Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/776

 of 1815, according to which each country is free and independent, though both are governed by the same king. The connexions of both countries with foreign states are regulated by the Swedish minister for foreign affairs, but when the king has to settle matters concerning foreign states which also are of importance to Norway a Norwegian councillor of state has to be present. Both countries have the same ambassadors and consuls abroad, and share the expenses of their support, Sweden bearing the larger part of this outlay. In war the two countries are bound to assist each other. Thus the union is what is called a “unio realis.” (Author:J. F. Nyström)

From the earliest times of which we have any authentic information there were in Sweden two more or less distinct peoples,—the Göta or Goths in the south, and the Svea or Swedes in the north. They spoke similar languages, were of the same Teutonic stock, and had like customs, institutions, and religious beliefs; but these facts did not prevent them from regarding one another with jealousy and dislike. The most powerful king among these peoples was the king at Upsala. There were other chiefs or kings, called in later times smaa-kongar, but they recognized the superiority of the Upsala king, whose peculiar position was due to the fact that there was at Upsala a great temple of Wodan, which was held in equal reverence by the Swedes and the Goths. Upsala was in the territory of the Swedes, and we can account for the feeling of the Goths with regard to it only by supposing that they were an offshoot from the Swedes, and that the worship of Wodan was in some special way associated with Upsala before the separation took place. Of the two peoples, the Goths seem to have been most active and open to new ideas. They spread along the southern coasts of Sweden and among the islands of the Baltic, and there can be little doubt that the Goths in Germany and Russia, who played so great a part in the disruption of the Roman empire, sprang from the Swedish Goths.

Slavery was not unknown in ancient Sweden, but it did not form an important element in social life. The vast majority of the people were free. They were divided into two classes, jarls and bondar, corresponding to the Anglo-Saxon eorls and ceorls. The bondar were the landed freemen, while the jarls were of noble blood. In some remote age the land may have been held in common by village communities, but in historic times there has always been in Sweden private property in land as well as in movables,—the jarls having wider lands than the bondar, and some bondar being better off than other members of their class. The kings were treated with much respect, for they belonged to families which were believed to be descended from the gods; but their power was far from being absolute. When a king died, his authority did not necessarily pass to one of his sons; the freemen chose as his successor the member of the royal family who seemed to them best fitted for the duties of the office. The king's power was limited not only by the fact that he was elected but by the rights of the freemen in all matters concerning life and land. At regular times moots were held for legal, legislative, and political purposes; and without the sanction of the Great Thing, as the tribal assembly was called, no law was valid and no judgment good.

Besides the Great Thing, of which all freemen were members, there were local things, each attended by the freemen of the district to which it belonged. The chief function of these local assemblies was to settle disputes between freemen, their decisions being given in accordance with rules based on ancient customs. Very often their judgments could not be enforced; and here, as in other Teutonic lands, the impotence of the local popular courts was one of the causes which led to the growth of the king's authority. He was bound to go round his land in regular progress, doing and enforcing justice among his subjects; and in course of time men felt more and more strongly that the best way of obtaining redress for serious grievances was to appeal directly to him.

As far back as we can go in Swedish history we find that the principal aim of the Upsala kings was to get rid of the smaa-kongar, and to put royal officers in their place. These officers ruled in the king's name in association with the local things, but their tendency, especially in times of great civil commotion, was to make themselves as independent as possible. The king himself was always attended by some of the leading magnates, who formed a sort of council of state, and with their aid he prepared the plans which were afterwards submitted to the Great Thing. Although the Great Thing never ceased to be in theory an assembly of the nation, it gradually lost its primitive character, the political rights of the common freemen being usurped by the nobles, who sought also to hamper the exercise of the royal authority.

According to the Ynglinga Saga, in which bits of old Swedish legends are preserved, the first Upsala kings were Ynglingar, sprung from Yngve Frey, the grandson of Wodan. We are told that the last representative of this dynasty was Ingjald Illrede, that he slew six of the smaa-kongar, and that he afterwards killed himself when he heard that the son of one of the murdered chiefs was advancing against him. It is said that the Ynglingar were succeeded by the Skioldungar, who claimed to be descended from Skiold, Wodan's son; and the traditional account is that this line began with Ivar Widfadme, and that he not only became king at Upsala but conquered Denmark, a part of Saxony, and the fifth part of England. Another of the Skioldungar, Eric Edmundsson, is said to have been an even greater king than the founder of the dynasty. During this legendary period, kings in Sweden were often at war with kings in Norway and Denmark, and Swedish adventurers undertook many war-like enterprises against the Finns and the Wends. While Danes and Norwegians were founding states in the British Islands and France, the Swedes were accomplishing like results on the eastern shores of the Baltic.

At this early period Sweden did not take in all the territory which now belongs to it. Scania, one of the most fruitful and prosperous districts of modern Sweden, had been from time immemorial an independent and comparatively powerful Gothic state. In the 9th century it was annexed to Denmark by King Guthrun; and, although in later times it was often a subject of bitter dispute between Denmark and Sweden, its connexion with the former country was not finally severed until the 17th century. Lund, the principal town in Scania, was for many generations the see of the primate of the Danish church.

The scattered notices of Adam of Bremen, Saxo, and certain saints' lives, with a few allusions elsewhere, are our direct written sources for this early period. They may be eked out by study of the laws and of local nomenclature. Later the rich runic remains of Sweden give us some fuller help. After the end of the 10th century the evidence gradually becomes clearer and more trustworthy. There was then at Upsala a powerful king called Eric the Victory-Blest. He defeated a band of vikings in a great battle at Fyrisval, and, according to Adam of Bremen, had for some time complete control over Denmark. He was succeeded in 993 by his son Olaf