Full resolution (JPEG)
- On this page / på denna sida
- XV. Gustavus II. Adolphus. His Internal Administration A.D. 1611—1632
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
1632.]
Strength of the
army.
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. INTERNAL RELATIONS. Promotion of
industry.
229
troopers also were preferred in the recruitments.
But the changing strength of the army is here of
less consequence than the circumstance, that it
was for the most part clothed, armed, and furnished
with every requisite from the country itself. Of
uniform there is yet no mention. The only order
of Gustavus Adolphus on this head known to me is
that of the year 1G21, enjoining
" the soldiers to
provide themselves with serviceable clothes, such
as befit a warrior, not looking to the material so
much as that they should be decently made ^." Yet
so late as the Prussian war the Swedish soldiers
are styled unseemly peasant-lads, from their in-
different clothing ;
and the sheep-skins with which
they protected themselves against the cold, were
until 1532 still furnished by a separate skin-tax.
The Swedish soldiers and officers performed their
most brilliant achievements, the one in his peasant’s
garb, tlie other without the decoration of an order *.
Manufactories of cloth for the supply of the army
(the first in Sweden) were set up in Jenkoping,
Nykoping, Calmar, Arboga, and Kongsor^ ;
and
foreign cloth is mentioned as having been imported,
mostly for the foreign troops ;
but the clothing of
the native soldier, and his arms also, were mainly
the produce of home-born thrift. The forging of
arms was in Sweden at this time a kind of land-
staple. Muskets, the procuring of which in foreign
armies was then attended with so much difficulty,
\\ere here prepared in the hamlets of almost every
province by pipe-smiths as they were called, pea-
sants in their homesteads, the taxes on which they
paid by this labour. Otherwise they received their
wages in money and produce, as well as their
materials, from the crown, and were placed under
certain factors, according to royal ordinance".
This art was probably communicated from the
" arm-factories" of the crown ’, and was not con-
fined to these weapons alone ;
harness and pike-
heads were also prepared in these rural forges,
’
History of the Suthermanland Regiment, ii. 31. In
respect to the cavalry he was more precise, but chietiy as to
their arms. The king’s guards had yellow lace on their
clothes. With the rote-money the soldier was bound to buy
himself armour and clothing, since the crown allowed him
no clothes until he had served a year. Yet afterwards tlie
clothing was not seldom furnished by the voluntary contri-
butions of the yeomanry, upon which the king in 1622
directs his lieutenants to agree with them.
*
Knighthood was conferred indeed, but sparingly and not
in the more modern sense, as is clear from the proposal
made in the council in 1648,
" to erect an order of knight-
hood, such as was every where throughout the world in use;
for in Sweden there was none." Many wore an effigy of
Gustavus Adolphus in silver or some other metal on their
breast, yet not as a distinction granted by the king. "At
the victory by Oldendorf in Hesse in 1633, under the com-
mand of George duke of Liineburg, all the Swedish officers
and soldiers who took part in the action wore the image of
Gustavus Adolphus on their breast." George duke of
Brunswick and Liineburg. Contributions (Beitrage, fee.)
to the History of the Thirty Years’ War, from Original
Sources in the royal Archives of Hanover, by Fr. Count von
der Decken, ii. 180. Hanover, 1834.
5 The oldest, commenced at Upsala in 1612, appears to
have failed. In Jenkoping a large sheepfold was constructed,
and the peasants were encouraged to procure the German
breed, introduced by Charles IX. There were flocks of
sheep on many of the crown estates.
6 See it in Hallenberg, v. 127. According to this, every
pipesmith was to deliver yearly 52 large muskets with their
and the latter were required to be hard enough to
penetrate the harness, if the smith would have his
labour rewarded. A gun-foundry was erected in
the capital ; cannon, from forty-eight-pounders to
one-pounders, were cast at the melting-house in
Stockholm and at Finspang ; powder, although not
in quantity sufficient for the demand, was made at
Nacka and Vallinge, and twenty-six saltpetre-
works existed in the kingdom.
In close connexion with this activity of warlike
preparation stood the mining concerns, from the
materials which they supplied. Necessity and hope
combined to magnify representations of the profits
to be drawn from this source. The belief of the
inexhaustible metallic riches of Sweden spread to
otlier lands, and attracted foreigners with their
capital into the country ^. The king bestowed the
greatest attention on this subject, invited miners
from abroad ’, opened new works, issued new ordi-
nances for the mining tracts ’, and visited them
himself in the intervals of his campaigns. With
Louis de Geer’s acquisition of Finspang, to which
were afterwards added, under Christina, the works
of Danemora, carried on by Walloon smiths
brought over by him, a new drift was communi-
cated to this branch of industry ^. Several foreign-
ers invested money in the Swedish mines, and the
Copper Company has the merit of having introduced
the art of refining in Sweden, the first copper being
thus prepared at Sater. The mines were placed
under a separate board of administration, who, in
their memorial to Christina, take notice :
" that
Gustavus Adolphus, who not only excelled all the
princes of his age in military science, but also had
no equal in civil prudence, had perceived that the
mines were not so improved as they might be, since
the metals were exported in coarse assortments,
which the German towns bought up at a low price,
and worked up in their manufactories, to be resold
to us at the highest ;
so that what was hard, the
appurtenances. Yet foreign arms were also ordered from
Lubeck and the Netherlands, as in 1623 through Louis de
Geer. Ibid. 112.
? Of these the first under this sovereign are mentioned at
Arboga and Finspang, where muskets with spring-locks,
pistols, harness, and swords were made ; afterwards others
were added at Jenkoping, Norrkoping, and Soderhamn (or
South-Haven).
8
Skytte related how Louis de Geer had said,
"
that we
had an India here in Sweden, if we knew to use the mines
rightly." The chancellor repeated what Saxo Grammaticus
observed of the "treasures" in the northern lands; also
what the lord Charles Sonde had said of Vermeland,
" that
it might countervail a kingdom with its wealth of ore."
Protocol of the Council for 1636, in the Nordin MSS.
9
Among these came about the year 1629 from Germany,
the brothers Christopher and Charles Geijer, both appointed
mine-masters.
1
As the ordinance for the Kopparberg in 1625, for Gar-
penberg in 1624, several royal letters and rescripts touching
the silver mine at Sala from 1621 to 1630, and others.
2 How much this was needed is shown in the extracts
from the accounts of several crown mines given by Hallen-
berg (Appendix to vol. ii.). The iron works of Danemora
(the best in Sweden), as Lofsta, Osterby (Easterby), Gimo,
which Louis de Geer acquired in 1641, delivered in 1613
from 300 to 400 skippunds of bar-iron to the year, with an
unprecedented consumption of materials. In 1638 Axel
Oxenstierna observed in the council,
" Whereas we formerly
shipped our iron and copper to Dantzic and Lubeck, and pur-
chased tools and nails in return, these are now made at home."
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Project Runeberg, Sun Dec 10 07:08:34 2023
(aronsson)
(download)
<< Previous
Next >>
https://runeberg.org/histswed/0255.html
