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3o4 VI. GREAT KINGS AND BISHOPS (A.D. 15931718).
Linkoping, and recovered his reputation amongst his
countrymen. He was naturally in favour with Charles
XL, who assumed the government in 1672, and he was on
the king s side in the initiation of his policy of
"
Reduc
tion," by which he recovered to the crown the estates which
had been lavishly granted away by his predecessors.
Terserus died in 1678, and he was, therefore, not respon
sible for the severity and sometimes injustice with which
this policy was afterwards carried out, nor for the
absolutism which followed.57
"
These conflicts (says Dr. Holmquist) within the
Church were to cost it dear. Absolute monarchy was in
troduced by Charles XL, and he was not willing that the
Church should continue an independent factor within his
kingdom. Through its own fault the Church was without
any organized Government which could defend its in
terests. The bishops were now, in general, less important
men. Not without the fault of orthodoxy, and in conse
quence of the state of constant warfare, a deep moral decad
ence, and increase of superstition had got hold of the people
and the lower clergy. For instance, the epidemic of trials
for witchcraft raged about the year 1670. The belief in
witchcraft was defended by the clergy, and attacked by the
famous physician, Urban Hjarne. Nowhere was there
power to resist the king s pretensions."
In 1686 a new Church law, in which the king had been
much assisted by Dr. Haquin Spegel, now Bishop of
Skara, was issued by royal authority. It was accepted by
the cathedral chapters in 1687. In one respect it fulfilled
the desire of the Church by making the Liber Concordice 58
57
There is a good popular account of Karl XI. s personlighet
och lifsgaming by Rudolf Fahraeus in Heimdal s Folkskrifter,
1897.
58
These books are all conveniently printed in one volume by
Dr. Karl August Hase, under the title of Libri Symbolici
Ecclesicz Evangelicce sive Concordia, ed. 2, Lipsiae, 1837. They
are The Confessio Augustana (with the Confutatio Pontificia as
an appendix necessary to understand the Apologia), the Apologia
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