Mildhet och saktmod : Den svenska konglomeratstaten och Jämtland efter freden i Brömsebro 1645

Sammanfattning: The focus of this book is the cession of the province of Jämtland from Denmark-Norway to Sweden after the Peace of Brömsebro in 1645. My pur­pose is to examine what bearing the steps taken to incorporate the newly con­quered territory into Sweden had on the state formation already underway. In addition, I consider the significance of spatiality and collectivity in conjunc­tion with the change of sovereignty.What took place when territory changed hands in the early modern period was generally described by the older literature in terms of modern nation­alism. In recent decades, doubt has been cast on the existence of nationalist ideas that early, which has left historians to interpret changes of sovereignty using other approaches. To explain what happened to provinces and their in­habitants when they were transferred from one state to another, theories of the conglomerate state and state formation have been used instead, and it is these perspectives which have been central to this study.The results show that two processes ran in parallel in territories that be­came Swedish in the early modern period: there was an attempt to incorporate newly conquered territories into Sweden; and there was an on-going state formation in all regions ruled by the Swedish government. In the case of Jämtland, cession to Sweden meant that the province was expected to align — rapidly and conclusively — with the conditions in existing Swedish possessions. However, this was mainly true of the central and regional levels, while Jämtland’s inhabitants had a say in local conditions essential for their survival. As soon as it was ceded to Sweden, Jämtland thus became part of the kingdom, but locally many of the structures from the Danish-Norwegian period sur­vived, however. In time this was to change under the steady pressure which state formation exerted on the local level in Jämtland, in much the same way as in other areas ruled by the Swedish Crown.The inhabitants sense of collectivity was rooted in their province or re­gion. By terms such as Swedish or Danish, they usually meant a political af­filiation with central government, confirmed by an oath of allegiance. At times, these terms also took on temporal overtones, as when referring to Swedish rule after 1645 or Danish-Norwegian rule before the Peace of Brömsebro.