Stockholm blood bath

Stortorget, Stockholm 7 November 2017

"Tå nw sådana gruffuelighit mord i Stocholm skeedt war" ("A gruesome murder happened in Stockholm")

~ Olaus Petri, En Swensk Cröneka

During the later part of the Middle Ages, all the Nordic countries were united in the Kalmar union. I have talked about it in previous entries on this blog and here comes some more information about it (but also feel free to follow the link above and read all the other entries I have written about it). The most important thing to know for this entry is that all the Nordic countries were united and ruled mostly from Denmark. To say that it's a matter of nationalities fighting is really to simplify it all too much, which will be evident in this entry. It has more to do with "unionists" versus "anti-unionists".

Carl Gustaf Hellqvist's painting of Sten Sture's death

The king during the last few years of the Kalmar union was called Kristian II (1481-1559) but the Swedish Riksråd (Privy Council) was ruled by the Swedish regent Sten Sture the younger (1492-1520). He belonged to the anti-unionist fraction of the Swedish nobility. He was in a power struggle with the union-friendly archbishop Gustav Trolle (1488-1535) and the Riksråd had had him removed from office.

(Gustav Trolle can be said belongs to the category Swedes today normally call "vita, kränkta män"(white, offended men) which will be obvious later on in this entry.)

Kristian II of Michael Sittow

Sten died in early 1520 on his way back to Stockholm after the battle of Bogesund (today Ulricehamn) in the province Västergötland in Sweden.

What did Kristian want then? Well, he saw himself as the rightful king of the entire Kalmar union of course and he had a dream. He wanted to build an economic and political super power in Northern Europe that could challenge the monopoly the "German" Hanseatic League held over the Baltic Sea region. This was well in line with the original plan for the Kalmar union that was made up by Danish king Valdemar Atterdag (1320-1375) and Swedish-Norwegian king Magnus Eriksson (1316-1374) back at the first half of the 14th century even though Margaret Valdemar's daughter (1353-1412), the daughter of Valdemar, was the big political mastermind who implemented the union in 1397.

Statue of Kristina Gyllenstierna, Stockholm

Sweden (which included Finland too!) was important to Kristian's dream, but the Swedes felt overlooked and had been revolting against the Danish rulers since the 1430's and they fought hard against Kristian II. However, when Sten Sture died, the resistance fell apart, even though Sten's widow Kristina Gyllenstierna (1494-1559) (I have written about her in my series about Historical Women.) tried to take up her husband's leadership and also deligate it to others, but barely anyone came to her aid. Kristian promised her and the other people loyal to Sten Sture amnesty and Kristina capitulated in early September 1520.

On 1 November 1520 Kristian marched in triumph into Stockholm and was elected Swedish king as well. He was coronated by Gustav Trolle who had been reinstated as archbishop by Kristian.

Part of the fountain at Stortorget

He invited everyone to a big party that lasted for three days, but on the fourth (7 November 1520) Kristian had the doors locked and started a council where Gustav Trolle accused pretty much everyone present of heresy wherefore the promise of amnesty was not valid anymore

In the next two days (8-9 November 1520) about 100 people were executed at Stortorget (the big square) in Stockholm. It started with the bishops, then the noblemen, then the burgess and then servants working for the men in the former categories (A list of known victims can be found here). The bishops and noblemen were beheaded while the others were hung. The archbishop also had bodies of his dead enemies (among others Sten Sture) dug up from their graves to be burned at the stake on Södermalm together with the executed ones.

No noblewomen were executed even though Kristina came close to being the only one. Instead they were placed in Danish prison where a lot of them died. The rest of them were freed a couple of years later when Gustav Vasa had The houses of the executed stockholmers were plundered and all the riches taken from them. The widows were allowed to stay in the houses however.

On 10 November Kristian's daughter Dorotea (1520-1580) was born and as a last cruel act against the stockholmers, Kristian "invited" (more like forced!) the stockholmers to celebrate her birth only a few days after on the very place where their friends and family had been killed...

The Stockholm blood bath is one of the most famous incidents in Swedish (to not say Scandinavian!) history, but Kristian did not really stop in Stockholm. No, he continued to blood bath himself through pretty much all of Sweden and Finland. At the monastery in Nydala in the province of Småland, he drowned a lot of monks in January/February 1521 when he was heading back to Copenhagen. One of the few surviving monks wrote that "the evil tyrant Kristian" came and killed everyone. After this, Kristian II has been known as "Kristian the tyrant" in Swedish history.

References

• Ericson Wolke, Lars 2006. Stockholms Blodbad, Falun
• Eriksson, Bo 2017. Sturarna. Makten, morden, missdåden, Lettland
• Flemberg, Marie-Louise 2017. Kristina Gyllenstierna. Kvinnan som stod upp mot Kristian Tyrann, Falun
• Harrison, Dick & Eriksson, Bo 2010. Norstedts Sveriges historia 1350-1600, Värnamo
• Larsson, Lars-Olof 2002. Gustav Vasa. Landsfader eller tyrann?, Falun
• Larsson, Lars-Olof 2006. Kalmarunionens tid, Falun
• Petersson, Erik 2017. Furste av Norden. Kristian tyrann, Falun

The photos from Stortorget and of the statue of Kristina Gyllenstierna are my own, but the painting of the dying Sten Sture the younger was borrowed here and the one of Kristian II was borrowed here.