The Geatic (adj. derived from Geats, the people of Götaland) view of
history dominated Swedish history writing in the 16th and 17th centuries. The
basic idea was to provide Sweden with as splendid a past as possible. This trend
was by no means a special characteristic of history writing in Sweden, but an
ambition that was shared by practically all European nations. The birth of
national states at the beginning of modern history provided an impetus for
writing national histories. The Italians founded their history on the glory of
ancient Rome, while the Germans searched for their roots in the mighty deeds of
their Germanic forefathers. The Swedes for their part sought to prove that the
ancient Swedes, the Geats, had once been the most significant nation on earth.
They proclaimed that Sweden was the oldest nation on earth and that in bygone
days the Swedes had ruled a goodly portion of Europe and Asia. They also
cherished the idea that Sweden was the home of all civilization.
The
state was a staunch supporter of history writing during Sweden's Great Power
era. Antiquity College was established to collect and preserve archeological
remains. Another new establishment was the so-called state historian system
under whose auspices biographies of late rulers were produced. The Geatic view
of history proved a perfect fit as far as propaganda during the Great Power era
was concerned. Ongoing wars of conquest could be justified by claiming that
Sweden had once been a Great Nation. The war simply amounted to restoring the
old order of things.
This Geatic view dominated Swedish history writing
right up to the beginning of the 18th century. A great ideological shift took
place after the Great Northern War. Most of the Geatic beliefs were discarded
and replaced by new, moderate interpretations based on a new critical view of
history. This did not mean that all the old notions of the past glory of the
Swedes were rejected. The tendency was to retain the old views in so far as the
new critical methods allowed it.
The reasons behind the shift were
various. A great sociological change occurred after the Great Northern War. The
four estates seized the power from the hands of the king. As Sweden's Great
Power status collapsed there was no longer a need to employ historical research
as a tool of propaganda. The result was that new historical methods came into
use as old barriers to progress no longer impeded novel ideas from germinating.
In this paper I shall use the research undertakings of Algot Scarin, a
history professor at Turku Academy, as a sort of case study to exemplify the new
critical ideas. Through his views I shall attempt to describe how the new ideas
were adopted, what kind of sources the new research relied on and what the basis
was for discarding the old views.
Algot Scarin (1684-1771) came from
Skara in West Götaland. He studied at Uppsala University under the
tutorship of librarian Eric
Benzelius, and was heavily influenced by his new critical views. In 1722
Scarin was appointed professor of history, moral philosophy and politics at
Turku Academy. He held the post to 1761. Scarin was an exceedingly productive
professor: no less than 127 dissertations were published during his tenure, most
of them penned by Scarin himself. Historical matters are the subject of 46 of
these dissertations. Central research themes in Scarin's dissertations include
Finnish medieval history, early and medieval Swedish history, local histories
and the history of the Gothic migrations. These dissertations have furnished my
research with a wealth of material.
During his tenure Scarin was an
eager lecturer. There were two kinds of lectures at Turku Academy: public and
private. The university statutes stated in no uncertain terms what was and what
was not to be taught at public lectures. As far as history was concerned there
was a detailed list of set books to be studied. In consequence, public lectures
tended to be rather formal in nature. Private lectures, however, usually given
at the professor's house, did not come under the university statutes. Thus they
could be used as a forum for further education and bringing forth new ideas.
Generally, we have very little information as to the private lectures of the
professors, but Scarin is an exception to the rule. He hardly ever failed to
announce the topics of his lectures in the programme of instruction of the
Academy. A good deal of his manuscripts for the lectures have also survived,
providing us with richly yielding research material. It is worth noting that
previous studies have only made limited use of this material. These manuscripts
form the other major group of research material for the present study.
The change in history writing in the beginning of the 18th century took many
forms. As far as the sources of information were concerned, a change occurred
both in the selection of sources and in the way historians looked at them.
Geatic history writing had always adopted a rather lax attitude toward the use
of sources of information. A comparison of sources was the basic method. Several
sources on the same matter were compared and conclusions arrived at on the basis
of these comparisons. The principle was that the older a source was, the more
reliable it was.
As Icelandic sagas were not that well known in Sweden
in the 17th century, Swedish history writers had to resort to ancient Greek and
Roman historical writing. The problem was that the Scandinavian countries hardly
get a mention in these texts and what information there is contrasts starkly
with other information concerning Scandinavia. As a consequence, Swedish
historians ended up expounding ancient writers and explaining the discrepancies.
A common explanation was that the ancient writers had misunderstood things, or
that the texts had been corrupted in the course of time.
The surviving
sources did not furnish Swedish historians with enough information, which led to
the habit of presenting probabilistic history as true. The idea was that if a
source did not deny something, it could well be true. History writing was also
construed as partly fiction. This was the reason behind adding dialogues and
monologues to a story to spice it up, though they were not based on any actual
source.
As far as sources were concerned, 18th century Swedish history
writing started adopting critical review methods developed elsewhere in Europe.
This critical review was by no means systematic, but it helped to prune the most
unlikely sources. The change in the use of sources of information was reflected
first and foremost in the fact that the only accepted sources in the 18th
century were those containing a direct mention of the Swedes. As a result,
ancient Greek or Roman sources fell almost completely out of use. This
development led to the sudden abbreviation of known history for it was no longer
possible to obtain information of the earliest historical events.
Scarin
insisted that the historian take a good look at the reliability of every source
of information he used with special emphasis on the integrity of the author of
the source. The guidelines he laid down were similar to the ones suggested by
Jean Bodin at the end of the 16th century in France. The writer of the source
was to be impartial. His account of the event described should preferably be a
personal eye-witness account. However, Scarin's guidelines were not very
detailed and the only method he ever used of proving the reliability of his
sources was plain simple comparison between the various sources. According to
him the only things worth relating were those backed by a source. However, there
were exceptions to the rule. Scarin firmly believed that a great number of
sources dealing with the ancient past of Sweden had disappeared in the course of
time. Information concerning actual historical events had consequently fallen
into oblivion. This gave the necessary leeway for claiming that not everything
the Geatic historians had said about the early history of Sweden was a mere
legend.
As far as sources of information were concerned, Geatic history
writing relied heavily on the Bible, on ancient Greek and Roman literature as
well as on Gothic history writing. 18th century historians dispensed with
ancient Greek and Roman sources, which were replaced by old Icelandic sagas.
Old Icelandic sagas became known in Sweden toward the end of the 17th
century. Several manuscripts were brought over from Iceland and published by
Antiquity College. The use of sagas as historical sources was nevertheless
fairly limited in scope at this stage. The sagas came in several different
varieties, each with a different historical reliability. Royal sagas telling of
ancient kings and were historically fairly reliable. Heroic sagas on the other
hand were entertaining and fictitious in character. The most that could be said
of them was that some of the protagonists were based on reality. Geatic history
writing never made a distinction between the two types but used them both as
sources of historic information.
The use of sagas as sources of historic
information gained marked popularity in the 18th century, superseding all other
literary genres as sources. The sagas revamped the prevailing view of Swedish
history. "Heimskringla", written by Snorri Sturluson in the 13th
century, was considered the most significant of the sagas. It described the
early kings of Sweden and Norway from the second century B.C. onwards. This was
the only saga Scarin found acceptable as a source, while other 18th century
critical historians had no objections to embracing the other sagas pertaining to
ancient kings as well. Heroic sagas, for their part, found favour with no one as
they were no longer considered reliable.
The Bible held its position as
a reliable source of information right up to the end of the 18th century. The
Bible provided a chronological framework for history. The Creation, the Flood,
the confusion of tongues in Babel and Judgement Day were fixed points in time,
unquestionable in nature. Geatic history writing had sought to give a complete
presentation of history starting from the Flood and Annius Viterbo's
falsifications from the end of the 15th century proved a great help in this
undertaking by giving a detailed account of the events right after the flood.
The 18th century lost its faith in Annius' work, the corollary being that there
could be no incontestable historical information after the Flood. The Bible
itself never lost its position though. Every man was still believed to be the
offspring of Noah, and all languages were said to be derived from the confusion
of tongues in Babel.
Geatic historians relied heavily on ancient Greek
and Roman history writers as sources of information. A case in point is the last
significant Geatic historian,
Olof Rudbeck the
elder, who concentrated his efforts entirely on studying ancient Greek and Roman
literature. He strove to prove the ancient glory of Sweden by comparing
classical writings with old Scandinavian sources. The increased use of sagas in
the 18th century displaced classical texts as sources of history writing. This
did not mean the total abandonment of these writings, but reflected a more
critical attitude toward them. Scarin used classical writings as sources of
information in examining early Scythian history and early Scandinavian
conditions. According to him this was the only area of Swedish history that
could benefit from this literature. He studied early Scythian history with the
aid of Herodotus in particular, and examined early Scandinavian conditions with
the help of Tacitus' "Germania" along with the sagas.
As
literary sources could not furnish historians with all necessary information,
they resorted to other methods of obtaining relevant data. One such method
occupying a central position in history writing was the historical study of
languages. According to the tenets of Geatic history writing, the history of a
language was identical with the history of the people who spoke the language.
Thus, by studying the history of a language, one could amass information about
the history of the nation. The 17th century paid special attention to the
problem of the original language. The traditional biblical interpretation held
that the original language preceeding the confusion of tongues in Babel had been
Hebrew. All other languages were generated in Babel. This notion had met with
opposion in the 16th century as historians started positing new interpretations.
The struggle to prove the ancient glory of one's nation led to the fact that
other languages started vieing for the position of the original language. A
Dutchman by the name of Goropius Becanus showed that the ancient Cimbri had not
participated in the building of the tower of Babel, wherefore Cimbri had to be
the original language. In Sweden Georg Stiernhielm came up with a similar
interpretation claiming that ancient Swedish was the original language. This
view met with little success even in the ranks of Geatic historians. A generally
more accepted notion had it that Hebrew was the original language and Swedish
was one of the languages generated in the confusion of tongues in Babel, while
the other Scandinavian and Germanic languages were later derivations of the
Swedish language.
The contemplations over the original language were
cast aside during the 18th century as there was no way of achieving any
certainty concerning the matter. Scarin considered such contemplations as
futile. This did not result in the rejection of the idea of the antiquity of the
Swedish language: 18th century Swedish historians held to their beliefs as far
as the age of the language was concerned.
The means of language study
was the etymological method. Researchers tried to show how words had developed
by comparing them, and thereby creating a picture of the history of the
language. Permutational rules came in handy in this etymological work. Olof
Rudbeck in particular applied them abundantly in his work.
Geatic
history writing has often been critizised for being too preoccupied with
etymology. The use of etymology , however, is not limited merely to Geatic
history writing, but a feature that survived throughout the 18th century. Only
the function of the method changed: in the 17th century etymological methods
were used to get a picture of the history of the language, but in the following
century it was limited to getting information about isolated phenomena, such as
the origin of town names and so on. The extent of using etymology varied from
one historian to another; Scarin was an avid etymologist, whereas Olof Dalin and
Sven Lagerbring used it rather sporadically.
The actual picture of
Swedish history underwent a thorough upheaval at the beginning of the 18th
century. This was occasioned above all by a change in the source materials. The
change was particularly graphic concerning the settlement of Sweden, though the
basic idea was very much the same both in Geatic and 18th century history
writing: Sweden had been settled shortly after the Flood from the east. There
were, however, great differences concerning the details of the settlement.
Geatic historians described how Megog, Noah's grand-son, had settled in
Scandinavia about a century after the Flood and founded a mighty empire in
Sweden. The 18th century view was that Scythians, who practised hunting and
cattle keeping, had gradually migrated towards Scandinavia and finally settled
in Sweden, Mother Nature being so welcoming and hospitable there. The society
they established was not socially ordered, the social structure being family
based.
Geatic historians never doubted who the first inhabitants of the
Nordic countries were: they were Swedes. This notion, too, came under a cloud of
doubt in the 18th century. G.W. Leibniz proposed in Germany at the end of the
17th century that the Nordic countries had first been settled by the Finns and
the Lapps. The Swedes had arrived at a considerably later date. In Sweden this
idea was first accepted by Eric Benzelius the younger and later by Scarin and
Sven Lagerbring.
The change in thinking concerning the notion of the
Swedes' ancient high stage of civilization was far greater. The idea that Sweden
was the cradle of culture pervaded Geatic history writing. Almost all
civilization had originated in Sweden. This conception was based on classical
tales about the Hyberboreans, whom Geatic historians equated with the Swedes.
This equation along with an appropriate interpetation of the ancient tales
served to prove that the ancient Greeks and Romans had received their culture
from the Swedes. This notion was one of the cornerstones of Geatic history
writing.
However, the idea of Sweden as the cradle of culture was almost
completely discarded in the 18th century, the main reason being that there was
no evidence to bolster up the theory in the old Icelandic sagas. Now the Swedes
found themselves at the receiving end of cultural influences. It was claimed
that the sole interest of the ancient Swedes had been warfare, and that they had
never had time for pursuing any cultural interests. The only branch of science
they had ever been advanced in was astronomy, which they had needed for
navigational purposes.
Gothic migrations occupied a central position in
early Swedish history. According to Swedish historians the West Goths and East
Goths of Southern Europe came originally from Sweden. This view was shared by
Geatic and 18th century history writing alike. The idea itself was first put
forth in the early Middle Ages, as Jordanes, the East Goth, proposed that the
Goths came from the isle of Scandza. This island was early on equated with
Scandinavia. Geatic historians were of the opinion that the Goths had left
Scandinavia 835 years after the Flood, but 18th century historians moved the
beginning of the migrations to the second century B.C., the new dating being
based on sagas. Gothic migrations in fact held a central position in Geatic
history writing: for example, three quarters of Johannes Magnusson's extensive
history of Sweden dealt with Gothic history. Gothic migrations remained a part
of Swedish history in the 18th century, but its share shrank gradually to a mere
mention.
An essential factor contributing to the changing picture of
early Swedish history was the information amassed from the old Icelandic sagas
at the beginning of the 18th century. They led Scarin and the other early 18th
century historians to reject many of the tenets of Geatic history writing. The
fact that they no longer needed to portray Swedish history in a glorifying light
also helped to bring about the change. As a result, critical reseach methods
found wider acceptance, which in turn defined to a great extent the picture of
history that was presented. In spite of all this, the methods employed by the
historians allowed a representation of a splendid past, at least to a degree.
Notions pertaining to the birth of the Swedish nation changed
considerably at the beginning of the 18th century. Geatic history writing
claimed that after settling Sweden about 100 years after the Flood, Magog
founded an ordered society. Society was considered unchangeable and eternal.
This concept was based on the so-called three estate dogma, which was the
dominant sociological theory in the 17th century especially in the Lutheran
countries. The theory stated that the king was the vicar of God, giving monarchy
and the prevailing social order a divine justification. This theocratic view of
the state, the keystone behind the Geatic historians' uninterrupted presentation
of kings and rulers all the way from Magog to their day, naturally sustained
the prevailing absolute monarchy. The writings of the historians corroborated
the theocratic notion of the state and the eternal nature of monarchy.
When the estates seized power from the king after the Great Northern War, the
Geatic view of history was no longer desirable. A fresh interpretation of
history was called for. The theory of natural justice, put forward by Samuel
Pufendorf, had already found favour with Swedish historians at the end of the
17th century. It postulated that the monarch's power was not of divine origin,
but was in fact based on a contract between the king and the people. The
interest expressed toward this notion at the end of the 17th century was purely
theoretical, and it was only after the Great Northern War that Pufendorf's
theory gained wider social significance. It served to prove that the estates had
merely taken back the power that belonged to them after the king had misused it.
Algot Scarin and Jacob Wilde were particularly eager to apply Pufendorf's
theory to history writing. They showed that, with a couple of exceptions, the
power of the king in Sweden had always been restricted and that real power
belonged to the people in the final analysis. They also stated that the people
had at times taken the power from the monarch when he had turned it against the
nation. Historical examples could thereby be used with reference to contemporary
events. Thus history writing became a vehicle for serving the interests of the
estates in power.
The shift of paradigm in Swedish history writing at
the beginning of the 18th century was extensive, but not total. New methods and
sources of information modified the picture of history, but the old notion of
the ancient glory of Sweden was not completely discarded. History writing
adapted to changing social conditions and adopted critical methods in so far as
it was possible in order to create the preferred picture of Swedish history.