Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. The Folkungers. A.D. 1250—1365
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distinguished themselves by more costly and brilliant
equipment; and partly, to establish service generally
as the condition of earning the privileges of
nobility. Thus was instituted the tenure ”of
knight-service [1],” by which every man who served on
horseback against the enemies of the kingdom,
furnished at his own cost, gained exemption from
taxation for himself and his estate, on conditions
which were more exactly defined in the sequel.
This was called “to serve for a freehold” (tjena
för fraelset), in contradistinction to “paying taxes
and dues as a peasant.” But the peasant might
acquire his freedom from tallage by the like
service, and many of them actually did so gain it; as,
on the other hand, the knight, according to the
letter of the law, forfeited his freedom by
neglecting to render his service [2]. Knighthood, which
Magnus was the first of the Swedish sovereigns to
confer, had become in Sweden also a personal
distinction for the nobility, whose whole classification
at this time was formed upon the model of chivalry.
In public documents, after the bishops, the knights
are always first, and they alone are styled lords
(herremen); next the arm-bearers (väpnare) or
squires-at-arms (svenar af vapen), literally, the serving
nobility [3]. Both are included under the
denomination of well-born men, which again was, seemingly,
not extended to the mere free proprietors or fraelsemen,
who had earned their freedom from taxes by
horse-service.
After the termination of the civil war and the
hostilities with Denmark, Magnus enjoyed a
tranquil reign. By his neighbours he was held in
great respect, and he had alliances with several
German princes [4]. In the quarrel between
Norway and the Hanse Towns, in which the “Germans
of Wisby” appear on an equal footing of independence
with the other parties, Magnus acted as
arbiter, and having adjusted (in 1288) the disputes
between the peasants of Gothland and the burghers
of Wisby, he re-established the old Swedish rights
of sovereignty over the island. His court was
brilliant, and enlivened by the continual practice
of knightly exercises. The Marshal (marsk) and
the Steward (drots), officers of the household who
are very anciently mentioned, attained at this
period so great influence, that the holders of those
dignities resembled in power and consequence the
former jarls. Magnus, during his reign, checked
the excesses of the nobles. The powerful family of
the Algotsons, of whom one had carried off a bride
by force, expiated the offence by exile, imprisonment,
or death [5]. In bounty to the church he was
surpassed by no one who ever sat on the Swedish
throne, whence he is sometimes called the Holy
King Magnus. He founded five monasteries, and
from his testament, which was framed in 1285, we
learn that he had made a vow of a crusade to the
Holy Land, for the deliverance of which a separate
tithe was raised, during five years, by Papal
envoys.
By his marriage, in 1276, with Helviga of
Holstein, who survived him, he had several children,
of whom one son and one daughter died in infancy,
while the rest, at the death of their father, had not
yet passed their childhood. Three of his sons,
Birger, Eric, and Valdemar, of whom the first-named
bore the title of king during his father’s
life-time, the others that of duke, were one day to
contend for the crown. Of his daughters, Rikissa,
while yet a child, had been placed with great
solemnities in the convent of St. Clara at
Stockholm; Ingeborg, in 1296, was married to King
Eric Menved, in Denmark, where her memory was
long affectionately cherished. When Magnus felt
his end approaching, he called his grandees
together, recommended his children to their care, and
appointed the marshal Thorkel Canuteson guardian
of his sons. He died in the isle of Wising [6],
December 18, 1290, and was interred in the burial
place which he had set apart for himself in the
Franciscan monastery at Stockholm, expressing
his hope that “his memory might not die away
with the sounds of the bells over his grave.”
Birger, who had been chosen in 1284, when but
three years of age, to succeed his father, was now
placed upon the throne, while Thorkel Canuteson
assumed the functions of government. By his
regency, the marshal won for himself so famous a
memory, that according to the Rhyme Chronicle,
“things stood so well with Sweden, that better
days would scarcely come;” yet it opened with a
universal calamity, famine and great mortality
prevailing, and most severely in 1291. Thorkel
Canuteson completed the work begun by St. Eric and
earl Birger in Finland, establishing Christianity
and Swedish dominion in the eastern part of the
country, whence the heathen Carelians continued
to issue on their devastating forays, which were
marked by hideous cruelties [7]. In a crusade
undertaken in 1293, the Carelians were subdued, made
tributary, and again brought to Christianity, at
least in name [8]. For the security of the conquest
Wiborg was founded, by which the Swedes were
placed in immediate contact with Russia. In effect
this Finnish crusade also produced a war with the
Russians, in the course of which the Swedes took
and fortified Kexholm. This place however was
again lost, as was some years afterwards
Landscrona, founded by the marshal himself.
Sweden yet possessed no code of laws collected
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