Undersåten som förstod : den svenska reformatoriska samtalsordningen och den tidigmoderna integrationsprocessen

Sammanfattning: The subject who understood. The Swedish Reformation discourse and the early modern process of integration The thesis concerns why it in the discourse of the Reformation was so important to repeat statements about the need for Christendom to go back to its true heritage and that the sermon should be understood by everyone, and the statements consequences for the possibility of formulating order, community and separation of social and political units through the creation of subjects. The thesis contributes to the discussion on how the Reformation cooperated with the early modern process of integration (state building, social discipline as well as the idea of the failure of the Reformation to implement its ideas). The study investigates Sweden 1522–1544. Through the five concepts truth, understanding, heart, soul and Christian I analyse the discourse of the Reformation. The reformers claimed that they found and reawakened the Biblical truth and that the truth was apparent to everyone. At the same time, they also claimed the need for correct interpretation of the Bible. This paradox shows that it was unthinkable in discourse of the Reformation that the way humans could be blessed may not be an eternal truth. The one and only truth and the possibility for humans to receive this were the central statements of the discourse of the Reformation, and these statements could be seen as a way of making it impossible to recognize the ambiguity in the conditions for salvation. The theological concepts of the Reformation connected with political/social concepts and I investigate how the discourse of the Reformation influenced the creation of order, community and separation in the household and the realm. The main argument is that, seen as a discourse, the Reformation produced a typical way of talking and combining concepts that itself had an integrating effect on society. Through placing every subject in the discourse, it was only possible for subjects to exist in the discourse and therefore they became related to each other. The way of talking about understanding, the heart and the soul made it possible to recognize someone who did not understood in the right way. The parishioner or subject who did not understood as well as the parishioner or subject who made every possible effort to understand were both products of the discourse, and in this way the Reformation succeeded in establishing knowledge and understanding as focal points from where it was meaningful to judge people and make statements about how they were. At the end, the subject who understood was the main product of the discourse of the Reformation and through this subject it was possible to make statements about the will, the thoughts and the demands of the King´s subjects.