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1632.]
Condition of the
people.
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. INTERNAL RELATIONS.
state of the
cliurch. 233
country must have existed, to outlast exertions so
great, distress and unquiet so trying. Such a fund
lay in the public morals ;
and in this respect as in
others, the era of Gustavus Adolphus presents the
true transition from the middle age of Sweden.
The old blood-feuds disappeared before the power
of law ;
but the ties of kindred still retamed all
their natural freshness and force, purged of violent
excess, and operating only to beneficent ends. No
one was lonesome ;
for all might reckon upon a
home, a kin, and help in need. Much was borne,
but borne in common, and Sweden was as one
man. Nor was the condition of the people at the
king’s death by any means such as might be
imagined after so many years of war. D’Ogier,
who visited Sweden in the winter of 1634, in com-
pany with the French ambassador, count D’Avaux,
says in his journal, that he did not remember to
have seen in the whole country any one naked or in
rags. Peasant lads and lasses sprang gladsomely
about the sledges, and though he had free portage,
the yeomen showed themselves not at all slow in for-
warding him on his way, probably (he adds) be-
cause in other matters they are n(jt heavily taxed.
On a journey to the Copper-mount, he saw the peo-
ple gathered at a church in the Dale country, and
exclaims ;
" These countryfolk are neither ragged
nor hungry, as with US’*." And yet they were peo-
ple with whom it was no uncommon thing to mix
bark in their bread. Tliey felt no unhappiness. A
great present, a great future, quickened the spirit
of all.
This trust in the future Gustavus Adolphus
himself showed in nothing more clearly than in his
immortal institutes for general education. This
subject may properly be treated in connexion with
the church. John III. had augmented the au-
thority of the bishops. They claimed the right
of filling up all benefices, even those formerly in
the gift of the crown, and were accused of ordain-
ing, from corrupt motives, more clergymen than
were necessary ’. For this cause Charles IX.
ordained, that when the bishop wished to present
a minister to a vacant cure, the parishioners should
first give their consent to the reception of the can-
didate as their spiritual teacher, who, provided
with proof of this consent, was then to solicit the
royal confinnation ;
as also that no one should be
consecrated a priest before the king had given
permission thereto, and had been informed as to
the place where his ministrations were needed.
When Gustavus Adolphus mounted the throne,
the bishops had obtained the revocation of this
ordinance. At his coronation he promised gene-
rally to protect the rights of the church; and when
the nobility and officers of the army requested an
explanation of this, he answered that he under-
stood thereby the ordinances of the church, and
his obligation to maintain churches and schools to
God’s honour and the good of the congregation.
Taking a large view of all thing.s, he wished also
to give unity to its constitution ;
but in the attempt
to define the relations of the church, hitherto in-
determinate both to the secular government and
within its own pale, he encountered difficulties.
"•
Plebs illarusticananequelaceraneque jejuna est ut apud
nos. An ergo est cleraentiore et beatiore situ Suecia quam
nostra Gallia? Ogeri Ephemerides, Paris, 1556, pp. 156. 195.
5
Hallenberg, i. 199.
On this head the records which remain concerning
his proposed General Consistory are full of infor-
mation ^.
According to the first instructions of
1623, this was to consist of six ecclesiastical and
six laical members ;
the former were the arch-
bishop, the bishops of Strengness and Westeras,
the king’s chaplain, the primary professor of theo-
logy at Upsala, and the primary minister of Stock-
holm; the latter were the high steward, two de-
legates of the council of state, and three of the
palace court. This consistory was to assemble
yearly, on an appointed day, in the capital, under
the alternate weekly presidency of the steward
and the archbishop. Before this body all com-
plaints regarding cathedral chapters or other
ecclesiastical matters, referred to the king’s ma-
jesty, and requiring redress, were to be laid. They
were to revise the Ordinance for the Church, and
when it should have been confii-med by the king,
to see it carried into execution; as also to have
the superintendence of the whole clergy of the
realm, of colleges and schools, hospitals and orphan-
houses. Among the matters which require redress
it is mentioned, that dissensions and contests often
occur between the bishops and the parishes subor-
dinate to them, respecting the choice of ministers ;
the congregations complaining that these are ob-
truded upon them by violence, or the bishops
alleging the disobedience of the congregations ;
whereupon one party or the other attempts by
false information to procure a royal warrant in
their own behalf. In future therefore the party
complaining was to cite the other before this con-
sistory, and there the suit between them should be
adjudged. A catalogue was also to be made of all
benefices called regalia, to which the king’s majesty
had special right of patronage. The general con-
sistory was yearly to appoint certain persons, of
their own number or others, to visit all the schools
of the kingdom, and likewise to hold, in conjunc-
tion with the bishop of the diocese, public exa-
minations ;
it was also to watch over purity of
doctrine, and to have inspection and censorship
over printers and booksellers.—At the diet of
1624, the clergy delivered their opinion on this
proposition of the king, in which they declared
that they would willingly see such a consistory
erected, if it were indeed to be and remain a true
ecclesiastical consistory, so that the spiritual and
temporal jurisdictions might not be confounded.
The position of the controversy might be stated in
the question. Whom had God enjoined to pasture
and to rule his flock ?
Although all men, and the
magistrates most, were bound to watch over its
weal, yet God had committed this office especially
and above others to the clergy, who, when an}’
troubles had broken out in his congregation, had
composed them, according to the nature of the
case, by councils, synods, and pastoral conferences;
and albeit such assemblies had been called together
by emperors and kings, yet these had not adjudged
the cause, but had left it to the authority of the
bishops and clei’gy, and when their decision was
pronounced, lent their assistance to carry it into
effect. Whoever is acquainted with the proceed-
f Nordin MSS. No. 67, Qu.
’ The extensive rights of patronage claimed by the no-
bility often occasioned disputes between them and the
bishops.
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