The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa | Page 4

none others, were admitted. These assemblies were called and presided over by the county magistrate, elected by general vote at some previous assembly. All law cases arising in the county were tried before the assembly, judgment being passed, with consent of the assembly, by the county magistrate, who was expected to know and expound the traditional law of his county. Questions concerning the inhabitants of more than one county were regulated by the provincial assemblies, composed of all landowners in the province, and presided over by the provincial magistrate, elected by all the landowners in his province. The power of the provincial magistrate in the province was similar to that of the county magistrate in the county; and to his judgment, with consent of the assembly, lay an appeal from every decision of the county magistrates. Above all the provinces was a king, elected originally by the provincial assembly of Upland, though in order to gain the allegiance of the other provinces he was bound to appear before their individual assemblies and be confirmed by them. His duty was expressed in the old formula, "landom r?da, rike styre, lag styrke, och frid h?lla," which meant nothing more than that he was to protect the provinces from one another and from foreign powers. In order to defray the expense of strengthening the kingdom, he was entitled to certain definite taxes from every landowner, and half as much from every tenant, in the land. These taxes he collected through his courtiers, who in the early days were men of a very inferior class,--mere servants of the king. They lived on the crown estates, which we find in the very earliest times scattered through the land. Besides his right to collect taxes, the king, as general peacemaker, was chief-justice of the realm, and to him lay an appeal from every decision rendered by a provincial magistrate. Such, in brief, was the constitution of Sweden when first known in history.
Christianity, first preached in Sweden about the year 830, brought with it a diminution of the people's rights. When the episcopal dioceses were first marked out, the people naturally kept in their own hands the right to choose their spiritual rulers, who were designated lydbiskopar, or the people's bishops. But in 1164 the Court of Rome succeeded in establishing, under its own authority, an archbishopric at Upsala; and by a papal bull of 1250 the choice of Swedish bishops was taken from the people and confided to the cathedral chapters under the supervision of the pope. As soon as the whole country became converted, the piety of the people induced them to submit to gross impositions at the hands of those whom they were taught to regard as God's representatives on earth. In 1152 the so-called "Peter's Penning" was established, an annual tax of one penning from every individual to the pope. Besides this, it became the law, soon after, that all persons must pay a tenth of their annual income to the Church, and in addition there were special taxes to the various bishops, deans, and pastors. A still more productive source of revenue to the Church was death-bed piety, through which means a vast amount of land passed from kings or wealthy individuals to the Church. By a law of the year 1200 the clergy were declared no longer subject to be tried for crime in temporal courts; and by the end of the thirteenth century the Church had practically ceased to be liable for crown taxation. It requires but a moment's thought to perceive how heavy a burden all these changes threw on the body of the nation.
Simultaneously with the spread of Christianity still another power began to trample on the liberties of the people. This was the power of the sword. In early times, before civilization had advanced enough to give everybody continuous employment, most people spent their leisure moments in making war. Hence the Swedish kings, whose duty it was to keep the peace, could accomplish that result only by having a large retinue of armed warriors at their command. The expense which this entailed was great. Meantime the crown estates had continually increased in number through merger of private estates of different kings, through crown succession to estates of foreigners dying without descendants in the realm, and through other sources. Some of the kings, therefore, devised the scheme of enlisting the influential aristocracy in their service by granting them fiefs in the crown estates, with right to all the crown incomes from the fief. This plan was eagerly caught at by the aristocrats, and before long nearly all the influential people in the realm were in the service of the king. Thus the position of royal courtier, which had formerly been a mark of servitude, was now counted an