The three piece suits and the interest in modern history

Jack Robinson in Miss Fisher's
Murder Mysteries

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

~ L.P. Hartley

When I tell people I am an archaeologist, I usually get an entusiastic answer that they have an interest in history too. This is always wonderful to hear and I start to elaborate about my interest in the Vikings and the Vasa era. Then, however, almost everyone start to retract their answer a bit, saying they meant that they are only really interested in the latest 200 or so years.

This has for a long time made me extremely confused since I do not see any differences between modern history and earlier ones. In fact, I have longed find the 20th century quite boring. It was not until I got into imperialism and Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries that I found something that actually interested me in the 19th and 20th century.

Because there are so much talk about fashion in the fandom of the latter, I thought they would enjoy seeing the Sture costumes (photo below), which are the only more or less completely preserved male renaissance costumes in the world today. However, the ones I have shown, have almost always said that they are not the least bit interested, because the perfect male clothing is the three piece suits. They claim that it's the only male clothing that enhance the male body.

There is nothing wrong with liking a modern male suit of course, but I cannot help but thinking there is a clue to people's preferences towards modern history in there.

The Sture costumes

Professionally, I work a lot with postcolonial theory in relation to Vikings as well as colonial narratives of history. There are a lot of things one can say about those theories and I can well understand the criticism that has been raised towards them, but at the same time, I also think they are thoughtprovoking in what they have to say.

Postcolonialism is really an umbrella term for theoretical standpoints based on colonial issues and the most important of the postcolonial theories for this blogpost is the thoughts about the creation of "The Other" that Edward Said deals with in his famous book Orientalism from 1978.

Said's thoughts deals with how the Western world tends to create stereotypes about the area in Asia and Northern Africa which usually goes by the name the Orient and that these stereotypes are created from a Western world view. This means that one has been very biased and onesided in portrayals of the societies and cultures of the Oriend, not least to legitimize imperialism. This has also created a hierarchy of cultures where the Western world has always been on the highest level and seen as the measurement for all other societies.

There is a clear tendency to view the Enlightenment as a breaking-point in history. A time where the modern society was created for real and then it became truely modern with the industrialism. Modernism is also very much based in the here and now and tend to have a small interest in the past. Can this be why we have a harder time to related to earlier history? From a Swedish perspective, there are Vikings of course, but the "real" history is often said to start with the king Gustav Vasa in what is known as the Early modern period (or the Premodern Period). The name of the period itself is quite interesting in this case too since it seems to depart in modernism and is often more or less seen as a long runway towards the Enlightenment.

This sort of shallow view of time is evident in Swedish ethnologists's interest too. Inger Lövkrona does not even go as far as Gustav Vasa in the 16th century and instead claim that the the premodern timeperiod starts with the Swedish Empire Era (Stormaktstid) in the 17th century. She also describes the premodern time as being qualitatively and structuraly different than the modern one in her article Hierarki och makt - den förmoderna familjen som genusrelation (1999:20).

I love ethnology and anthropology's perspective of societies and cultures, but for an archaeologist, the shallow time frame appears very strange and evolutionistic. Lövkrona's description of premodern cultures however is interesting in that it claims that our own society appears (suddenly from what it seems) from the industrialisation. That means it is not until then we can relate to people in the past.

I started this blog post with a quote from L.P. Hartley about historical individuals being different in the same way that foreign cultures are for us today. This has been paraphrased by Douglas Adams who said that people in the past is living in a foreign country since they act like us. I think they are both right and I think it is really important for us to realize that people in the past are both like us and not like us at the same time. Just as people of different cultures are for us today and I think one can learn a lot about this similarities and differences among living people of today, but studying them in the past. In the global world we live in, we need to be able to feel empathy and connections to people differnt from ourselves as well as for those similar to us. And it is not so easy to dismiss the more distant past. Quick breakups in history are seldom as quick when studied more closely and it all has to do with ones perspective. Modernity (and the Enlightenment) wanted to see itself as the beginning of something new and totally different and the older past was therefore viewed as less valued and an "Other" was created about it. A perspective we still seem to have today.

Children's scribbles?

I recently found what looks like children's scribbles in Kristina Gyllenstierna's Book of Hours from the 16th century (collage to the left) and I could not feel more delighted. They lived 500 years ago in a completely different world than myself, but I feel such a strange connection to them and the fact that some behaviours are really timeless.

But what about the three piece suits then? Is that not a matter of different taste? Well, taste is also quite a lot connected to culture even though we do not think about it so much. The three piece suit is not only a piece of clothing either. It is, and has been since the industrialisation, a symbol of power and status.

And the Sture costumes can also show a lot of their owners's figures. Svante Sture's for example indicate that he was a short and stout little man. His story is a bit tragic because he lost most of his family due to the wars between Denmark and Sweden and spent his early childhood in Danish prison where a lot of his family and friends died. This has me wondering if he was not malnourished which often results in children ending up shorter than they should otherwise. He might also have had an eating disorder because malnourishment in children often ends up with them getting a disrupted sense of food. Despite all this, I cannot help wondering if there ever has been a piece of fashion enhancing "masculinity" as well as the codpiece...

• Lövkrona, Inger 1999. Hierarki och makt - den förmoderna familjen som genusrelation, i: Familj och kön. Etnologiska perspektiv. red: B. Meurling, B. Lundgren & I. Lövenkrona, Lund, s19-39

Ebba L. Lewenhaupt - Kung Märta

In 1960 was a novel called Kung Märta published. It was written by Ebba L. Lewenhaupt and tells the story of Märta Eriksdotter (Leijonhufvud). The title Kung Märta (King Märta) is the nickname she was given by the public for how she handled the Sture family estate businesses.

The book is not at all well-known even though it was mentioned on Märta's Wikipedia page and I borrowed it at the Stockholm Public Library.

The book follows the life of Märta Eriksdotter (Leijonhufvud), but also her husband Svante Sture and to a lesser extent her sister Margareta Eriksdotter (Leijonhufvud). Much of it is devoted to the supposed love triangle between the three of them. I have talked about it both in my entry about Märta and my entry about Margareta before.

Märta's sister Margareta

Like I said then, I seriously doubt that it is true and that it more serves to antagonize the Vasa and the Sture families which is and has been since the 16th century very common. Lewenhaupt also antagonizes Märta and Margareta and also puts Märta against her mother Ebba Eriksdotter (Vasa). Lewenhaupts Märta is described as jealous of her perfect sister and hated by her mother for being "a child of sorrow" though she was born one month after her father was executed in The Stockholm Bloodbath. Based on the historical source material however, it seems like Märta was a beloved daughter and sister and she seems to have been pretty close to both.

About the engagement Svante and Margareta, I think that even if their parents had talked about it (because that sort of things happened), I do not think either of them would remember much of it. Svante was only three and Margareta four at the time of the bloodbath and after that Svante was out of the country pretty much the rest of the time up until Margareta married Gustav Vasa.

Svante is also very different from what I think he was like. He's quite macho, but kind and years after Margareta  all the time wherefore Märta never is totally comfortable in their marriage. She also seems more or less unaffected by the Sture Murders, which really feels odd to me considering the contents of the historical sources both during and after the murders.

Märta's son Nils

Even though the template images is a bit hard to read through 60 years later, especially when you have some knowledge about the historical sources, Kung Märta is very entrancing and it is surprisingly easy to read through. It tells the story of Märta's life chronologically but episodically with lots of small or big jumps in time. This creates a lack of flow in the narrative and affects all the characters's development. It also mainly takes an interest in big events like Dackefejden, the Sture murders or when Margareta dies and it is hard to grasp for example Märta's marriage or her relations to any of her other family members, friends or subordinates.

There is a somewhat proto-feministic tone to Märta's character. She is very active and enterprising in a way that I can see her being myself. At the same time Lewenhaupt also vilifies her. Märta i depicted as being "a child of sorrow" (because her father died before she was born) with flamy red hair (coloured by the blood of the bloodbath), a freckled, oblong face, dark eyes and a lanky body. This is put in sharp contrast with her older sister who is portrayed as blonde with a more or less perfect look and personlity.

Märta's husband Svante

Svante is also depicted as blonde and like you can see on his portrait to the left, I do not really think his hair colour could be considered blonde.

From what I have gathered, no portrait from the time period has been identified as Märta, but if you go by the appearance of her blood relatives's (Margareta and Märta and Svante's three children Nils, Erik and Kristina) portraits she might have been the blonde one. Her dead father-in-law, Sten Sture the younger, seems to have been blonde, but Svante was not.

Märta and Svante's son Nils has a very light hair colour, while Erik is a bit darker. Kristina's hair is covered in both portraits that have been identified as her. All Sture children also seems to have bright, green eyes while Svante's are dark. This has me thinking this is a trait, they inherited from Märta also. Kristina and Erik also have rounder faces than Svante and Nils, which might derive from Märta as well.

Märta's son Erik

Lewenhaupt describes Märta as having a sharp tongue which is something I can totally see. I do not see her as gangly, but very petite. This might be because I want to contrast it to the seemly larger-than-life personality I imagine she had though.

I am very ambivalent about my feelings towards this book. In fact I do not know if I have been this ambivalent towards one since I read Terry Hayes's book I am Pilgrim. I mean it is so filled with clichés, it is not really based in historical facts, but more in storytelling of historical individuals and events which are more or less mythical and  both Märta and the other characters are seriously lacking development and Märta's feelings and reactions are often strange and not based on the historical sources either. It is also evident that it was published almost 60 years ago.

Märta's daughter Kristina

However, there is something about this book that I cannot help liking and I think it has all to do with who it is about. Märta is one of my absolute favourite of any historical women and not only Vasa women. She is totally amazing. She is not at all well-known and it always breaks my heart a little whenever I am met with faces looking like big question marks when I mention her name. I just think she deserves so much more and I am glad that someone besides me has cared enough about her that they wrote a book about her. It warms my heart so very much.






All the paintings were borrowed from wikimedia commons.

Marie-Louise Flemberg - Kristina Gyllenstierna. Kvinnan som stod upp mot Kristian Tyrann

I have talked about Kristina Nilsdotter (Gyllenstierna) before. She was the first of the women who was given an entry in my Historical Women series and is one of my absolute favourites among Vasa women.

Kristina is known throughout history as Kristina Gyllenstierna (Just as her nephew is known as Gustav Vasa.) but to call her this is a bit anacronistic. The tradition at the time was to use patronyms, which means that it was much more important to state that she was Nils's daughter (Nilsdotter) than that she was born into the noble family Gyllenstierna.

Kristina married Sten Svantesson (Natt och dag), son of the regent of Sweden Svante Nilsson (Natt och dag) in 1512. Her father-in-law died only a few month after the wedding (He is said to be one of the first known cases of syphilis in Scandinavia.) and a power struggle breaks out between Sten and another noble man named Erik Trolle. As a regent, Sten took the name Sture to appeal to the popularity of former regent Sten Sture (called the older in Swedish history books today). Neither of these were kings in the formal sense because Sweden was still part of the Kalmar union with the other Nordic countries which was ruled by the Danes. In Kristina's time it was first Hans and then his son Kristian II who held the throne.

Painting from the 19th century by Carl Gustaf Hellqvist
of Sten Sture the younger's death.

Today (19 January) marks the 598th anniversary of the battle on the ice of the lake Åsunden outside of the town then known as Bogesund, that today goes by the name Ulricehamn in the province Västergötland. Sten was badly injured and died on the way back to Stockholm on 3 February 1520.


After this the supporters of Sten were split up and no one wanted to take up the leadership of the resistance beside Kristina who lead the defence from the castle Tre kronor in Stockholm. Last year, Marie-Louise Flemberg published a biography about her:  Kristina Gyllenstierna. Kvinnan som stod upp mot Kristian Tyrann.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. Even though I had her life story was known to me, there were some informations that I did not know. Among other things that Kristina was pregnant when Sten died and that she gave birth during the siege of Stockholm. A child that other historians say was less than a year when his father died and that the boy died during the siege. Wikipedia says that the boy was named Gustav like Kristina's youngest son from her second marriage.

The child is supposed to have been dug up together with Sten's dead body and burned at the stakes with the other victims of the Stockholm bloodbath. One source claim that the child was a week old, which would indicate that Flemberg is right about the pregnancy. I would not really be surprised if it was one of those "details" that have gone over male historians's heads (or at least been written of as meaningless).

Statue of Kristina from the Royal Palace in
Stockholm made av Johan Theodor Lundberg
in 1912.

One problem with the book is that Flemberg from time to time mixes up the relations between characters. For example, Gustav Vasa's mother Cecilia Månsdotter (Eka) is the daughter of Sigrid Eskilsdotter (Banér) and not her sister, which makes Kristina Gustav's aunt and Sigrid his grandmother. 

Gustav's attack on Kalmar castle and Berend von Melen is likewise called Kalmar bloodbath which I do not think is correct. I know of two events in the history of the town that is called so (one with the union king Hans executing the burgess of the town in 1505 and one with Swedish king Karl IX who executed those faithful to his nephew Sigismund in 1599.

As a biography over Kristina it also seems a bit strange because she is absent for most of the book that is more focused on the stories of her husband and older son Nils. Flemming is convinced that the latter really was the teenaged boy Gustav Vasa nicknamed Dalajunkern who rebelled against him. Perhaps this is because of lack of sources and because of the chaos that is the 1520's in Swedish history. However, because the book is said to be a biography about Kristina, I would have liked to to hear more about her second marriage to Johan Turesson (Tre rosor). Even though she did not meddle in the politics to the same extent after she married Johan, I do not really think her life would be uninteresting. The time period indicates otherwise...

Historical Women: Margareta Eriksdotter Leijonhufvud

"Vi eder till känne att vi aktar i den helige trefaldighets namn giva oss i rätt äktenskap med ärlig, välbördig jungfru Margareta Eriksdotter, på söndagen efter Mikaelis näst kommande uti vår stad Uppsala." ("We want to inform you that we will, in the name of the holy trinity, give ourself into marriage with the honest, well-born virgin Margareta Eriksdotter on Sunday after Mikaelis next in our town Uppsala.")

- Invitation from Gustav Vasa about his wedding to Margareta.

(Quoted in Tegenborg Falkdalen 2016)

I am starting this year similar to how I ended the former, with an entry about one of the Vasa women. The one in the portrait to the right is Margareta Eriksdotter Leijonhufvud and she is the older sister of Märta and the mother of Cecilia.

Like with the entry about Märta, this is an entry made in the celebration of Margareta's birthday which is said to be 1 January 1516. She is the daughter of nobleman Erik Abrahamsson (Leijonhufvud) and his wife Ebba Eriksdotter (Vasa) who was second cousin of Margareta's husband Gustav Vasa. She also had six siblings. Märta is the youngest out of them, born about 1½ month after their father was executed in the Stockholm bloodbath in 1520. The others were the sisters: Birgitta (Brita) born in 1514; Anna born in 1515 (She fell down the stairs at Örebro castle and died when she was just about a year or so old.) and a second Anna born in 1517. Margareta also had two brothers: Abraham born either in 1512 or 1513 and Sten born in 1518.

Very little about her childhood is known, but on contrary to many of the other wives and children of the men executed in the bloodbath Ebba and her children was not imprisoned by Kristian II. Erik had put them in the convent in Västerås and after the bloodbath, they could return to their family estates like before. She was most likely raised like any of the other noblewomen at the time.

Gustav Vasa

Her husband, Gustav Eriksson (Vasa) first married the daughter of duke Magnus I of Saxe-Lauenburg, Katarina in 1531 and she gave birth to Erik (XIV) in 1533. It is possible that the 15 year old Margareta was part of her court, but nothing is certain. Katarina died already in 1535 after having fallen while dancing at one of the balls at the castle. Rumours had it that Gustav had hit her with a hammer, but there are no evidences for the modern opening of the Vasa grave in Uppsala cathedral and her brother-in-law, the Danish king Kristian III writes that he saw her fall. the rumours however were hard to lay to rest and Gustav became a persona non grata in the other European courts and he decided to strengthen his relation to the Swedish higher nobility and chose Margareta as his wife.

There is a story about Margareta first being betrothed to Svante Sture and that Gustav had come into her chambers finding him on his knees in front of her. Margareta is said to have then told her new husband that Svante was there because he wanted to marry Märta.

To be honest I have some serious doubts about this particular story. Mostly because it does not really fit into Svante's background. It happened that parents decided on the marriage of their children early, but Svante was only three and Margareta was four at the time he was imprisoned together with his mother Kristina Gyllenstierna and siblings in 1520. The family was also removed to Denmark the next year and while his mother and older brother Nils came back to Sweden in 1524, Svante remained in Denmark to be schooled by the bishop of Århus, Ove Bille at least until 1532. After that, he also spent a couple of years at the court of Gustav's father-in-law duke Magnus I before he was (according to himself) lured to Lübeck where he was offered the Swedish crown. When he refused the offer, he was held prisoner before returning to Sweden in 1536. This would be the same year Margareta and Gustav married and even if there had been an agreement about an engagement between Svante and Margareta before 1520, I doubt they would have been big enough to have developed any real feelings towards one another that is supposed to have prompted Svante to go to Margareta and proclaim his love for her. I also wonder how much the story was made up just to strengthen the antagonization between the Vasa and the Sture family.

Margareta was 20 years old and Gustav 40 at the time of the wedding at Uppsala cathedral on 1 October 1536. The age difference might seem strange to us, but was not really unusual at the time. The couple actually seems to have been very happy together and even though Margareta could not be involved in the meetings of Riksrådet, she seems to often have followed him on his travels through the country either with or without children. Their marriage also connected her siblings and brother-in-laws (including Svante Sture) to the king's inner circle.

There are 16 letters left of the correspondence between Margareta and Märta from the years 1544 to 1551. According to Karin Tegenborg Falkdalen (2016) this is to be considered a substantial amount of letters from the earlier half of the 16th century. The letters give an insight into the women's every day lives. The sisters Leijonhufvud discussed economics and domestic affairs mixed with discussions of illnesses and remedies. They also seem to have missed each other when they were apart, so they must have been close. Based on the contents Svante also seems to have used his wife's correspondence with her sister to give messages to the king. That people went through Margareta to give messages to her husband was actually pretty common and is a practice you can see in regards to Kristina Gyllenstierna and Sten Sture the younger too.

Cecilia Vasa

Margareta gave birth to ten children: Johan (III) in 1537, Katarina in 1539, Cecilia in 1540, Magnus in 1542, Anna in 1545, Sofia in 1547, Elisabet in 1549 and Karl (IX) in 1550. She and Gustav also had two sons Karl (born in 1544) and Sten (born in 1546) who died before they turned one. All the children were very well cared for and Gustav seems to have been a very caring father with lots of opinions about how the two (later three) nannies would raise them. Kristina Gyllenstierna (who was Gustav's aunt), Margareta's mother Ebba and her sisters Märta and Brita seem to have been there when the royal couple needed an extra hand too. The letters to Märta also tell us that Margareta sent her nannies to her younger sister whenever she needed an extra caretaker.

The royals traveled throughout Sweden and Finland a lot and the parliament met at different cities. From the 1540's however, the royal family mostly spent time in the castle in Stockholm and at Gripsholm's castle. Both of which were renovated and modernized. The family also visited the castles and estates in Kungsör, Västerås, Tynnelsö, Uppsala and Svartsjö. As their economy stablised, their lifestyle got more and more exclusive as seen in the bookkeepings.

Margareta on the sarcophagus
in the Vasa choir in cathedral
in Uppsala.

In the late 1540's Margareta seems to have been sick a lot and according to their letters so was Märta. The sisters discussed their illnesses and remedies in the correspondence. It is unclear what illnesses they suffered from, but Karin Tegenborg Falkdalen (2016) thinks it is their many pregnancies that preyed on them and I think it is totally reasonable to think so as well. Both women got better, but in August 1551 she became ill again and Gustav wrote to Kristina Gyllenstierna and Märta and Svante to hurry to Tynnelsö where the family was. This time, her life could not be saved and she died on 26 August 1551 between 2 and 3 PM. Gustav's nephew, Per Brahe wrote that "the sun lost its shine" at that time. She was first burried at Storkyrkan in Stockholm were her predecessor Katarina had also been laid to rest. In 1560, when Gustav died, they were both removed to the cathedral in Uppsala were all three of them were put to a final rest in the Vasa choir.

Burial crowns of Margareta and Katarina of Saxe-Lauenburg
at the Cathedral Museum in Uppsala

References

• Larsson, Lars-Olof 2002. Gustav Vasa - landsfader eller tyrann?, Falun
• Tegenborg Falkdalen, Karin 2010. Vasadöttrarna, Falun
• Tegenborg Falkdalen, Karin 2016. Margareta Regina - vid kung Gustav Vasas sida. En biografi över Margareta Leijonhufvud (1516-1551), Lithuania

The portrait of Margareta was borrowed from her Wikipedia page and the ones of Gustav and Cecilia were borrowed from here and here.

Historical Women: Märta Eriksdotter Leijonhufvud

I have not been able to find any
portray of Märta and I'm not sure
there are any known ones of her.
This is her family crest however.

“Beside every good man is a good woman, and she must always be ready to step in front"

~ Phryne Fisher, 

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries: 

Deadweight

Today is the 497th birthday of one of my absolute favourite historical women: Märta Eriksdotter Leijonhuvud. She was born 24 December 1520 at the family estate Ekeby in Lillkyrka parish in the Swedish province Närke.

She's the daughter-in-law of Kristina Nilsdotter Gyllenstierna and the aunt of Cecilia Vasa who have featured before in my Historical Women series and the youngest child of Erik Abrahamsson Leijonhufvud and his wife Ebba Eriksdotter Vasa. Märta never got to meet her father though. He was executed in Stockholm's bloodbath about 1½ month before she was born. She also had five (Or six if you count the first sister called Anna who died at the age of one or two falling down the stairs at Örebro castle.) older siblings: Abraham (1512/1513-1556), Birgitta (Brita) (1514-1572), Margareta (1516-1551), Anna (1517-1540) and Sten (1518-1568). To protect his family, Erik sent them to the convent in Västerås, which probably saved them from going to prison in Denmark. After the bloodbath, Ebba returned to the family estate where she probably also gave birth to Märta.

Svante Sture

At the age of 18, Märta married Kristina Gyllenstierna's son Svante Sture who was three years older than herself and from what you can get out of the available sources, it seems like they were quite happy.

I do not agree with the Swedish historians claiming Svante to be a boring character. On the contrary, I find him appealing and interesting. He did not have such an easy childhood. He lost his father, the Swedish regent Sten Sture the younger and was imprisoned by king Krisian II at the age of three. Even though it is said that Kristian's wife, queen Elisabeth, had him and his brother fostered out to a noble family in Kalundborg, Denmark where the Swedish noble women and children who had been captured at the bloodbath were imprisoned.

In 1534 he went to the Hanseatic town Lübeck (according to himself, he was tricked to come there) where he was offered the Swedish crown. The town had helped Gustav Vasa break free from the Kalmar union a few years earlier and Gustav refused to pay them. They had also got involved in the Danish civil war called The Count's Feud (1534-1536). Svante however refused the offer and was therefore held prisoner for some time afterwards. It was not the last time, people tried to use him in their rebelling against Gustav. During the so called Dacke War, he and Märta were offered to become king and queen of Sweden by the rebels from the province Småland, but they refused.

Historians (mainly male ones!) often says this is a survival strategy Svante stuck to. The Stures and Kristina Gyllenstierna were popular among the Swedish people who had not yet forgot their time ruling Sweden. Svante's older brother Nils was most likely also the young rebel who Gustav Vasa labelled as "Dalajunkern" who was executed in Rostock in 1527. I, however, see him in a slightly different light. Of course his background matter. However, I also think he had more or less the opposite personality as his older brother. While the difficult circumstances of their childhood made Nils Sture into a unruly teenager, I think it made Svante turn inwards into himself. I see him as a man who was not really interested in power. I think he had the societal position he had mostly because of his DNA and I also think he would be labelled as a geek if he had lived today. Historians, who are interested in power structures, often describes him as "boring" and Märta is said to be the more feisty character out of the two and I do not think it is really fair. Based on their letter exchange, Märta was also very close to her sister, queen Margareta, which probably did not make her too keen to take over the throne.

There is a story that Svante was first betrothed to Märta's older sister Margareta and that he rushed to see her when he learned that she had married Gustav Vasa and that Gustav had found him on his knees in front of her and Margareta had told her husband that Svante had come to ask for Märta's hand in marriage. I have not really decided what I think about this. It certainly is an interesting story, but it might just be that too: a story. Before he married, Svante spent a lot of time outside of Sweden and he did not return until 1536 when Margareta and Gustav married. However, they did not marry until 1 October and depending on when Svante got back to Sweden it might be true. What is true is that he married Märta and it seems like it was both a beneficial and a happy match.

The Sture burial choir in the
Uppsala cathedral

Svante was made one of the first counts in Sweden in 1561 so technically Märta became a countess. She did not however use the title until she after had been made widow.

ÅÅren effter Christi födilsse mdxxxviij emillen mondagen och tisdagen tå xi slog , wartt jomfrv Sigriidtt, Swantis och frv Märtis dotter, födh, i i j:e daga för nysdag, Gudi tiill loff, heder och ære. Amen.
(The years after Christ's birth 1538 between Monday and Tuesday when the clock hit 11, maid Sigrid, Svante's and Märta's daughter [unclear]. To God's honour.)

~ Märta's mother-in-law, Kristina's note when Märta's 

and Svante's first child was born in 1538.

(Quoted in Flemberg 2017.)

Märta and Svante got fifteen children in twenty-two years. Ten of them lived into adulthood. Among other's they had three sons named Nils, Sten and Erik. Sten died in the Action of 7 July 1565. Nils, Erik and also Svante were killed by king Erik XIV on 24 May 1567 in the event that is known in history as the Sture Murders.

For Märta, the murders was a great tragedy. The letters she writes during her sons's and husband's get more and more angst-filled and desperate as time progressed and she gets less and less answer. Four letters have survived, but there might have been many more.

The Sture costumes

16th century letters from the royal and noble families are filled with rhetoric and titles but in those letter, Märta puts more and more of that aside and bares her true feelings and pours her angst and desperation into the letters the more precarious her situation gets. What is so tragic about the last one of them is that, her husband and sons were most likely already dead inside Uppsala castle without her knowing it.

Days later the queen dowager and Märta's niece (Margareta died already in 1551 and Gustav Vasa then married her and Märta's niece.) Katarina Stenbock is said to have broken the news to her. Katarina then rushed to Stockholm to meet Erik XIV who had run away from the castle in Uppsala in the middle of the event. He was found a couple of days later in Odensala. He sends her to Märta and the other relations of the other victims (Abraham Stenbock and Ivar Liljeörn) her as compensation for the lives of her husband and sons.

The arranged the funerals of the victims. Svante, Nils and Erik were laid to rest in the Sture family grave inside Uppsala cathedral. Märta was also given silver bricks which she called: "Ett olyckligt förbannat silver, som mig ett så dyrt värde kostat" ("An unfortunate cursed silver, that has cost me so dearly").

Märta had always held a prominent position in the Swedish nobility and because her husband was often away, she was the one to handle the family estates and fiefs. For this she gained the nickname Kung Märta (King Märta). In a way, this was the beginning of a new life for Märta. As widow she gained authority and she used it very well. When Erik gained back his health after his mental collapse in connection to the Sture murders, he wanted the silver back, but Märta refused. Instead she used "the blood bricks" which she called them to support Erik's brothers rebellion. When Johan got the throne, he repaid her by giving her back her husband's county which was also expanded. Together with her sister Brita and sister-in-law Ebba Lilliehöök she was one of the greatest fief-holders in Sweden at the time. However, she did no longer have direct access to the Council of the Realm, but to get her opinion known she used her two remaining sons Mauritz and Karl (15 and 12 at the time of the murders) and her son-in-laws.

Märta's chest

To make sure people did not forgot what had happend, Märta put her husband and sons's clothes that they had worn during their murders in a chest and placed it on their grave. This clothes have survived and are, together with the chest, on display in the Uppsala cathedral museum. They are known as The Sture Costumes today.

The lock of Märta's chest, I find it totally mesmerizing

Märta herself died in 1584 and was buried alongside her husband and children in the Sture grave in Uppsala cathedral.




References

• Ericson, Lars 2004. Johan III. En biografi, Riga
• Eriksson, Bo 2017. Sturarna. Makten, morden, missdåden, Latvia
• Flemberg, Marie-Louise 2017. Kristina Gyllenstierna. Kvinnan som stod upp mot Kristian Tyrann, Falun
• von Konow, Jan 2003. Sturemorden 1567. Ett drama i kampen mellan kungamakt och högadel, Karlskrona
• Larsson, Lars-Olof 2002. Gustav Vasa - landsfader eller tyrann?, Falun
• Larsson, Lars-Olof 2005. Arvet efter Gustav Vasa. En berättelse om fyra kungar och ett rike, Falun
• Petersson, Erik 2008. Den skoningslöse. En biografi över Karl IX, Falun
• Tegenborg Falkdalen, Karin 2010. Vasadöttrarna, falun
• Tegenborg Falkdalen, Karin 2015. Vasadrottningen. En biografi över Katarina Stenbock 1535-1621, Lithuania
• Tegenborg Falkdalen, Karin 2016. Margareta Regina - vid kung Gustav Vasas sida. En biografi över Margareta Leijonhufvud (1516-1551), Lithuania
• https://sok.riksarkivet.se/sbl/Presentation.aspx?id=34643
• https://sok.riksarkivet.se/Sbl/Presentation.aspx?id=11172

The portrait of Svante Sture was borrowed from his Wikipedia page and the one of the Leijonhufvud family crest was borrowed from Märta's own.

The Nyköping Banquet

Portrait of Birger Magnusson

Nyköpings gästabud (The Nyköping Banquet) happened on this day 700 years ago (10 December 1317) and is one of the more well-known incidents in Swedish history. But it did not really start there. One can say that the prelude started already in 1290 when Swedish king Magnus Ladulås died.

Magnus had three sons and two daughters. The oldest son was Birger who had been elected king at the age of four, was only ten years old at the time of his father's death wherefore the Lord High Constable of Sweden, Torgils (or Torkel) Knutsson, became protector until 1298. Birger married the Danish princess Margarete who in Sweden was known as queen Märta.

Birger's two brothers Erik and Valdemar became dukes, but Erik wanted more power. With the support of Valdemar, he captured Birger at his kongsgård Håtuna by the lake Mälaren in what is known in Swedish history as Håtunaleken (The Håtuna game) on 29 September 1306. Erik and Valdemar then took their brother to the castle Nyköpingshus where they kept him imprisoned for two years.

The seal of Erik

Erik then got to power and through his marriage to the Norwegian princess Ingeborg, he hoped he would inherit the Norwegian throne as well. They got the son Magnus and the daughter Eufemia.

The relationship between the three brothers continued to be strained and the Danish and Norwegian kings felt a need to interfere. A peace treaty was sign in Helsingborg in 1310 which divided the country into three parts: Birger got eastern Sweden, Erik got western Sweden and Valdemar got Stockholm and Finland (Finland was a part of Sweden at the time.).

Some years past and the brothers relations seemed to be fine. On 10 December 1317, Birger invited his brothers to a banquet at Nyköping castle. At first everything seemed fine and queen Märta is said to have been happier than usual. When time came to go to bed however, Birger claimed that there was no room for Erik and Valdemar's soldiers in the castle, so they left to find sleeping arrangements in town instead.

In the middle of the night, the dukes were woken up and captured by Birger and his men saying: "Minns ni något av Håtunaleken? Jag minns den mycket väl. Denna är inte bättre än den." ("Do you remember the Håtuna game? I remember it very well. This one is not better.")

It is said that Erik and Valdemar were thrown barefoot into the prison in one of the towers were they starved to death.

The seal of Valdemar

The only real historical source we have is Erikskrönikan (The Erik Chronicles) which is the oldest (surviving) Swedish chronicle. The author is not known,but it is thought to have been written down some time between 1320 and 1335 (i.e. not long after the events described in this post. It is written in the old German verse meter called Knittlevers. The protagonist and hero of the chronicle is actually duke Erik Magnusson wherefore you cannot say that the chronicle is particularly reliable. It is a good source if you want to study the self-image of the aristocracy at the time though.

On 18 January 1318, the dukes wrote their wills in which it says that they are still healthy even though they are imprisoned. This information, even if they were forced to write it, goes against Erikskrönikan's description of them dying within days of the banquet and also about the terrible condition it describes they had inside the prison.

Birger thought this would make him king over all of Sweden (and Finland) again, but Erik's wife Ingeborg took up the fight for the sake of her and Erik's three year old son Magnus. That, however, is a different story worth a post in my Historical Women series wherefore I leave it for now. The Nyköping Banquet (together with Håtunaleken) is one of the most well-known events of the Swedish Middle Ages and something Swedes often remember from history lessons in school.

References

• Harrison, Dick 2002. Sveriges historia. Medeltiden, Falköping
• Harrison, Dick 2009. Norstedts Sveriges historia 600-1350, Värnamo
• Larsson, Lars-Olof 2006. Kalmarunionens tid, Falun
• Lindkvist, Thomas & Sjöberg, Maria 2016. Det svenska samhället 800-1720. Klerkernas och adelns tid, Lund
• Vetenskapsradion Historia - Nyköpings gästabud 700 år. 

Photos were borrowed here.

The six queens of Henry VIII

Divorced, beheaded and died.
Divorced, beheaded survived.
I'm Henry VIII I had six sorry wives,
Some might say I ruined their lives. 

~ Horrible Histories

If you know me, you have probably realised that I have a big interest in the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period in European history. My main interest is the Swedish royal dynasty Vasa, but I never say no to watching or reading about the English Tudors.

The Tudor dynasty is far more frequently portrayed in popular culture than the Vasas and I recently came across a documentary in four parts about the six wives of Henry VIII (1491-1547) that from what I have understand is made by BBC and where historians Suzannah Lipscomb and Dan Jones tell the stories of the six queens.

I really enjoy watching a documentary about the six queens and the focus is very much on them throughout the four episodes. I do feel sorry for all of them even though Anne Boleyn seems to have been quite cruel to be honest.

On the annual big Swedish book sale in 2005, I bought Antonia Fraser's book The six Wives of Henry VIII translated into Swedish by Margareta Eklöf. It was over ten years since I read it, so it was nice to have a reminder of them even though the documentary (for obvious reasons) was not as thorough as the book was.

The queens all deserve posts in my Historical Women series, but I will give you a short overview of each of them here.

Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536) is the first of Henry's wife and they seem to have actually loved each other from the beginning. She originally came from Spain at the age of 15 to marry Henry's older brother Arthur in November 1501, but he died pretty soon after their wedding. Henry VIII's father, king Henry VII, then said that Catherine could marry prince Henry instead if Catherine's father (Ferdinand II of Aragon) could send her dowry in advance. For some reason Ferdinand did not do this and Catherine was left without money to even buy for food. Seven years later, in 1509 Henry VII died of tuberculosis and Henry VIII was now king and free to marry whoever he wanted and he chose Catherine who he actually seems to have loved.

Their struggle (and failing) to get a healthy child is well-known and the only one who lived through the first few weeks was their daughter who would later be known as king/queen Mary I. What is far lesser known I think is Catherine's  war victory over the Scots.

Henry named her regent while he was at war against France in 1513 and the Scottish king James IV saw a chance to invade England. Catherine however countered with sending two armies and leading a third one and at the battle of Flodden Field on 9 September king James was killed.

Catherine really seems to have been a pretty fierce fighter and she did not give up her husband without a fight. She was forced to do so in the end and live the rest of her life in poverty.

Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn (c 1501-1536) was made queen in 1533 when she married Henry with a promise that he would give him a son. What surprised me was how soon after Catherine's death Anne was beheaded. I thought there was at least a year apart and not only a couple of months. One can definitely say that she must have fallen from grace as fast as she rose to it.

She too failed to give Henry a living son. The only living child they got was king/queen Elizabeth I.

She was accused of having affairs with several of the male court members (among others her own brother!) and was beheaded in May 1536. The documentary does not seem to think she was guilty of the claims but rather that she was a flirty person in a very flirty court who did not really know how to tread on the fine line of flirting without upsetting her husband.

Jane Seymour

Jane Seymour (c 1508-1537) is often described as pretty meek. She became engaged to Henry the day after Anne's excecution in 1536.

Jane rewith his oldest daughter Mary whom she seems to have befriended and cared for.

She died only days after having given birth to hers and Henry's son king Edward VI in October 1537.

Anna von Kleve (1515-1557) (Or Anne of Cleves as she is usually called in English.) came from Germany to marry Henry in 1540.

When Jane died, Henry sent out his painter Hans Holbein the younger to look for a new wife. Among other ones, he painted the portrayed above to the right and the one of princess Christine af Denmark whose involvement with Henry I will get to later.

Anna von Kleve

Henry was suspicious, so he decided to disguise himself and seek her up. If she would recognise him, he decided she was the love of his life. She did not recognise him at all and of course being approached by a man in discguise scared her. (Based on the #metoo-movement I cannot say that I blame her either.) Henry also found her ugly saying she looked like a horse.

The marriage therefore was annuled after only a few months and this is one of the main problems I have with the documentary. They sort of leave her story unfinished showing no interest in her life after the divorce even though she got a really powerful position as The king's beloved sister. She also befriended Henry and cared for his children. She also outlived both Henry and his other wives and got to see Mary I being crowned.

Jane Seymour

The fact that this is left out is a bit confusing based on the title of the documentary. It seems that even though it was a documentary in four episodes about his wives, the leading character in it was still really Henry.

Catherine Howard (c 1523-1542) was the cousin of Anne Boleyn and she was married to Henry almost as soon as his marriage to Anna of Cleves was annuled.

As was the tradition of Henry's wives, she did not last long. In five years, he actually had four failed marriages.

Catherine was accused of treason for commiting adultery with the male courtier Thomas Culpeper and was beheaded in February 1542.

Catherine Parr

Catherine Parr (c 1512-1548) was to be Henry's last wife. They married in 1543. She had been married twice before and really knew how to take care of both him and his children. It seems like she had a keen eye to Thomas Seymour, the brother of Henry's third wife Jane. When the king proposed however, she must have thought she could not refuse him.

She was far more political than I would have thought to be honest. She too is also often portrayed as meek. She tried to urge Henry on to finish the reformation, but the bishop of Winchester put a stop to it.

Henry died in 1547 and Catherine left the court after Edward VI's coronation. She married Thomas Seymour, but died in childbirth only a year later.

Christine af Denmark

That was a very shortened version of the life of each of Henry's queens. Overall I liked the documentary, but there were a few things that they could have thought about. Like I said, the leaving out the rest of Anne of Cleves life in England did not fit into the focus of the documentary.

Another thing really bothered me even though I cannot say it surprised me either. They hosts said that Henry was not keen to leave the throne to one of his daughters because every time a woman had tried to rule England before it had ended in civil war. While this is true, they completely left out the fact that the civil war parts of the female rulers's reign was not really their fault, but caused by men not wanting a woman to rule at all...

I also find it rather ironic that the woman who played Anne Boleyn looked a bit like Catherine of Aragon. It was like the play I saw of Swedish king Erik XIV's life at the castle in Kalmar this summer where the court musician was more or less a clone of the 16th century king while the man playing Erik did not look at all like him.

And last of all I would also have liked them to include Henry's proposal to the Danish princess Christina (The portrait above to the right is the one Hans Holbein the younger made that I mentioned above.), daugther of king Christian II and his wife Isabella of Austria, who is said to have refused him saying that she only had one head and she would very much like to keep it!

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.