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- XV. Gustavus II. Adolphus. His Internal Administration A.D. 1611—1632
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224
Disturbances occasioned
thereby. Conscription.
HISTORY OF THE SWEDES.
Warrant to tlie commis-
Barics of levy.
[leu—
complains that in Stockholm an unruly mob had
fallen upon the toll-men, maldng
"
horse-play and
mockery" with the ordinance for the toll and
excise, wherefore such peace-breakers and law-
contemners are threatened to be punished, upon
trial and judgment, with death *. A miller was
afterwards beheaded upon the market-place of
Upsala, because he had excited the peasants at the
fiiir of Elfkarleby to refuse the toll, as if it had not
been granted by the estates. In West-Gothland,
where the peasants at the fair of Hofva drove away
the inspectors, and tore down and burned the toll-
house, two of the ringleaders were condemned to
death ;
and the Vermelanders, who at the fair of
Bro (afterwards Christinehamn) had committed
similar disorders, were only pardoned because the
revolt had arisen mostly out of their ignorance of
the ordinance issued ^. The mill-toll, afterwards
separately introduced, was a burdensome impost ^,
the rather that, to preserve the needful superin-
tendence, all the smaller superfluous brook or
windmills, and at last even the hand-mills, which
the poor chiefly used, must be destroyed. This
was soon found to be a harsh and useless measure,
and led to tumults^, which caused the king to
write from Germany, that " the querns might be
suffered to remain in use; he held it a sufficient mill-
toll, when a man worked so that his hands should
burn "." We have already mentioned, that this im-
post was converted into the so-called man-tale-
money, by which was again introduced a personal
scot that had been formerly paid with the same
name for some time under Charles IX., by the
unnoble estates for the maintenance of the army,
but had been abolished by Gustavus Adolphus as
oppressive to the poor ’.
The rigour of the levies was most keenly felt
during so long a period of war. " In these," says
Axel Oxenstierna,
" different methods have been
followed in the times of former sovereigns ;
some-
times all farm-servants have been taken ;
in the
times of king Eric and John all cotters*, and
where more than one peasant are found on a farm,
the rest are enrolled ;
sometimes they went by
the number of men, sometimes by that of farm-
steads ^." In order to illustrate the procedure
under the reign of Gustavus Adolphus, we will quote
an extract from the royal warrant for the Com-
missaries of Levy
*
over the whole kingdom in
2 Warrant for the defence of the toll-servitors. Stockholm,
Nov. 2C, 1623. The sea-tolls (or great customs) were old.
The duty was levied on goods between Sweden and Fin-
land, and between the east and west coasts of Sweden, which
latter practice was abolished in 1649.
3 This happened after the king’s death. See the Reg. for
1635.
* A tun of rye was now worth one and a half rix-doUar,
specie. The toll on this carne nearly to one-sixth rix-dollar ;
that is, a ninth went to the crown, besides the mill-owner’s
dues.
* As in the hundred of Oppunda in Suthermanland. Reg.
for 1627.
6 To the council of state. Werben, August 5, 1631. Reg.
On this however Axel Oxenstierna remarks ;
" When the
king exempted the hand-mills, the tax was lost, and did not
produce 50,000 dollars in the whole kingdom."
’ Under Charles IX. man-tale-money, as well as marriage-
money and folk-money., was granted for the last time in 1610,
for one year. The first diet of Gustavus Adolphus abolished
them. Stiernman, i. 662. The conversion of the miD-toU
into the poll-tax began in 1 627, though in 1624 a separate poU-
1G27, after the diet held at the beginning of this
year had for the most part abolished the former
exceptions. The yeomanry shall be warned from
the pulpit to assemble by their hundreds, with an
exhortation for every man to attend, as also minis-
ters, household servants, ofKcers and soldiers of
the army, boatmen, bailiff’s, farmers of crown re-
venues, clerks, bailiffs’ men and servitors of the
tribunals. The ministers shall first, with the help
of the vergers and the six-men of the parish, make
out a list of all the male inhabitants of fifteen years
and upwards, for the accuracy of which they are
responsible. The justices and bailiffs of the hun-
dreds shall see that this is done. On the day of the
levy the commissioners first of all cause their
warrants to be read, and demand whether all be
present. Thereupon they take the minister’s roll,
and when the namnd (the same twelve peasants
who sit in the hundred-court) is seated, they divide
the commons into
" rotes" or groups, ten scot and
crown peasants, and ten freeholding yeomen in
each. These are to be arranged not according to
the number of farmsteads, but the tale of heads *.
In conducting the levy cafe is to be had, that he
who is taken for tlie military service from every
rote, shall be fresh and sound, strong of limb, and,
so far as can be discerned, courageous ^, in years
from eighteen to thirty and upwards ;
that where
there are servants iu the rote, they shall be taken
before the peasants, yet so that the son of parents
who have already one son in service, or have lost
one iu battle with the enemy, shall be spared,
if any other help may be found ; the situation of
the farms shall also be taken into consideration, so
that he who possesses a large farm may be the
rather spared in the choice. The commissaries
are to count in the rote both absent and present
persons, the latter being made responsible for the
former. If any one be kept concealed, the minis-
ter, verger, or namnd, whoever has been privy to
it, is to be mulcted, and the person hidden is noted
as a vagabond. Abuses in hiring recruits *, neither
officers or commissaries were to permit, but the
matter was to rest with the masters of the array
named by the king ;
afterwards the practice was
abolished ^. From the levy no one was exempt,
excepting the house and farm-servants of the no-
bility, though not their retainers, with the needful
attendants of ministers whether in town or country.
tax paid by the clergy is mentioned in the statute of the diet.
The mill-toll was again levied in the large towns in 1655.
s
Torpare, from torp, a small allotment of ground. T.
9 Axel Oxenstierna in the council, 1641. Palnisk. MSS.
t. 190.
’
Feb. 12, 1627. Reg. for this year.
2 " Mantal." This however means here, not the number of
individual males, but the number of households, without
regard to the possession of a larger or smaller portion of land
(comp. Hallenberg, iv. 546, note a) ;
so that not ten males,
but ten households furnished one soldier; though there are
also examples of the former.
3 Gustavus I. and Charles IX. (the latter of whom made
it his boast) were great physiognomists in this and other
points, and Gustavus Adolphus did not yield to them.
• See complaints touching the "
thieveries," which oc-
curred in tliis and other matters during 1616, in Hallenberg,
iv. 547. In 1618, a captain, with his lieutenant and ensign,
was executed, because they had forced a levy in Smalaud,
and allowed illicit hiring; ibid. 726.
5 In the year 1628. Sketch of a history of the regiment
of Suthermanland, ii. 45. (Utkast till en historia, &c.)
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