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1632.]
Taxation.
Money aids. GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. INTERNAL RELATIONS-
Power of the
purse.
221
to tliis inile necessity induced some exceptions.
When in 1613, after the peace with Denmark, the
ransom for Elfsborg was to be defrayed in money,
the king, in order that the land might not so often
be burdened with diets, convened instead a Com-
mittee of the Estates, consisting of two noblemen
from every province, the bishops and one clergy-
man of every chapter, with the burgomaster and
council of Stockholm on behalf of the towns^, which
in conjunction with the council was to delibei-ate
upon the matter. It is indeed stated in their pro-
posal, that "
they wished in nowise to prejudice any
of the other estates who were not present, or, to
deprive them of their right of advice and assent ;"
but the proposal was enforced as a statute ;
and
the heaviest tax which had ever heretofore been
paid in Sweden, was granted in no other manner ’.
The silence observed upon the subject at the two
following diets was regarded as an express consent.
So it came to pass that one million rix-dollai’s were
paid in six years, at a time when a rix-dollar was
worth a tun (four bushels) of rye ^. This was in the
extremest public emergency; wherefore the king
and the council sent the silver to the mint for the
ransom of Elfsborg, and the nobles had no exemp-
tion for their vassals ^.
The Ordinance of Diets did not put an end to
informalities of this kind. It contains no particular
provision for the manner of granting the taxes,
and herein law and custom were partly indetermi-
nate and partly contradictory. We have remarked
that at an early period several of the public contri-
butions had changed their original character of
casual benevolences and become standing imposts *.
Paid in a multitude of dissimilar circumstances,
according to the various conditions of the provinces
(a disparity, which exists at the present day), they
collectively formed what are called the yearly
rents in the oldest ground-rent books of the crown,
which have been preserved from the days of Gus-
tavus I. New branches were constantly grafted
on the old stems. Thus we find, at the time when
the land’s law was promulgated, general complaints
current which this code itself does not name, and
the provincial laws occasionally forbid. During
the union, when in so many respects might passed
for right, many such grievances appear to have
arisen from the conduct of the foreigners who held
the prefectures, as building aids and day-service at
Compare Hallenberg, ii. 665.
’
Stiernman, i. 689.
2 The ransom money for Elfsborg was payable in four
years, but the last payment was not made till the 20th
January, 1619, when the aid yielded a surplus of 200,000
Swedish dollars (ISS.aSS^ rix-doUars, specie), which was
applied to the discharge of the other debts of the crown.
L. c. iv. 810. For the ransom of Elfsborg, according to the
statute of July 22, 1613, the baronage and nobility paid for
every horse, which the trooper service obliged them to keep,
32 rix-dollars yearly, a bishop 40, a chamberlain or secretary
40, a superintendent, or a minister in town or country, 16
(the bishop, however, settling the payment of each as was
fair), a professor or schoolmaster 8, a chaplain of a town 4,
in the country 2, a rentmaster, mintmaster, or officer of
the customs 50, a bailiff or clerk 10, an under-justice and
law-reader 12, every captain, lieutenant, or cornet of cavalry
20, of infantry 12, privates on horse and foot, apparitors and
such like possessing a farm, with burgesses and peasants,
freeholders and unfree without difference, 2 rix-dollars
(besides burgesses and miners according to their means) ;
every lad of fifteen 1, every girl half a rix-dollar. The tax
the castles (which liowever ai’e partly older), quar-
tering of soldiers and imposts under different
names for their support, with the foddering of
horses on account of the king and his officers *.
Charles Canuteson’s prefects were no better than
the foreigners. The rule of the Starts brought
some alleviation of the burdens of the people,
which is true especially of the administration of
Steno Stur^ the elder, but the state of war con-
tinued unremittingly from his last days to the end
of the union, and in the general disorder the mag-
nates appear, as possessors of the crown fiefs, to
have taken due pi’ccaution that the new burdens
should not fall into desuetude. Thus had the old
popular right of self-taxation become more and
more a subject for the arbitrary disposal of the
governors. These relations suffered little change
imder the first kings of the Vasa family ; especially
as, according to the land’s law, supply was not
yet a question for the diet in the later sense ^, and
the representation long continued to oscillate be-
tween provincial and general estates. The crown,
with augmented power, naturally intervened ;
and
thus we see Gustavus I. sometimes laying on lieavy
taxes, with no reference except to the consent of
the council. His sons were not more scrupulous
in this respect, and the irregular reign of John III.
in particular, with few diets and almost incessant
wars, is marked by a crowd of high taxes arbi-
trarily imposed ;
albeit tliose granted by the
estates were Iiigher than ever. On the deposition
of king Eric, for instance, every fifth penny on
moveable and fixed property, and in 1573 every
tenth penny on all moveable property was paid ’.
We find taxes levied at will,
—the so-called war
tributes or others resembling them, almost yearly *.
The numerous diets of Charles IX. in part changed
this relation, and at that of 1602 we observe even
the amount of a tax granted was fixed, although it
was to be paid in wares ^. Yet this was not the
rule. In the statute of the same diet the estates
say :
" As touching portages, tendance and lodg-
ment of travellers (which be very heavy burdens),
also the manifold small payments which subjects
have yearly to make, as well as the clearing of
fields and meadows, we have referred all that to
our gracious prince and lord ;
and what herein
his princely grace, in unison with his council, shall
was to be paid in rix-dollars of full weight or good silver,
one ounce and a tenth reckoned to the rix-dollar. He that
possessed no rix-dollars, either Swedish or foreign, was to
pay in current Swedish coin, not less than half-dollars,
—six
marks or one dollar and a half being counted to the rix-
dollar,
—or in copper, iron, and grain, the pound of copper
being valued at IJ rix-dollar, the skeppund of iron at 4,
the tun of wheat at IJ, the tun of rje or malt at 1 rix-dollar.
See the statute in Stiernman, i. C84, and Hallenberg, it. 671.
s That is according to the statute. The king complains
of frauds in the execution.
<
Compare p. 88.
5
Compare queen Margaret’s excuses as to this matter,
p. 62.
s It was decided in the cases where the law permitted it,
(compare p. 89), by agreement between the different pro-
vinces.
7 Statement of John Skytte in the council, 1627. Palmsk.
MSS.
8
According to notes in the archives of the treasury,
obligingly communicated to me by Mr. Bergfalk.
9 Mandate in respect to the aids granted by the yeomanry,
Stockholm, June 17, 1612. Stiernman, i. 541.
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