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CONSTITUTION.
1<>9
1. constitution.
As has been already shown, Sweden had been inhabited, for a
considerable period prior to the birth of Christ, by a Germanic people;
indeed, the modern theories assume that the population of the country
even in the Stone Age was of the same origin. Though bodies of
immigrants may subsequently, from time to time, have found their way
into the country, yet no invasions or conquests at all comparable to
those of the great Gothic migrations in Central and Southern Europe
took place here, and the remote situation of the land geographically
kept it aloof from those influences that were shaping and organizing
the fabric of society in the rest of Europe during the middle ages
properly so called. Thus it came about that an entirely individual
organization of society, based on the conceptions of the early Germanic races,
established itself in Sweden.
The Royal Palace, Stockholm.
Photo. Fr. G. Klemhiso,
Stockholm.
By the time, however, when information as to the state of things in the
country begins to be rather less sparse, the oldest phase of that social
organization had already all but passed away. Doubtless, here as well as among other
Germanic nations, numerous independent minor kingdoms or fylken, existed side
by side, and we have the authority of tradition for believing the kingly dignity to
have been a primeval institution. Actually, before the commencement, however,
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