The second condition was the introduction of Christianity to the kingdom. At the close of the first millennium a great struggle was commencing in Sweden, a battle for the very souls of the people. It was a contest between the believers in the old pagan gods and the new religion of Christianity. The assault was from outside the country. English missionaries were active in Västergötland, which they could reach directly from the North Sea. The Franks infiltrated from the south, across the Baltic, reaching the highest echelons of the Swedish hierarchy. There was Ansgar’s visit to Birka (829–831) at the instigation of Louis the Pious (king of the Franks). He converted Hergeir, jarl of Birka. But Hergeir’s successor, Gautbert, was forced to flee and his nephew killed in 839. To the warrior class Thor’s hammer had more appeal than the Christian cross. The old gods would not die easily.
Most of the population was rural and exposed to the new faith much later. The rituals and sacrifices that guaranteed fertility of land and family, and protection from enemies, both natural and human, exercised a compelling hold over the people. The new, alien god and his son-come-to-earth would make slow progress among the mostly peasant population of the country.
And the merchants who had sojourned among the Greeks brought back a different version of this new church, one with an earthly ruler in the east, instead of the west. If Thor and Odin were to be displaced, which church would take their place?
Erik the Victorious had completed the conquest of the Gauts and all of southern Sweden. His son Olof (Skötkonung) of Sweden was the first to be crowned king of the Goths and Svear. Olof was also the first baptized Christian king and it is with him that the line of Swedish kings traditionally begins. The reigns of these early kings cover the period in which the fortunes of the country deteriorated steadily. During this descent Sweden degenerated from a kingdom of power and wealth to a country at the mercy of its predatory neighbors.
The line of kings had begun with promise enough as Olof, combining with Sweyn Forkbeard of the Danes, defeated the threatening fleet of some seventy ships under Olav Tryggvason of Norway (1000) in the Skåne-Zealand strait (the Sound). It was the year Leif Eriksson sailed for America, extending the Viking reach still further afield. To the east, Vladimir, king of the Rus, was trying to convert his Eastern Slavs to Greek Christianity and keep the Swedish trade routes open at the same time. But in Jutland, Hedeby was already lost and Scania, except for Blekinge, had been retaken by Denmark. By 1028 Canute the Great had established an empire that included England, Norway, Denmark and Scania. The western Viking nations would prosper a while longer, but in the east the zenith had already been reached. A line of Swedish kings from the house of Yngling would oversee the country’s decline:
985–995: Erik the Victorious
995–1022: Olof of Sweden (Skötkonung)
1022–1050: Anund Jacob
1050–1060: Emund the Old
1060–1066: Stenkil of Sweden (Ragnvaldsson)
1066–1067: Erik VII (Stenkilsson)
1067–1067: Erik VIII (Hedningen)
1067–1070: Halsten
1070–1079: Haakon the Red
1079–1084: Halsten and Ingold I
1084–1087: Blot-Sweyn
1087–1105: Ingold I (the Elder)
1105–1118: Philip Halsten
1105–1125: Ingold II (the Younger)
1125–1130: Magnus the Strong
Anund Jacob was the first Swedish king with a Christian name. His efforts to convert his subjects met with only limited success, though some of the nobility had readily adopted the new religion. In fact some short reigns of this period were due to kings being forced from the throne because they refused to conduct the sacred sacrifices to the Norse gods, a duty of the Uppland kings by longstanding tradition. Västergötland became the refuge for these dispossessed monarchs; here Christianity had taken root, even among the peasants, thanks to the efforts of early English missionaries and constant reinforcement by the Franks and Frisians.
The Swedish Yngling kings were warrior kings, but, outside their capacity as commanders, they were kept weak by the nobility and were distrusted by the commoners because of the chasm that divided them in the gods they worshipped. Sometimes brothers were made joint kings, probably to reduce the power of the throne. Added to the country’s problems was the declining trade to the east, particularly the loss of Arab silver on which Sweden had come to depend.
At Vladimir’s death in 1019, Yaroslav became king of the Rus and ruler of the vast Novgorod-Kiev domain. He worked at maintaining his ties to the west, particularly Sweden. He married Ingigerd, daughter of Olof Skötkonung, and gave daughters in marriage to King Andrew I of Hungary and King Henry I of France. But while the crown may have been Varangian, the government, merchants and local authorities had become thoroughly Slavic. Commerce was now for the benefit of the empire and those in it, not for the Norse. Compounding the disruption was the difference in religion. An Orthodox Christian empire was dealing with a pagan Sweden. At Yaroslav’s death in 1054, the connection between the Eastern Slavic Empire and Sweden dissolved in favor of closer Slavic ties to Byzantium.
The kings of Sweden struggled to maintain a semblance of control in the face of declining fortunes. Progress was hampered by the continuing three-way split in power between the crown, the nobility and the jarl. Thus, we have Ingold I becoming king in 1080 only to be driven from the throne when he would not conduct the great sacrifices to Thor, Odin and Frey at Uppsala. Bolt-Sweyn, his half-brother, did perform the rituals and was made king. Yet three years later Ingold I was able to retake power, indicating the pagan gods were losing their grip on even the common people. Still, it was the nobility of Uppland that kept much of the political power. Either they chose the king outright or influenced the choice through the people.
As an indication of the monarchy’s weak condition, consider that it had no permanent court. The king and his officers moved from place to place, making a circuit of family possessions. For the most part the king had to live off his own resources. Only in time of war did he have any real power. Again in 1105 Sweden had brothers occupying the same throne as joint monarchs, Ingold II (the Younger) and Philip Halsten. The government remained impotent and the country suffered. With the death of Magnus the Strong the long line of Yngling kings died out to be replaced by a series of kings from two well respected noble families, the Sverker and Erik:
1130–1156: Sverker I (the Elder)—House of Sverker
1156–1160: Erik the Saint—House of Erik
1160–1167: Karl VII of Sweden (Sverkersson)—House of Sverker
1167–1195: Canute I of Sweden (Eriksson)—House of Erik
1196–1208: Sverker II of Sweden (the Younger)—House of Sverker
1208–1216: Erik X (Knutsson)—House of Erik
1216–1222: Johan I (Sverkersson)—House of Sverker
1222–1229: Erik XI (Eriksson)—House of Erik
1229–1234: Canute II of Sweden (Knut Holmgersson)—House of Sverker
1234–1250: Erik XII (Eriksson—the Lame or Lisper)—House of Erik
Neither family was able to take complete control. In fact the jarls of Mälar seem to have had more power than the king. It was they who led the only successful campaign of the period. That was the conquest of western Finland in the 1150s where Sweden had had a foothold since the Viking era. This crusade included not only the subjugation of Finnish tribes, but also the colonization of the coastal region by Swedish peasants. Elsewhere, however, Swedish interests continued to decline. The once sprawling trade network was further eroded.
To the south, across the Baltic, the Germans were spreading their domination through the northern German plains to the sea and moving to the east absorbing the Slavic Wends. Formerly Viking towns, colonies, and trade centers were being replaced by German cities bent on control of Baltic commerce. A major step in the process occurred in 1143 when an old Viking town at the mouth of the Trave River was taken by the Germans and replaced by one of their own. The new town,
Lübeck, quickly grew into a vibrant merchant city and came to dominate trade in the region. They founded other commercial centers along the coast, Hamburg, Wismar, Rostock, Danzig, and Elbing. German merchants gradually took over the town of Visby on Gotland and made it a German trade center, displacing the Swedes. They built Riga, Narva, and Reval on the eastern Baltic coast into thriving port cities and spread into Novgorod and Polotsk where they again took over Swedish mercantile interests. In Finland they established themselves in Åbo and Viborg. They moved west to Bergen in Norway and appropriated fisheries in Skåne from the Danes. Where they could not gain outright control of a city, they established a German merchant colony as in Kalmar and Söderköping in eastern Sweden and Lödöse on the west coast. They set up offices in London, York, Oslo and Copenhagen. Led by Lübeck, Hamburg and Bremen, the Germans organized the Hanseatic League establishing a commercial empire that stretched from London to Novgorod. By 1370 the league had seventy-seven member cities including Cologne, Brandenburg and Braunschweig. Known as the Hansa, they had come to dominate Baltic and North Sea trade.
The league’s success was due, in large measure, to the introduction of a new way of conducting sea trade. Cargo was carried on the Hanseatic cog, a short stubby ship, 60 or more feet in length, with two or more masts. It had more draft than the Norse longboats, but now there were port cities eliminating the need to sail up rivers and enter shallow harbors. The cog’s big advantage was that it could carry many times the cargo of the longboat. The crews also changed in character. Where the longboat’s captain and crew were also the owners and traders, the cog was captained by a professional sailor with a hired crew. The ship might be owned by the captain, or a company, or one of the Hansa cities. It was hired to carry cargo by merchants who often never set foot on its deck. The Swedes were slow in giving up their old way of doing business and could not compete in this new commercial world. In 1368 over 700 cogs sailed out of Lübeck in that year alone. Sweden’s once pervasive and wide ranging merchant marine was displaced by the Hanseatic League cog fleets.
Completing the destruction of the old Norse trade network, the Germans sealed off the remainder of the southern and eastern Baltic by military conquest. The Teutonic Knights, originally organized as a crusader army to assault the Holy Lands, turned their attention to Eastern Europe and conquered the southeastern Baltic coast. A kindred military order, the Brothers of the Sword, extended German control through Kurland to the Gulf of Finland. Sweden was left with only Finland out of all its eastern domains. Here, at least, the Swedes could conduct their old style warfare. They raided, plundered and traded with church approval as long as it was done in the guise of a crusade to Christianize the heathen Finns.
Religion in Sweden had by this time been decided in favor of the Roman Catholic Church. Paganism was on the wane and Orthodox Christianity was confined to the east in Kexholmland, Novgorod-Kiev and Lithuania. Though Christianity was finally displacing paganism in the lower levels of Swedish society and even reaching the high mountain valleys and deep northern woods, religious conflict was far from over. Peasants were used to a high degree of control over their own lives, participating in the election of local officials and even the king through their assemblies, the things. Though they had accepted Roman Catholicism, they insisted on choosing their own priests and bishops, which did not sit well with Rome.
Feudalism never developed fully in Sweden except in Scania where it was established during Danish rule. In the early Viking period the law recognized only two classes, slaves (thrals) and freemen, though there was an informal class hierarchy based on the amount of land owned. As warfare became more advanced, the kings found it necessary to build an arm of the military that included heavy cavalry. The monarchy did not have the money to arm and maintain such a force so the responsibility was transferred to the largest landowners. These magnate families became the nobility. A class structure gradually developed: nobility, peasants (small landowners who could not field mounted armor), merchants and craftsmen, clergy and landless peasants (workers who did not own their own land). However, even the landless peasants were not serfs as in the rest of Europe. These peasants were not tied to a particular estate. They had the freedom to move at will. They had freeman’s rights under the law and representation in the things. It was these landless peasants who colonized Ångermanland, in northern Sweden, as well as Österbotten and Nyland in Finland, increasing Sweden’s territory.
Throughout the reigns of Knut Eriksson (1167–1196), Sverker the Younger (1196–1208) and Erik Knutsson (1208–1216) the Uppland nobles struggled to retain power and carry on the raiding-trading Viking tradition though in the name of Christianity. The monarchy was kept weak. Johan Sverkersson died at 21 having become king when only fifteen (1216–1222). Erik Eriksson, who assumed the throne in 1222 at age 6, was removed seven years later before he could even come of age. He was replaced by Knut Holmgersson (1229), but regained the throne upon Knut’s death in 1234. The only real advances were the jarl’s crusades in Finland. He increased his domain in the interior, conquering Satakunta and Tavastland in 1238. Arrayed against the Uppland nobility were the supporters of the monarchy, the church, and Sweden’s neighbors, Norway, Denmark and the German states. In this fragmented power situation the jarl came to be the dominant official in the country. He ruled the Lake Mära district, key to the trade in central Sweden, and he held Finland as a fief. Under King Erik Eriksson (the Lame or Lisper) this office was occupied by a remarkable individual. Birger Jarl was a descendant of the Sverkers and had the good sense to marry the king’s sister. While on a crusade in Finland, which he began in 1249 to secure his hold in the southwest part of the country, he got word that Erik had died and that his own infant son had been chosen king (Vlademar I of Sweden) establishing a new line of Swedish kings:
1250–1275: Vlademar I (Birgersson)
1275–1290: Magnus I of Sweden
1290–1318: Birger of Sweden (Magnusson)
1319–1364: Magnus II (Eriksson)
1363–1395: Albrekt of Mecklenburg
Birger Jarl returned home to find he was regent of the throne. He held two of the reigns of power in the nation. The nobility, as well as the Germans, could see this might be a problem and began raising an army to eliminate this concentration of power. Birger with his experienced troops, which he had led in Finland, combined with additional levies from supporters in Sweden met the allies at Herrevads Bridge in 1251. Defeating the enemy force, Birger Jarl put to the sword all opposing nobility and any competitors that might threaten his son as the new king.
To counter the German threat, Birger negotiated alliances with Norway and Denmark in 1254 and 1257. To cement the relationships, he married his daughter, Rikissa, to the Norwegian heir, Häkon Häkonsson, and his son Vlademar to the Danish princess Sofia. Later he married Mechtild, widow of the Danish king Abel. He further tried to curb German commercial influence over Sweden by establishing trade agreements with King Henry III of England and making treaties with Lübeck and Hamburg.
Birger Jarl changed the law and tax system to strengthen the central government. In the Viking era each area of the country was obligated to supply a certain number of men to serve on ships. Birger converted this service obligation to a tax giving the crown an income to support itself. His legal reforms strengthened allegiance to the king and doubled penalties for crimes against women, the church, the things, and the home. He moved against the practice of killing for personal revenge, a destructive practice dating back to Viking days and clan allegiances.
As jarl of the Mälar District, Birger had recognized the strategic importance of a particular island formed by the steadily rising land. At the point where Lake Mälar flowed into the Baltic there were two streams discharging the lake’s fresh water into the sea. Between these two outlets was a rocky island from which access to the lake could be controlled. As soon as Birger Jarl gained power in 1250 he began constructing a fort on this island, but his vision went further. In his treaty with Lübeck
in 1252, he granted the German merchants customs and tax free status to trade at this site and allowed traveling merchants to be subject to German law. However, any person who settled there would fall under Swedish jurisdiction and be considered a Swedish subject. He made provisions for a city on this site, with one-half the council to be German. Thus, Stockholm was born.
Germans from Lübeck flocked to the new city. It quickly became the commercial center of northern and central Sweden. Although Germans made up 35 percent to 40 percent of the population and dominated trade, Birger Jarl was able to maintain political control. Stockholm never became a member of the Hanseatic League. The Germans secured a commercial advantage in central Sweden and Birger Jarl built his city.
Upon Birger’s death in 1266, the nobility saw to it the powerful office of jarl was eliminated. Vlademar became king in fact as well as in name, but proved to have a weak personality. He first got in trouble by having an affair with his wife’s sister, a nun who came for a visit from Denmark, which produced a child. To obtain forgiveness, Vlademar made a pilgrimage to Rome where he pledged fealty to Pope Clement IV. His penitence was to raise a tax on his Swedish subjects that would be paid directly to Rome.
Vlademar had three brothers who used this tax levee as an excuse to rebel. Aided by Denmark, they defeated Vlademar in battle. The dethroned king fled to Norway. Magnus, next in line, became king. Eric died. Bengt, the third brother, was made duke of Finland, the position being vacant since the elimination of the office of jarl.
Magnus I (Ladulås) had many of the qualities of his father. He made some concessions to the German merchants, but maintained control of Stockholm. He turned back a drive by Visby Hansa merchants to take over all of Gotland. Magnus advanced Sweden’s political position by negotiating new treaties with Riga and Lübeck, and arranged family marriages to neighboring kingdoms. He consolidated crown power by marrying kin to Swedish nobility and ruthlessly putting down a rebellion, executing the conspirators.
Warrior Kings of Sweden Page 2
