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io. THE SVERKER KINGS. UPSALA ARCHBISHOPRIC. 113
agreed to by the people. In 1219 the goods of the Church
were declared free from the king s power to impose fines.
The same period saw the foundation of colleges of clergy
round the cathedrals of Upsala and Skara (about 1200 and
1222. See Holmquist :
Schweden, p. 21), which were fur
nished at first with regular canons.
At the end of the century, a very powerful and religious
pope, Innocent III., occupied the Roman see. In his first
year (1198) he busied himself with the affairs of the North,
and tried to re-establish the authority of Absalon, Arch
bishop of Lund (1178 1201) over the Church of Sweden.
The case in which he particularly interfered illustrates the
manners of the time and the difficulties of Church govern
ment. Three bishoprics had lately become vacant in
Sweden, and three men, who are described as not born in
lawful wedlock, had been elected to fill them. These men
were almost certainly sons of clergy. Absalon, Arch
bishop of Lund, forbade the Archbishop of Upsala, whose
name was Peter, to consecrate them ;
but Peter disregarded
the inhibition, and consecrated two of them. Whereupon
Absalon suspended them all. Innocent now wrote to
the next Archbishop of Upsala, Olaus I., directing him to
follow the commands of Absalon (Reg. I., ep. 444, P. L.
214, 421; cp. the letter to Absalon on his rights over
Sweden ; ibid. ep. 419, p. 395).
4
Olaus died soon after, and
the people, with the consent of the king, elected Valerius,
the son of a priest, to succeed him. Andreas of Lund, who
4
I
may notice that we possess the will of Absalon, former
Archbishop of Lund, dictated on his death-bed. Amongst other
pious bequests and friendly gifts he ordered the manumission
of several female slaves with their children, one of whom he had
received as a present from Biargaherred in Skane. There was
nothing remarkable in an archbishop having slaves at this
time. But the manumission of their children would not have
been necessary in Sweden if the fathers were freemen. In
Sweden, as distinguished from Denmark, Germany and France,
the children of slaves by a freeman followed the better half
(Geijer :
p. 86). Another noticeable gift is the remission of a
debt of several marks to his clerk, Saxo, who seems to be Saxo
Grammaticus, the Danish historian (P. L., vol. 209, p. 760).
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