The Voice of the People? Supplications Submitted to the Swedish Diet in the Age of Liberty, 1719–1772
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Historiska studier: skrifter från Umeå universitet 13 The voice of the people? Supplications submitted to the Swedish Diet in the Age of Liberty, 1719–1772 Martin Almbjär Doctoral dissertation Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies Umeå University Umeå 2016 Historiska studier: skrifter från Umeå Universitet 13 Copyright©Martin Almbjär ISBN: 978-91-7601-520-9 Cover: Tom Swaak (http://www.vaassenenswaak.com) Electronic version available at http://diva-portal.org Printed by: Print & Media, Umeå University Umeå, Sweden 2016 Abstract This dissertation is devoted to the study of who used the formal channels of interaction in the early modern era and why. It examines the full range of the political conversation in early modern Sweden, as seen in the supplications to the Diet in the Age of Liberty (1719–1772), and more specifically the supplications submitted to the parliamentary committee tasked with handling them, the Screening Deputation. The literature yields few systematic studies of this official channel, and supplications have long been terra incognita in the early modern political landscape. Their exact importance is uncertain, to say the least. Using a database built on three samples from the beginning, middle, and end of the Age of Liberty, the Diet’s supplication channel is shown to have been used by two groups: supplicants from state-affiliated households primarily tried to use it to pursue their claims on the state, to settle various issues related to employment, or to receive some sort of support through hard times; and, increasingly, commoners, especially delegates in the Estate of the Burghers, used the channel for their gravamina concerning commerce, taxation, and the like, and state support for public amenities, a group for whom the Screening Deputation offered an alternative route to getting their grievances heard by the Diet. Both groups increasingly used the Diet’s supplication channel was appeal the verdicts of the King in Council (Kungl. Maj:t). Although most were not appeals against the Judicial Audit, the results reveal an active use of appeals, and thus a de facto erosion of Kungl. Maj:t’s supremacy. The results also show that as many as three-fifths of all supplicants had their supplications accepted by the Screening Deputation for further examination by the Diet. Although the acceptance rate was definitely lower in the 1730s and 1740s, the committee seems to have been fairly benevolent in its interpretation of the rules on petitioning. The results, lastly, show that although the Diet’s supplication channel allowed excluded groups direct access to the Diet—including women of all classes, commoners of rank, and unrepresented groups—it mainly catered to men with the social status or wealth that put them in the middle and upper strata of society. Although this supplication channel stood open to anyone, its egalitarian potential was seemingly never realized. The use of March and Olsen’s institutional theory about the logic of appropriateness, has revealed that certain institutional templates and norms that would have enabled these groups more access to the channel succumbed and made room for other institutional foundations. Supplications were part of the medieval and early modern centralization of legal and political power, the formation of the state, the protection of the privileges of Swedish subjects, and, during the Age of Liberty, the power struggle between the Diet and the kings. Each supplication viewed by itself might seem trivial, but nonetheless played a part in each and every one of these major processes. An ordinary Swede could have an impact on early modern politics when acting in concert with other supplicants, like rain eating away at rock. Keywords: Age of Liberty, audit, Diet of Estates, early modern state formation, eighteenth century, institutions, national debt, parliamentary committees, petitions, political participation, public office, supplications, taxes, trade privileges, Supreme Court, welfare Till Emilia och till Eleonora, som jag ser fram emot att prata med Contents Contents i Acknowledgements v Abbreviations vii Terminology viii 1 Introduction 1 State formation and political interaction 1 Early modern political interaction 2 Supplications 3 The term ‘supplication’ 5 The literature on Swedish supplications 9 Towards an institutional theory 16 Aim and questions 18 Disposition 19 2 Sources, methods & categorization 21 Legislation 21 Supplications and screening lists 21 Sampling and counting 23 Categorization 26 Geography 27 Type 29 Gender 29 Social background 29 Resources requested in the supplications 36 The supplications’ scope 38 Acceptance rates 40 On figures and tables 42 3 Supplications to the Crown 43 Swedish supplications 43 Judicial aspects 44 Administrative aspects 46 Erik Hultin, or, the supplication channel in action 48 Swedish kings as patriarchs 50 Supplications internationally 53 European princes as patriarchs 58 Conclusions 60 4 The Age of Liberty and the Swedish Diet 62 The early days of the Age of Liberty 62 The heyday of the Age of Liberty 64 The last years of the Age of Liberty 65 The Diet in the Age of Liberty 67 i Proceedings 70 Duration 74 Conclusions 77 5 Legislation 78 Regulations 78 Motives 86 Publishing legislation and supplications 91 Conclusions 93 6 The effects of regulation 97 Quantity 97 The Report on Crown Service 97 Effects of legislation on supplicants’ behaviour 101 Reservations 101 Resubmissions 102 Appeals 103 Number of requests 104 Acceptance rates 105 Permissible and impermissible supplications 106 Possible factors influencing the regulations 109 Complexity, flexibility, and morals 109 Trial and error 111 Political stability 112 Oversight of the Screening Deputation 112 The spatial structure of the Diet 113 Delegate turnover 114 The imperative mandate and self-interest 114 Conclusions 115 7 Writing and waiting 120 The art of writing a supplication 120 The supplication process: three errands 123 Erik Säfström 123 Nils Fredrik von Wallvijk 124 Maria Wennersand 125 Observations from the three examples 125 Conclusions 126 8 Geography 127 Distance 127 Large-scale results 129 Medium- and county-scale results 131 Conclusions 131 9 Type and gender 134 Type 134 Gender 134 ii Acceptance rates 135 10 Social background 137 General findings 137 Corporate bodies 138 Diet corporate bodies and Diet delegates 140 Appeals 140 Acceptance rates 141 Conclusions 142 11 Secondary status 144 General findings 144 State affiliation 145 Rank 147 Acceptance rates 148 Conclusions 149 12 The resources requested 151 General findings 151 Who requested what 152 Broken down by Estate 152 Broken down by occupation or affiliation 153 Appeals 155 Acceptance rates 155 Conclusions 156 13 The scope of the supplications 158 General findings 158 Broken down by Estates and resources 159 Broken down group and corporate body scope 159 Broken down by local, regional and realm scope 161 Acceptance rates 163 Conclusions 164 14 Resource subcategories 166 Fiscal resources 166 Commercial resources 169 Employment resources 173 Welfare resources 177 Judicial resources 181 Conclusions 183 15 Who, what, and the logic of appropriateness 185 The first wave of state-affiliated supplicants 185 Women petitioners as an illustration of the first wave 186 Ebb, flow, then ebb again 188 Commoner estate supplications and gravamina 191 The burghers 195 The peasantry 200 iii Towards a regulation-based logic of appropriateness 203 16 Concluding discussion 209 Three key aspects in action 209 Using the Diet’s supplication channel 212 The usefulness of the concept of logic of appropriateness 215 Supplications in a wider context 217 Political developments in the Age of Liberty 220 The international context—supplications in print 223 The international context—legislation, information, participation 224 The international context—the flawed safety valve analogy 228 The international context—women, jurisdiction and equality 233 Some concluding remarks 236 17 Epilogue 238 The nineteenth century onwards 238 Modern vestiges 239 Svensk sammanfattning 241 Attachments 245 Important note on the sources for the attachments 245 Sources 283 List of tables and figures 299 Index 301 iv Acknowledgements How can I even begin to repay the debt of thanks accrued when writing this book? Much of it is owed to four people in particular. I am forever grateful for having had Svante Norrhem as my main supervisor for the entire project. Nothing less than an academic role model, he has always been ready to give me plenty of his time, has always provided encouraging, sharp, and thoughtful advice and viewpoints, and has always shown a great interest in my project, even when I myself could not find anything interesting about it. To put it in other words, no Svante, no dissertation. After Svante left Umeå in the far north for the greener pastures of Skåne in the far south, my vice-supervisor Peter Lindström stepped in to handle the day-to-day dealings. Armed with a keen eye for details, he has helped me improve the manuscript in many ways, and although there are not many others out there who share my interest in the minutiae of administrative regulation, luckily for me Peter does. My wife Emilia Almbjär has read every page of every draft of this dissertation and helped me improve all of them. I am immensely grateful for sharing life with someone who shares my scholarly passions and whose intelligence I am constantly in awe of. Last but definitely not least, Anders Claréus was the one who helped me get started, and supported me when I applied for the doctoral programme. Anders also read the penultimate draft of the dissertation and gave much-needed advice. I have no doubt that Anders must be one of the most knowledgeable persons when it comes to eighteenth-century Swedish politics Henrik Ågren, Lena Berggren, and Björn Norlin served as the mid seminar examiners and commentators. Above all, they helped me realize what I was not studying. Jonas Nordin and Åsa Karlsson-Sjögren provided the same invaluable service towards the end of the project, and above all helped me realize what I was studying.