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192 Kirk-inquest by the
arclibishop.
HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. Distress and discontent.
The Dalemen’s letter. [lo92—
the remains of popery ’, was carried into effect
throughout the kingdom. Herein the new arch-
bishop Abraham Angerman showed his violent dis-
position. Flogging, sprinkling with ice-cold water,
imprisonment with bread and water, were the
means by which he sought to uphold ecclesiastical
discipline. The disorders in the church had
dragged into the light primeval superstitions. We
should not be inclined to believe that men were
yet to be found in Sweden who sertecl Odin. Yet
this was a well-known expression of those who by
invoking his spirit attempted to procure wealth*.
Revolting proofs of the barbarism of manners ap-
pear in the protocols of the visitations then held.
Homicides are nKiitioned who drank the blood of
their enemies ’
; nay, this was testified of a clei’gy-
man, infamous for murders and other horrid
cruelties, and yet in this case the sentence was
mild ^,
" because he was at issue with us in doctrine,
it is said, and now promises to be at one,"
—add-
ing consequently apostasy to his other crimes.
Many who made their fortune by informations,
came to a shameful end. Did not men after-
ward see master Erie, the minister of Badelunda,
after he had accused old bishop Bellinus of in-
triguing with the papists and obtained his place,
in no long time beheaded for a double adultery, in
the very town where he had lately been ordained
bishop
’
?
While the archbishop held his kirk-inquest in
the country, master Eric Schepper the minister
was equally zealous in Stockholm. Both unquiet
men, they had distinguished themselves by their
violence in the liturgical contest, and soon discovered
their inclination to master the secular government.
Charles deprived Schepper because he preached
against the taxes ordered at Soderkceping for the
payment of the public debt, and stirred up the
burgesses of Stockholm to disaffection. The arch-
bishop took liim under his protection. To the pre-
late Charles thereupon wrote ;
" We will maintain
the right which our father of happy memory
acquired, that it should appertain to the magistrate
to suspend a clergyman, upon well-grounded cause,
from the exercise of his office ;
else might we as
gladly sit under the pope as under the archbishop
3 Visitationem, quam incepit archiepiscopus in Ostro-
gothia, perduxit dicto anno (1596) priinum per totam Go-
thiam cum Smolandia et Qilandia, deinde In reliquis dio-
cesibus eandera continuare pergit. Baazii Inventar. Eccles.
Sviog. 573. Yet the inquest appears to have been stopped
the following year by the duke.
• In 1578, Eric of Osterby, in the parish of Hedemora, came
to a cross-road at Peter’s hut, and prayed Odin to grant
him money. Tlien came two black hounds that breathed fire,
and a whirlwind carried him into the air. He died eight
days after, and received asses’ burial (that is, was buried out
of the church-yard). In 1580, Olave of Garphytta was tra-
versing the heath of Grado, when Odin came and bade him
cease from night- walking. In 1601 another example of one
who served Odin occurs. Diary of the minister Eric An-
derson. MS. in the Library of Upsala.
5 Account of the general visitation of the see of Linkdping
in the year 1596. Memoirs of the Swedish Reformation, v. 303.
6 Ibid. 389. "If tliou drink so deep that thou become
foolish and stupid, then shalt thou be cut olf from the con-
gregation, and banished out of the country." The minister
of the place was to be the accuser if he returned.
7 This is a mere fable, Rhyzelius says in his Bishop’s
Chronicle. But it is found in several authorities. In the
same year (lf06) Nicholas Peterson was ordained bishop of
and chapter of Upsala ’." The duke was ill-content
with his manner of holding the kirk-inquest.
He had demeaned liimself, Charles said, like an
executioner and not like an archbishop, and excited
great trouble among the people, who regarded the
failure of crops and terrible dearth, which had now
lasted three years, for a punishment of God upon
the so-called Reformation of Abraham Angerman ".
Probably this might have had dangerous con-
sequences for the duke, had not a head-point in
the political creed of the Swedish peasants been his
staj’. We cannot better express this than by
quoting the words of the letter of the Dalemen to
the other provinces, dated Tuna, Epiphany Tide,
1597 :
" We will have no more rulers than our
law-book alloweth, where it is set down. Over all
Sweden no more than one shall be king. And as
the king himself is not in the realm, and his son
and brother are not of age, so can we and will we
acknowledge no other for the realm’s administrator
than his princely grace duke Charles *." Even
Sigismund’s prohibition to pay the taxes ordered
by Charles, his promise to take under protection
all who opposed the statute of Soderkoeping, his
rescripts and embassies, as well as the secret and
public opposition of the council, were able to effect
nothing against this principle.
There was no longer a middle path. The statute
above-named declared all who disavowed it enemies
of the realm. This indeed induced most of the
council and nobility who were not present on that
occasion to subscribe the statute ^
; yet with what
sincerity was shown in the sequel. Clas Fleming
had not only opposed the statute of Soderkceping,
but persecuted those who had consented thereto,
and generally all who dared to carry their com-
plaints to Sweden and the duke. In Finland civil
war already raged between the peasants and the
troopers of Fleming. The club- war, so called from
the weapons of the peasants, was carried on with
atrocious cruelty, and cost the lives of eleven thou-
sand peasants to East Bothnia and Tavastland ^.
Charles required that Clas Fleming and his partisans
should be subdued by arms ; Lifland and Finland
Westeras, i)ut died before his inauguration, on which Bellinus
again received his office, and held it to his death in 1618.
8 To the archbishop, anent master Eric Schepper, Aug. 23,
1596. Register. Both had reproached the duke for engross-
ing to himself the merits of the Synod of Upsala. Hereupon
he had once written to Abraham Angermannus,
"
Had we
not been present, the matter would have run otherwise
"
(which is true). On the same charge he made answer to the
arclibisbop, July 26, 1596,
" Ye come with your satiric dis
courses, imputing that we give ourselves out for a pillar of
religion, whereas we are nought else than a poor, wretched,
mortal man."
9 A multitude of men perished by this famine, which
began after continual rains and large inundations in 1596.
Sigismund forbade the export of grain from Poland to the
Swedish ports. A fearful account of this famine is copied
from an old church-book in the Palmskdld records. Acta ad
Historiam Sigismundi.
—For some years proofs continue to
be found of the attachment of the people to the old cere-
monies of the church. In 1602 the peasants of Swintuna
fell upon iheir minister because he would not hold service on
St. Laurence’ day. Reg. for 1602.
’
Fryxell, iv. 24, from documents in the Archives.
2 Accession to the Statutes of Soderkceping of the absent
among the council and nobility, in Jenkbping, Jan. 20, 159G.
Register.
3
Werwing, i. 3’j8.
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