Fast 650 Jahre lebten Schweden und Finnen im Königreich Schweden offenbar sehr harmonisch nebeneinander (1150–1809): Die Finnen erhielten trotz ihrer teilweise anderen Kultur und ihrer späteren Bekehrung zum Christentum die gleichen Rechte und Pflichten gegenüber der Krone wie die schwedischsprachige Mehrheit. Im schwedischen Schauspiel “Alle Bedlegrannas Spegel” von 1647 treten jedoch eher negative Vorstellungen von brutalen und kriminellen Finnen zu Tage. In diesem Aufsatz soll versucht werden zu klären, wie und weshalb ein solch negatives Image entstehen konnte. Indem untersucht wird, wie im Ausland und in Schweden verfasste Schriften Finnen darstellten und insbesondere wie Finnen in den lokalen schwedischen Gemeinschaften gesehen wurden, wird deutlich, dass sie durch ihre andersartige Sprache und ihre generell schwächere wirtschaftliche und soziale Stellung in den Augen wohlhabender schwedischer Kreise, die die sozialen Grenzen zwischen aufrichtigen und unredlichen Menschen festlegten, zu Fremden wurden.
In 1647, at the latest, an interesting piece of literature entitled Alle Bedlegrannas Spegel (“The Mirror of All Picky Ones”) came out in Sweden.2 It is a drama written in doggerel verse by an anonymous author and it focuses on a young and proud maiden who refuses one suitor after another until she quite unexplainably accepts the proposal of the tenth one, a Finnish man who is characterised simply as “a Finn” (en Finne). The nine earlier suitors have all been honest men, but the Finn is described as a cruel and violent brute. He even speaks some kind of pidgin language mixing Finnish and badly pronounced Swedish and that is why the earlier studies have concentrated on the drama’s linguistic aspects.3 It is apparent that the antihero of the story was meant to be a personification of already existing negative attitudes towards Finns: the Finn abuses his wife verbally and stabs her finally to death with his knife. In his last lines he tells the readers that the executioner will not be able to catch him, since he is going to flee back to Finland:
So do the other Finns, too, when they have misbehaved in Sweden; they move quickly to Finland. Who will find them then? So they have done earlier and so they do still today.4
However, despite these apparent ethnic prejudices the key message in Alle Bedlegrannas Spegel was not directed against the Finns; instead, the purpose of the story was to mock “too picky” young women by means of a warning tale. It is nevertheless revealing that a Finnish man was presented as the worst alternative a Swedish woman could choose. The anonymous writer belonged most probably to somewhat educated circles, and that is why it can be argued that at least in these circles the Finnish immigrants could be looked at with negative sentiments.
While reading Alle Bedlegrannas Spegel, one must bear in mind that the main parts of the areas that the present-day Republic of Finland consists of belonged to the Kingdom of Sweden during the time when the story was published for the first time. By then Finns and Swedes had lived in a same realm for approximately five centuries. How are we then supposed to interpret the negative image of the Finn made public by the story? How did it come into being?
In this article I am going to discuss the relationships between these two neighbouring nations during a period when most of the Finnish peninsula was a part of Sweden. The analysis consists of three sections: In the first section I will present a brief survey on perceptions and descriptions of medieval and early modern Finns. These perceptions form a basis for further analysis in the second section, where I will deal with early Finnish migration to Swedish local communities. The key issue will be how Finns were perceived by the Swedes on the grassroots-level. In the third section I will try to explain the reasons for the evident alienness which sometimes characterised the Finns in the eyes of their Swedish compatriots.
Due to the paucity of the available sources the study must be mainly based on sources of an official nature, i.e. records that have been produced within medieval and early modern administrative and judicial systems. The central sources for my analysis are preserved protocols from Stockholm and several other Swedish towns where Finnish immigrants presided.5 The main fault in the protocols is of course that they focus on conflicts and norm-challenging behaviour more than on harmonious coexistence and interaction. Despite their limitations, sources of this kind have been successfully explored in studies on everyday life forms and mentalities in the past.
Most of the Finnish peninsula was incorporated into the Swedish realm during the period of “crusades” in the 12th, 13th and early 14th centuries. When Alle Bedlegrannas Spegel was published almost five centuries had passed since the first “crusade” from Sweden to Finland. This partly mythical event, which took place around 1155, is regarded as the starting point for the history of Finns in the Swedish realm – a history which lasted until 1809. We do not know how the “crusaders” experienced the population that awaited them on the Finnish peninsula, but scholars of antiquity and the early medieval West had characterised early Finns in a way partly similar to what we have just found in Alle Bedlegrannas Spegel: authors beginning with Tacitus had seen Finns as uncultivated barbarians or animal-like creatures. Although it has been proved that some of the descriptions concerning Finni, Fenni and so on, in fact, referred to the nomadic Sami people, early medieval Finns had clearly been seen as non-humans, or at least aliens living outside the civilised world.6
But perceptions of this kind were hardly based on close interaction between Finns and other ethnic groups. Instead, they can be explained by the geographic remoteness of the Finnish peninsula and the fact that Finns had not come into close contact with the areas touched by advanced civilisation and Christianity. Descriptions of other peripheral peoples were very similar to those concerning Finns.7 The cruel and untrustworthy character of the Finns was complained of in three bulls issued by popes in the 13th century, as the Christianisation of the Finnish peninsula posed problems for the Catholic Church. Descriptions of cruelty were apparently felt necessary as motivations for “crusades” and it has been proved that the popes could use exactly the same formulations while bemoaning the wickedness of other heathen nations, too.8
While worshipping the two leaders of the first “crusade”, King Erik and Bishop Henrik, the Swedish Church (the Finnish bishopric included) maintained a tradition according to which the pre-Christianised Finns had been wild heathens who had caused harm to their neighbours.9 In fact, there is no evidence that the Finns had taken part in actions against the Swedish core areas like the burning of the Swedish religious centre Sigtuna in 1187. Nevertheless, the tradition was carried on in late medieval aristocratic literature written in Swedish – apparently in order to glorify the past of the nobility. This is evident especially in Erikskrönikan, a domestic imitation of the international chivalric poetry composed in the early 14th century.10 The heathen and wild past of the Finns was even expressed in visual form by the Finnish bishopric: one of the engravings on Saint Henrik’s sarcophagus, a 15th century product of Christian art commissioned by of the bishop of Turku (Swedish Åbo), shows more or less anachronistically armed Finns and Swedes fighting against each other during the first “crusade”.11
The heathen past was not necessarily felt as a burden in late medieval or early modern Swedish society – Swedes, too, had originally been heathens and plundered other nations. At least in a non-theological context the heathen background did not necessarily play any significant role at all in the late medieval word: the heathens, even Muslims against whom the medieval West had fought for centuries, could be seen to share the same ethical and moral values as the Christians.12 Despite the public memory of the former or alleged conflicts between Swedes and Finns there is no information on any kind of large-scale bloodshed between the Finns and the Swedes after the period of the “crusades”. Nevertheless, there were peasant resistance and even uprisings against the authorities in Finland, but the case was similar in the Swedish part of the realm. The uprisings seem to have been directed against tax assessments, local officials or wealthy landowners, not against being a part of the Kingdom of Sweden.13 On the contrary, there seem to have occurred serious conflicts within the Finnish-speaking population in the 15th century, as two Finnish regions or tribes concurred with each other on the control of the scarcely inhabited inland and the Swedish officials had to act as peacemakers.14 The linguistic relationship was clearly not enough to cause any sentiments of political unity among the Finnish-speaking population. Consequently, eastern Finns or Karelians, whose areas were regarded as a part of the Russian dominion on the basis of the peace treaty of 1323, and who thus had become members of the Orthodox Church, were described as enemies or Russians by other Finns converted to Catholicism.15
The works written within the learned Swedish-speaking circles during the 16th century show that at least Peder Månsson and Olaus Magnus regarded the Finns as a distinct ethnic group. Peder Månsson presented Finns as an important resource due to their greater fertility and proposed that the Finns should be allowed to cultivate estates that had become uninhabited in the Swedish part of the realm during the Black Death. Olaus Magnus shared this view and gave lengthy descriptions of the Finns’ ethnic characteristics – mostly in a positive light. Of course, the purpose of Olaus Magnus’s Historia de septentrionalibus gentibus, which was published in Rome in 1555, was to make the Southern European audience aware of how large areas in the North had by then been lost to Protestantism, and that is why it is understandable that he did not pay too much attention to the negative qualities of any nation living in the North. However, Olaus Magnus did mention the widespread belief that Finns could control winds by means of ropes with “charmed” knots and that they even sold those ropes to foreign merchants visiting their harbours. This superstition was already established in the works of two 13th-century authors, Bartholomeus Glanvil (Anglicus) and Saxo Grammaticus, and it influenced several products of Western European literature during the later centuries, too. The longevity of this belief bears witness on how the Finns living in a peripheral corner of Europe were physically integrated into Western European civilisation, but at the same time mentally alienated in the eyes of the “more civilised” peoples.16
The outcome of the incorporation of Finland into Sweden was curious – even more curious than has been admitted in Swedish or Finnish history books. Usually, ethnic groups conquered by their neighbours were treated as somewhat inferior to the conquering nation: for instance, the peoples subjugated by the Romans or the Irish conquered by the English were treated according to separate judicial norms.17 However, the Finns received, despite their completely different language, their partly different culture, their more recent conversion to Christianity and their ambiguous international repute a judicial status equal to the Swedes through the legislation enacted by the Crown during the 14th century. The earliest written laws of the Kingdom of Sweden, the provincial laws (landskapslagarna) from the 13th and 14th century contained certain ethnocentric features, as they regarded the legal status of a foreigner coming from outside the realm as somewhat inferior.18 But concerning the ethnic groups living within the Swedish realm the social hierarchies were in the later Middle Ages officially based on other factors than language or geographical background: family background, economic capacity, personal reputation, age and sex weighed most when a person’s judicial rights were defined according to the norm system. Thus, the Finns had officially the same rights and the same obligations towards the Crown as the Swedish majority. Even documents telling of how the normative legislation was applied in practice bear witness to the equal status of the Finns in relation to the Swedes.
But while treating Finns in a similar fashion as Swedes, the Swedish legislation spoke surprisingly little of the Finns as an ethnic group – in fact, its existence was never directly mentioned in the juridical texts. Instead, the term “Swede” covered also the Finns. In the law texts Finland and Finnish provinces were mentioned seldom and only as geographic locations.19 The pattern is very similar in the chronicle works that reflect the world view of the late medieval Swedish aristocracy: they, too, mention Finns (or other tribes speaking some dialect of Finnish), but they are mentioned very seldom compared to Swedish-speaking tribes.20 The reason for this evident ethnic silence in the laws and the aristocratic literature is a complex one: it can probably reflect some kind of mental unwillingness of the Swedish Crown and the Swedish aristocracy to recognise the ethnically heterogeneous nature of the realm in public. But during the medieval period the silence can also be explained by the above mentioned dubious repute of the uncultivated Finns within Western European society – that is probably why the kings of Sweden never assumed the title “King of Finns” or “King of Finland”, although they always were, among other things, kings of the svear and the götar. The Duchy of Finland had been only a temporary creation in the High Middle Ages and it was most certainly completely forgotten when King Gustav Vasa reinvented it in 1556 and gave it to his second oldest son, Johan. By then, the patriotic Swedish history writers, who wanted to glorify the past of the Swedish realm had already “found out” that Finland indeed had been a mighty kingdom before the Swedish rule. That is why the south western corner of Finland on Olaus Magni famous map Carta marina (1539) is marked as olim regnum, “ancient kingdom”.21
Of course, we must bear in mind that the contents of the words can and do change. It has been argued that many of the terms that nowadays are perceived as ethnic or national indicators were originally linked to kings rather than states. Thus, the word svensk, i.e. Swede, was in the Middle Ages synonymous with “a subject to the King of Sweden”. The connotations of svensk started to change during the Early Modern Era, and probably not until then the word got its modern contents, where being a part of one ethno-territorial unity was central.22 Recent interpretations of ideas concerning nations in early modern Sweden made by Patrik Hall and Jonas Nordin tend to stress the ideological continuity during several centuries, but both scholars concentrate mainly on the statements uttered within learned circles and political elites. Nordin, in particular, is influenced by Anthony D. Smith’s thesis that nations in the past can be characterised as ethnies or ethnic communities, where members felt some kind of sense of mutual solidarity because of (loosely understood) common language, common religion, common geographical origin and common traditions. Although Smith speaks of collective self-perceptions, the Swedish elites seem to have regarded the Finnish minority as an ethnie of its own.23
However, as Sally McKee points out, it is less significant to debate whether the communities of the distant past can be described with terms like nation or not, than to analyse the contexts in which the individuals described their relations to the others. According to McKee, the existence of the ethnic identity cannot be denied, but it did not have any stable character; instead it could be fluid and situational:
[I]t seems, then, a little unreasonable to expect peoples in the past to have had any better grasp of their identities than we have of our own.24
The incorporation of the Finnish peninsula into the Swedish realm was secured by Swedish migration to the western and southern coasts of Finland.25 Migration in the opposite direction also occurred. It is not known when the first immigrants from Finland arrived in Swedish villages and towns, but it has been argued on the basis of archaeological evidence that persons of Finnish origin dwelled in Sweden even before the period of the “crusades”. However, the earliest literal sources on Finnish immigrants date from the early 14th century.26 We do not know how big the percentage of newcomers who spoke Finnish as their mother tongue was. Among the immigrants from Finland were most certainly also persons who were descendants of earlier Swedish settlers in Finland.
On the grassroots-level the local population seems to have been fully aware of the cultural differences. This becomes evident while studying how the Finns were spoken of in an everyday context. Although the Finns were officially Swedes – at least from the point of view of the political elites, the writings composed within local communities, especially in towns, sometimes characterise Finnish immigrants in a way comparable to the usual characterisations of foreigners coming from abroad.
Contemporary social hierarchies were reflected in official records, since the scribes characterised individuals differently, depending on their background. The members of the upper classes or at least landowning groups were likely to appear with their complete names and titles or terms describing their social status, whereas persons of lesser groups could be characterised with only their names, nicknames or occupational titles without names.27 Thus, if a hypothetical Swedish-speaking peasant Jakob Jönsson, who was living in a parish of Solna, visited the neighbouring town Stockholm and had during his stay of some reason to be mentioned in the town’s official records, the scribe would have characterised him most likely as “Jakob Jönsson, a peasant from Solna” (Jakob Jönsson, en bonde från Solna) or, if the scribe felt the name was unimportant to be remembered, either as “a Solna peasant” (en Solnabonde) or plainly as “a peasant” (en bonde) without reference to his home parish. Of course, there existed even more alternatives for the scribe, but it is important to note that even in cases when the name was omitted the most usual characterisations always told something about the person’s social background (like being a peasant as in the example above).
However, the minutes of the town councils and other official records and protocols from several Swedish towns show that persons of foreign origin could be spoken of completely anonymously, i.e. without their names or any other social indicators than words mentioning their ethnic or geographic origin. For instance, a German merchant on his visit in Stockholm could be spoken of merely as “the German” (tysken), if the town scribe for some reason had to mention him in the official records.28 That kind of characterisation told nothing about his social background than that he was a stranger in the Swedish local community. Thus, the official records can transmit something of the Swedes’ feeling about persons of different ethnic origin being in their towns and parishes.
The same patterns were applied to characterisations of several Finnish individuals although they were judicially Swedes. Finns, too, could be spoken of without their names or any other social indicator than the term describing their linguistic or (generally speaking) geographic origin. Thus, they could remain as anonymous Finns in official records. For instance, a record made on the 21st of November 1491 in the minutes of the town council of Stockholm states that Hans Eriksson, a local burgher, should give “the Finn here in town” (finnen her j byn) his share of a heritage and that “the Finn” (finnen) should guarantee that he would then settle the matter with the other heirs in Finland.29 Although most individuals of Finnish origin were characterised exactly like the Swedes, “the Finn here in town” had several compatriots who had to remain anonymous in the records although many of them dwelled, permanently as it appears, within the Swedish local community.
In many cases the anonymity can be explained by the fact that the person in question had a low social status and had broken the norms of the local community but sometimes, as the abovementioned example shows, there must have been other reasons that explain the temporary omissions of names and titles – “the Finn here in town” had apparently not committed any crime.30 It is interesting to note that similar patterns of social anonymity can be found in Alle Bedlegrannas Spegel, where the earlier nine suitors appear with their occupational titles (ranging socially from a servant to a priest and a prosperous merchant), whereas the brutal Finn is characterised plainly as a “Finn”.
The cases of complete anonymity can be compared to the cases, when the name of a person in question has been mentioned in the records but he or she is simultaneously characterised as a “Finn” (finne or finska depending on the sex). These kinds of characterisations, too, were usual for foreigners, but rare while speaking of Swedes, i.e. Swedish-speaking individuals originating from the Swedish part of the realm.
In some rare cases even persons of Swedish origin could be characterised in the protocols in a way comparable to the characterisations of Finns and foreigners coming from abroad. This happened very seldom, but nevertheless it is noticeable in the Arboga protocols that at least some västgötar, i.e. persons originating from the province of Västergötland, could be seen as different to the other Swedes. The scribes have sometimes omitted the names of these individuals and plainly characterised them as västgötar. A notice, dating from 1644, shows that there might even have developed a stereotypic image, according to which the inhabitants of Västergötland were stingy. A student called Johannes wanted to buy a knife from a local salesman, Anders Krydkrämare, but he was willing to pay only eight ore, whereas Anders demanded twelve. Anders turned to his son and, probably just playfully, asked him what he thought of Johannes. The son answered that he was a västgöte, and that the “nature of a västgöte” was “sitting in him”, which made him bargain about the price. Johannes interpreted the answer as an insult.31
How should we understand these kinds of notices? Perhaps, the location of the province of Västergötland explains the occurrence of these stereotypes within the Swedish ethnie: from the point of view of the inhabitants of Arboga, which is situated in Central Sweden, Västergötland was a border province, bounded by Norway on the west and by Denmark on the south. Moreover, the main part of the province was situated between two great lakes behind the vast and dense forests, which originally had separated Götaland from Svealand.32 Thus, the proximity to the foreign kingdoms, which from time to time had hostile relations with Sweden, as well as their geographic remoteness, can be seen as possible reasons for the negative perceptions of the inhabitants of Västergötland. It is noteworthy, too, that the early state formation process of Sweden had probably included the incorporation of Götaland into Svealand in the 6th or 7th century.33 The result had formed the core of what was called Sverige, Sweden. The earliest known form of Sverige was Sveariki, which meant the realm of the svear – the latter were, in turn, another Swedish tribe, among whom the inhabitants of Arboga and Stockholm, for instance, were counted. This elucidates that the possible factors behind the otherness of the inhabitants of Västergötland are partly similar to those behind the alien character of the Finns.34
Of course, stereotypes of this kind are not unique. In fact, they are mere reflections on regional and local identities, which are still perceivable in modern societies: within almost every nation or ethnie, there exist more or less stereotypical beliefs towards inhabitants of other towns, villages, provinces or other communities and regions. Sometimes there even occurs – serious or not so serious – concurrence and mutual verbal defamation between two communities or regions.35 The regional or local identities and the intraethnic stereotypes caused by them indicate that the role of the language is not the only major cause behind ethnic distinctions.
In urban records Finland could be characterised as the fatherland (fädernesland) of the Finns, as was the case in the religious lyrics composed within the Turku Chapter during the Catholic era. But on the grassroots-level the term seems to have referred only to the territory of the ancestors or the geographic origin of the person characterised. Contrary to its Latin equivalent patria, it did not have any connotations of any political or ethnic unity between inhabitants of the area in question.36 Consequently, while speaking of Finns in relation to other persons of Finnish origin, the persons in question could be characterised – at least in the 17th century – as compatriots (landsmän) to each other. Otherwise, the term referred to persons of foreign origin. Since Finns, too, could be spoken of in this way, Finland was apparently seen as a separate unity of its own – albeit within the realm.37
But the Swedes had got to know Finns during the Viking Age, perhaps even earlier. Why were Finns at least from time to time seen as aliens still after a centuries-long coexistence in one and the same realm? The answer lies partly in the characteristics of being a stranger: not all strangers are necessarily a new group – since identities are based on defining borderlines between “us” and “others”, communities need strangers in order to maintain their traditions and mentalities. Thus, a group consisting of persons perceived as strangers could, in fact, be quite a well-known group living within the community, albeit at the same time on its margins.38 Besides, the Finns had preserved their own language and they still had a geographic location of origin of their own – Finland behind the Gulf of Bothnia. All these factors effectively prevented the Finns from being considered a part of the Swedish ethnie.
It is obvious that the Finns, at least some of them, could be seen as aliens from the point of view of the local population, and the contemporary writings reflect this view. An important reason for their alienness was most likely the different language they spoke. Indeed, when two Swedish monks visited the monastery of Naantali (Swedish Nådendal) in Finland in the early 1480s, they wrote a letter to their own monastery in Vadstena and compared themselves with pilgrims who had arrived “among an unfamiliar people” (ad populum alterum) due to the language which was unknown to them.39 During the Lutheran era the existence of Finnish-speaking subjects was officially legitimised in the realm, since the mass should be celebrated in the people’s own language in correspondence with the reformatory principles. Already in 1533, the Council of Stockholm decided that the former Dominican convent should be the place for church services in Finnish. During the following centuries the Finnish parish held its church service in several different localities until it received the house that it owns still today. As Stockholm grew larger, not all Finns living in Stockholm joined the Finnish parish, but its existence signified nevertheless an official recognition of the Finnish minority. The decision made by the Council in 1533 bears witness on equality between the Finns and the Swedes, but on the other hand it did partly separate the Finnish immigrants from the culture of the Swedish majority, since the churches were also centres for communication and social events. Another ethnic group, the Germans, had a parish of its own, too. During three decenniums the Finns and the Germans had to share the same building, the former guilds house of the fraternity of Saint Gertrud, as their church – again an indication of how Finns could be treated as foreigners.40
Besides the linguistic boundary, another possible factor behind the otherness of the Finns could be a collective self-alienation: a group identity so strong that the Finns regarded themselves as different from the Swedish majority and made the distinction clear in their behaviour and, thus, alienated themselves from the Swedes.41 If this was the case, it did not necessarily mean that the self-alienation originated from the Finns themselves: as, among others, Stuart Hall points out, a minority can adapt itself to the stereotypes created by the majority and even exaggerate them.42
However, the collective identities of medieval and early modern Finns are extremely hard to analyse due to the scarcity of the available sources. The interpretations made on the ground of religious poetry and personal statements of leading figures within the Finnish Church are difficult to generalise from, especially in terms of the lesser social strata: it cannot be proved that “bishopric patriotism”, for instance, was shared by the common people. From the later Middle Ages onwards, the petitions that Finnish peasants and burghers addressed to the Crown and its officials, as well as the Diet (Riksdag), reflect certain ideas on differences between Finns and Swedes, since the petitioners were, among other things, asking for Finnish interpreters or officials that were accustomed with the Finnish traditions, but the aim seems to have been to assure that the Crown would treat its loyal Finnish subjects in an acceptable way. Clearly, the Finnish peasants did not seek political independency. And even this rhetoric originates from socially and economically relatively well-to-do groups, whereas the vast majority of the Finnish population remains mostly silent in the sources.43 Due to the social heterogeneity, it has been argued that the feeling of social togetherness weighed more when social distinctions were made within the Swedish realm: according to this viewpoint, which corresponds well with earlier mentioned reflections on hierarchies in Swedish legislation, the owners of landed estates in Western Finland, for instance, shared more interests with their peers in Central Sweden than with peasants in the Finnish inland, where fields were smaller and cultivated in an old-fashioned way, by clearing and burning woodlands.44
In only a couple of very rare cases we can read about certain Finnish individuals’ open sentiments towards the Swedish majority. The oldest notice dates from 1480, when a Finnish burgher from the town of Rauma was sentenced by the Council of Stockholm to a fine of six marks because he had called Swedish merchants and their employees for “Swedish dogs” (swenska huwndda).45 The reason for the insult is not mentioned, but the burgher in question had a name that suggested a Finnish-speaking origin. The ethnic differences were hardly the main reason for the conflict – on the contrary, it is plausible to assume that the insult was uttered only after the conflict had already begun. Apparently, in a conflict situation, primordial ethnic features like linguistic and geographic differences could be accentuated, although they remained latent in a harmonious interaction.46 The sentenced Finnish burgher most likely did not attack his Swedish colleagues as members of a different ethnic group, but rather as business associates, in whom he for some reason or another was disappointed. Thus, the dispute seems to have occurred primarily within one social stratum, the one of the burghers, and only secondarily between two ethnic groups.
Similar disputes are recorded in other Swedish towns as well and even between Swedes and other “nationalities” than Finns: for instance, invectives like “Swedish dogs” and “bloody Danes” (juteskälmar) were uttered in the towns and villages of Skåne after the annexation of this province of the Kingdom of Sweden in 1658.47 Although finn(d)jävel, a pejorative term which still exists today and can be translated as “Finn-Devil”, could not be found in the analysed source material, the protocols of the Chapter of Stockholm mention diefuuls finska, “Devil’s Finnish woman”, a term applied to the spouse of a Finnish minister living in Stockholm by a Swedish minister and her relative in 1640.48 But all in all the use of invectives together with ethnic indicators was very rare: most recorded abusive utterances contain a limited vocabulary, where the terms “thief” (tjuv), “whore” (hora) and “bastard” (skälm) – without any reference to the ethnic background of the person in question – seem to have been the most popular ones. This may point towards an interpretation that the ethnic differences were after all not so important in everyday interaction, but the explanation can also be exactly the opposite: if a different ethnic background was seen as a social burden, the use of ethnic indicators together with common invectives could make the blasphemy even more serious. Consequently, the sentence for the blasphemy would most likely be more severe. This, too, can explain why remarks on the ethnic background were mostly omitted.
Whereas the Finns’ own perceptions on relationships between them and other ethnic groups are hard to find, it is easier to try to reconstruct the self-identity of the German settlers, another ethnic minority within the Swedish realm. The minutes of the town councils cast, at least occasionally, more light upon the ethnic self perceptions of certain burghers of German origin. The earliest evidence in this respect seems to be a notice in the minutes of the Council of Stockholm from 1486: after having been reminded of the closing-time, a wine merchant called Kristiern Vinman had answered to his reprimand, a councillor, by using the following words: “Ja, dat is en holmisk budh.”49 This short sentence was written down in the minutes in Middle-Low German and it meant: “Yes, this is a Stockholm-rule.” Apparently Kristiern’s answer was considered a bit obnoxious – he was without doubt hinting that elsewhere (like in the town he had emigrated from) the rules regarding the serving of beverages were more flexible. Probably, he even meant that he was not thinking of following the norms of his new hometown.
The clearest evidence of a strong self-identity among German-speaking individuals, that I have so far been able to find, deals with a lawsuit in the town of Söderköping. On the 9th of December 1574, the Council of Söderköping had to consider a case where three burghers, who on the basis of their names were all of German origin, accused a fourth one, who apparently was a German too, for abusive words. According to the accusations, Lorens Meyer had been using some very common and disturbing invectives like “thief” and even called two of the men “traitors”. When the hearing was continued on the 14th of December, the insult was specified and, according to the witnesses, Lorens had said to Casper Swedfäier: “You are a traitor to the Germans. Whatever you hear from me or anybody else you tell immediately to the burgomasters and the council.”50 Apparently, from the point of view of Lorens Meyer, there existed no doubt that the German settlers or, at least the German-speaking burghers of Söderköping, formed a group of their own – a group which should stay outside the Swedish control system.
Why do we never read that Finnish burghers uttered similar statements which can be interpreted as symptoms of self-alienation? Probably, the answer lies partly in the fact that the Finns had apparently already accepted their status as subjects to the Swedish Crown, whereas a great number, if not even the majority, of German immigrants came from areas outside the Swedish realm. Due to their genealogical and other networks, the Germans maintained livelier contacts with persons and norm systems outside the Kingdom of Sweden. Under these circumstances it is understandable that some immigrants from German areas had, despite the linguistic and cultural similarities, difficulties in adapting themselves to the Swedish society. But all statements concerning “alien self-identity” reflect primarily tensions within burgher communities and, only secondly, between different ethnic groups. Finns were not so numerous among the burghers, but indeed among the lesser strata.
It has been argued that the uneven socio-demographic distribution among the Finnish immigrants has been the main reason for the low social prestige of the Finnish language and culture in Sweden. Whereas Swedish settlers in Finland have represented all social strata, the elites included, the emigrants from Finland have mostly belonged to lower strata: during the pre-industrial time some immigrants were relatively well-to-do landowners, peasants or burghers or at least became that later, but the majority seems to have been rather poor men and women seeking an opportunity to get hired as servants or other workers. The Reformation and its demand for completely vernacular church services made a Finnish priesthood necessary, even in the Swedish part of the realm, but the number of educated Finns spreading written culture in Finnish remained very scarce with the exception of temporary periods of war. So, the Russian occupation of Finland in the beginning of the 18th century caused large-scale refugee movements over the Gulf of Bothnia. On the Finnish peninsula, on the contrary, Swedish became the major code of written communication. Despite the Finnish translations of the Bible and other religious texts, as well as legislative and administrative texts from the 16th century onwards, Finnish had a very restricted use as a written language in Finland before the 19th century and the situation started to change only decades after Sweden had been forced to cede Finland to Russia.51
The majority of Finnish immigrants mentioned in the analysed Swedish protocols in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Era were persons sentenced for some serious crime. The men were mostly thieves, manslayer, bigamists or fornicators – the image of the brutal Finn in Alle Bedlegrannas Spegel was without doubt based on true-life crime stories. Numerous Finnish women, too, were sentenced for theft but, besides, many of them were whores, unmarried mothers or child-murderers, as well as victims of sexual assaults and breach of marriage agreements. As stated above, Finns were also imagined to possess magical powers, and consequently witches could be found among both sexes, although their recorded number was small. Of course, Swedes, too, committed similar crimes, but in the Swedish local communities it were not the Finnish immigrants but the Swedish burghers who defined the boundaries between honest and dishonest persons.
In brief: many Finnish immigrants belonged to those social levels with which the burgher community did not want to come into close contact – at least not in public. Although it has been argued that towns were not residential communities, since the social heterogeneity of the population was reflected in differences between the town-dwellers’ legal status,52 in one respect urban societies were or, at least, were expected to be homogeneous: the land owning stratum regarded towns as moral communities where all inhabitants were expected to follow the official moral code of the burghers or to be expelled from the town or, depending on the seriousness of the offence against the code, even condemned to death. Steve Hindle, among others, emphasises that it was the honest stratum which in the end decided who had the right to be a part of the local community.53
There were two main reasons for avoidance of contact with low-status Finns: firstly, the honest burghers’ fear of becoming infected by the dishonour or shame, which was regarded as something concrete, and – in accordance with the projection theory – their efforts to restrain their own latent lusts and weaknesses by controlling and punishing the lesser strata, on whom they projected their subconscious desires.54 Both interpretations, of which one does not exclude the other, coincide well with Benedict Anderson’s statement that racist ideas are products of ideologies of class rather than those of nation.55 In this case, it was the purity of the burgher community that had to be protected.
Of course, there were also Finns whose immigrant biographies did not in any significant respect differ from the lives of Swedish individuals. The protocols mention servants, peasants and burghers of Finnish origin also in other roles than the one of the accused, and the number of these kinds of immigrants may have been much greater than appears on the basis of the records, which deal mostly with criminal affairs. There were even Finnish men who attained a post on the town council, i.e. at the top of the burgher community, although they were not numerous. Only a couple of them seem to have originated from Finnish-speaking areas – in fact, many of the socially successful immigrants from Finland seem to have come from areas that were inhabited by the descendants of the Swedish settlers or where Swedish and Finnish were spoken side by side.
Despite the temporary success stories, the majority of the “honest” Finnish immigrants were, as Sven Ljung has put it, “a proletariat of their time”.56 Neither this “proletariat” nor the Finnish trash lived in complete isolation. Instead, networks between people of the same low social status despite their different ethnic background seem to have developed. Even Finnish witches had a clientele of their own and, thus, indirectly a place within the local community – until the authorities interfered in their business.57 But what socially weighed most within the pre-industrial urban communities was, of course, the opinion of the leading stratum, i.e. the Swedish burgher community. Thus, the Finns became mentally alienated and the pejorative image exemplified by Alle Bedlegrannas Spegel came into being.
The main factor behind the appearance of the negative image of the Finns in Alle Bedlegrannas Spegel (and in the Kingdom of Sweden before the mid-17th century) was not the physical remoteness between Finns and Swedes, as had been the case with southern or central European authors, who had seen Finns as “non-human” creatures. The Finnish immigrants lived side by side with the Swedish majority and they could integrate themselves into Swedish society – some individuals fitted in better than others. The immigrants’ incomprehensible language was, of course, a factor that effectively maintained the consciousness of the Finns’ different origin, but the most important factor behind their mental marginalisation was the fact that most immigrants coming from Finland were economically poor. Despite the heterogeneous composition of the group, the general poverty gave Finns a generally weaker social status than was the case with the economically stronger German-speaking part of the population. Because several Finns committed offences and crimes while being newcomers in Swedish local communities, it was easy for the dominating majority to regard the Finnish minority as the personification of their own vices, and so as one which should be avoided. Thus, it was unavoidable that Sweden Finns filled a sociological niche by being “well-known strangers” within Swedish society.
1 This article is a part of my on-going study dealing with the integration of early Sweden Finns, which is a project financed by the Academy of Finland. I want to thank Sofia Gustafsson, Janne Haikari, Anssi Halmesvirta, Pasi Ihalainen, Petri Karonen and Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz as well as the official reviewer of the original manuscript, Ingvar Svanberg, for their critical remarks and encouraging comments. Thanks are also to be addressed to David Wilson for linguistic consulting.
2 Alle Bedlegrannas Spegel, eller En ynkeligh och bedröfweligh Tragædia, om een stålt och högfärdigh Jungfrw, som heet Margaretha Then icke hölt någon ärligh Man wara sin Lijke vthan wedersakade både en annan, til thes hon fick behagh til en elaak finne, som henne ömkelihen togh aff daga. Hwilken Tragædia hafwer sigh tildragit vthi Swea Rijke, Åhr effter Christi Börd, 1411. sine loco 1647. According to the information given on the title page, it was already the third impression of the same work. A copy of the earliest known impression can be found at the Royal Library in Stockholm.
3 Forsman Svensson, Pirkko: “‘Mino wara wackra kara’ – suomalaisen kosijan ruotsia 1600-luvun näytelmässä”. In: AFinLA Yearbook. 55 (1997), 219–229; Edlund, Lars-Erik: “‘Kudh förbanne tigh tu Horakaxa’. Lite om vardagsspråk och språkblandning i några 1600-talstexter”. In: Lena Moberg (ed.): Svenskan i tusen år. Glimtar ur svenska språkets utveckling. Stockholm 1996, 70–87 (= Skrifter utgivna av Svenska språknämnden, 81).
4 “Så pläga andra Finna köra/När the i Swerki haa illa kiort/Draga the til Finland fort/Hwem finner tå them ikän/Så haa the kiort för så kiöra the än.” Alle Bedlegrannas Spegel. 1647, 22.
5 The main purpose of my on-going study is to analyse the role of the social networks during the early Finnish immigrants’ integration processes. My study concentrates mainly on Stockholm, the largest and – considering the ethnic composition of the population – probably the most heterogeneous Swedish city. In order to be able to come up with some reasonable generalisations I have also included comparative material from other Swedish towns. The emphasis on the urban communities is explained by the fact that the sources dealing with the countryside are of a qualitatively poorer nature and also mostly produced by officials standing outside the local communities. However, especially the documents from Stockholm also cast sometimes light upon Finns dwelling in the surrounding countryside. The main sources for the analysis consist of the following protocols: Hildbrand, Emil et al. (eds.): Stockholms stads tänkeböcker 1474–1632. Stockholm 1917–2003; Stockholms stadsarkiv: Stockholms stads tänkeböcker 1633–1650, Stockholms kämnärsrätts protokoll 1650, Norra förstadens kämnärsrätts protokoll 1635–1636 and 1650, Stockholms domkapitels protokoll 1595–1650; Noreen, Erik and Torsten Wennström (eds.): Arboga stads tänkeböcker 1453–1569. Uppsala 1935–1945 (= Skrifter utgivna av Svenska Fornskriftsällskapet, 53:1–4); Uppsala landsarkiv: Arboga stads tänkeböcker 1569–1650; Kjellberg, Carl M. (ed.): Jönköpings stads tänkebok 1456–1548. sine loco 1910–1919; Modéer, Ivar and Sten Engström (eds.): Kalmar stads tänkebok 1381–1560. Uppsala 1945–1949 (= Skrifter utgivna av Svenska Fornskriftsällskapet, 57); Fehr, Isak (ed.): Strängnäs stads tänkebok för 1590-talet. Strängnäs 1903; Ericsson, Georg J. V. (ed.): Vadstena stads äldsta tänkeböcker (“domboken”) 1577–1610. Uppsala 1945–1952; Vadstena landsarkiv: Söderköpings stads tänkebok 1571–1601.
6 de Anna, Luigi: “The Peoples of Finland and Early Medieval Sources: the characterization of ‘alienness’”. In: Studia Historica Septentrionalia. 2 (1992), 12–13; Milan, Karl: Fennen und Finnen. Tacitus’ Fennenschilderung im Vergleich mit Lappenschilderungen späterer Zeiten. Jyväskylä 2001, (= Studia philologica Jyväskyläensia, 52).
7 Confer for example Pochat, Götz: Das Fremde im Mittelalter. Darstellung in Kunst und Literatur. Würzburg 1997, and Abulafia, David: “Neolithic meets Medieval. First Encounters in the Canary Islands”. In: Idem. and Nora Berend: Medieval Frontiers. Concepts and Practices. Aldershot 2002, 255–278.
8 Hausen, Reinhold (ed.): Finlands medeltidsurkunder. I. Helsingfors 1910, documents 24, 48 and 82; Pentti, S. J.: “Ristiretkien kauhupropagandaa”. In: Suomen Kirkkohistoriallisen Seuran Vuosikirja. 35–36 (1945–1946), 3–7.
9 Fant, Eric Michael (ed.): Scriptores Rerum Svecicarum Medii Aevi. II. Uppsala 1828, 274–275, 332–333; Petri, Olaus: En Swensk Cröneka. Uppsala 1917, 56.
10 Pipping, Rolf (ed.): Erikskrönikan. Uppsala 1963 (= Skrifter utgivna av Svenska Fornskriftsällskapet, 68).
11 The original sarcophagus belongs nowadays to the collections of the National Museum of Finland, whereas the sarcophagus of the church of Nousiainen is a modern reproduction.
12 Classen, Albrecht: “Medieval Europe and its Encounter with the Foreign World: Late-Medieval German Witnesses”. In: Richard F. Gyug (ed.): Medieval Cultures in Contact. New York 2003, 98 (= Fordham Series in Medieval Studies, 1).
13 Katajala, Kimmo: Suomalainen kapina. Talonpoikaislevottomuudet ja poliittisen kulttuurin muutos Ruotsin ajalla (n. 1150–1800). Helsinki 2002, 133–137 (= Historiallisia Tutkimuksia, 212).
14 Hausen, Reinhold (ed.): Finlands medeltidsurkunder. III. Helsingfors 1921, document 2661; Idem. (ed.): Finlands medeltidsurkunder. IV. Helsingfors 1924, document 2903.
15 Suvanto, Seppo: “Ryssar”. In: Kulturhistoriskt lexikon för nordisk medeltid. 14. Helsingfors 1969, 523.
16 Månsson, Peder: Peder Månssons bondakonst jämte paralleltexter. Uppsala 1983, 20 (= Samlingar utgivna av Svenska Fornskriftsällskapet, 75); Magnus, Olaus: Historia om de nordiska folken 1. Uppsala 1912, 159, 178f., 202f., 236f.; Idem.: Historia om de nordiska folken 3. Uppsala 1916, 62; Toivanen, Pekka: “Vindsäljare, stormbesvärjare och olyckskorpar – de finländska sjömännen i litteraturen”. In: Anne Ala-Pöllänen (ed.): De nordiska sjöfartsmuseernas 14:de samarbetsmöte i Finland. Helsingfors 1995, 33–49; Sihvo, Hannu: “Merkillinen maa pohjan perillä”. In: Idem.: Toisten Suomi. Mitä meistä kerrotaan maailmalla. Jyväskylä 2001, 17–19. See even Halmesvirta, Anssi: Weird ‘race’ of the North: exploring British stereotypes of the Finn c. 1850–1918. [a paper presented at the Second Annual Kustaa Vaasa-seminar (Rethinking the History of Mentalities) in Jyväskylä on the 12th of June 2004].
17 Confer for example Liebeschuetz, Wolfgang, “Citizen Status and Law in the Roman Empire and the Visigoth Kingdom”. In: Walter Pohl and Helmut Reimitz (eds.): Strategies of Distinction: the construction of ethnic communities, 300–800. Leiden 1998, 132; Lydon, James: “Nation and Race in Medieval Ireland”. In: Simon Forde (ed.): Concepts of National Identity in the Middle Ages. Leeds 1995, 104–108 (= Leeds Texts and Monographs, New Series, 14).
18 So was the case, for instance, in Äldre Västgötalagen, see Holmbäck, Åke and Elias Wessén (eds.): Svenska Landskapslagar 5. Stockholm 1946, 25.
19 Idem. (eds.): Magnus Erikssons stadslag. 131; Schlyter, Carl Johan (ed.): Konung Christoffers Landslag. Stockholm 1859, 224 (= Samling af Sweriges Gamla Lagar, 12).
20 I am principally referring to the three great chronicle works from the 14th and 15th century: Erikskrönikan, Karlskrönikan and Sturekrönikorna, which have been published for instance in the series Samlingar utgivna av Svenska Fornskriftsällskapet.
21 Lehtinen, Erkki: Suomen varhaishistorian ja ristiretkikauden kuvasta uskonpuhdistus- ja suurvalta-aikana. Helsinki 1969, especially 35 (= Historiallisia Tutkimuksia, 75).
22 Minken, Anne: “Norsk og svensk identitet før nasjonalismens epoke”. In: Historisk Tidsskrift. 82 (2003), 77.
23 Hall, Patrik: Den svenskaste historien. Nationalism i Sverige under sex sekler. Stockholm 2000; Nordin, Jonas: “I broderlig samdräkt? Förhållandet Sverige–Finland under 1700-talet och Anthony D. Smiths ethnie-begrepp.” In: Scandia. 64 (1998), 195–223;; Nordin, Jonas: Ett fattigt men fritt folk. Nationell och politisk självbild i Sverige från sen medeltid till slutet av frihetstiden. Stockholm 2000. Concerning the concept of ethnie, see Smith, Anthony D.: “National Identities: Modern and Medieval?” In: Simon Forde (ed.): Concepts of National Identity in the Middle Ages. Leeds 1995, 28 (= Leeds Texts and Monographs, New Series, 14).
24 Mckee, Sally: “Speaking for Others. Imposing Solidarities on the Past. The Case of Venetian Crete.” In: Richard F. Gyug (ed.): Medieval Cultures in Contact. New York 2003, 53–55 (= Fordham Series in Medieval Studies, 1).
25 This early Swedish immigration to Finland has recently been discussed in Ivars, Ann-Maroe and Lena Huldén: När kom svenskarna till Finland? Helsingfors 2002 (= Skrifter utgivna av Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland, 646).
26 Bergh, Volmar: “Tukholman suomalaisista menneinä vuosisatoina.” In: Historiallinen arkisto. 57 (1961), 200–285; Nikula, Johan: “Finländare i 1460-talets Stockholm.” In: Rainer Fagerlund (ed.): Historiska Uppsatser 27.XI.1980, 173–200 (= Skrifter utgivna av Historiska Samfundet i Åbo. X 1980); Carlsson, Sten: “Stockholm som finnarnas huvudstad.” In: Sulo Huovinen (ed.): Mitt´ sa finnen om Stockholm. Stockholm 1984, 13– 28; Broberg, Rikhard: Finsk invandring till mellersta Skandinavien. En översikt från medeltiden till 1600-talets slut. Uppsala 1988, 9 (= Svenska landsmål och svenskt folkliv, B 68); Tarkiainen, Kari: Finnarnas historia i Sverige. 1. Helsingfors 1990, 13; Lamberg, Marko: “Att bli Stockholmare under medeltiden. Inflyttare och integrationsprocesser i Stockholm med speciell hänsyn till tidig invandring från Finland.” In: Släkt och Hävd. (2002), 163–190.
27 Rüthing, Heinrich: “Der Wechsel von Personennamen in einer spätmittelalterlichen Stadt: Zum Problem der Identifizierung von Personen und zum sozialen Status von Stadtbewohnern mit wechselnden oder unvollständigen Namen”. In: Neithard Bults and Jean-Philippe Genet (eds.): Medieval Lives and the Historian. Studies in medieval prosopography. Kalamazoo, Michigan 1986, 217–218, 221–223.
28 Gottfrid Carlsson (ed.): Stockholms stads tänkeböcker 1483–1492. Stockholm 1924, 316.
29 Ibid., 593.
30 Lamberg, Marko: “Finnar, svenskar eller främlingar? – Inblickar i den svenska befolkningsdelens status i det svenska riket under senmedeltiden.” In: Historisk tidskrift. 120 (2000), 510–515; Idem.: “Kestien ja ruokaruotsien aikaan. Murteet, kielet ja kansallisuudet myöhäiskeskiajan Pohjolassa.” In: Marko Lamberg and Susanna Niiranen (eds.): Keskiajan rajoilla. Jyväskylä 2002, 59–66.
31 Uppsala landsarkiv: Arboga stads tänkebok. The 25th of November 1644. The case was tried on the 22nd of April 1645, too.
32 Although the kingdom of Sweden consisted of several provinces of different sizes, there existed a tradition, according to which each province belonged to one of the bigger “lands”: Götaland, Svealand or Norrland.
33 Concerning this much debated period in Swedish history, see e.g. Carlsson, Sten and Jerker Rosén: Svensk historia. 1. Stockholm 1969, 81–86.
34 One could perhaps add that many of the persons of Swedish origin who were sentenced for theft or sexual crime in Stockholm had come from Västergötland.
35 The anthropological literature dealing with intercommunity relations is vast; see e.g. Rasku, Seija: “Köllit kyläyhteisössä”. In: Sananjalka. 30 (1988), 85–98; Tak, Herman: “Longing for Local Identity. Intervillage relations in an Italian mountain area”. In: Anthropological Quarterly. 63 (1990), 90–102; Griffiths, Ralph: “The island of England in the 15th century: perceptions of the peoples of the British Isles.” In: Journal of Medieval History. 29 (2003), 177–200.
36 Almquist, Joh. Ax. (ed.): Stockholms stads tänkebok 1504–1514. Stockholm 1931, 260; Stockholms stadsarkiv: Stockholms stads tänkeböcker 1641–1642 (renskrift). 03.03.1641. The “patriotic” contents of the term fädernesland in the discourse of the political elites in early modern Sweden are analysed in Ihalainen, Pasi: “The concepts of Fatherland and Nation in Swedish State Sermons from the Late Age of Absolutism to the Accession of Gustavus III”. In: Journal of Scandinavian History. 28 (2003), 44.
37 Stockholms stadsarkiv: Stockholms stads tänkebok 1631–1633 (renskrift). 19.10.1631. and Stockholms stads tänkebok 1649 (renskrift). 16.02.1649. as well as Stockholms stads tänkebok 1649–1650 (koncept). 19.02.1649.
38 Cederlöf, Gunnel: “Den kände främlingen”. In: Anders Florén (ed.): Främlingar – ett historiskt perspektiv. Uppsala 1998, 161–162 (= Opuscula Historica Upsaliensia, 19).
39 Hausen, Reinhold (ed.): Finlands medeltidsurkunder. VIII. Helsingfors 1935, document 6689.
40 Murray, Robert: Finska församlingen i Stockholm intill tiden för Finlands skiljande från Sverige. Stockholm 1954, 8, 18–19.
41 Although the concept of self-alienation is mainly used as a tool describing the social and mental isolation of an individual, I feel that one of its aspects, becoming a stranger in one’s own home, can also explain collective alienation. Confer Feuerlicht, Ignace: Alienation. From the past to the future. Westport, Connecticut 1978, 37.
42 Hall, Stuart: Identiteetti. Tampere 1999, 198.
43 Lehtinen, Erkki: “Kielestä suomalaisten ryhmätuntomerkkinä Ruotsin vallan kaudella”. In: Historiallinen Aikakauskirja. 1967, 1–25; Idem.: “Notions of a Finnish National Identity during the Period of Swedish Rule”. In: Scandinavian Journal of History. 6 (1981), 277–295. See also Karonen, Petri: Borgarståndet och begreppet “Finland” på frihetstidens riksdagar. [article manuscript].
44 Klinge, Matti: Kaksi Suomea. Helsinki 1982, 36; Idem.: “Sverige, svensk – Finland, finsk”. In: Sulo Huovinen (ed.): Finland i det svenska riket. Stockholm 1986, 23.
45 Hildebrand, Emil (ed.): Stockholms stads tänkeböcker 1474–1483. Stockholm 1917, 271.
46 So the case seems to have been in the province of Skåne, too, after Denmark had been forced to turn it over to Sweden in 1658: Bergman, Karl: Makt, möten, gränser. Skånska kommissionen i Blekinge 1669–70. Lund 2002, 124–126 (= Studia Historica Lundensia, 7).
47 Lerbom, Jens: Mellan två riken. Integration, politisk kultur och förnationella identiteter på Gotland 1500–1700. Lund 2003, 160 (= Studia Historica Lundensia, 11).
48 Stockholms stadsarkiv: Stockholms domkapitels protokoll 1639–1641. 06.03.1640.
49 Carlsson, Gottfrid (ed.): Stockholms stads tänkeböcker 1483–1492. Stockholm 1924, 162. The self-identity of the German burghers is also analysed in Wubs-Mrozewicz, Justyna: “Interplay of Identities: German settlers in late medieval Stockholm.” In: Scandinavian Journal of History. 29 (2004), 53–67.
50 “[T]u est Tydzskernes förräder hwad tu hörer aff migh eller en annen säger tu strax för Borgmesterne och Rådett.” Vadstena landsarkiv: Söderköpings tänkeböcker 1571–1577. 09.12.1574, 14.12.1574.
51 Lainio, Jarmo: “Finskans ställning i Sverige och dess betydelse för sverigefinnarna”. In: Finnarnas historia i Sverige, 3. Helsingfors 1996, 255–310.
52 Confer Kallioinen, Mika: Kauppias, kaupunki, kruunu. Turun porvariyhteisön ja talouden organisaatio varhaiskeskiajalta 1570-luvulle. Helsinki 2000, 21 (= Bibliotheca Historica, 59).
53 Hindle, Steve: “A sense of place? Becoming and belonging in the rural parish, 1550–1650”. In: Alexandra Shepard and Phil Withington (eds.): Communities in early modern England. Networks, place, rhetoric. Manchester 2000, 96–97, 102.
54 Studies dealing with attitudes towards honour and shame in medieval and early modern societies are numerous. See e.g. Dinges, Martin: “Die Ehre als Thema der Stadtgeschichte. Eine Semantik im Übergang vom Ancien Régime zur Moderne.” In: Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung. 4 (1989), 409–440 and Lindström, Dag, “Oärliga mästare och kivande makar.” In: Historisk tidskrift. 114 (1994), 513–554. Concerning adaptations of the projection theory to the studies on burgher mentality, see e.g. Ohlander, Ann-Sofie: “Historikern och den bortträngda verkligheten. Några synpunkter på psykoanalys och historia”. In: Historisk tidskrift. 113 (1993), 524, and Lansing, Carol: “Gender and Civic Authority. Sexual Control in a Medieval Italian Town”. In: Journal of Social History. 31 (1997), 43, 48–49.
55 Anderson, Benedict: Imagined Communities. London 1991. This point of view coincides well with the fact that the status of early Sweden Finns can also be characterised by means of the concept ethno class, which refers to an ethnic group at or near the bottom of the economic or social hierarchy. Concerning this concept, see Vermeersch, Peter: “Ethnic minority identity and movement politics: The Case of the Roma in the Czech Republic and Slovakia”. In: Ethnic and Racial Studies. 26 (2003), 890–891.
56 “Man skulle nästan kunna beteckna dem, som ett dåtida proletariat.” Ljung, Sven: Arboga stads historia, 1. Arboga 1949, 158.
57 Almquist, Joh. Ax. (ed.): Stockholms stads tänkeböcker 1504–1514. Stockholm 1931, 289; Stockholms stadsarkiv: Stockholms stads tänkebok (renskrift) 1647–1648. 04.12.1648.