Artefact Techniques, histoire et sciences humaines

4 | 2016 L’Europe technicienne, XVe-XVIIIe siècle

Mechanics of patronage: and the changing regimes of the Swedish state (1680-1750)

Jacob Orrje

Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/artefact/383 DOI: 10.4000/artefact.383 ISSN: 2606-9245

Publisher: Association Artefact. Techniques histoire et sciences humaines, Presses universitaires du Midi

Printed version Date of publication: 1 October 2016 Number of pages: 135-146 ISBN: 978-2-7535-5174-9 ISSN: 2273-0753

Electronic reference Jacob Orrje, « Mechanics of patronage: Christopher Polhem and the changing regimes of the Swedish state (1680-1750) », Artefact [Online], 4 | 2016, Online since 07 July 2017, connection on 19 April 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/artefact/383 ; DOI : 10.4000/artefact.383

Artefact. Techniques, histoire et sciences humaines Mechanics of patronage : Christopher Polhem and the changing regimes of the Swedish state (1680-1750)

Jacob ORRJE *

« Similar to how a crowd of soldiers can accomplish little with their manliness without a sensible captain, the whole lot of craftsmen cannot make anything extraor- dinary without a good mechanicus. » Christopher Polhem, « Thoughts about mechanics » (1740) **. 135

Résumé

Cet essai traite des politiques liées à la technologie pendant la période moderne à partir du mécanicien suédois Christophe Polhem. Durant la monarchie absolue du début du xviiie siècle, Polhem obtient avec succès un patronage royal. Mais sous la monarchie constitutionnelle des années 1720, ses relations royales deviennent pro- blématiques. À partir de Polhem, cet article vise à montrer l’ironie de la manière dont certains mécaniciens, présentés comme de fidèles sujets de l’ordre de la première modernité, ont été considérés comme des agents de changements.

Mots-clefs : absolutisme, époque moderne, mécanique, patronage, Suède.

*. Jacob Orrje is a researcher in the Department of Culture and Aesthetics at University. In 2015, he completed the PhD Mechanicus: performing an early modern persona on mechanics in eighteenth-century as an exercise of virtuous subjects in a hierarchic political order. At the moment, he is commencing a postdoctoral research project on the Swedish congregation in eighteenth-century London as a scientiic contact zone. **. Christopher Polhem, « Tankar om mekaniken », Kungliga vetenskapsakademiens handlingar, 1740, n° 1, p. 193. Unless otherwise stated, all translations of Swedish sourcer are my own. Jacob Orrje

Abstract

This essay approaches the politics of early modern technology through the Swedish mechan- ical practitioner Christopher Polhem. During the absolute monarchy of early 18th century Sweden, Polhem successfully attained royal patronage. But under the constitutional monarchy of the 1720s, his royal connections became a problem. Through Polhem, this essay aims to show the irony of how mechanical practitioners, who presented themselves as faithful subjects of an early modern order, retrospectively have been interpreted as agents of change.

Keywords: absolutism, early modern, mechanics, patronage, Sweden.

This is an essay about the politics of operating a public sphere, as opposed to early modern technology, and more the sphere of the state. These men were specifically how one mechanical prac- presented as champions of modernity, titioner related to, and was formed into often at odds with the contempora- a symbol for, changing political orders. ries, or as visionaries who were ahead Studies of early modern invention have of their time2. The historiography of generally focused either on the English the Swedish mechanical practitioner constitutional monarchy or on abso- Christopher Polhem (1661–1751) is no lutist France. Here, I shift focus from different, and it follows a similar logic to 136 these states, which have often been pre- these other heroes of invention.3 He was sented as the source of modern indus- born as Christopher Polhammar, a son trialism, to the poor Northern-European of a German merchant who, like many state of Sweden. The Swedish case other Germans of the time, had made a highlights how expectations changed new life in the rising Swedish empire. as political systems replaced each other. By designing useful machinery, mainly Furthermore, by changing focus from in the expanding Swedish metal pro- states traditionally considered the source duction, Polhem made a name for him- of Western industrialism, to Europe’s self both among his contemporaries and northern periphery, I disentangle early among later-day historians. Some of his modern mechanics from long narra- contemporaries came to call him « the tives of modernity and industrialism. In Archimedes of the North » and to histo- the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, rians of the 19th and 20th centuries he was Europe’s technological past was enrolled the « father of Swedish technology4 ». As in liberal ideology and historiography, with other heroes of invention, his histo- according to which early modern riography is one of a man who aligned mechanical practitioners were agents himself with the expectations of his who brought about a modern industrial contemporary regime and who then was order1. In heroic biographies of the time, continuously reinterpreted and used by men such as James Watt and Gottfried posterity for a multitude of purposes. Wilhelm Leibniz came to be interpreted By studying Polhem’s relationship as entrepreneurs and as agents of change to the changing political regimes of his Mechanics of patronage

time, it is not only possible to separate jects of the realm. When writing this text, the early modern mechanical practi- Polhem was 79 years old. He had lived a tioner from this nineteenth-and twen- long life, not only as a maker of mecha- tieth-century historiography. Also, a nical inventions – for use in war, mining study of the early modern politics that and manufactories – but also as a valued made Polhem’s technology possible can part of the Swedish scientific communi- show the irony of a historiography of ties of natural philosophers and mathe- technology where mechanical practitio- maticians. Over the course of Polhem’s ners, who actively presented themselves long life, Sweden’s political structure as faithful subjects of an early modern had changed radically. During the first order, retrospectively have been reinter- 57 years of his life, Polhem had been a preted as standing in radical opposition favoured subject of the Caroline abso- to their contemporary political culture5. lutist monarchs Karl XI and Karl XII. In In 1740 Christopher Polhem published the 1720s, Sweden underwent drastic his « Thoughts about mechanics » in governmental changes. From having the transactions of the Royal Swedish been an absolutist state, not unlike Academy of Sciences. His text presented France of l’Ancien regime, it became a the usefulness of mechanics as well as constitutional monarchy with a weak the merits of the mechanicus: the man king and a strong parliament6. At this who was capable of performing mecha- time, Polhem had struggled to reinvent nics. For Polhem, who all his life had car- himself as a part of the new regime. Only ried out mechanical work in the service by the late 1730s, was he rehabilitated 137 of the Swedish state, the mechanicus was and made into a figurehead of the newly defined by his relationships of superio- established Royal Swedish Academy of rity and subordination with other sub- Sciences.

Mechanics of absolutism

From 1680, when Karl XI declared growing number of scholars have shown Sweden an absolute monarchy, symbo- the importance of personal relationships lical representations of the monarch as of patronage for early modern arts and the power nexus of the realm, modelled sciences. Such studies have revealed after a French example, became common. how good relationships with the poli- The monarch continuously needed to tically powerful were pivotal to early manifest his absolute power, in order to modern scientists and inventors. Such balance socially powerful elites at court relationships were as much about pres- and throughout the realm. At court, enting the patron and client in a positive the king’s personal power – expressed light, as they were about the distribution through favours and patronage – flowed of resources and favours. These relation- through chains of subjects at different ships shaped patrons and clients alike: degrees of closeness to the king7. A the sovereign’s symbolic power was Jacob Orrje

made in relation to his subjects and a description of past events. Polhem, like relationship with the absolute king could many other European mechanical project make or break the fortune of a civil ser- makers of the time, was highly conscious vant, artisan or scholar8. of the image of himself that he presented Considering that Polhem lived as in his published and unpublished texts12. a subject of the Caroline monarchs When Polhem presented his simple Karl XI and Karl XII up until he was 57 background, and how he was scorned years old, it is unsurprising that he was by the other students, this was as much a shaped by the absolutist regime. In an way for him to distance himself from the handwritten autobiography from 1733, average student, as a description of how Polhem described himself as a man from they distanced themselves from him. a simple background with a mechanical By describing how he performed heavy inclination but who struggled to receive work shunned by students and scholars a formal education. He had not started alike, Polhem could present himself as his studies at Uppsala until 1687, when a practical man, who did not even hesi- he was 26 years old, after a clergyman tate public humiliation in order to bring had seen his mechanical work and had theory and practice together for the recommended him for studies there9. usefulness of his sovereign. In his auto- The first part of this autobiography biography, Polhem thus clearly aligns is written like an origin story of a man himself with the worldly bureaucracy struggling to overcome his simple back- in Stockholm, and against the scho- 138 ground. The climax of this narrative is larly world in Uppsala as traditionally an episode describing Polhem’s work formulated13. on the astronomical clock of the Uppsala Moreover, nineteenth- and twentieth- Cathedral. Polhem daimed that he suc- century biographers have generally ceeded in repairing the clockwork, overlooked the thick symbolism that which had been broken for over a cen- permeated Polhem’s autobiographical tury, and that he had even improved episode about the astronomical clock. upon the original design. However, In early modern Europe, the power he also noted that « nothing was more of machines were used as metaphors, annoying, than the fact that I received analogies and symbols, through which little help with the heavy work in the one could understand social forces and church ». Instead, he carried pieces and abstract entities at play in the world14. rods himself, and the students who saw Mechanics and geometry were part of an him considered him not one of their authoritarian political order, where pro- peers but « the professors’ blacksmith10 ». ducts of mechanical work, and the domi- In the narratives of twentieth-century nion of mechanici over craftsmen and biographers of Polhem, this episode has nature alike, became a means of arguing often been taken as the first sign that for a centralist vision of society, the rule Polhem’s contemporaries were unable of God and the absolute monarch15. In to fully recognise his genius11. However, return, the mechanical conception of this autobiographical account is hardly political order legitimated certain ways a source that can be used as a neutral of constructing machines, where ideal Mechanics of patronage

machines were perceived as autono- to useful knowledge based on mathe- mous and hierarchical16. matics, and mechanical practice became In the light of this mechanico-poli- an increasingly important part of its tical symbolism, the narrative of Polhem work18. In his published Short history repairing a model of the universe in of the most exquisite mechanical inven- become much more tions (1729), Polhem wrote of how, after than a mere description of mechanical having finished the clock, he was asked proficiency. The Cathedral of Uppsala by the Bureau of Mines in Stockholm to was not any building. The absolute create a model of an hauling installa- monarchy was legitimated by a protes- tion. Polhammar proposed a completely tant theocratic ideology, according to mechanical solution, which in principle which religion and politics were impos- would carry ore in barrels up to the sur- sible to separate. As the administrative face without the need for any workers. centre of the church and the traditional The model was well received by mining place where King’s were crowned, the cameralists in the Bureau. According to Cathedral was the symbolical heart of Polhem’s own account, even the king this ideology, and of Swedish religious had observed the model, « with the and royal power17. Despite being a lowly most gracious delight during 3 hours at mechanicus, by repairing the clock, and the palace19 ». Again, we see how accor- by writing about his accomplishment, ding to the mechanical conception of Polhem could thus present himself to political order, the monarch’s interest his contemporaries in a fashion that bore in the machinery was interpreted as a 139 some similarities to the symbolic role of sign of the machine’s usefulness and of the monarch in an absolutist state. His Polhem’s skill as a mechanicus. work positioned him as a guarantor of With help from his patron Fabian social order: he was a faithful and useful Wrede (1641-1712), in 1697, Christopher subject who could repair and improve Polhem nurtured his contacts with the upon the social machinery that upheld king and his cameralists. Wrede was a the hierarchies of the realm; he was former president of the Bureau of Mines simultaneously a pious man and sub- who had moved on to become the pres- missive subject of his sovereign, and a ident of the State Office and the Bureau powerful actor who could restore and of Accounts) and thus had influence maintain the order of the Swedish state. with the monarch. Consequently, While a striking example, the fact that Polhem and Wrede convinced Karl XI the Cathedral was unusual in its explicit to establish a Laboratorium mechanicum. symbolical function begs the question In the Laboratorium, Polhem would edu- of whether Polhem’s later work, mostly cate young men in mechanics and other focused on mining machines, carries any mathematical sciences through practical of the same symbolism. How were these, exercises and with the help of a chamber more prosaic, machines made in relation of mechanical models. During the first to the absolutist regime? In the 1690s, the decade of the 1700s, Polhem thus became Swedish mining administration shifted the state’s arbiter of mechanical aptitude. focus from curious chemical knowledge The Bureau regularly consulted Polhem Jacob Orrje

on mechanical matters and especially competence in mechanics in favour of when they needed to determine the skill recommendations, Karl XI acted in a of applicants. Moreover, two mechanical very similar way. Through a personal stipends were instated in 1699 to encou- relationship with the king, Polhem was rage young men to study mechanics for instilled with a power to sidestep the Polhem and it was up to him to decide personal modality of service – based on who received these stipends. The histo- networks of kinship and favours – in the rian Jay Smith has shown how in abso- Bureau of Mines. In reality, however, he lutist France, Louis XIV reaffirmed his used this authority to promote his own power by making the bureaucracy act sons, as well as other young men who according to certain principles of merit.20 were close to him. In the early 1700s, the By making Polhem the single authority Bureau’s mining mechanics was thus for the stipends, and by highlighting more or less a Polhem family affair21.

Becoming the Swedish Daedalus

Shortly after establishing the competence in the mining administra- Laboratorium mechanicum, Karl XI died tion, partly by cultivating a relationship in 1697 and his son, Karl XII, became with Wrede23. However, in 1711 Polhem 140 the sovereign of the Swedish realm. started to seek ways of influencing the After only a few years, an alliance of monarch that circumvented his patron. Denmark-Norway, Saxony, Poland There is no source that definitely ans- and Russia declared war on Sweden. wers why he side stepped his patron at Thus, in 1700, the Great Northern War this time, but one likely reason is that started, which lasted until 1721. After Wrede, and by extension Polhem, had some initial success in the field, the for- lost the king’s favour because of his tune of war turned against the Swedish opposition to the war effort. In October armies and Karl XII ended up retrea- 1711, Polhem’s friends in the Collegium ting to Bender in the Ottoman Empire, Curiosorum, a short-lived scientific where he lived in exile between 1709- society consisting of Uppsala scholars, 1714. During these years, the king ruled thus sent a letter of recommendation Sweden through sporadic and inefficient on his behalf to the king’s secretary of letter correspondence: transporting the state, Casten Feif (1662-1739). The scho- official letters one way over the whole lars regretted that Polhem’s work was European continent could take several suffering due to his lack of funds during months. However, the king still took an the economically difficult war times. active interest in the domestic affairs of Especially, lack of financial support the Swedish realm22. meant that Polhem could only work on During the regime of the new king, mechanical theory and lesser models, Polhem maintained and strengthened and he could not engage in practical his position as an arbiter of mechanical work which required more resources. In Mechanics of patronage

order to unite the theoretical and prac- cery, Arvid Horn, Polhammar used the tical aspects of mechanics, royal sup- royal patronage of Polhem as a symbol port was thus of the essence24. A couple for the king’s interest in useful arts and of days later, Polhem himself sent Feif sciences in general, and consequently a similar letter, in which he offered his as a proof for these arts’ importance for skills to the monarch25. the realm28. Likewise, Polhem discussed Feif was an ideal recipient of these let- the king’s love for mechanics in his cor- ters. He was in charge of domestic affairs respondence with Swedish scholars. To and acted as a mediator between the Pehr Elvius the elder, the mathematics king and the officials of the bureaus back professor at Uppsala, Polhem told how in Stockholm. In his correspondence « Feif writes that His Majesty is very with representatives of the state appa- much a libhaber [sic], or a lover of mecha- ratus, he comes across as a man who nics, and knows fairly much thereof29 ». was shaped by French and German lite- Polhem even used the monarch’s per- rature on cameralism and policing, and ceived interest as an argument for young who took an interest in matters of œco- students to start studying mechanics and nomy (i. e., public economy) and useful mathematics. knowledge26. Feif was thus no passive In this correspondence, it is evident conduit in the correspondence between that early modern mechanics, like other Polhem and the king. Quite the opposite: arts, carried a political role in the sense as we will see, he nurtured the king’s that it could be used by the sovereign, or relationship with Polhem in order to res- by men such a Feif who acted on behalf 141 hape the public image of the king into of the sovereign, in order to stage the that of a sovereign informed by the latest monarch in a specific way. From the mid- œconomical, mathematical and mecha- eighteenth century, biographers of Karl XII nical knowledge. started to discuss his aptitude for mathe- The ensuing correspondence between matics. The correspondence with Polhem, Polhem, Feif and the king – that tra- as well as similar contacts with Emanuel velled back and forth between the nor- Swedenborg, were routinely used as evi- thern and south-eastern borders of the dence for the king’s knowledge of these European continent – soon lavished in sciences. In his biography of Karl XII, the mutual praises. In his letters to Polhem, French philosophe Voltaire discussed how Feif described the king as interested « quelques personnes ont voulu faire passer in, and somewhat knowledgeable of, ce Prince pour un bon Mathématicien ». mechanics and mathematics. Feif des- But Voltaire was not convinced: « la cribed how the king had « a particular preuve que l’on donne de ses connais- liking of mechanics » and how the king sances en Mathématique n’est pas bien read Polhem’s letters with pleasure. He concluante30 ». The correspondence even argued that the king had a certain between Polhem and Feif thus became a mechanical skill himself27. In his corres- way for both parties to reshape Karl XII pondence with third parties, Feif praised into a camerally inclined monarch while Polhem’s mechanical skill. For example, also making Polhem into a certain form in a letter to the president of the chan- of faithful subject: a mechanicus. Jacob Orrje

As a result of his royal contacts, out the successful strategies and tac- Polhem was ennobled in December 1716 tics used by men in search of funding and given the position as a councillor and credibility. But the relationship of the Bureau of Commerce31. His new between Polhem and Karl XII can teach nobility and state position conciliated us another, and perhaps more important, Polhem’s formal social position with lesson: how the boundary between suc- the actual position that he had gained cess and failure is dangerously thin and from his royal contacts. If our narrative under constant renegotiation. Not even would have ended here, it would have two years later, Karl XII would become been a classic example of how a suc- a casualty of war. In the aftermath of the cessful inventor managed to convince king’s death, Polhem’s former relation- his prince, and through him his contem- ship with the monarch would put a halt poraries, of his excellence. History of to Polhem’s mechanical work. science is full of these stories: pointing

Regime changes

On the 30 November 1718, during the struggles in the constitutional regime. siege of the fort Fredrikshald in Norway, In a number of letters to his friend Erik 142 Karl XII was killed by a stray bullet Benzelius, the librarian of Uppsala that penetrated his head. Following University, he complained about the the king’s death, the Swedish political political developments of his time. He system underwent radical changes. asked his friend to « consider what hap- In only a handful of years, the strict pens in a private household, where the Swedish autocracy was transformed into master and the children are put under the a constitutional monarchy. Following the guardianship of the servants ». Having end of the Great Nnorthern War, Sweden been an active part of the old regime, had lost many of its territories around where his mechanics benefitted from the the Baltic Sea. Moreover, the realm was actual and symbolical correspondence now in practice governed by parliament between the mechanicus and the abso- and the king had been reduced to a mere lute monarch, Polhem was convinced ceremonial function32. that under this regime, where « nothing For Polhem, this meant that his spe- is considered good that is not supported cial position, based on royal patronage, by the majority », his mechanical work quickly eroded. He was no longer would be « valued even less33 ». In his let- employed in any mechanical projects ters, Polhem thus comes across as a man, initiated by the state, he was increasingly who had now seen both his symbolical side-stepped in matters of awarding sti- meaning and political networks crumble pendiaries in the Bureau of Mines and down and who had not yet found a new his manufactory in Stiernsund was place in the constitutional regime. no longer exempted from tax. In 1722, While at least a portion of Polhem’s Polhem himself commented on his lack of employment in the early 1720s Mechanics of patronage

can be explained by the poor economy When one regime gave way to another, of Sweden after its defeat in the Great Duhre benefitted from his lack of a rela- Northern War, there is also strong indica- tionship with the former monarch. But tions that Polhem was actually bypassed there are also differences in the mecha- because of his links to the old regime. For nical vision presented by the two men. example, mechanical practitioners wit- Whereas Polhem’s autonomous machi- hout the same ties to the former king had nery conformed to a centralist ideal, much more success in receiving support Duhre’s proposed project reflected the for their mechanical projects. In contrast contradictory characteristics of the early to Polhem, in 1722 Anders Gabriel Duhre, constitutional monarchy of the 1720s. a former student of Polhem, presented to On the one hand, the power of this new parliament a series of works in which he regime was decentralised in ways that proposed to transform society by foun- had few parallels in other eighteenth- ding a Laboratorium mathematico-œcono- century European states (comparable micum, partly modelled after Polhem’s only to Great Britain and the Dutch Laboratorium mechanicum. Like Polhem, Republic)35. On the other hand, the Duhre had been a part of the mining estates of the parliament can be said administration in the early 1700s, but he to have replaced the former absolutist had never had the same prominent posi- monarch, and to have established « an tion in the Bureau, nor had he had the absolutism of the Diet [parliament]36 ». direct royal connections of Polhem. In While its power was decentralised, the Duhre’s proposed Laboratorium, young new regime was still conceived in theo- 143 men would be made into virtuous cratic and hierarchical terms. citizens through the combined exercise As pointed out by historian of tech- of mathematics and crafts. Whereas nology Svante Lindqvist, by the 1720s Polhem argued against the new political men such as Polhem, who used a rela- regime in his letters to Benzelius, Duhre’s tionship with the monarch to circumvent proposal was consciously crafted with the hierarchies of promotion of the state the members of the recently empowered apparatus, became a thing of the past. parliament in mind. Duhre argued for Instead, mechanical practitioners needed the usefulness of mechanics and mathe- to establish networks in the communities matics for nobility, clergymen, peasants, of the state bureaus and in parliament. and burghers alike – notably the specific Duhre’s project embodied these ideals estates according by which the parlia- almost perfectly: instead of presenting ment was divided. He also presented designs for the construction of autono- reform of agriculture, mining and trade, mous machinery, his project proposed according to mathematical-œconomical the education of a whole new generation principles, as a quick fix for the strug- of virtuous men, shaped by studies of gling Swedish economy. Consequently mathematics and œconomy, who would his proposals were well received in par- be trained to participate in the work of liament, and parliament granted Duhre the state and who would thus together favours not unlike those given to Polhem restore the Swedish state to its former by the former monarch34. glory. Jacob Orrje

Conclusions: reinventing Polhem

At the turn of the century 1900, when Sweden, to perform mechanics was to Sweden was undergoing rapid industria- claim an easily identifiable position in lisation, the conservative Swedish histo- a web of asymmetric relationships, ulti- rian Samuel Bring published a number of mately leading up to the sovereign or biographies of Karl XII and Christopher to the estates of the parliament. Only Polhem, which presented the two men as when he was submitted to contempo- national symbols. Whereas Karl XII was rary political power, was Polhem trusted staged as a war-hero and symbol of the to carry out his mechanical work, and greatness of the former Swedish empire, only when aligned with contemporary Polhem was presented as a visionary expectations was his work considered who had identified Sweden’s potential as useful and hence supported financially. an industrial nation before anyone else. Instead of a man who was too brilliant to During the twentieth century, as Sweden be truly understood by his time, Polhem was modernised in both a political and was thus a man who at times was highly technological sense, Polhem was increa- successful, at times less so, in convincing singly disentangled from the absolute relevant contemporary audiences of the monarch. While the image of him as a political importance of his technology. « Swedish Dædalus » or a « Father of Swedish technology » remained, he was 144 increasingly staged as an historical ano- maly, a man ahead of his time. By the late twentieth century, museum exhibitions and popular historians increasingly pre- sented him as an entrepreneur, or a free agent who struggled to change his tech- nologically backward contemporaries37. However, such characterisations depend on very problematic inter- pretations of historical sources. In his autobiographical accounts, and his letter correspondence, Polhem instead emerges as a man who was struggling to make himself relevant to powerful contemporary audiences. He is thus a prime example of how early modern mechanics was not necessarily an agent of change. Instead, mechanical practi- tioners could present their work as a means of maintaining the hierarchies of their time, or even to restore a lost great- ness of previous eras. In early modern Mechanics of patronage

Notes Stadin, « The masculine image of a great power: representations of Swedish imperial power c. 1630- 1690 », Scandinavian Journal of History, 2005, n° 30-1, 1. William J. Ashworth, « The ghost of Rostow: p. 61-82. science, culture and the British industrial revolu- 8. For an in-depth study of patronage of mathe- tion », History of science, 2008, n° 46-3, p. 249-274; matics and natural philosophy in absolutist regimes, William J. Ashworth, « The British industrial see Mario Biagioli, Galileo, courtier: the practice of sci- revolution and the ideological revolution: science, ence in the culture of absolutism, Chicago, University neoliberalism and history », History of science, 2014, of Chicago press, 1993. On the social and ideological n° 52-2, p. 182. world giving purpose and meaning to technological 2. Christine MacLeod, « Concepts of invention work in early modern absolutist France, see Ken and the patent controversy in Victorian Britain », Alder, Engineering the revolution: arms and enlighten- in Robert Fox (dir.), Technological change: methods ment in France 1763-1815, Princeton, Princeton uni- and rhemes in the history of technology, Amsterdam, versity press, 1997. Routledge, 1996, p. 137-153; id., Heroes of invention: 9. M. Lindgren, « Christopher Polhem », op. cit., technology, liberalism and British identity, 1750-1914, p. 388. Cambridge, Cambridge university press, 2007. 10. Christopher Polhem, « Lefvernesbeskrifning », 3. Heroic narratives of Polhem can be found in Henrik Sandblad (dir.), Christopher Polhems efter- in Samuel E. Bring, « Bidrag till Christopher lämnade skrifter, Uppsala, Almqvist & Wiksell, 1954 Polhems lefnadsteckning », in Christopher Polhem: [1733], vol. 4, p. 387-96. minnesskrift ufgifven av Svenska teknolog-föreningen, 11. See for example S. E. Bring, « Bidrag till… », Stockholm, 1911; Michael Lindgren and Per op. cit., p. 118; M. Lindgren, Christopher Polhems tes- Sörbom, Christopher Polhem 1661-1751: « The Swedish tamente… op. cit., p. 281. Daedalus », Stockholm, Sveriges tekniska museum, 12. The way Polhem presented his services is 1985; Michael Lindgren, Christopher Polhems tes- very similar how his contemporary Liebniz played tamente: berättelsen om ingenjören, entreprenören och to « an audience of dukes, courtiers and iscal ofi- pedagogen som ville förändra Sverige, Stockholm, cials », as shown by Andre Wakefield, « Leibniz Innovationshistoria förlag, 2011. and the wind machines », Osiris, 2010, n° 25-1, 4. M. Lindgren, « Christopher Polhem », 145 p. 188. Dictionary of Swedish national biography, 1995, vol. 29, 13. For a discussion of how theory of practice p. 388. can be seen as epistemic virtues of the subjects of 5. On the problems associated with the long nar- the theocratic state of absolutist Sweden, see Jacob ratives of histories of science and technology, see Orrje, Mechanicus: performing an early modern per- Andre Wakefield, « Butterield’s nightmare: the sona, Uppsala, , 2015, chapter 2. history of science as Disney history », History and 14. Jonathan Sawday, Engines of the imagination: technology, 2014, n° 30-3, p. 232-251. renaissance culture and the rise of the machine, London, 6. For an overview of Swedish political develop- Routledge, 2007, p. 54. ments at this time, see Michael Roberts, The Age of 15. Marc Raeff, « The well-ordered police Liberty: Sweden 1719-1772, Cambridge, Cambridge state and the development of modernity in seven- University Press, 1986. teenth- and eighteenth-century Europe: an attempt 7. On absolutism and the balancing of socially at a comparative approach », The American histor- powerful elites, see William Beik, « The absolutism ical review, 1975, n° 80-5, p. 1229-1230; Otto Mayr, of Louis XIV as social collaboration », Past & Present, Authority, liberty & automatic machinery in early 2005, n° 188-1, p. 195-224; on the staging of the abso- modern Europe, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins university lute monarch, see Jean-Marie Apostolidès, Le roi- press, 1986, p. 115-121. machine: spectacle et politique au temps de Louis XIV, 16. O. Mayr, Authority, op. cit., p. 102-103, p. 115- Paris, Éditions de minuit, 1981; Peter Burke, The 121; Simon Schaffer, « Enlightened Automata », in fabrication of Louis XIV, New Haven, Yale univer- William Clark, Jan Golinski et Simon Schaffer sity press, 1992, p. 151-178; Swedish scholars have (dir.), The sciences in enlightened Europe, Chicago, only recently started to study representations of University of Chicago press, 1999, p. 136. the absolute monarchs of the 17th century. See for 17. The last king to be crowned in Uppsala example Mårten Snickare, « Shaping the ritual was Karl XI. Karl XII moved his coronation to space: Nicodemus Tessin the younger and Swedish Stockholm, partly by practical reasons, partly as a royal ceremonies », in Allan Ellenius (dir.), Baroque manifestation of the new centralisation of functions dreams : art and vision in Sweden in the era of greatness, and institutions to the capital, Mårten Snickare, Uppsala, Uppsala university, 2003, p. 124-50; Kekke Enväldets riter: kungliga fester och ceremonier i gestalt- Jacob Orrje

ning av Nicodemus Tessin den yngre, Stockholm, v. Brinkmanska archivet på Trolle-Ljungby, Örebro, Raster, 1999, p. 145. N. M. Lindh, 1859, p. 143-149; C. Feif, « Letter to 18. Hjalmar Fors, The limits of matter. Chemistry, Nicodemus Tessin, 1712-11-19 », in G. Andersson mining, and Enlightenment, Chicago, The university (dir.) op. cit., p. 161-65; C. Feif, « Letter to Nicodemus of Chicago press, 2015, p. 74; J. Orrje, Mechanicus, Tessin, 1713-07-17 », in G. Andersson (dir.), op. cit., op. cit., p. 84. p. 174-184. 19. C. Polhem, Kort berättelse om de förnämsta 27. C. Feif, « Letter to Christopher Polhammar, mechaniska inventioner som tid efter annan af 1712-03-05 », Karolinska förbundets årsbok, 1911, Christopher Polhem blifwit påfundne och til publici p. 242-244. goda nytta och tienst inrättade, Stockholm, Andreas 28. C. Feif, « Letter to Arvid Horn, 1712-03-26 », in Biörkmans encka, 1729, p. 11. Personhistorisk tidskrift, 1921, p. 109-111. 20. Jay M. Smith, The culture of merit: nobility, 29. C. Polhem, « Letter to Petrus Elvius, royal service, and the making of absolute monarchy 1712-05-31 », in Christopher Polhems brev, Axel in France, 1600-1789, Ann Arbor, University of Liljencrantz (dir.), Uppsala, Almqvist & Wiksell, Michigan press, 1996, p. 264. 1941, p. 87-89. 21. J. Orrje, Mechanicus, op. cit., p. 100-102. 30. Voltaire, Histoire de Charles XII, roi de Suède, 22. Åsa Karlsson, Den jämlike undersåten: divisée en huit livres, avec l’histoire de l’empire de Russie Karl XII: s förmögenhetsbeskattning 1713, Uppsala, sous Pierre-le-Grand, en deux parties divisées par cha- Uppsala university, 1994, p. 32. pitres, Genève, Cramer, 1768, p. 382. 23. H. Fors, op. cit., p. 82-83; J. Orrje, Mechanicus, 31. M. Lindgren, « Christopher Polhem », op. cit. op. cit., p. 84-85. 32. On Sweden of the so-called Age of Liberty, 24. Letter from Collegium curiosorum to Casten see M. Roberts, The Age of Liberty, op. cit. Feif, 1711-10-05, Codex Br. 31, Library of the diocese 33. C. Polhem, « Letter to Erik Benzelius, 1722- of Linköping, Sweden. 08-09 », in Axel Liljencrantz (dir.), Christopher 25. Polhem’s letters to Feif, like all other incoming Polhems brev, Uppsala, Almqvist & Wiksell, 1941, correspondence to Feif during his time in Bender is p. 144-146; C. Polhem, « Letter to Erik Benzelius, unfortunately lost. However, in his reply Feif dis- 1722-11-05 », in Ibid., p. 160-163. 146 cussed the content of Polhem’s letter explicitly and 34. For a more in-depth discussion of Duhre also mentioned the date he Polhem sent it in. See and his « laboratorium », see J. Orrje, Mechanicus, Casten Feif, « Letter to Christopher Polhammar, op. cit., p. 158-198. 1712-02-09 », Karolinska förbundets årsbok, 1911, 35. M. Roberts, The Age of Liberty, op. cit., p. 217. p. 238-242. 36. Ibid., p. 62. 26. His interests are clearly expressed in his cor- 37. See for example the on-going exhibition respondence with the architect Nicodemus Tessin. Teknika museet (the museum of technology) in See C. Feif, « Letter to Nicodemus Tessin, 1712- Stockholm with the signifying name « Christopher 02-30 », in Gustaf Andersson (dir.), Handlingar ur Polhem – back to the future ».