Political conflict

After Charles’s death, Sten Sture the Elder was elected regent by the council; his army, including the Totts and their sympathizers, burghers, and men from Bergslagen, defeated Christian’s troops in the Battle of Brunkeberg on the outskirts of Stockholm (1471). During Sten’s rule, Uppsala University was founded (1477). When Christian I died in 1481, the matter of the union again arose, and in 1483 John, Christian’s son, was accepted as king of Sweden; Sten, however, managed to delay his coronation until 1497. In 1493 a new element entered Nordic affairs: John formed an alliance with the Muscovite Ivan III Vasilyevich directed against Sweden, which led to an unsuccessful Russian attack on Finland in 1495. The council became discontented with Sten’s acquisition of power and in 1497 called on John, whose army defeated Sten’s. John was crowned and Sten returned to Finland. By 1501 John’s supporters were discontented with his rule, and Sten was recalled as regent. He died in 1503, and Svante Nilsson Sture became regent. In 1506 a new war with Denmark began, in which Lübeck supported the Swedes. Svante died in 1512, and the council now attempted a reconciliation with Denmark under the regency of Erik Trolle, whose family supported the union. Svante’s son, Sten Sture the Younger, led a coup, however, and was elected regent. Peace with Denmark was concluded in 1513.

The final years of the Kalmar Union were marked in Sweden by the struggle between the archbishop, Gustav Trolle (inaugurated 1516), and Sten Sture the Younger. The archbishop was head of the council, and he took over the leadership of the pro-union party. A civil war broke out, and in 1517 a meeting of the estates in Stockholm declared Trolle removed from his position. Despite military assistance from Christian II, Trolle was imprisoned. After a defeat by the Swedes, Christian began negotiations and took six noblemen, among them Gustav Vasa, to Denmark as hostages. The Swedish treatment of Trolle brought a papal interdict of Sweden, and Christian could now act as executor. In 1520 a Danish army of mercenaries attacked Sweden, and Sten Sture was mortally wounded in a battle won by the Danes. Christian was acknowledged as king in return for a promise of mercy and constitutional government. The peasants, led by Sten’s widow, refused to abandon the war, however, and it was several months before Stockholm capitulated. Christian was then crowned by the archbishop as hereditary monarch, breaking his promises to the council; and, despite promises of amnesty, 82 people, noblemen and clergy who had supported the Stures, were executed for heresy in the Stockholm Bloodbath. The responsibility for this execution has aroused considerable discussion among Swedish and Danish historians; the large part played by Gustav Trolle is now generally accepted.

End of the union

Christian II now appeared to have Sweden under his control, but not all his opponents were dead or in prison. The nephew of Sten’s widow, Gustav Vasa, had escaped from his Danish prison and returned to Sweden in 1520. After the Stockholm Bloodbath he went to Dalarna, where the Stures had their staunchest support, and soon a rebellion there was under way, followed by others around the country. By the spring of 1521 the army of men from Dalarna had won its first battle with the Danes, and soon noblemen were allying themselves with Gustav, who was chosen regent in August. In 1522 he persuaded Lübeck to aid the Swedish rebels; in 1523 the Danish nobility forced Christian to give up the Danish throne and elected Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp as king. Three months later Gustav Vasa was elected Sweden’s king by a meeting of the estates, and the Kalmar Union was dissolved.

The balance of power in Sweden shifted during the union from the monarchy to the nobility, who took over the government of the country while the union kings were resident in the other kingdoms. The monarchs’ attempts to control the administration by appointing their own supporters from Denmark aroused protests and rebellion from the Swedes. During the later half of the union, a split developed within the nobility between a pro-union and an anti-union faction. The pro-unionists generally owned estates in Denmark or Norway as well as in Sweden and believed that a union monarch would enable the nobility to exercise greater influence; the anti-union nobles preferred a strong national monarchy supported by a strong national nobility. The king and regents elected in Sweden during the union period came from within the ranks of the anti-union nobility.

An important new class in society was composed of the commercial men and miners from Bergslagen, who were interested in the unimpeded export of Sweden’s iron and copper. When the Danish interests conflicted with their own, most notably during the wars with the Germans, these men rebelled and supported a strong national monarchy, as did the burghers, who were also interested in the growth of trade. The church, on the other hand, preferred a weak monarch and supported the union.

The great majority of Swedes continued to be peasants, and agriculture was the basic occupation of more than 90 percent of the people. From the Viking period through the 12th and 13th centuries, the cultivation of land expanded. The plains in the centre of Svealand around Lake Mälar, as well as in Västergötland and Östergötland, were all cultivated by the end of that period, and the wooded areas in the adjacent provinces of Småland, Värmland, and Dalarna were being brought under cultivation. In the first half of the 14th century, the expansion ceased, and, during the rest of that century and the beginning of the 15th, a recession set in that gave rise to extensive wasteland, reduced production, and increased the cost of living. The Black Death, which struck Sweden in 1349–50, was one of the reasons for this crisis in the late Middle Ages; it was not confined to Sweden but spread through most of Europe. In the latter half of the 15th century, a recovery occurred, and the wasteland began to be reclaimed. The major surplus product of Sweden was butter; from the mid-14th century, a fourth of Sweden’s export consisted of this product. As the lands exempt from taxation owned by the nobility and the clergy increased, the burden of taxation on the peasants grew; from the Engelbrekt rebellion in the 1430s through the remaining decades of the union, the peasants fought on the side of the anti-union forces.