Military Masculinity and Peasant Soldiers in Sixteenth-Century Sweden
MANLINESS, DEDICATION, AND LOYALTY: Military Masculinity and Peasant Soldiers in Sixteenth-Century Sweden Mats Hallenberg Stockholms Universitet During the Early Vasa period, the 1520s to the early 1600s, Swe- den was transformed from a decentralized polity into a fully-fledged fiscal-military state, organized for territorial expansion. This develop- ment coincided with the Swedish peasantry being recognised as a po- litical estate, while peasants were labelled as capable men of the realm David Alegre Lorenz y Miguel Alonso Ibarra (coords.) , ready to defend their families, their homesteads and ultimately their fatherland. This essay argues that masculine notions of violence and domina- tion were essential both for the ruling Vasa dynasty and for the sol- diers that filled the ranks of the domestic army. Military violence was recognised as an attractive career path open for commoners, and the 0214-0993 belligerent discourse of the Vasa monarchs gradually permeated local ISSN societies as demobilised soldiers returned from military service. The status of being a loyal servant of the king, risking life and property for the sake of the fatherland, might be an asset –but also a liability– for soldiers seeking to assert their status on their home turf. 2019: 95-119 The investigation explores royal propaganda, the military expe- AVERA riences of peasant soldiers as well as protests and grievances from M RI those who came back from war. The development will be analysed P as a struggle for hegemony between conflicting masculine ideas. The , 94. military status that had traditionally been reserved for noble warriors URITA was successfully appropriated by commoners, now sanctioned by the Z Masculinidades y feminidades en conflicto el ámbito bélico-militar O : monarch.
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