St. Birgitta has by some been considered as a reformer before Luther, but not quite correctly. Luther reformed the institutions; Birgitta aimed at reforming their upholders, and used against the pope and the priests a language almost as strong as Luther’s. Some of her ideas were not strictly in harmony with the Catholic dogmas; she insisted on a close personal union with God, without the mediation of priests or saints, fought for a universal knowledge of the Bible and the preaching of the Gospel in the popular vernaculars, and considered the sale of indulgences a mortal sin. Four hundred and seventy convents of her order, in which men and women were to collaborate for the instruction and spiritual guidance of the people, were after her death founded in the Scandinavian countries, Germany, Esthonia, Poland, Italy and the Netherlands, one existing in England up to the time of Elizabeth. The mother institution at Vadstena, in East Gothland, was of the greatest importance to the cultural development of Sweden and the North. One of the greatest libraries of the Middle Ages was reared, and the first book-printing establishment of Sweden founded there in 1490. Within its walls a considerable literary activity prevailed, the religious literature of the time being copied, or translated into Swedish, and many original works written. The Swedish language, used by the Birgittine school of writers, tried, by approaching Danish forms, to establish a common literary language in the North, the Norwegian having approached the Swedish during the time of the close relations between the courts of the two countries. These efforts, for a time furthered by political relations, were unfortunately soon to be abandoned forever.
Birgitta was a great genius in fetters. Her rare gifts were kept back in their development through the idiosyncrasies of her period. She was of an indomitable, aristocratic spirit, always remaining the noblewoman to whom it was natural to speak the truth to the princes of State and Church, because she considered herself their equal through the best blood of the North, of which she had her share. This religious mystic was a true child of her aristocratic age, which gave to Sweden two parallel lines, sometimes identical, of great legislators and weak and indulgent princes.
[CHAPTER VI]
Unionism versus Patriotism—Margaret, Engelbrekt and Charles Knutsson
Queen Margaret, the successor of Albrecht, for the first time in history united the three Scandinavian countries and their dependencies under one rule. Born in a prison in which King Valdemar of Denmark had placed his consort, Queen Hedvig, there remained in the character of Margaret something of the rigor and chill of her uncomely birthplace. When she was seven, she was engaged to King Hakon of Norway, and married to him at eleven years of age. In Norway, her education was continued for several years after her marriage under the stern supervision of Dame Martha, a daughter of St. Birgitta, who often applied corporal punishment to the young queen. Margaret early gave evidence of self-control and power of reflection, and her mind developed at the expense of her heart. Her son Olaf became king of Denmark upon Valdemar’s death, in 1375, and king of Norway upon that of Hakon, in 1380. Upon his death, in 1387, Margaret succeeded him, and two years later laid Sweden under her sceptre.
Albrecht was captured, but the Germans still were in possession of several Swedish strongholds. These yielded to Margaret, one after the other, except Stockholm. In the capital, the German influx of soldiers and merchants had made the foreign population exceedingly large. They now acted as oppressors. A secret league was formed which captured a great number of prominent Swedish citizens, who were cruelly tortured with wooden saws and then thrown into an old shed on the islet of Kæpplingeholm. The shed was ignited and the poor prisoners suffered a terrible death. German freebooters, especially the Vitalen or Victuallen Brotherhood, who provided the fortress of Stockholm with victuals, were plundering in the Baltic and Lake Mælar, and were the allies of the Germans of Stockholm. Margaret was powerless against them until she entered into an alliance with the Hanseatic towns. This ended the war; Stockholm surrendered and peace was made, in 1395. The plunders by sea-rovers in the Baltic were put an end to during Margaret’s reign, but cost heroic efforts and much money, while the influence of the Hansa grew into menacing proportions.
Margaret was anxious to place the dynasty of the North firmly within her line of descent. In 1389, she selected her sister’s grandson, Eric of Pomerania, then six years old, her successor, and he was thus proclaimed in Norway. In 1395, Eric was chosen king of Denmark and, in 1396, of Sweden. At his Swedish coronation in Kalmar, in 1397, Queen Margaret, who remained at his side as the real ruler, had the outline drawn of an Act of Union, which should forever unite the three Scandinavian kingdoms under one ruler. Each country was to preserve its constitution, laws and traditions unmolested, but they were to support each other in times of war. When a king was to be chosen, representatives of equal numbers from each country were to meet in Halmstad, the sons of kings to be favored by choice. This Act of Union was never carried into effect, according to legal forms. The sketch or outline of it, such as it is still preserved, was signed by representatives of the three countries, although not in equal numbers; but why Queen Margaret never allowed it to be enlarged into a legally binding document is not known. Her favorite idea was therein embodied, and she appeared to have an all-powerful influence over those necessary to carry it through.
Margaret made it her object to strengthen the crown and reduce the power of the nobles. She cared naught about keeping her promises to the latter, confiscating their castles and possessions, and annulling their privileges. When they complained, reminding her of her promises in her letters to them, she replied: “Keep my letters; I shall certainly keep your castles.” All nobles created by Albrecht were entirely deprived of their privileges if they could not prove their due qualifications. The majority of forts erected during the war were pulled down. No taxes were longer imposed, except through written order of the government. These reforms were all rigorously carried out, according to the “Restitution of Nykœping” of 1396. Margaret succeeded in a remarkable way in reducing to normal proportions the power and influence of the Swedish nobility. The nobles, who were all-powerful and absolutely unyielding in Albrecht’s days, bowed to her gracefully and received meekly her severe conditions. An explanation can be found in the fact that they had no leader of authority and power among them, after the death of Bo Jonsson Grip. Further, Margaret was careful not to fill the important offices of drotsete and marsk, when vacant, thus making the personal presence and interference of the sovereign necessary on all important occasions.
The love of the Swedish people should have been Margaret’s reward for her abolition of aristocratic oppression, if she had not been in a position which necessitated the imposition of heavy taxes. The existence of the common people was made weary and troublesome through the payment of the “queen’s tax,” the “stake tax” on each hearth, the “rump tax” on each head of cattle, and, worst of all, the “Gothland’s release.” Bailiffs, often of foreign birth, collected these taxes with great severity. When the queen became aware of the complaints against her and her bailiffs, she asked in a letter to the archbishop that the people would forgive her in God’s name. “Some of it one has not been able to better; some we and they might well have bettered, although what is done is done.” Without doubt, there was due reason for the heavy taxes in the unsettled relations with other countries which existed during Margaret’s reign; the support of the Hansa and a war with Holstein, commenced by King Eric, were expensive. The island of Gothland had been captured by the so-called German Order in the last days of Albrecht’s reign. When the island was redeemed through the payment of Swedish money, Margaret made the mistake of installing there a Danish bailiff, and it thus for a long time remained a Danish province. Margaret believed in the Union and counted no Scandinavian a foreigner in either country. But it was contrary to Swedish law to install foreigners as bailiffs and vassals, and as she appointed a great number of Danes to Swedish fiefs, and never a Swede to Danish positions of the same or equal importance, the Swedish complaints, on this point, were justified.