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128
Effects of the Recess
of Westeras.
history of the swedes. Confiscation of Church property. [1544—
monarch, the ancient days of the Union, although
in another shape, were destined to return ; once
again the papacy was to struggle here too, not
without hope of success, for the recovery of its
former influence, and the interval of another
generation did not suffice to efface from the memories
of the nobles of Sweden what they deemed
themselves to have lost by the hereditary settlement.
How little ground was there to expect at that
moment, that all the great fabric which his hand
had raised could be consolidated during the space
of a single reign, and the system in its operation
acquire the certitude of law ! Well did the founder
appreciate the chances of the future, and it was in
the foreknowledge of the coming storm that, to
fortify the power of his house against its rage, he
laboured with an impatience which was not always
content to obey the behests of conscience in the
means employed.
All was yet in the mould, nothing had reached
its appointed goal, and least accurately defined were
the new relations of the Church towards the state.
Hence the Recess of Westeras, on which these
were grounded, underwent in practice continual
alterations. By its provisions, the revenues of
bishoprics, canonries, cathedrals, and convents,
were so far committed to the king’s discretion,
that he was free, after reserving to the holdei’s and
masters such a proportion as was required for their
due maintenance, to apply the residue for the
behoof of the crown. Nevertheless, the confiscation
of the estates appertaining to these foundations
was not the immediate result. The king was
content with the payment of a fixed rent in money,
adjusted by compact with the bishops, chapters,
and monastic priors, whether clerical or laical.
Gradually this arrangement was changed, and it
completely ceased after the hereditary settlement.
The king sequestered the episcopal estates, and the
incomes of the bishops were paid instead out of the
two-thirds of the tithes, which by the Westeras
Recess were vested in the crown. The like befell
with the estates of the canons as well as with their
dwelling-houses in the towns, which escheated to
the crown as the incumbents of canonries died
off or were removed to benefices in the country.
In the same manner the remaining conventual
estates were appropriated, as the monastic life was
by degrees dropped, so that at last only some few aged
nuns were to be found in the convents of Vadstena,
Skenninge, Nadendal, and Skog, who were
supported by the king. By different ordinances in 1545
and the two following years, all other ecclesiastical
estates, not comprehended under the
denominations already mentioned 3, were transferred to the
state, the inferior clergy being indemnified out of
the proceeds of the crown-tithes. The king found it
necessary to vindicate from misrepresentation, in a
public letter of July 9,1547, a step which exceeded the
limits drawn in the Recess of Westeras. It follows
from what we have stated that Gustavus made deep
inroads on the property of the Church, yet, even in
respect to revenue, the Protestant establishment of
Sweden had a better lot than many of her sisters
in other lands. The first evangelical archbishop
long maintained at his own cost fifty students in
Upsala, and his contemporary bishop, Martin Sky tte
of Abo, eight, at foreign seminaries of learning 4.
The inferior working clergy, who likewise received
the third of the tithes anciently possessed by them,
were always, although inimical to the king, the
objects of his care. A change of faith has seldom
been introduced with such an utter absence of
persecution. The reign of Gustavus shows but too
many political victims; not one shed his blood for
religion. There are indeed instances of the
deprivation of clergymen5, but for the most part the king
was satisfied with giving the old younger coadjutors,
3 Even for glebe-lands no exception was made, although
there is proof that the king defended these from the
encroachments of others, forbidding the nobility, in 1544, to
seize any estate or tenement belonging to a glebe without
his consent. But there are in the Registers several instances
of manses confiscated, which was generally effected by the
junction of parishes. Thus the king writes in 1548 to
Dane-mora, that the priest there may well serve two churches,
because the king wanted the manse, and if the peasants did
not let his husbandmen sit "unshorn," he would take another
way with them; likewise in 1552 to the minister and
parishioners of Hokhufvud (Hawkhead) in Upland, that he
needed the manse for his mining works, wherefore they
must look after another manse at the other church in that
parish. (Register in the Archives.) Some portion of the
glebe-land, however, appears generally to have been reserved
for the support of the pastor, and there were not yet any
chapels of ease. The glebes in Norrland, " as much thereof
as the minister can fairly keep," were already excepted from
sequestration by the Westeras Recess, although they had
been formed here from feu-ground (skattejord), which in
other cases, where it had come into the hands of the Church,
was seized without exception. In places where the
monasteries had been dissolved, the king himself appointed
spiritual instructors; and so, according to the statement of
Eric Benzelius, (Utkast till Svenska folkets Historia,) arose
the term regale, benefice. So early as February, 1526, the
king sent to the see of Abo a catalogue of several " benefices
royal," as he called them, which were bound by old custom
to pay a yearly rent, although the same had for long been
omitted ; whence it appears as if such had existed from a very
ancient period. Perhaps the king really refers, though his
words are far too general, to the annats or first year’s income
of vacant clerical benefices, which during Catholic’times
fell to the Romish see, and which the civil authorities had
already begun to appropriate in some places; Gustavus levied
them in all cases throughout his reign; and thence
afterwards the year’s grace (nadar) for the widows of the clergy
arose. The number of these benefices royal was increased
in various ways. The king reserved to himself the disposal
of all prebends (the revenues were often conferred on
laymen), and commanded moreover, although by the ordinance
of Westeras the bishops had to fill up the cures, that the
announcement of vacancies in the larger benefices should be
laid before himself.
4 Rhyzelius, Biskopskronika, p. 344. The fifty students
whom Lawrence Peterson maintained were originally the like
number of swash-bucklers, received by the king’s order for
the defence of the new archbishop against the still Romishly
inclined canons of Upsala. Messenius, Scondia v. 55.
5 See the king’s letter of February 28, 1548, to his privy
councillor Botved Larson, to look carefully to two priests
whom he had caused to be brought to Stockholm, and who
had engaged to him to adhere thenceforward to the true
evangelical creed. One Ambiorn, a priest in Grebiick in the
diocese of Skara, received back his living after he had
renounced Popery, and with it the king’s letter of favour, of
February 6, 1552. Register in the Archives. Incapable
preachers were also deprived at the several visitations which
took place under Norman’s superintendence. The clergy of
West-Gothland were obliged, in 1510, to pay fines for their
ignorance. Upon one of them being asked, " Quid est
evan-gelium ?" his answer was, " Est baptismus;" and another
declared that we had nothing to do with the Old Testament,
because it had been lost in Noah’s flood. Hallenberg, Value
of Coins and Wares, 232.
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