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III. CONSTITUTION AND ADMINISTRATION.
By the time that information as to the state of things in the country begins
to be rather less scanty, however, the oldest phase of that social organization
was already passing away. Here, however, as among other Teutonic peoples,
there undoubtedly existed side by side numerous independent minor kingdoms
or fylleen; and we have the authority of tradition for believing the kingship to
have been a primitive institution among them. In point of fact, however,
before the commencement of historical times, in the usual acceptation of that
expression, these minor kingdoms had become united under the King of Uppsala,
who was likewise warden of a far-famed Temple of the Gods. But the dominion
of this monarch was for a long period little better than nominal: the different
provinces (Landskap) of the country retained a large measure of independence,
which was represented by the "lawman" (Lagman); they each had laws of their
own and settled their own concerns independently in their own assemblies
(Ting); and they each regarded as strangers the people of another province. In
these various provinces there were really but two classes of society — free and
unfree (or thralls). There was no class of nobility endowed with special
privileges, but there was a class of powerful chiefs or great landowners
(storbönder.-yeomen). Here, as in other Teutonic communities, the oldest form of monarchy
was based on a combination of the hereditary and the elective principles. The new
monarch was, as a rule, a member of the same family as the låte one; but
there was a possibility of choice between the different members of the family,
or even of going outside it.
Christianity was introduced but slowly into the country; and during the
eleventh century it led to struggles between those provinces that had already
embraced it and those that still adhered to paganism. These struggles passed
into-struggles concerning the right to elect the king; and these in turn threatened
the entire dissolution of the kingdom. In church matters, however, unity was
established by the introduction, in 1164, of an archbishop for the whole country;
and shortly afterwards accounts speak of one king only, though for a long time
the unity of the country was still weak, and the elective principle was still
acknowledged.
While monarchy in Central Europe had to contend in the middle of the
thirteenth century against dissolution at the hands of feudalism, it had in Sweden
to combat the tendencies towards a break-up into provinces. At that time,
however, the idea of centralization was taken up by a couple of vigorous rulers of
the Folkunga Line, who were able to gather round them both the spiritual and
the temporal magnates of the Realm. As a result, we can discern an increase
in the power of the monarch; but at the same time there gathered round the
king a council forming a kind of representation of the kingdom, called the
Royal Council or the Council of the Realm (Konungens or Rikets Råd), consisting
of the magnates above mentioned. Contemporaneously with their accession to
a share in the government, commences national legislation, resulting, in the
middle of the fourteenth century, in a code of law for the whole country,
which, iu the section entitled "Konungabalken", or Section relating to the Kingy
touches upon the constitution of the State. The thirteenth century was,
moreover, a period of far-reaching social changes and of the rise of the Estates of
the Realm: of these facts mention has already been made in a preceding section
of this work.
From the middle of the fourteenth century there succeeded a period of
internal confusion. The feudal system was never actually introduced, it is true
(though impulses in that direction were not lacking); but the magnates began
to show signs of overtopping the kingship, and the latter was not organized in
such a way as to be able to hold them in check. And then the course of purely
national evolution was interrupted in the Union between Sweden, Denmark, and
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