And here's the update. Many of you will probably find this very confusing (not to say byzantine), and I apologise for that, but we need to cover this before we can get to the good stuff.
[The following is a transcribed lecture by Professor Artur Espenson [1], decanus of the Faculty of Middle-Epoch Studies, University of Trollesund-in-Vinland]
Medieval Sverike [2] is, for the most part, a society that defies our preconceptions of the era. Where the average person is likely to imagine stratified feudal societies, large, authoritarian courts and bureaucracies wracked by more or less constant infighting, and cataphracts and knights standing on vigil against the Jušen threat, in Sverike we find none of those things. Indeed, as I'm sure some of you students will be aware, it has been held up by the as a model for how a society can be built according to the Sjalfrætti [3] doctrine. Traditionalist historians used to look at medieval Sverike with somewhat tinted glasses. This produced an image of a proto-Germanic society, beyond church and government, ruled only by spoken agreements between honourable men and by the ancient oral tradition as passed on by the lawspeakers, that was shaped as much by the historians’ own preconceptions as it was by the actual research. Well, as I’m going to tell you over the course of this term, this image does have some tiny shreds of truth to it, but for the most part, medieval Sverike was as much a part of the world around it as was Germany, or Francia, or Rhomania.
The most important thing to note about Sverike at this time is that it was not what we’d ordinarily call a unified state. Indeed, until the early 11th century AD there was no sort of central authority whatsoever, and it took another two centuries before anything we'd identify as a stable system of government was to be found on the western shore of the Baltic. We have no way of knowing what petty rulers and states were in existence before the kingship came about around the year 1000, but from what little information we have it's plausible to guess that these units would have been based on fickle personal and tribal allegiances rather than control over land areas, and consequently it's hard to picture them as states in the modern sense [4].
We do possess large amounts of information on the different countries [5] and their laws and customs, thanks to the country laws that were written down in the mid-13th century, having been passed down through the oral tradition for a long time before that [6]. There were eleven different laws, each one different from all of the others, and they applied only within its own lagsaga [7]. The lagsagor were for the most part identical to the countries, but some of the smaller countries followed the same laws as a larger one nearby. Dalsland, for instance, followed the same law as Västergötland.
The main judicial and administrative instance in any individual country – for the most part the ancient Norse made precious little difference between those two spheres – was the landsting, a general assembly of free men which any head of a household who wasn't excommunicated or held in outlawry was allowed to participate in. At the landsting, which customarily met once a year at a site specifically set aside for it, decisions were made concerning the entire country, and disputes were settled as prescribed by the country law. The landsting was chaired by a lawspeaker [8], who was normally chosen for life at the landsting immediately following the death of his predecessor. The lawspeaker's office was by far and wide the most important of any country office, and as the title hints, the main requirement for the job was to be versed in the country law. His task at the landsting was to hear out the disputes and accusations brought forth against men under his jurisdiction, and using his knowledge of the law, explain how they were to work out their disagreements peacefully, or how a criminal should pay penance [9]. The lawspeaker would also suggest revisions to the laws where he thought them necessary, but all such changes would need the approval of the landsting at-large. In practice, the main task of the landsting was to make such decisions, as most disputes and criminal proceedings were settled at lower-level ting in the different hundreds.
Before we proceed any further, however, let's briefly go over the different countries, because I know that while many of you are of Swedish stock, few of you are actually familiar with the realm itself.
The country traditionally held as the most important was Uppland, which is located north of Lake Mälaren, south of Ödmården [10] and west of the Sea of Åland. This country, unlike all of the others, did not have a unified landsting, as the three folkland of Tiunda, Attunda and Fjädrunda [12] each had their own folklandsting with its own lawspeaker. However, the folkland all used the same law, and from what little information we have, their inhabitants tended to view themselves as citizens of Uppland rather than their own folkland. The Uppland country law is among the oldest preserved ones, and among other things it contains a detailed description of how the king was to be elected, which we'll go deeper into later in the term, but which rather enigmatically stipulated that “the svear alone have the right to choose a king”. What the word svear refers to in this context is lost to history, and since the word is known to have meant radically different things at different times, it's hard for us to tell who exactly the law gave power to elect a king. The interpretation of the word as meaning the peoples around Lake Mälaren, which is the customary meaning of it today, was used by past historians as proof of Uppland's precedence over the other countries, along with the fact that Birka and Sigtuna, the oldest cities in the realm, were both in Uppland, but this theory has been mostly debunked by recent historical research.
Across Lake Mälaren from Uppland was Södermanland, which is dominated by forests and lakes that make it very picturesque, but hardly able to support large amounts of agriculture. Consequently, Södermanland was one of the less populous countries in the early middle epoch, but thanks to having prime access to waterways and roads, it became one of the most urbanised countries as time went on and cities sprang up.
Västmanland and Närke, west of Uppland and Södermanland respectively, were relatively unimportant until the mid-13th century, when the growth of mining and the founding of royal estates at Nordvik and Ön propelled them into the centre of the realm's affairs. They each had their own laws and landsting, but Närke did not and does not have its own bishop, being subordinate to the bishop of Strängnäs in Södermanland. Västmanland is very heavily forested, particularly in the northern parts, whereas Närke is dominated by a fertile, relatively treeless plain.
Västergötland, which is the area between Lakes Vänern and Vättern, was by all accounts the most populous country, and until the 12th century it was also the most important ecclesiastically, being home to the oldest bishopric in the realm at Skara. Being home to the bishopric, and in close proximity to the meeting field of the common landsting of Västergötland and Dal, pompously named alla götars ting [13], Skara grew into one of the first cities in Sweden, and at the turn of the 13th century, only it, Lödöse and Sigtuna existed as cities in the regular sense. Another important location in Västergötland was the Cistercian monastery of Varnhem, one of the largest monastic communities in Sweden at this time, which served as the main power base of the Erikar [14].
Östergötland, across Lake Vättern from Västergötland, was and is Västergötland's bitter rival. This country is home to some of the best agricultural land in the realm, and this was quickly taken advantage of by both the peasantry and the Church – the bishopric of Linköping was the richest in Sweden, even before being elevated [15]. Östergötland was also home to the Cistercian monastery of Alvastra, also one of the oldest and largest in Sweden, which is associated heavily with the Sverkrar.
South of Östergötland, in what we now know as Syland [16], were a large number of small countries that followed Östergötland's law but were otherwise independent of it. The number of these little countries, and which of them were to be considered part of Sweden, was highly fluid throughout the early middle epoch, but by the 14th century everything north of Scania and Halland was firmly tied to the Swedish realm.
Finally, there was Gotland, which was among the most developed of the countries, having a large city in Visby, but although ecclesiastically subordinate to Linköping it only intermittently held any temporal allegiance to the Swedish king. Seen through a modern lens, this was a fairly natural state of affairs, seeing as how the island spoke a completely different language, had different laws and customs, and was even subdivided differently from all of the mainland countries.
As mentioned, the countries were all completely independent of one another until the kingship arose, and apart from the judicial power of the landsting and the ting in the hundreds that were subservient to it, they had no form of government. What, then, compelled them to unite under the rule of a common kingship, and embrace the feudal power structure that had already taken over the continent? How could the kings assert their power, and what were their powers and duties in a time when there was no government for them to lead? Well, that's what we're going to talk about next week.
***
[1] If you recognise this name, you're a certified IE junkie.
[2] As per OTL the “I” is silent, so that's pronounced something like “SVAIR-kuh”.
[3] Pronounced “SHALL-fre-tee” literally meaning “self-rule”, this word is used to denote basically the IE equivalent of anarcho-capitalism, insofar as that exists in this world.
[4] A bit like what Scotland was at the time. Based on my experience researching this, you'll probably find as we go along that medieval Sweden was more or less roughly equal parts Scotland, Iceland and the Wild West, with bits of Westeros slipping in once royal power is established.
[5] These units, which are called landskap in Swedish, are customarily known in English as “provinces”, but I regard this translation as rather unhelpful, since the word “province”, to me, connotes a unit created by a central government to administrate an area, whereas these are self-ruling units that gradually came together to form the more-or-less centralised state we know as Sweden. For this reason I will use “countries” as a translation convention in these updates. To avoid confusion, I shall also refer to Sweden as a whole using the word “realm”.
[6] IOTL, the laws were written down much later than that, generally around the turn of the 14th century, so consider this a rather sneaky bit of foreshadowing.
[7] This word, which can be very roughly translated as “jurisdiction”, simply denotes the area in which each law applied, so technically Espenson is making a tautology here.
[8] In Swedish, lagman.
[9] Of course, there was absolutely no way for the landsting to enforce its jurisdiction, but men of honour were supposed to heed its decisions, and in any case, repeat offenders risked increased penalties culminating in being held in outlawry, which suffice it to say is something you do not want happening to you.
[10] IOTL, the area between Dalälven and Ödmården is considered to be a separate country called Gästrikland, but this was not generally the case before the 17th century, and for whatever reason the split is never made ITTL.
[11] The units termed folkland were actually little different from the countries themselves, but for some reason we use different terms. In Viking Age terminology Västmanland, Södermanland etc. are also known as folkland, but historiography switches to calling them countries around the time of the Christianisation.
[12] These names originally stem from words meaning ten hundreds, eight hundreds and four hundreds, respectively, so it would presumably come as some surprise that Tiunda was comprised of eleven hundreds, Attunda nine, and Fjädrunda five.
[13] Something like “Assembly of All the Geats” in English.
[14] The Erikar and Sverkrar were the two main claimants to the kingship for much of the 12th century, and we shall be finding out a good deal more about them as we go along.
[15] Everything up to here has been OTL, but now we're starting to notice some differences. IOTL it was Uppsala that became an archbishopric.
[16] IOTL, the area is known as Småland, and the reason for this change will be apparent later on.
