Contexts - The Rough Guide to Sweden - page 353

the 3-year-old Magnus (son of a Swedish duke, and already declared Norwegian king)
to take the Swedish crown. During his minority, a treaty was concluded in 1323 with
Novgorod in Russia to define the frontiers in eastern and northern Finland. This left
virtually the whole of the Scandinavian peninsula (except the Danish provinces in the
south) under one ruler.
Yet Sweden was still anything but prosperous. The Black Death reached the country in
1350, wiping out whole parishes and killing around a third of the population.
Subsequent labour shortages and troubled estates meant that the nobility found it
difficult to maintain their positions. German merchants had driven the Swedes from
their most lucrative trade routes: even the copper and iron-ore mining that began
around this time in Bergslagen and Dalarna relied on German capital.
Magnus soon ran into trouble, and was threatened further by the accession of
Valdemar Atterdag to the Danish throne in 1340. Squabbles concerning sovereignty
over the Danish provinces of Skåne and Blekinge led to Danish incursions into
Sweden; in 1361, Valdemar landed on Gotland and sacked Visby . The Gotlanders were
refused refuge by the Hansa merchants, and massacred outside the city walls.
Magnus was forced to negotiate, and his son Håkon - now king of Norway - was
married to Valdemar's daughter Margaret. When Magnus was later deposed, power fell
into the hands of the magnates who shared out the country. Chief of the ruling nobles was
the Steward Bo Jonsson Grip , who controlled all Finland and central and southeast
Sweden. Yet on his death, the nobility turned to Håkon's wife Margaret , already regent in
Norway (for her son Olof ) and in Denmark since the death of her father, Valdemar. The
nobles were anxious for union across Scandinavia, to safeguard those who owned frontier
estates and strengthen the Crown against any further German influence. In 1388 she was
proclaimed “First Lady” of Sweden and, in return, confirmed all the privileges of the
Swedish nobility. Called upon to choose a male king, Margaret nominated her nephew,
Erik of Pomerania , who was duly elected king of Sweden in 1396. As he had already been
elected to the Danish and Norwegian thrones, Scandinavian unity seemed assured.

The Kalmar Union
Erik was crowned king of Denmark, Norway and Sweden in 1397 at a ceremony in
Kalmar . Nominally, the three kingdoms were now in union but, despite Erik's kingship,
real power remained in the hands of Margaret until her death in 1412.
Erik was at war with the Hanseatic League throughout his reign. He was vilified in
popular Swedish history as an evil and grasping ruler, and the taxes he raised went on a
war that was never fought on Swedish soil. He spent his time instead directing operations
in Denmark, leaving his queen Philippa (sister to Henry V of England) behind. Erik was
deposed in 1439 and the nobility turned to Christopher of Bavaria , whose early death in
1448 led to the first major breach in the union.
No one candidate could fill the three kingships satisfactorily, and separate elections in
Denmark and Sweden signalled a renewal of the infighting that had plagued the
previous century. Within Sweden, unionists and nationalists skirmished, the powerful
unionist Oxenstierna family opposing the claims of the nationalist Sture family, until
1470 when Sten Sture (the Elder) became “Guardian of the Realm”. His victory over
the unionists at the Battle of Brunkeberg (1471) - in the centre of what's now modern

1483 1520 1520 1542

Sweden's first printing press
appears

Danes invade, killing
nobility and clergy in
Stockholm Bloodbath

King Gustav Vasa flees
on skis to Norway

First edition of
the Bible in the
vernacular appears