Att flytta Axis Mundi : Om det kyrkliga landskapets struktur och förändring i Strängnäs och Växjö stift 1780–1880

Sammanfattning: The investigation takes its point of departure in the Royal Ordinances which regulated church-building during the period 1780–1880 and how the bishops in the Dioceses of Strängnäs and Växjö, respectively, used these Ordinances to restructure and rationalize the parochial landscape, i.e. regulate the number of parishes and churches. The Diocese of Växjö is characterized by intensive church-building activity during the period, while in the Diocese of Strängnäs hardly any new churches were built. An important cause for this difference was major differences in parish structure. The Diocese of Strängnäs had a more uniform pattern than the Diocese of Växjö with regard to the area and population of the parishes for one thing, their internal organization into vicarages of different size on the other.An important factor, particularly in the Diocese of Strängnäs, was changes in the agricultural production system. An increasing use of cottager labour made for a more mobile population and increased social distances in the parishes. As land ownership regulated voting rights at the parish councils, the number of those who had any say in the joint concerns of the parish, such as church-building, went down at the same time as the estate owners became less and less interested in such matters. Planning and decisionmaking at the parish councils therefore were wanting and decisions to build a church could not be taken.Another important circumstance was that a real need for church renewal in the Diocese of Strängnäs was not at hand until towards the end of the 19th century. At that time a lower rate of church attendance together with the above-mentioned difficulties to reach decisions made for the old churches to be kept