Sweden 1523-1560 Sweden 1611-1654









Sweden, 1560-1611



A.) Foreign Policy

In the 1550es the state of the LIVONIAN ORDER fell apart, facing a Russian invasion. While most of Livonia turned to Poland for protection, the city of REVAL and Northern ESTONIA accepted Swedish King Erik as their protector, an event which marked the begin of Swedish expansion in the Baltic region.
In 1563 Sweden found herself in war against Denmark, Poland and Luebeck (the Nordic 7 Years War, 1563-1570). The Danes conquered ÄLVSBORG, Sweden's access to the North Sea, which Sweden regained by paying ransom.
A problem arose in 1587, when Swedish crown prince SIGISMUND VASA was elected King of Poland, and, as a condition to being crowned, had to convert to Catholicism. In 1592 his father Johann III. died and Sigismund was crowned King of Sweden as well, uniting Poland and Sweden in DYNASTIC UNION. However, the Swedish church and nobility feared that Sigismund might attempt to reintroduce Catholicism by force; he was deposed in 1600. Sigismund continued to rule in Poland until his death in 1632. He never gave up his claim on the Swedish throne; his mere existence was perceived a threat by Lutheran Sweden. So Sweden now had two archenemies, Denmark and Poland.
In 1595, a war with Russia was concluded with drawing a new Eastern border of Finland.


B.) Domestic Policy

In 1527, Lutheranism had been introduced in Sweden, but the country's Lutheran identity had not been constitutionally secured.
In 1569, in the midst of the Nordic 7 Years War, King Erik XIII. was deposed.
In 1572 the Synod of Uppsala approved a CHURCH ORDINANCE written by Laurentius Petri; it fixed sundays and 32 additional days as public holidays (by comparison : Denmark 1537 - sundays plus 16 holidays). In 1576 a gospel book, the so-called red book, was published, approved by King Johan, who converted to Catholicism in 1578. As the pope rejected the conditions under which he offered to reintroduce Catholicism in Sweden, he reconverted to Lutheranism in 1579.
When Sigismund Vasa - he had been elected King of Poland in 1587 and been raised as a Catholic (the faith of his mother) - inherited the Swedish crown in 1592, the Swedish Lutheran church felt threatened. In 1593 Sigismund guaranteed Sweden's Lutheran faith, the first time the Lutheran church being acknowledged as being Sweden's state church.
Nonetheless, the Lutheran clergy did not trust Sigismund and supported his cousin Karl; Sigismund was deposed (1599), and in 1604 Karl IX. was crowned. At Linkoeping in 1600, state council members who had supported King Sigismund were tried of treason; four of them were sentenced and executed (the LINKÖPING BLOODBATH).


C.) The Economy

In 1570, Stockholm had a population of c. 9,000 inhabitants. Karl IX. founded cities, KARLSTAD, MARIESTAD, GÖTEBORG (1607, later destroyed by the Danes and again founded in 1629). The latter city was to become Sweden's main port on the North Sea.
Sweden was still a mainly agricultural society. The technique was rather primitive, the CROP ROTATION system still spreading. As the population density was extremely low - the population for Sweden proper (without Finland) in 1570 is estimated at 750,000, rather extensive use of the arable land provided, in normal years, sufficient food. Sweden produced iron and copper, much of it for export. International trade was mainly conducted by foreigners; yet Sweden had become less dependent on the merchants of the Hanseatic League, as Dutch and English merchants had appeared in the Baltic.


D.) Intellectual Life

In 1566 UPPSALA UNIVERSITY was reopened (she had closed down in the 1530es). She was forced to close again in 1580, because she opposed the introduction of a gospel book sanctioned by Kinh Johan in 1576. In 1593 she was opened again. The confiscation of church lands by the crown had seriously affected the institutions of education.
King Johan (1569-1592) had the castles at Kalmar and Gripsholm remodeled, turned into Renaissance palaces.







EXTERNAL
FILES 		The Wars of Karl IX. and the Disaster at Kirkholm, 1605
Gustav Vasas liv och leverne, by Anders Thuresson, in Swedish
Chronology of Swedish History, 1500-1599 1600-1649 by Ken Polsson
DOCUMENTS Portraits of Sigismund Vasa, of Gustavus I. Vasa from Dominicus Custos, Atrium heroicum Caesarum, regum, [...] imaginibus [...] illustr[atum] 1600-1602, posted by MATEO, Univ. Mannheim
Map of southern Sweden and Denmark, from Le Miroir du Monde by Peeter Heyns 1598
Swedish Imprints before 1700, from Kungliga Bibliotheket
REFERENCE Franklin D. Scott, Sweden : The Nation's History, Univ. of Minnesota Press 1977
Jerker Rosen, Svensk Historia Vol.1, Stockholm : Esselte (1962) 1983
Göran Malmstedt, Helgdagsreduktionen, övergangen från ett medeltida till ett modernet år i Sverige 1500-1800 (The Reduction of Holidays; transition from a medieval to a modern year, in Sweden, from 1500 to 1800), Göteborg : Hist. Institute 1994, in Swedish


This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2000, last revised on November 8th 2004

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