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134 Popular regard for Gustavus. HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. Progress of agriculture. [1544—
yet heretofore laid upon you no extraordinary
tallage, in the thought that ye yourselves would
tender us some thankful acknowledgment, especially
seeing that the children of that sanguinary tyrant,
king Christian, are still alive. But ye reck little of
the need that pressed upon us, in the thought that ye
can preserve such good peace with your own hands
at home in your own houses." The letter closes
with an exhortation to pay the tithe honestly, an
impost which the people had little scruple in
withholding, since the largest share went no longer into
the coffers of the Church, but into those of the
crown. He adds injunctions to plant hop-gardens,
to build kilns, to drain the fields, clear the meadows,
and ring the swine. Several of the king’s rescripts
contain similar advice on household matters. These,
dispersed throughout the parishes, were regarded,
from respect to their author, in the light of
commands.
On the whole, the people were eventually of the
king’s opinion, and long after his death men spoke
of the last half of his reign as of the happiest time
which was within their memory in Sweden. It
belonged not to the spirit of that age that a ruler by
arbitrary stretches of authority should quarrel
ix-reconcileably with his people. Every man had
for long been accustomed to demand a certain
scope for his own actions. The people had emerged
from the commotions of the Union more impatient
of the law than of its transgression, and many a
one who stubbornly resisted every general
increase of the old rights of the crown, which were
now almost forgotten, acquiesced in the dictate of
power. In every question the personal element
carries weight, and the relation in which Gustavus
stood to the people was altogether personal.
This monarch was the founder of the Swedish
financial system. A resolution was passed by the
diet of Vadstena so early as 1524, " that the king’s
majesty should have power to ascertain all the rents
and receipts of the crown, and to enrol the same in
a register, as well as to number the soke, crown,
and free peasants in each province, that his
majesty might know to how much the revenues and
rents of the crown amounted." At the sequestration
of the ecclesiastical estates the king took possession
of the registers of the churches and convents, which
perhaps furnished the model for the ground-rent
books of the crown, first kept by his order. The
first directions for the chamber of accounts are of
the year 1544, and were drawn up by the king
himself New schemes of taxation were adopted in
all, or at least in the greater number of the
provinces 2. The leading feature of all was a
repartition of the taxes, no longer according to the
number of heads, but according to the extent of ground,
so that he who possessed more should also pay more,
in place of the old mode of assessing every
freeholder3 at an equal amount. The cultivation of
the land undoubtedly made progress during the
time of Gustavus. But the circumstance which is
generally appealed to in proof of this, that namely
of the export of grain, was merely accidental, and
should not be taken for a proof that the country
really had an adequate supply for its own wants.
In 1550 the king states that he remembers a
scarcity to have been caused by such an
exportation ; he gives, nevertheless, permission for the
chamber of accounts to discharge the claim of a
Hollander with grain," if it should seem advisable4,"
enjoining the burgesses of Stockholm to buy grain
in Dantzic the same year, in order to supply the
country with provisions. In the following year
such as were suffering from distress received
succour out of the king’s storehouses 5. No Swedish
king ever more zealously encouraged the
settlement of the country. He compares this more
peaceable and auspicious acquisition of land with
that formerly made by the " army of Goths," whom
hunger drove from Sweden even to Switzerland to
seek out a new home, " where their descendants
abide to this day." By migrations, he adds, to the
uncultivated forests and wastes of Norrland, the
great provinces of Helsingland, Medelpad,
Anger-mauland, and North Bothnia had been won to the
crown of Sweden ; such examples should incite to
their imitation, "since Sweden with Finland is,
God be praised, so wide extended, that there is no
need to seek far for fields, meadows, and productive
soil, or to lament for want of room." He sharply
reproves the peasants, some for crowding together
too closely in the old settlements, others for taking
more land than they could cultivate.
For mining operations also in Sweden the reign
of Gustavus forms a new epoch. The silver
produced from the mine of Sala, which the king
caused to be drained, amounted according to
computations made in 1539 to 47,994 marks. Re-
1 This is clear from his instructions in letters to the
councillors of the treasury as to the method of arranging the
accounts, so as not to confound the receipts of one year with
those of another.
2 The king’s first letter on taxation applies to the
prefecture (lan) of Stockholm, and is dated from the manse of
Vallentuna on the Sunday before Martinmas, 1530. In it
he refers to old books of taxes, and speaks of a yearly
taxation, which also seems to refer to the former methods.
Meanwhile we find the taxes raised during that year in the
hundreds of the above-mentioned government, several of
which were in Sodermanland, as also in Helsingland. The
addition was remitted by the king during the bell sedition,
but afterwards re-imposed. In 1540 the new plan appears to
have been first acted upon. Rescripts on the subject are
preserved in the registers of that year to West-Gothland,
Upland, Dalecarlia, West-Bothnia, Medelpad,
Angerman-land, Helsingland, and Finland. In all these the maxim is
laid down, that every man should bear the burden of the tax
in proportion to the extent, of his lands, and that "one should
not sit more kaiser-free than another, shifting the greatest
burden from himself, and laying it on the poor, who have
the smallest portions of land." That the taxes were also
raised in Vermeland during this year (though it is uncertain
whether according to the size of the holdings), is shown by
the king’s letter to the hundred of Nordmark, in which he
says that they should not wonder that he wished to raise the
crown tributes among them likewise, as was but just; that
their small starved cows would not serve for him, but they
must furnish instead of two cows a full-grown ox. In the
years 1555 and 1556 he writes repeatedly regarding the
allotment of taxes in Finland; in 1557 to the commonalty of
East Bothnia, that the imposts should now be assessed there
according to the proportion of ground, and that the king
could grant no diminution; in 1558 to the prefecture of
Viborg, that every man’s ground should be exactly measured
by pole and ell.
3 " Fullsuten bonde," full yeoman.
* Letter to Botved Larson.
5 To bailiffs and ministers in Sodermanland, July 9, 1551,
to assist the peasants with grain from the king’s store-houses.
This was given by way of loan, which was repaid. The
quotation that follows is from the king’s proclamation on the
public distress in 1555.
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