history of Sweden
history of Sweden, a survey of the important events and people in the history of Sweden from the time of its settlement. Sweden occupies the greater part of the Scandinavian Peninsula in northern Europe. It has a 1,000-year-long continuous history as a sovereign state, but its territorial expanse changed often until 1809. Today Sweden is a constitutional monarchy with a well-established parliamentary democracy that dates from 1917.
Earliest settlements
The thick ice cap that covered Sweden during the last glacial period began to recede in the southern region about 14,800 years ago. A few thousand years later the earliest hunters in the region began following migratory paths behind the retreating ice field. The stratified clay deposits that were left annually by the melting ice have been studied systematically by Swedish geologists, who have developed a dependable system of geochronology that verifies the dates of the thaw. The first traces of human life in Sweden, dating from about 9000 bce, were found at Segebro outside Malmö in the extreme southern reaches of Sweden, but earlier settlement could have been facilitated by land bridges between present-day Denmark and southern Sweden that existed from about 13,100 to 12,700 and 12,100 to 10,300 years ago. Finds from the peat at Ageröd in Skåne dated to 6500 bce reveal a typical food-gathering culture with tools of flint and primitive hunting and fishing equipment, such as the bow and arrow and the fishing spear. New tribes, practicing agriculture and cattle raising, made their appearance about 2500 bce, and soon afterward a peasant culture with good continental communications was flourishing in what are now the provinces of Skåne, Halland, Bohuslän, and Västergötland. The so-called Boat-Ax culture (an outlier of the European Battle-Ax cultures) arrived about 2000 bce and spread rapidly. During the Neolithic Period, southern and central Sweden displayed the aspects of a homogeneous culture, with central European trade links; in northern Sweden the hunting culture persisted throughout the Stone and Bronze ages.
Settlers became familiar with copper and bronze around 1500 bce. Information about Sweden’s Bronze Age has been obtained by studying rock carvings and relics of the period, as, for example, the ornate weapons of chieftains and other decorative items preserved in the earth. The early Bronze Age (c. 1500–1000 bce) was also characterized by strong Continental trade links, notably with the Danube River basin. Stone Age burial customs (skeleton sepulture, megalithic monuments) were gradually replaced by cremation. Rock carvings suggest a sun cult and fertility rites. Upheavals on the Continent, combined with Celtic expansion, seem to have interrupted (c. 500 bce) bronze imports to Scandinavia, and a striking poverty of finds characterizes the next few centuries. The climate, comparatively mild since the Neolithic Period, deteriorated, necessitating new farming methods. At this time, iron reached the north.
For the early Iron Age (c. 400 bce–c. 1 ce) the finds are also relatively scanty, showing only sporadic contacts with the La Tène culture, but they become more abundant from the Roman Iron Age (c. 1 ce–400) onward. The material from this period shows that Sweden had developed a culture of its own, although naturally reflecting external influences.
Trade links between the Roman Empire and Scandinavia gave Rome some knowledge of Sweden. The Germania (written 98 ce) of Tacitus gives the first description of the Svear, or Suiones (Swedes), stated to be powerful in men, weapons, and fleets. Other ancient writers who mention Scandinavia are Ptolemy, Jordanes, and Procopius.
The Viking Age
At the beginning of this period a number of independent tribes were settled in what is now Sweden, and their districts are still partly indicated by the present divisions of the country. The Swedes were centred in Uppland, around Uppsala. Farther south the Götar lived in the agricultural lands of Östergötland and Västergötland. The absence of historical sources makes it impossible to trace the long process by which these provinces were formed into a united and independent state. The historical events leading to unification are reflected darkly in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf—which gives the earliest known versions of the word for Sweden: sveorice, svearike, and sverige—and also in the Old Norse epic Ynglingatal, contained in the Heimskringla of Snorri Sturluson.
Trade
As a result of Arab expansion in the Mediterranean area in the 8th and 9th centuries, the trade routes along the Russian rivers to the Baltic Sea acquired enhanced importance. In the second half of the 9th century, Swedish peasant chieftains secured a firm foothold in what is now western Russia and Ukraine and ruthlessly exploited the Slav population. From their strongholds, which included the river towns of Novgorod and Kyiv, they controlled the trade routes along the Dnieper River to the Black Sea and Constantinople (now Istanbul) and along the Volga River to the Caspian Sea and the East. Trade in slaves and furs was particularly lucrative, as the rich finds of Arab silver coins in Swedish soil demonstrate. Swedish Vikings also controlled trade across the Baltic, and it was for this activity that Birka, generally regarded as Sweden’s oldest town, was founded (c. 800). Swedish Vikings took part in raids against western Europe as well. From the 10th century, however, control of the Russian market began to slip from Swedish hands into those of Frisian, German, and Gotland merchants.
Christianization
The first attempt to Christianize Sweden was made by the Frankish monk Ansgar in 830. He was allowed to preach and set up a church in Birka, but the Swedes showed little interest. A second Frankish missionary was forced to flee. In the 930s an archbishop of Hamburg, Unni, undertook a new mission, with as little success as his predecessors. In Västergötland to the southwest, Christianity, introduced mainly by English missionaries, was more generally accepted during the 11th century. In central Sweden, however, the temple at Uppsala provided a stronghold for pagan resistance, and it was not until the temple was pulled down at the end of the 11th century that Sweden was successfully Christianized.
The struggle between the old and new religions strongly affected the political life of Sweden in the 11th century. Olaf (Olof Skötkonung), who came from Västergötland but proclaimed himself ruler of all Sweden during the early 11th century, was baptized in Skara about the year 1000. He supported the new religion, as did his sons Anund Jakob (reigned c. 1022–c. 1050) and Edmund (c. 1050–60). The missionaries from Norway, Denmark, and even Russia and France, as well as from Hamburg, won converts, especially in Götaland, the area where the royal dynasty made its home and where early English missionaries had prepared the ground. Many pagans refused to abandon their old faith, however, and civil wars and feuds continued. Claimants vied for the throne until the mid-13th century, when a stable monarchy was finally achieved.
The 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries
When and where Sweden originated have long been matters of debate. Some historians contend that the cradle of Sweden is located in Västergötland and Östergötland—i.e., in the southwestern and southeastern parts of the country. Others maintain that Sweden was founded in the Lake Mälar region in Uppland by the Svear, who subjugated the central provinces and eventually conquered the provinces of Götaland. Evidence indicates, however, that, at the end of the Viking era in the 11th century, Sweden remained a loose federation of provinces. The local chieftains from time to time proclaimed themselves rulers over all Sweden when in reality each formally exerted power over only his own province. It appears that the Swedish provinces were first united in the 12th century. The oldest document in which Sweden is referred to as a united and independent kingdom is a papal decree, by which Sweden in 1164 became a diocese with its own archbishop in Uppsala.
Sweden in the 12th century consisted of Svealand and Götaland, which were united into a single kingdom during the first half of that century, while the provinces of Skåne, Halland, and Blekinge in the south belonged to Denmark, and Bohuslän in the west, along with Jämtland and Härjedalen in the north, were part of Norway. About 1130 Sverker, a member of a magnate family from Östergötland, was acknowledged as king, and this province now became the political centre of Sweden. Sverker sided with the church and established several cloisters staffed by French monks; he was murdered about 1156. During the later years of Sverker’s reign, a pretender named Erik Jedvardsson was proclaimed king in Svealand; little is known about Erik, but, according to legend, he undertook a crusade to Finland, died violently about 1160, and was later canonized as the patron saint of Sweden.
Civil wars
Erik’s son Knut killed Sverker’s son (1167) and was accepted as king of the entire country. Knut organized the currency system, worked for the organization of the church, and established a fortress on the site of Stockholm. After his death in 1196, members of the families of Erik and Sverker succeeded each other on the throne for half a century. While the families were battling for the throne, the archbishopric at Uppsala was established, and the country was organized into five bishoprics. The church received the right to administer justice according to canon law and a separate system of taxation, protected by royal privileges, and the pretenders sought the church’s sanction for their candidacies. The first known coronation by the archbishop was that of Erik Knutsson in 1210. The church also gave its sanction to the “crusades” against Finland and the eastern Baltic coast; the action combined an attempt at Christianization with an attempt at conquering the areas.
By the mid-13th century the civil wars were drawing to an end. The most important figure in Sweden at that time was Birger Jarl, a magnate of the Folkung family. The jarls (earls) organized the military affairs of the eastern provinces and commanded the expeditions abroad. Birger was appointed jarl in 1248 by the last member of the family of St. Erik, Erik Eriksson, to whose sister he was married. Birger’s eldest son, Valdemar, was elected king when Erik died (1250). After Birger defeated the rebellious magnates, he assisted his son in the government of the country and gave fiefs to his younger sons. Birger was in fact ruler of the country until he died in 1266. During this time central power was strengthened by royal acts that were binding throughout Sweden, in spite of the existence of local laws in the provinces. The acts promulgated included those giving increased protection to women, the church, and the thing (“courts”) and improving the inheritance rights of women. By a treaty with Lübeck in 1252, Birger promoted the growth of the newly founded city of Stockholm. At the same time, the Hanseatic merchants received privileges in Sweden, and the establishment of towns blossomed.
In 1275 Valdemar was overthrown by his brother Magnus I (Magnus Ladulås) with the help of a Danish army. In 1280 a law was accepted establishing freedom from taxes for magnates who served as members of the king’s cavalry, which created a hereditary nobility. The following year Magnus Ladulås exempted the property of the church from all taxes. Under Magnus’s reign the position of jarl disappeared and was replaced by the drots (a kind of vice-king) and the marsk (marshall), together with the established kansler (chancellor). The export of silver, copper, and iron from Sweden increased trade relations with Continental Europe, especially with the Hanseatic cities.
Magnus died in 1290 and was succeeded by his 10-year-old son, Birger. The regency was dominated by the magnates, especially by the marsk, Torgils Knutsson. Even after Birger’s coronation in 1302, Torgils retained much of his power. The king’s younger brothers Erik and Valdemar, who were made dukes, attempted to establish their own policies and were forced to flee to Norway (1304), where they received support from the Norwegian king. The following year the three brothers were reconciled. A new political faction was created by the leaders of the church, whom Torgils had repressed, together with a group of nobles and the dukes, and in 1306 the marsk was executed. Birger then issued a new letter of privileges for the church, but his brothers captured and imprisoned him. Two years later the kings of Denmark and Norway attacked Sweden on his behalf. Birger was again recognized as king of Sweden at a peace concluded in 1310 with Denmark and Norway, but he was forced to transfer half of the kingdom to his brothers as fiefs. Erik’s territory, together with his earlier acquisitions, then consisted of western Sweden, northern Halland, southern Bohuslän, and the area around Kalmar and stretched across the borders of the three Scandinavian kingdoms. In 1312 the dukes married two Norwegian princesses, increasing their power and dynastic position, but in December of 1317 the dukes were imprisoned by their brother following a family dinner, and they died in prison. The nobility rebelled against Birger, who was forced to flee to Denmark in 1318, and the king’s son was executed.
Code of law
The magnates now seized control of Sweden and reasserted their power to elect a king. They chose Magnus, the three-year-old son of the duke Erik, who had shortly before inherited the crown of Norway. In connection with the election, the privileges of the church and the nobility were confirmed, and the king was not to be allowed to raise taxes without the approval of the council and the provincial assemblies. The magnates now revised the laws of Svealand and, by the Treaty of Nöteborg (1323), established the Finnish border with Russia. The Danish province of Skåne was bought and put under the Swedish king. By 1335 Magnus ruled over Sweden, including Skåne and Blekinge, Finland, and Norway, to which he soon added Halland. During Magnus’s reign a national law code was established (c. 1350), providing for the election of the king, preferably from among the royal sons, and a new town law code was written that gave the German merchants considerable privileges. In 1344 Magnus’s elder son Erik was elected heir to the Swedish throne, one year after his younger brother Haakon received the crown of Norway. Erik made common cause with the nobility and his uncle Albert of Mecklenburg against his father, and in 1356 Magnus was forced to share the kingdom with his son, who received Finland and Götaland. Two years later Erik died, and the kingdom was again united under Magnus’s rule.
In his struggles with the nobles, Magnus received the support of the Danish king, Valdemar Atterdag, and in 1359 Magnus’s son Haakon of Norway was engaged to Valdemar’s daughter Margaret. The following year Valdemar attacked Skåne, and Magnus relinquished Skåne, Blekinge, and Halland in return for Valdemar’s promise of help against Magnus’s Swedish enemies. In 1361 Valdemar attacked Gotland and captured Visby, an important Baltic trading centre. Haakon, who had been made king of Sweden in 1362, and Margaret were married in 1363. Magnus’s opponents among the nobility went to Mecklenburg and persuaded the duke Albert’s son, also named Albert, to attack Sweden, forcing Magnus to flee to Haakon’s territory in western Sweden. In 1364 the Folkung dynasty was replaced by Albert of Mecklenburg (1363–89). Albert joined in a coalition of Sweden, Mecklenburg, and Holstein against Denmark and succeeded in forcing Valdemar Atterdag from his throne for several years. Albert was not as weak as the nobles had hoped, and they forced him to sign two royal charters stripping him of his powers (1371 and 1383). At the end of the 1380s Albert had plans to reassert his power, primarily by recalling the royal lands that had been given to the nobles. Consequently, in 1388 the Swedish nobles called upon Margaret, now regent of Denmark and Norway, for help. In 1389 her troops defeated and captured Albert, and she was hailed as Sweden’s ruler. Albert’s allies harried the Baltic and continued to hold out in Stockholm, and it was only in 1398 that Margaret finally won the Swedish capital. In 1396 her great-nephew Erik of Pomerania, then about age 16, became nominal king of Sweden, and the following year he was hailed and crowned king of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, marking the beginning of the Kalmar Union.
The Kalmar Union
Sweden had entered the Kalmar Union on the initiative of the noble opponents of Albert of Mecklenburg. After Margaret’s victory over Albert and his allies, the national council announced its willingness to return those royal estates that had been given to its members during Albert’s reign, and Margaret succeeded in carrying out the recall of this property. She remained popular with the Swedes throughout her reign, but her successor, Erik, who took real power after her death in 1412, appointed a number of Danes and Germans to administrative posts in Sweden and interfered in the affairs of the church. His bellicose foreign policy caused him to extract taxes and soldiers from Sweden, arousing the peasants’ anger. His war with Holstein resulted in a Hanseatic blockade of the Scandinavian states in 1426, cutting off the import of salt and other necessities and the export of ore from Sweden, and led to a revolt by Bergslagen peasants and miners in 1434. The rebel leader, Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson, formed a coalition with the national council. In 1435 a national meeting in Arboga named Engelbrekt captain of the realm. Erik agreed to change his policies and was again acknowledged as king of Sweden by the council. Erik’s agreement was not fulfilled to the Swedes’ satisfaction, however, and in 1436 a new meeting at Arboga renounced allegiance to Erik and made the nobleman Charles (Karl) Knutsson captain of the realm along with Engelbrekt. Soon after, Engelbrekt was murdered by a nobleman. Charles Knutsson became the Swedish regent, and in 1438 the Danish council deposed Erik, followed in 1439 by the Swedish council.
The Danish council elected Christopher of Bavaria as king in 1440, and Charles Knutsson gave up his regency, receiving, in return, Finland as a fief, whereupon the Swedish council also accepted Christopher. Christopher died in 1448 without heirs, and Charles Knutsson was elected king of Sweden as Charles VIII of Sweden. It was hoped that he would be accepted as the union king, but the Danes elected Christian of Oldenburg. The Norwegians chose Charles as king, but a meeting of the Danish and Swedish councils in 1450 agreed to give up Charles’s claims on Norway, while the councils agreed that the survivor of Charles and Christian would become the union king or, if this was unacceptable, that a new joint king would be elected when both were dead. Charles refused to accept this compromise, and war broke out between Denmark and Sweden. In 1457 the noble opposition, led by Archbishop Jöns Bengtsson Oxenstierna, rebelled against Charles, who fled to Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland). Oxenstierna and Erik Axelsson Tott, a Danish noble, became the regents, and Christian was hailed as king of Sweden. Christian increased taxes, but in 1463 the peasants in Uppland refused to pay and were supported by Oxenstierna, whom Christian then imprisoned. The bishop of Linköping, a member of the Vasa family, led a rebellion to free the archbishop, and Christian’s army was defeated. Charles was recalled from Danzig and again became king, but within six months difficulties between him and the nobles, especially Oxenstierna and the bishop of Linköping, forced him to leave the kingdom. Oxenstierna served as regent from 1465 to 1466 and was succeeded by Tott. Battles between the Oxenstierna and Tott families led to the recall of Charles, who ruled from 1467 to his death in 1470.
Political conflict
After Charles’s death, Sten Sture the Elder was elected regent by the council. His army, including the Totts and their sympathizers, burghers, and men from Bergslagen, defeated Christian’s troops in the Battle of Brunkeberg on the outskirts of Stockholm (1471). During Sten’s rule, Uppsala University was founded (1477). When Christian I died in 1481, the matter of the union again arose, and in 1483 John, Christian’s son, was accepted as king of Sweden. Sten, however, managed to delay John’s coronation until 1497. In 1493 a new element had entered Nordic affairs: John had formed an alliance with the Muscovite Ivan III Vasilyevich directed against Sweden, which led to an unsuccessful Russian attack on Finland in 1495. The council became discontented with Sten’s acquisition of power and in 1497 called on John, whose army defeated Sten’s. John was crowned, and Sten returned to Finland. By 1501 John’s supporters had become discontented with his rule, and Sten was recalled as regent. He died in 1503, and Svante Nilsson Sture became regent. In 1506 a new war between Sweden and Denmark began, in which Lübeck supported the Swedes. Svante died in 1512, and the council now attempted a reconciliation with Denmark under the regency of Erik Trolle, whose family supported the union. Svante’s son, Sten Sture the Younger, led a coup, however, and was elected regent. Peace with Denmark was concluded in 1513.
The final years of the Kalmar Union were marked in Sweden by the struggle between the archbishop, Gustav Trolle (inaugurated 1516), and Sten Sture the Younger. The archbishop was head of the council, and he took over the leadership of the pro-union party. A civil war broke out, and in 1517 a meeting of the estates in Stockholm declared Trolle removed from his position. Despite military assistance from Christian II of Denmark and Norway, Trolle was imprisoned. After a defeat by the Swedes, Christian began negotiations and took six noblemen, among them Gustav Vasa, to Denmark as hostages. The Swedish treatment of Trolle brought a papal interdict of Sweden, and Christian could now act as executor. In 1520 a Danish army of mercenaries attacked Sweden, and Sten Sture was mortally wounded in a battle won by the Danes. Christian was acknowledged as king in return for a promise of mercy and constitutional government. The peasants, led by Sten’s widow, refused to abandon the war, however, and it was several months before Stockholm capitulated. Christian was then crowned by the archbishop as hereditary monarch, breaking his promises to the council. Despite promises of amnesty, 82 people, noblemen and clergy who had supported the Stures, were executed for heresy in the Stockholm Bloodbath. The responsibility for this execution has aroused considerable discussion among Swedish and Danish historians. The large part played by Gustav Trolle is now generally accepted.
End of the Kalmar Union
Christian II now appeared to have Sweden under his control, but not all his opponents were dead or in prison. The nephew of Sten’s widow, Gustav Vasa, had escaped from his Danish prison and returned to Sweden in 1520. After the Stockholm Bloodbath he went to Dalarna, where the Stures had their staunchest support, and soon a rebellion there was under way, followed by others around the country. By the spring of 1521 the army of men from Dalarna had won its first battle with the Danes, and soon noblemen were allying themselves with Gustav, who was chosen regent in August. In 1522 he persuaded Lübeck to aid the Swedish rebels, and in 1523 the Danish nobility forced Christian to give up the Danish throne and elected Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp as king. Three months later Gustav Vasa was elected Sweden’s king by a meeting of the estates, and the Kalmar Union was dissolved.
The balance of power in Sweden had shifted during the union from the monarchy to the nobility, who took over the government of the country while the union kings were resident in the other kingdoms. The monarchs’ attempts to control the administration by appointing their own supporters from Denmark aroused protests and rebellion from the Swedes. During the later half of the union, a split developed within the nobility between a pro-union and an anti-union faction. The pro-unionists generally owned estates in Denmark or Norway as well as in Sweden and believed that a union monarch would enable the nobility to exercise greater influence, whereas the anti-union nobles preferred a strong national monarchy supported by a strong national nobility. The king and regents elected in Sweden during the union period came from within the ranks of the anti-union nobility.
An important new class in society was composed of the commercial men and miners from Bergslagen, who were interested in the unimpeded export of Sweden’s iron and copper. When the Danish interests conflicted with their own, most notably during the wars with the Germans, these men rebelled and supported a strong national monarchy, as did the burghers, who were also interested in the growth of trade. The church, on the other hand, preferred a weak monarch and supported the union.
The great majority of Swedes continued to be peasants, and agriculture was the basic occupation of more than 90 percent of the people. From the Viking period through the 12th and 13th centuries, the cultivation of land expanded. The plains in the centre of Svealand around Lake Mälar, as well as in Västergötland and Östergötland, were all cultivated by the end of that period, and the wooded areas in the adjacent provinces of Småland, Värmland, and Dalarna were being brought under cultivation. In the first half of the 14th century, the expansion ceased, and, during the rest of that century and the beginning of the 15th, a recession set in that gave rise to extensive wasteland, reduced production, and increased cost of living. The Black Death, which struck Sweden in 1349–50, was one of the reasons for this crisis in the late Middle Ages; it was not confined to Sweden but spread through most of Europe. In the latter half of the 15th century, a recovery occurred, and the wasteland began to be reclaimed. The major surplus product of Sweden was butter; from the mid-14th century, a fourth of Sweden’s export consisted of this product. As the lands exempt from taxation owned by the nobility and the clergy increased, the burden of taxation on the peasants grew, and, from the Engelbrekt rebellion in the 1430s through the remaining decades of the union, the peasants fought on the side of the anti-union forces.
Henrik Enander Jörgen Weibull