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ESSAYS IN SWEDISH HISTORY

mentality which enervated the aristocracies of the Spanish kingdoms. Despite all the conąuests of the seventeenth century, it never really became militarized. It was accustomed to pursue its political objects within the limits of the law: between 1529 and 1718 there is but one instance ofits resorting to yiolence to gain its ends or defend its interests, and that was the wholly exceptional case of the rising against Erikxiv in 1568. It produced no Bouillon, no Montmorency, no Condć. An Oxenstierna or a de la Gardie would as soon have turned Leveller as frondeur,¹³⁶ In the year 1439 Bishop Thomas of Strangnas, in the course of a political poem devoted to the support of Karl Knutsson, wrote some stanzas which are among the best-known passages of early Swedish literaturę. Their theme is the praise of li ber ty; and though historians still dispute among themselves as to the naturę of the liberty intended, the dust of that controversy can-not altogether obscure the passion that lies behind them.¹³⁶

Frihet ar den basta ting Der sókas kan all varlden kring,

Den frihet kan val bara.

Vill du vara dig sjalva huld,

Du alskar frihet mer an guld,

Ty frihet foljer ara.

Those lines were written when the tide of aristocratic constitu-tionalism was flowing strongly towards its flood. They were written by a man who was himself a member of the council of the realm. And perhaps it is not wholly inappropriate that the first literary expression of an ideał which has so strong a hołd upon the Swedish people should have come from a representa-tive of the class which did so much to lay the foundations upon which the fabric of Swedish law is built. In the long run - at least for the period I have been considering - it is Fryxell, rather that Geijer, who has had the better of the argument.

NOTES

¹ This paper is an expanded version of the Creighton Lecture for 1965, delivered in the University of London, 15 November 1965, and published by the Athlone Press, 1966.

^la Anders Fryxell, Om aristokrat-fórdómandet i svensk historia, i-iv, Uppsala, 1845-50.

² Ulf Sjódell, ‘Kungamakt och aristokrati i svensk 1900-tals debatt’,

Historisk Tidskrift, 1965, p. 5: the article offers a fuli discussion of the whole Geijer-Fryxell controversy and its historiographical conseąuences. See also Carl-Arvid Hessler, ‘ “Aristokratfórdómandet”. En riktning i svensk hist-orieskrivning’, Scandia, xv (1943), 209-97.

⁸ See, especially, Ake Hermansson, Karl IX och standema. Tronfragan och fórfattningsutvecklingen i Suerige 1598-1611, Uppsala, 1962, and Nils Runeby,

Monarchia mixta. Maktfórdelningsdebatt i Sveńge under den tidigare stormaktstiden,

Uppsala, 1962.

⁴ See, e.g., Karl Nordlund, Den soenska ręformationstidens allmdnna stats-rdttsliga ideer, Stockholm, 1900; Fredrik Lagerroth, Frihetstidens foifattning.

En studie i den soenska konstitutionalismens historia, Stockholm, 1915; Eriand Hjarne, Frań Vasatiden till Frihetstiden. Nagra drag ur den soenska konstitutionalismens historia, Uppsala, 1929; Kerstin Strómberg-Back, Lagen, rdtten, taran.

Politisk och kyrklig debatt i Soerige under Johan III :s tid, Lund, 1963; Runeby, op. cit.

⁵    A conveniently accessible edition is Utdrag ur Magnus Erikssons Landslag, ed. Emil Olsson, Lund, 1927.

⁶    Dr Strómberg-Back (op. cit., p. 33) deprecates the use of terms such as ‘constitutionalism’, or ‘council-constitutionalism’, on the ground that they are too suggestive of nineteenth-century Liberalism; but an English reader brought up on Stubbs can perhaps be relied upon to make the necessary mental adjustment.

⁷    The relevant portions of Christopher’s Land Law are printed in Soeriges regeringsformer 1634—1809 samt konungafórsakringar 1611-1800, ed. Emil Hildebrand, Stockholm, 1891: this is clause 4, p. 279.

⁸    Gottfrid Carlsson, Kalmar Recess 1483, Stockholm, 1955, p. 5. For the growth of the counciFs power in the fifteenth century, see in generał Emil Hildebrand, Soenska statsforfattningens historiska utoeckling, Stockholm, 1896, pp. 84-141.

⁹    Gottfrid Carlsson, op. cit., passim.; Sven Ulric Palmę, Sten Sture den aldre, Stockholm, 1950, pp. 98—111.

¹⁰    Anders Schónberg, Historiska bref om det soenska regeringssdttet, i aldre och nyare lider (new edn), Stockholm, 1849, i. 196.

¹¹    For recent assessments of the younger Sten’s character and policies, see Gottfrid Carlsson, ‘Sten Sture den yngre’, Scandia, ii (1929); Greta Wiesel-gren, Sten Sture d.y. och Gustao Trolle, Lund, 1949; Gunnar T. Westin, Riksfórestandaren och makten. Politiska utoecklingslinjer i Soerige 1517-1521, Lund, 1957.

¹²    Its real initiator, however, was Karl Knutsson.

¹³    As, for example, in regard to the ąuestion of billeting of troops (borg-lager) in 1524; or in regard to policy towards Liibeck in 1533-4; ^or m regard to the Russian war of 1554. It was significant that the oath sworn by members of the council at Gustav Vasa’s coronadon omitted any mention of their duty to ensure the observance by king and people of the pledges each had given to the other: Soenska riksdagsakter, I Series, Stockholm, 1888, i, 111.

¹⁴    Printed in Soenska riksdagsakter, I Series, i, 378-89.

¹⁶ As Professor Lónnroth has remarked, ‘The difference between hereditary

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