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94
II. THE SWEDISH PEOPLE.
condition of things could ever have come into existence, clearly shows how
undeveloped the economic life of Sweden still was at that time. In economic
matters Sweden sat at the feet of Germany during the whole of the Middle
Ages; and it was Gustavus Yasa who first created, in this as in almost all other
respects, a perfectly independent Sweden.
The exterior boundaries of the country remained unchanged during the whole
of this disturbed period. The island of Gottland, however, fell more and more
often into the power of Denmark, and was formally surrendered to that Country
during the next period (in the year 1570).
Modern Times
[from 1523 onwards].
The Period of Sweden’s Re-birth (1523—1611). The line of the Vasas,
which now ascended the throne of Sweden, is one of the most gifted and one
of the most illustrious and celebrated families known to history, and Gustavus
Vasa (1523—60) is one of the dominant figures amongst the great rulers of
the world.
His services to Sweden may be very briefly expressed by the word given
above — Re-birth. He rallied once more a half annihilated nation, he freed
it from its political dependence upon Denmark, its economic dependence upon
the Hanse towns, and its ecclesiastical dependence upon the Papal power. The
traces of nearly a century of warfare were obliterated by newly awakened,
peaceful indflstriousness; and under Gustavus Yasa Sweden, for the first time,
assumed its position as a distinguished member of the state-system of Europe.
Stockholm. In the middle of the 17th century.
In carrying out all this the King, by reason of his personality, remained an
object of the undisguised reverence and love of his people. In spite of a certain
vehemence of temperament and an excessive patriarchal omnipotence, "Good old
King Gösta", both to his own contemporaries and to posterity, was the beau ideal
of a Swedish king; and his figure — far less familiar to foreigners than those of
his famous successors, Gustavus Adolphus the Great and Charles XII — has not
at all been overshadowed by theirs in the memory of the Swedish nation.
In 1544, King Gustavus succeeded in making the kingdom of Sweden
hereditary in his family; but an hereditary kingdom, according to the ideas of the
times, brought with it the right of younger sons to a share in that kingdom.
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