regulated according to the new Town Law, and the

provincial law codes continued to be employed for quite a long time. Also canon
law held its ground, and the ambition to include a church section in the land law
seems to have failed.

252

might have been secondary all along.

481

. As the Council is now self-

perpetuating, royal blood may be just an indicator of highly
aristocratic descent. In either case, the picture of lawspeakers as local-
community powerholders is weakened.

The final reconciliation with the Birger’s former men is marked by

the return to office of

Knut Jonsson

(Aspenäs), who is reinstated as

High Steward by 1322, and probably returns to his lawspeakership
soon after (or at least by 1330).

Greger Magnusson

(illegitimate

royal sideline) has already succeeded his father in Västmanland, after
only a short interlude

482

, and while Ture Kettilsson does not return to

office, his son

Erik Turesson

(Bielke) appears as the lawspeaker of

his father’s old province, Tiohärad. Erik, however, belonged to the
Dukes’ men, like

Gustav Tunesson

(Ving), who becomes

lawspeaker of Värmland, though he appears to be based in
Västergötland

483

, and the two sons of the Dukes’ High Steward,

Ulf

and

Nils Abjörnsson

(Tofta),

who eventually become lawspeakers in

Tiohärad and Västmanland.

Algot Bengtsson

(Algotssönerna) is the

first new lawspeaker who does not seem to have taken part in the
earlier struggles.

During the regency this group is remarkably tight and

homogenous, dominated by the two veteran lawspeakers

Knut

Jonsson

(Aspenäs) and

Birger Petersson

(Finsta),

who are both

married to daughters of Bengt Magnusson, son and successor of Earl

481

Knut Magnusson and Ulf Gudmarsson both belong to families allowed to carry a

royal lion in  their  blazon  because  of  female-line  descent  from  the  dynasty.  Filip
Ingevaldsson  is  a  grandson-in-law  of  Earl  Birger,  Nils  Björnsson  a  great  great
grandnephew  of  Earl  Birger  and  Sune  Jonsson’s  first  wife  was  a  5

generation

descendant of Earl Birger’s sister (and the second wife a 4

gen. descendant of

his brother). Reasonably, at some point the connecting thread will wear too thin,
but the very generous extent of incest bans at the time shows that we must not
underrate the respect for also very distant kinship.

482

At the beginning of the new regime Magnus Nilsson appears as a lawspeaker. I

follow Beckman II:452f and Holmbäck-Wessén in Sdml p10n16 in accepting his
title according to the Charter,

pace

Rosén 1939:302n12. Even if his

lawspeakership  in  the  ‘Charter  of  Freedom’,  very  possibly  was  a  ‘temporary
function’,  I  see  no  reason  to  impose  standards  for  the  title  stricter  than  actual
usage.  As  a  member  of  the  law  commission  for Södermanland  he  was  obviously
qualified  enough  to  fill in as a  temporary lawspeaker, whether he  held any land
in that province or not.

483

His manor complex there may have been fortified (Lovén 1996:293ff), which is

rare  for  the  time and seems  to  suggest more permanent residence.  He is listed
under  Västergötland  in  the  Charter  of  Freedom,  and  according  to  Ranehök
1975:105  he  belonged  to  a  small  group  of  special  judges  commissioned  by  the
King,  which  might  indicate  competence  or  confidence  as  a  qualification,  rather
than localization.

253

Birger’s nephew Magnus Bengtsson

Lars Ulfsson

(Ama), like Knut

Jonsson belongs to one of the older branches of the Ducal dynasty;
both are descended from executed Folkung rising leaders.

Gustav

Tuneson

(Ving) is the grandson of a Folkung leader as well (

Yrwing1952:51) and a half-brother of Knut Jonsson’s.

Greger

Magnusson

is the son of an earlier lawspeaker who was an

illegitimate grandson of Earl Birger’s.

Ulf Gudmarsson

(Ulvåsa) is the

son-in-law of Birger Petersson, married to his daughter, the future St
Bridget.

Chart 23: Lawspeakers 1338-56

King Magnus probably attains majority at the age of fifteen around

1331, but not until his coronation at 1335 does he seem to start ruling
by  himself.  1338  he  dismisses  the  High  Steward  Gregers  Magnusson,
and replaces his office, the most prestigious of the High Offices of the
Realm, with a new, more proscribed functionary, the General Official.
Jon Kristineson, who is the first holder of this title, is not a member of
the  council  and  not  closely  related  to  the  old  magnate  families.  The
constant tension  between King and  magnates seems to abate around
1350 when

Israel Birgersson

(Finsta) becomes General Official, and

soon after the title of High Steward (

drots

) is restored to

Nils

Turesson

(Bielke);

both

them

are

lawspeakers

(Sjöstedt1954:232ff). Around this time the Land Law is completed, and

254

the Statute of 1352 seems to show mutual willingness to compromise
during  hard  times  (Bjarne  Larsson  1994)  –  the  Black  Death  has  just
struck. However, when Bengt Algotsson is made a Duke, the council
seems  to  be  defunct  and  prince  Eric  fronts  a  rebellion  against  his
father (Sjöstedt 1954). The lawspeaker group is remarkable stable also
over this subperiod. Father-to-son shifts occur in Uppland, Närke and
Östergötland,  while

Lars Ulfsson

(Ama) spans almost the entire

period, until suceeded by

Gustav Arvidsson

(Vik),

married to Knut

Jonsson’s niece, and himself the grandson of Birger Petersson’s
predecessor.

Algot Bengtsson

(Algotssönerna) is the grandson of an

earlier Västergötland lawspeaker.

III. Oligarchic contestation (1356-1397)

The third period is one of open or latent civil war and external

interventions,  with  shifting  conflicts  and  alliances,  and  an  increasing
emphasis  on  localized  power  enacted  through  the  castellans,  who
control  the  nexus  of  physical  and  economic  power  within  the  range
of action  of their castle.  The  general  economic crisis is compounded
by  plague,  warfare,  plunder  and  vain  attempts  to  make  the
investment  in  conquest    pay  off.  The  competing  factions  of  the
Swedish  aristocracy  compromise  in  order  to  neutralize  the
professional occupation  forces, and Bo  Jonsson  (Grip)  embarks on a
project  of  redeeming  mortgaged  fiefs  with  the  help  of  heavy  loans
from  church  funds.  This  culminates  when  the  extraordinary  private
trust constituted by his testament offers the Crown to Queen Margaret
and confers  sovereignty  upon  her through transferring the allegiance
of  all  the  castles  controlled  by  the  trust  onto  her.  It  ends  with  the
failure  of  the  trustee  ‘party’  to  bind  Queen  Margaret  to  their
oligarchic/constitutional programme through the ‘Unification letter’ of
Kalmar. (Engström1935, Sällström1951, Sjöstedt 1954, Linton1971)

Lawspeakers during the third period

A. Rebellions against Magnus Eriksson (1356-71)

Sjöstedt, who has analyzed the conflict between Magnus and prince

Eric, gives the picture of a conciliar aristocracy massively siding with
the rebellion

484

, while the king's quasi-absolutist party is dominated by

upstarts. If we just look at the lawspeakers, however, who should

484

Even more strongly put in Engström1935:19. Sjöstedt1954:177-89 contains his

social background analysis.

255

reasonably have been at the focus of any constitutionalist opinion,
not more than two join the first rebellion –

Nils Turesson

(Bielke) and

Gustav Arvidsson

(Vik) – while

Nils Abjörnsson

(Tofta) supports King

Magnus.

Chart 24: Lawspeakers 1356-71

In the second rebellion, only

485

Nils Turesson remains with Eric,

while

Magnus Gregersson

(illegitimate royal sideline) enters on

Magnus' side

486

. What about the others? Gustav Tuneson is still alive

according to evidence presented in Sjöstedt 1954:21, but may have
been too old to take active part in the struggle. There is no reason to
expect him to have supported Eric, though (

1954:213). Algot

Bengtsson  (Västergötland)  and  Magnus  Knutsson  of  Aspenäs
(Östergötland)  are  not  mentioned  anywhere  in  connection  with  the
civil war, although Sjöstedt’s geographical analysis of the parties leads
him  to  conclude  that  the  province  of  Östergötland,  or  rather  the
somewhat more extensive diocese of Linköping, can be viewed as the

485

Sjöstedt1954:61f points out that evidence for allegiances during the second civil

war is more incomplete, so we shouldn’t make too much out of Gustav
Arvidsson’s absence from list 2.

486

Despite (or because of?) his lawspeakership having been transferred to Eric’s

part after the first rebellion.

LAWSPEAKERS - PERIOD IIIa: 1356-71

Magnus Erikss. Magn.& Erik († -59)

M a g . & H å k a n

Albrecht of Mecklenburg

realm divided

invasion

Upl

Magnus Gregerss.

Karl Ulfsson av Tofta

Vml

Nils Abjörnsson av Tofta

Erik Karlsson (Örnfot)

Sdm

Gustav Arvidsson (Vik)

Magnus Finvidsson (M Marinasons ätt)

Vgl

Algot Bengtsson (antlers)

Vrm

Erik Kettilsson Puke (Marshal)

Nrk

Karl Ulfsson av Ulvåsa

Ögl

Magnus Knutsson (Aspenäs)

N J

Bo Jonsson (Grip)

Thd

Nils Turesson (Bielke)

Öld

Nils Turesson

Arvid Gustavsson(Vik)

=exiled

S k å n

F i n l

MK (Asp.)

Lars Björnsson

(Lars Björnssons ätt)

1 3 5 5

1 3 7 0

1 3 6 5

1 3 6 0

Nils Jonsson

Erik's part

Gustav Tuneson (Ving)

( B i e l k e )

( R i c k e b y )

256

‘cradle of the rising’

487

. Neither does Karl Ulfsson of Ulvåsa – St

Bridget’s eldest son – appear to have taken part in the conflict

488

When king Eric suddenly dies, the rebel side holds together awaiting
the birth of his posthumous child

489

During the next outbreak Håkan – Magnus’ second son and king of

Norway – becomes the rallying point for a new

490

configuration of

magnate rebels. Although Magnus is imprisoned by the rebels allied
to Håkan, the two kings are soon reconciled, and the magnates who
are blamed for the

lése-majestaite

are exiled.

The exiled lawspeakers Karl Ulfsson of Tofta, Karl Ulfsson of

Ulvåsa,  and  Nils  Turesson  (Bielke)  return  together  with  Albrecht’s
troups  to  conquer  Sweden,  and  the  following  seven  years  witness  a
recurrent  civil  war  interrupted  by  truces  (Engström1935:78ff),  where
most  of  Western  Sweden  –  Värmland,  Dalsland,  and  the  largest  part
of Västergötland – is held by castellans faithful to Magnus and Håkan.
Magnus’  marshal,

Erik Kettilsson

(Puke) holds Värmland as a

castellan but also, it seems, in his capacity of marshal with some kind
of  overlordship comprising the  entire unconquered  Western Swedish
area.  No  Värmland  lawspeaker  is  in  evidence  during  the  three
decades that  Erik is in power  –  maybe he incorporated that function
as well (see page 262

King Magnus is captured at an early stage (1365), and the civil war

is  compounded  by  a  Danish  invasion  in  1366;  two  years  later  the
Danes  were  driven  back,  and  Scania  briefly  reconquered  in  alliance
with  the  Wendish  Hanse  cities  (Engström  1935:110ff;120ff).  The
period  ends  with  a  combination  of  something  that  may  have  been  a
general rising, and an armed attack on Stockholm by Håkan in order
to  set  his  father  free  (Engström  1935:158-180;  the  interpretation  of
Andersson 1929 is criticized on p79)

487

Sjöstedt 1954:211. The leading role he attributes to bishop Nils of Linköping

seems  to  be  his  strongest  argument  for  this,  but  the  table  of  geographic
affiliations on p202 is hardly conclusive. The lawspeaker Magnus Knutsson might
reasonably  have  taken  the  same  position  as  his  grandnephew  and  eventual
successor  Bo  Jonsson  (Grip),  King  Magnus’  marshal  during  the  second
rebellion(Engström 1935:28).

488

Engström1935:26 with n86, points out that the register of ST II is mistaken in

identifying him as a signatory on one of Erik’s letters of enfeoffment (Karl
Ulfsson of Tofta must have been the signatory in question).

489

Karl Ulfsson of Tofta is reported to have functioned as the regent of Erik’s party

during this period (Engström 1935:27).

490

Karl Ulfsson of Ulvåsa and king Magnus’ former Marshal Bo Jonsson (Grip) have

now joined Nils Turesson (Bielke) and Karl Ulfsson of Tofta in the third rebellion
against Magnus.

257

The new lawspeakers during the early Mecklenburg period are

Nils

Jonsson

(Rickeby), a brother-in-law of Karl Ulfsson of Tofta who

replaces  Magnus  Karlsson  (Aspenäs)  in  Östergötland  during  the
change of regime. Magnus – who probably had been opposed to the
invasion  –  returns  to  office  shortly  afterwards,  but  on  his  death  in
1367,  he  is  succeeded  by  his  grandnephew

Bo Jonsson

(Grip). Nils

Turesson’s nephew

Erik Karlsson

(Örnfot) becomes lawspeaker of

Västmanland. These three appointments are clearly tied to the
dominant magnate faction, while

Magnus Finvidsson

(Magnus

Marinason’s lineage) in Södermanland and

Lars Björnsson

(fess) in

Västergötland lack obvious connections to this group

491

. On the

contrary,  Lars’  father-in-law  was  king  Magnus’  justiciar  and  a
prominent  member  of  his  faction  in  the  earlier  rebellions.  Both  Lars
Björnsson  and  Magnus  Finvidsson  had  some  connection  to  earlier
lawspeakers, though. Lars’ granduncle-in-law was the lawspeaker and
High Steward Greger Magnusson. Magnus Finvidsson’s grandfather-in-
law

492

was the Västergötland lawspeaker Bengt Hafridsson.

B. The disentanglement from Mecklenburg (1371-89)

The settlements in 1371-2 lead to a formal reunification of the

country under Albrecht, and to a reconciliation between the inimical
council factions who also forced Albrecht to accept conditions vesting

de facto

royal power in the council (Engström1935:172-80,295ff), but

in effect, the separation as well as the struggle of power between
king and council were soon resumed.

491

Unless Magnus’ marriage to the widow of Halsen Petersson, who had belonged

to king Eric’s faction (Sjöstedt 1954:184, ÄSF 173) is an indication of his
allegiance.

492

His father-in-law may also have been a lawspeaker (see above: Knut Jonsson in

chart 21 and the comment in section 1C)

259

venture  into  king-making,  he  was  certainly  well  aware  of  the
possibilities theoretically open for lawspeakers to exploit the electoral
role  first  formulated  –  as  far  as  we  know!  –  in  the  Law  Code  of
Uppland  1296,  and  first  applied  in  the  election  of  the  three-year-old
Magnus  Eriksson  in  1319.  Both  his  father  and  his  uncle  had  been
lawspeakers and members of the commission that formulated the Law
Code  of  Södermanland  in  1327.  His  uncle  had  also  been  a

drots

(‘High  Steward’  –  an  office  holding  the  highest  responsibility  for
justice in medieval and early-modern Sweden), as his grandfather had
also been. In addition he was married to Helena Israelsdotter, a niece
of  Saint  Bridget  and  a  granddaughter  of    the  lawspeaker  Birger
Petersson,  who  had  been  the  leader  of  the  commission  formulating
the Uppland Law Code.

As if this was not enough, he was also one of the very few

medieval lawspeakers who had received formal academic training

493

He  had  spent  some  years  at  the  University  of  Paris  together  with
Nicolaus  Hermanni,  who  was  now  the  Bishop  of  Linköping  and
evidently  some  kind  of  chairman  for  the

testamentary i

(of some of

the  testimonials  in  his  canonization  process,  PCNL)  Neither  of  these
did sign the letter of allegiance, though, and as also the other spiritual
member, Tord Gunnari – who had taught canon law at the University
of  Prague,  and  has  been  described  as  ‘probably  the  most  erudite
Swede of  his  day’  (Collmar  1977) – is  missing, this might have  some
significance.

Did the juridical specialists have any objections to the letter? Or

was their absence a calculated move to retain freedom of action for a
while longer? The  bishops  had  been deeply involved in the financial
machinations of Bo Jonsson, lending him money to redeem mortgage
fiefs  against  security  in  these  (or  other)  fiefs,  and  two  months  after
Bo’s death, the executors had mortgaged parts of his estate to Bishop
Tord,  in  order  to  put  them  under  ecclesiastical  protection.  Less  than
five  months after the letter of allegiance Karl  Ulfsson  sells  estate at a
value  of  1000  marks  to  Henricus  Caroli,  the  archbishop  of  Sweden,
and  during  the  period  up  to  the  recess  of  Nyköping  1396

494

and the

493

This makes him the probably most well-educated medieval lawspeaker, except

for his brother-in-law, magister Nils Jonsson.

494

Where a decision was taken to reclaim all Crown property that had been

alienated since the conflict between King Magnus Eriksson and the aristocracy
broke out around 1356.

260

Kalmar negotiations in 1397 he sells, mortgages or donates

all

of his

landed property to churches, monasteries and co-executors

495

These manoeuvres may have been the reason that he postponed

his formal allegiance to the new monarch, but there might have been
a  simpler  reason.  As  he  was  staying  in  Finland,  holding  its  principal
castle of Viborg, he might have been unable to communicate with the
others  –  after  all  large  parts  of  Finland  were  still  in  Albrecht’s  hand,
and  Karl’s  military  obligations  might  have  got  in  the  way.  On  the
other hand, he

did

manage to communicate with the archbishop, and

find time to look after his personal fortune. Another possibility is that
he was  still negotiating  with Albrecht’s  side. After  all, he  had  himself
been instrumental in putting Albrecht on the throne, and might have
had  business  to  conclude  before  openly  emerging  on  Queen
Margaret’s side,  or  before deciding  whether that was what he should
do.

496

Anund Jonsson

(Lejonansikte), had through his marriage to

Ramborg Israelsdotter, Saint Bridget’s niece, gained entrance to Bo
Jonsson’s circle and had become a councillor by 1369, when he takes
part in the issuing of a charter authorizing Bo Jonsson to be the
King’s

officialis generalis

, in principle empowered with full fiscal and

administrative control over the country.

497

Reasonably he would be

prepared to support the trust (he also made large donations to
Vadstena).

Jakob Djäkn

’

s case was a very different matter. Although he had

originally  been a subcastellan  of Bo  Jonsson’s,  he had changed sides
quickly  after  his  master’s  death,  kept  the  command  of  the  castle
(Åbo)  and  succeeded  to  make  Albrecht  appoint  him  not  only  a

495

Sällström 1951:13, 27-30. Sällström notes that seven years after the final

mortgage, he is still able to make two substantial land donations to the Cathedral
of Uppsala.

496

He might have had misgivings about joining her side, as he had once been

exiled  by  her  late  husband  Håkan.  After  prince  Eric’s  rebellion  and  subsequent
death, the magnates who had pitched him against his father king Magnus, instead
managed  to  incite  his  younger  brother,  Håkan,  king  of  Norway,  to  arrest  and
depose his father. After the reconciliation between  the  two kings, the magnates
accused of having caused the conflist were exiled by Håkan: Karl Ulfsson was by
the  time  we  are  discussing  the  only  survivor  of  this  group,  which  had  also
included  Bo  Jonsson  (cf  Engström  1929).  Margareta’s

räfst

, a general inquiry on

all  tax-exempt  land  designed  to  revoke  all  ‘unauthorized’  tax  exemptions  and
patents  of  gentility,  and  to  resume  alienated  Crown  land,  was  instructed  to
revoke  any  benefits  granted  after  the  rupture  between  king  Magnus  and  the
magnates  (Rosén  1950).  As  Karl  Ulfsson  had  been  one  of  the  chief  instigators
also of every subsequent magnate coup, he

should

have had misgivings.

497

Engström 1935:126f. Engström presumes that Anund replaced Karl Ulfsson of

Ulvåsa, Saint Bridget’s eldest son, who was travelling to his mother in Italy.

261

castellan in his own right, but also the lawspeaker of Finland.
(Sällström 1951:14, Anthoni 1970:137)

What about the other lawspeakers? It seems quite reasonable that

the  drying up of  evidence  for courts of justice at this moment is  due
to  the  outbreak  of  open  civil  war,  but  that  leaves  us  with  no
indication  of  when  replacements  were  made.  Among  the  other
lawspeakers who had been in office at that point were two members
of  the  executorial  college:  Karl  Ulfsson’s  son  Knut  Karlsson
(Södermanland)  and  Birger  Ulfsson  (Närke).

Knut Karlsson

(Tofta)

died during the war, in 1389. He never signed the letter of allegiance,
but then again he was only a deputy member for his father, who had
not signed either. However, Knut may already have been replaced as
a lawspeaker, by

Erengisle Nilsson

(Hammersta), whose first

documented  appearance  in  that  capacity  comes  from  1390.  Erengisle
was also a member (regular) of the trust and did sign the letter, but it
remains  to  be  explained  why  Knut  should  have  resigned  or  been
replaced.

Birger Ulfsson

(Ulvåsa), another leading executor, the younger

son of St  Bridget, and the  spokesman  for the trust in the  negotiation
with Queen Margaret,  presents  yet another kind  of  problem.  He  had
recently transferred himself from the province  of  Tiohärad  (Småland)
to that of Närke, where his father and his elder brother had preceded
him.  There  are  no  charters  extant  to  prove  that  he  acted  as
lawspeaker  after  1384,  though.  His  nephew,

Karl Karlsson

, had

succeeded  him  in  Närke  at  least  by  1390,  but  we  don’t  know  if  that
might  have  happened  earlier.  There  is  no  reason  to  assume  that
Birger had retired, though. He was still an active member of the trust,
and  his  collaborators  still  refer  to  his  opinion  on  the  matter  under
consideration two  years after  his death in  1391,  which  occurred only
seven

months

after

had

judged

his

last

case

konungsdomhavande

(‘judge on behalf of the King’). He must

certainly be counted among the lawspeakers still in 1388, but there is
a possibility that his appearance in Närke was just a short-term fill-in
between the death of his brother and the accession of his young
nephew

498

. In that case he himself might still be representing

498

Despite his youth, Karl Karlsson had made his first appearance as a hundred

sheriff, leading a court on the level beneath the lawspeakership, already in 1383.
He may still have lacked the full authority necessary for a lawspeakership,
though.

262

Tiohärad

499

– or: could he be representing both provinces at the same

time?

The only known instance of double lawspeakership is Bo

Jonsson’s,  when  he  took  over  the  office  in  Finland  on  the  death  of
Arvid  Gustavsson,  while  still  nominally  retaining  the  position  as
lawspeaker  of  Östergötland.  Of  course,  Finland  was  a  special  case,
and  so  was  Bo  Jonsson.  In  Östergötland  his  office  had  usually  been
upheld  by  his  deputy  Peter  Djäkn,  who  continued  to  serve  in  that
capacity after Bo Jonsson’s death in  1386. He does not seem to  have
been  promoted  into  a  lawspeaker  in  his  own  right,  as  he  later
continues  to  serve  under

Ulf Jonsson

(Aspenäs), who is mentioned

as lawspeaker from 1389. Ulf, who was Bo Jonsson’s mother’s cousin
and a major legatee of the testament, also signed the letter of
allegiance.

Without doubt

Sten Stensson

(Bielke) – a cousin of the brothers

Sten  and  Ture  Bengtsson  (Bielke)  and  married  to  St  Bridget’s
granddaughter  –  was  also  an  executor.  He  signs  the  letter  of
allegiance  as  number  5,  in  advance  of  two  of  the  regular  members,
and  must  have  joined  the  trust  as  a  co-opted  member.

500

Sten

Stensson was the lawspeaker of Västmanland, but his last recorded
judgment is in 1386, and the next lawspeaker is not in evidence until
1394

501

. He is

Tord

(Röriksson)

Bonde

, who is Erengisle Nilsson’s

deputy  in  the  trust,  so  in  all  probability  either  of  these  two  is  acting
lawspeaker  in  1388.  As  both  of  them  signed  the  letter,  the
lawspeakership  of  Västmanland  should  present  no  problem.  The
remaining  two  provinces,  Värmland  and  Västergötland,  may  have
lacked functioning lawspeakers at the time.  Värmland seems to  have
lacked  a  lawspeaker  at  least  since  1357,  if  not  1349.  However,  the
next  incumbent,  Agmund  (or  Anund)  Hatt,  (the  younger)  also
replaced

Erik Kettilsson Puke

as a castellan over basically the same

499

Where we don’t find any sign of a new lawspeaker before the seemingly

undistinguished and anonymous Karl Magnusson in 1400; he is not to be
confused with his namesake of the Örnfot lineage, who belonged to the
executorial trust.

500

The detailed instruction in the testament (printed in Rosman 1923) prescribes co-

optation, under carefully specified conditions, as when an executor ‘dies, goes
abroad, becomes an enemy of the realm, or do not want to fully take on the
responsibility’

etc

. Sten may have replaced Erik Kettilsson’s deputy and nephew

Kettil Jonsson, who had not been mentioned as alive since 1386. There were
two co-opted signatories, though, as Gregers Bengtsson also signed the letter.
Either of them must therefore have replaced Knut Karlsson, although he was still
alive.

501

In 1395 Sten Stensson enters the Monastery in Vadstena after his entire family

has died in the plague.

263

area  (Fritz  1973:76),  so  it  might  be  possible  that  also  Erik  had  been
both castellan and lawspeaker. In that case it may have been his title
of  Marshal,  that  somehow  ‘crowded  out’  a  potential  lawspeaker  title
which  we,  however,  have  no  evidence  for.  Another  possible
explanation  is  that  he  partly  fulfilled  the  same  function

502

, and thus

precluded the need for a lawspeaker in Värmland at that time, even if
he  did  not  hold  the  same  office.Värmland  was  under  allegiance  to
King  Håkan  of  Norway,  and  therefore,  together  with  Dalsland  and
most of Västergötland separated from the rest of Sweden, which may
account for the irregular administration.

Does this explain also the lack of a lawspeaker for Västergötland?

Maybe,  but  here  there  had  been  a  lawspeaker  –  Lars  Björnsson  –  in
office  at  least  until  1382.  He  is  not  mentioned  in  any  sources  after
1383,  though  (ÄSF  210).  The  next  lawspeaker,  Erik  Erlandsson,
appears  to  have  come  to  the  fore  through  the  inquiry  courts  during
Queen  Margaret’s  reduction,  and  is  not  mentioned  before  this.  It  is
possible  that

Algot Magnusson

another deputy executor, who

signed a separate letter of allegiance, like Erik Kettilsson, ‘replaced’
the lawspeaker as a castellan of Axvall

503

. Possibly the war situation

postponed the replacement of lawspeakers. It is also conceivable that
these provinces were under some kind of martial law at the time, and
that the office therefore was suspended.

Out of the ten lawspeakers, only

one

, Jakob Djäkn

in Finland, was

on Albrecht’s side. If all of the successions taking place over the war
years had been effected without complications, five lawspeakers
belonging to the trust

could

have formed a narrow majority for

Margaret. Six, if we make the assumption that Erik Kettilsson was a

jure

lawspeaker. The vacancy in Västergötland seems impossible to

solve,  but  if  Birger  Ulfsson  had  returned  to  Tiohärad,  Karl  Karlsson
could be expected to vote with his uncle, and if Anund Jonsson also
agreed, a theoretical basis  of  eight  votes out of  nine possible at least
gives the appearance of optimal compliance with constitutional rules.
Of  course  there  had  been  no  formal  convocation  of  delegations  for
each  lawspeakership,  taking  part  in  the  decisions,  but  in  a  civil  war
situation, that would not have been very realistic anyway.

However, if the intention had been to make a constitutional

designation, why didn’t Karl Karlsson and Anund Jonsson sign the

502

At least he appears to have had also judicial functions during his long tenure.

503

The credentials of his subcommanders signing at the same time do not inspire

confidence  in  a  legalistic  interpretation  of  the  Crown  offer.  Jacob  Mus,  Nils
Svarteskåning,  Abraham  Brodersen  and Sven  Sture  all  belonged  to  the  category
treading the thin line between professional warfare and brigandage (ST II:411a).

264

letter?  Why  didn’t  the  foremost  lawspeaker,  Karl  Ulfsson,  who,
according  to  the  law,  was  required  to  lead  the  whole  election
ceremony,  sign  the  document,  and,  finally,  why  didn’t  they  identify
themselves as lawspeakers in the document?

In this letter of allegiance, they explicitly identify themselves as Bo

Jonsson’s

testamentarii

, being responsible for the castles and fiefs

held  by  Bo  Jonsson,  and  bequeathed  by  him  to  a  foundation  for
which they are the formally appointed board of direction, and in this
capacity they transfer their formal allegiance and fealty from Albrecht
onto  Margaret.  This  is  a  complex  combination  of  private  and  public
institutions,  making  deliberate  use  of  the  ambiguities  inherent  in  the
co-existence of feudal customary law, private property law and canon
law.

That Karl Ulfsson was withholding his signature (he did not sign

the letter of ratification in May 20

either) may have been pure tactics

–  probably  the  trust  did  not  want  to  give  Queen  Margaret  the
constitutional  legitimacy  which  they  would  no  doubt  have  been
capable  of  conferring  upon  her

504

, before she had given any

constitutional guarantees. Such guarantees are demanded in a letter to
her from 1389, where Karl Ulfsson

does

sign, together with ten other

executors and as one of six or seven (counting Puke) lawspeakers
(Linton 1971:173) The contested Unification letter from Kalmar 1397 –
the last attempt to bind her to formalities – carries his seal as the first
secular signatory.

C. 1388-1396: Queen Margaret’s rise to power

As discussed above, three to five executors are lawspeakers at

Queen  Margaret’s  accession,  and  Erik  Kettilsson  (Värmland)  may  at
least  have  had  parallell  functions.  Anund  Dansson  (Öland)  is  an
established councillor belonging to the same circles as the executors.
Jakob Djäkn (Finland) remains in office until Finland is brought under
control.  Some  replacements  have  been  made  either  by  Queen
Margaret  or  by  the  trust  before  they  call  her  in.  All  of  these  are
executors  except

Karl Karlsson

(Närke) who is the nephew of an

executor, and the son of one of the leading magnates of period III.

Ivar Nilsson

(Östergötland) is the only replacement that must have

been made

after

her accession, and he is quite possibly a co-opted

504

Jakob Djäkn’s title could of course have been disputed, and Algot Magnusson

might  have  been  a  reasonable  candidate  for  Västergötland.  In  addition  to
commanding two of the local castles, he owned estate in several hundreds there
and  his  maternal  grandfather  and  double  namesake  had  belonged  to  an  old
lawspeaker family in that province (ÄSF 3, 203).

265

member of the trust (he appears together with trust members as an
executor of Karl Ulfsson, and seems to take an active part in his
machinations)

IV. Royal recentralization (1396-1434)

The fourth period starts with Queen Margaret’s new strategy: to

rule  through  personal  ties  of  dependence,  and  to  move  around
castellans  frequently.  She  lets  the  offices  of  the  realm  fall  into
desuetude  and  largely  replaces  the  bottom-up  moot

(ting

) system of

adjudication with

ad hoc

royal inquiry commissions. Financial

restoration proceeds through resumption of ‘illegal’ fiefs, revoking all
grants and tax exemptions made during the third period, and stability
is  achieved  through  ‘freezing’  the  proportions  between  the  state
sector and the private sector of tax-exempt noble land. The mortgage
fief  principle,  which  removed  large  parts  of  the  economic  base  from
the  state,  while  also  leaving  the  enfeoffed  areas  open  to  destructive
short-term exploitation, was discreetly reformed. As the lack of liquid
assets was still an urgent problem, Queen Margaret started to employ
church institutions to solve her realization problem (Linton 1971). She
made  them  advance  ready  money,  and  in  return  alotted  them
temporary fiefs  whose  rents were discounted against the loan  until it
was  fully  repayed  and  the  fief  returned.  Linton  argues  that  this  gave
her three advantages:

(1)

fast access to cash when necessary

(2)

interest-free loans

(3)

the problem of exacting the rents was passed on to the
creditor

I would add (4) that the fundamental problem of realization was

also  transferred  to  the  personnel  of  the  church,  and  (5)  that  the  risk
of counterproductive  over-exploitation was  minimized, as the church
had  an  interest  in  long-term  viability  at  least  equal  to  the  Crown’s.
Also,  (6)  legitimacy  problems  were  reduced,  and  chances  were  that
ecclesiastical  exactors  would  tend  to  use  their  powers  of  persuasion
to  a  higher  extent,  and  tone  down  the  physical  intimidation  aspect.
The  ´feudal  realization’

505

of point 4, however, not only solves a

problem for the Crown, but also opens the possibility for
administrators specializing in making this conversion profitable

506

Still, continuing warfare necessitated even larger amounts of cash,

and the new and harsher level of taxation led to popular turmoil. A

505

See p 46.

506

Lönnroth’s examples include Hans Kröpelin, Christiern Nilsson (Vasa), Nils

Gustavsson (Rossvik) and Bengt Stensson (Natt och Dag).

266

small  group  of  three  councillors  (all  of  them  members  of  the
testamentarian trust) deviced a tax reform attempting to protect gentry
tenants  but  also  to  reduce  opposition  through  minimizing  peasant
transaction costs, putting together groups of four peasants, who were
to  pay  the  largest  part  of  the  tax  in  kind  (Dovring  1951).  The  taxes
remained at more or less the same level – for tax and crown peasants
–  but  arguably  the  new  exaction  method  may  have  made  it

appear

less oppressive – at least to begin with. The transaction costs were
largely removed from the tax-payers’ concerns

507

, and the system of

gärder

, collective tax-paying units, exploited the principle of

solidarity  through  mixing  wealthy  and  impoverished  peasants  in
equal proportions, giving them the collective responsibility for raising
the full amount. This may have been a dangerous  route, though, as it
might  tend  to  strengthen  the  peasants’  collective  responsibilities  and
thus also their capacity for collective resistance. At the same time the
full  tax  exemption  of  the

frälsebönder

had been restored, as they

remained outside the

gärd

system, and this might have served to

alleviate the labour shortage for the gentry.

Lawspeakers during the fourth period:

A. 1396-1412: Queen Margaret’s reign after the Kalmar
negotiations

Some of the new lawspeakers conform to the earlier pattern, like

the two executors

Ture Bengtsson

(Uppland) and

Sten Bengtsson

(Öland), two brothers belonging to the family of Bielke. Sten is later
followed by his son

Ture Stensson

Nils Erengisleson

(Hammersta) succeeds

his

father in Södermanland.

Agmund Hatt

(Värmland) replaces Erik Kettilsson as a castellan, but is at the same
time appointed a lawspeaker

508

. Others are

‘new men’

with an only

507

That might have been an advantage also for the Crown, which became insulated

against inflation, provided that the ‘realization problem’ was solved (see p 139).

508

He also resembles Erik in that he appears to have a closer personal allegiance to

the royal family. King Håkan calls him

’vår mågh och tjänare’

in a letter from

1371 (Engström  1935:177n265), which shows  that he  not only had  entered  the
King’s service, but also had married into the royal family. Actually, his wife was a
granddaughter  of  Magnus  Birgersson,  the  son  of  king  Birger.  Magnus  was
executed  after  the  murder  of  the  Dukes  and  Birger’s  escape  abroad.  Still  King
Håkan, the grandson of one of the murdered Dukes, uses the word ‘

måg’

which

to us means ‘son-in-law’ to describe

his second cousin’s

son-in-law. This may

serve as a warning not to underestimate the possible importance of distant
kinship.

267

marginally gentile background, risen in her service as

royal inquiry

judges

: Both

Erik Erlandsson

and his successor

Gustav

Magnusson

509

(Västergötland), maybe

also

Karl Magnusson

(Tiohärad), whose first recorded appearances are in inquiry courts,
but who from the beginning is defined as judging on behalf of the
lawspeaker,

together

with

other

judges

acting

konungsdomhavande

(judging on behalf of the King – or in this case

the Queen)

510

Bengt Stensson

(Natt och Dag) in Närke might appear to fit into

the  first  pattern,  as  he  is  the  son  of  an  executor,  Sten  Bosson.  If
Sällström  (1951:61)  is  right,  however,  the  fact  that  Sten  Bosson  takes
over the sole responsibility for the remainder of Bo Jonsson’s estate in
1390,  means  that  he  has  entered  her  service  and  become  estranged
from  the  group  –  something  further  confirmed,  Sällström  argues,  by
his absence from the list of signatories in the Unification letter. If this
is  correct,  Bengt  may  be  more  comparable  to  the  second  group,  or
maybe  rather  to  Agmund  Hatt,  as  he  is  one  of  the  few  Swedes  who
are  also  entrusted  with  a  castle-fief  (not  within  his  own
lawspeakership, though).

Eric of Pomerania during his first twenty years of rule seems to

have  tried  to  achieve  better  relations  with  the  Swedish  aristocracy,
especially  through  authorizing  more  permanent  and  independent
inquiry  courts,  and  delegating  to  these  the  treatment  of  complaints
and  revisions  of  earlier  verdicts.  them  a  chance  to  revise  earlier
(Bjarne Larsson 1994, chapter 4). Probably the relative lack of serious
conflicts  before  1430  was  largely  due  to  the  role  of  the  Queen,
Philippa (a sister of Henry V of England) whose extensive dower was
located  in  Sweden,  and  whose  chancellor,  bishop  Thomas  (

Schück1976),  was an  efficient and  diplomatic administrator.  After her
death,  however,  Eric  proceeds  to  alienate  an  exceedingly  wide
spectrum of social groups in Sweden through his further development
of Margaret’s mode of rule.

Many of her castellans had certainly been tough and unpopular,

but  her  constant  supervision  and  redispositions  must  have  held  their
self-indulgence  under  tighter  control  than  would  have  been  possible
under  Eric’s  policy  of  long  mandates  and  independence  from  local
power networks. Although he had made important concessions in the
adjudicatory dimension, the fiscal-military administration of castle fiefs
was  held  strictly  separate,  as  during  the  preceding  period.  This

509

Gustav Magnusson is a partial exception or compromise, as his mother-in-law is

the daughter of an earlier lawspeaker (ÄSF 3)

510

In any case, his social background is similar to the others.

268

certainly opened for conflicts of competence, and in the general
rebellion from 1434, I consider the role of the lawspeakers to be
crucial. The rebellion I have analysed in a separate article

511

, and here

I will only discuss the individual lawspeakers.

C. 1412-1434: Eric of Pomerania before the rebellion

In the beginning of his reign, Eric starts out with a mixed lot of

lawspeakers inherited from Margaret: two executors, one possible co-
opted executor, three sons of executors (one of whom

may

have

been estranged from the group

512

) and two or three ‘new men’. The

eight to eleven lawspeakers

513

appointed before the rebellion breaks

out in 1434, I will discuss one by one, as one of the complaints
against Eric is that he has forced unworthy lawspeakers and hundred
sheriffs onto the communities

514

. Number 1 may have been appointed

by Margaret and number 11 by the insurgent council.

Värmland

1406/13 Olof Björnsson (Sparre i

Västergötland)

Seems to have had connections with the family of his predecessor

Agmund  Hatt  from  at  least  1389.  Appears  as  a  witness  in  his  family
transactions,  but  does  not  seem  to  have  had  any  important
connections  otherwise.  Lower  or  middle  gentry  background.  The
family attribution above is taken from table 124 in SMV where Raneke
combines  several  ‘persons  mainly  domiciled  in  Västergötland,  but
whose genealogical connections are unclear’ all carrying a chevron

515

in their blazons. Apart from Olof, six of these were hundred sheriffs,

511

Chapter 3 above.

512

However, many of the old executors continued to serve under Margaret without

any open dissent, and appear to have accepted their defeat and devalued their
ambitions – at least outwardly. There seems to be no other indication of the
presumed ‘break’ in the group, than Sällström’s own interpretation of the way the
testament question was settled.

513

I leave the Finnish lawspeakers out of the picture as I haven’t found any

authoritative list. The discussion in Anthoni 1970 suggests that they would in
general have conformed to Margaret’s ‘new men’ pattern.

514

Huitfeldt

515

My translation. As the chevron is a common charge (22 tables in SMV), and the

tinctures  are  unknown,  their  relationship is  quite  uncertain. However,  there  are
several aristocratic families with uncertain interrelations carrying a chevron, and as
many  of  these  have  been  lawspeakers  (four  members  of  the  Tofta  lineage,
Gustav  Arvidsson  and  his  son  Arvid),  they  may  have  had  clients  among  their
hundred  sheriffs  adopting  similar  arms  (this  argument  may  also  be  applicable  to
Erik Erlandsson, see above).

269

which might reflect a strong background in the local judiciary level
(however, not more than one of these predated Olof; on the other
hand office-holders in the preceding period are only partly known).

Uppland

1415/21 Nils Gustavsson (Rossvik)

One of the more spectacular careers of the period – from an

insignificant country gentry background he reached a position
otherwise only open to the most splendid among the magnates (see
page 185ff). One of the crucial actors in the events leading up to the
general revolution against Eric of Pomerania. See below.

Västmanland

1417/22 Karl Tordsson (Bonde).

The son of one of the executors, who had also been one of

Margaret’s  most  trusted  castellans  in  Finland.  Karl  Tordsson’s  role  in
the rebellion is unclear – he might have stayed loyal to Eric or tried to
keep  away  from  the  conflict  –  he  should  reasonably  have  been  the
first  instance  responsible  for  solving  the  Jens  Erikssen  problem,  as
Västerås  belonged  to  his  lawspeakership,  but  it  is  also  possible  that
he was holding a castle in Finland at that time(see page 193 above).

Östergötland

1418/20 Magnus Eriksson (Örnfot)

An aristocrat with close ties to the testamentarial trust. His father,

Erik Karlsson, had been a prominent member of the council during
Albrecht’s reign. Linton considers him to have been a

camerarius

treasurer,  although  he  is  not  mentioned  with  that  title  in  any  official
document. He had been a lawspeaker, a captain of Öland and then of
Östergötland. Magnus’ cousin had been a member of the trust, and he
married  the  daughter  of  another  member:  Sten  Bosson  (Natt  och
Dag).  Magnus  became  castellan  of  Ringstaholm  in  1419,  and  thus
appears to have combined castellany and lawspeakership.

Öland

1424 Bengt Dansson (Båt/Sune

Jonsson’s line)

Belonged to a well-established aristocratic family with important

trade  contacts  having  played  a  central  role  in  the  border  area  for  a
long time (see above, page 240). His mother-in-law was the daughter
and granddaughter of lawspeakers from Östergötland, and a niece of
Sune Jonsson (ÄSF 13). According to Raneke (SMV 560) Bengt should
have been a nephew of Sune – the first known lawspeaker of Öland
(in  1319)  –  and  thus  also  a  cousin  of  Earl  Erengisle  Suneson  of
Orkney.  Chronologically,  this  sounds  a  bit  unlikely,  but  if  his

271

Tiohärad

1427

Arvid Svan

Had been in the service of Ture Stensson (Bielke), the earlier

lawspeaker  of  Öland.  Strictly  lower-gentry,  possibly  German,
background.  Takes  part  in  the  rebellion.  Army  commander  with  a
ruthlessness  matching  Karl  Knutsson’s  (Kumlien  1933:107),  and
already at an early stage allied to him. Later executed for treason.

10.

Västergötland

1434 Knut Jönsson (Tre rosor av

Mörby)

A very disconcerting case: a great grandson of the prominent

aristocrat Bengt Hafridsson, of semi-royal descent, but after that his
family seems to have been undistinguished for a couple of
generations. Knut’s grandfather, Bengt’s son-in-law,

may

have been a

lawspeaker  for  one  or  two  years  during  the  civil  war  (according  to
Stiernman’s notoriously unreliable list in SGH). Knut paid penance for
killing  the  earlier  Västergötland  lawspeaker  Erik  Erlandsson  –  one  of
Queen  Margaret’s  favourite  inquiry  judges  and  therefore  probably  a
zealous  and  ruthless  prosecutor  –  at  some  time  between  1403  and
1421.

Knut succeeded Gustav Magnusson, who had been working in

close  cooperation  with  the  slain  lawspeaker,  and  who  carried  the
same  blazon  as  Knut,  although  the  probable  relation  between  their
families  is  undocumented.  He  seems  to  have  joined  the  rebellion
from  the  very  beginning,  and  was  appointed  one  of  Engelbrekt’s
subcommanders,  sharing  the  captaincy  for  Västergötland

517

with the

local bishop, Sigge of Skara.

11.

Värmland

1428/35 Björn Nilsson (Vinge)

According to letters printed in Nilsson 1997 (1391 28/7, 1397 12/3)

his father Nissa Björnsson had been an alderman (

rådman

) in Oslo,

with important trading and landholding interests in Värmland. Maybe
an example of the ‘feudal  realization’-type administrator, although he
is  not  mentioned  as  a  castellan.  Although  his  title  is  not  in  evidence
before  1435,  he  is  probably  also  appointed  by  King  Eric.  If  he  had
been  appointed  by  the  revolutionary  council,  he  should  reasonably

517

He was the only one among the subcaptains without any identifiable relation to

the estate of Bo Jonsson. Bishop Sigge was a relative of Bo Jonsson and a
legatee of his will.

272

have taken part in the rebellion, but he does not appear in any of the
documents from the rebel side.

The rebels’ protest against the appointment of ‘unworthy’

lawspeakers  seems  a  bit  puzzling,  as  the  most  likely  suspects,  the
lower-gentry  roughneck  commander  Arvid  Svan,  and  the  possible
murderer  Knut Jonsson (Tre  Rosor) belonged to the early insurgents.
From  a  really  aristocratic  standpoint,  Nils  Gustavsson’s  appointment
might have been the most objectionable one.

Or was the protest actually directed against an earlier generation

appointed by Margaret – Erik Erlandsson, for instance – although the
blame  was  pinned  on  Eric?  Most  probably,  the  discontent  was
directed  primarily  at  the  lowering  of  the  social  status  level  of  the
lawspeakers,  and  that  had  started  already  under  Margaret,  though  it
was  of  course  rhetorically  more  effective  to  accuse  the  king  whose
authority was being contested.

Nils Gustavsson’s dilemma – the double role of the
upstart

Nils Gustavsson (Rossvik) was, together with Bengt Stensson (Natt

och Dag) in Närke and the future High Steward Christiern Nilsson
(Vasa) one of the very few Swedes entrusted with a castle-fief by Eric
(large parts of Norrland;

Fritz 1972, 1973 for particulars of

castellanies).  These  three  seem  to  have  had  important  functions  in
Eric’s  mode  of  resolving  ‘feudal  realization’,  converting  the  in-kind
taxes  into  hard  cash  through  extensive  trading.  The  commutation  of
taxes  specified  in  kind  into  monetary  taxes  converted  at  inflationary
rates  is  cited  as  one  of  the  major  causes  of  general  protest  in
documents  from  the  rising  as  well  as  in  the  ‘Engelbrekt  Chronicle’,
but  there  may  be  reasons  to  suspect  a  discontent  also  among  those
administrators who must have seen their pivotal and profitable trader
function deteriorate.

Christiern Nilsson (Vasa) and Bengt Stensson (Natt och Dag) with

their extensive family networks played more cautious roles in the
rebellion, but Nils Gustavsson was a

homo novus

, who must have

been lifted into his double role as the highest judiciary in Sweden (in
the absence of a High Steward) and as the government official most
well-positioned to profit by the important Norrland fur trade
(Olofsson 1962, Fritz 1973), solely by the favour of Eric

518

. When Eric

relegated to the Swedish judicial system the solution of the grievances

518

Or possibly Margaret, depending on how and when his career took off.

273

against the Västerås castellan Jens Erikssen, whose role in the iron
trade

519

must have parallelled Nils Gustavsson’s in the Norrland fur

trade,  he  had  surely  not  intended  that  the  leeway  given  Swedish
judges  to  revise  too  unpopular  verdicts  against  fiefholders  and
churches,  would  be  extended  to  discontented  miners  and  peasants.
Nils  Gustavsson  was  forced to choose between  his two incompatible
roles,  and  preferred  insurgency  to  giving  up  his  hard-won  authority
and  central  position  in  the  Swedish  eliste,  as  the  successor  of  men
like  Birger  Petersson  and  Karl  Ulfsson,  beside  Bo  Jonsson  (Grip)  the
most formidable Swedish magnate of the later 14

century.

The recruitment of lawspeakers, period I-V

Using indexes for social background, we can get an overview of

the changing recruitment during these period. My ‘Nobility index’ is
based upon the standard delimitation of Swedish medieval aristocratic
status (

högfrälse

) where the titles of

riddare

(knight) or

riksråd

(councillor) are taken to signify noble rank

520

, and upon the common

notion of four generations of noble ancestors as a requirement for full
noble status (

SMV). As female noble status is difficult to verify

consistently  enough,  my  operational  definition  of  ‘full  nobility’
(Index=100) requires that every male in the four preceding generation
is  either a  knight  or a  councillor  (as  I also assume that  one ancestor
with both titles can compensate for one without either, provided that
they belong to the same generation, it becomes possibly to rate more
than 100).

The index is therefore constructed like this: If k

= the number of

knights in the n

generation of ancestors, and c

= the number of

councillors in the same generation, than the nobility index is defined
by: Index

= 25 *

+ c

) when n goes from 1 to 4.

521

519

As his extensive activities as a buyer of land indicate, he must have had an

important role in converting tax objects into cash (cf the discussion of the ‘feudal
realization problem’ on page 46).

520

When the Swedish nobility is constituted as a corporate body in the ‘House of

Knights’

(

Riddarhuset

) in 1626, the second or knightly class was defined as

comprising those descendants of councillors who had not been elevated into
comital or baronial rank by the reforms of Eric XIV and John III.

521

The multiplicator 25 is required to bring ‘full nobility’ up to the level of Index

100.

275

Chart 26: lawspeakers: levels of aristocratic background

Despite a certain influx of lower gentry in the revolutionary

coalitions of the 1430’s

524

, the aristocratic component is visibly

strengthened  during  the  period  of  struggle  against  King  Eric,  and
during  the  reign  of  King  Christopher  of  Bavaria,  when  local  power
was  wielded  by  a  college  of  four  regents  who  had  all  played
important roles in the rebellion.

As far as I can see from my preliminary results for the remainder of

the  Middle  Ages,  the  further  increase  of  lawspeakers  with  an
aristocratic  background  during  the  next  period  –  dominated  by
tripartite  power  struggles  between  Karl  Knutsson,  Christian  of

524

See my analysis of the ‘revolutionary council’ of 1435 in Chapter III.

Social background indices for Law speakers 1305-1448

(averages for each period)

100

120

1305

period

Ic:

1306-

1318

period

IIa:

1319-

1338

period

IIb:

1338-

1356

period

IIIa:

1356-

1371

period

IIIb:

1371-

1389

period

IIIc:

1388-

1396

period

IVa:

1396-

1412

period

IVb:

1412-

1434

period

1434-

1448

Nobility index
(active during
period)
Office index
(active during
period)

Nobility index
(only new
appointments)
Office index
(only new
appointments)

276

Oldenburg, and the Swedish episcopate – is a short-lived

525

exception.

The aristocratic background of the lawspeakers would never more

526

reach the level held by the time of King Eric’s accession in 1412, let
alone the apex from the era of Karl Ulfsson of Tofta and Bo Jonsson
(Grip).

The survey in this essay has demonstrated that the traditional

notion  of  lawspeakers  as  representatives  of  a  strong  regional  power
rooted  in  peasant  communities  finds  no  support  in  the  social
backgrounds  of  the  early  lawspeakers.  On  the  contrary,  the  typical
early  lawspeaker  had  close  family  ties  to  the  royal  dynasty

527

. The

lawspeaker  group  also  shows  a  high  degree  of  coherence  and
continuity  over  time,  and  appears  to  have  been  one  of  the  most
stable institutions in the medieval state.

The disjunction between the authorities of lawspeaker and

castellan

528

is another important finding, as is the decline of the

lawspeaker’s aristocratic status from Queen Margaret onwards.

525

The effect is due to appointments made in 1450-52, including Engelbrekt’s

murderer Magnus Bengtsson (Natt och Dag) and Karl Knutsson’s halfbrother and
halfbrother-in-law.

526

Never during the Middle Ages, that is. When the lawspeaker institution is

redefined as a component of the new administrative apparatus of early-modern
Sweden, the title will, once more, become attractive also to the very highest
aristocracy.

527

This appears to decline over time – probably reflecting a growing social distance

between royalty and aristocracy.

528

At least up to the Engelbrekt rebellion, with a few exceptions noted above,

page 239f. The investigation of the later part of the middle ages is not ye t
concluded.

277

Appendix on genealogical argumentation

In a relatively large part of the genealogical material, there are

conflicting  views as to the  proper interpretation  of relations  between
lawspeaker  families.  As  I  have  had  to  enter  a  field  of  argumentation
which  is  quite  new  to  me,  and  which  seems  fairly  dangerous  for
unarmed trespassers, I think that it might be necessary to make a few
comments. In a few cases I have accepted – albeit with reservations –
identifications from older literature although they have been disputed
by modern expertise.

As I do not want to appear neglectful, I find it prudent to account

for my decisions.

Case 1: The identity of Bero, lawspeaker of Södermanland.

Gillingstam (ÄSF 139) has rejected the customary identification of

Björn Näf and the

'Bero legifer sudermanniae'

appearing in SD 811

and  DS  913,  claiming  that  BN  was  a  knight  already  when  he  first
appears  in  1276  (DS  618),  while  his  lawspeaker  namesake  was  not.
However,  if  we  presuppose  that  appearance  in  a  list  of  signatories
preceded  by  the  intitulation

'domini'

is a secure indication of

knighthood  even  at  this  early  date,  then  Bero  legifer  could  on  the
same  grounds  be  presumed  to  have  been  a  knight.  However,when
Löfqvist  makes  an  admonition  against  this  type  of  presumption,  he
refers to DS 1, p512 (Löfqvist 1935:77, n36), which is the only charter
listed  in  K  H  Karlsson's  register  where  Björn  Näf  is  identified  as  a
knight!  That  he  also  explicitly  rejects  the  list  in  this  charter  for  the
specific case of Björn Näf's chivalric status is evident from p85 where
he states that BN  was  not a  knight even by  1285-86. This is the very
list  cited  by  Gillingstam  (618  is  the  charter  number,  while  Löfqvist
refers to the page number, 512).

Case 2: Could Bengt Hafridsson, lawspeaker of
Vätergötland, have been a son of the earlier lawspeaker
Gustav?

Gillingstam in ÄSF116 considers the use of metronymic and

patronymic,  respectively,  as  an  indication  that  BH  and  his  known
sister  Ramfrid  Gustavsdotter  would  most  likely  have  been  half-
siblings,  in  which  case  Bengt  could  not  have  been  the  son  of  the
earlier  Västergötland  lawspeaker  Gustav.  The  silent  assumption
behind  that  conclusion  must  be  that  the  motivation  for  chosing  a
metronymic could  not be  gender  specific.  The  surnames of  men like

278

Bengt  Hafridsson,  Karl  Ingeborgason,  Karl  Estridsson  and  Nils
Sigridsson  are  generally  assumed  to  have  constituted  claims  on  a
share in the  higher status  of their maternal  kin in  preference to their
less distinguished paternal affiliation, and even if Bengt's father would
have been  one  of the  earlier  Westgothian lawspeakers  - as has  been
widely assumed in the genealogical literature - a relationship with the
ducal/royal family would have been more important to signal (as the
lion in his blazon is also supposed to have done). In his sister's case,
however, we have no reason to assume that she had any choice. The
role  of  women  as  pawns  in  the  matrimonial  dowry  market  seems  to
have  left  no  space  for  individual  aspiration  markers  like  high-status
metronymics.  If  it  had,  why  don't  we  have  a  single  clear-cut
example

529

In the index of Raneke's medieval Swedish armoury (SMV), I have

only found one possible case of a female metronymic. It is difficult to
compare  with  the  number  of  female  patronymics,  as  I  suppose  that
they in a considerable number  of cases will have  been supplied  (for
easier identification) by the author. Still, at least 2,040 cases are listed
against  the  single  possible  exception:  Cecilia  Helgadotter,  whose
name  might  be  interpreted  as  either  a  patronymic  formed  from  the
male  name  Helge  (possessive  form  Helga-  or  Helges-)  or  as  a
metronymic  from  the  corresponding  female  name  Helga.  It  is
interpreted  as  a  metronymic  on  page  799-800  (her  mother's  name  is
there  assumed  to  have  been  Helga).  On  page  804  an  alternative
filiation  where the name is attributed to  her possible  father  Helge or
Hägge  is  offered.  The  only  documentary  reference  supplied  is  to  SD
1015,  which  the  editors  of  SMB  have  reprinted  for  the  electronic
register, normalizing her surname as 'Helgesdotter' (SMB 1711) , thus
interpreting the name as a patronymic.

Thus I can see no reason to

assume

that Bengt Hafridsson’s father

was not Gustav lagman, which seems to make sense in view of the
high frequency of inheritability – at least 42%, even if we subtract
Bengt Hafridsson’s case.

529

I have consulted Dr Audur Magnusdottir on this matter, as she is an expert in

gender history as well as in medieval history, and – being an Icelander – carrying
a patronymic in accordance with the still unbroken medieval custom. She could
not recall having heard of a single case of a medieval woman carrying a
metronymic.

279

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54. Gösta Lext: Studier i svensk kyrkobokföring 1600-1946. 1984.
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