Sweden. Victor Alfred Nilsson
done without the consent of her father, Ragnvald dared not remain in Sweden. He went to Gardarike (Russia), where he died shortly afterward, in 1019, his widow, the princess Ingegerd, in Novgorod becoming the wife of the Russian ruler Jaroslaf.
In Sweden, trouble was brewing against the king, who had broken faith with his people, and in order to avoid open revolt King Olof was forced to divide his power with one of his sons, who, although yet a minor, was solemnly elected king. He had in baptism received the name of Jacob, which so displeased his heathen subjects that it was changed to Anund. King Olof also agreed to maintain peace with Norway, meeting his son-in-law at Konghæll, in Bohuslæn, in 1019, for a peace agreement. King Olof died two years later and was buried by the church of Husaby, where he was baptized. He was the first king who introduced coinage into Sweden. The earliest coins were made of silver by Anglo-Saxons settled in Sigtuma, and resemble closely Anglo-Saxon coins of the same period.
After the death of his father King Anund ruled alone. He entered into an alliance with his brother-in-law of Norway against Canute, who now was king both of Denmark and England. During Canute’s absence, Anund and Olaf invaded Denmark. In the subsequent strife between Olaf and Canute, Anund took no active part. King Olaf had to flee to Russia. Upon his return he gathered an army in Sweden, with the help of Anund, and entered Norway through Jemtland. At Stiklastad he met the much superior Norwegian army, and lost his battle and his life, in 1030. After his death, the sentiment in Norway changed radically, and he was worshipped as a saint throughout the North.
Of Anund’s reign little is known. Adam of Bremen, an ecclesiastic, whose history of the diocese of Hamburg and Bremen, during the period 788–1072, is one of the most important sources of Swedish history in heathen times, says of Anund: “Young in years, he excelled in wisdom and piety all his predecessors; no king was more beloved by the Swedish people than Anund.” The historian gives as his authority the Danish king Svend Estridsen, who as an exile stayed at Anund’s court. Anund died in 1050 and was succeeded by his older half-brother Emund, surnamed the Old. He was the son of a freed woman, the daughter of a Vendish chief. For this reason he had been passed over at the first election. Emund was educated by his mother’s relatives, was baptized, but was not much of a Christian. He was popular neither with the new Christian church nor with the people at large. Emund’s unpopularity with the masses was caused by an agreement with Denmark in regard to the boundaries when he ceded the province of Bleking. Emund died in 1060. With him the old royal line became extinct. A new line comes to the throne of Sweden, where, with the general acceptance of Christianity, a new era commences.
CHAPTER IV
Early Christian Era—Stenkil’s Line and Interchanging Dynasties
The sources of Swedish history during the first two centuries of the Middle Ages are very meagre. This is a deplorable fact, for during that period Sweden passed through a great and thorough development, the various stages of which consequently are not easily traced.
Before the year of 1060 Sweden is an Old Teutonic state, certainly of later form and a larger compass than the earliest of such, but with its democracy and its elective kingdom preserved. The older Sweden, such as it had existed at least since the days of Ingiald Illrade, was in regard to its constitution a rudimentary union of states. The realm had come into existence through the cunning and violence of the king of the Sviar, who made away with the kings of the respective lands, making their communities pay homage to him. No change in the interior affairs of the different lands was thereby effected; they lost their outward political independence, but remained mutually on terms of perfect equality. They were united only through the king, who was the only centre for the government of the union. No province had constitutionally more importance than the rest, no supremacy by one over the other existed. On this historic basis the Swedish realm was built, and rested firmly until the commencement of the Middle Ages. In the Old Swedish state-organism the various parts thus possessed a high degree of individual and pulsating life; the empire as a whole was also powerful, although the royal dignity was its only institution. The king was the outward tie which bound the provinces together; besides him there was no power of state which embraced the whole realm. The affairs of state were decided upon by the king alone, as in regard to war, or he had to gather the opinion of the Thing in each province; any imperial representation did not exist and was entirely unknown, both in the modern sense and in the form of one provincial, or sectional, assembly deciding for all the others. The latter form is one of transition, the modern form the ripe fruit, both brought out by the historic development. In society there existed no classes. It was a democracy of free men, the slaves and freed men enjoying no rights. The first centuries of the Middle Ages were one continued process of regeneration, the Swedish people being carried into the European circle of cultural development and made a communicant of Christianity. With the commencement of the thirteenth century Sweden comes out of this process as a mediæval state, in aspect entirely different to her past. The democratic equality among free men has turned into an aristocracy, with aristocratic institutions, the hereditary kingdom into an elective, or, at least, into one close upon turning into an elective, kingdom, while the provincial particularism and independence have given way to the constitution of a centralized, monopolistic state. No changes could be more fundamental.
For lack of sources the historians were, until quite recently, led to the belief that the change was due to one tribe in gaining the ascendency over another, the political supremacy changing from one part of the country to another. The epoch was called “The Struggle between Swedes and Goths,” “The Struggle about the election of kings between Swedes and Goths.” Now it is generally admitted that the struggle was between principles, not between tribes. The circumstances sometimes were such that one section or province opposed others, but these divisions never were identical or at all depended upon racial or tribal conditions. It was a struggle between heathendom and Christianity, democracy and aristocracy, provincial particularism and centralized state unity.
The old provincial laws of Sweden are a great and important inheritance which this period has accumulated from heathen times. The laws were written down in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but they bear every evidence of high antiquity. Many strophes are found in them of the same metre as those on the tombstones of the Viking Age and those in which the songs of the Edda are chiefly written. In other instances the text consists of alliterative prose, which proves its earlier metrical form. The expressions have, in places, remained heathen, although used by Christians, who were ignorant of their true meaning, as, for instance, in the following formula of an oath, in the West Gothic law: “Sva se mer gud hull” (So help me the gods). The laws show a good many individual traits and differences, but these are not of such a serious character as to give evidence of having been formulated by tribes of different origin. A remarkable exception is formed by the laws of matrimony and inheritance for the inhabitants of Værend and Bleking, who, it will be remembered, are the descendants of the Herulian immigration in historic times. In lieu of a missing literature of sagas and poetry, these provincial laws give a good insight into the character, morals, customs and culture of the heathen and early Christian times of Sweden. From the point of philology they are also of great value, besides forming the solid basis of later Swedish law. How the laws could pass from one generation to another, without any codification, depends upon the facts that they were recited from memory by the justice (lagman or domare), and that this dignity generally was inherited, for centuries being carried by the descendants of one and the same family.
Interesting is the appendix to the law of the island of Gothland, the Guta Saga, being the fragment of a history of the island and its first contact with Christianity through a visit by St. Olaf of Norway. The style is the same simple and serene one as in the Icelandic sagas; while the Gutnic dialect, in which it is written, more closely resembles the Gothic of Bishop Wulfila in vowel sounds than the language of any other known dialect. Quite an important appendix is found in the older form of the West Gothic law, consisting of lines of the kings of Sweden, with short but highly valuable accounts of their reigns and characteristics.
Stenkil