called the ledung. The ledung was described in a legal sense in the late thirteenth century
as the fleet under royal command and had its origins in the old ability of local aristocrats
to muster a maritime retinue. In the thirteenth century the king got control over the
ledung, which was transformed into a fiscal duty (Lönnroth 1940 : 57 – 136 ).
In Svealand there were tendencies of opposition or reluctance towards the making of a
Christian monarchy. ‘Pagan’ uprisings are recorded as having taken place around 1080
and 1120. In the 1080 s, according to the Icelandic Hervararsaga, the Christian king
Inge was overthrown, when he refused to perform pagan rites in Svíaríki (probably at
Uppsala), by the supposed pagan king Blot-Sven for three years.
Adam of Bremen portrays Uppsala as a pagan centre, especially in locating and
describing a ‘pagan’ temple there. A later saint legend and other sources describe a
revitalising of pagan rituals in Svealand in the first and second decades of the twelfth
century. These trends of opposition are in the sources described as pagan, as the opposite
of Christianity, but could also, and more precisely, be understood as opposition to the
monarchy and the ecclesiastical ideals and organisation supporting it (see discussion in
Hultgård 1997 ).
The area around Lake Mälaren and the plain areas in Östergötland and Västergötland
were the central political areas and the most prosperous agrarian regions. They were the
homelands of the old aristocracy, the social elite. Peripheries outside these areas became
gradually integrated into the political community of the kingdom; initially through the
expansion of an ecclesiastical organisation and administration. Present Finland became
an integrated part of Sweden during the high Middle Ages. A colonisation from Sweden
in the coastal areas from around the beginning of the twelfth century and onwards took
place. This colonisation was carried out by peasant communities. According to the
legend of St Erik, the king and the missionary, Bishop Henry, carried out a conversion
crusade to Finland, probably in the middle of the 1150 s. But there is no contemporary
historical evidence of a Swedish military conquest. Through the establishment of an
ecclesiastical organisation, including the making of Turku (Åbo) as a bishopric under
the archbishop of Uppsala, and a later royal administration, Finland became part of the
Swedish realm (Sjöstrand 1994 ; Ivars and Huldén 2002 ).
Gotland had an autonomous position in relation to the king of Sweden and the
Swedish bishop of Linköping. According to the Gutasaga, written in the late thirteenth
century, a tributary relationship to the Swedish king had once been established. An
overlordship was recognised, but the community of the island was less integrated into
the kingdom than many other parts.
Jarl or earl was a title that at least from the late twelfth century appears for politically
powerful men alongside the king. There was no evident splitting up of functions, but
jarls were often engaged in warfare. Jarl Birger brosa had a powerful position in the late
twelfth century. Birger Magnusson, jarl from c. 1246 until his death in 1266 , was for a
long period the most powerful person; when King Erik Eriksson died in 1250 , Birger’s
son, Valdemar, was elected king. But Birger ruled all but in name as a king until his
death. During his reign the first legislative activity concerning the whole realm took
place. Revolts of the opposing aristocratic fraction of the Folkungar were crushed. In
Birger’s time, the kingdom obtained more significant and substantial control in the
Lake Mälaren region. During the middle and second half of the thirteenth century
Svealand became more of the political centre. Eastern Sweden also became a more
dynamic economic region with, for example, growing urbanisation.
–– Thomas Lindkvist––