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336 Jealousy of tlie nobility
in the other estates. HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. Efforts of the clergy to
extend their privileges.
[1644—
carried out, against the will of the magnates, her
resolution to transfer into the hands of Charles
Gustavus a sceptre which had become too heavy
for her, she has never yet received sufficient
justice.
Already, at the queen’s assumption of the go-
vernment, in the diet of the year 1644, presages
of that which was to conie were observed. " The
peasants steadily adhere," writes a contemporary,
" to their desires for the restitution of the estates,
before her majesty enters on the government, as
well as in many other matters which especially
concern the baronage; perchance the yeomen have
good patriots at their side who inform them. Their
order hath likewise lately requested to have the
Form of Government read, that they may deli-
berate after upon its practice; wherein the minis-
try hath been obliged to yield to them 3." It is
added, that the clergy agreed well with the pea-
sants, but were not altogether at unison among
themselves, since the priests began to controvert
their bishops. In the comments upon the consti-
tution made at this diet, which we have already
cited, threats are held out of a conflict betwixt the
estates. It is not a little remarkable, that these
comments, directed against the great families, pro-
ceeded mainly from a portion of the nobility and
the clergy;
—the first sign of that severance of the
inferior and superior nobility, which was afterwards
to have consequences so important in the decision
of the questions now awakened. It was still only
in the initial stage; and we find the clergy at the
head of the uiinoble estates meanwhile assuming
the guidance of the new opposition. This was
principally directed against the privileges of the
baronage, which, nevertheless, the queen not only
confirmed, but even augmented, the nobility in re-
turn surrendering their immunity from excise *.
Of these privileges many had long been felc as
burdensome by the clergy ; for example, the
baronial right to the patronage of parishes. Every
nobleman residing within the limits of a pastoral
district had the right of electing the minister *; if
s Letter from Bennet Baaz, tutor of Charles Gustavus, to
the palsgrave John Casimir, Stockholm, October 26, 1644.
C. Adlersparre’s Historical Collections, ii. 167. Among the
grievances of the yeomanry was, that the nobles, vphen they
had bought the rents of an estate, deprived the peasants,
under pretexts of all kinds, of their scot-right (skntle-riitt,
x\g\\i of property accruing from payment of taxes), and
stocked the grange with cotter tenants ; they complain also,
that the term for the redemption of the purchased estates
was too short, and wished to have a clause inserted in the
i statute of the diet, that the crown might repurchase them
at its pleasure.
"
Thereupon the yeomen were called into
the council-chamber ; it was represented to them, that they
had attacked the queen’s prerogatives, and they were asked
whether they had come to turn the state upside down."
Ibid. i. 177.
’
For the cession by the nobility of their immunity from
excise, the peasants of the gentry (fralset), even beyond the
so-called free mile, were exempted, like those on the coun-
ties and baronies, from all gavels, portage, and day-work to
the crown, and their lords were empowered to exact per-
formance of these services for themselves, or to remit them
at pleasure.
- Sec. 33 of the Baronial Privileges of Gustavus Adolphus,
confirmed by Christina. Here the question touches only the
churches. From a manuscript treatise of this time upon
the Jus Patronatus, in the collections of Mr. Prefect Jarta,
it is clear, however, that the nobility extended their claim
there were several, and they could not agree among
themselves and with the congregation as to the
choice, it was the office of the bishop to interpose
between them, as in general he had the privilege
of rejecting the pei’son proposed, if the latter were
found to be unsuitable; yet, on the other side, it is
expressly stated,
" that no priest can be forced
upon the nobility against their consent and good
will." Another source of discord was the tithes,
from payment of which in respect of their manor-
houses the gentry were exempted, while they ex-
tended this immunity far beyond the import of
their privileges. Under these circumstances we
need not wonder at the resistance which the pro-
posal of a general consistory {conshtorium rerjni),
composed of laical and ecclesiastical members,
encountered. The clei-gy saw therein only a new
field for the preponderant influence of the magnates
over the church; although Charles IX., who is the
original author of this proposal, appears to have
generally intended by it the enlargement of the
rights of laymen in spiritual affairs ^.
The chief aim of the clergy was now directed to
secure themselves, by special privileges, against the
nobility in particular. The foremost champion of
this object was John Rudbeck, the distinguished
and active bishop of Westeras in the time of Gus-
tavus Adolphus. His book upon the ancient pri-
vileges of the literates and the spiritual order was
interpreted as an effort for the restoration of the
hierarchy in Sweden; and drew upon the author,
who had besides indulged in sallies against the
government and nobility, an indictment before the
administration of guardians, and a prohibition of
the publication *. Rudbeck thus lost the archie-
piscopal chair, to which he would else have un-
doubtedly been called. But he did not want suc-
cessors. Johannes Matthiie, afterwards the object
of a persecution by his own order, drew up at the
diet of 1G44 that proposition for clerical privileges,
which the queen first confirmed in 1647, and more
fully at her coronation ^. The rights and revenues
of right to nominations to chapelries. In the one case, as in
the other, the nobleman was to interrogate the congregation
pro forma, who thereupon had the right of consenting.
Plebis est consentire, is the expression used in the above-
mentioned treatise. In the remarks of Gustavus Adolphus
himself on the baronial privileges, the aristocratic right of
patronage is noted among the matters requiring alteration.
3 In the short charter of clerical privileges issued by
Charles IX. in 1607, it is stated : "We have also privileged
and given them power to judge and doom in all spiritual
causes, along with our church-council and the members of
consistory, as we will appoint them, both from clerical and
secular persons." Appendix to the History of the Swedish
Church and Diets, from the archives of the clerical order ;
Stockholm, 1835, p. 136. That these privileges did not
satisfy the desires of the order, we learn from their petition
to Christina for a new charter.
• The title of this rare book is, Privilegia quaedam doc-
torum, magistrorum etc. ; or more briefly, Privilegia minis-
terii ecclesiastici in inclyto regno Svecis, a piis regibus et
regni proceribus quondam benigne concessa et indulta. On
the consultations occasioned by this treatise, and Rudbeck’s
trial in the council chamber, and ultimately before the
chancellor, see Franzen’s Memory of John Rudbeck, bishop
of Westeras, in the Transactions of the Swedish Academy,
t. 15.
5 At the diet of 1647 the clergy also solicited that the
Formula Concordife might be adopted as a symbolic book
in the Swedish Lutheran Church,
" in order that we may
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